A little bit of history:
This is the autobiography I've been working on for the past year or so. Originally, I wanted to make a really nice HTML format, complete with pictures and sound clips. Unfortunately, I made the decision to keep it pretty much out of the public eye because of a former friend who has become quite vengeful which begins in Chapter 8 (which I'm still writing). However, for the benefit of others who are struggling with being a JW in their teens, and those who are working on their recovery, I've decided to post it here, as I feel it's quite safe to do so on this site.
The name is a working title and it may change if I ever decide to actually release it to the public someday. It's the title of a song by the same name by the band Cinderella. The song describes how I feel quite well about my whole life experience thus far. This may also still be a rough draft.
***WARNING***
There is a lot of course language in my autobiography. If you easily get offended by course language, you may wish to go read something else.
Chapter 1: The Early Years
"Don't do it for me, do it for Jehovah" - my Mother
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It was a snowy day on February 21, 1978 when I was born. I clearly remember seeing the light at the end of the womb. The journey seemed to take forever, an endless struggle to reach the light and discover what was beyond what I had known all my life, which totalled 8 months.
You're probably not buying the load of bullshit that I just wrote, but it's my fucking autobiography, and I'll write whatever the hell I want! If I really want to start this right, I'm going to go to the root of all my troubles which attributed to me becoming the average frustrated chump that I was.
Honestly, I'm surprised that I'm alive. I have no clue what my infant years were like, and I probably don't want to know. It scares the shit out of me just thinking about it.
My earliest chilhood memory actually begins with me still in diapers. Not many people remember anything from this early on, but sadly I do. I clearly remember myself walking past the bathroom with a load of shit in my diaper seeing my mother cleaning. I remember my mother yelling at me for dropping a load in my diaper which caused me to run into my bedroom and hide under the bed. That was the only place I ever felt I could find safety. Unfortunately it never was completely "safe".
My childhood was always filled with a lot of confusion. My father was always at work during the day, and I was stuck at home with my mother until school started. I recall getting hit a lot as a child, however I was never completely aware of the reason. Very often I found myself in the washroom putting cold water on my ass trying to soothe the pain. Sometimes I'd try and get revenge on my mother by scratching up her favorite records. Since I was somewhat of an only child, she always knew who did it, and I'd get beaten even more.
As a child, I kept a lot of my anger bottled up inside of me, but I eventually found a release. I noticed how mother would take her anger out on me. Until a child enters school, the only things he learns are from his parents. I adopted my mother's attitude and began taking my anger out on the cat. Everytime I was beaten, the cat was beaten in return.
I was always an incredibly quiet and shy child which continued up to my teen years, but I'll get into the change much later. My mother started having this friend come over named Verna. I always thought her nose looked like a fucking strawberry - it was big, red, and pitted. Little did I know that this friend of my mother's would have the biggest and most dreaded impact on my life which would separate me from a "normal" childhood. Verna was a Jehovah's Witness.
I still remember the last Christmas from my childhood. It was a very good year for presents. My father would go out every weekend and get drunk. I could always tell when my father was drunk. He'd leave the house with his hair combed nice, and when he'd return, his hair would be flat. covering his forhead. Sometimes he'd come home with things; food, records, gifts, etc. This particular Christmas, my father was wasted, and my auntie Mary was over visiting. I was too damn shy to say hello to my Auntie, so my father told me that if I didn't say Hi, Santa Clause was going to take all the presents away. I remember sitting in my bed crying, my mother yelling, and I saw a glimpse of my father throwing presents into his bedroom. We had the great privelage of opening broken gifts that year.
A lot of times I would ask for a bedtime story. They used to be quite enjoyable, and I'd pick a book I wanted to hear. However, bedtime stories began to change. Most of my regular bedtime stories (such as The Barenstein Bears) eventually got replaced by this big yellow book with red printing called "My Book of Bible Stories". However, there was one non-bible related story that my mother kept reading to me, mostly on the weekends. I can't clearly remember the title, but it was something like "Mommy, What's Drunk?" I clearly remembered what the cover looked like, it was all pale blue with a drawing of a girl in braids. She kinda looked like one of those girls from Little House on The Prarie. My mother was trying to keep me educated about my father's drinking. Unfortunately, my father wasn't trying to educate me on physical abuse. Maybe I'll write a book called, "Daddy, What the Fuck Did I Do to Deserve That Beating?"
