What a beautiful name, Raveen~ Thanks for sharing about your story.
my life... well the first part at least
by Found Sheep 134 Replies latest members private
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Lozhasleft
It made me sad reading your story - I picture this little girl feeling so lost - I can relate to it too. Thankfully, despite your parents, you appear to have become a lovely lady. Look fwd to hearing more of your story. Hugs.
Loz x
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jwfacts
Interesting story, waiting for the next installment ...
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Robdar
Interesting. I'm looking forward to reading more.
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sizemik
I've always enjoyed your well balanced comments . . . it's interesting to hear about the journey's of others . . . different, but still typically JW.
Raveen is a name I like . . . but then I was a youthful "hippie" in the 70's too. You have grown up a nice lady in spite of it all . . . pretty too.
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Found Sheep
Thanks for all your comments. This is harder then I thought it would be…
In high school we were the “spiritual” family that always was interviewed. I wanted to be a missionary. That became my childhood dream. My brother went to Bethel (Walkill) but still attended our Hall. We had a lot of Bethelites in the hall. When he left though he became 100% Bethel and hardly visited home. My dad became more and more controlling and I became more and more depressed. I even attempted suicide twice. I did the “right” thing, I graduated early and pioneered right out of HS. The only help I was able to have was talking to the elders. This made my dad even more upset because he thought I was talking about him. He wanted to be an elder and was extremely judging of the elders. I left home as soon as I turned 18 and never turned back. He started drinking again and was basically homeless moved in with anyone that would take him in.
I lived with a Sister and her daughter for two years. That was a good time of life. It was the first time I had a woman to live with and realized how normal I was. My dad just didn’t understand girls. I always felt like a freak and he constantly told me I was. They moved to Maine and I found another sister to room with. She was more my age and in a different congregation. By this time I had already started dating my, to be, I’ll call him Little Man. Deep down inside I knew it was a bad fit. We dated a total of 2 ½ years. That should say something. We would break up then make up… There were so many red flags but I just didn’t see it. After all he too would like to be a missionary and that’s all I cared about. He was a MS and had a year at Bethel. I thought he was so mature?
Toast to me - Oh ya we didn’t do that. Had my 1 st legal drink on my honeymoon. I’d say it took six months before I realized I made a big mistake. The thing was I didn’t see a way out so I CHANGED. It was a slow but real change. In order to survive this marriage I needed to become more like him. He was so mature as I said and I was just a silly child. We moved where the need was greater in WV. I thought at first things would improve, but it didn’t. The congregation was small and I just didn’t have all my friends. I felt so isolated and alone. So the answer, we became embraced by the congregation.
What goes up- Little Man became an elder and we both had talks every week. He started to do the “school”. More and more work for us. We even applied to Gilead twice. The CO and DO were checking us out. We were moving up the cain!
Must come down - Little Man decided that his parents should move in with us. His Mom had breast cancer and was going to Mexico for treatment. We lived in a one bedroom trailer with one bathroom. His dad moved in and we started to look for a bigger place. I slept in the kitchen on an air mattress for six months. Dad got the one bedroom. Little Man slept on the floor in the living room. Our “love” life was NEVER that good but it just died! Then the MIL moves in. Thankfully we had found a house and were ready to move in. I do have to say NO house would have been big enough. I can’t say in words how miserable I was. My ex MIL was extremely verbally abusive and she controlled everything, and made life so hard. I had panic attacks every time I knew I had to go home. After a year we turned the garage into an apartment, slight improvement.
My gradual wake up-
We decided I would go to nursing school since it looked like we were going to take care on Mom and Dad. I buried myself in school. If I wasn’t at school I had a book in my face. It was stressful but just what I needed. I had me time!
I need a break…. More later
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wannabefree
Your experience is very touching. Thank you for sharing.
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cantleave
Enjoying reading your story!
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Found Sheep
A story in itself but a big turn for my life
The last week of my first semester of school. It was a Thursday and I had a migraine the previous day and was sleeping in. My FIL had started working and I heard his car start up. Then I heard him beeping the horn, followed by my MIL yelling. Didn’t think much of it till he started to beep again. Half asleep I go to see if he needed help, as the MIL is yelling. I open the driver door and he looked almost dead. He said “I can’t breath… help me” He is a big man so I run into the house to get Little Man to help. I’m yelling help me NOW and He was just drying off from a shower and said “I’ll be a minute” I run back to the car knowing we didn’t have a minute and grab my FIL and threw him in the back seat. (I have no idea how) I get in the driver seat and he said “hurry hurry I’m not going to make it” AS I go down the driveway I look in my rear view mirror and his eyes roll back and he collapsed on the floor. Hoping the Little Man called the hospital to warn them I enter the ER yelling for help. I worked there and knew everyone. They knew I was serious. In my PJ's and no shoes! No warning call that would have been too much?!
Twenty minutes later Little Man shows up. They had a pulse and he was starting to wake up. They were bagging him and looking for a bigger hospital to fly him off to.
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Found Sheep
The dysfunction of the "family" now became accentuated to an extreme. my FIL was in End Stage Renal Disease and needed dialysis in order to live. I had countless conversations with him before this about dialysis and he didn't want it. It was not JW reasons it was his brother. He watched his brother go on it and die a slow death and that wasn't what he wanted. It was in his DPA and everything. With the recent crisis the MIL and LM decided to coerce him into dialysis when he wasn't "stable".
I was upset and threatened to change my DPA. I didn't want LM to do that to me. I told my FIL if I was on his DPA he probably would be dead and he said he wished they would have respected him. He also thanked me for saving him, leaving me confused as to IF I did the right thing?
Ten days later he was on his way home. Between the three of us MIL LM and me we now had to bring the FIL to dialysis three times a week. We are two hours from the center so it was a full day.
This event made us quit the pioneer work. My childhood dream vanished before me.