(but having to explain that it was becasue I was taken out of public school only to be isolated at home- aside from meetings- and that we weren't allowed to watch TV or play outside lest we get molested and murdered by kidnappers I was pretty much holed up in my bedroom most of my late childhood years/early teen years....)

I've started doing everything I can to leave out as many details about my childhood in passing conversation as possible. The other night I was at a party and we were having a conversation about our siblings. I wasn't really saying anything because me and my sister aren't close. Someone asked me if I was an only child and I said that I wasn't but me and my sister weren't particularly close so I didn't have much to say. She asked me what happened.

At this point I had two options, you can start telling the story, but then that opens a whole can of worms. People are very curious about Jehovah's Witnesses, generally speaking. Or you can just try to work around it. I ended up telling her it's a long story and she took the hint. Not re-telling the story over and over again helps avoid re-living pain unnecessarily .

-Dave

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.' They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

- John Lennon