My Story... (An X-Jehovah Witness tells all)

[NaddiaAoC]

Some of you may remember me from my posts a few years ago. I was an active participant on this board during its inception and for quite a while afterwards. I do read posts here sometimes and still post occasionally, but my time online is very limited these days. Chris O'Connor is a close friend of mine. I've been working on writing this story for quite a while now and he has invited me to post it here. I may try to have it published at some point down the road, but at this time it's still just a rough draft. I may still add to it or delete portions of it as I read it through again. I decided to post it here because I know that many of you are readers. I welcome any feedback you might have - questions, compliments, and criticism. I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. This is my story. I'll post it in segments so that I don't overwhelm everyone.Cheryl Edited by: Chris OConnor  at: 10/14/06 12:03 pm

[NaddiaAoC]

IndoctrinationMy experience with Jehovah's Witnesses started when I was a toddler so it's all I've ever really known. My parents were both raised in the Baptist religion, but religion was never a very important part of their lives. Both of my parents had very difficult childhoods. My mother was the third child of a young couple. My mom's mother was only 19 when she and her boyfriend conceived their first child out of wedlock. Back in the 1940's in rural Ohio that was one of the worst situations a young woman could find herself in. Her parents insisted she marry the baby's father immediately and he was agreeable, and so they gave birth to a young son. My grandparents moved to Northern Kentucky to raise their family. They were very poor, but that didn't stop them from having a large family. When their first son was two years old they gave birth to their second son, and when he was two years old they gave birth to their first daughter, my mother. A year later my grandmother gave birth to another daughter, and a year after that was pregnant again. During her 5th pregnancy she found out that her husband was having an affair. He was also physically and verbally abusive with her. They lived in government housing projects and my grandmother was not allowed to leave the complex even to go to the grocery store. My grandfather considered it obscene for her to be seen in public while pregnant. So he even did the grocery shopping for the family. Trapped in the slums with four young children and one on the way, with an abusive man who was having an affair with another woman, she decided to leave him. She called her parents assuming that they would let her bring the kids and move in with them. They denied her any assistance. They told her that she had made the decision to have sex before marriage with a man she barely knew. She had made her bed and now she would have to lie in it. When my mother was three years old her mom gave birth to another baby girl, but the baby only lived for 12 hours and then died. Perhaps a combination of factors led to my grandmother's emotional decline, but shortly after the death of her infant she committed suicide, leaving behind my mother and three other young children. At the age of 26, she left a suicide note in the living room, left her children, and walked down to the Ohio River and jumped off the bridge. The police found her body the next day. My mom has no memory of her mother.Shortly after her mother's death her father married the woman he had been sleeping with. She had two children from a previous marriage, so between them they had six kids, and later they had a seventh child together. My mom and her siblings were strictly forbidden from discussing their mother. They were allowed no pictures of her. Any mention of her was followed by harsh punishment. My mom's oldest brother was seven-years-old when his mother died, and was no doubt aware of the circumstances. He began acting out in school and that brought beatings from his father at home. When my mom was six years old and her oldest brother was ten, he started molesting her and her younger sister. Molestation turned into rape, and that lasted until my mom was twelve years old. A lot of the details my mom has forgotten, but apparently her father somehow found out about it then. She remembers her father beating the shit out of her brother when he was 16 and then throwing him down a flight of stairs. She remembers him getting up off the floor, walking out of the house, and never coming home. It was many years before she ever saw him again.Across the street from my mom lived my dad and his fucked up family. My dad was a few years older than my mom and a friend of her older brother. My dad's father was a raging alcoholic who spent each paycheck at the bar before his wife or five children ever saw the money. He would come home almost every night drunk off his ass. He would beat the shit out of my dad's mother and then pass out on the couch. My dad remembers many nights where his mom locked his father out of the apartment and he stood out on the lawn screaming and pounding on the door until the cops came and hauled him off in handcuffs. When my dad was twelve his father abandoned the family, and my dad never had a relationship with him after that. I suppose he may have seen him once or twice because I remember meeting my grandfather once as a young child, but we didn't even bother going to his funeral when he died. My father didn't seem to care that he was dead. I'm not sure I would have either.My dad's mom and older brother were left to provide for the family. His older brother strongly resented being put in that position. He joined the army and went off to fight in Vietnam. When he returned my dad had graduated from high school and was working. With my dad able to support the family, my uncle moved to Texas and my dad didn't hear from him for many years. During their teenage years both my mom's family and dad's family moved out of the projects into lower income housing communities. They had known each other as children, but then lost touch with each other. Shortly after graduating from high school my dad ran into my mom's older brother (not the oldest brother, the second one). They had been friends as children and so they started hanging out together again. It had been several years since my dad had seen my mom. She was still a "kid" the last time he saw her, but now she was 16 and he thought she was hot. They started dating and two years later got married. Their marriage started off very rocky. They were young and had little money. Dad worked in a factory, but he was still supporting his mom and two younger brothers. So mom and dad lived with his family for a while. Neither of my parents were happy. My mom contemplated suicide many times as a teenager, and according to my aunt attempted it without success, though my mother denies any memory of those attempts. My dad sought escape through music, which led to a life in the party scene of drugs and alcohol. He started playing guitar in a band when he was a teenager, and by the time he was 20 the band was very popular at clubs throughout Cincinnati. It was the early 70's and they partied hard. My mom would go with my dad to jam sessions and to the bars where he played music. The band was very close. They called themselves Lucifer and played hard rock music, drank a lot, and abused a lot of drugs.My mom enjoyed the music scene but felt unfulfilled in life. She was very bright and did extremely well in school. She strived for perfection to avoid the harsh criticism and physical abuse from her father. She received a full scholarship to university, and so she started going to school. She did very well in college and was planning to go to med school, but then she got pregnant with me.My mom always believed that her mother must have been very affectionate with her when she was a young child. Her father and stepmother were never affectionate with her. They never told her that they loved her or hugged or kissed her. Yet she felt a very strong maternal desire to affectionately nurture her own children. From the time she got pregnant with me she was thrilled. My father's younger brother had reached an age where he was able to start working and helping his mom pay the bills, so my parents moved into their own apartment and started planning for my arrival. While my mom had enjoyed partying with my dad up to that point, she now became concerned about how that hard rock environment would affect me. She quit going to band practice and to the clubs with my dad. She would stay home and read and study for her classes at school while he spent his days working and his evenings out with the band. They hardly saw each other and it put a huge strain on their relationship. She wanted him to quit the band but he wouldn't even consider it. His bandmates were closer to him than family. My parents started talking about divorce.Shortly after I was born my mom heard a knock on the door of their small, run-down apartment. Two friendly Jehovah's Witness women were there to preach their message of eternal life and to sell their little blue "Truth Book." And my mom bought it. That was the turning point, the moment that their lives began to change. My mom loved to read. As a child she would conceal herself in her room for days, isolating herself from her miserable family, losing herself in books. She would soon find a new way to lose herself

