Being quite a newbie myself I have to say that you are made to feel so welcome on this site!!! So many of us have had the same experiences... ENJOY this site! I do! only regret is not having more time to spend on it!!!
Posts by Tez
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40First time on here- DF'd almost 3 years ago
by feelinglost ini have toyed around with the idea of finding fellow df'd ones for about a year now.
i recently got married, and of course it has made me look at how it feels like i gave up one life for another.
the only member of my family who is a jw is my mother- and it kills me that we pretty much no longer have a relationship.
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Life was a game of make pretend!!!
by Tez inwhen did i discover this?
i was brought up by an alcoholic mother and step father, life was miserable, told never to tell what was going on to other family members.
my elder siblings left home as soon as they could to marry.
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Tez
Thanks to all you lovely people for you kind messages. Think there are a lot of us with similar experiences! Shame we have had to bottle up for so long eh? That was the worst thing, not being able to discuss probs with people for fear of being classed as bad association!!!! Really enjoying this site and talking to so many 'really' genuine folk!
Thanks again, it means so much!!!
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48
me and the deemunz
by katiekitten ini was lucky to have been brought up in the troof, because if i hadnt, i wouldnt have known about the demons and how they are always looking for opportunities to lead us astray by appearing as ghosties, or by making household objects float, or by getting into our house through items bought from car boot sales.. my first memories of the deemunz was quite early, say aged 5 or 6. i used to think they were at the end of the bed, and so i had to sleep with my legs curled up as tightly as possible, so they wouldnt get my toes.
i cant even begin to think what terrible things they were going to do with my piggies, but sure as the apostles i wasnt going to give them a chance.. aged 7 or 8 i knew the deemunz were after me, because i was special.
i was a jehobas witness.
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Tez
Mmm, shows the dangers of not thinking about exactly what the kids take in! We had one experience with our youngest, he was four at the time! We were summoned to his school! (mmm hubby couldn't make it) so I was on my own. His teacher asked me to sit down.. you ever tried sitting on those infant chairs!!!! She asked me if his older brothers had been showing him video 'nasties'! then explained that he had told another four year old that there was a nasty beast with seven heads who was going to come and kill all people with brown eyes!!!!! The child in question was having nightmares!!! It took a lot of explaining that it came from a picture in a book that we were studying (Revelation book). I remembered that in the middle of a meeting my little boy had asked me what the picture was about, I'd told him that I would talk to him later about it, then never did! I mean how do you explain the beast of revelation to a four year old, and as he didn't mention it again I thought he had forgotten!!!! However he had a vivid imagination even at that age and concocted his own explanation!!! It took some convincing the teacher that he hadn't had access to nasty videos, and that as I had brown eyes the story hadn't come from me!!! Thankfully later on when he concocted a story about our house burning down (which didn't happen, but he convinced her it did!! even told her how many fire engines!!) she realised that he was a wonderful story teller!!!
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Potty Mouths?
by Low-Key Lysmith inwhen i got out of the dumbs, i use to cuss non-stop i think as a pathetic tactic to make worldy people think i was a little more worldy.
i still swear from time to time, and foul language does not offend me at all, but i was talking to my sister the other day, she just turned 21, has discovered alcohol, is currently on public reproof, and i think is really close to being on her way out herself.
she cursed like a sailor the whole time i was talking to her.
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Tez
Oh what a good boy!! See Paulj's comment above... Didn't I bring him up well!!! I didn't have a problem with this until I met my Scotsman!!!!! and he's taught me so much!!!!!!
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Rugby: Lions or All Blacks?
by jimakazi inare there any brits [english, irish, welsh, or scotts = the lions ] on the site partial to the game of rugby?
for those with no idea what rugby is - it's a little like american football, without the stops, without the protective gear, played in winter, in the rain, hail and sleet [well last saturday anyway].
15 players to a side on the field at a time [unless someone is yellow cards or red carded].
