I guess it's about time I write my story. I've put this off for a long time... primarily becuase, while I thought my story was bad, I've read so many worse and heart-rending stories here. I think, though, there is some therapeutic value in 'letting it all out' with others who know what 'it' was like. I'll start at the end, and then jump back to the beginning. I've been 'out' for two years now—instant fade, not DF. I was raised in the religion, baptized in '84, went through the usual JW progression of 'spiritual progress': aux-pioneer, reg-pioneer, get married, kids, MS, elder. What I was really doing, I see now, was trying to validate my worth as an individual by confirming to somebody else's standards and expectations. I'd been conditioned since youth that nothing I ever did would be good enough to please those in power... and I kept reaching and stretching to try to be 'accepted' and 'worthy', but, of course, I never was.
Some of this story I will present 'as I knew it then'; the things I learned, which changed my viewpoint on relationships with family members, will be revealed as I learned them.
Part I
My earliest memories were not good ones. My mother and father fought a lot. Both were Witnesses, though only my father's family was JW's. My mother was a foster-child... her foster parents were also JW's, but her siblings and real parents (who she maintained contact with) were not.
I remember moving from place to place, as my folks tried to make ends meet. Dad was always spending money on himself, little on us. He had a boat, motorcycle(s), took trips to Hawaii, but we had a one-wage-earner income, a little one at that, and little food on the table. The house was always dirty and we often fended for ourselves for food and things, even as I was just five years old with three younger siblings, Mom was depressed over all the fighting and abuse, and would drown her depression with alcohol, which didn't help the situation.
Some scattered memories:
We would go out on Dad's boat; he hit my Mom so hard she fell OFF the boat... I was crying, my aunt was threatening to kill him if he laid another hand on her sister or us kids.
All of us kids being in the hospital for several weeks, deathly ill with salmonella poisoning from eating off unwashed plates. We all survived (unfortunately?).
Mom trying to get away from Dad on one of his motorcycles... and losing control at the curve behind our house as she sped away, and going full speed into a large old growth of blackberry bushes... she was pretty cut up when they got her out of there.
Being moved from aunt to aunt, to foster-grandparents, as my folks worked through their issues. The foster-grandparents I dearly loved... they were them gem of our little lives. Auntie also protected us... she was not a JW, but loved us like kids should be loved.
Dad used to tell me that he and Mom were special pioneers in Kansas before they got pregnant with me—that he had plans to be a circuit overseer and I ruined that for him. He actually called me, repeatedly, his "little circuit breaker." He was serving as a ministerial servant while we were babies.
Mom and Dad eventually divorced, after just six or seven years of marriage—I was just six at the time. Dad blamed the divorce on walking in on Mom having sex with another man while they were in Hawaii (yeah, he told us kids all about it). Of course, he'd done nothing wrong.
Mom and Auntie had us kids, or took us kids—not sure which, as I got one story from Dad and another from Mom—and we spent a year running from Dad, hiding us from his whereabouts. A step-cousin, male, tried to molest me sexually, but I told him NO! I remember missing Dad, wondering what had happened to him, as time went on. Things were safe with Mom, but not good (her drinking, money problems).
One day while playing in the courtyard of the apartments with my brother and two sisters, I heard a familiar voice calling my name. It was Dad, over by the fence... he'd found us. In short order, and some court appearances, he'd proved Mom to be unfit as a mother, and regained custody of us, while Mom got bi-weekly visitation on the weekends.
Dad used his victory to prove he'd been justified before Jehovah, that he'd done nothing wrong with us kids... otherwise, he reasoned, Jehovah would not have let him win in court. This 'victory' simply emboldened the monster.
He took us to meetings, and used us kids as his 'sob story' to gain attention from the sisters... and he did play them. I remember him having sisters over, and him going to their house... and they'd get into doing things that unmarried people weren't supposed to do, and I was old enough to know something wasn't right. When I walked in on him with a sister named Cathy, I was told to keep quiet, or else he'd make sure I kept quiet.
Fast forward a few months—Dad had attracted the attention of the woman who would become my step-mother—and step-monster. I apparently aided in this effort when I approached her at a gathering and, as they tell it, 'looked up at her with puppy eyes and asked 'do you have a daddy?'. She was recently divorced, and had two girls. She'd make Dad apple pies and leave them in the bed of his pickup truck.
They decided to get married, but the elders warned her to stay away from him, as there was pending judicial action on him. She ignored their warnings, married Dad in front of a civil judge, and the following meeting he was disfellowshipped—for his affair(s) with the sisters and for lying to the elders about it when they inquired. Nice way to start off a new marriage.
New-Mom stayed with him, though... and we now had six in the house—two boys and four girls. I entered elementary school, and enjoyed the time I had at school. Home was not an enjoyable place to be, and just got worse as I grew older. As the oldest, I was held out as the example, expected to "set the bar" for my siblings. If I strayed at all, I was disciplined, often severely or irrationally.
It's worth mentioning here that me, my younger brother, and the oldest step-sister all had bedwetting issues... this was a problem that persisted into the teens, and will play a factor later in the discipline area.
Somewhere along the line, Dad and New-Mom instituted "3-day restriction". For any transaction, such as fibbing, not cleaning your room adequately, wetting the bed, we'd be put on "3-day restriction".
"3-day restriction" consisted of no family or social activity outside of school. If you wet the bed on a Friday, this meant you went to school, then when you got home you were "on your bed" for the rest of the weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). Having an accident over the weekend extended the punishment accordingly. Obviously, we got creative at ways to "hide" the bedwetting, which would incur longer punishments for lying if we got caught. "3-day restriction" meant the only thing you were allowed to do, for three days, was read the Society's literature, particularly bound volumes... I grew to love the Awake!, as the WT volumes were so dry... at least the Awake!s had interesting stories about animals and places and people.
No toys, no dessert, no talking with anybody else, even those you shared the room with. If they got caught talking to you, they were put on restriction, too. (see why I liked going to school?!) We had family on New-Mom's side that we'd go visit, because they had a pool. I never ONCE in all the years we visited got to actually go swim in the pool. They'd leave me sitting in a dark room, on restriction, and I'd just lay there and cry myself to sleep. No matter how good I'd been, something would serve to get me in trouble enough to be on restriction while we traveled.
After a while, New-Mom and Dad found a nice big house to buy, and we moved to a new home and new congregation/Kingdom Hall in the same town. I was hoping things might improve with the change of scenery, the big house, etc. I was wrong.
Part II to come...