Haven't posted in forever but HAD to respond to this.
I lived with my family until I was 26 or 27. My older sister who lived in the same house, we even shared a room for some time, stopped talking to me when I was 17. She did it after a fight over something silly, but made it because she discovered I was having a double life, having a boyfriend and all. She just stopped talking to me. 10 whole years, she ignored me in the house, in our room, even when we were at the meetings. If I ever walked into a her with a group of sisters or brothers that was chatting about something random - she would walk away from the group as soon as I started to speak. It was so obvious, she didn't even try to hide it. Maybe she didn't like the sound of my voice or didn't want to hear what I had to say. My parents supported her because they too knew of my double life. They said she was following Jehovah's rules on shunning. My little brothers followed suit. Relatives (non-jw) would wonder why my other siblings joked and hung out together, I was always ignored. It was torture going to meetings with them in the same car, torture staying the same house. But I felt I deserved the treatment because of my concealed sins. I was never disfellowshipped, but the family took it on themselves to mete their own shunning treatment because they suspected I was up to no good.
I did live a very double life. At times I did honestly try to turn around and change and be the perfect witness but the shunning from the family reinforced my need for outside companionship and love, and thank goodness that in the end was one of the primary things that led me to the path of finding out the real truth about the truth.
Things are better between me and sis now. Time and distance (especially) has helped matters. We're not best friends, but we chat on whatsapp now and then. She's always looked out for me in her own way and I know I should be grateful for that, but the outright shunning has already done its damage. She's a missionary now, pioneering in a 3rd world country. Yesterday she asked me on whatsapp how many tracts I placed for the jw.org campaign. She's only chatting with me because she has no idea I'm not going to the meetings.
What a twisted world we live in. My own sister wouldn't talk to me when I lived home. I yearned for her acceptance, I yearned for her to just like me, talk to me, not walk away from a group the minute I joined it. And now that I have some of it I am pretending to be someone I'm not in the fear that I will lose her very conditional love.
Conditional love. From your own family. I can't wait to have my own children and break this cycle. Shunning ends with me.
Thank you for letting me write this :)
