POST YOUR EXPERIENCE OF GROWING UP AS A JW....

by SWALKER 29 Replies latest jw friends

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  DannyHaszard

  Growing up Jehovah's Witness (long version) Meetings meant beatings Danny Haszard born 3rd generation Jehovah's Witness 1957 some of the images below are from my first theocratic 'coloring book' and my nightmares.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This pic above (not from the WT) is nearly identical to a Black and White 2' X 4' "visual aid" that my Elder dad used in public talks all over during the mid 1960's. HAZING HORRORS @ the HALL and "malicious in the ministry" Use Just ONE WORD TO DESCRIBE JW'S it would be the CULT of INNUENDO Think about it?....If you behaved this way in the 'worldly' workplace you would be FIRED! A "service bag" --- a bitchy domineering female dominatrix pioneer OBNOXIOUS {S+M} INSUFFERABLE SERIAL SLEAZOIDS ! My final exit,point of "know" return:Rockland Massachusetts Kingdum Hell was BIG on outrageous sexual harassment of the "toy boys" A 36 year old obnoxious hag,Jezebel Grandmother,("Tammy Faye Baker look-a-like only uglier) was sexually harassing and STALKING my 16 year old Brother Rodney. When I went to the Elders they said:"That's the way she is,she likes to act like a teenager.

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  I protested to the elders again at my last stand,(the Rockland Massachusetts Kingdum hell) about gross sexual harrassment from some prima donna sleazy 'sisters'. One 'sister' in particular borderlined on felony sexual assult.She would literally bend over and wiggle her fat flabby tits and ass IN the Kingdum hell.I would discribe her as," Tammy faye Baker look-a-like only uglier" obnoxious Beelzebub bitch. Danny they are the sisters,they want to make it look like your chasing them...."Thats verbal assault and sexual assault too. Ya know,i now attend a very liberal church of 'christendom'( Babylon the great ) and i am truly amazed how much human kindness is exchanged at my church compared to dog-eat-dog Jehovah's Witnesses. MORE: Adventures in the field service CARRYING ON IN THE CAR-GROUP; Sexual harrasment,sanctified by {S+M} 'sacred service'.OR Consecrated gossip. The Elder known as the "stupid" Elder,(Jeffery Damher look a-like),( but don't forget,he's still 'appointed by the Holy spirit') Asked me;..." Have YOU BEEN OUT WITH THE SISTERS YET"??? Hmmmmm,I wonder what that's suppose to mean??? Actually,my first take was that it's a sexual connotation of some sort..... I should have known something was up when getting out to the parking lot the 'sisters' where perched and hovered, like birds of prey. The first thing they let me know,is," sisters rule, brothers drool ".This is followed up by,'the obnoxious sister who acts like a teenager [man eater slut] Letting me know she is on her period so, I can calculate when her 'horny' day will be. Race-baiting sleaze: "Service Bag" regular pioneer & married Lixxx Pxxxxx the first time I'm in her car group,she mealy-mouths and carry's on how when Jehovah kills her unbaptized spiritually weak husband at Armageddon. She hopes Jehovah gives her a "well endowed" black man in the 'new system'. See,this kind of sleaze is everywhere with them,the innuendo that i am inferior because i don't have a big black cock.No way I'm a racist but this is how they are dog eat dog to each other. ((( You trolls from Rockland Massachusetts who are reading this know exactly who/what i'm talking about ))) Think about it?....If you behaved this way in the 'worldly' workplace you would be FIRED!

