A word of advice clining to their persecutors ...

SecretSlaveClass

Let me start off by saying I do not presume to have the answers, I am merely offering advice.

I will preface this posting with this, cutting a long story short:

My sister was raped by a popular JW lad wh's dad happen to be a rock star elder. In the attempt to fight him off his face was covered with scratches and it was reported to the police ( Instead of rape he was sentenced on the lesser charges of sexual battery and assault) but he confessed to having violent, consentual sex. Yes you guessed it, the JC found no cause to take action against him. My sister on the other hand was Df'd for sexual misconduct, lewd behaviour, immorality and slander (she was understandably angry and being very vocal at the KH).

Now the worst part. My mother was convinced my sister was guilty as accused. I was seven and she 16 at the time (I was 13 when I learned she was raped) and can still see my mother yelling at my dad in the kitchen. She screamed that she was sick and tired of her daughter's promiscuous behaviour, that she always knew the "little trollip" would be disfellowshipped and that she wanted her daughter out of the house - she didn't care if she wound up homeless.

She was out the house a week later to go live my uncle and his family (they weren't JW's) and my mom never spoke to her again. My dad and I would have to visit her secretly so as not to inspire my mom's wrath. Her and my zombie brother would take every opportunity at assemblies and conventions to assassinate my sister's character and reputation, letting everyone who would listen know what a slut she was.

I never got baptized for my own reasons and stopped going to meetings shortly after I turned fourteen having learned of my sister's rape a few months before. My mother was furious but it didn't bother me being well aware of her vindictive and irrational nature. At seventeen I left to join the military in order to get away from her and her toxic JW environment. That was 1987. I never uttered a word to her or my brother again for what they had done to my sister, until 2008 when my wife and I travelled back to South Africa to visit my ailing father and when he passed, once again I Severed all contact.

All those years my mom was beside herself, not because she had no communication with her youngest son, but because she could not get me under her control. It incensed her that she was unable saddle with me with the laws of her beloved god, the WBTS.

If you are under duress from abusive family members under the spell of the Org, get out from under their control ASAP. Otherwise you're going to spend your years in misery trying to placate people who don't know how to love you, only how they think what love is as dictated by the Org since that is what they love more. if this is your family members disposition then you are well aware they will ALWAYS choose the Org over you and you will look back one day at all those miserable, wasted years with nothing to show for it but heartache, bitnerness and loathing. The best years of your life existing as nothing more than a reminder of how different things could have been if only you had got it through your skull sooner and made a break for your happiness.

I know, I've got a degree, a successful business, an amazing wife and a life which I live on my own terms, and my JW friends who left it so late? Yes they're still trying to glue their lives back together and are some of the most bitter people I know.

fukitol

I don't get the heading. "Clining to their persecutors " ??

Witness My Fury

I liked you post, but you come across as smug that you left unbaptised at 14 while us dipshits didnt.

I doubt that was due to any great insights on your part at the time, but more to do with family dynamics. if you'd had a close relationship with your mother and your sister hadnt had that experience odds are high you would have got dipped and had a completely different life story.

"Clinging", he probably cant change the title now either...

cha ching

Glad you saw "the light" and escaped, and thanks for sharing your story.

Cha ching

punkofnice

SSC - I am so sorry all this happened in god's one true religion...which begs the question...is it god's organisation? Let's face it, it's just a man's organisation where the biggest hate monger, the biggest bully wins.

If you are under duress from abusive family members under the spell of the Org, get out from under their control ASAP.

Agreed. It may not be immediate and may take planning but there is life outside the dark tower.

breakfast of champions

All those years my mom was beside herself, not because she had no communication with her youngest son, but because she could not get me under her control.

Sounds like you had a whack job mother like I did. You were fortunate to get away young. . . . I hung around for years, and it wasn't until my wife pointed out how I was being manipulated left and right by her that I finally saw what was going on and cut ties.

Very interesting story, SSC.

SecretSlaveClass

Fukitol:

It's a reference to those who are to scared to leave the Org on account of losing their loved ones, despite being persecuted by them.

Witness My Fury

Clining is a new one on me, cant even find a matching definition.

Xanthippe

I agree with you SSC my JW family have been playing the, let's shun because it's fun game for over a quarter of a century. They would speak to me and even kiss me and my child, who they didn't even know, at funerals and then when it was over we would be back to the putting the phone down on me or else speaking to me coldly as if I didn't deserve to live.

I just won't play anymore. I say hello at funerals and then I move away. I don't write, email or phone. Let them play their manipulation games with each other, I'm not a little mouse to be mauled by their claws until I die.

SecretSlaveClass

Witness My Fury:

I sincerely apologize if I came across as smug or condescending, I assure you that was not my intention. I didn't include my reasons for leaving since I wanted to keep my post short as possible and merely convey a point: my mom and brother were toxic and had I still conformed to her rules my life would have turned out to be a mess, that much is clear.

But since you're sure I had little or no insight myself, let me tell you my reasons.

I grew up with Zulus and Xhosas in the very rural midlands of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. My parents both had jobs which kept them away from home from 6am to often times as late as 10pm on week days. To help around the house it was common white South African practice to hire black maids to do house work and take care of the kids.

In Zulu culture it is customary for women to share child care amongst all the mothers of the clan which includes breast feeding.

Our maid, Lena Hlatswayo had a son my age, Kahleka. Since she was breast feeding him I too was breast fed by her, forming a very powerful bond between the three of us. Because of the way I was raised I had a very different view of blacks compared to the vast majority of other white South Africans under the apartheid regime. By far most of my friends were Zulus, spending almost all my free time with them except on weekends when my parents were home and we'd do things together. I saw NO DIFFERENCE between myself and a black person, I considered Lena more of a mother to me than my own mother could ever be.

How my insight began:

Every white JW I knew to a man was a bigoted racist, constantly using derogatory terms, minimizing their humanity and generally regarding them as slightly above apes. This made no sense to me because the religion kept talking about love and how all humans were equal in the Org. I was about eight when I asked my mom why all the whites treated the blacks so poorly and her response was, "They need to be kept in their place. They are different to us. They are lazy and just like when you're lazy, you make us angry and they make us very angry. They are good people but they have to be kept in check."

As if she noticed her words had stung, she quickly added, "But our black brothers and sisters are a lot more clever than the other kaffirs".

To this day that conversation is still vivid. As if that was going to make me feel better and suddenly grasp some sort of understanding (kaffir is a South African derogatory term for blacks like the "n" word,in the US).

Rampant racism causing a deep emotional conflict in me was my primary reason for challenging the Org as the "Truth". Witnessing and elder who I loved and looked up to (I had a crush on his gorgeous wife) have extra-marital sex at a get-together compounded my doubts and once I learned of my sister's rape it was all over. Incidentally, even at a young age I never bought into the life after death thing. Growing up around rural violence, witnessing death on a few occasions I stared at a few corpses as a kid. I would look imto their lifeless eyes and try to fathom where their life went, the same way I would with a dead animal. It simply occurred to me that they were one and the same and since animals didn't have a soul I couldn't see how humans could. Their deaths were identical.

That Sunday which was the first day I refused to attend meetings I recall well. My mom was getting ready to go to the KH and I had my fishing gear in my hands.

"Aren't you going to the meeting." She asked.

"No," I replied, "I'm going fishing."

"Don't you love Jehovah anymore?" She aslmost cried.

"Yes, that's why Im not going to the meeting and going fishing."

I never attended anything remotely Org related again.

A word of advice clining to their persecutors ...

Share this