[NaddiaAoC]

A year and a half later my dad was working at a new job. He had taken a few classes at a technical school, but never graduated with anything higher than his high school diploma. He's incredibly bright though, not in a "book smart" type of way, but hands on he can teach himself just about anything. He taught himself how to play the guitar and sing as a teenager. He can fix a car. He taught himself how to wire fire and security systems, and went to work for a company installing them. He became a licensed fire inspector. He was still playing music regularly with the band, but at my mother's insistence was not spending quite as much time with them. They were trying to make their marriage work, but were having a lot of problems and the threat of divorce continually surfaced.At this time my mom got pregnant with my sister. She had dropped out of college around the time she gave birth to me. She attempted to go back to college during her pregnancy with my sister, but after that dropped out for good. My parents wanted to own a house before my sister was born, but couldn't afford the down payment. My dad's best friend lent him the money. His friend was a disillusioned Mormon who had converted to Catholicism and was studying for priesthood. He and my dad would talk about religion often. At my dad's job he would travel to schools, hospitals, and other places around the area to install fire and security systems. He started working with a young man who was only 18 years old. How the subject of religion came up I'm not sure. My dad had a budding interest in it, and I'm sure that was all the fuel that was needed for a young JW pioneer (pioneers are JW members who volunteer to go from door to door preaching full time). My dad's workmate started discussing his religion with him and my dad was fascinated by it. Dad told him that he had read the "Truth Book" and that it made a lot of sense, so the young pioneer offered to study the Bible with my dad. My dad accepted. Jehovah's Witnesses require an intense study of their beliefs from their publications and their Bible before conversion into their religion is allowed. Thus, the new Jehovah's Witness has already been thoroughly indoctrinated into the religion before ever officially joining. Public baptism is the symbolism of dedication to the religion; it is the seal of official membership. An individual qualifies for baptism by successfully answering over a hundred questions presented by three different elders (the leaders of the congregation). A particularly zealous individual may be approved for baptism within six to eight months, whereas a slower "student" may take years to meet the religion's requirements for baptism.My dad told my mom about the Bible study that he had agreed to and she was thrilled, so the young brother would bring a young sister with him to study with my parents each week. Their first study was held at my parents' house the week before Christmas 1975. I was 20 months old. The house was decorated for Christmas and presents were wrapped under the tree. We have Christmas pictures of me that year. My mom loved the holiday season. It was the only time of year that her family seemed to get along when they were together. My dad never cared much for it. After having their first study, the young brother mentioned the pagan origins of Christmas. He went into its history and then explained that from the JW point of view it was wrong to mix "true Christianity" with paganism. Therefore, a true Christian would not celebrate Christmas. My dad bought it immediately and wanted to throw out all of the Christmas stuff and stop celebrating it, but my mom was furious. She pretty much threw the young brother and sister (Jehovah's Witnesses refer to one another as "brother" and "sister") out of the house. That caused an argument between my parents, but as the brother was leaving he told my mom to research it for herself. "Don't believe it just because I say so," he said. "Go look it up for yourself."My mom spent the next few days immersing herself in the history of the holidays. After learning of their pagan origins, she had a change of heart. Suddenly the holidays were evil to her. This celebration that she had embraced her whole life was "worldly" and "pagan." And that now seemed bad to her. So she went home and stripped down the lights and took down the tree. She opened the presents and left no sign of Christmas in our home. It was just a few days before Christmas when she went to her parents' house and informed them that she would no longer be celebrating Christmas with the family because she was becoming a Jehovah's Witness. Her parents were stunned. Her father was outraged and stopped speaking to her for a while. Her stepmother tried to reason with her, but my mother refused to listen. So from that year on there was no Christmas in our home. There was no Thanksgiving or Halloween or Birthday celebrations. The holidays - all of them - were satanic and I would grow up viewing them with contempt rather than fondness. Three days after that Christmas in 1975 my sister was born. She had a