WERE HERE ANY DYSFUNCTIAL FAMILIES IN YOUR CONGREGATIOON?

by badboy 21 Replies latest jw friends

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  sweetface2233

  Have enough people made fun of the typo and grammatical error? Every single person on this board does it. It happens. Can we move on and address the question?

  I can't speak for anyone else's family, because you never know what goes on behind a closed door. I only know what happened in my family. Were we dysfunctional? I would have to say no. Although my mother was the primary care giver and I rarely saw my father, all 3 of us kids live a very normal and healthy lifestyle. Everyone, including both parents, are the happiest we've ever been.
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  Jeffro

  Mine. Don't feel like going into detail about it here though.
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  WTWizard

  Most, if not all, were in some way. I studied with one that was blatantly dysfunctional. They were fairly newly married, and the husband always pushed service to the point of creating stress for everyone else. He had two boys, and they were raised inconsistently. Subsequently he got disfellowshipped (evidently for adultery), splitting the family. Later he got reinstated, went inactive for a time, went back and forth, got disfellowshipped again, and went back. Imagine what the kids had to go through: strict meeting attendance for a time (usually just when it would do the most long-term harm) and no meeting attendance at other times.

  Even the normal appearing families had hidden problems. None of them celebrate any holidays. None of them allow normal activities with worldly people. They never break up the stagnation of going door to door. They make children sit on calls that, at their ages, seem like afternoon-wasters. Play time is non-existent because field circus takes it all away. So much time is usurped by field circus that it creates excess stress on everyone. They have to fake happiness all the time, adding even worse stress. I wonder how many of those children reach the age of 8 or 9 and HATE being Jehovah's Witnesses above and beyond the many rational reasons for it, and yet are forced into it.
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  jaguarbass

  I dont think anybodies family was like Ward and June Cleaver on Leave it to beaver. Or Ozzie and Harriet. I suspect all families are somewhat dysfunctional.

  Any family that goes to meetings 3 times a week for 5 hours is unusual.

  Given that most families are home watching the boob tube.

  Like I've said before. 80% of my witness associates from the 60-70's are divorced.

  That says something about not functioning.

  Divorce rates are high outside of the wac tower.

  The witnesses were not better than the so called worldly people they preached down to.
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  badboy

  I AM HAVING DIFFICULTY WITH PRESSING D AND F.
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  greendawn

  As you can see it wasn't difficult to figure out that you meant dysfunctional families.
  
  I suppose it differs from place to place and country to country, there weren't any in the congo I attended but perhaps in others there were many. It depends on many factors some of which may have been there in a family before they became JWs.
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  Jeffro

  (oh, nevermind)
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  SacrificialLoon

  Oh yeah, mine was quite disfunctional.
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  Effervescent

  I think nowaday, dysfunction is the new "normal".

  But, I think the difference in the Congregations was, they spent so much time convincing themselves that everything was peachy keen, and keeping the big fake smiles on, that problems were never really addressed. I know in my family it was certainly true, and come to find out in others it was too... you'd see them sitting in a row at the meetings, going out in service together and acting like the perfect family for all it's worth. But behind closed doors there was often abuse, neglect and other emotional/mental issues going on.

  I can remember wanting to gag when my elder father gave talks on how to have perfect little families. Talking about love and how to encourage your children. Then take us home and paddle us black and blue with a huge wooden paddle, or allow our stepmother to scream at us and call us terrible names, pinch us, throw us around etc.

  Heaven forbid we actually admit there was a problem though. We were 'God's Happy People' after all.
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  NYCkid

  One of my old congregations was the epitome of dysfunctional. Several step family combos, a few whose divorced spouses had been reinstated and then remarried...boy that was uncomfortable, and then the brother with the metal plate in his head who would lay down on the floor behind the last row during every meeting to relieve his headaches. Also the mentally disabled women in town who someone called on one day and ended up converting, she never had so many friends and somehow my family always got stuck with transporting her to meetings and assemblies (a few other familes were too good to be bothered), the child molester (he converted to JWs while in prison and then eventually was released - he was a real creep). Several families with 5 or more children, somehow they either didn't know about, could not afford, or did not believe in birth control. Oh and then the elder who never learned to read really and sitting through his talks was excrutiatingly painful...but bless his heart, he did try his best. - I kid you not, I could not make any of this up.

  I used to wonder why our congregation never hosted the District Overseer or had an opportunity to do the drama...now I know why....LOL But my mother and others seemed to pride themselves in having a dysfunctional congregation because "Jehovah draws those who are down and out, not the educated rich people who don't need Jehovah." Post-JW membership, we all know the real reason...you'd have to be a self-hating crazy person to believe the WTBTS crap. Wishing them all well in their dysfunctional bliss.

  Best,

  NYCkid