Eleven years ago when I was eight month's pregnant with my 2nd son, I spent an hour in the front yard with two witnesses who were "working my territory". I was not immediately impressed with anything they had to say at the time except they asked the question (that was when there were two "topics of discussion" for field service posted in the KM) "what is God's name?" I knew it was Jehovah and had always wondered about how there could be a trinity if....and who was Jesus? And why did people think Jehovah's witnesses were such freaks? And what was the deal with Michael Jackson, anyway? I agreed to more discussions (I didn't know I was "studying" for quite a while).
I truly adored learning about the doctrinal issues. Almost all universally-held religious beliefs had confounded me - e.g. eternal torture for just about everybody after death, why is there a future resurrection if you (if you got "it" right) were already in heaven, why were we even placed on this planet if we were just going to suffer a whole lot and then die and go off somewhere else (what was the frickin point of that.?) ..... all of these and more questions had always bugged me. I got baptized within the year. I raised my two sons as witnesses as best as I could, their father tolerating it up to a point. He would celebrate holidays, and I would hang out upstairs until all of the "fun" was over, etc; I'd interfere with their teacher's school curriculum as best as I could and try and keep him from finding out. Most of my friends, many of whom were precious, long-term relationships, wrote me off completely, and the few family members I had thought I was mentally ill. My mother disowned me after a few years because I wouldn't celebrate Christmas, and since my parents were millionaires, that was quite a sacrifice but hey, Jehovah was going to provide everything I needed, why did I need money? Plus, the new system was probably weeks away. (This was 1991 and all kinds of crap was happening globally at that time. It was exciting!)
Being truly isolated from family and friends, I fell into a deep depression. Since I was NOT married to an elder, NOT a pioneer (one of my sons is a special needs kid)
------>{sidenote: they attributed his very-treatable conditions (OCD and ADHD and tourette's syndrome) to a failure to "properly discipline" my child; oh the so many completely LAME Awake articles I forced myself to read and apply (BIG MISTAKE) I even endured studying the "Family" book with an elder's mother (she got to count it as "time"}}<------
NOT a mother of a bethelite, NOT related to anyone in "special priviledges or service", Not related to anyone at all who was a JW.... blah blah blah.......I was a non-person.
When the society did come up with articles (Help for Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse among others) came out, my untreated PTSD symptoms resulting from incest and hideous violence became unmanageble and my therapist put me into a hospital. Nothing written in the Awake or WT or ANY other publication (I combed those indices with a microscope) speaking to these issues rang true for me, nor did they offer any "help"; on the contrary, the advice from the society was astonishingly diametrically opposed to what I learned about coping and healing from professionals (to whom we are encouraged to go, but not really, and only under certain conditions, and even then, you're in a worldly arena, AAARRGH).
I pushed along for ten years, enduring several hospitalizations (with virtually no contact from a witness whatsoever during them; I would call some of the friends for contact but the conversations were so disturbing I kept it to a minimum); no visits or food taken to my unbelieving husband; no visits to my children who were supposedly part of the congregation.... and this is a good one: upon my return home after a six-week hospital stay, I found I had been "deleted" as a publisher even though I placed magazines, kept and turned in my time, etc). My husband eventually left me, taking custody of my kids. I was continuously suicidal, made multitudinous attempts, was on an alarmingly large amounts of psychotropic medication, and going farther downhill (guilt, hopelessness, lonliness, guilt, guilt, guilt) all of the time. But I was never inactive!
When I started asking questions of the elders about concerns I had about Russell's involvement with freemasonry (my father is deeply involved with the mystical part of that satanic thing) and received nothing but grave admonitions against "going into that" I ignored their advice and researched the hell out of it. What I found out scared the piss out of me.... but even that wasn't enough to keep me from the meetings. Sister "pioneer for twenty years-married to elder-mother of bethelite- attendee of those annual board meetings or whatever you call them -close personal friend of anyone who's in a position of priviledged service" and her vicious continual, character- assassination- gossip about anyone not dead, her judgment of all others' spirituality -she specialized in other witnesses' kids who wore "strange" nail-polish colors, etc.and who went to roller-skating rinks (couldn't help that one after reading the posts about that nefarious "LARGE GROUP" party!).... anyway. After her proveable, witnessed by not just two but scores of people tactics caused several people to just bail out of the "truth" and polarize the congregation, and nothing whatsoever being done about it, I decided that those in positions of "power" in the WTBS are no different whatsoever from any political, social, corporate or religious organization in the entire world and I was out of there.
I don't know what I am; I'm not labeled anything at least not to my knowledge as disassociated or DF'd or anything, if that is even a relevant piece of information. But I do want to say that since I've stopped attending meetings,
I HAVE NEVER FELT HAPPIER IN MY LIFE. I'M OFF ALL ANTIDEPRESSANTS. I LOVE MY JOB AND FEEL WELL-LOVED AND ADMIRED FOR MY ABILITIES. I HAVE FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS WHO DO NOT CRINGE WHEN I MEET THEM ACCIDENTALLY. I AM NOT CONTINUOUSLY PLAGUED WITH GUILT AND FEAR AND DREAD. I DO NOT HAVE TO TORTURE MYSELF ANYMORE BY ATTENDING THOSE HIDEOUS CONVENTIONS. I DO NOT HAVE TO SIT CAPTIVE IN SOME WEIRD GUY'S CAR WHILE WE DRIVE FROM ONE END OF THE COUNTY TO THE OTHER, SO AS TO ACCUMMULATE AS MUCH TIME IN SERVICE AS POSSIBLE, LISTENING TO PEOPLE GOSSIP ABOUT EACH OTHER AND SPEW NEGATIVE VITRIOLIC ABOUT CRAP THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WORSHIPING GOD. I NO LONGER HAVE TO FEEL LIKE CRAP EVERYTIME MY KIDS DO SOMETHING NORMAL BECAUSE IT'S SOMEHOW NOT IN LINE WITH THE SOCIETY'S RHETORIC. MY SON'S DIFFICULTIES ARE MINIMAL AND CONTROLLED BY EFFECTIVE MEDICAL TREATMENT AND MEDICATION. I didn't know I could feel so good.
Uh, I'm sorry, survey requester, for going way beyond the scope of your question; I'm a newbie here and there's probably some place you can tell your life story, but It's just all coming out of my fingers right now and it feels so good to tell someone.....
I hope you publish on the board the results of your survey and any analyses you conclude from it. Thanks,
lauralisa
