I was talking with a good friend tonight, from the board. She has one of the most shocking backgrounds on here, in some ways very similar to my own. After our conversation she told me I should put this one down and post it…so here goes.
I had a best friend who was older than me and treated me like a brother. We both went though hell as our parents split up; we were both witnesses as well. Often we would worry about my parents getting DF’ed and us not being able to speak to each other. I remember the promise to Jehovah being the one thing that meant we were telling the truth.
Same with my actual brother, we were best friends, even though we never acted like it. Most of the time we were all we had, even though we fought and argued, but we loved each other. Usually we were the only comfortable people we could be around as our father had the most trashy people I’ve ever known over along with his pre-teen girlfriend whenever we were visiting.
So fast-forward to now. This is the hardest part. Is it survivor’s guilt? As I travel the country and stay in awesome hotels, hang out backstage with bands and “cool people” every now and then, and review the latest information on the company I own a part of, adn as I become more free form the Society, I feel it. I feel the twinge of guilt for leaving others behind. My brother works in what is basically a sawmill. My father refused to let him get the treatment he needed for several ailments he was born with, even though he had the resources, and now he moves like a 50 year old because his joints are weak. He’s 28. He also goes to meetings and in service and is a real good dub. Reaching out for servant. Sucking up to the same people who watched us starve for 6 years as they reminded us our mom was living wrong and everything would be ok if we just went to the meetings again. No, it would be ok if our father would pay his child support.
The best friend now works in the oilfield. I did it for a while and figured out really quick it was not the place to be. So many people working there missing fingers, or at least the tips of them from clamping the tongs around the rods with the big gloves on and getting their fingers caught. I remember being more exhausted working on those rigs than ever in my life before or after. Could barely think because of the ache and fatigue. He’s still there, over 12 years later. He’s had ribs broken, fingers smashed, spinal fractures, and still goes on, making half what I do sitting in my office all day. Right now he still believes he is the one in the wrong because he’s not good enough to be a dub, he’s DF’ed. I told him about the site…but he’s not computer savvy at all.
And then there is another one, not a dub, he made it, made it all the way out of the little slice of hell I call home. He joined the military, got his honorable discharge, and bought a farm with his fiancé out in Colorado. They had about 20 acres of the most beautiful land you ever saw. He had a great job directing construction crews on building projects. I thought he was going to make it for real. They went sour, and he moved back to the small town we were raised in, got a girlfriend, got her pregnant, married her. He works as a carpenter now for about a quarter of what he once made. He used to run crews of carpenters. The last time I saw him he asked me…”you know that feeling you get when you come here, after a few days, that you really, really want to leave because you don’t belong here?” I said “yea”. He said, “It never goes away”.
The point is, just as those in the truth are, these people are about their life. They really don’t know what else there is, and are afraid to find out. They stay with what is familiar, and easy. A few others have said these same things to me, that they feel guilty for not being able to bring more with them. I feel it, too. I wish there was an easy answer to getting more people to wake up and see the truth about the truth.
Strange how you can feel guilty for being free isn’t it?
WLG