Posts by mimimimi

Yup,. you were told what section your congregation was to clean and it was suggested you sit in that section, but that if you did not you could still have the "privilege" of coming over there to clean after the session.

Gee, what a relief to not be going to those things any more. My back would be killing me by the end of the day.

21

Did You Feel "Special" Being A Jehovah's Witness?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i know a lot of people that believe they are "better" because they're witnesses.

what about you?

?

mimimimi

I was always very embarrassed by it and felt it made me less than other people. I would have preferred that no one ever know. I was raised as a JW and I would have loved to do what all the other kids were doing, celebrating holidays, going to school ball games and dances, and just basically being a normal person. I remember in grade school really wanting to color the holiday pictures everyone else got to color. I sure did not feel it made me special.

21

I went to a JW "memorial" (funeral) talk on Saturday

by cruzanheart in

jw
friends

just when i think that i will never set foot in a kingdom hall again, the father of a dear friend of mine died.

now, this friend and her husband stood firmly by our side during the hubbub surrounding my dad's suicide and the funeral we decided on (no kh, no elders, no half hour infomercial), and she was having problems with her own family, so i decided to go to his funeral talk as support for her.. nothing dramatic happened, really, but it was a good reality check.

jennie, our 13-year-old daughter, went with me and almost fell asleep from boredom and the fact that the elders were too cheap to turn the ac down to a comfortable temperature on a warm texas saturday afternoon.

mimimimi

LovesDubs, I really should have put quotation marks around that "firmly determined" because I was thinking of that song when I said it and that is such Dub-speak. What idiots they are!

You are right, too, that that "sistah" would have wanted to know all about her father and what was up if she was still going to meetings. Conditional love for everyone - got your conditional love right here, folks! Step right up!

32

JW children - conditionally loved?

by Gregor in

when they reach a certain age they are expected to "sign up" (get baptized).

in many cases if they choose not to their parents essentially "disfellowship" them.

so a lot of children get baptized under pressure from the parents and when they fail to live the jw life and get df'd the folks are the harshest shunners.

mimimimi

"When they reach a certain age they are expected to "sign up" (get baptized). In many cases if they choose not to their parents essentially "disfellowship" them. So a lot of children get baptized under pressure from the parents and when they fail to live the JW life and get DF'd the folks are the harshest shunners.

Are there any victims of this "catch 22" here?"

One of my nephews fell into this category, although I cannot say he has truly been shunned by his family. He has some mental health issues, too, and has had to be on medication and they have continued to be supportive to him.

However, what I really wanted to tell about was my younger sister. I am 55 years old now and my sister is in her late 40's, but when she was in her early teens and I was in my late teen's, she told my mother that she did not think she wanted to get baptized. My father was not a witness and he worked shift work and when he was working in the evenings, my mother and older brother were physically abusive to her. I can remember them chasing her through the house, my brother in the front and my mother running along behind laughing and saying, "Get her, get her" and knocking her down on the floor between the dining room table and the wall and then both beating her, laughing all the while. This kind of thing happened repeatedly. I felt totally helples to be able to help her and did not know what to do. I know now that if I had told my father or maybe the counselor at school, something might have been done about it. But my mother was so controlling and domineering that we were afraid to go against her in any way. And this was done because she did not want to get baptized.

My father died when she was 16 years old. She ended up living alone with my mother and brother out in the country and being very afraid all the time. She was really afraid they would kill her. By that time, I had moved out and my other sister had gotten married and moved out. About a year after my dad died, my mother sold the property in the country and they moved to town. They moved into a three bedroom apartment in a duplex. My sister told me that the first time our brother went to beat her once them moved into town, my mother stopped him and said you can't do that here. If people hear you, they will call the police. She said our brother seemed very surprised, as if he thought there was nothing wrong with what they had been doing.

She never did get baptized and by the time she moved out on her own, she totally quit going to the kingdom hall and has never looked back. She has not been cut off by the family as she was not baptized and so was not disfellowshipped or disassociated, but she has been looked down on for not being a witness and there have always been undercurrents because of it.

There were a lot of sick things that went on in our family for many years and maybe some day I will take the time to tell our story. But this thread made me think of that because she was specifically beaten for not wanting to get baptized, and was labeled by my mother as being rebellious.

21

I went to a JW "memorial" (funeral) talk on Saturday

by cruzanheart in

jw
friends

just when i think that i will never set foot in a kingdom hall again, the father of a dear friend of mine died.

now, this friend and her husband stood firmly by our side during the hubbub surrounding my dad's suicide and the funeral we decided on (no kh, no elders, no half hour infomercial), and she was having problems with her own family, so i decided to go to his funeral talk as support for her.. nothing dramatic happened, really, but it was a good reality check.

jennie, our 13-year-old daughter, went with me and almost fell asleep from boredom and the fact that the elders were too cheap to turn the ac down to a comfortable temperature on a warm texas saturday afternoon.

mimimimi

"she quickly said, "no, but I don't want to hear about it."

Typical. Scared to death of what they are going to hear and firmly determined there is either a good explanation or it could not be true.

Good for you for going to support your friend - and good for her supporting you when your father died.

I am glad to hear about the experience your daughter had going to the church. I would love to find a good church to go to, or try a number of different ones, but am afraid to at this point because if someone saw me going in, there would definitely be a judicial committee and I have not wanted to lose my family. How sick the hold this religion can have on us!

19

Crazy things you were "forced" to do in the Borg

by RR in

jw
friends

were you ever told to do things that had no bearing on the scriptures or even policies of the watchtower?.

we had one co who upon inspection insisted that the body of elders and servants be cleaven shaven, cut their hair and remove their sideburns.. i use to have a patch of hair under my bottom lip.

the co pointing to it asked, "what's that?

mimimimi

"Yes, well that was the whole purpose behind the white bathing suits...perhaps you haven't heard of www.silentlambs.com"

Hmmm......and they encourage the young witlesses to get baptized at earlier and earlier ages.......hmmm............I think I am beginning to understand.