  [Above pic-well,if you looked like her,i could be more tolerant ] Oh,the sleazy brothers 'R ass-wholes too just as much if not more than the woman are. Jesus said his followers would be the "salt of the earth" not the scum of the earth They Trashed my Ca$h POWER PRESTIGE PU$$Y The saga of the,COOLS vs. the GEEKS

  The trifecta of the 3 P's and they are, Power, Prestige,Pu$$y and the compulsion to be "COOL" at all cost.What it means to be 'exemplary'.Exemplary means that you '$how what you owe'. In 1989 a leading elder { that I trusted } taps me on the shoulder and tells me how he has telephoned the WT$ H.Q. Ivory tower,to inquire on,"how much longer can it last"."It can only 'last' just a few more months is the ominous reply". Yes sir, this is heavy on my heart. Just how will I be 'found in the day of Jehovah's anger'?Will I 'probably' be saved?How do I conduct myself with the horrific death of nearly 6 billion men women and small children on my conscience?Will I be found 'blood-guilty' for not serving Jehovah to the fullest.[Col.3:23] Who, should I look to as an example?What about the resident'Bethelite'?He just did a stint at Brooklyn and was a ministerial servant,and is looked up to as "exemplary". He is also considered to be the 'coolest' guy in the hall.In fact he drives a 'cool' two door Saab coupe.{the sisters are drooling over him}.He also subscribes to 'worldly',Rolling stone and Spin magazines.So he can be current with all the latest coolest 'worldly'. trends. In contrast,I have heeded the WT$'s directive to only purchase a modest,$1,500.00 four door family style sedan.it's very plain and ordinary (geeky) I think it s**ks,I'm a 4X4 pickup man myself.But the Ivory tower say's only buy four door sedans to facilitate,'car groups' for the sacred door to door 'field service'. I'm making $50,000.00 a year and I drive a 's**t box'.because i am donating all my profits to the Watchtower $ociety.I am also at (age 29) still living with mom and dad, to economize on living expenses. I keep my nearly blind from birth mom,furnished with all the necessary appliances for sure.I even bought her a 25" color TV from K-mart.While the most popular( exemplary) family in the church has a wide screen TV. I bought with cash, for a pioneer, a better car than I have.I am giving Thousands of dollars to the Watchtower's world wide work,while my family and I lives modestly. For all my sincere earnest toil and goodness,I am loathed and ridiculed by my brothers and sisters at the Rockland Massachusetts congregation. Sneering at me behind my back.Yes,they tried to pin a 'kick me sign' on my back.Squeezed into their mold a dumb geek,"who is so dum,why he doesn't have the sense to be cool like us". This is the event that set me free.The god of these ass"wholes" is not the god i will serve. Are you looking for my ground zero?If my family and i hadn't been f**ked over by the Rockland Massachusetts kingdom hall,just think you wouldn't be reading this.They Trashed my Ca$h See,what gets me is the Haszard clan was always poor because we gave it all to the Watchtower. My father started out with a $50,000 ( @ 1952 inflationary adjustment) missionary bank account and by the time he married my mom and settled down he was flat broke,and we have been broken ever since.You yuppie jehovah scum dare to call us 'white trash'?
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  Gregor

  I could write a book. But I'll just mention one experience.

  In the early fifties we drove from Southern California in an old Mercury sedan with a homemade roof rack to New York City (3,000 miles one way) for the big assembly at Yankee Stadium. This was Mom, Dad, Sis, me, Uncle, Aunt & Cousin, that's 4 adults and 3 children. At 5 yrs and 10 mos of age, I was the oldest kid. We were very poor. Imagine making that trip today with, say, $250.00 to get you there and back, plus food and shelter for 7 people for almost two weeks. Gasoline was about 19 cents a gallon. We had an old green canvas Army surplus tent and cots and a small Kerosene stove. When the adults got tired of driving we would pull off the highway wherever we found a suitable location. Usually this was behind a big billboard. The only food we had was wheat, canned milk and brown sugar. The wheat was bought in bulk at feed stores, raw and unprocessed. The folks would roast it in an iron skillet over the kerosene burner, then they put it into an old coffee mill and ground it into a fine powder. We got about two tablespoons of wheat in a bowl with a little canned milk and a pinch of brown sugar. That's about all we ate on the whole trip. Once in awhile they would buy a watermelon at a stand and that was heaven. This was July, very hot and humid. At night I remember having to sleep completely under the blanket because the mosquitos were horrible. I think this is when a became clostrophobic! My Dad and Uncle repaired the car several times- patching innertubes and cleaning sparkplugs with an emory board. We kept a Watchtower in the back window and every so often someone would honk and wave as they passed us. When we got to New York we stayed in a Tent City in New Jersey and listened to the program piped in on loudspeakers from Yankee Stadium. It rained so much they brought in bails of straw to throw on the muddy, temporary "streets" so you could walk to the huge plywood shower/toilet structures without sinking in up to your knees in mud.

