Hello to all. I have only been visiting this board for a couple months, but wow, how it has helped me! Thanks to everyone who has shared information and their stories, given advice, listened, reasoned, confessed, vented, cussed, challenged and supported.
I am formerly known as "Hunyadi", but I made the decision to come out a few weeks ago. I hesitated because I was born and raised in this cult, this Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and I have three teenagers who are still associated with the organization and I feared that they might be admonished by the elders about their "apostate" father. I was worried that they might turn on me for my new beliefs about the org, that they might stop loving me for stating the truth about "The Truth". I am Tim Corvin, that is who I am, and I don't care what SOB elder or GB member knows I am opposed to the org.
It was very hard at times and I did not know which way my children were going to go. I now have custody of them (since June, 2003) due to the emotional, spiritual and physical abuse they experienced in the home of their JW mother and stepfather. The elders would not intervene to save them, but only made matters worse for them by enabling their mother and stepfather to continue on with their hypocrisy and abuse. I was mostly worried about the middle child, age 15, who was still attending all the meetings, going out in field service, and studying with an older sister. She was sometimes visibly upset when I would tactfully present her with negative information about the org. It took her a while, many weeks, but today, she finally said to me,
"Dad, I have been thinking alot lately. I have made a decision to tell the sister I am studying with that I no longer want to study. Not because you might not want me to, but because I have been listening to what you have been saying about the Witness faith, and you make sense to me. I know you would let me keep studying if I said I wanted to . . . During our last study, Carol kept stressing over and over again how important it was for me to stay in the organization, and it made me feel really uneasy. She was very obvious and I kind of see what you are talking about when you tell me about the control thing, and I am starting to not like it . . . "
Inside, I jumped 50 feet in the air, but outwardly remained impassive. I suggested that she did not have to confront anyone, the elders, her mother or the sister she studies with about the issues. I told her that she could just stop studying and going out in field service, and taper off going to the meetings until she felt comfortable leaving altogether (the fade). She did not have to explain anything to anyone. She could just say, "this is not what I want right now".
Finally, I am pleased that I have managed to divert my children from the path of insanity they felt they were bound to. It is so damned hard to tell your kids that so much of everything they have always believed, everything I myself have taught them, is a lie. It helps me to deal with the pain and uncertainty to know that I am giving my children something just a little bit better than what I had growing up, that I am breaking a destructive pattern of behavior in my JW family tree.
I am out now, thank God. I thank God that I was able to bring my kids out of that neurotic mess that is the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses. Again, to celebrate, I have changed my new user name to what it really is: Corvin.
TO THE LURKERS, ELDERS AND THE GOVERNING BODY OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES:
You are ruthless and evil. You have destroyed countless families and friendships in the name of God and Christ Jesus and for the sake of your pittiful edicts and rules and wrong interpretations of the Holy Scriptures. You claim the souls of young children and destroy their spirits, and make them sad and conflicted drones. You claimed my mother, and she died trying so desperately to conform to your impossible and burdensome commandments. She would be alive today had she not attended that Service Meeting on March 17, 1990. Her name was Bernice Elkins.
Again, I am putting you on notice that I and my children are completely off limits to you and your minion elders here locally in San Diego. We are permanently on the "DO NOT CALL" list! The first elder or JW to approach one of my children with a guilt trip, Bible counsel, advice or admonition will be just the same jacking off a lion with a handfull of razor blades. Not a good idea. Stay away from us.
To the NEWBIES here, especially the young ones, please take the time to read about the issues regarding the JW religion and take to heart the many experiences you will read. Look to the future with confidence, get an education and get healthy again. Remember, bad associations spoil useful habbits, and you can get healthy if you stop associating with the maniacs. We are not apostates and you will not get "apostate juice" on you by reading and opening up your mind a bit. We were all just like you, struggling and conflicted, afraid and doubting. To leave the org will not mean you will be alone forever in your life. To leave the org does not mean that you cannot have a relationship with God. It really does get better.
Warm Regards,
Corvin