I was baptized then I was 15 years old and just entering high school. I had been a perfect JW teenager through out my high school years, although I craved to be a little bit worldly. When I graduated high school, I moved out and got a job working with my older non-JW brother. I quickly began living a double life for nearly a year. My conscience could not take it any longer and I voluntarily went to the elders to confess and get back on the narrow road that leads to everlasting life.
I truly believed that I was repentant and that ONLY unrepentant sinners were disfellowshipped. Up until then, the only person I had personally eyewitness attend their own their DFing announcement, stood up, flipped off the elder and walked out. So, it made sense that ONLY unrepentant sinners were DF'd.
Boy was I dead wrong. I laid everything on the line, totally open and honest about everything I had engaged in, even though I was shocked at some of the questions they asked. When they told me that their decision was to DF, it was like an atomic bomb went off inside my body and I literally lost feeling in my extremities. I was 19 and innocent of the DF'ing process and procedures, so I asked if I would still get my KM's. One of the elders looked at me puzzled and said, "Of course not, those are for kingdom ministers. It says OUR kingdom ministry. You are no longer a JW." I was completely devastated and utterly shocked. Unfortunately, I would get more chances to eyewitness the wolves fangs hiding beneath sheep clothing.
After a year of giving up on ever coming back, I came crawling back and was reinstated after 6 months. Had not my family been there, NO ONE would have come up to me and given me a hug or tell me congrats. My family spared me that embarrassment. Keep that thought in mind, because history repeats itself.
I get reinstated to such a cold welcome that I knew right then and there, that God's love was not in that congregation. I decided that the second I got my privileges back, I was skipping town and changing congregations. And that I did. Funny thing is, the bible says God forgives and forgets, but JW's certainly do not forgive and forget. Little did I know that your sins stay with you forever in the JW world, especially public/private reproof and disfellowshipping.(Later on, when filling out bethel temporary worker application, it asked if you were ever DF'd and if yes, to give specifics.)
After changing congregations, the new elders didn't take too kindly to a new, handsome, (LOL) 21 year old brother who was zealous to make a new start. They falsely accused me of dating an unbaptized single sister and told me that she is an UNbaptized publisher, so she is still considered part of the world and I would not be following the command to marry only in the lord. I had barely even talked to her at meetings, let alone really flirt with her or talk to her outside kingdom hall walls. I was so enraged of being falsely accused me of something untrue, that I decided to pursue this beautiful UNbaptized sister, which ended up leading to fornication, and another disfellowshipping. That judicial committee meeting is another whole post altogether.
But it took me 2 years and 5 letters of reinstatement to get reinstated. After 6 months, I put in another letter like the first time. They told me that since I was DF'd once before, for the same "crime", that they needed more time to see evidence of my true repentance. I asked how much time and they said that they didn't know. I was pretty much more set in my ways of proving them wrong, than I was devastated of a rejection. I knew they were wrong by disfellowshipping me because they could not read my heart. I was the one to approach them, not the other way around. But that is not enough in the elders determining repentance.
Had I got rejected for a 5th time, I was prepared to give up. I had been the most faithful meeting attender in the congregation for 2 years and by the looks of everyone else's WT and books, I studied the hardest and most often. But, they decided to finally reinstate me.
This time, I didn't have my family there to lean on for support. Once they announced it, I was excited and overjoyed, but that would only last until the final song and prayer. No one came up to me to shake my hand, to give me a hug, to say congrats and welcome back. No one. I stood there after the Amen, and waited........ and waited..... and you guessed it, waited. After about a minute of what seemed like forever, and starting to feel that feeling again of rejection, I started putting my books in my briefcase as slowly as possible, putting away each pen and highlighter as slowly as possible, not looking up, but waiting for something. But all I got was cold hearted shunning, still! All that hard work and that is what I got. I left the kingdom hall in a stupor and flabbergasted that I cannot describe the feeling.
Don't ask me how or why, because I cannot answer, but I stuck out that cold reception and stayed in that congregation from 2001-2014 when I was DF'd for the 3rd and final time. This time, I was DF'd for apostasy, knowing too much about "the truth about the truth".
The elders are supposed to be caring, loving shepherds. Even the elders (all elders who DF'd me moved away) whom I considered as close friends and had always encouraged me to reach out to be an elder, turned their back on me in the blink of an eye when they began to have suspicions of me and became aware of my doubts with the organization. Wolves in sheep clothing.