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Hello Randall,
My mom and Dad met and married in Canada in the late 60s. Dad had been studying to be a JW -- the thought of never growing old appealed to him. My Mother was a staunch French Catholic raised in a home of 8 kids, an alcoholic father and schoolteacher mom. She was tired of asking questions of the priests only to get the "it's a mystery" answer. Mom and Dad were baptized in 1970--back then it was somewhat worded differently, you dedicated your life to God's service, not to an organization.
Despite being counseled otherwise my parents decided to have children. Where others were avoiding the potential to have children "used against them" during trials and persecution, my parents saw this as an opportunity to bring children through to the new system of things --hopefully in 1975, but certainly in that generation.
My parents had a good marriage at the beginning. My father took on his "spiritual responsibilities" and he looked forward to preaching of Jehovah's upcoming deliverance of the faithful. He had questions, but continued to serve faithfully until 1977. He had become so disillusioned with the JWs and had actually been serving with a date in mind.
He soon became involved in a variety of "wrongdoings". He used to beat my mother, as he was on drugs and alcohol at that point. He had also began smoking, hiring prostitutes and basically rebelling in every way possible, since he was "doomed to destruction". Because of these activities, my father would have "business associates" in the home who were later found out to have sexually abused my younger sister. Despite all of this, the elders did not want to question his authority in the home, even when he expressed his desire to be removed from the JWs, so in 1978 my father was disfellowshipped for "smoking". Wow.
For the next five years my mom and dad were together and separated on and off. I was 10 years old, an active publisher and meeting attendee. We studied the Paradise Lost book as a family with my mother (with her head covering) and my father had faded out of the JW picture. I had very few friends at the hall because there were no kids my age and of course, I was not allowed to associate with the worldly children at school. Mom continued to put up with physical and mental abuse until in 1982 the Society made a ruling on proper sexual activities between married couples. That night, my mother received the beating of her life for not complying to my father's demands.
The next day, she fled to the elders, who by that time, decided that my father was beyond saving. So, when my father went to work, we were whisked away and began hiding out at various Witnesses' homes. When he returned home to a note composed by the Presiding overseer, he lost control. At this point deranged with violence and drug addiction, he began searching us out and waiting outside many JW households in his car with his loaded 303 shotgun.
I don't know if God was protecting us, but I like to believe that our prayers did not fall on deaf ears. My Mom was doing everything in her power to do what was right for our immediate and eternal salvation. Within weeks, she filed for scriptural divorce with my father having written his confessions of infidelity in previous appeals for forgiveness.
She also had a peace bond against him. For the next seven years we were raised by my mother, who was our sole support--financial and spiritual. I felt I owed her a debt of gratitude and decided at 13 to get baptized and auxiliary pioneer whenever I could... At this point, I believed in Jehovah but never felt I could truly have a personal relationship with Him. Who was I to try and gain that?
My father, wanting to redeem his life and future, remarried and brought another lady into the organization by changing his ways and getting reinstated for about 2 years in the late 80s...My step-brother was raised as a JW as well, in a warped, abusive home situation where Father knew best. At 15, I spent my summer preaching in another part of Canada where the need was greater with an elder and his family, who would later be reproved for sexual misconduct.
I had been stalked for a couple years by a 28-year old JW who wanted to marry me. On more than one occasion he made his intentions known that he would impregnate me so I would be forced to marry him and no one would say different. When I finally reported him to the elders and the police, he tried to commit suicide. And that was my first exposure to a "relationship".
At 16, I began to question everything. I began researching a variety of topics in order to handle objections I met at the doors. I was an exceptional Bible student and this also affected my study habits at school positively. My teachers encouraged me for years to pursue higher education, but I knew my path had been chosen for me. The world would be coming to an end. There was no choice.
Learning and Teaching
The really interesting stuff happened when I finished high school and was deciding what to do with my life, how I would support myself in the ministry.
I had already joined some of the sisters on their cleaning contracts and had also done a fair amount of babysitting. I had entertained the idea of becoming a bookkeeper, but deep down I knew that none of it would be fulfilling. Ultimately I had to be convinced of the message I was bringing and the concepts of a new world order under God's theocracy. Then it would not matter about how I supported myself.
