With all the stories coming out on the board, which i know gwen and i greatly enjoyed reading them, prompted me a few weeks ago to start my own. this is part one, and thanks to amazing, duncan and hillary for their inspirations and getting me motivated.
Cheers!
Part One…The early years.
This will be a work in progress folks.
As I write I’ll post the parts. It’s a long and tedious story, that gets better with age
This story will have many parts, as what I’ve written is already maybe 3 or 4 parts long, and I don’t want to overwhelm y’all. (tease tease)
Here we go….
This is the story of Zev, and my life in the jw religion. Where ever possible, actual names are used. The actual time covered here is very close to 35 years. Though the memories are strong, I wish I had kept a journal. Any one who reads this should seriously give this some thought. Keeping track of details as you make your exit is very important. Writing and telling your story helps others see that they aren’t alone in their struggles and feelings. This, is what I hope to accomplish with this story.
The earliest memories go back to the times of my childhood. Living in R.I., and growing up there, has very fond memories. My life growing up there was not bad. In fact I have great parents, and they did their very best to bring my 3 sisters and myself up in the best possible way. Unfortunately, at around 4-5 years old, my dad started studying with the jw’s. That was the beginning, of a lot of turmoil, which I wouldn’t realize until I was an adult. I do still remember my last Christmas, and the year after that, wondering what the hell happened to our Christmas tree. My mom went along with him, they were always very close and she supported him in every decision I can remember them discussing.
And if she didn’t it was kept out of our earshot. Which really led to an amazingly close family, even to this day, at 40 years old, I still feel very close to my parents, like I could tell them anything, if I wanted to. But alas, I find that over the last couple of years, the things that have happened to me and the pain and hurt I suffered should stay out of their lives for now, I’ll make it, without letting them see the pain I was in for so very long.
My years as a child growing up in the jw’s aren’t really all that great of a story, I did the usual things expected from a boy drone. Started on the K.M. school at ten, and progressed towards baptism at around 16. also around this time, came two more sisters, with a spread between myself and the youngest of 17 years, and between two of my sisters, there was a 13 year spread between them. So really there were 2 generations of children with all their problems that go with them. I’m not patting myself on the back here, but as the oldest, and the only brother to them, I was especially close to all of them, and still to this very day, I am. I never really caused much difficulties for my parents, as I was a reasonably good drone, and had what jw’s considered, lived an ok life within the cult. From what they could see anyways. Inside, though, it was very different. Inside I hurt, from watching my friends leave one by one. Till practically alone as a teen in the k.h. And I also remember the pain, of the coldness. I felt as a person that was never really included in anything, or not much of anything, till one day as a 19 year old I sat with my mom, dad , and a close friend of my dad's, who was a m.s. (little did I realize then, he is very man who had molested my sister and who would be the man to stand up at my eventual wedding) and cried my heart out to them that I seemed to be liked by no one, and was very alone. I had in an organization of millions, no real true friends, someone I could turn to.
As I remember back, there were families that we were close to, one in particular, one person as part of that family would play an important role in the support I would need, as I made my exodus from the watchtower. As it turned out, she was the only person I could really “talk” to. She came from a rather large family, and they had in all 8 children, all of them girls. One of the girls I was very attracted to and felt that little something special for her. That little something special grew, into love. Yet even as I watched, the whole family made their way out of the watchtowers power, and eventually, try as we did, our relationship stopped. And started. And stopped again. She tried to tell me, what she saw was wrong with the jw’s but I wouldn’t ask, or carry the conversation any further. That was the end. We parted ways. In true jw fashion, I let the love of my life slip between my fingers and out of my life forever, in favor of “jehovah’s organization” and their wishes to marry “only in the lord”. What a dope I was.
This person’s name? Who was she? Who was this person? None other than, Gwen, also known as “Somebody” from this very Discussion Board.
Remember that name. In the final chapters of this story she plays a very important part in my life.
August, 1976 was the day of indoctrination.
I made the dunk.
At around 19 years old things started to change for me. I became the social butterfly. I was here there and everywhere, never turning down a chance to make a trip of hundreds of miles to go to a party, and meet new friends. Eventually, the group I found myself in ended up being only a few miles away, about 25 or so, and soon, I found myself involved with an elder’s daughter. I didn’t know it at the time I started getting involved, but she was only 15. Stupid, stupid me. Why didn’t I even ask? Who knows? This relationship went from 1980 to late 1982-early1983. It had its problems. Mostly was her manipulative ways in which she “hid” our relationship from her father, and hid the fact that he didn’t want me around her. In the end, she was trying to tell me who my friends were going to be, which all my life my closest friends were always women, in high school, and really throughout my life. This turned into disaster, and I broke it off.
Part two is next....
The Swinging Singles....(almost).
-Zev
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