by Band on the Run 37 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
Many witnesses were complete lunatics back in the day. There is no denying the sexism, racism, and class distinctions that existed and continue to exist among these basket cases. Abuse recall is not always 100% accurate. But if I may use a phrase that is familiar to most of us:
Substance is sufficient.
Wow, thanks for the story and welcome to the board.
Band on the Run, welcome to the board! Your story sounds completely believable to me. I am impressed by your thinking abilities now. You are a strong person. Yes welcome!
Anewme
Wow that is defiantly before my time (I'm born in 1985), to think that all happened just seem so crazy... what went on at that time. But as far as your personal abuse I can truely simpathize. I too was a victim of my dad's abuse... as well as my mother being a victim, who still holds on to the hurt to this day! She speaks out freely about the abuse but it's so embarressing to me... she tells everyone... but I guess she will never get over it completely. I just wish she can let go ... let go of the religion that abused her as well. I see it but she always makes excuses for them and then says when the end comes God will take care of things, for now we just have to be thankful we have a guidance/organization that God gave us, it the closest to perfection we are going to get. (I think man why why, if only I could gave her more confidance in God alone not in these organization)
boy what a life so far, its hard to find words, i hope you find your way to happiness, find yourself dont try to find god.
i wish you well.
BOTR, Welcome!!
I read your account and felt bad for what you went through. I will admit though that I have a difficult time imagining a Bethelite at an assembly making out with a girl while in the audience AND removing his belt so your little sister could be beaten. Maybe, it's just not something I can imagine, but that's me.
Welcome Band on the Run! Thank you for sharing your story - I'm so sorry you went through all that abuse. That is awful! Good for you for being much stronger than that!
In line with Rutherford's comment above, I was talking with my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago and she said her mom said to her that a brother from the platform said that "all women are is a hunk of hair and bones with skin on top." That comment is seared into her memory. It's this misogynistic attitude that makes men feel they have the right to harm women and children. It is vile, despicable and evil. Although these blatant comments are not made, the very obvious class distinction and the supression of women is very much there. I'd say that 80% of the women in the hall that I used to go to were alcholics, suffered severe depression and were taking antidepressants and anxiety pills. It's so sad. I hope they wake up.
I wish you peace and healing. Take good care.
Hadit
The "hank of hair" comment came from Rutherford. He had very little respect for women and his attitude as women being lesser creatures still influences the mindset of WT/JW leaders.
As a professional working with adults who were abused as children it was never my job to validate their memories. I wasn't there to see what happened. My job was to help them deal with those memories.
For me, here, I do the same. it isn't my job to tell anyone what they recall is wrong. I have heard so many horror stories and lived my own to know the evil that lives in the hearts of some abusers.
We can never recover if we are not allowed to "speak our truth". BOTR I am glad you felt it was time to "speak your truth"
What happened is objective fact, backed by documentation at the social service agency, my family and friends of the time. It is not my truth. Rather, it is truth. Evidence classes usually have stranger(s) run into the class and engage in a physical altercation in front of the law students. It is revealed that it is staged. The students are immediately asked to write down what happened. Everyone has a different version. Yet, despite this, society allows judges and juries to be triers of fact. It happened way above a reasonable doubt. I'm not an infant incapable of distinguishing reality from fantasy.
Another factor is the therapy bills. Within the past few years, I've met other adults who were abused as child. Certain personality traits are associated with a chaotic, violent background. Extreme religiosity with any religion seems to breed abuse. I repeat that I don't blame JW. My father's closest friend, a fellow Bethelite, also believe in the Biblical subjugation of women. He was meek and adored his wife. School friends of mine would meet them for only a few moments and then remark what a wonderful couple they were. A religion that does not respect half the human race, Arabic Middle Eastern states come to mind, allow abuse to flourish.
My story is not "over the top" when compared to other documentated stories of abused children. Abusers murder their children and sit in prison forever -- until other inmates take them down. My goal was to work with domestic violence organizations. My credentials would be an asset. A local group suggested I ride around in a squad car as police make rounds or teach police how to deal with d.v. The topic hurts me so much I become incapcitated.
Freud's psychoanalytic theory was shaped by the stories of sexual abuse he heard from patients. He would not believe such stories were true. Freud theorized certain Oedipal and Elektra drives to account for the telling of these tales. Today research scientists believe Freud's patients underreported their abuse. I fervently pray that this was "my truth." "My truth" is how I've dealth with it. It is a complex mess. The values I project on my memories are "my truth."
It is my belief that the Roman Catholic Church's culture of celibacy and authority vested in a priest, a mere mortal human, encourages a doting parish where different lines are drawn for priests. The Church's lawyers did more than advocate for their client. They engaged in a scorched earth policy. The cover-up is more morally objectionable than the actual pedophile acts. My father was exposed to Rutherford's hatred of women during his twenties and thirties. No religion can patrol its member's private conduct. The Witnesses do try. From my vieiwpoint the Witnesses were primarily a religion of black women with few, highly sought after males. Girls rule! -- as do boys.
Band
I didn't mean for one minute to suggest that your experience wasn't real. Even two children in the same family, experiencing the same things will attach different meanings and feelings to "their truth"
Freud's psychoanalytic theory was shaped by the stories of sexual abuse he heard from patients. He would not believe such stories were true. Freud theorized certain Oedipal and Elektra drives to account for the telling of these tales. Today research scientists believe Freud's patients underreported their abuse.
Actually Freud knew exactly what was happening to children. At the Saltpeterie, a Paris hospital, he attended many autopsies of small children who had been raped, beaten and then murdered. He knew. He saw the destroyed bodies with his own eyes. It wasn't until after he had been working with young women who talked about the sexual abuse they experienced at their hands of family members that he wrote his initial document about the sexual abuse of his pateients that he wrote his Oedipal Complec theory.
In this initial paper titled "The Aetiology of Hysteria" Frued correctly theorized that victims of early childhood sexual abuse often repressed the memory as a defense mechanism. What often surfaced was not the meory of the abuse but rather what he termed hysterical long term effects (we now refer to as psycho-somatic) manifestations of the abuse. He also theorized that the repressed abuse was also responsible for the many obsessions and neuroses found in his patients.
Freud was correct in that paper but when he presented it to the medical community of the time, his peers and often the fathers of his patients, there was an uproar and Frued was effectively disfellowshipped, if you like the term, from the medical community. His only way back into their good graces was to recant his theory and that is when he wrote his Oedipal Complex theory.
And for the the next 100 years the sexual abuse of small children remained a myth. Thank you Dr. Freud. :( This is all well documented in a book titles Assault on Truth by Jeffrey Masson who was given access to Frued's archived materials and found the proof of his initial work. My paper on this can be found at http://lee_hardiman.tripod.com/freud.html