So, I had the worst of both worlds. A father who drank every weekend, and a mother who beat the crap out of me. I don't remember too much about my father being drunk, since I was usually sleeping when he'd come home. There were certain times when he'd drive with me in the car and race the guy next to him, steal beef jerky from 7-11, and when he'd get down on his hands and knees and crawl around growling at me. Other than that, I don't remember much.
I had made friends with some of the kids around the neighborhood. Our neighbors had 3 daughters: Sylvia, Katherine, and Doreen. I made friends with Doreen who was the closest to my age. I had also made friends with 2 kids across the street: Joanne whom I met first, then her twin brother Russell. I remember getting caught twice by my mother when Doreen and Joanne were rooting for me to pull my pants down. And I did since it seemed to amuse them. I always enjoyed making people laugh, even though I paid the concequences sometimes. I got the hell beaten out of me a few times for that.
As my mother continued to study the bible with Verna, my life began to change. Birthdays were eliminated from my life as well as Christmas, Easter, and every other celebrated holiday under the sun. I was also forced to sit in with my mother during her bible studies. I remember how much I dreaded seeing Verna's face, since I'd have to stop playing with my toys and sit for an incredibly boring hour, without any toys, and listen to Verna talk to my mother about God. She also tried including me in the studies. I was given the big, ugly yellow book called "My Book of Bible Stories". I grew to hate that book.
A lot of times I would ask for a bedtime story. They used to be quite enjoyable, and I'd pick a book I wanted to hear. However, bedtime stories began to change. Most of my regular bedtime stories (such as The Barenstein Bears) eventually got replaced by this big yellow book with red printing called "My Book of Bible Stories". However, there was one non-bible related story that my mother kept reading to me, mostly on the weekends. I can't clearly remember the title, but it was something like "Mommy, What's Drunk?" I clearly remembered what the cover looked like, it was all pale blue with a drawing of a girl in braids. She kinda looked like one of those girls from Little House on The Prarie. My mother was trying to keep me educated about my father's drinking. Unfortunately, my father wasn't trying to educate me on physical abuse. Maybe I'll write a book called, "Daddy, What the Fuck Did I Do to Deserve That Beating?"
So, I had the worst of both worlds. A father who drank every weekend, and a mother who beat the crap out of me. I don't remember too much about my father being drunk, since I was usually sleeping when he'd come home. There were certain times when he'd drive with me in the car and race the guy next to him, steal beef jerky from 7-11, and when he'd get down on his hands and knees and crawl around growling at me. Other than that, I don't remember much.
Mother had also started teaching me about Jehovah God. She told me that Armageddon was around the corner, and all the bad people would be destroyed by him in just a few years. All the good people, which are Jehovah's Witnesses would inherit the earth which would be made into a paradise. This had a huge effect on my thinking. Hell, I didn't want to be killed by God! So I made an incredible effort to be a really good person. My mother instilled one of the 10 commandment in my head, "Honor thy father and thy mother". Another statement which wasn't in the bible accompanied this one, "Don't do it for me, do it for Jehovah". Since I had this incredible fear of displeasing god embedded in my brain, my mother used the latter statement to get me to do anything she wanted. I was like a programmed robot which responded to that statement. I must have heard it hundreds of times in my life.
I remember my first Jehovah's Witness kids party. Being the shy person that I was, I didn't want to go, but I was forced to. My mother introduced me to this kid named David who lived down the street. There were games, lots of kids, and a cake in the shape of Noah's Ark. I also remember praying before we ate the fucking cake.
