Since you've taken the time to type it, I've taken the time to read and format it for you. Hopefully more people might read it, pal.
Seatrout writes:
For anyone who cares to read my profile, it may come as a surprise to you that I have never been a Jehovah's Witness(I have long delayed joining this forum and writing this story because of this; I felt as if I was a hanger on and didn't belong here. However, my personal situation over the past year or so had changed which brought to the fore of my mind what I went through, and this process made me realise that it was time to tell my tale).
I had for years ignored and suppressed the memory of what happened to me. My story is about an intense struggle with my inner self while growing up only for it to end in a devastating personal tragedy, in the form of losing a potential partner who was a JW. I also explain the recent change in my circumstances (which has generated many questions for which I seek help with and I think that users of this forum will be able to help in some way).
Firstly, in order to explain the true gravity of my loss, it is necessary to start by describing the experiences of my emotional internal struggle during my upbringing and youth. As a young teenager I struggled to fit in. I was a fairly intelligent kid, but grew up very alone. I lived several miles away from the town where I went to school and where what friends I had lived, and so access to meeting with them after school hours was restricted. I also grew up very shy. Though my parents were loving, they overdid it greatly, by being about as omnipresent as people could ever be in a person's youth. This was especially true of my Father.
I know every child believes their parents are incredibly embarrasing at some point in their lives, but I am certain I experienced more than the going average (for example, in front of all my peers, my father once turned up at my High School to hand over the packed lunch I had forgotten in cycling skins! (in the film Uncle Buck the kind of threats that John Candy made to drop his niece off at school in his pyjamas were realities I had to endure!!!)). As well as the embarrasment, he also had a frightening temper and could be very controlling.
My mum was loyal; she always backed him to the hilt no matter what. Every social aspect of my teenage life was either approved by him (which nearly always ended up with his involvement), or was met with stern disapproval and non-compliance (Since we lived away from kids who I wanted to hang out with, this meant not getting a lift to wherever I wanted to go to). This unintentional combination of isolation, embarrasment and control I am sure laid the foundations of the introverted and withdrawn personality I have.
My Dad did get me involved in contact sports, which I enjoyed alot, but the friends I made there were also outside the area where I lived, so that also failed to counter the isolation I felt and the dependency my Parents had inadvertently fostered. To climax the bad luck, I also received a bad facial disfigurement from playing when I was thirteen, and this vastly affected my confidence with the opposite sex. I already had a complex about it, but that did not stop salt from being rubbed into the wound by being teased and ridiculed for it.
I was different and I didn't fit. So when leaving age came, I joined a good independent college not affliated with my school( after all, a career beckoned and I could make new friends!). However, what friends I had did have did not go with me which intensified my feeling of social isolation, and because I already lacked social confidence, I did not get very far at making new friends. I also suffered a knee injury which stopped me from playing contact sport for good, so those friends I rarely got to see anymore.
I had to deal with such incredible loneliness and consequently suffered from deep depression. Looking back, I considered myself to be very emotionally hardened. I had at this college learned how to control an emotion. I assumed that, because I found depression to be so debilitating, I could overcome any emotion in any situation. I was soon to find out just how wrong this assumption was.
Despite all the enormous ructions going on inside my head I still managed to get the qualifications I wanted (I was again dreaming of escape to pastures new). But I needed money to go to University, and a qualification in chemistry for the course I wanted to do. So I applied for work in a supermarket, and enrolled at another college to do chemistry. I got the job at the supermarket and it was here, during the autumn of 1996, that I met a Jehovah's Witness for the first ever time.
We got on well for the first few months but then after three or four months it became obvious that we were getting on alot better than just OK. I was a very young man and single, and I had just met an extremely beautiful woman who had become very supportive, and at times, defensive of me. I don't know what she saw in me initally( I never asked) but I guess that it was that I had learned to 'get on with it'.
I was uncomplaining and devoted to my work (I found this to be an effective way of coping when situations are constantly not going right for you). I was also slightly idealistic (I wanted to study marine science so that I could end up working on conservation projects), and the experiences of my youth also developed a fatalistic kind of wit. Later on our bond became sealed the more we found out about each other. We had the similar tastes in music, our families each had a member with an identical interest (not financially speaking but in the way of hobbies/pursuits etc). It became apparent that we had similar mannerisms and style of talking. I frequently gave her lifts home. I had fallen in love before but on this occasion I just couldn't believe my luck.
