What has been your own personal experience of shunning?

by UnshackleTheChains 45 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • UnshackleTheChains
    UnshackleTheChains

    Hi all,

    I am interested in finding out on a small scale the extent of which shunning has impacted on you personally.

    My own experience is that when I faded about 12 years ago. The woman whose house the book study was held at (and who was virtually a neighbour) walked right past me in my own Street. I remember it so well. That fleeting moment changed my perspective of her as a Christian.

    Also, we had a relative who was disfellowshipped. My mother, wife and I went to visit him and his family just once during the time he was disfellowshipped (he got reinstated shortly after),,but I will always remember my mother and I feeling guilty about being in his presence (Note: I was completely indoctrinated back then)

    So what's your experience?

  • scratchme1010
    scratchme1010

    So what's your experience?

    My family missed:

    • My marriage
    • My failed relationships
    • My successful relationships
    • Helping me when going to college
    • My in-laws
    • My career path
    • My travels
    • My creative projects
    • When i was given an award
    • Being there for me
    • Having me being there for them
    • My home
    • My hospitality
    • My cooking
    • My birthdays
    • My Christmas
    • My Graduations
    • My promotions
    • My husband
    • My successes
    • My failures
    • My illnesses
    • My health
    • Pretty much my entire life.
  • UnshackleTheChains
    UnshackleTheChains

    Scratchme101,

    I felt your pain in every word you typed. That is just so sad.

  • stuckinarut2
    stuckinarut2

    Great thread!

    Yes, we have all had these sort of experiences.

    I started a few threads on it. At that time it really annoyed me to see how the average witness has their "opinions" of close friends made up for them by someone else!

    https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/4664153266454528/has-your-name-reputation-been-maligned-witness-gossip-mill

    https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5751633187176448/all-my-friends-organisation

  • Still Totally ADD
    Still Totally ADD

    I dream about my two adult boys come to see my wife and I and they will not speak to us. I have this dream about two or three times a week. They both have missed a lot not talking to us. Mostly how happy we are not being in the cult any more and our hope they will escape it also. We truly raised them to well in the cult. I missed them alot. I hope they wake up before we grow to old and die. Still Totally ADD

  • LongHairGal
    LongHairGal

    UNSHACKLE THE CHAINS:

    I worked full-time at a good office job with benefits and the JWs tried to suggest not very subtly that I should quit and take up housecleaning.

    Naturally, I paid no heed to this nonsense because I had to support myself. Most were born-ins raised in a broom closet and I was viewed as a curiosity by many of the sisters there, both young and old. I actually liked many of them.

    I got the cold shoulder from many other JWs...Some people were nice (especially older people), but I wasn't invited much...I got used to it and came to see it as "normal".

    There were some people in the hall, especially my first hall, who would not talk to me even in a car group. I guess I was "persona non grata"....I was guilty of being a single woman with a job who didn't dress dowdy enough.

    I saw this attitude all during my years in the JW religion, although it let up a bit in later years when economic necessity led to other ladies in the hall getting jobs....And I don't mean housecleaning either!!!!! Hell no....But, because they were married and/or related to the right people, they never experienced shunning....It was Okay when THEY got a decent job.

    I was WISE to have never listened to Witness nonsense as I am now retired and don't want to know about these people.

  • Rainbow_Troll
    Rainbow_Troll

    My dad had me baptized in the Church of Scotland as an infant. Consequently, my soul was already spoken for by the calvinist God long before a JW baptism would be permissible. And since I was never baptized in the JW cult, they could not legally disfellowship me. You would think that this fortuitous legal loophole would have protected me from being shunned. Not so.

    After foolishly consenting to follow the two elders into the back room so they could determine my guilt, I was shunned informally. Again, since I was not baptized and thus not DFable, they could not announce anything during a meeting; but news of my apostasy spread just as quickly through word of mouth.

    My friends (who had been aware of my apostasy all along, way before the elders or my mom caught on) stopped talking to me, but my mom (who is the only JW in my entire extended family) has always stayed in contact. Sometimes JWs from the local congregation will say hello if we meet in public and an older brother will still engage me in long theological debates which I am all too happy to humor, as they allow me to share my own knowledge with him.

    All in all, I think my shunning experience has been pretty mild compared what I have heard from others. It's rather ironic (downright baffling, really) that only those whom I was closest to actually shun me now, while JWs whom I barely know will gladly converse with me. Maybe it's because the congregation here is not the same one as that which I grew up in. They didn't actually see me "DFd", so it's not as real to them.

  • James Mixon
    James Mixon

    My J.W brother walked my first born J.W daughter (bride) down the aisle.The marriage didn't work out, they divorced 17 years later.......The shunning divided my family, 30 years of shunning has destroyed our family (none JW family members and JW family members)....

  • Normalfulla
    Normalfulla

    My wife and I faded fairly recently, I had a deep talk to my Uber elder brother who I love dearly and told him a few facts about the truth... He doesn't want to talk to me anymore, my sisters are both strictly no contact...im Not disfellowshipped, not doing anything wrong just don't go to meetings and field service and that is worthy of virtual death.... Soo f$#%kd up, I love these people and they are throwing a normal sibling loving relationship away cos the GB says so... Huge sad face

  • joe134cd
    joe134cd

    According to the Australian royal commission inactive ones are free to leave with out any consequences. YEAH RIGHT. LOL!!!!

    How have I been treated. Physically out for 3 years. Although I have never openly discussed how I feel about the religion, and also not DFed. I think the unofficial word is out that I'm a deep seated wicked apostate. I saw an uber in town the other day who's father had just died. I consoled him. We had a chat and then all of a sudden he just finnished the conversation and walked off. Anyway if I see them I usually engage them just to make the squirm.

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