One thing I disliked about being a Jehovah's Witness were the boring meetings. My father normally would let me stay home during the weeknights when meetings were taking place, but occasionally he'd make me go with my mother to the meeting on Sunday. Two boring hours, sitting in a fucking chair, listening to boring public talks. I remember having a notepad once in a while where I'd write stories, draw pictures, basically anything to keep myself entertained. I remember one picture that I had drawn of a man on the moon. My mother's friend, who was sitting beside me, took a pen and wrote "Jehovah" on my drawing. Needless to say, I was pissed off. My drawing was ruined.
The first Christmas that came along was difficult for me to deal with. My father just let my mother do her thing, and went along with it. He liked the idea of not spending any money on Christmas gifts. I still believed in Santa Claus as any 6 year old does, and my mother was doing her best to explain that Santa Claus wasn't real. There was no tree, no presents and no decorations. I stayed up till about 1:00 in the morning, waiting for Santa Clause on Christmas Eve, while my mother was watching television. She told me, "See, there isn't a Santa Claus." I woke up the next morning with no gifts to open.
Now that I look back on it, preparation for school was interesting. I had my routines; eat breakfast, brush my teeth, etc. There was one thing that I find almost strange. My mother would always make me wear the nicest clothes, and would brush & gel my hair. Gel in my hair? At 6 years old? Just to go to school? The stuff made my hair crunchy and stiff. To this day, I hate using Gel. I once asked my mother why I needed nice clothes and gelled hair to attend school. Her response was "Jehovah's people are clean people, and they're suppose to stand out". The effect this had in my later years was very negative.
At school, I was to stand outside during O Canada & The Lord's Prayer, since they were wrong in Jehovah's eyes. Singing O Canada was apparently a way to worship your country, and the Lord's Prayer was praying to a false god. Whenever one of my peers asked me "Why do you stand out in the hall", my response was simple. "It's against my religion". My mother also placed a brochure, titled as I recall "School and Jehovah's Witnesses" with the teacher at the start of every fucking school year.
I also remember making friends with our new neighbor's kid, Matthew. He respected "my" wishes to avoid using toy guns whenever we played together. Me and him would be having fun in his sandbox, when my mother would come out of the house with this ugly pink book from the Watchtower Society called "Listening to the Great Teacher". A complete collection of Jesus' experiences and how they relate to a young person's life (or how they were twisted to brainwash a child). She'd make me and Matthew sit down and listen to her rattle off a story. If I didn't, I would be ordered inside, not being allowed to continue the good time I was having with Matthew, and would possibly be grounded. "Honor thy father and thy mother". I started to detest the sight of that book. I was forced to listen to a story, usually the chapter entitled "Obedinence Protects You" after I recieved a beating.
The beatings that I recieved from my mother were nowhere near fun. Three of them stand out above the rest, but these weren't the only three that I recieved.
The first incident was after my father had returned from a trip to Grey Cup '87 in BC, which he had won from a scratch & win ticket. I must give some background to this situation before I proceed. My father had a child with his first wife. When my half-sister Marlene was 4 years old, my father's wife had run off with his brother. They married and moved to BC. While my father was in BC to see the Grey Cup, apparently he did some visiting. I'm guessing he went to see his daughter whom he hadn't seen in years, and also saw his ex-wife. My mother had found out about this, and was incredibly pissed off about it.
I was doing my daily routine getting ready for school. My mother started brushing my hair for school. She was incredibly harsh with the brush, complaining about my father seeing his ex-wife. Suddenly, I was beaten in the head with the wooden hairbrush. I don't blame myself for crying cause it fucking hurt.
The second incident was when I was around 10 years old. It was my bedtime, and I was making my bed before going to sleep. My father came into my room looking for something. He asked me if I'd seen it, and I responded with a simple "No, I haven't". He then left my room. Just as I finished making my bed, my mother barges into the room, takes a look at me, and yells "Why aren't you in bed?" My father defended me, telling her that I was making my bed. I laid on the bed fearing that I was about to be hit, and I was right. She tried slapping me, but I was blocking and pushing her hands away with mine.
My father yelled "Don't hit him! That's always your solution, is to start hitting." As soon as my father had left the room, I recieved a huge punch from my mother.