I had so much more in common with her that the other girls I had liked (except they had not liked me enough to go out with me, but I could tell she did), and to put the icing on the cake she was the most beautiful of them all. She completely dispelled the stereotypical attitude I had of Jehovah's Witnesses, because she was confident, very outgoing and had everyone (especially men) at her command. She had a very high social standing, and because she liked me, the perceptions of who I worked with changed to hold me in a much higher regard as well. This was the social acceptance I had for so long craved for. I believed 110% that the pinnacle of my life had been reached.
However, It was never to be realised; my Achillies heel was that I had been swept away in a torrent of emotional bliss. It was Christmas 1997. I had relatives who lived around the corner from her house where we were all gathered to celebrate dinner. I was then very naive about Jehovah's Witnesses. I didn't really know anything about them except that they didn't celebrate Christmas or Birthdays, and didn't accept blood transfusions (at that time I didn't even know what denomination of religion they belonged to, whether they were Christian or had a set of beliefs completely seperate from Christianity, that was how much in the dark I was). Since the JW I knew appeared not only exceedingly normal, but also had a very high social standing, I blindly accepted her and her family to be a part of a mainstream faith.
I decided to 'drop by'. It was a day when the course of my life was changed forever. Even though my love answered the door, it was a completely different person who answered that day. Gone was the gorgeous smile, happy face, caring eyes and relaxed posture. In was the cold, glazed look which stared right over me, and in was the blank expression and rigid stance. For someone who I had loved so intensely and got along with so unbelievably well this was a terrifying situation. They eventually let me in but I didn't stay long. It was such an awful, horrible experience. After that, she did not come near me for a month. I thought that was it, because there was no communication during that delicate period between ourselves I became entrenched in the belief that I was ex-communicated.
Eventually I plucked up the courage to apologise for going around and she explained that she hadn't talked to me for so long after my visit because she hadn't known what to say to me. This explaination I accepted, but the next thing I knew she wasn't fulfilling her work duties by helping me when scheduled to (I STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY SHE BEHAVED LIKE THIS. CAN ANYONE SHED SOME LIGHT AS TO WHY SHE MAY HAVE BEHAVED THE WAY SHE DID? COULD SHE HAVE BEEN PERSUADED/COACHED?). I felt incensed, and since my emotions had been put under such giant pressure throughout my teenage years the sense of betrayal and rejection was overwhelming. I decided that the only thing left for me to do was to do likewise to her.
The result was that we did not speak to each other for several months. Then, one morning after finishing my final exams, I noticed her smiling at me, with her haircolour changed for the preference I had once confessed to liking! But I behaved in a manner which was completely unexpected and it was a behaviour I had previously thought myself absolutely incapable of; I cruelly ignored her. I couldn't let go of my emotions, I was still too hurt. (I had never been a respector of reputations but I am ashamed of what I did here). I wish I had shown the maturity to let go of my feelings to say something dignified. I wish this was an emotion could have overcome. I considered myself to be in control of my feelings, but I realise now just how unstoppable emotions can be, especially the high octane, double edged emotion that is intense love for someone else, and even more so when set against against a yawning expanse of depression and loneliness. Soon after that I saw her fighting back tears and days later she had handed her notice in.
This snapped me out of it and I tried to get her to talk but she wouldn't. I was doing the chasing but I wasn't getting anywhere, so I conceded to the shameful realisation of what I had done and handed my notice in as well. Then, on my last day off before I was due to leave, the pioneers came to my door. After a few studies, I got angry and told them to stay away until they brought her to my door to apologise to me. This was because I had caught wind that during her last few weeks at work, she had been secretly coercing work colleagues to do something unpleasant to me on my last day. The rumour had serious credence, since on my last day a work within moments of me turning up, one of my colleagues muttered to me under her breath 'don't think you're going to get out of here alive!' Well, I did because I did a disappearing act and went home when most of them where on their morning break!
The pioneers did not bring my love to my house to apologise, and so I left for University without seeing her again in the Autumn of 1998. During this term, I was overcome with emotional stress of losing her and tremendous guilt and shame for treating her that way. It had also felt so sudden, as if it wasn't meant to be. So, during the Christmas break, I announced to my family that I was going to go to the Kingdom Hall to try and find out if the relationship could be salvaged. I can remember the discussion our family had as if it was yesterday. It caused great distress both for myself and for them. I remember sobbing my heart out, my parents being beside themselves, my sister sat beside me, who cannot believe my intention of becoming a Jehovah's Witness. I was held absolutely prisoner to my emotions; they compelled me to go even though then I did not believe in God (I was brought up basically atheist).
