ok for some reason i can't sleep tonight and feel like writing so i'm gonna tell my story of how i got to this point.
ahhhhm. I was born into the "truth" . both of my parents were pioneers and my father was an elder. I am one of 6 kids. growing up my father was over-strict like most witness parents. But in my case my father was actually abusive physically and verbally. I didn't think anything of it because that was all i knew. and of course my father was highly favored in the congregation. I remember people calling from the congregation asking my dad for advise on how to raise their children because he was such a good father and we were so good at the meetings. he was a different man at home. i remember him choking my brothers and slapping my mom. Throwing plates at us and calling me worthless. he would tell me that i wasn't a good person in Jehovah's eyes. i've blocked a lot of my childhood as far back as i can remember i was about 10 or 11. after growing older and seeing actual happy families i realized this was not the way it should be so i talked to my mother. she told me she had gone to the elders about my fathers abuse many times and they talked to him. and i would ask... "why is he still doing it then?" she never had a good answer. I found out later that every single one of the kids had gone to the elders except for me and my younger brother. so then of course i wondered why? why is he still able serve as an elder? looking into it a little more i was told by my siblings that when they went to the elders they told them that "he was a good father and he's only trying to do the right thing. maybe you should help around the house a little more and help him out. he's a very hard working man." (he had told them that we were lazy kids) ok... so being the stupid brain washed little kid i was i thought well they must be right they're God's spokesmen after all! but little by little it got worse and nothing was done. all of us even asked my mother to devorce him and she said she couldn't because that wasn't grounds for devorce according to jehovah. so we were stuck. the elders were on dad's side and mom wasn't going to protect us. so it was really rough growing up in that house. finally after my brother got disfellowshiped my father stepped down as an elder. Then all hell broke loose. he began getting even more depressed and eventually became disabled. My father has been diagnosed with fibro mialgia, bipolar depression, a thiroid problem and diabedies. now that he was disabled my mother had to take over the business and work full time. i was about 15 when this happend. I was in 9th grade. I was in my rebelious phase. i was very very depressed. i began cutting myself. at the time i didn't know why. it just felt better than how i felt inside. i hid it very well. i also began having sex at school with guys much older than me. i thought of suicide all the time. finally my sister noticed my cuts on my arm and rist and went to my parents about it. my doctor told me to see a therapist and my parents of course went to the elders and they told them that it might not be a good idea because a therapist is only going to give me worldly advise but my doctor convinced them i needed it. so i went to a therapist and through us talking something came out. I finally told her that i had been sexually molested by my brother for 5 years. from the time i was 5 to 10. so then she of course had to ta;k to my parents and i stopped going to the therapist after that. my father decided to press charges against my brother and then we went to the elders. they told me that they wouldn't go to the police about it because it would probably get out and it could give Jehovah a bad name. But they had already gone to the police so that couldn't be helped. at that point i still was too stupid to stop and think "Wow this is really screwed up" after that i confessed all the things i had done like having sex and doing drugs. and they told me since i wasn't baptised yet it was ok and that i could just start over with a clean slate. then i started feeling really guilty for the thoughts and actions i had done and so i decided the only way to make jehovah and my parents forgive me was to do everything they wanted me to do, i at leaste owed that to them so i did... i got baptized and began pioneering. i was the young example every parent wanted their kids to turn out to be. lol then when katrina hit New Orleans people were coming through texas from the super dome and one of our elders asked us to volenteer to go to this rest stop and stand at this booth giving out watchtower and awakes. so being the little pre-missionary i was i jumped at that chance. That was the best decision of my life. Me and my mom took the 4am shift and when we got there i met this nice brother who had evacuated from new orleans. my mom was pushing me on him saying "oh what a nice looking brother... tall and handsome" I had no interest in men right now i'm gonna stay a single pioneer forever!!!! but i started talking to him and eventually he asked me for my number. so i hesitated but gave him my cell number. the next day he calls and invited me to a get together that their having at the place him and his family was staying for the storm. so me and my sister went. then he asks me if he can call me again and of course by this time i was smitten! lol ok we start really talking and getting to know each other and i could tell at first he didn't think like all the others. we started talking about the truth and for the first time i wasn't afraid to voice my concerns about it and ask my questions about it because he had been doing research and already decided to leave the wts. so i continued to do exactly what everyone thought i should until they found out i was dating this man. then everyone... and i mean EVERYONE turned against me. it was crazy. when i started to fight for my happiness everything fell apart. my dad started yelling again calling me worthless, hopeless, told me Jehovah wasn't on my side anymore, told me that i was going to be miserable for the rest of my life, he even had the balls to use what happend to me when i was younger with my brother against me. so i decided to resign as a pioneer and i moved to New Orleans. I moved here in July of 06. I never even told my parents that i have left the "truth". the months after i moved were the worst. everytime i talked to anyone in my family it would leave me curled up crying on my bed. they would say such horrible things. my mom actually told me that if i didn't change my thinking that she could not ,in good conscience, treat me like a daughter. then i just recently found out that they bailed my brother out of jail and offered for him to live with them for a while. the brother that took my inocence, ruined my childhood, and refuses to feel sorry for it. At this point i'm sorry if i sound like a bitch but i want NOTHING to do with my family. so after all that happend i started looking at different websites for support. i was so lost. i didn't know what to do and then i found this website. now i'm just now starting to put the peices together. i'm starting to heal. it feels good to get to tell my story finally without feeling guilty. so i'm gonna finally live my life for me not according to what everyone else thinks i should be. i'm gonna be happy and free and be able to think the way i want to. For the first time i have friends around me that love me for me. that's a weird feeling. i didn't know what to think at first. lol. now i see what a bad place the wts is. Meeting my husband is the best thing that ever happend to me. because of that i am free and happy now. That is the only positive thing that has turned out from me being involved with the witnesses. We just got married in Febuary. Febuary 18th to be exact. anyway thanks for reading if ,you got this far, and sorry it was so long. :)