I recall her saying "Don't you ever, ever hit me back!" She then left the room. It really didn't help that my mother had taken Judo lessons in her past.
The third incident was the worst of them all. I was getting interested in the field of electronics at the age of 11. This also happened when my bedroom had been relocated to the second floor of the house, and a spare bed was kept in my old room which is directly at the stairs to the second floor. My father had suggested that I use parts from my cassette recorder to fix someone else's cassette recorder. I loved my cassette recorder, so I refused to do such a thing. He got really pissed off and started yelling at me. One thing I respect my father for, is in all my life he never struck me. His voice was enough. Needless to say, he was in a shitty mood when my mother came home from the Sunday meeting. I remember being upstairs when I heard my parents yelling at each other. I started hearing dishes being thrown around. I felt my heart beating the shit out of my chest like it had wanted to jump out and run. I was scared shitless, and I was hiding, of all places, under my bed. I knew I was going to be a victim of this fight whether I liked it or not. Apparently during this fight, my mother held a knife to my dad, and my dad threw something at her to get her away from him. I don't blame him.
After the fight, my father had went into the garage to work on something. My mother was cursing and swearing out loud. Suddenly, I heard my mother yell "Ben, you get the hell down here right now!" I was frozen with fear. I didn't budge. My mother yelled after a short pause, "If don't get down here now, I'm gonna come up and get you!" Seriously, what the hell was I suppose to do? I was going to get the shit beaten out of me either way.
I made my way downstairs, shaking and scared. I looked at the kitchen table, and it was covered in sugar & coffeemate. My mother made a charge toward me. She had the face of the devil. I was punched and smacked repeatedly. I cried hysterically. My mother picked me up by my hair & shirt, shook me, and threw me into the wall. I landed on the bed. I continued to recieve punching. You, the reader, have no clue how hard it is to write about this. I clearly recall the feelings I had at this moment in my life.
A few things I remember my mother saying during this beating were "I was happy because I was going to take you swimming, and I had to come home to this!" I also remember her telling me that the fight was about money.
After my mother was clearly done with me, I went and hid in the basement for the rest of the day, crying, confused, and in pain.
In elementary school, I eventually made friends with my classmates. Russell, or "Russ" who lived across the street ended up in my grade 1 class, and we immediately became good friends. In school, I always got by very well with the sense of humor I had developed. It was kinda neat how I had all the girls interested in me. I also became very interested in girls.
When I was in grade 3, I remember a dream that I had. It was about a girl I went to school with named Kellee. I dreamt she had a glass eye resulting from an accident. When I went back to school the next few days, I started looking at Kellee's eyes to see if my dream was true. Of course it wasn't, but I ended up having my first crush. My life started revolving around cute, romantic thoughts of Kellee and how I was going to marry her some day. Perhaps it was the dream of getting out of my house and away from all the madness or correcting the relationship my parents had, but it was pretty dumb thinking of marriage at such a young, stupid age.
One thing that I had been learning with the Jehovah's Witnesses is that a man is supposed to stay away from girls until he is mature (around 20 years old). My mother was very strict with my contact with members of the opposite sex. I was now becoming more fearful of displeasing my mother, rather than displeasing God. God wouldn't beat the fuck out of me if I did something "wrong". He would just destroy me at Armageddon which was only a few years away. I was full of fear. I had an almost daily beating to look forward to, and my future held my death at Armageddon if I didn't listen to either my mother or the god she was representing. I couldn't look forward to anything since Jehovah was going to do away with this "system of things" very soon.