  This is getting long. Maybe I'll write that book someday.
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  troubled mind

  My mom became a witness in 1955 . I came along in the 60's. My Dad was career military so my first memories of meetings were of driving off base 30 miles one way to go to KH. I would change into my pj's in the car on the trip home.I remember my dad being very embarassed when some of his men would see my mom going door to door , so she wasn't allowed to go close to home. When we moved closer to other relatives mom would warn me that one day they would probably try to take me , and turn me away from her. She constantly filled our minds about persecution witnesses had endured . The worst was being told about what happened in Malawi , in detail. My grandfather would call us commies , and would always tell me never believe everything you read. JW's are a bunch of brain washing commies . He said a few things about Russell being a womanizer and Rutherford being a drunk.As a kid I just figured that was his way of persecuting me .I wish I could ask him now why he said those things, he obviously knew more than I gave him credit for. I was known as goody two shoes until I became a teen . Then I did every thing imaginable , I felt I needed to get it all in before armegeddon. I hid everything I did and became a masterful liar. At fifteen I lost my virginity , and truely thought this is it- I'm going to die for sure now and Jehovah hates me! The elders found out , and I wish I would have died . I hated the way they made me feel .Years later I called one of them and told him what a bunch of jerks they all had been , and that they had no right dealing with me the way they had . I got baptized at 17 married at 18 .Still in the mind set to get everything in before the big A. When we had our children I refused to enforce the Big A around the corner mentality.I also tried to allow my kids to think outside the box . At 44 I am just now really allowing myself to think completely out of the box .It is scary and at the same time so exhilarating. Thank you all for being there and listening when I feel so alone in all this.
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  beezknees

  wow where to begin, having a childhood filled with fear is my main memory..but did anyone else experience having to go on the platform and say..i want to be a missionary/ pioneer/go to bethel when i grow up?? saying what you had to say..what did we all really want to be??
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  Collegegurl

  I was born and raised as a witness. My dad was an elder, he was pretty strict. I was a true believer as a child. I had no problem with not celebrating holidays or birthdays. I had friends from school but I knew I couldn't hang out with them outside of school and I was OK with that. I viewed service as a necessary evil, I didn't like it or enjoy it but I thought it was necessary to serve Jehovah. I didn't mind meetings, they were boring, but before and after I got to see my friends.
  
  My parents told me when I was little that the end would come before I reached high school. I always wondered why I was so lucky, why I was born into the truth and would be saved but my friends at school weren't so lucky and were going to die at armagedon. I guess I felt rather superior to them.
  
  I must say my childhood was pretty happy. My parents are good people and have tried to raise my the best that they could.
  
  Once I got to high school I started questioning. I hated that I couldn't play sports or go to dances or hang out with my friends, who were far better people than any witness friend. I did some research into my religion and I realized that we didn't have the truth. I have been living a lie ever since then.
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  troubled mind
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  troubled mind

  Beesknees... Yes I remember having to say ," why yes brother all I want to do is aux. pioneer over summer vacation ", The best experience I ever remember was the time when they interveiwed several youth in our hall.Most gave the common answers go to Bethel , pioneer , be a servant ect...until they reached one young boy who adamantly stated " I want to be a garbage man! ". I told my husband ,"at least he was honest ".
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  unique1