I remember reading in the You Can Live Forever Book about how everyone (outside of the JWs) should test and see what the backgrounds of their beliefs were. I remember the Trinity brochure and how the Catholics were responsible for thousands, millions of deaths. And then it struck me--if they should "test and see" so should I.
I used to spend hours at the public library researching the "history" that was the basis of some many of the "fulfilled prophecies". I found myself in tears as one by one, the dates were mismatched and the "secular publications" were found to be misquoted. Having been discouraged from reading the apostate material, I truly started search in all earnest wanting to prove once and for all that I did have the truth.
One night my family left to go to the Book study and I tried running away, walking for hours on a highway to nowhere in tears, crying and yelling out to God, "What do you want from me?" After several dangerous run-ins that night, I caved in and called home from a farm house. My mother called the elder down the street to pick me up, ashamed and devastated at my own lack of courage, I went home to cry out further to the Lord. "Jehovah-Jesus-Lord-Allah---Whoever you are!!! I am no one but I desire to know you, to serve you, and I cannot do it as a Witness. I was baptized to serve you, but this Organization is not proving itself your servant. If I am being prideful or showing a bad attitude, then I am sorry. But you can read hearts! What do I do now? Where do I turn?"
Around that time, I was hired as a substitute teacher at my former high school--in those days it was not required to have certification. I realized then how fulfilling teaching was and that I wanted to know more about the world and about other schools of thought. I started to get to know young people outside of the JWs and I got very close with the teachers and guidance counselors. Unfortunately, some had better motives than others. One in particular knew which "buttons to push", insinuating that only unintelligent people would fall for such ideas as the JWs were proposing and he would write me recommendations for University. And oh, how uncomfortable he was around me because I was so attractive. This led to daily meetings behind closed doors of womanly "submission" as I had been taught was my role--although now applied in an improper abusive relationship. Naive as I was, this quid-pro-quo relationship lasted for 6 months. I was 17 but had the mind of a 12-year old. That's when I had my Crisis of Faith, and felt I had strayed so far away that there was no turning back. As I left my mother, she cried "All I am picturing is Armageddon as we clean up the dead bodies of all the wicked, and there you will be!"
To this day, those words ring in my ears. Nevertheless, I applied for University, my new friends moved me out of my home, I left the only family I knew--the only friends I knew--the Witnesses--to move in with a worldly couple as I strived to finish a few more courses to get into first Year Education course at University. For a year and a half I acquired worldly wisdom, philosophy, psychology, the arts. And my mother would send the JWs to make "shepherding calls" on me. It became excessive. I cut off my phone, I stayed in my residence room for days at a time and then I started having nightmares about my eternal welfare.
I was dealing with guilt over the shame I had put my family through. I was guilty over letting the counselor have his way with me. I was guilty for putting Jehovah last in my life. I attempted suicide twice, but never had the guts to follow through. I was rushed to hospital twice... and yet more was to happen.
As I spent time in the hospital being de-programmed and adapting to anti-depressants I did hear from a few people. My mother sent flowers, which sent me reeling into a temperamental fit, as I knew they were her way of showing conditional love (i.e., Return to Jehovah and forget about this whole schooling thing). Surprisingly, though, no elders came to visit, a couple of my professors did, though. That spoke volumes to me about "worldly people". Who was really displaying the love of God?
While in the hospital, I met a man about 7 years my senior, who was raised in a very fundamentalist church, where his faith was constantly questioned and his way of handling that pressure had been over drinking. He was there "recovering" after the tragic loss of his disabled sister, despite hundreds and hundreds of miles of trips to tent meetings and faith healings all over North America. His father had once played an "elder" role in his faith, but was now disillusioned in some ways. Now it was all about "name it claim it" gospel and this man could not grasp it, as from what he knew Jesus and his disciples were among the poorest of the poor. It started out as a very beneficial friendship and turned into a romantic relationship. I too was "technically" a virgin, despite my previous history with the guidance counselor.
At this point, having stared death in the face, I did not know how to live my life, so I gave in to my natural inclinations. Despite having taken precautions, I was pregnant within 6 weeks of losing my virginity. At that point a lot of my choices were removed, but in a strange way, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.