deformity of her head. Two of the bones of her skull were fused together, which is abnormal for an infant. This deformity would not cause her any mental damage, but it would cause her head to grow abnormally, into the shape of a football. Surgery was recommended for cosmetic/psychological reasons. My parents strongly considered not having the surgery performed. They now believed that paradise was soon coming. Jehovah's Witnesses are an apocalyptic group that earnestly believes that the end of the world as we know it will come to an end any day. They believe that at any given time in the very near future, God will go to war with Satan and that Satan will be conquered. All of Satan's system, which includes all of the governments of the world, all religions of the world, all secular and commercial institutions of the world, and pretty much anyone who hasn't dedicated themselves to the Jehovah's Witness religion will be destroyed in a massive war. All that will be left are Jehovah's Witnesses, and with God's help they will rebuild the world into the perfect paradise that God originally intended in the Garden of Eden. With the end of this imperfect world just over the horizon and physical perfection (whatever the hell that is) waiting for my sister at the hands of God instead of some "worldly" human doctor, why risk the surgery? Thankfully, my parents had a moment of rationality and considered the possibility, slim though it was, that the world wouldn't come to an end before my sister would start school. So they opted for the surgery when she was three months old. My parents had been studying insatiably during that time. Though not yet baptized, they told the doctors that my sister was not to have a blood transfusion if needed. Jehovah's Witnesses firmly believe that taking a blood transfusion is a violation of Biblical law. Many Jehovah's Witnesses have refused blood that could have potentially saved their lives on religion grounds. The doctors agreed to do the surgery without giving blood, but assured my parents that it shouldn't be necessary with that type of surgery. The craniotomy was successfully perfomed and afterwards my sister's blood count began to drop. It became dangerously low and the doctor told my parents that she needed a blood transfusion. My parents refused to consent. "She will die without one," they were told. "Absolutely not," they said. Their parents were at the hospital with them and were enraged by my parents' decision to refuse the blood transfusion. They ended up leaving the hospital, and from then on had a very troubled and distant relationship with my parents. My sister's blood count dropped critically low and the doctor insisted that she was going to die without the blood transfusion. If they wouldn't give consent the hospital would be forced to obtain a court order, and that's what they did. My parents refused the blood. The hospital obtained consent from the court to administer the blood transfusion, but before the blood was administered her condition stabilized. She was hospitalized for 10 days, but was finally released. The blood was never given. My parents had stood up for their god, Jehovah, and he had blessed them for it. The congregation that they had begun attending embraced and applauded them for their religious stand. To my parents, this was a strong testimony that they had found the truth.My parents continued studying with the young brother and sister. My dad invited his best friend, the Mormon turned Catholic, over for one of the studies. His friend didn't really want to come. He thought the JW's were wacky, but he loved to discuss religion so he decided it might be fun to discuss it. What he found is that he was incredibly attracted to the young sister that was with the young brother. So from then on he began studying with Jehovah's Witnesses as well. Just before I turned three years old, my parents were baptized at the London, Ohio assembly hall. It was 1977, and later that year my brother was born. My dad's best friend decided to give up the priesthood to beat the pavement as a JW. He got baptized and shortly after started dating and later married the young sister who studied with my parents. They began regular pioneering together and later went to work as volunteers at Bethel. Bethel is the affectionate name given to the headquarters of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society located in Brooklyn, New York. The young couple agreed, as other Bethel workers (known as Bethelites) do, to forego having children and to work there as volunteers full-time in exchange for a very small apartment, food, and basic services. They took the "vow of poverty" that all Bethelites must take, and sacrificed their own financial future to dedicate their time and work to the JW religion. They've been members of the "Bethel family" for around 25 years now (assuming they're still there). He and my dad have always remained very close friends, and we've visited them a good 10 times or more at Brooklyn Bethel.More to follow later...Cheryl Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? -Douglas Adams