  I was born to parents who converted just before the 75 fiasco. I vaguely remeber giving my first talk at age 5 (yeah, my parents didn't FORCE anything on me. ) I was always in field service. There was no barganing for going out all day on Sunday to skip Saturday and watch cartoons as the previous poster mentioned. Going EVERY Saturday and Sunday was expected unless a family emergency happened. I helped out at every assembly (making sandwiches, serving food, cleaning bathrooms). I went to almost all Kingdom Hall builds to help out there starting at age 8. I started helping build the Assembly Hall at 16 cause there were some really hot sweaty brothers there. I did the parts on the meeting where they would interview me and I would say "since most single females can't go to Bethel, I plan on becoming a regular pioneer and maybe going to work where the need is greater." knowing the whole time it was a crock of sh!t. I had no desire to be a pioneer, I really wanted to be a singer at the time. I lived a double life from 8 on. I was a totally different person at school My friends in the hall encouraged me to sneak out in the middle of the night to meet guys from the congregation which we did. All in all I did much worse thing with my Kingdom Hall buddies than I ever did with my "worldly friends".
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  formyboys

  I was a third generation witness on my mom's side, but I was VERY fortunate that I had very loving, very balanced parents. They allowed us to do normal art, parties and singing at school, even for the holidays, figuring it was all part of the curriculum, but that was before the "SOCIETY" came out with their broshure to give to the schools. I even was allowed to play on the school softball team. We even went to my Dad's non-witness parents' house for Xmas dinner and presents, as long as they didn't put up a tree (They never did, so we would come). At least we did until the society pulled a major fit in the literature in 68 or 69. My folks compensated for that change by taking the whole family on ski vacations during the holidays. Plus they always made sure that we got suprises a few weeks before and after Xmas.

  We were allowed to play with kids in our neighborhood. The only criteria my parents had regarding playmates was if they were fairly well behaved, decent kids. Their religion did not enter into it. I did not start hating service until I got old enough to be embarassed I might run into a school peer. Then I came up with every excuse in the book to avoid it, especially if I thought I might end up too close to home.

  Meetings were okay, but mostly because I had a few friends there. I used to wait for my little brother to fall asleep, resting his chin on his propped up hand: Then I would knock it out from under him and he would jump awake. Good Times! I stopped doing it to my older sister after she tattled. My Dad would glare, snap his fingers and point. (I was a wimp as a child-That's all it took). Though we would all have "elbow wars" on the arm rests, until it got too heated and my Dad would do his "Snap & Point" routine. My big sister pioneered, so she was accepted everywhere, and I was welcome by association. Until the early 80's there were always lots of get togethers, parties, ball games, for all ages, then things tightened up a lot, and it seemed like everything that involved more than a few families or friends getting together was a "no-no".

  The only real negative I can remember about growing up a witness was the awful pictures in the childrens' orange Paradise book. I used to have nightmares that I was going to catch fire and burn up in Armagedon because I was naughty.

  I did love the circuit assemblies at Dodger Stadium. We always had people with kids come stay with us from out of town, we would sit "in mass" with my cousins and all my extended family, and would have ice chests of soda pop and goodies. My grandma would always bring my Grandpa's binoculars and we'd pass them around trying to find people we knew. We'd have sno cones, ice cream, carrot cake, fresh squeezed oj. My Dad and most of the men from our hall worked "expediting", so we always knew where the coolest things were. But in the last couple of decades, it seems like anything that could create bonding, good memories has been done away with regarding assemblies.

  I think, looking back, that MY pleasant upbringing around the JW's had to do with my parents and a loving Grandmother, who talked about the loving qualities of Jehovah God. Because I do know plenty of my JW peers that had fanatical, unbalanced parents who, when the Society said jump, turned off their common sense and compassion, and leaped to the moon. I think I would have had a great childhood, no matter what religion we were, because of who my parents were.
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  SWALKER

  This thread has been very insightful so far! Interesting to hear the different experiences! I think it helps for people to be able to express their memories and tell their stories....

  Swalker