I was born in, baptized at 12 or 13. Auxiliary pioneered one of those Aprils when there was the big promo. I took the ACT's in high school because every body else was doing it and Glory be...I was granted a scholarship and my parents allowed me to go to college. Around the same time, two things happened: 1) An instructor said during a lecture: "Question everything, even the things your parents taught you." (Small pebble to the head.) 2) An elder/family friend said in an off hand kind of way, "I really beleive this is the truth". (Another small pebble to the head. In his position, I would have expected "This is absolutely the truth". )
Ten years go by and the fade begins...by the way I had moved away from my small home town for employment, and spent every Sunday avoiding phone calls from my mother because she aways asked if I went to the meeting that day. Made an effort to pretend I was active when I went home for visits, even made up fictitious names when childhood friends and family asked "Who are some of the brothers in your congregation?" (What a punk I was!)
Made another move farther away and decided to stop pretending. By the way another 12 years have gone by. In 2004, I registered to vote. By the 2008 election, I was actively political. My father had passed away, and my mother was now a single parent to my younger sister. After my sister married, she and her non-witness husband moved in with my mother to save for a home, something my mother called a waste because the new system was right around the corner.
Mom then quits her job, that she desperately needs, to pioneer. She lives on my father's retirement and SS which ain't a lot and was going to cancel her health insurance to make ends meet. I freaked out and volunteered to pay for her health insurance and have been doing so for the last five years. I now see that she is a master manipulator...she will announce that she is going to take some short sighted action, call to tell me about it and I typically step in to ward off the sure to come disaster.
At first, I was okay with her pioneering (gives her something to do in her old age) though I begged her to get out of debt first so she could pioneer without having to worry about bills. She didn't listen and continued to make one bad financial decision after another (leasing cars, high interest loans to pay for things she could have delayed and/or saved for.) I truly believe she hopes the end comes and since "money will be thrown into the streets", her burden of repayment will be avoided.
So now...her health is failing (she also never took care of her health by exercising and eating right, again...because "the end is so close" and she will have a new life in the new system.) But she still drags herself out several times every week. I think she gets bragged on for being 78, in poor health and still pioneering. Otherwise I don't see the motivation.
My sister....totally existing in a fog, following along, not thinking or questioning, appearing to become more and more devout. I know it is hard to question what you have been taught, I lived that, and although we are close, we never talk about the religion. Every thing but. Have tried to sublety bring it up, but I know it is walking in land mines.
Mom....gets more and more negative and bitter every day. Last two times I travelled home, we got into an argument over something petty ( I didn't ask to speak to her on the phone when my sister called to tell me she fell - in my defense, I was tired after a long day at work and long commute and all I ever hear about is her aches and pains and troubles. She was okay and I didn't feel like hearing it that day.) but I feel like the real reason is neither of use have the guts to address the elephant in the room, namely, I am not doing anything abou the "truth", as she puts it. I think they view me as "less than" because I am not a part of their wonderful "organization". Poor, pitiful daughter, is not going to make in the new order.
It's a mess...mom practicaly lives with my sister who is now distracted with a new baby, still negative, still unable/unwilling to work on her health and finances (the end is so close). She reads a lot but only WT literature, totally unaware of what is going on in the world and how her life could be affected by the political process. But Lord above, she, and a lot of others, count on that government aid.
When I left after my last visit a few weeks ago, I vowed I had washed my hands of it. But I can't stop thinking about them. Especially the new baby and the F'd up life he will lead if things don't change. I check this website regularly for similar experiences and I am just now able to come to terms with the fact that I once belonged to a cult! That is hard to admit. I fancy myself as intelligent, aware, progressive, but I once belonged to a cult.
Thanks for reading....I know that hope and prayer, and little luck are all that can save them.
