Were You Ever Treated "Differently" Because One of Your Family Members Was Disfellowshipped?

by Was New Boy 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Was New Boy

  "By their Love".....

  Shunning in the "Borg" many times has effected not just the person that was DFed but other family members too.

  My father was DFed in 1962 for "rebeliousness against the organization" he wanted to go to a different KH than we were assigned to. Needless to say that decision was later reversed.

  That was strange, but how the witnesses treated my mother, sister and myself....was even stranger. It was as if.... we now had some kind of leprosy. We were not "shuned"..... but we definitely got the cold shoulder.....Weclome to the back of the bus.

  It was one of the reasons I became a super witness....poineering and bethel service. I wanted to prove to them all and myself ....I was worthy of their love.

  I got off the bus in 9/18/2001. On March 21, 2002, I was on the front page of Portland Oregon's news paper "The Oregonian" It described what it was like to leave the witnesses and what it was like to be shunned. My kids (who were still in at the time) ask me not to do the article.....they said let sleeping dogs lie.

  I told them "I publicly went into the organization....I was publicly going out."

  I glad I did. Because after the article came out their witnesses friends started to treat them like shit....their crime? You guessed it. They where my kids...guilt my association!

  They could see the real "truth" about the "truth."

  Now the are free too from the hypocrisy too.

  By there love....
• 

  watersprout

  My SIL d'associated herself in 2002... Carrot was treated terribly! His own family left him out because they said it would be wrong to have us there cause my SIL wouldn't be able to go. Carrot has two older brothers and they were always involved. Oh wait thats right, the middle brother was an elder (later stepped down due to pressure) and the eldest bro was married to an elders daughter. And Carrot was married to me, dad not an elder!

  Pathetic!

  Peace
• 

  Coffee House Girl

  I was always treated differently because my dad was baptized (back in the 1950's to marry my JW mom) but he never went to meetings...

  I was a "spiritual orphan" and was treated like a second-class citizen

  so I married a JW who became a ministerial servant, thinking that would change my status...and I was for the first time included in things (in the clique)

  then he DA'd and disappeared...I was orphaned again, this time though I was bad association and didn't qualify as "exemplary" because I got an "unscriptural divorce" in order to declare bankruptsy......

  its a crock of S*** and has damaged my ability to handle many social situations as I do not feel worthy to include myself in a group of friends

  CHG
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  aSphereisnotaCircle

  I was on the front page of Portland Oregon's news paper "The Oregonian" It described what it was like to leave the witnesses and what it was like to be shunned.

  Do you have a scan of the article? I would love to see it!
• 

  blondie

  I was treated differently (and all my contemporaries) who had fathers who were not jws...we were contaminated because we shared a home with a worldly person. We were not invited to any social occasions even ones just for teenagers.
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  undercover

  how the witnesses treated my mother, sister and myself....was even stranger. It was as if.... we now had some kind of leprosy. We were not "shuned"..... but we definitely got the cold shoulder.....Weclome to the back of the bus.

  A close friend of mine grew up with a DFd parent. They could never have friends over because of that parent. And they were sometimes not invited to other people's homes. It was as you described. Not a complete shunning, but treated differently. It was as if they were second class citizens in the congregation.

  This was when a DFd person in the family was a fairly rare thing. So in a small congregation in a small city or town, that situation is magnified. And most JWs had a fear of anyone DFd. It was as if being in the same room would cause some of their wickedness to rub off on you. So people who had to live in the same house as a DFd person were seen as slightly tainted, and thus to be avoided. It wasn't a spoken rule or attitude, just fear manifesting itself in actions.

  Another indication of how screwed up this religion really is.
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  Magwitch

  Six months after I was married, one of my brothers was DF'ed. My husband was so embarrassed and ashamed. He let me know every chance he had that he never would have married me if he knew he was going to be related to Df'ed ones.
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  Morbidzbaby

  Yes, this is classic JW behavior. I grew up with an unbelieving father and then my brother got DF'ed a year after he was baptized. My brother didn't live in our home because he was an adult...but my mom and I were still treated like we had spiritual herpes. Mom hardly ever got called on to comment at meetings, and where I was hardly ever invited over to associate with friends and was leftout of most events, the shunning was even moreso in that I didn't even hardly get spoken to at the hall! People were wary around mom and I for the whole 7 years that my brother was DF'ed.

  The really sickening part? My brother got reinstated, and then my dad started studying and got baptized. Now my parents are the freakin' cat's meow because my dad has privileges in the congregation! People who treated my mom with utter contempt because she had an unbelieving husband and who looked on my dad with disdain whenever he'd have the gumption to show up at a memorial or a JW gathering, now these same people are up my parents' asses and act like the history is not there (much like the WTBS). These people treated my mom and I like absolute shit. Gossiping, rumors, not wanting to work with us out in service, treating us like we were not worthy of their good graces because my dad wasn't a JW and my brother was DF'ed. And now they're all chummy chummy and wanting to do things with my parents and inviting them for dinner and.....AAAAAH! It makes me physically ILL the hypocracy of these people. My mom is the same person she was before...but they get the golden treatment now because my dad converted. Interestingly, neither my brother nor I are DF'ed, but we're both inactive/faded and it hasn't affected their social status because nobody really knows what's going on with us.
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  C6H12O6

  More like I knew some witnesses who's relative or family member was DF, and it afffected the witnesses too.

  There was one explemary family. Both parents are pioneers. The Father was a MS. The son was doing very well. They volunteered their house as a field service meeting spot. All this lasted until the son DF'd. The Father was stripped of his MS title. Their house was off the list for field service meet ups. Suddenly they're like the black sheep of the congregation. The mother was clearly showing symptoms of depression, but one sister called her lazy.

  There was another family who's dad DF'd then reinstated, then older daughter gets DF'd, then mother gets DF'd. So that leaves the son and younger daughter, and they were treated like second class citizens.

  When there was still a home book study night, one kind elder even admitted that witnesses do get treated negatively because of a DF'd relative. He said that they tend to get ignored and excluded, and sometimes they end up changing congregations or leaving all together.
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  JW GoneBad

  Your 'exemplary status' takes a big hit when a loved one/family member gets the ax, especially if the DF'd one is attending the same congregation.