[Chris OConnor]

I'm printing this and bringing it with me as I leave for work!

[Chris OConnor]

I hope you continue this story. I read it to my father earlier today and we are both waiting to hear the part where you slay the dragon. I mean where you leave the church and everything that happens surrounding that shitty situation.EveryoneYou need to read her story! If you ever wondered about what it is like to be in a cult read her story and comment here.Ok, gotta go till later.

[NaddiaAoC]

The Early YearsMy parents fell for the religion hook, line, and sinker. They immediately became super zealous JW's. My dad had given up his band and partying when he started studying with Jehovah's Witnesses, but never lost his desire for music. The whole time I was growing up he played in JW bands. They used to play music for weddings, parties, and other JW "get-togethers." My dad had taught himself how to play the guitar and how to sing. Later he taught himself how to play the piano as well. He's very talented. He taught himself electrical skills for his first job. He has taught himself how to drywall, paint, do plumbing and woodwork, tiling and roofing, and while I was a young child he started teaching himself about computers. I remember being around 6 or 7 years old when we got our first Apple computer. I remember him sitting there with a book trying to figure it out. By the time I was 9 years old he had taught himself enough to land a good job at Proctor & Gamble. He was just as self-motivated and ambitious religiously as well. Within three years of being baptized he was appointed a ministerial servant (an assistant to the elders; an appointment of minor prestige within the group). Two years later he was appointed an elder (a leader within our congregation; a position of significant prestige and power within the JW hierarchy). We were a "traditional family." My mom stayed home with us instead of working. When we were young she spent a lot of time reading to us and teaching us. I was reading on a third grade level by the age of 5. So was my sister. My mom and my dad were both very attentive to us. They were very affectionate with us. They were also very strict with us and demanded obedience. My sister and I got spanked occasionally, and my brother pretty often when we were little. My parents never lost their tempers with us, not once that I can ever remember. They always spanked us in a controlled manner as a form of punishment, which was always followed up with an explanation for why we were in trouble and reassurance that they loved us. I have mixed feelings about spanking kids, but as a child I never felt that my parents were abusive and at that time society did not look upon corporal punishment as a form of physical abuse. I felt that my parents loved us and cared about us and wanted what was best for us. I truly think that's what attracted them to the JW religion in the first place. They thought it would be the best thing for their family because of the strong contrast it had with their own dysfunctional, chaotic childhoods.My parents grew up in homes where the rules were never clear. A parent may or may not come home. A parent might fly off in a rage over some small incident, but completely overlook major problems that chronically persisted for years. Punishment was handed out like candy, but affection was virtually unknown. My parents were a young couple with several small children and they sincerely wanted to be good parents, but they didn't know how. They weren't given the tools to find the qualities that they needed within themselves. So when a high control religious group landed in their lap, they saw their opportunity to blossom as a family. My parents could lose themselves in the religion. By totally dedicating themselves to it and wholly immersing our family in it, they were sure to be successful. The family life that they never had growing up could now be theirs and their children's if only they do exactly as they're told. And that's what they did. I went to public school as a child, and like other JW children I didn't celebrate the holidays. I suppose it was somewhat difficult for me because my mom said that I would complain of stomach aches throughout the Christmas season. I would vomit often as a child. I've always had issues with my stomach when I'm nervous or stressed out. I think that was largely because I had a couple of teachers who hated the Witnesses. I can understand that, but taking their feelings out on the children is cruel. Today their behavior would not be tolerated. They would give me a hard time for not doing Christmas-oriented assignments. They would try to force me to sing Christmas songs even though they knew that I wasn't allowed to participate. The one music teacher even made up her own little song book of songs that she wrote, and in it was a song that supported taking blood transfusions. She tried to force my sister to sing it, and when my sister refused she expelled her from her class. My mother marched up to the school on many occasions to have it out with the teachers and principal over various religious issues, and that did upset me as a child. However, I don't remember it being that big of an issue and I don't remember ever feeling like I was missing out on the holidays.Jehovah's Witnesses have a very elitist mentality. They believe that they are the sole