Questions for those born or raised in the truth

by The wanderer 44 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  looking_glass

  Your mom is awesome looking_glass. I admit I'm jealous of JW kids that had parents like you growing up. I seem to have been raised with quite a lot of strictness. Maybe she was afraid I'd leave like my father if she wasn't strict with me, but if anything it had the opposite effect.

  Yes she is! Unfortunately she has gotten old in this religion and is no longer willing to fight them, so she buys into the BS now. I don't blame her, it is really all she has, so it would be really hard giving everything up and starting fresh. But let me assure you, her mouth takes up most of her five foot frame. She is a short loud mean Irish woman who when younger and challenged, she challenged right back. I loved her for it. Granted she was dragged in the back on so many occasions that we lost count. But nothing was ever done to her because she never did anything wrong.

  But again as I said, I loved my childhood and that credit goes to my mother (and partially my dad who was a df'd jw but who died when I was young).
• 

  LtCmd.Lore

  My whole childhood can be summed up in one word... BORING.

  I was homeschooled my whole childhood, no public school at all. Up to age 11 my congregation had a lot of children my age, but we never had any get-togethers I can only remember one... I just played video games with another kid.

  After age 12 we were in a very small congregation with very few children. We had a lot of get togethers but it was all old people so they would just sit around, talk and eat. Not untill around age 16 did other children move in but they were all my little brothers age, and I ended up hanging out with them a lot... There are only two girls in my congregation, one is a regular, but I'm not at all attracted to her. The other is quite cute but I don't see her much, she's not very regular and she's shy. Thankfully I don't want to end up getting married anyway.

  I find it hard to understand what the heck people want. The whole idea of saying something and wanting something else is entirely illogical to me.

  My only form of entertainment is TV and video games. I don't play sports obviously, and don't really do anything healthy. As far as movies and games I'm very limited, no magic obviously. So I acctualy ended up downloading some roms and emulators and playing Zelda, Pokemon and Fire Emblem games without my parents knowledge, and illegaly I might add... I did eventualy get my parents to let me buy Zelda games. (I couldn't download the Wind Waker. It was too big for dial-up...)

  I also was never taught to exept death, so I might have trouble with the fact that I'm not immortal and that I won't see my dead loved ones again. However that's something everyone has to deal with... they're just normally over that fact by age 17.

  So I didn't have a tramatizing childhood or anything, but I did throw away 17 years of my life sitting around doing 'research' and watching G - PG movies not doing sports, not being on any kind of team, not having a girlfriend, not throwing parties, not trying new things, not being able to ask real questions, I never even had a curfew since I was always home or at the meetings and I can honestly say that to the best of my knowlege I never in my entire life have ever been more than 50 yrds away from either a close family member, an elder or my house. I'll never be able to get those missing experiences back.

  Imagine starting your life at age 18 all your good memories are now replaced with sitting at home watching a movie or at a meeting. That's pretty much where I am.
• 

  Madame Quixote

  School: Torture and when not being tortured, just sad and lonely. Kingdom Hall: Hours and hours of boredom and being pinched. Sports: Only for boys; and in school, more torture and loneliness; was always last or second-to-last to be picked for team sports. extra curricular activities: more kingdom hall and field service because the other things involved worldly associations and might require flag-saluting or nationalism or might involve holidays or political issues (or it just might take money away from my parents who needed it for more kh literature for field service).
• 

  monkeyshine

  Great job Mysterious!

  Your first post was like reading my memories out loud.

  I just told people I was allergic to hotdogs and lived off the potato chips and pop.

  I just coughed up a lung when I read that. Not laughing at you, but laughing at myself because it made me remember the silly things we'd say to divert attention. Anything to avoid that conversation! I'd just as soon starve than have to explain that.

  My opinion is it sucked.

  I used to pray to JEHOVAH to get me out of there. He never answered. Whatever happens to me later--I don't care. ANYTHING to get out of going to school tomorrow and sit in the back of the class and do something constructive. I would even very carefully try to ask SATAN to get me out. I guess he wasn't there either.

  I'm glad this thread started because earlier today I was told of a comment from a current JW on birthdays. This person was backed into a corner and finally said "What's the big deal? O.K. so if they are wrong about birthdays, who cares? It's not that important."

  That hurts-----All the times I was subject to that look of confusion and pity, "What's the big deal?"

  Telling a classmate, at 5 years old, that I can't celebrate birthdays because John the Baptizer had his head chopped off, "What's the big deal?"

  That really hurts
• 

  ellderwho

  For me, being father-less due to my mothers adherance to the faith, while also being a Witness put me into a situation that left me just wanting to fit in with other kids who would talk of their "dads" and what they got for xmas etc..at an early age I just wanted to be like the other kids, which is inclusive of all the activities that come with "normal" childhood.
  

  As I look back I have to ask my mom, was it worth it? Because my brother and myself have had nothing to do with the faith since late teen years. So, here you have a destroyed family, with father-less boys raised by a disgruntled single mom, trying to serve a organization. In hine sight it was all for naught.

