I gave a brief account of my story earlier and I will now expand on it, just in the hope someone out there might find it helpful.
I was born the son of a JW elder and a JW pioneer. I was raised in the typical JW lifestyle, no holidays, no friends outside the borg, no contact with family that were not JW's, meeting 3 nights a week and field service whenever my parents could squeeze it all in,ect ect ect. The only ones in our family outside the borg that we were allowed contact with were my grandparents on my fathers side. Funny he kept them in our lives but no one in my mothers family was allowed contact. Anyway back to the story. We were considered the "Perfect" JW family. Always being brought out on stage at the assemblies to show everyone else that if my mother could pioneer with 7 kids, anyone could do it. My father was never around because he was too busy taking care of the "flock". He always had time for other JW's problems, but never had time for his own family. I seriously don't think he knew most of his childrens names since he always called us by the wrong one until my mother corrected him. My mother passed away when I was fairly young, because she refused a blood transfusion that would have saved her life. My father was crushed of course and blamed himself for her death. All of us kids who were old enough to understand what was going on blamed him as well. Well needless to say my family fell apart, and every JW within a 50 mile radius took it upon themselves to try and put all the pieces back together. I will never forget some of the single sisters in our congo just coming on to my dad like crazy, saying shit like, you need help to raise all these kids. Makes me barf just thinking about it now.
By the time I was 15 i realized that I didn't agree with most of the JW doctrines. I studied the bible on my own and could not find a scriptural reason for most of the JW policies so I decided it was not for me. When I was 16 I finally just couldn't take it anymore and confided in an elder in our congo that I was pretty sure I was gay. He advised me to keep it to myself and since I hadn't acted on the impulse yet he wouldn't need to tell any of the other elders or my father about it. He also advised me to start dating a sister in "good standing" as quickly as I could find one and marry her as soon as possible. Well that just sent me over the edge. This man was telling me to lie and ruin another persons life just to keep my secret and I wasn't going to do that. I decided then and there it was time to go, so I told another elder of my gay feelings and lied to him and said I had acted upon my feelings. This elder had been a good friend of my mother's so he said that he would call together a judical commitee that would only include elders who would be sympathetic to me. That's when I said just forget it and went to see 3 other elders in the congo and invited my father to come with me. There in front of all 4 of them I said as plainly as I could that I was a sexually active gay man, and I had no intention of changing or apologizing to them or anyone else about it. Well I thought my father was going to have a heart attack on the spot. When I came home from my summer job the next day my bags were packed and out on the front lawn with a note from my JW Elder father that told me to drop off the face of the earth. It wasn't that I didn't expect it, but it still shocked me since the elders at our meeting the night before had told my father that until I was 18 he was responsible for taking care of me. I guess he decided not to listen to them.
So there I was, 16, working at a fast food resturant and living in my car. I won't go into all the details about what I had to do to survive at that age living on my own except to say that most of what I had to do wasn't very moral, and not exactly legal, and I'll leave it at that. I didn't care at the time because all I could think of was that I was ffinally FREE. Besides the back seat of my car was comfortable, lol. I decided that I was going to finish high school and get into college no matter what it took. I managed to graduate HS and actually got accepted to a great university which I also managed to graduate from with a BS degree. My point is that we can all do anything we put our minds to if we truly try our best.
Now skip to today. I love my life. I have a great partner who I met many many moons ago, lol who loves me and supports me in every adventure I decide to embark upon. Here's my final point. There is life beyond the JW's. There really is. It isn't easy in any way, but it can be done. It took many years but now I have some of my siblings back in my life and I couldn't be happier about that. I have also found a personal connection with God and I now know that no "organization" was the key to that door.
Hope posting this helps someone out there who just needs a little encouragment to walk away from the borg.
Cranky
P.S. I don't think my spellcheck is working so sorry bout that.
I was born the son of a JW elder and a JW pioneer. I was raised in the typical JW lifestyle, no holidays, no friends outside the borg, no contact with family that were not JW's, meeting 3 nights a week and field service whenever my parents could squeeze it all in,ect ect ect. The only ones in our family outside the borg that we were allowed contact with were my grandparents on my fathers side. Funny he kept them in our lives but no one in my mothers family was allowed contact. Anyway back to the story. We were considered the "Perfect" JW family. Always being brought out on stage at the assemblies to show everyone else that if my mother could pioneer with 7 kids, anyone could do it. My father was never around because he was too busy taking care of the "flock". He always had time for other JW's problems, but never had time for his own family. I seriously don't think he knew most of his childrens names since he always called us by the wrong one until my mother corrected him. My mother passed away when I was fairly young, because she refused a blood transfusion that would have saved her life. My father was crushed of course and blamed himself for her death. All of us kids who were old enough to understand what was going on blamed him as well. Well needless to say my family fell apart, and every JW within a 50 mile radius took it upon themselves to try and put all the pieces back together. I will never forget some of the single sisters in our congo just coming on to my dad like crazy, saying shit like, you need help to raise all these kids. Makes me barf just thinking about it now.
By the time I was 15 i realized that I didn't agree with most of the JW doctrines. I studied the bible on my own and could not find a scriptural reason for most of the JW policies so I decided it was not for me. When I was 16 I finally just couldn't take it anymore and confided in an elder in our congo that I was pretty sure I was gay. He advised me to keep it to myself and since I hadn't acted on the impulse yet he wouldn't need to tell any of the other elders or my father about it. He also advised me to start dating a sister in "good standing" as quickly as I could find one and marry her as soon as possible. Well that just sent me over the edge. This man was telling me to lie and ruin another persons life just to keep my secret and I wasn't going to do that. I decided then and there it was time to go, so I told another elder of my gay feelings and lied to him and said I had acted upon my feelings. This elder had been a good friend of my mother's so he said that he would call together a judical commitee that would only include elders who would be sympathetic to me. That's when I said just forget it and went to see 3 other elders in the congo and invited my father to come with me. There in front of all 4 of them I said as plainly as I could that I was a sexually active gay man, and I had no intention of changing or apologizing to them or anyone else about it. Well I thought my father was going to have a heart attack on the spot. When I came home from my summer job the next day my bags were packed and out on the front lawn with a note from my JW Elder father that told me to drop off the face of the earth. It wasn't that I didn't expect it, but it still shocked me since the elders at our meeting the night before had told my father that until I was 18 he was responsible for taking care of me. I guess he decided not to listen to them.
So there I was, 16, working at a fast food resturant and living in my car. I won't go into all the details about what I had to do to survive at that age living on my own except to say that most of what I had to do wasn't very moral, and not exactly legal, and I'll leave it at that. I didn't care at the time because all I could think of was that I was ffinally FREE. Besides the back seat of my car was comfortable, lol. I decided that I was going to finish high school and get into college no matter what it took. I managed to graduate HS and actually got accepted to a great university which I also managed to graduate from with a BS degree. My point is that we can all do anything we put our minds to if we truly try our best.
Now skip to today. I love my life. I have a great partner who I met many many moons ago, lol who loves me and supports me in every adventure I decide to embark upon. Here's my final point. There is life beyond the JW's. There really is. It isn't easy in any way, but it can be done. It took many years but now I have some of my siblings back in my life and I couldn't be happier about that. I have also found a personal connection with God and I now know that no "organization" was the key to that door.
Hope posting this helps someone out there who just needs a little encouragment to walk away from the borg.
Cranky
P.S. I don't think my spellcheck is working so sorry bout that.