My liking for Kellee became very apparent in the fourth grade when she was in my class. I enjoyed drawing cartoon dogs, and I even named one after Kellee. I kissed her ass a lot. Every time she needed to borrow a pen, eraser, anything, she'd ask me and of course, I'd lend it to her. I remember on a field trip to a museum, we stopped by a river, and some of us were catching minnows in any container we could find. I had caught 4. When we arrived back in class, Kellee asked if she could have one. Naturally, I agreed. Kellee got this huge fucking brainstorm to tape the holes on the bottom of a plastic flower pot, and use that to carry her minnow home. I asked her, "Are you sure that's going to work?". She said yes. I knew it was a stupid idea, but of course I didn't tell her that. All I could do was let her discover what gravity was all about. I started pouring water into the flower pot, and water was immediately all over the fucking desk. I offered to help her clean up, but she said "No, that's okay". I made my way home, but I felt guilty for not helping her.
I remember when Festival Du Voyager came around (a french festival held yearly in my city), the class went on a field trip to attend. Apparently, there was going to be dancing. Before we left, I was nervous as hell, thinking I should ask Kellee to be my dance partner. I eventually worked up the balls, and she accepted. It turned out we were just watching people dance.
I also remember me and Kellee exchanging phone numbers. She gave me hers, and I gave her mine, except there was a condition with mine. I told her not to call me. She gave me this "What the fuck?" look. The reason was that I'd probably get screamed at, or beaten if a girl was to call the house, asking for me. I always tried to avoid pissing my mother off. I also remember the times that I had actually tried dialing Kellee's phone number. I would dial the first six numbers, and then wouldn't have the balls to dial the seventh number. I was nervous as hell and I never actually dialed that seventh number.
Me and Russ were still friends. Occasionally, we'd get into our disagreements, and not talk to each other for weeks. It was always interesting when people noticed this. Usually it was from Russ being an asshole about something. Me and him were in this stupid competition of who could get all of Weird Al Yankovic's songs first. In order to keep Russ from leaking out that I liked Kellee, he'd get me to record him 2 Weird Al songs per week. I shit when he got one of Weird Al's rarest albums (In 3-D). He wouldn't let me record anything off that album, but still insisted that I keep on recording him songs. I got pissed off and used a microcassette recorder to record some of the songs when we were listening to the album outside. He heard me playing it one day, and got pissed off that I recorded them without his permission. We didn't talk for weeks. He did a lot of stupid revenge things to piss me off even more. Eventually, we threw the past behind us and became friends again.
In grade 4, I had started having trouble with my eyesight. Things the teacher was writing on the blackboard were a little bit blurry, however by squinting, I was able to make it out. My eyesight was progressively getting worse. I was always afraid to tell my parents that I needed glasses. I figured that I would get yelled at from my mother, or my father would deny me needing them. The ladder eventually became true.
In grade 5, I was sitting behind this other girl named Kelly (note the different spelling). She was blonde, and undoubtedly had a crush on me. I remember her asking me "do you have a pee pee?" and broke out in hysterical laughter.
I told her "why don't you ask yourself that question?" She did.
"Kelly, do you have a pee pee? No. I have a cattail!" and yet again broke out in hysterical laughter. I have to admid, so did I, but I knew Jehovah didn't find that shit funny, and I was going to die in a few years at Armageddon.
In the last year of Elementary school, December 15th, 1988 when I was in grade 6, a local community club was holding a preteen dance. Everyone was excited to go to it, and so was I. I talked to my father about it, and he agreed to take me. My mother was furious. A day or two before the dance, I left a note on Kellee's desk. I asked her out to the dance. I worked on using flattery in the note; I called her "Angel Eyes" (barf). Nevertheless, it worked. She agreed to meet me there.
I had a fucking blast at this preteen dance. I was drinking tons of pop, sitting around talking to some of my classmates. I wasn't around Kellee that much during the night. The DJ played a slow song, and the word passed on quickly from all my friends that Kellee wanted to dance with me. I saw her looking at me with those fucking beautiful blue eyes. I said "No, I can't". I was torn between the religion and my desires. It was wrong in God's eyes to dance close with a girl before marriage. I remember Kellee grabbing my friend Will, and pulling him on the dance floor. I looked at the two dancing, and Kellee was looking back at me as if to say "why?". I felt torn. Had I just lost my crush to my friend? Yes. But I'm pretty sure I saved my ass from dying at Armageddon. I think I made up for actually attending a "worldly" pre-teen dance.
