Hello all!
My name is Dave.
I was raised among the witnesses and left in my early 30's due to a mixture of doctrinal disputes and social isolation. My mother and both of my sisters remain within the organization. I also have two brothers, one DF'd, one who never quite caught the Watchtower bug.
My road within the organization was a rocky one that eventually lead to a place where I found myself socially isolated within the congregation as a person simply unfit for fellowship with proper, upright, theocratic people who must cut off all 'worldy' association, suffer the ensueing isolation, and eat humble pie until such a time as they determined I was 'spiritual minded' enough for THEM to associate with.
Baptism was held up as my expected goal, but despite trying, I was never quite good enough for them. Didn't THAT turn out to be a blessing in disguise!
I guess I was just never able to surrender enough, to feel completely comfortable that what I was seeing and reading was really allright. I didn't exactly fit their mold, and had the nerve not to conform well enough for them.
It left me in a desperate state of depression.
The final straw for me was when an elder actually said I should stop asking to be baptized and equated my depression with mental retardation by saying "as a retarded person, you can't BE baptized, you are under your mother's grace."
The sheer impropriety of this statement floored me!
I was already sick of the constant make-work and heavy burden of meeting attendance and study, but they said I should be forsaking the gathering of ourselves together for upbuilding association. Then I would complain that I was a pariah and the would add that "we don't go to the meetings to make friends, we go to worship Jehovah."
The inherent dichotomy between these two statements was apparently lost on them as they seemed to believe each as fervently as the other.
So I faded.
Unbaptized, already despised, what had I to lose really.
My family held out hope for a time and then sadly shook their heads and remarked that it was a shame I was probably going to become a fornicating, drug using, criminal now, and my daughter was certainly destined for unwed teen motherhood under my worldly supervision.
The condescension was just so typical, it underwhelmed me.
So I had to start over in my thirties, and I was an isolated single dad with a disability, would I sink?
I had to rediscover and reinvent myself from the ground up and I am glad I did!
Although it was rough in spots, I got through and am happier than I ever thought possible! I have a woman who is perfect for me (as she says I am for her,) my daughter has grown into a woman I am so very very proud of, and I am humbly pleased with my progress as a human being as well.
Oddly enough, the only decent family contact I have is with my witness mother, and sister, and a non-witness niece. Although I know that if the watchtower told them to my mother and sister would shun me and I would be left with my niece as my only non-immediate family.
The rest of em, witness, DF'd, and never associated are such backbiting liars I wouldn't pee on em if they were on fire.
Not that I have an opinion.
Well, it's been nice introducing myself, now I can feel comfortable posting from time to time.
Thank you for your time,
Roller