Just thought I'd get this off of my chest... (&it's so great to know how many others are out here)
*college education discouraged
----most people in our congregation were encouraged to be janitorial workers so that they could work at night and pioneer in the daytime. my mom was raising 3 kids on a bank teller salary after my dad was disfellowshipped and wanted to go to school. It finally became o.k.
*no sports in school
---------I was being recruited to play basketball from my p.e. teacher and won hoop shoots, my sister was supposed to go to nationals but the elders decided it would be better if she didn't since they would play the national anthem, and hand out medals in a ceremony
*shouldn't attend weddings or funerals in other churches or of people who are not witnesses
----------my mother became a witness at age 13 on her own will and was raised by witness friends and family, after my dad cheated and was disfellowshipped and she went through various witness men dates she found her true lovethat wasn't a witness, people we had grown up with our whole life wrote my mom a nasty letter on why they would not be attending her wedding because he was not a witness
*no foreplay/sex before marriage
----------this forces young witnesses to get married unprepared because their hormones are raging to have sex. I was so sad at my only choices in the small town kingdom hall, assemblies were the only chance to meet other guys
*no masturbation/ discouraged from wearing tight pants
-----------yeah right, I was masturbating at like age 7, how can you say its wrong when I didn't even know what i was doing WAS masturbation, How else would young witnesses satisfy their urges not having sex?
*can't say "god bless you" after a sneeze, "gee" "gosh" "good luck" "oh my god" (my boyfriend that im living in sin with by the way just sneezed and I couldn't pass up the chance to yell god bless you to him,,,ha ha) blasphemy!
*no gifts for birthdays or holidays,
------that was so hard going back to school the day after christmas, everyone had new stuff, going home for holiday parties, passing up cupcakes (or sneaking them home in your backpack and getting caught when they were smeared in your bag) hiding in the house for halloween when neighbor kids yelled "we know you're in there" for xmas the whole congregation was at the ski area and santa claus would pass out candy canes , they stopped hiring him, cuz we all had to refuse, we had to cross out the birthday picture in a coloring book, we couldn't wear green on st patrick's day so of course we got pinched
*no watching smurfs
----they were casting magic and lived under magic mushrooms
"oh lord", no not that
*no reading horoscopes, no gambling,
*no hanging out with friends from school that weren't witnesses:
------the funny thing is that those are the one's who corrupted me, the witness kids, were always taking me as an accomplice and alibi so they could smoke, have sex, cuss, drink with college guys, sneak out and drive their mom's car, etc.
god, how i used to sleep through every meeting, when i was young my legs would fall asleep and id wake up screaming, I think i got most of my spiritualism through my dreams at that time. During assemblies, I would just draw the whole time, and who could forget sitting next to your best friend and busting out laughing during the meetings,or like when the district overseer had mashed potatoes on her glasses that were hanging around her neck and then she put them on and didn't even notice or snoring myself awake, or racing down to the front of the assembly to buy the paper flowers before the last prayer was over, or playing footsies with the guy you grew up with under the chairs, Sometimes I'm glad I grew up in the religion, cuz it gave me a morale basis from which to build, and it made me who i am, but I don't know how many people in my family have been disfellowshipped, dad, step-sister, cousins, uncles, friend's mom, and how my dad would write them letters to tell them our names at meetings and then expect us to answer and make him look good while he was trying to get reproved. and my cousins and sister I tell them to rethink before they get reinstated, They are so pressured to get baptized at an early age before they ever know that they may want to be on the swim team or have a boyfriend, because then they'll end up like my dad reinstated and disfellowshipped again for the same thing, because nobody ever really fixed or solved the problem in the first place, just felt sorry that no one was talking to them from their own family. My poor dad was probably emotionally sick from when his mother was jehovah's witness and ignored the molestation going on in the home.
ooh and the spankings, horse whips from other people's parents, "pick a switch" from the tree from my grandma, what the hell?