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Tez
Yes there are ex JW Brits that are into rugby, well only since I took up with a Scotsman!!! but now love it! Sorry to say think it will be All Blacks win at next test!!!!
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Taking on others personalities
by kls indo you ever have a friend or close relative that has taken on someones personality ?
this is someone that you knew to act and think a certain way and then they meet someone and they have changed into the other person such as likes and dislikes and their way of reasoning .. .
do you know what i mean ,kinda like the person you knew has become someone that you don't really know.
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Tez
Know what you mean, its as if to be accepted by that other person they have to adopt the personality. To a certain extent I did that, more in the way of discounting my own likes and dislikes to compromise with that of my ex husband, till after 30 years I realised I didn't want to act like an old woman and that I do like rock music, dancing, etc.. took a long time eh? Many folk just want to be accepted and if it means adopting the personality of those they want to be accepted by they do it!
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Why would someone who has disassociated allow their child to be taken to KH
by Agnes ini just read the listeners post about baptisms at the district conventions and didn't want to disrupt the thread.
i'm curious, why would someone allow their child to attend the kh or district convention and possibly be pressured into getting baptized?
agnes
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Tez
I disassociated my self but didn't stop believing, if you take away a belief it has to be replaced with something, and I haven't found anything to replace it. I feel it is good to give a child the freedom of choosing whether they want it or not, but also that if they don't want to go they shouldn't be made to.
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Life was a game of make pretend!!!
by Tez inwhen did i discover this?
i was brought up by an alcoholic mother and step father, life was miserable, told never to tell what was going on to other family members.
my elder siblings left home as soon as they could to marry.
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Tez
When did I discover this? I married at the age of 18, and it was doomed to fail? Why? I was brought up by an alcoholic mother and step father, life was miserable, told never to tell what was going on to other family members. My elder siblings left home as soon as they could to marry. At 16 I thought I was going to be left on the shelf! Mum and stepdad were very strict, and I was physically and mentally abused from a very young age. My 'real' father left when I was 2. When I met my husband, amazingly my stepdad approved of him, this was the start of what I felt was freedom!!! So I married at 18... but soon felt that something was missing. Because of being brought up by very unloving parents, and the fact that I always longed for a 'normal' family, a mum and dad who stayed together even at that young age I unconsciously made the decision that I would never divorce, and that any children we had would have a normal, loving family, something I had never known. So what was missing, it was many years before I found the answer to that. My husband was, to all intents and purposes, a good man. He worked hard. I loved him. Eventually we had two wonderful boys, but I suffered with depression and had done for several years. I looked outside my marriage within a year to find what I thought I was looking for. That didn't work. Then one day, as I was praying to God to help me find the answers there was a knock at the door... You guessed it, it was a JW, I had a study and was convinced this was the way forward, that to keep my marriage together and to give my children a happier life and wonderful future I had to become a JW. I ended the affair I had been having, confessed to my husband, cleaned up my life and entered a new life, clean and convinced this was to be the best way of life. My husband was baptized 6 months after me... we both felt it was a new start. So what went wrong? We both tried so hard to be good JW's, though it was usually me taking the lead. Although he was not a bad man, my husband was very wishy washy toward taking the lead. As time went on my depression didn't get any better, we had two more lovely children... My husband was made a MS, but then opposition struck big time in the way of an brother who my husband worked for. We discovered he was committing fraud, didn't quite go the organisation's way of dealing with it, though that would have been difficult as this brother (an elder) was in business with two other elders, also later on two other elders admitted they had been duped by him. This was the first of many difficulties we came across as witnesses. In the meantime we tried to help so many others that underwent persecution from within. We tried to be hospitable, helping those that were elderley or weak. During this time, my siblings all got divorced (one of them three times!) and this engendered in me the