BE, that's not what I said, I have no doubt that he is abusive verbally and emotionally at home with his family. And anyone that has not lived in a house with daily constant verbal abuse, emotional abuse, threats of physical abuse, not being physically abused but seeing others in your family made an example of what could happen to you, has no concept of what true abuse is. Sexual abuse is not always part of every abusive family but that does not make the foregoing types, less painful and destructive.
I have lived a long life, but if you think that because my father was no longer able to abuse us sexually meant that all the other destructive the abuse ended, you don't have a grasp on the whole view of abuse. My father was a jw at the time he abused his 3 children from his second family. My oldest brother and I no longer lived at home. My father had become a jw when he married the 2nd time. The verbal, emotional, threat of physical abuse continued with that family. We spoke up without making a scene when he would do the same things to these children in front of us (and those kids said it helped them even if we could not stop it) We went to the elders in his congregation (who also witnessed this constant abuse at the KH and in field service) and asked that they say something privately to him about his Christian obligations, but they didn't. I did not suggest that they beat him up.
These same elders were the ones that he had confessed to later about his sexual abuse of my sister (and it turned out of her 2 brothers). The other elders hid it to protect their position on the BOE. When my sister finally told us why she had been kicked out of the house at 16 (she was baptized then), and why, we confronted the 2 elders separately, my oldest brother and I, and they just pointed the finger at the other elder and said that that elder knew first and so that elder was the bad one. The other elders would not even meet with us to talk about it. My sister had no guardian to act for her to even get her into school because my father had all her legal papers. We finally got her mother, our step-mother to give them to us even under the threat by my father that he would divorce her and leave her penniless. The BOE knew all of this and would not help us.
BE is not the only one that I see back off from risking losing anything. I am a survivor, and I have only stayed on JWN because I though maybe someone would read my experiences and how I have been able to use my bad experiences to help others, so it was not for nought.
My father stalked my oldest brother and I until the day he died when I was 54. When he would be in town from far away, we would find out because he would park outside our homes. I had to call my law enforcement contacts and they shadowed him until he went home. Just the month before he died, he got some non-jw friends to call me and then put him on the phone while he spewed all this invective going back to when I was young and that I was abused (in all its forms) because I deserved it (in only 2 sentences). I hung up immediately. No sexual abuse there, but just as scary and abusive....a jw man with guns still.
My oldest brother and I only felt safe when he died when I was 54.
Every victim of abuse that has found the courage to come forward to face their abuser, I applaud them, it was not easy, there was no guarantee they would win or that would not find it painful. If you witness abuse, don't think that there is nothing you can do. You don't know if you don't try or find out from knowledgeable people what are some choices.
I see some out there think that Blondie has lost it, but I haven't, but I do need a break from JWN and some of the viewpoints here. If you would like to get copies of the comments from now on, send me a pm and a safe e-mail for you, and I will e-mail it to you.
For me, I am going to re-direct my energies to more directly deal with all types of child abuse more than just talking about here. If the only thing motivating you is to use the painful experiences of brave individuals that had even much more to lose, to bring down the WTS, think again. The world of child abuse is much bigger than the WTS and has to be battled on all fronts where it occurs.
Not feeling very loving right now, Blondie
PS I will not be responding to any more comments on this thread.