  As far as finding out the "truth" is not the truth, I felt power in knowing it was all bullsh*t.

  EW monkeyshine, I here you man, I always prayed to whom ever for something to somehow change my life, an making excuses was so natural, almost like a fantasy world you wished you lived in.
• 

  Lilycurly

  Mysterious---It's funny you should mention that. I suppose it could be true that my extreme timidity was caused in part by not wanting to be noticed. I really hated to be different. Most of the time, I would have loved to be invisible. I was never small or petite for my age, pretty much normal.....but I met two guys recently who went to my highschool, and they looked very surprised to see me now. Said I had changed so much, that I seemed much taller. (And I haven't grown a lot since then). I guess I was trying to be a small as I could.

  I also was attracted to paganism, while we're on the subject. Even when I was in, I had a strong fascination with Tarot, astrology, Deities, spirits of nature, rituals, stones, runes. It pissed me off that it was one other thing that I couldn't openly like. And I had much fun discovering it all when I got out. I'm still very into that.
• 

  streets76

  Here's a good take:

  http://mysite.verizon.net/sgswain/
• 

  PaulMarshall

  Hey Fella.

  An interesting point & as an ex dub born and raised in the organisation, I have often wondered what it would have been like to “find” the truth myself as opposed to be an extension of my own mothers wanting needs, as they were at the time. You may find it useful to read my profile, as it is heavily focused on my formative childhood memories, most of them pretty bleak I am afraid to say.

  As for specifics such as being made to stand outside of the assembly while the whole school files passed me, was nothing short of child abuse in my opinion. I was put in an environment to not only learn academically, but also socially as well. One tends to go hand-in-hand yet no thought was put into my personal phycological well being, by the congregation. I failed miserably academically, as a direct result of my low self-esteem, brought about by being in the organisation as a child. I remember being shouted at by various teachers who took my “stand” for Jehovah as belligerence. Children are gifted at observing the behaviour of the adults around them, and will happily turn on the pack mentality, if they see you as different or less than. It was horrible. Fortunately I was gifted in music, and was able to channel my alien persona into the middle ground of being artistic, and this was easier to digest by the very working class children I grew up with.

  I was unable to make real friends, and certainly not encouraged to make “worldly” friends anyway. My school holidays were very lonely times. Maybe things would have been different if I had not been in a divided household. Life is very relative, and I did fell guilt that I felt so crap yet, I was constantly given stories via the article of brothers and sisters in foreign lands, who would walks a million miles a day just to the meetings etc, This only added to my low self esteem.

  Regards

  Paul
• 

  undercover

  Raised in the organization

  For those of you who were raised in the organization could
  
  you provide some insight as to what the life of one of
  
  Jehovah's Witnesses was like having been born into it?

  What was it like not participating in sports, holidays and
  
  school activities in general?

  School was a difficult time for me. Being the only JW kid in the entire school until I was in the 7th grade made life hard during holidays especially. The other kids couldn't understand why I couldn't do Xmas or Halloween (which I secretly loved more than the rest). High school was even worse in some ways. Even though there were other JWs, it made it hard to live the double life, which I was attempting, miserably. Voting for class presidents, holidays, pep rallys, ball games, school dances...all forbidden, though I did learn how to sneak into pep rallies and attend ball games. I became a loner, because I couldn't join any sports activities, I couldn't join any clubs, so I just learned to entertain myself and be happy in my loneness.

  In the congregation, I had friends but they were limited. I lived on the outskirts of the territory and it was hard for my parents to cart me around to other JW kids homes to play, just as it was hard for their parents to bring them out to where we lived. Until I got my driver's license and was able to drive into town, I spent a lot of alone time. I wasn't allowed to play with the neighborhood kids. And to them I was that weird "Jehovah kid" and they didn't want me around anyway. As I got older and the JW teens started hanging out, I made more friends, but because my parents were more strict than theirs were, I was not always welcomed into their events. It was like I was a narc or something. So again, I enjoyed the social activities that I shared in and I did make some friends that I'm still friends with today, but I spent a lot of time alone.

  That's a trait that I have carried with me through life. I can have fun in social settings, but I cherish my alone time and am quite happy to be alone and not have to worry about the social pressures. Having left the "truth", I rarely get calls for "gatherings" or the like from the JWs. I do get them, but not often.

  It's interesting to see all the JW kids I grew up with today. They were always in trouble for one thing or another while growing up, while I never got really busted for anything. To them, I was a goody two shoes (not really, but I was better at covering my tracks than they were). But they're still in the "truth" today raising kids (sort of) in the same BS we were raised in. They're robot drones of the WTS and don't seem to have a clue at what's happened to themselves, while the kid who made MS first, who was always praised by the elders, who was going to be an elder, is now inactive and caring on as a worldly person. They couldn't figure me out then, they can't figure me out n

  Finding out it was not real

  Having been taught that the religion was the truth
  
  since birth, what was your reaction on finding out
  
  that it was not the "truth."

