I had a truly free childhood even to the point of to much freedom. My father was a hard working man who gave us a comfortable life ,the big " BUT" is he wasn't real emotional or warm to us ,he was from a family that was that way , and he loved beer I mean lots of beer, so volatility was at times lurking. My mother is a rockstar of a woman she worked like a dog for years as nurse on night shifts which bring there own problems ( like having nannies before school ) and sleeping when we were playing, she done years of 4 hours sleeps so me and my two brothers could have a comfortable life.
Of us three boys I was the wild one, and I truly believe wild ,for example when JW pioneers girls I went to school with said they skipped my house witnessing. I grew up around hippie culture that surrounds the hills of my childhood , you know the music of Jethro Tull, Bob Dylan , Neil Young ect ect. My childhood friends were loyal to point of extreme. Police never got us as children to collaborate stories," no comment " was tattooed into our hearts. These friends would literally give their last $20 if I asked ,one day when I was eighteen I rang a friend and asked could you come and get me I need a ride home ,he said I'll leave this afternoon for the 1900 km drive to pick me up , 3 days later he was there. These friends did not reject me because I became a JW ,I left them because of a JW teaching . Why I hooked back up with these guys again they held nothing against me for disappearing from there lives for 27 years, JW friendships are not of the same calibre.
My brothers are good guys one is a catholic priest who is Australia's priest for the army, my other brother is the boss of an Australian state heritage department as the head architect he is gay with a really nice partner who is a rockstar anesthetist. And mighty me a degree in window cleaning. My mom said that if she writes a book about us boys it will be called " The Priest,The Prophet ( me), The Poof ".
I when I was twenty I go off the rails ,to much drugs and emotional probs , I start asking the big life questions of why are we here? Then I get a worldly female friend of mine give me a red book called " paradise book" , I read this book in 3 days and went to KH on my own in shorts and tee shirt, the girls from school informed their dad the elder to watch this bad apple, i was that keen I literally went to a door to door with an elder 7 days after going to the hall. The elder wasn't that keen on taking me, but I done a deal which went like this , he will take me down one street and I will agree to two studies a week and no more witnessing I agreed. My real childhood nickname is chook ,when I first when to the KH the girls from school who were even in my same class didn't no my real name because even my teachers called me chook.
Then the prophet evolved called chook who took all the wrong turns in giving my children a life of child abuse in the form of no birthdays, no school camps, no sports teams, no worldly friends when the kids lived on rural properties which can become prisoner camps for these kids ,but I let the kids do soccer but I was to late on a lot of the cults behaviour reversals, I let kids when they were young to have guns,motorbikes, and I encouraged adventure,but I gave to much TIME to the JW church at the expense of the kids.
Now I'm at the crossroads as a inactive, not disfellowshipped apostate , who won't go down quietly, its the least I can do as a return favour for the church is to return the same zeal I gave them, I went witnessing by myself when I was in, also I was a regular pioneer . I've had people say I'm crazy in the head , I say you have know idea what is in this crazy head.