Parents, A Rational Choice
I was a believing walkaway (1974 ) from the group, Jehovah’s Witnesses. I expected at some level that my walking away would be temporary. I intended to get my questions answered to my own satisfaction and someday return to association. I reached a point in my life when I wanted to finish unfinished business.
I had unanswered questions about the Jehovah’s Witnesses and I had been trained by them to think I could bring my questions about them to them. The Jehovah’s Witnesses who had the most influence on me were my parents. It seemed natural to take my questions to them.
I was naïve enough to think my questions were religious in nature so I started out by reading the book called The Bible. While reading the New Testament I questioned why Jesus associated with tax collectors and prostitutes and Jehovah’s Witnesses taught shunning these people. I called my father and asked him what his thoughts were on this conflict.
He said he’d read it and get back to me. A few days later he left a message on my telephone answering machine. The message was to see an article in The Watchtower magazine and he left the page number, the issue date, and the year of the publication.
I called back and asked him if he was going to answer my question. He said he already did and asked if I hadn’t gotten the answering machine message. I said yes I got the message but I wasn’t wondering what the Watchtower publishers thought about the question. I wondered what he thought. He said, that is what I think about it.
Early in my research I noticed that what the Watch Tower Corporations teach about an issue and their behavior are often two very different things. One example of that is the fact that they teach that they are a loving group while hating and shunning friends and family. Or their teaching that the League Of Nations and it’s successor The United Nations, is the worst thing on the planet while the Watch Tower Corporation actually voluntarily joined as an NGO member.
I dreamed of a healthy, friendly adult relationship with my parents and other relatives. It was life long dream and a hope I kept in my heart. Hope dies hard.
I had believed that my parents and relatives loved me, and if I had a question about something they had taught me or supported, they would listen and reply in an objective, rational way. I had read stories of people being rejected by parents and relatives when they asked questions the Witnesses didn’t like, but I really believed my parents’ and relative’s love for me was stronger than those other people I had heard about.
I was wrong. Almost right away in my questions to them, they became angry, said they wished they had put me in a foster home as a child, began yelling at me and slammed their door to my back as I made my hasty exit. Rapport was lost and to this day, over 7 years later, they have never contacted me.
That might not be all bad but if loss of rapport is not the effect you want, I suggest never confronting any Jehovah’s Witness with information of a nature they might object to in the least.
I did my confrontation out of ignorance while deluded. I had never contacted former Witnesses or compared notes. No one warned me not to confront them. I had read Crisis Of Conscience by then and as I tried to answer my questions, for every question I answered I created 12 more.
One thing I can say. It was very therapeutic to confront my parents with the abuse they heaped on my brother and I. They beat us with hands, and flyswatters and yardsticks as well as almost daily yelling rages and shaming. They really got upset when I brought that up, so I knew I was on the right track.
After the confrontation meeting, I wrote my mother a letter and told her I would not be accepting any more of the type of abuse I received during that meeting and that she was free to call me or come over and I would talk to her, but she had to behave in a civil manner. I have not heard from her. Before the confrontation she had not called me for over a year, so not much was lost by way of a relationship I guess. Still I had that child’s hope.
I guess the bottom line is this. If I want a relationship with somebody, parents, relatives, anybody, I need to accept them as they are and not try to change them. I have to help them protect their delusions and sacred cows. I can’t threaten their home or their hopes or their relationships. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have an eggshell fragile living and belief system. They have such a fragile delusion they live in that much of their religious energy is put into protecting it from even honest questioning.
Rapport is hard enough to keep without putting a virtually helpless person on the defensive. The Witnesses have no control over what is written in the journals nor do they really have any idea what it all means. They are ignorant and superstitious people who believe that blindly believing the publisher’s book or magazine is required by their god so the god won’t let then die and if he does let them die, he will re-create them in a perfect replica body.
They are much like children who are told if they have a blue marble and a red marble and a yellow marble and six white marbles in a jar lid, the boogey man won’t get them. Then we come along and threaten to take some of their marbles. They get upset. This is serious to them.
It is hard for a healthy intelligent adult to see that one or both of their parents are mildly retarded and vulnerable. We deal with a degree of denial ourselves in order for us to protect our own egos from the facts that our parents are retarded. We need to recognize our own denial and respect it by protecting those we care about, not threatening them.
Most vulnerable people try to keep that fact hidden. Protecting the fact that they are vulnerable is a part of their coping with vulnerability. They don’t want others aware that they are vulnerable. The last thing we want to do is expose their vulnerability or their retardation. They will lash out to protect both.
My suggestion is to counsel, participate in a recovery group, do objective, rational research, and protect parents from assault, even our own.
Gary Busselman, March 30, 2002 Sioux Falls, South Dakota
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