  Finding out it was not real was a journey more than an sudden awakening. I always had some doubts, even while growing up. But, as a good little dubbie, I suppressed those doubts and kept plugging along.

  After getting married, I became inactive, not so much because of doubts but due to laziness and being overburdened with my new life in general. A couple of families took us in and got us re-involved and we became super-dubs for awhile. But even in the midst of that, I still had some doubts but I ignored them. I also ignored the abuse of some of the elders over the R&F.

  But as I became an MS again, and started being included in more and more congregation and circuit operations, I started seeing the ugly underbelly of the system. Then the generation teaching changed in 95. Then, by chance, we had a particularly oppressive CO who, almost single handedly, pushed me out the door with his dogmatism and facism. I guess I should thank him, but he was a bastard.

  The doubts started surfacing, I started putting two and two together, I started researching on my own. Even then, I didn't make the break. I just became irregular, got deleted as an MS, quit going in service, but still made at least two meetings a week.

  As I researched I did the big no-no...I searched "Jehovah's Witnesses" on the Internet. I found this place right off, but stayed away. This was an apostate board, full of haters of Jehovah. I may have had some issues, but I wasn't going to listen to people who just wanted bitch and moan. As I searched more and more, this site kept coming up in my searches.

  I finally started reading some of the posts. I saw myself in many of the people here. But there were some who seemed to be just looking to hate. I read some, lurked some, kept up my research in other areas. But certain things needed input from people who understood where I was coming from. The 607/587 research was interesting but secularly there wasn't anything on 607.

  Another thing was, if the WTS was wrong, was it wrong on purpose or did the GB believe what they were teaching? Was it an honest attempt at trying to please God? That was a big thing to me then, now I don't really care, but then it seemed to make a diffeernce in whether I would stay or go.

  I made my first post, nervous as hell. I got many nice responses along with a couple of accusations of being a troll. I continued my research on-line and some in the library. I read the hell out of JW publications to see the doctrinal changes and the flip flops and the outright deceit.

  It was a hard time for a while. I doubted my doubting. I doubted that I was sane. I doubted everything. Some days I was sure that I had been duped. Other days, well maybe I needed to readjust my thinking. It was a three steps forward, two steps back kinda thing. There were days that I shut myself off from the world to dwell on this.

  I'm an all or none kind of person, be that good or bad, and I wanted closure. If the JWs were wrong, I wanted it proven and I wanted it known and I'm moving on. Well, I learned that that ain't gonna happen. While I've proven to myself they're wrong, I will never be able to prove to all of my family and friends that they're wrong and I've got to accept that and deal with it as I can. Since I want to keep my family, I've learned to temper my distrust of the WTS and keep a lot of what I know to myself until such times when I can drop a hint or two or get a minor point across.

  So today, I'm out for good, but with most of my family still in, I have to deal with JW issues. I come here for group support, to know others are like me and we understand each other (and to see what new scandal will erupt or what "big announcments" are made). I know what's going on in the bOrg before any of my family ever does. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
• 

  Nowman

  I hated being a JW and put on an act from the age of 9-17. It appeared I was the good JW daughter of an elder and pioneer, but inside I dreamed of leaving and I did alot of things behind my parents back. To make something clear, when I look back, I was not a bad kid. The things I did behind my parents back had nothing to do with sex or drugs, I just wanted to normal kid stuff. At first, I was allowed to hang out with kids from school, but as I got older, those ties were cut off by my parents. I was not allowed to hang out with certain kids at the KH, in the org.

  They were so strict, I never felt that I could stand up to them. I was beaten until I was almost 17 years old. What was I beat for? Or had 8 inches cut off my hair because my mother wanted to show me some humility? Because I took clothes my parents bought me and hid them in my school bag, and changed at school. A JW told on me, that I went to school with, a year later he murdered his parents. There was no comfort during my teens, just 100% lack of understanding.

  I also had to sit between my parents at meetings. I felt smothered 100% during my teens. I finally decided to be a good JW to avoid the grief and humiliation. Then I made my plan to escape, I left on a Monday while I was a regular pioneer, went out in service all day, said "see you at home, mom", and I never went back. Sure, my parents had me come meet with them, but I sat there in the middle of the night for 3 hours listening to them share scriptures from the bible while I sat there in silence. I felt very sorry for them and despite what they put me through, I still loved them. But, I had to leave in a cold way otherwise I would have given into them. That was the only time I ever stood up to them, that is why it was probably so shocking, I never felt I could talk to them about how I felt. When I tried, I was just beat down.

  The good news is, my mom is no longer a JW, we did not see or speak to each other for 8 years, I am so thankful to have her back in my life. I feel bad for her, because when we talk, I can hear the guilt in her voice, and I always tell her, its OK, the past was the past. As for my father, he is still a die hard JW, have not spoke with him since Oct 1992, and I wonder if he will look back on his life and wonder if it was fulfilling? Dad, you go ahead and keep living that life, I want no part of it. Frankly, I think this org made you mentally ill.

  Nikki