First of all, I had to get off the medication, as there was not enough information about how Prozac could affect the fetus. One of my doctors had advised me to abort the baby, but even in my worst stages of rebellion, I could not handle that concept. I finished what I could of my second year of university, including my Philosophy of Religion course, which I will never regret... and was quickly married thereafter.
With nowhere else to turn my new husband and I returned to God at a local evangelical Baptist church. There I was introduced to the concepts of a personal relationship with God and Christ. And while the Trinity was taught, my belief in it was not absolutely essential. The church members were kind and sincere, but neither I nor my new husband were 100% comfortable with the concept of tithing because it felt like another way to "prove your love" in the same way that meeting attendance and field service was.
Around this time, my father had been searching voraciously through Ray Franz's books, the Gentile Times Reconsidered, Paul's Idea of Community, Combatting Cult Mind Control---all books that were critical to my ability to handle my newfound lot in life. For the next couple years I had my hands full with a new baby and a husband who was no longer satisfied with our relationship. He was looking to sample more of the world. My son was born and he became my life, no longer did I have the luxury to concern myself with my fate when I had a helpless baby so dependent on me. My husband "fell off the wagon" a few times over the next year as I found myself struggling to find a job to support the family.
The night my second son was born, my husband decided to go out and celebrate at a local bar, drinking and getting rowdy--he would return home with broken ribs and other bones. And this type of thing would be our fate for several years. Church was abandoned and we were just struggling to keep our heads above water.
We were living in government housing and I knew we could do better. I had found proof of his infidelity already, and drinking was part of his daily routine--even if it meant selling our possessions. He became violent, throwing furniture and pushing me around. I narrowly escaped a few dangerous situations. As the woman, I was in subjection, as I felt trapped. No Watchtower, no God, no friends to speak of. I had my babies and a chance at a career. They were the only reasons for me to live.
I took a risk in 1997 and took a job in a very small customer service job in Toronto, the big city, where I could use the one talent I had--my French. Because of that job, the whole family could move out of housing into a basement apartment. In some ways it felt like a step down, but I knew it was the only way out.
My career grew from there and so did my confidence. But my husband was thoroughly unhappy and constantly searching for his next high. We separated in 1999 after he gave me a black eye and came after me with a butcher knife. He moved back to our original city, and the children would visit their father every other week when he could afford it. Over that time I did have a couple of "indiscretions" with men, which I am not proud of, but was looking for solace somewhere.
He had been having a relationship with a 17-year old high school girl, and apparently, my children knew her too. But at the first promise of reconciliation, I jumped at it. After all I was not innocent and I had to somehow absolve myself of the guilt I was feeling. I rearranged things, found a job in collections in our home city and we moved back as a family, to try again. We even went to church from time to time. He stayed sober for a little while, but everything would go downhill from there. The next bit of the story is personal but explains the after effects of being raised a JW woman.
I would come home to new people all the time, street dwellers who had been taken in by my husband "to do a good deed", but who actually were drinking/drug buddies. My boys were being exposed to the exact situation I was. The repetition of history was haunting. I was also receiving more physical verbal and mental abuse, including having lit candles thrown at me and being thrown up against walls in our apartment. My children were at risk as well. My youngest almost had his teeth knocked out when he tried to stop his dad from beating up on a "family friend". My husband was pursuing sexual relationships with numerous women and I soon became afraid of my own exposure to disease. I gave him an ultimatum and in 2003 we were separated again.
My father was also separating from his second wife. (She had actually ran away from him). I now know it was due to him physically abusing her for years, but at the time, he moved in with me, with nowhere to go, since he could not believe that she would not want to "live a godly life" with him, now that her son had left home. So, I would again have to support a man in my home financially, but would find myself living under his rules. It was upon his advice that I tried AGAIN to reconcile with my husband, even giving him food and cleaning up his apartment before my kids would come for visits.
My father and husband became great friends, sharing similar philosophies on women and how they should remain in submission. (Interesting how neither one was ready to take on the financial burden of a family, though.) My father was soon on anti-depressants, and spent his days looking for a "proper woman" on the internet. In a twisted sort of way, he felt he was restoring order to my family.
