urbanized

urbanized

Joined

My parents began studying in the same year that they adopted me. We were close but I suffered from OCD as a child and spent much of my time in tears over some immense guilt I felt that I never shared with anyone. My mother died of cancer when I was 10, but my faith continued strong until I was a teenager. I was lucky enough to go to a middle school where one of the sisters taught a gym class. Four years after the death of my mother she cornered me and told me that I didn't let myself grieve enough when she died, and now I was having too much fun. Being a teenager brought an interest in boys, among other things. The ones at the Kingdom Hall never interested me, nor did they find me interesting. I once began correspondence with a boy I met at a District Assembly, a cute bespectacled skateboarder, but after a few months his letters became dark and depressing and I was too uncomfortable to continue writing. I started dating guys at school, running the risk of being caught leading a double life. In the meantime, I blossomed in creative writing class, I began to enjoy going out, smoking cigarettes, playing Dungeons & Dragons with my friends, and so on. I moved in with my sister when I was 17, as my relationship with my dad was at its breaking point. I continued going to meetings, but I felt dead inside when it came to religion, and I was starting to listen to my teachers who were telling me to go to college. My dad made the road to higher education nearly impossible for me, claiming everything he could on the financial aid forms, even depositing his own money into my savings account and claiming stocks that didn't exist. Then one day I would come home to find t-shirts and other gifts with VCU emblazoned on the front, his way of apologizing. I ended up paying for my first semester in college with all the social security money I had received for the last 8 years. By the time I was 21, I was living on my own, had dropped out of school, and led the relationship between my father and I to a very superficial place, one where we didn't talk about God or life or anything very meaningful, but this at least allowed us to get along. He died on Valentine's Day of heart failure. Now I am 29 years old and it has taken me 12 years to get through undergrad. I am beginning graduate school in the fall, studying urban policy at the New School University. Sometimes it bothers me that I left the organization for what I feel are very shallow reasons; I wanted an education, relationships, holidays, etc. Now I know there are much deeper reasons why I could never have led my life as a JW. They are homophobic, they oppress women, they brainwash and manipulate, they lie. But mostly I feel lucky to have gotten out. I attend a Presbyterian church downtown now, and I'm quite happy there. There are benefits to this background, I swear. Many of us may never have known what it could feel like to be The Other, had we not grown up this way. Many of us could never appreciate an education, a career, Tuesday and Thursday nights spent doing nothing at all, had we not grown up this way. 'I grew up in a cult' is great at parties, on grad school applications (I found the lack of organized charity and a sole reliance on a higher power to fix the ills of this world to be lacking....blah blah blah) It is important to understand that being a prisoner for so long helps us to now appreciate freedom.