OutOfTheBox, your story SO parallels my own! I was raised in a large, caring Italian family. My mother married my stepfather when I was 5 yrs old, so I grew up around a relatively close-knit loving family that was loud and large and full of fun. There were 9 brothers, 4 of whom were quadruplets, their wives and children, and various cousins and their families scattered all over town. There was the dark side of some of them, of course. I was also molested by my stepfather and some of the uncles. They also made sure I was falsely discredited as a sort of "Dolce Vita" among the whole family so that I was frowned upon and in order to insure that they wouldn't get any heat from other family members should I tell on them. They needn't have worried. The subject was such a taboo in the '50's and 60's that I didn't dare say anything because of what they'd done. I thought there was something wrong with me.
There were family get-togethers or barbecues nearly every weekend. The quads and a few of the brothers and their wives bought property on a street way out in the Southwest end of town and named the street "Quad Lane." The whole family pitched in with their carpentry, brick-laying, plumbing and electrician skills and built all their homes out there. There was a BBQ every weekend when everyone would gather to observe the labor and pitch in to help get the homes built and have a ton of fun doing it.
But other than the dark side, there was the camaraderie and fun-loving bunch that I dearly loved being a part of. I guess my best memories of the way it was were pre-teen. It meant so much to me. Consequently, when I grew up, married and divorced, then had 3 kids to raise on my own without help from their father, I grew fiercely independent. And I was mainly on my own, making a life for us, so I did the best that I could. My older sis found jdubs when I was in my late 20's and I took her word that these were the people I'd been looking for. By that time, I was looking for the group of ppl here on earth that were God's ppl, because I knew they'd be somewhat like my step-family had been without the dark side, and I so missed that camaraderie and togetherness. Boy, was I wrong!
They dA'd my oldest unbaptised son when he got in trouble with the law, having been led astray by a bad associate. He was sent away for a time to a juvenile "camp" and the elders and MS said they would write to him and encourage him. They did nothing. Then when they knew it was almost time for him to come home, they announced his dA'ing from the platform without even notifying me about it first! Of course, they didn't notify him either and left it up to me to tell him when he came home with a repentant heart and renewed determination to do their God's will. It was left up to me to tell him in the face of this and it crushed him and destroyed all hope for him. He left home before he was 18 and I don't blame him a bit. That was here in SE Texas. I wept on the "shoulder" of the circus serpent about how the congs weren't doing or providing any help for teens in the borg, but it didn't do any good.
My daughter was dF'd for jumping the broom with the busboy from the restaurant where she worked at the time. Though she was repentant and they got married, the elders dF'd her anyway, determining for themselves that she was unrepentant. She put me through hell every time I was around her for the next 10 yrs, but we finally mended "fences" and she knows now that I only did the best I could for my children. Parents have limits on what they can do for their kids. That was here in SE Texas, too.
When my youngest son and I moved to California, tagging along after my older sis in 1988, I found the congs out there to be sorely lacking in love, also. Oh, yeah, there were a few loving, caring ppl scattered here and there among the congs, as is usually the case, but the lot as a whole was rotten. I told yall what the elders did when I needed help moving after the car accident. My son and I sat through the dF'ing of a young pioneer sister while the PO doing the announcement graphically (sights and smells) described the act of fornication she was being dF'd for while the pioneer brother was only publicly reproved. She sat there totally crushed and crying uncontrollably through the announcement.
There was also the time when my youngest was trying to be approved for baptism and he was working so diligently to study and get out in field service. An elder from the KH we were attending at the time (we changed congs 3 times within the space of 4 yrs) promised to pick him up for field service one morning. My son eagerly went outside to wait in the parking lot for the elder to arrive. It was cold and raining and he'd forgotten his jacket, but I considered that he'd be in the elder's car most of the time and didn't worry. Approx. 90 minutes later, my son came back in crying and heartbroken. The elder had just arrived, having left his own showboat of a vehicle in the KH parking lot and squeezed into a mid-sized car with a bunch of pioneers, and he told my son they didn't have room for him in the car, so he'd hafta do it "another time." My son lost all zeal for the spoof they call the truth and jdub association.
These are just a coupla hi-lights of what went on. We were spied on by someone assigned to do so (they admitted it when I asked 'em) and much more.....there was much, much more badness that went on. But, as you can see, it's a hypocritical borganization and deserves to be deserted. The borg, as a whole, is a "wild-a beest" and deserves to be "roasted," too. They destroy faith, families and lives.
Frannie