The breaking point
One evening, my apartment door had not been locked. My husband who lived walking distance away, stormed in, drunk and high, and demanded something to eat as well as something else I wasn't going to give him. Upon my refusal, he threw the plate of food at me and it shattered on the wall. He then lunged across at me and began to strangle me . My father, who woke up at the raucous, pulled him off me, just in time for me to call the police. When they arrived, my father began to defend his husband's right to "run his household" and assured everyone that if the police charged my husband he would take his side, not mine, as I had no right to involve the law in these matters.
It took a lot of courage, but that was it--I knew it was time to end everything there. I gave my father a date to move out. I filed for divorce and started looking for God in my life again.
I began attending a different church--non-denominational--and met a wonderful single mom who shared a common zeal and a variety of abuse experiences, having been recently in a fundamentalist church which enforced cultish practices, long hair and skirts as the only acceptable attire for women, no makeup and complete subjugation. Finally I had found a friend who could relate to me!
Summary of My Family
I think it is important at this point for me to elaborate on what had been happening with my family over the years. While I was married to a "worldly man", my family had very limited interactions with me and my children. From time to time my mother would visit or call to check in and my brother and sister even less frequently.
I had also shied away from contact, fearing that I would be given the "I told you so" speech. And at that point, I wondered what truth I had found by leaving the JWs. I knew they were wrong, I had the books and the "proof", but my life was not an example of Christian freedom.
I would come to find out that my sister, who had been married to a JW for over 10 years (since she was 18) also filed for divorce, based on her decision to leave the JWs. She had been questioning belief in God and religion in general. She decided to go back to school and we spent a couple years getting reacquainted. She, like me, had "faded away", although we could be officially disfellowshipped for so many things at this point, including celebrating holidays, attending other churches, apostasy; etc.
My brother and I had been close growing up, but he had stayed with my mom til his early 20s when he moved. He had met a non-Witness lady who came from another country, raised in the Church of God. She had fled from an abusive family situation there. Fortunately for him, his marriage has lasted many years based on commonalities and a good foundation. He also knew that the JW "man in authority" was what led to my parents' break up. He actually decided to disfellowship himself when he first decided to marry her, as he did not want to live a double life. My mother completely shunned him for taking that action and to this day will only have conversations with him when a family emergency occurs.
My mother had retired early and become a regular pioneer, somehow trying to compensate for the guilt she feels for her children who fell away. She always took every bit of advice from the Society to heart. Over the years, whenever there were counsels against overdoing certain activities, she would take them to extreme (i.e., restricting all types of television watching and absolutely no extra curricular activities or associations at school; etc etc). She has also remained single since 1983, not even one date with anyone--never mind interested JW men.
In Conclusion
The guidance counselor experience has never been pursued legally, nor do I have intent to--this being 19 years later. I never mentioned it here, but I had approached it with the elders, who basically told me I was the one who asked for it and because I did not scream out in those sessions I was engaging in sexual misconduct. Nice, huh?
Really so much has happened...and I haven't even finished the story, but I read so many examples of young people struggling with their double lives... I thought it was time I shared mine.
The short version of the balance of my story is that I maintain a rather superficial relationship with my siblings, possibly because of distance, but mostly because I was a pariah for years as a University student and the wife of a non-believer. Even with the common theme of being ex-JWs, we have never been able to have that closeness again, unfortunately. My mother finally softened her heart a bit towards me and my kids but we only see her maybe once every six months, and she still tries to get me to return, sending me copies of The Watchtower and Awake! and any publications geared at children. I wonder if she counts that time as ministry work? :(
I had a wonderful friendship for about 3 years with the former Pentecostal lady. We were both single moms and shared a lot in common. She did not judge me, even when I made some tremendously foolish errors in judgment. I got to know God as a Father figure and not as Judge Jury and Executioner. I felt closer to Him than ever in those years. But Church continued to disappoint me--looking for pledges of money and membership I equated with "works" not faith.
I am currently remarried to a man who has been very supportive to me. My children are growing so fast and I am once again at a crossroads in my life. I can identify with abused women and people who come from restrictive backgrounds. I have found ways to empathize and support them through tough situations, so I know it was not all for nothing. But there remains a big hole in my life, something that financial success or family support can never fill. I am still searching after all this time, but yet, I know in my heart, my God is still there.
Thank you for listening and reading.
[name withheld]
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