Yes your right Minimus when you look deeply how the WTS takes control of people's lives its shocking and disturbing.
All for couple of dishonest men playing god .
Were You Close To Your Non JW Family?
by minimus 27 Replies latest jw friends
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Finkelstein
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DesirousOfChange
We kept some distance from extended family because they were not JDubs.
They kept some distance from us because we were JDubs. (Guess they didn't want to be preached at incessantly.)
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Amelia Ashton
My family were not close (estranged on my mother's side) and I didnt meet my maternal grandmother until my mid twenties. She was lovely. I only knew her 7 years before she died so then I was pretty much alone again and easy pickings when JWs called. I thought I was gaining a loving supportive extended family something I craved and after joining was relieved to "dump" my blood family who I seemed to constantly disappoint. After leaving JWs I am pretty much alone again. I seem to sub consciously repel people but for the most I've learned to accept I am actually happier alone now.
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Xanthippe
No apart from my maternal Grandmother we didn't really know them even though I can remember them dropping presents off at Xmas when I was small. Ten years after we left I met my first cousin at a funeral and she said when you visit your mother drop in and see us.
She lived in the same village as my parents but I just couldn't find the words to tell her my mother was shunning us and we didn't see her. But within the next year I managed to get hold of her phone number and we've been in touch ever since.
Years later after my parents were gone my cousin showed me photos of my mum at her brother's house at Christmas. Apparently they regularly went there for Christmas while she was a JW after we'd all left home. Just so weird when we were shunned for leaving the cult. Anyway I hope she enjoyed herself and found some joy there.
My cousin has often said she can't understand why my mother could talk to her who's never been a JW but she shunned me. I try to explain to her how cults keep the members away from those who've left but it just seems weird to her.
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Biahi
I have a very early memory, I was only 3 or 4 years old. My mom brought me to my JW grandmas house while dad was working to spend the day and have dinner. My dads cousin came over (non-JW). She brought her 2 boys my age, and we played nicely together all day, it was fun. After they went home so their mom could make dinner, my mom explained that, while they were nice and everything, we didn't want to get too close to them, because they were worldly. She also said that soon we would be bringing them the message of doom, and if they didn't become witnesses quick, they would be killed at Armaggedon. I swear, something bad happened to my brain that day. This was probably in 1963 or 1964
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Biahi
Let me add, both those boys went to college, on is a corporate lawyer, has a very nice wife and family, the other has a nice wife and family, and has a job that would "out" me if I said what he did.
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minimus
Biahi, I feel like I’m reading about my mother!
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Still Totally ADD
When my wife and I first meant and being a born-in and she a convert she would go on and on about all her relative's their names and and the history of them and then she ask me about mine. All I could tell her was about my 3 grandparents and my brother and his family. I told her I knew little about anyone else on my side of the family. My father believe we should have nothing to do with anyone of them because they were not part of the borg. For most of my life I have known little about my side of the family until a few years ago due to some help from a dear member on this board, Lois lane looking for superman. I was able to connect with a cousin in IL I did not know about. Since then I have learned a lot about my side of the family.
I did a ancestry.com from that I have learned my lineage goes back to 1650 and maybe even longer in this country. With my wife's side going back to the mayflower both sides have been in North America a long time. Good thread mlmimus. Thanks. Still Totally ADD
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charonsdog
I have 12 aunts and uncles on my father's side. Four on my mother's. Over 50 first cousins. Yet I know very little about most of them. When my parents became JWs in 1972, they began to convert some of their siblings. Two of my dad's sisters, two brothers, and one brother on my mom's side. Their children were the only cousins we got to know. And because half of those families were considered "weak" in the faith, we spent precious little time with them. My family just alienated the rest of everyone else.
I'm in the process of trying to connect to my extended family through social media, but it will never be what it could have been. If there was one thing that is a "positive" from my parents' training me to be aloof and distant from those I should be close to, it's the fact that even though I love mom and dad, I am able to deal with not having any contact with them now. It's a little more difficult to deal with not having a relationship with my grown children. But the fact that they are PIMI is on me. I did that.
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Exelder
I have 6 cousins on my fathers side who I think that I met about 3 times.
The only events we could go to were signigficant wedding anniverary parties.
Rather than being "a good witness" we must have looked VERY weird and standoffish.
I am enstranged from all of my JW family and know nothing about my non witness family.