by zenpunk 26 Replies latest jw friends
I got reproved at 16 for loose conduct and smoking. I think I didn't feel it to be such a big deal simply because about half the other kids my age in my hall were also in the process of getting reproved/df'd. I think my parents were not ashamed as much as relieved that I didn't get DF'd. It didn't last long. I got DF'd about a year later. Again for loose conduct. I was incorrigible and my elders had a two-strikes yer out policy.
Obie
At nine years old, I sat in a meeting while they announced that my dad had been disfellowshipped. Boy, do I remember that! For some self-hating reason, my mother felt that we needed to be at that meeting; perhaps she needed to prove herself as a martyr par excellence. Whatever.
My younger brother always said "They didn't just disfellowship Dad. They disfellowshipped the whole family." They didn't need to publicly reprove my brothers and me--we were marked as bad association before we even hit puberty.
That feeling--and the looks I got (pity from adults, scorn from other kids)--will stay with me forever. Of course, my mother still says it's Dad I should be mad at. Go figure.
Best,
Jankyn
I was reproofed 13 yrs ago and it was done privately with about 15 people in you know that "room" and then the elders proudly annouce to me they will announce it publicly at the next meeting. What a bunch of crap. I was reproofed for being drunk at a company picnic, and one of my accusers was an elder who went to the same company picnic and was on that judical committee meeting and he himself drank more than me and I told him at the judical committee how dare he tell me I did wrong when he was no better than me and from that point he said no other word and the PO said to me he is not the one before the J.C. you are. Things got a little heated for a moment or two. But I wasn't going to have a brother counsel me about being drunk when he himself was drunk at the same affair. Talk about being a hypocrite. This brother was shortly afterward removed as an elder and he came to my home and talked to me and said that I had nothing to do with it. I said I didn't really believe him. I said to him we have been friends a long time and I don't think your being honest with me. Well he hemmed and hawed a little and then shortly after that he and his wife visited me and said that they have no ill will against me because of what I said in the committee meeting. He knows it was true what I said. I told him I can't have a person tell me I have done wrong when they do the same thing. He knew that. Funny thing this brother went through a real rebellious stage, grew a bread and just didn't seem to care anymore about things. Some time later he changed though and when my father passed away in 1995 he wept like a baby because he loved my father and respected my father so very much. All in all things changed in his life and in mine. As far as I know he is still in the organization and the other brother on the judical committee has left the org. and he was a brother in law to this brother. How strange. And the PO is a pioneer in Toronto with his wife but i saw he recently and he acknowledged me. More then me own family does. And I just found out that my sisters husband was made an elder. Yuck. He is a jerk...
Orangefatcat
Hell yes public reproof was traumatic. At a sleepover w/ a bunch of fellow witness girls, we played truth or dare. Well, all 5 of us admitted to each other that we had participated in one way or another, in oral sex. One of the girls felt so awful, she had to report herself to her the elders, one of which was her father. In her confession she felt the need to report all of us. So, all 5 of us were publicly reproved. What really pissed me off was that I had an apartment w/ one of the girls, and had lived away from home when the "incident" occured. But, the elders still called my mother into the judicial meeting. I had to sit there and confess to giving and rec'ing oral sex. I can still see the look on my mothers face. When I asked the one elder why my mother was there, he said they felt I needed her support.
Then following the announcement to the congregation, a talk followed on immorality. Therefore, everyone knew we had committed some form of immorality. And the girl who originally confessed, well, she was never allowed to associate w/ us again.
Buffy
I was never Publically Reproved but being DF'ed was DEFINITELY traumatising!!!!!!! Especially being born and raised in org. Very lonely at first!
This thread is blowing me away - there are some powerful stories here. I don't even know where to start as far as saying 'I feel bad for you'.
"They didn't just disfellowship Dad. They disfellowshipped the whole family."
This is so true. I remember a close friend who's father was DF'd. After that no one would visit the family socially, because "he" would be there. The kids were basically shunned. They couldn't have sleepovers or cookouts. In time, they were pretty much left out of all congregation social activities. Everyone else in the family was faithful JWs but because the father was DF'd most of the cong. treated all of them the same. I think some do it because they are afraid or they aren't sure what to do and it's easier to just ignore the situation than try to work around it.
But as we all know, it's the loving thing to do.
I was reproved 3 times over the period of 3 years between the ages of 16 to 19. I guess I really wasn't that repentant. Finally I was DF'd. I was done for drinking excessively on most of the occasions. My mum had left us when I was 10 and my dad died when I was 15. My brother and I went to live with an elder and his wife and I went off the rails and 'drink' came with me.
Unfortunately, practically all my friends were jw's, being that I was raised in the org by my dad so when I was DF'd, aside from the trauma of the actual experience itself, I was left out in the middle of nowhere, nobody of my JW lifetime pals (a lifetime network of friends and a pattern of life) being allowed to associate with me.
The ironic thing is that this is supposed to make you see the error of your ways, to come to the KH and sit and the back and recieve spiritual food?, but be sure you get ther just before the meeting starts and leave directly, so as not to contaminate the other bro's & sisters with your infectious gangrene.
Well that was a whole lot of love, and needless to say that that approach, at that time of my life didn't inspire me to stick at it so well.
I'm 28 now, and getting on with life sometimes thinking like most other people, that JW's really are those odd bods that wander around the streets in mix and match 'meeting' clothes and flowing floral dresses early on a Saturday morning!
Oh yeah, don't wish to sound too cynical, but it was 10 years ago that it was just around the corner, so when's the 'day of reckoning' again!?
First, let me say that this is an excellent topic for a thread......I'm surprised that Minimus didn't think of it....
But I was never publicly reproved, just privately, and I was still devasted that I could have done something so terribly wrong to end up having a meeting with the elders and then in turn they have a meeting with all the elders to decide my fate for my terrible act. What was my terrible act of wrongdoing?????????
I had one beer at a pizza place 2 months before I turned 21.
I laugh now when I think about!!!!!!!!
I'm 28 now, and getting on with life sometimes thinking like most other people, that JW's really are those odd bods that wander around the streets in mix and match 'meeting' clothes and flowing floral dresses early on a Saturday morning!
LOL. Welcome to the forum CainAgain. (& thx fer the giggle)
SPAZ (of the "I-can't-believe-I-used-to-wear-floral-dresses klass")
