Hi All!!! I'm back!! I just realized I've been totally rude. I never introduced myself to you all. My name is Allie...and I'm an ex-Jehovah's Witness! Nice to meet you all. :-)
Ok...so I left off with my baptism at 14 years of age. I'm disgusted just thinking about it. The funny thing is, the Organization makes read that book (for the life of me I can't remember the name of it) and go through the question and answer session with an elder so that they can determine if you are really ready to get baptized. Here's the funny thing about that....all the answers are right in each paragraph. All you have to do is pick out the answer and read it. It isn't rocket science. And it certainly doesn't test weather you are really ready for such a life changing event. I can tell you all that even at that age, I really didn't believe what I was being taught. I always wondered how do we really know Jehovah's Witnesses are the only true religion?
Anyway, the process went smoothly and I got baptized at the District Convention for my area with a bunch of my friends. I forgot to mention to you in my last blog that one of the reasons I wanted to get baptized was so that the weekly family study my mother and I had would stop. I hated those studies! I assumed that once I got dunked all that studying with her would stop. Not a chance! Anyway, once I was baptized I got instant respect from those in the congregation. Instantly I was "good association" and everyone wanted their kids around me. I was picked to do so many parts on programs, including one at the Circuit Assembly.
So an Elder in my congregation was doing a part at the Circuit Assembly dealing with obstacles kids had to overcome being a witness. I really couldn't think of anything. Sure I had a violent, disfellowshipped dad, but lots of kids in the Organization seemed to be fatherless. So the Elder prepped me. He started asking me about how much television I watched. I watched the normal amount of television for any JW kid my age. But that wasn't good enough. The Elder told me to say I watched many, many hours more a week before I got baptized than I really did. My memory is hazy but I'm thinking the number was something like 40 or 50 hours a week. That number was no where near true, since I did go to school every day and had homework just like any other kid. I also had family study, preaching on Saturday and Sunday, and don't forget the five meetings a week. But hey, what did I care, I was gonna be on stage! So showtime comes and I say what he told me. Here's the funny part: there was an audible gasp from the audience and my mother and grandmother were mortified! LOL As the part continued, the Elder also had me say that after I got baptized I reduced the amount of television I watched to only 10 or 15 hours a week. Big difference right? Funny thing is, both numbers were way off. Looking back I'm not really sure how much television I watched, but I can say that the Elder told me to LIE! That is for sure!That was my first and last experience of ever being used in any assembly program. There loss because I think I was great!
The following years were about the same I guess for any JW. I had lots of friends, some in my congregation and lots in others. It was during my early to mid teenage years, 15-17, that slowly but surely many of the teens in my congregation started getting publicly reproved or disfellowshipped or simply fell away. I really couldn't understand what was going on. One girl that was a few years older than me got pregnant when she was 17 I believe. Her family was mortified. I wasn't close with her, but I did notice the way the congregation treated her differently once she was publicly reproved. Another girl, this one younger than me, got pregnant when she was only 14. Though she was baptized, she was also publicly reproved. But like the other girl, the congregation treated her like she had the plague. Next, one of my very close girlfriends was sent to live with her "worldly" dad by her mother because...well actually I never was told why she was sent away. She wasn't baptized, and her dad lived 3 hours away in another state, so we lost touch. In fact, I wasn't even told she was leaving, just one day she was gone. I wonder what happened to her?
Noticing a trend yet? When I turned 18 though was when my world was really rocked. Two extremely close friends of mine got disfellowshipped. The first one was my friend we'll call Jessica. Jessica was actually the cousin of the girl that was sent to live with her father. Jess was 2 years older than me and we were great friends. Our mothers were very good friends, and still are to this day. Since Jess was older than me, I always wanted to be with her, and be like her. When she was just 18 years old she married a JW brother who actually had a 3 year old daughter at the time (he was 26). I was one of her bridesmaids in her wedding that June. By September she announced that not only was she pregnant, but that she had made the biggest mistake of her life getting married. She said she realized that her husband only wanted a trophy wife, not a real wife. She had the baby, but a short time after she was disfellowshipped.I'm not really sure what caused her to be disfellowshipped.
Around that same time another good friend of mine got disfellowshipped, we'll call him Jake. Jake and I were very close friends. He and I went to the same congregation, along with Jess, however Jake and I were the same age. We were always friendly, but we got really close after we were on the Circuit Assembly program together. Yes, the Elder told him to lie too!! Anyway, Jake had some problems in school. He was a really bright kid but kept getting into fights at school, so he was kicked out. Instead of putting him in another school, his parents made him drop out of high school during the 10th grade. Oh, and I suppose I should mention that his mother was 14 and his dad was 18 when he was born. Just thought that was an interesting fact.
Anyway, in the early 1990's when college degrees were becoming more and more necessary, these two JW parents (the father was an Elder also), decided the best path for their son was to make him a high school dropout and regular pioneer. Smart move, right? (Could you sense the sarcasm?) Anyway, me and Jake began spending more and more time together under the guise of doing streetwork. How silly of our parents. The funny thing is, our parents were thrilled. His parents loved me and mine loved him. Our whole families were very close. But, that wasn't what we wanted. During this time, Jake decided to move just outside our city to be roommates with another brother we knew. The other brother was about 7 or 8 yrs older than Jake and was pretty stable in JW life. Jake on the other hand was 18 yrs old, and was working in the real world for the first time in his life. And that's when Jane entered his life.
Jane was a worldly woman. She was several years older than Jake, and had a lot more experience. Jake was used to living with his whole family, and spending lots of time with his friends. But he confided in me on many occasions that he was lonely. More specifically, he wanted a girlfriend. He and I were just platonic friends at the time, but I could understand where he was coming from. So along comes Jane and Jake is now a goner. Though Jake was a Ministerial Servant at the time, he started dating Jane. They dated and then she got pregnant...or so he thought. (She was actually lying to him about this.) But when Jake heard the news, he felt he should do the right thing and get married. His parents were mortified. I vividly remember the day his mother begged me to talk him out of it. But what she didn't understand was that I couldn't. Though I loved Jake like a brother, I had to let him live his life. I actually wrote him a letter, telling him how much I'd hate to lose him as a friend, and to please think hard about marrying Jane, but I never sent it. Instead, I threw it out in the trash, and let Jake live his life without a single word from me.
I don't have to tell you that not only was Jake forced to step down from being a Ministerial Servant, he was disfellowshipped. That was the hardest meeting I ever had to go to. During that year I lost 2 of my closest friends. But, I was still a JW, and I was determined to enjoy my life and have lots of friends and fun. During this time I met a daughter of an Elder from another congregation, we'll name Susie. Little did I know that my friendship with Susie would lead me to changing my life forever by walking away from "the Truth". But that's a story for another day....
Thank you all for taking time to read my story. I'm sure it isn't unique, but I'm hoping that all that I have experienced can help someone else in some way. Leaving such an religion is probably the hardest thing anyone can ever do. Losing family and life-long friends is not an easy process. There is much uncertainty, skepticism, fearfulness, and depression. But my point is to show that there is also joy. Leaving the Organization has proved to be one of the best decisions of my life. I look forward to sharing more insight into my journey to find peace, love, and happiness...
I welcome all of you to share your experiences, whatever they may be with us all. We all can learn form each other, and gain strength from each other. So...who was that person in your life that helped you get the strength to leave Jehovah's Witnesses? I'll share my story of Susie next time....
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