I finally decided after being here for over two years now, that I would finally get down in writing my JW history. I've posted it in my new profile, but since there are so many new people here I thought I'd go ahead and post it too. I do this to encourage you to pen your JW history. Although the "point" is to share your story to likeminded people, it has an additional benefit of being very cathartic. When I see my life in writing, it makes the bad seem not so bad...or at least proof that I've overcome a helluvalot! It also makes the good seem a little sweeter. So if you haven't already...start writing!
Andi's story...
I wasn’t born into the WTS, but my single dad started studying when I was about 7. He got baptized a year or so later. It’s funny because I have GREAT memories of my childhood and my father before he got baptized. But it was after he became a JW that things began to change. He became abusive physically and emotionally. I don’t think he realized it. I still don’t think he realizes when the changes happened.
After his baptism, he married a good JW pioneer girl and the three of us moved to Missouri “where the need was great” and where his family is from. About a year later they had twins boys. Great, cute, ornery little boys – my sweet baby brothers, Joshua and Jonathan. I remember helping out with them and being put into a position of responsibility at the early age of 11 when they were born. I remember babysitting them a lot - diapering, feeding, burping, playing, soothing squished fingers. Not that that was bad, but I did miss a lot of my childhood because my parents couldn’t afford a babysitter - it was too easy for them to hand me the babies and leaving. After the marriage and then the arrival of the twins, my relationship with my dad deteriorated quickly. He was increasingly stressed out being a Ministerial Servant, owning his own computer/advertising company, trying to discipline a rebellious teen daughter (me!) that didn’t respect him, raising two little babies, and trying to keep his marriage together. I was increasingly stressed out because I’d had my dad to myself for years and all of a sudden I had to share him with a new step-mom and twin babies. I can’t say that he worked that hard to make the transition for me a smooth one. I felt very dumped and abandoned. I still struggle with the scars of my dad having changed so much during that period.
Years later, after a move to Hawaii, and at the age of 16 I got baptized. Mostly because I felt at the time that maybe I could FINALLY get some approval from my father. I realized that it was something that would make him happy, although he wasn’t really regular at meetings at that time. I was right - it did make him happy. I remember seeing him beaming after my baptism and thinking to myself that I’d finally done something right! It was great! But I had no idea the accountabilities that would come with being a baptized sister. Sixteen is WAAAY too young to make a decision like getting baptized into the JW organization. If you’re too young to get married or drink, then you’re definitely too young to make the lifelong decision of getting baptized!
After I graduated from high school, we moved to Wichita, KS. That’s where things went downhill fast. All of the friend, love and support I’d had in the Hawaiian congregations was suddenly gone. The personality of the Wichita Linwood congregation was very legalistic and judgmental compared to Hawaii. The elders seemed hardnosed, unloving, and at times not even friendly. I don’t remember many of them extending a hand of friendship towards my family, especially my father who was still inactive at the time. I didn’t have a lot of Witness friends and not many were very accepting of me because my father was inactive. Which was hard because I’ve always made friends easily. It wasn’t long before I was leading a double-life. I ended up sleeping with a worldly boyfriend and felt incredibly guilty about it. I confessed it to my parents and knew I would be pulled before a judicial committee. I was. Since it was my first offense, I was put on Public Reproof. I was stripped of all my privileges and my relationship with Dad began to deteriorate quickly. Nothing I did seemed good enough for him. I’d lost his trust, but at the same time I was struggling to find love and attention from someone, anyone. Even if it was with some stranger I worked with. In a few months, I ended up getting in trouble with some worldly kids partying and drinking. All of this at the age of 19. Again, I went forward and confessed what I’d done. Because it was my second offense, I knew the stakes were higher this time. But I felt since I confessed, that I would be shown mercy. They don’t disfellowship people that come forward right? Wrong. I was disfellowshipped in one judicial committee meeting. How could this be? I came forward! I’d wanted and realized NEEDED help getting away from the double-lifestyle. If I’d wanted to hide I very well could have and nobody would have been the wiser. Didn’t they see what it took for me to do that? But obviously not.
Even so, a part of me felt that I deserved it. I started going back to meetings, trying to get reinstated. I was also seeing a psychologist at the time for talk therapy, which was incredibly helpful. But the relationship with my parents at home was so strained and totally uncommunicative that finally my dad kicked me out of the house in a fit of rage. His loving, fatherly words were, “Get your s*** out of MY house in 48 hours!” I couldn’t believe my daddy would say something like that. Although years later, my step-mom tells me that he was just angry and frustrated, I didn’t think so at the time. I really felt he hated me. So I did him a favor – I moved out in 24 hours. I just knew he was sighing relief with me being out of the house. Nobody was there to poison his little sons with a disobedient nature.
I will never forget the hole in the door that he punched in his fit of rage either. This was my daddy, who taught me how to ride my bike, how to swim, how to drive a stick-shift and give me noogies as he joked about me being his stubborn little Billygoat? (Thus my moniker!) Although I’d been spanked many times, my father had never tried to punch me. I really felt this was the end. He had no reservations about telling me what a “slut” I was or how I was nothing but “the biggest disappointment of his life.” I felt my soul die that day. (At the writing of this, it’s been over 13 years since I’ve heard those words and I’m still trying to recover from it. All you fathers out there, be VERY careful with your words to your children – especially your daughters. You may not realize how deeply you can affect your little girls. They base ALL their future male relationships on that first love – their daddies!)
Fits of rage is really all I remember about that time. I think he was frustrated that I wasn’t his obedient little girl anymore. I was angry that he didn’t act like he loved me. He only seemed to love me when I was being obedient to the organization. I began realizing how EVERYTHING in “Jehovah’s organization” was conditional. You had privileges IF you were in good standing. You had approval IF you didn’t question what was printed in the Watchtower or what was spoken on the platform. You had friends IF you appeared to do all the right things or be in with the right “perfect” JW crowd. They preached about Jehovah and His organization giving “undeserved kindness”, but it was never really practiced. When someone screwed up, they were put in judgment - undeserved kindness was never an option. It was at that point that I realized “Jehovah’s loving organization” wasn’t very loving – especially to those that REALLY needed the support. I became so depressed that I quit attempting to be reinstated. I just worked full-time and partied with my worldly friends. I figured if my father didn’t want me in his life, then God sure didn’t. I might as well have a good time going down in Armageddon. I was 19 and really had no idea how to live on my own or be responsible. It was many years before I finally got my act together.
Since then, it’s been an interesting journey. After my disfellowshipping, I had several more years of partying and making some pretty bad life decisions. But within the last three or so years, I feel I have turned the bend regarding spirituality in my life. I am a Christian. I love God and Jesus Christ with all my heart. I realize that the picture of Jehovah that the Jehovah’s Witnesses painted for me was not a correct picture. After being reintroduced to the Bible by a college friend, I learned that God is loving, patient, and kind and wants us to live happy and joyous lives. He is not in heaven keeping track of our sins in some big book or by use of an earthly organization that keeps little files on our reproofs or field service activity. Since I’ve realized what GRACE means, I’ve been freed from the restrictions of a legalistic cult and my life has completely turned around.
This board has been instrumental to my emotional and spiritual recovery program. Years of abuse (not experiencing the fullness of love) almost led me to take my life on two separate occasions. But I am learning to be accepting of love and grace when I receive it – whether from God above or people around me. I look forward to a day when I can be reunited with my parents and my siblings. I pray all the time that God soften their hearts and realize the gravity of obeying a manmade organization out of fear versus obeying Him out of love. I’ve seen other families be reunited after years of separation. Perhaps one day, mine will be too!