determination to make my marriage work. My husband was made redundant five times, and finances were always very tight, so as for holidays and present days for the children, these were very scarce. I felt continually more guilty because I felt I couldn't give them what I promised them, though I would never let them forget how much I loved them. Sadly, their dad never had the same rapport with them, and they always felt that he was on a different wave length. Instead of listening and reasoning with them, he would lecture them... going on and on and on. I tried to respect him for the good in him that they couldn't see as clearly as me. Before becoming a JW I had tried to leave him, I always felt that although he said he loved me, it was empty words, no real gestures. Once I became a JW I prayed and prayed to Jehovah to make me love this man as a wife should do. My second son was disfellowshipped at age 18 and also left home. I couldn't disown him, had always felt he should never have got baptized in the first place, and did so only as a result of peer pressure. At this time I felt my marriage was over and tried to dissassociate myself. The elders in the congregation wouldn't accept my disassociation letter, told me to take time out. I was arranging to move out of our home, when one day my husband walked out, he was gone a long while and I was worried he had done something stupid! It was after that, because I felt sorry for him that I suggested we try starting over again. We moved north where his family lived. I still wasn't attending meetings, then my eldest son's mother in law (see PaulJ's story) did something so horrendous! that was such a shock I felt that the only way forward was to return to meetings, it was only with Jehovah's help and that of the congregation that I felt we could cope. That wasn't the case. Later my daughter made the decision that she didn't want the truth, that although she had made some friends, that would be the wrong reason for her to stick with it and get baptized. At this time I started a counselling course, I wanted to train to be a counsellor for Alcoholics. We had to write an essay entitled Who am I... I had to look deep into myself to answer that, and that is when I discovered that all those years I had been pretending to be happy, pretending I was happy with my husband. I realised that yes I did love him, like a brother. I realised that he irritated me as much as he did my children. I also realised that I did not want to survive Armageddon to live with him in a paradise earth. What's more I didn't want to disown my children because they had used their right to freewill. Why was I a mother if it was to disown them once they decided to live their own lives independant of JW's and their parents. So I left, the witnesses after 22 years, my husband after 30 years. In all that time I tried so very hard to do the right thing, but always felt so guilty because deep down I didn't feel I could ever be a good wife, mother, JW. How do I feel now, not so guilty with regard to my ex husband. Shortly after I told him I wanted a divorce, he suggested I go out and ensure that he could obtain a scriptural divorce! I did... not proud of it. But he is soon to be married to a JW so am sure he will be happier than he was with me. I am happier, I am now with someone who truly does make me feel loved, cherished, valued. I am still ridden with guilt... but I have contact and a good relationship with three of my children which is so precious to me.
There is much more I could have added to this but have tried to keep it brief, also because it brings up too much emotion that I cannot deal with right now.
I realise now that I became a JW for all the wrong reasons. When push came to shove I could not give Jehovah 'exclusive' devotion, so in that I feel that I failed.
But I now know that I don't have to pretend any more, I can be me for the first time in my life!!! I just have to learn to be happy with who I am... thats the hard part, but at least I am honest.
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HEY EVERYBODY!! :o) :o)
by Diddi Di inhiya all, i've just recently joined the site and thought i'd introduce myself... i'm diane, 21 from yorkshire, uk.
i stopped going to meetings just after my 18th birthday, i was never baptised but i was brought up as a jehovahs witness from birth.
my mum (tez) and big brother (paulj) are also members, so look out for them too!
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Tez
Hiya honey!! Great to see the welcome messages you got eh? We need to spread the word (ooppps did I mean that) lol
Its a family affair!!! All for one and all that! except two are still JW's so wouldn't dare to come on here!
love you lots baby!
Mumxxx
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My Tale (its about time too!!!)
by PaulJ ini have vaig memories of a christmas, but other than that, being a jw was all i know.
she begged me to stay but i knew it would be easy just to give in (again).
i have never felt so much hurt in my life.
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Tez
Phew, bet that took some doing Paul my love. But I am glad you got it off your chest.. and you are a son I am very proud of! Love you lots.. Mumx