procurers of truth. Though living in society and interacting with society, Jehovah's Witnesses are mentally isolated in many ways. They see themselves as above society. They have the "truth." They alone speak the "pure language." They are the only true Christians and the only true religion operating in this world. This world is lying in Satan's power, and anyone who is not a Jehovah's Witness is under Satan's control. They are "worldly." Satan, as a concept, is used to put fear into members of the JW religion, especially children. And anything associated with Satan is something that should be feared. The nice children that you play with on the playground at school are not Jehovah's Witnesses. That means that they are part of Satan's world. They are "worldly." They will be destroyed any day now. So don't get too close. Your work associate is very attractive, kind, and shares many of the same values as you, but don't even consider dating such and individual. Why would you want to get romantically involved with someone who is going to be brutally destroyed by God very soon? The holidays were "worldly" to me. I grew up believing that they were part of Satan's system, a system that I feared, and I loathed anything that I thought was intended to suck me in. The holidays, with all their glitter and fun, were simply masking their true pagan (satanic) origins. This was not true of all JW children. Some did grow up longing to go trick-or-treating with other children, but not me. I was so strongly indoctrinated into the religion even as a young child by my extremely zealous parents, that I never remember even feeling the desire to celebrate the holidays. I supposed it helped that my parents were very generous with us. We didn't have much money when I was a kid, but my parents would have "Surprise Day" from time to time where we would each be given a small allowance of money and all buy gifts for each other and then exchange them. My parents also spent time with us, and I think that's probably more important than anything. I didn't have Christmas presents sitting under a tree, but I had a mom who would frequently take us to the park and a dad that would toss ball with us or take us fishing. My childhood is filled with happy, pleasant memories that were given to me by my JW parents, which stands in stark contrast to their horrible childhood memories with non-JW parents. This was always a positive "proof" that we had the truth.My parents used every opportunity possible to teach us about their religion, it seemed. I remember my mom pushing my little brother in a stroller while my sister and I walked beside her down the quiet road where we lived one fall day. She bent down and picked up some of the leaves that had fallen on the ground and said something like, "See the beautiful variety in nature, Cheryl? See the different colors, sizes, and shapes of the leaves? Isn't Jehovah a loving God to give us such variety?" I collected the leaves and carried them home to make a collage to represent God's love. One practice that is strongly encouraged by Jehovah's Witnesses is for parents to have a "family study" with their children. Parents are to take at least an hour every week to study with their children out of an age-appropriate publication produced by the WTS (Watchtower Society). My parents studied with us religiously. As a young child, we studied from a book called My Book of Bible Stories. Every week the five of us would read a story together. One week it would be the story about Noah's Ark, another week it would be the story about Jonah being swallowed by the fish, and another week a story about Jesus dying for our sins. There were over a hundred stories in the book and I had most of them memorized word for word. At the age of 5, my mother could tell me a story's title and I could give her the page number without even opening the book. I knew all the Bible stories and I knew them well. I'd read them to my sister and brother.When we would have our family study, my father would have us take turns reading. I remember hating when it was my brother's turn because he read so slowly, but the practice helped us learn to read. After we would read the story, we would discuss it and try to find the moral of the story. Then, for fun, we would act the story out. My father would be the deep voice of Jehovah. My mother and the three of us children would act the roles of the various characters in the story. We really enjoyed it and it made the studies fun for us. As a child, I felt especially close to my dad. I always felt safe with him. I remember one time be frightened of a big storm. I was standing in the living room of our small home looking out the front door. The storm door was open and water was streaming down the screen door so hard that I couldn't see beyond the door. It was dark and I was terrified. My dad came and stood next to me and I asked him if it was Armageddon (the war between God and Satan in which all but Jehovah's Witnesses are destroyed). I thought that the end of the world was upon us. "No," he said. "It's just a storm." He picked me up and held me tightly. "Armageddon will be much worse than this," he said. I felt safe in his arms and safe that we were somehow immune from Armageddon, but afraid nonetheless. More to follow...Cheryl Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? -Douglas Adams

