I agree Eden, I remember when I was 18 and was working with a manger at a fast food place, he had made some really serious passes at me in front of our co-workers.I was so afraid of him but I needed the job as I could not live at home with my parents as they were so abusive. I was looking for other work but having a really hard time finding anything and I had to have this job.
I did not know what to do and was so afraid of being alone with him because if he would touch me in front of other like was I knew he would kick it up if I was ever alone with him. Even now I think he would have raped me if given half a chance as he did finally get fired for attacking a girl on the night shift.
But what got to me and I do not know why I did not wake up at that time was that I went to a older sister in the hall crying my eyes out and I told her everything. She looked straight in the face and said that if I got raped it would be my fault as I clearly wanted to be attacked or else I would have quit before now and not be telling her this stuff. I explained to her that I had to work, I had no family to help me and I was terrified she told me that was not good enough that I needed to just quit and Jehovah would give me something else. I told her I was looking everywhere for work and Jehovah had not given me anything yet. She said that I had not tried just quitting and relying solely on Jehovah. I had prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed growing up for help and even though I was raised a JW Jehovah never helped me so just to quit and pray seemed insane to me, I was so afraid of being on the street and that was where I would have been as I had no one in the hall to help me. No one would even give me rides to the meeting even though I lived two house from a sister in her early 50's, she insisted I give gas money if I did not have it I walked and she drove with her empty car. So I knew I had no support from any of the JW "friends".
I will never forget the horrible empty feeling I had after talking to that sister and sure enough the next week I got assigned a shift to work alone with this creep. I sat in the car dreading going in, I finally got the courage to go though the door and sure enough he immediately started grabbing me. There was no one to hear my screams as it was early in the morning and we were located away from other buildings. I yelled at him to keep his hands off me and I had waited in the car so long that in just a short time another co-worker was supposed to come. The manger was so pissed and screamed at me that I was fired and told me to get out.
I needed the job and I just stayed and kept doing the prep work that needed to be done with the guy pacing and yelling at me to get the bleep out of the store. Shortly the regional manger showed up which was strange as he did not come by that often unless he called in advance to let us know he was coming. My face was so swollen from crying that my eyes were almost shut the regional manger just looked at me and never said a word but took the manger into the office. The next thing I knew the manger was fired because it was the night before that he had attacked the other girl. It turned out her father was an attorney and had told the store either he was fired or they would be sued.
I thought at the time it was Jehovah that helped me, because I finally had stood up to the guy and told him not to touch me and than he was the one to get fired. Now I think how screwed up I WAS because I was so afraid not only of being raped but because I knew that I would have to face the elders if it happened and that I would probably be DF'ed for keeping the job.
I have such bitterness for the huge amount of pain that I went though with no help for my spiritual family.
LITS
