I would like to hear your experiences with being SHUNNED

by jwfacts 71 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Hopscotch

  My husband, son and I faded around 4 years ago after 40+ years as JWs. For a couple of years nothing much was said to us by our JW families but they did slowly lessen the contact with us. Then just over 18 months ago my father (PO of his cong) started to really question us as to why we weren't going to meetings anymore. When we mentioned some of the issues we had with the WTS, the 'apostate' word started getting used by him. In December 08 my father visited us, in elder mode (shirt, tie and briefcase) to 'sort things out'. When he left he handed me the following letter from my brother. (I have erased names)

  This letter stabbed me to the heart as my brother and I had been very close. I had been giving him and his family a lot of help in many ways including financially, over the last 5 years and now he just coldly totally cuts me off by letter.

  On the 16th January last year my father gave me an ultimatum by phone - I had 3 hours to decide whether we were going to return to JWs or my family would cut me off. I rang back and told him we weren't going back and was then subjected to 1/2 hour of abuse, anger, lies etc and he told me I was satanic and as far as my family was concerned I was dead. And I have never seen or heard from them since. I seemed to spend most of last year going through a grieving process as it was if my entire family had been wiped out, but without the support that is usually available to a person when a tragedy literally wipes out their family. The pain is still quite raw and many times I have had dreams where my family wakes up to the lies of the WTS. I have lost my father (my mum died in 2005), my sister and her family (3 children, now young adults) and my brother and his family (2 young children).

  I think the most painful thing of all to me is that I am not df'd or da'd so my family have chosen to do this to me. Loyalty to the WTS over family has been ingrained into them very well. My son who is an only child now has no contact with his cousins, not to mention losing all his JW friends. He was in his mid teens when we left and was never baptised yet he has been cut off by all our families as well. He now has no grandparents, uncles, aunts or cousins.

  The JW policy of shunning family is a barbaric, evil practice that the WTS needs to be held accountable for.

  Hopscotch
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  jwfacts

  Boyzone and Aquagirl, those really are heartbreaking experiences. I dread the idea of attending a funeral of my relatives, as I will be treated like I'm leperous at a time I need most support.

  Sweet Pea. "I will facebook my old friends"

  I do the same, particularly to the people I know it will irritate the most. I would love them to get back to me even with a disparaging comment but they rarely do.
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  jwfacts

  I seemed to spend most of last year going through a grieving process as it was if my entire family had been wiped out, but without the support that is usually available to a person when a tragedy literally wipes out their family.

  That is so true.
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  jamiebowers

  @Moshe:

  I imagine the JWs at that hall had a party when moshe moved away a few months later.

  Well, probably not a party but at least a get together, LOL!

  I've been df'd for 20+ years and shunned completely by my mom. We've spoken a few times about family medical history and a death in the family. She also completely shuns my brother who is NOT da'd or df'd. If I outlive her, I will not attend her funeral. It hurts only when I think of the person she was before she became a jw. Otherwise, I have no desire to associate with her, as she is a mentally amd morally deficient person who failed to protect me from molestation and my brother from extreme emotional abuse when we were children. She also gladly went after me for a "confession" to adultery when she knew I was desperately trying to avoid any reason for contact with my estranged mentally ill, dangerously abusive jw husband.

  I have forgiven her for my own piece of mind. But even if she called me today for a visit, I would refuse. She is too dangerous and irresponsible to take the chance of her being around my kids and grandkids. The only way I would ever associate with her is if she renounced the Watchtower and its brainwashing ways. I do not shun her, because I make certain that she and all the jw relatives get an invitation to the family reunion. None of them ever shows up, which makes things easier for all of us df'd, faded heathens.
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  sweet pea

  (((hopscotch and family)))

  My heart goes out to you. So cruel and inhumane.
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  jookbeard

  similar stories to everyone here, I was DA'ed around 1995 and also separated from my JW wife and after moving a few miles down the road and living in the same place for 7 years did not get one phone call or visit in all this time, I had made a few non Dub friends who showed more concern and care about my welfare and those early days I was not feeling great about myself at all, very brief contact (and I mean brief) continued as my mum has terrible health problems, my father developed cancer and passed in 2005, and it was touch and go weather I was permitted to attend the bloody funeral, my brother in law (known here) grilled me on the actual way I was to have DA'ed which somehow affected my status to enable me to attend the funeral, the pathetic sad idiots from my old KH (Wimbledon) all shunned me that day yet the wife of one couple who we were very good friends with greeted me but her fornicating/materialistic double lifeing husband blanked me.Time is a huge healer I still get angry at times but have put all of those wasted years behind me.
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  palmtree67

  These experiences all make me very sad, too.

  I was df'ed in a city where I had never attended the Hall, so no one really knows who I am. I don't have to deal with being shunned very much.

  I did post this story before, though:

  The cleaning lady at work, was a JW and somehow found out I was a disfellowshipped person. She went to the Doctor I worked for and told him that since I was df'ed, she would not be speaking to me. There was very little, if ever, contact between her and I - as her work was done after we closed and I went home.

  I believe she just did this to be mean and spiteful and self-righteous.

  It backfired on her, though. The doctor was shocked and couldn't understand why she was telling him this. When he told me about it, he made the comment, "Palmtree, if that religion accepts people like her and not people like you, there's something really wrong with it."
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  jambon1

  I faded very, very quickly 4 years ago. Not d/f'd.

  Some witnesses in my area have taken it upon themselves to shun me so as to prove their uber faithfulness as a JW. These people sicken me.

  Interestingly, a number of witnesses have decided to 'flip-flop' shun me over the last few years. Sometimes they will let on to me & other times they will simply blank me etc. I grew very tired of this kind of treatment. It is frustrating trying to work out if a person is going to be friendly or not. So I decided to 'reverse shun' these individuals. This decision wasn't taken rashly. Rather it was a reaction to thier pettymindedness over a number of years.

  I can tell you that they don't like it at all. One brother who 'flip-flop' shuns me was walking by as I let my wife out of the car at the recent convention. He wished to speak to me that day & play the friendly witness role, probobly so as not to appear like a complete arsehole in front of my wife. I ignored him completely. Why should I take any part in his juvenile nonsense? Why should I validate this sad little mans self righteous bigotry? He knows why I ignored him.

  I have no time in my life for people who act in this manner.
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  Hopscotch

  Thank you sweetpea.

  What has helped me deal with this awful aftermath caused by us choosing freedom over slavery to the WTS has been the support available here on this board. And knowing there are so many others out there like us who have also been cut off by their families and have gone through the same pain and lonlieness we have, but they have been able to move on and make new friends and a happy life - that gives us hope.

  Hopscotch
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  moshe

  Now for the bad-

  After the separation and before the divorce was final, I moved out of our home, in the middle of a mobile home park we owned and into a small trailer on the far end of the park. My kids could stop over after school and say hello anytime they wanted (their mom was at work for 2 more hours), but they didn't. My son was 9 and my daughter was 11. One day I happened to run into them at Walmart. I attempted to talk to them and my son cut me off, " mom says we can't talk to you except on days when you have visitation", and they just looked down and walked away. That really cut me to the heart. After that episode, I resolved to move back to my old home in Illinois. At least when my kids visited me for holidays and summer vacation they wouldn't have to watch over their shoulder for their mom or a JW. They could have fun with their dad and not worry about getting in trouble for it. The first summer they went to some KH meetings , the next summer maybe a couple, but none after that. Their mom had basically stopped going to meetings by then, too.