I've been disfellowshipped for 2 years now.
I was very close to my parents, the only single child they had left. Home to visit every other weekend to visit even though I lived 3 hours from their place. Phone calls to mum and dad several times a week usually. And all that ceased the day I told them I had been disfellowshipped.
The most painful thing my father did as part of his shunning was send me a text message to tell me that my uncle had passed away. It was only about 6 months after I had been disfellowshipped that it happened. It was the most impersonal message that he could have sent, it was like a form text that you send out to a bunch of strangers, not to your daughter that a loved family member had passed away. When I immediately called him back after receiving the message, I was crying and asked how he could possibly have done that to me. Why couldn't he have called me to tell me that. He initally said that he didn't know how to contact me, and didn't want to interrupt me in my life. He had my mobile number (as evidenced by the text message) and I really don't know what he thought he would be interrupting with a phone call. He said that he has spoken to some brothers and sisters in the congregation and they had decided that a text message was the best way to inform me of his passing. My Uncle wasn't even a witness and of all the family that I had - he was the one that I was closest to. At my uncle's funeral, which has a JW service as my aunt is a semi practicing witness, my father gave the talk. My sister and her family walked right by me like I wasn't there. My nieces and nephews were guided away from me, I could tell they had been told not to speak to me. I was totally gutted, to be left out in the cold, without the support of my closet family.
My father hasn't changed. Over the next year he would let me know when he had a health issue (as he isn't a well man and has been in and out of hospital many times in this period). He recently decided to send an email to my younger sister (who is also disfellowshipped). His opening words of the email were - I hate to do this to you and your sister, but unless it is an extreme family emergency you will not hear from me again. The worst part is he didn't even send me the email, he only sent it to my sister. That was October 22 of this year. I carry the email around, to remind me of what this religion does to families, and have had no contact with them since. I honestly don't even know if I could speak to him after the email.
I recently spent a week with my aunt, 20kms from where my parents are living. They knew I was there, but made no effort to contact me. I later heard that they were upset that I spent so much time at my aunts place, but really what did they expect me to do - ask to stay with them??? The pain of losing the two people who meant the most to me cannot be described and the hurt that my father inflicts with each of his thoughless acts cuts deep, making me question my worth each time. But I am surrounded by friends or my new family of my choosing, who never fail to remind me that I am special and loveable and that it is my parents who are missing out by shunning me the way they do.