Despite my families objections I went to a Kingdom Hall, twice, in the New Year of 1999. She was not there on both occasions, but true to form, I received the newcomer honeymoon treatment; everyone was so kind and welcoming to me but not in an overly curious way. After the second meeting, the pioneer who looked after me invited me round to his home to meet his Wife and sit down for a meal preceded by prayers. At the table he asked me for my dormitory address and mentioned that 'some local brothers will come to get me' I knew I needed a guarantee that I could once again see my love, but I didn't get one, and I realised here that I was on the brink of getting involved in something I didn't fully understand. So I feigned that I had forgotten the address since I hadn't been there long and I mentioned that would get back in touch with them. I didn't. I instead decided to phone her up.
Here was where I became torn apart. I remember shaking with apprehension and nerves before picked the phone up. Her Mother answered and because she did not recognise my voice she was very suspicious of me. I explained to her that I was on the verge of converting and who I had been liaising with which calmed her Mother down and she then went to hand over the phone to my love. Suddenly I overheard her in the background talking to her Mother. Before her Mum could tell my love what I my gesture was I hung up. I had heard her rebuke me viciously in the background and I became overwhelmed with shock. I never set foot in the Kingdom Hall again (IS IT LIKELY THAT BECAUSE SHE CAUSED A POTENTIAL CONVERT (i.e me) TO LEAVE, THAT SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN REPREMANDED FOR THIS?).
To this day I do not know what her true feelings were of me. Was she acting out of rejection because I did not come the first time or was she geniunely in contempt of me? Only she can answer that. What I do know is what happened to me next. A few evenings later on I completely cracked up. I was totally inconsolable to the point where everyone in my dorms thought that I was going to attempt suicide (it was the only time I have ever wailed in bereavment). That night, they had to physically help me back to my bed and put the stereo on to play soothing music. However, I didn't commit suicide, I am still here and regardless of whether I was to blame or not, I know I have survived a devastating personal tragedy.
To tell the truth, looking back, it is a minor miracle that I am still alive. The years since slowly replaced the deep depression I once suffered with a sense of tranquillity. I no longer have a complex about the way I look, since cosmetic surgery turned out to be an effective solution and due to my persistence at study towards a University degree, I have an enjoyable job in a beautiful setting, yet I know I could have more out of life. I have never dealt with the remaining emotional trauma of losing her. I know I frequently experience spontaneous and persistant cognitive dissonance. I feel very uncomfortable in intimate social situations,(I associate people with hurt so I tend to back off whenever I feel people are getting too close to me), and don't like big gatherings which bring people close together (such as weddings), since these situations remind me of who I lost.
I haven't been able to relate my experiences to my friends or family either, since they wouldn't grasp or understand what I had been through, and so I have been left with the feeling of being beyond help because I felt as if I was the only one. I am still by myself as a result.
HERE IS WHERE MY CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED OVER THE PAST YEAR; in early 2006, I employed a third party to find out if she wanted to have any contact with me (in an attempt to answer the unanswered questions that have always remained with me). I was hoping that this would provide some closure, and that it would allow me to move on. I was expecting a firm 'NO!', Curiously I was informed that she 'would respond' if I passed on my details, yet I received nothing. My response in the face of this enigma was to carry on writing letters (most of them as you can now understand were of reconcilatory and emotional content); I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY SHE WOULD INDICATE AGREEMENT AND THEN NOT FOLLOW UP ON IT, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE HAPPENING HERE? It has left me in state of limbo again.
I had also been told that; she is quite nervous about who contacts her; she had moved address recently ( which has made me paranoid that this is to do with me) I can only contact her via a third party and he can only do this by making a visit in person to her new home (there was no telephone number supplied with the address he unearthed). IS THIS POTENTIAL VISIT LIKELY TO GET HER INTO ANY TROUBLE WITH HER COMMUNITY (I want to avoid any unnecessary upset)? PLEASE HELP. I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON AND HOW I CAN APPROACH THIS SITUATION WITH THE LEAST AMOUNT OF PAIN FOR BOTH PARTIES.
I hope you will have read this biography, looked at my questions and be willing to offer your help and/or advice. No matter how small or insignificant a contribution you think it may be, your time and effort will be greatly appreciated.
