Hello. This blog is a long time coming. In fact, the material for it comes from years before any of us even heard the term blog. Spring of 1996 and I was just about to turn 21 years old. I was surrounded by lots of friends, family and a great (ok, maybe great is too strong...let's try mediocre) roommate. I was doing great in the Organization; regular pioneering and overall good-girl. Yet something just wasn't clicking for me.
My roommate at the time just announced she was getting married. I was happy for her. I also found out that my dad (who spent most of my youth disfellowshipped but was now reinstated) was getting married...though he denied it till the day he walked down the aisle. My mom married a brother the year before. Lots of weddings everywhere I looked. But...I digress. To really understand my story I have to start from the very beginning. Here goes....
I was born into a Jehovah Witness family. My mother's family became witnesses when she was in junior high and my father just a year or so before my parents met. My parents married just 6 months after meeting. My father had been married before and had two children from that marriage, so this was actually his second marriage. Married life was hard for my parents. Just days after my parents married, my mother learned that my father didn't have a job. She also learned very quickly that he was an alcoholic. Alcoholism ruled family life from the time they said 'I do'. Alcoholism never shows up to the party alone, it's usually accompanied by one of its friends. In my father's case violence and a quick temper were best friends with alcoholism. My father best expressed himself by connecting his fist to my mother's face. Sick I know.
In the midst of the violence, somehow I was born, just three years after my parents married. And just for the record: mom's pregnancy didn't stop the violence. Nope. Good ole dad just kept the punches flying, even while she was pregnant with his daughter. Great dad right? Anyway, mom was firmly tied to the Organization. Her sisters, parents, and extended family were all Jdubs. Though dad's mother and siblings were also Jdubs, his addiction got the best of him. Many shepherding calls by the Elder's later, and my dad was disfellowshipped. During all the chaos that surrounding my family life as a small kid, my mom never called the police when my dad got extra violent. Instead, she called the Elders to schedule a time to sit with my parents and attempt to pray and read scriptures with them in the hopes of changing my dad. (Oh and by the way...most of those Elder's that visited our home are now disfellowshipped.)
A few years after dad was disfellowshipped, mom and I moved out. Looking back, I think that is probably the most courageous thing she ever did in her entire life. Leaving an abusive husband who was also an alcoholic was dangerous. Dad would show up in drunken rages demanding to see me. Thankfully, my mother's family provided as much a buffer as they could to protect me from my enraged, and dangerous father.
As the years went by and I got older, mom began using me to preach to my father (as you all know she couldn't since she was baptized, but I wasn't yet so I could preach all I wanted). Mom would have me leave magazines that sported articles she thought would make my father realize he needed to repent. I dutifully left them, honestly thinking that my mother was right and hoping and praying my father would just "get himself together".
All that stopped though when I turned 14. Yes, at the grand old age of 14, I was allowed to make a decision that would alter the course of my life forever, I got baptized. You may be wondering why I would do something like that. Well here goes: all my friends were doing it. That was it. Plain and simple. I wanted to get baptized because all my friends were doing it. And of course the older a kid gets in the Organization without being baptized, the more they are viewed as 'bad association'. So, to prevent that label being placed on me, I got baptized. Little did I know that was the beginning of the end for all those relationships with so-called friends.
I've talked your eyes off (get it..lol) by now, so I'll leave you at my baptism. Please come back to read all the crazy events that took place from that point till now, 16 years after my disfellowshipping.
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