E-man, didn't want to hi-jack your thread with my ramblings and stories this morning...
I've thought about this many times... especially after ending a phone conversation where I can hear how disappointed my family is that things are going well in my life. It really hurt that when I would say I was doing great, my parents would give a big sigh and then the "Oh, " in the saddest voice imaginable. Don't they want me to be happy? Don't they care that I'm happier now than I was when I was in the Org?
But I realize that they don't believe I AM happy. They think my feelings are just one more thing that I've been blinded to. And they have the proof. When I was in my early twenties, I was in a relationship with this JW boy. He was very conflicted about his beliefs-- I think he was a very intelligent person, and there were these rumblings of doubt way down in his mind that he was trying to stuff. As well, he was living far from his Witness upbringing--wanting to get to know his non-JW father a little better. He tried to adhere somewhat to the strict moral code of JWs because he still believed, as so many hangers-on, "where else would I go." All of this had a trickle-down effect in our relationship, as you can imagine. I badgered him, he bullied me, i believed that if he'd "get his act together" (spiritually) he wouldn't treat me so mean. It was an unmitigated disaster. Add to that it was long-distance... well, eventually it ended, and my heart was broken, plus my spirit was crushed--at least then.
I was working at a restaurant at the time. A real party place, and as the employees are wont to do in a job like that, there were always invitations to parties, out drinking after shift, sports activities, you name it. Even though I was the goody-two-shoes JW girl, I still got an invitation every shift I worked. Meanwhile I was desperately trying to create a friendship network in my congregation. I asked so many sisters, so many times to go to lunch with me, or go shopping, tried to call and chat on the phone. Nothing ever worked. No matter how hard I tried to push my way into social activities in my hall, they seemed to be working just as hard to keep me out. Actually all they had to do was nothing--same effect. Obviously, for a contact-starved extrovert, it was getting pretty tempting to go play with the "worldly" kids. Here I was nursing my broken heart from the JW boy, my wounded feelings from the cliquish sisters... no-brainer. I went out with the "gang."
We had a blast. The same week I went to my last meeting for a period of several months, I knew what I was headed into (at least some of it) and I couldn't live with "leading a double life." So I just ditched JW life for a time. Wouldn't allow myself to think of it, just enjoyed the here and now. I still believed the WT rhetoric, I just wouldn't think of it. (A little bit of Scarlett in me?) Eventually there was a boy... he was good for me, although I didn't see it until I finally made my way out of the JWs for real. He used to dance behind the bar for the ladies. Always ready with a laugh or a joke. He taught me to in-line skate. We used to sit out on his porch in this nasty recliner that someone rescued from the street, and talk. He helped me deal with the broken heart, made me feel attractive, he was the one who convinced me to look for my best friend Adena. Said "you'd give up your best friend for a religion??? are you crazy?" Yes, yes I was...
I'm sorry to say, I treated him very badly especially towards the end. He knew I was going back to the religion no matter what he said or did... eventually he took a job out of town and moved, I suspect to make it easier for me to "do what I had to do" and break up with him and return to the JWs. So I went back, confessed, did that whole thing. For a time, my whole relationship with him got very skewed in my mind, with delusions that I had been "coerced" into doing certain things... yeah that must be it, I would NEVER have broken "jehovah's laws," left to my own devices... Quin, if you're out there, I'm sorry, and thank you, you were a good friend to me, and a good boyfriend, even if I never allowed you to use that term when we were together.
So Quin left, a couple of months later I went back to the Hall as I said. Confessed, was reproved, three times in a couple of months. Finally I "straightened things out" which really meant I basically repressed every glimmer of ME that was starting to surface, and became the good little JW automaton once again. I tell you that to tell you this...
Shortly thereafter, I visited Bethel and I had a talk with my parents, and George Couch's personal secretary Bro. Rains. (Sorry I can't remember his first name, but many in the PacNW might remember the man, tall incredibly handsome black man. Dead ringer for Jesse Jackson from 20 yards, although face to face he was younger and handsomer.) Anyways, he collected "experiences" for the writing department, and he was particularly interested in mine. He wanted to know how the daughter of two prominent and well-known full-time witnesses, bethelites and long-time pioneer (mother), a pioneer herself (me--though it had been a couple of years.) I having been on a multitude of assembly/convention parts...who the D.O. once told (our family) that we were an "example for the entire circuit" what led me to "falling into sin and reproof."
I was invited to his private office, and we talked for a couple of hours. I had to sign permission that anything I said could be used by the writing department in the magazines, and could be circulated among various committees. The whole conversation was put on tape, then transcribed by some harried young brother who was bursting his double breasted to be the lead personal secretary to the man who was secretary to George Couch. Rains and I talked at length about the lack of socializing being done in the congregation outside of Theocratic activities. He agreed that it was friendships that kept most people in the Org, not belief, and that belief alone would fall if there weren't personal connections for individuals to lean on. We talked about how the congregation is quick to address "gross sin," but not in any way the excessive drinking and drunkeness that usually precedes it.
Finally he asked me how I could have left and functioned, even seemed happy when I knew I was displeasing Jehovah. My response, and the one he took back to my family...
"Bro. Rains, I never let myself think about it. If I thought about the truth, I was very unhappy, but anytime thoughts would come up I would push them back down, and that's how I was able to be happy away from my brothers and sisters."
It was absolutely true at the time. It was too big a conflict to let myself think about. As I said, I still believed all the WT teaching, so if I thought about it, I knew I was going to die, and die soon. It was terrifying. And I knew I was "hurting Jehovah." The thought of him up there crying his big ol' ocean tears over me was more than I could deal with, so I stopped thinking and just lived.
Now, of course, when I have a phone call with my parents and tell them I'm doing well, what do you imagine the first thing they think is? "**** is just happy because she's not letting herself think of the consequences. She is deluding herself. She did it before and she's doing it again..." They really believe, no matter what I say, that I'm NOT happy. They think my so called happiness is just one more way Satan has gotten to me. It's not that they want me to be unhappy, they just want me to realize that I really AM unhappy, so that I will come back to the Org and get happy for real. It's the way they have been trained.
It's like all the times a JW counts misfortune as the way Jehovah shows his displeasure, but if it's good news for a worldling then it must be because Satan is "distracting" them. You can't win for losing... but we can be happy. Don't let them rain on your parade. Sure, we'd like our JW family to be happy for the progress we are making in our lives, but they just can't. That would be too big a conflict. All blessings come from Jehovah, right? So if things are going well in our lives, that means Jehovah is blessing us? No, no, no, that can't be. It has to be a distraction from Satan, so they can't share in our joy... that would be partaking from the table of demons.
How sad for them. How sad for us. Damn WT.
Odrade.
*disclaimer* Sorry for all the "Jehovah"s in this story. I couldn't think of a way to express how they were thinking without using the terminology.
p.s. the JW boy is afaik, out of the Org too. I haven't had a word from him in over 11 years. I hope he's happy... I hope he has that little girl he always wanted, and I hope he's found good love.