My story - part One.

by diamondblue1974 34 Replies latest jw experiences

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  TheListener

  Thank you DB. It's posts like yours and others that give me the strength to carry on and ensure my children don't suffer the way many of us have.

  I really look forward to the next part.
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  calamityjane

  Glad to hear your story.

  I grew up with my Dad' belt and wooden spoon. I had many a welts on my bottom. I can so relate. My mom's torture at the meetings was if I wasn't sitting still or I was misbehaving, nobody could see her doing this either, was that she would pinch me under my upper arm in the soft spot which would leave a bruise and a layer of skin missing, as she had long pointy nails.

  What a cruel religion.

  cj
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  Dragonlady76

  CJ,

  was that she would pinch me under my upper arm in the soft spot which would leave a bruise and a layer of skin missing

  My mom did that too, she also would punch my upper thigh if I moved my legs to much during the meetings. She did it so well that she never had to get up to give me a spanking.

  DL76
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  I quit!

  Looking forward to what I hope will be a happy ending begining in part 2.

  With all the nice things we could export to the UK what do we wind up sending? Our wierd religions like the Watchtower and Mormonism. Your customs agents really have do a better job.

  The churches I attend don't allow small children in the adult services. They have things for kids based on their age. Nor do you see beating taking place. My sister teaches small children a her church while the parents are in the adult service. She is always buying toys and snacks for them. What a difference. I'm really sorry for any part I had in screwing kids up when I was a JW.

  I agree with how you are handling your mom. There seems to be some people that would be worse off if they found out what a load of crap the WT teaches. Time will tell if this is the case with your mom. Sometimes the people who you least expect to wake up surprise you.
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  dorayakii

  Enjoyed reading your story DB74, i also saw in it so many parallels with my own childhood... Although my experience has made me a very meek and unassuming person (as opposed to the brash, self-important people who have recieved no discipline), i still feel an acute sense of sadness that parents can treat their children in such an extreme way...

  The meetings were no different; although the discipline was kept for after the meeting at home; she would whisper on every occasion ‘that’s one smack’….that’s two smacks’ etc etc…I remember her losing count on one occasion but of course I hadn’t…needless to say I didn’t tell her; she would later in time often ask me how many I had counted probably because she had lost count again…so I chose a number which was lower than what was actual but enough to ensure she believed I was being honest. I also remember my constantly seeking approval from my mum by asking whether I had been good during the meeting…and hearing her grunt with little praise or encouragement.

  I also was in a one-parent family until my elder father re-married to a pioneer. Throughout my childhood, my father also used to count the smacks. "That's one smack"... "That's two smacks"... If i even questioned why i was being smacked or anything like that, he would add to the tally. I soon learned to just shut up. He'd then give me a lecture that the only reason he was smacking me was because he loved me, then told me to pull my trousers down. He'd then stike me a number of times with a belt which would have left my skin visibly and explicitly bruised for days had my skin been caucasian. I would then cry for ages, during which he would stike me several more times for crying so loudly. I'd end up sitting in a corner wanting to cry, but not daring to. I'd just be there in shock, shaking and gasping large gulps of air.

  She couldn’t do that of course and after a conversation with this guy things returned to normal; I cant describe how it felt but I look back and it sends shivers down my spine even now but again things were building up inside me that were coming to a head; as a teenager I was very angry and aggressive and one evening I remember my mother losing her rag with me because I had dared to go against one of this guys rules and she swung back with the stick to hit me across my arms and I grabbed it off her and feeling it sting against the palm of my hand I snapped it in two or three pieces and still remember to this day what I screamed at her…I am not proud of it but I screamed that if she dared even think about hitting me with a stick again I would ram the stick ‘down her throat and make sure it fucking well choked her’.

  At one point at around age 9/10, my father struck me with the belt and in a rage i turned around, grabbed it out of his hand and wrought the thick belt in two with my bare hands... Sometimes my dad would chase me round the house (funnily he never shouted and viewed shouting as excessive...)

  At other points, my step-mother (who tried to avoid hitting me, but was just as hurtful with her caustic words) would slap me across the face for a minor wrong-doing, and beat me to the ground by slapping me in my face... Once, and only once i slapped her back, and she never did it again... My father once unprevokedly called me a piece of dirt on the ground; i stormed out and slammed the door behind me breaking the hinges off... they still hold the view that i was in the wrong, no matter how much i tried to reason that you just don't speak to a person like that...

  I never ran away, i was too scared to, but my father twice locked me out of the house for 3 hours at about 11pm-2am, when i was 9... They still both feel no remorse for the way they treated me, althought they admit theywouldn't do the same if they had another child... Meat in due season huh?....

  Now i feel no anger for what was done, but i don't love my parents in the least, i would love to have feelings for them, but i am cold...its affected my other relationships with people as well, i have a warm smile and genuinly feel for people, but im just not able anymore to feel deeply about anyone apart from my grandmother and my aunt and her family... I still feel uncomfortable in physical contact because i never have had any loving physical contact... i don't think either of my parents have touched me for years, unless i have made the move to shake my fathers hand or put my hand on my step-mothers shoulder... Such moves toward intimacy are always met with a shocked "Oh!"... I've given up on my parents now, they are too far in the organisation, but i think one of these days i'll go to one of those pshycholo-wotsit people and try to learn to feel again...