Moving into the winter, we all had a field trip to yet another museum. I had brought along an 8mm movie camera to record the sights (yes, they still made film for them in 1988). Kellee was "dating" another one of my friends named David. I still have a shot of them with their arms around each other. I was mad, sad, confused, you name it.
Things were getting interesting at home. Unfortunately with this incident, I slept through it all, and I will never know the true story behind it. My dad was caught with impared driving, and the cops hauled his ass to jail. He used his one phone call to phone my mother. She told the cops to lock him up. Apparently, he was given another phone call, and called my auntie Mary. She got one of her sons to pick him up. My mother was pissed off when my dad and my auntie walked in the door. Here's where the story gets distorted.....
- The incident that my mother told me was that my dad was at his all-time low with drinking, and he quit his job.
- Another story that was told by my cousin (I think) was that my father had quit his job because his nerves were shot from being a foreman.
- A third story was told to me by my auntie. Apparently my dad got pissed off and was throwing around my mother's Watchtower publications. He was saying "Fuckin Jehovah! Fuckin' Jehovah! I'm quitting my job tomorrow, we'll see if Jehovah supports this family!"
One thing I remember after my dad had quit his job, is he was in bed for 3 days straight. My mother would sit at the bedside reading him Watchtower magazines. I believe this had a large effect on what next took place.
One evening, my father had told me to go with my mother to the Kingdom Hall for the Thursday night meeting. After I was ready, and waiting to use the shitter, I saw my dad putting a suit on. I asked him "What are you doing?"
He responded with "It's good if I go once". I was extremely devastated. I had an incredibly cold chill run down my spine. The shock was incredible. I already hated going to the meetings, and now I had to attend ALL of them. There was no way out anymore. My father would no longer let me stay home from them. I felt trapped in a cage. It took me a while to accept this, but I decided that maybe it WAS best for me. Maybe I should put more effort into this religion since my father had decided that it was the correct way of life.
Previously, I had been studying the Watchtower publications with many different people. One of the books that we had to study was a red book called "Your Youth: Getting The Best Out Of it". This was the most manipulative book ever written for young people. I clearly remember a chapter on masturbation. Apparently, masturbation is wrong since it leads to homosexual desires which are against God's written word, the bible. To tell the truth, I had already started whacking off, but I have never felt any desire to fuck a man, let alone play with another man's dick.
Speaking of playing with my dick, another wonderful "privelage" of Jehovah's Witnesses in school was to abstain from Sex Education classes. I do not recall the reason for this, but it probably has to do with "mustering up desires for the opposite sex" which everyone knows is wrong. So it's wrong to be attracted to a woman, it's wrong to fuck another man up the ass, and it's also wrong to fuck your hand. Why the hell do we get hard-ons? A lot of people posed this question to me, and I could never give them an answer. They obviously made a very good point.
There was one particular evening when we were suppose to go to the meeting. I was having a horrible time breathing. I've never felt anything like this before. My mother accused me of faking it to stay home from the Kingdom Hall. She was yelling pretty badly at me. I was so short-winded, I couldn't even move. If I did, I would get even more short of breath. My dad stayed home with me, and my mother went to the meeting all pissed off. When she got home, I was still having trouble breathing. She tried bringing out the fucking vaporizor. I hated that goddam thing. Made too much noise. It was always in my bedroom when I was sick with that bleh-bleh-gurgle-bleh noise. My mother tried getting me to lay down and go to sleep. Laying down only made my breathing worse. She asked my father to take me to the hospital, but he denied that anything was wrong with me. My mother took $20 from him and got a cab to the hospital. I was diagnosed with athsma. Sadly, this fucking disease still plagues me to this day. I must say, I enjoyed sitting out of phys-ed. I never had a passion for sports anyway.
All throughout Elementary School, I was recieved very well by my peers. They enjoyed hanging around me and enjoyed my sense of humor. My marks were excellent, and my parents were extremely proud of this. I figured I'd have no problem continuing on into High School. I was wrong.