Theocratic parental horror stories

by vikesgirl101 22 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  vikesgirl101

  So I am reading my new favorite book "I'm perfect, you're doomed" and the flashbacks have started. This book is like my childhood all over again. Anywho, it reminded me of the horror stories my parents would create. To get us kids to sit still at the meetings, my mom would say "Remember what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back, and did not look straight ahead?"

  My question is this: Did other parents have strange ways of making you abide by their rules like mine did? If so, what did they say/do?
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  vikesgirl101

  This is so in the wrong thread. Sorry. I don't know how to move it to the right topic.
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  Scully

  I moved it to Child Abuse, because all that scriptural intimidation of children in an effort to get them to behave is most certainly abusive.
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  Nosferatu

  My mother's favorite saying was "Don't do it for me, do it for Jehovah." Whenever she needed me to do something, I had to do it for Jehovah. When I didn't want to go door to door, she'd give me that line.

  I remember the Saturday morning I didn't want to get out of bed and go in field service. My mother told me "Don't do it for me, Do it for Jehovah." This particular morning, I didn't feel like doing it for Jehovah. She came back and said, "Let me put it this way, do it or else you're going to GET IT."

  Right then I knew doing it for Jehovah was all bullshit.
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  OUTLAW

  Wow!!..Scully..You hit the nail on the head.....

  When I was a toddler..

  I got the shit beat out of me in the Kingdom Hall parking lot..

  I screamed so loud..The Dubs inside the Kingdom Hall complained..

  .................................OUTLAW
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  Scully

  I don't have the book to which you are referring, but I remember something that my dad used to say, in the most disgusted and judgemental tone he could muster, whenever he wanted to guilt me into behaving the way he wanted: "And you call yourself a Jehovah's Witness!"

  He actually did it a couple of times directed at other JWs too - but not where they could hear him. I remember he muttered it when someone cut him off and took a parking space he'd been waiting for at a District Convention™.

  And then there were the "reminders" about Dinah going down to Shechem and getting raped when Worldly™ boys called the house for me. Or the paranoia they induced about Worldly™ kids and how they were going to force me to use drugs and have sex, as I was preparing to start high school. I was so distraught that I cried myself to sleep in terror the night before my first day in high school.

  And then there were the stupid Theocratic™ "poems" about associating with/marrying non-JWs. And the threats that they wouldn't come to (or finance) my wedding if I married a non-JW. The current standoff involves me not being allowed to see the children of my JW sibling.

  With all that ongoing colossal mindfarking happening, in retrospect I really can't understand why I even wanted to maintain a relationship with my JW family members.
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  Hopscotch

  Now that I am out and able to look back on my JW childhood with open eyes, I can see that my parents and no doubt many other JW parents as well used the fear and guilt tactics common to the WTS as a means of controlling and disciplining us, instead of good parenting skills.

  There was always a fear instilled into us that we needed to learn to be very obedient in every little issue so that when (not if) the time of persecution came we would not give in under pressure, even under torture. We constantly had those horrible experiences in the yearbooks and awake about the witnesses in Germany or Malawi etc read to us to reinforce this tactic. I lived in constant dread of being tortured or watching my family being tortured for our faith.

  Another thing that was constantly instilled into us to keep us in a state of fear and guilt was that Jehovah can see everything. Yes every little thing that we may do wrong, he is watching. And we had to remember that all day, every day, we were a Jehovah's Witness and therefore if we did wrong it would bring reproach on Jehovah's name.

  Hopscotch
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  dinah

  I hated all those stories of disobedience. Remember Lot's wife, remember Dinah!

  I detested the whole Dinah story. It was used against me everytime a boy called, or I wanted to go to a party. Bad association, ya know. *barf*

  Scully, you moved this thread to the right section. Being bombarded with stories of death and destruction constantly from birth IS child abuse. The constant fear of displeasing a bloodthirtsy God is alot to put on a small child's shoulders.

  Then you move on to your teen years and they tighten the screws.
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  NINfan05

  when i was like 3 or 4, i have vivid memories of my dad praying with me when it was time for bed...one night he wanted me to say my own prayer out loud. i was embarassed cuz i didnt know what to say...hes proceeds to yell at me and forces me to say a prayer even though i begged him not to make me.
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  brinjen

  I think I was around 5 when my mother used the story of a child who didn't obey their parents enough, Jehovah TM saw the child being disobedient and killed the child. Gave me nightmares.

  And of course Dinah and how the little vixen got what she asked for... hanging with worldly TM people like that, heard that one a lot when I made friends with worldly boy at around age 12.