[NaddiaAoC]

The WTS keeps its members very busy with religious activities. Jehovah's Witnesses attend five meetings a week, as opposed to the one hour of church that most people attend a week. They are supposed to prepare in advance for all of the meetings, reading the material ahead of time so that they know what will be discussed. Several of the meetings are conducted as question and answer type discussions. An elder conducts the meeting and asks questions of the congregation from the scheduled material. The members of the congregation raise their hands and comment on the material, like in a school setting. One of the meetings is designed to help members of the congregation with public speaking so that they are more competent and confident in their door to door preaching. From the age of 6 years old, I was getting up on the platform giving five minute talks before a congregation of a hundred or more people. As very young children, my brother, sister, and I were expected to sit still through the meetings and be perfectly quiet. One of the meetings was nearly two hours long and lasted until 9:30pm every week. My mother had her hands full with three small children to keep still and quiet while my father was attending to congregational matters and giving talks.We hit a rough patch when I was about 8 years old. My dad had been an elder for a couple years when some problems arose in our congregation. I don't know the extent of the situation, but apparently a couple members of the JW band that he was playing music with got into some trouble by violating the strict rules of conduct that the religion enforces. He found out about it because of his close association with the band. They were very close friends of his, but he felt obligated to discuss the matter with the other elders. One of the sisters in the band was the daughter of the presiding overseer (the head elder). When my dad discussed her conduct with the elders it turned ugly, and she and her father went after my dad. Even though my dad had done nothing to be deleted for, he resigned as an elder because he felt betrayed by the elder body who succumbed to pressure by the presiding overseer.For about a year my dad quit going to the meetings. He quit going out in field service (JW's term for door-to-door preaching). He and my mom argued a lot. My mom would drag us to the meetings every week by herself, crying all the way there and crying all the way home. I thought that my dad was going to be destroyed at Armageddon because he wasn't going to the meetings and that scared the hell out of me. I remember sitting through one bookstudy (one of the weekly meetings held by Jehovah's Witnesses) when they were discussing how the birds would pluck at the eye sockets of those who died at Armageddon. Just a year earlier my dad was the one sitting up there conducting the bookstudy as an elder, and now he was no longer there. I remember bursting into tears and running to the bathroom, crying uncontrollably at the thought of him dying and the birds eating his eyes. My mom came to comfort me, but what could she say? She just cried too. She sank into a pretty deep depression, and eventually attempted suicide. She was hospitalized for a while. I'm not sure how long. I think it was only about a week, but to a kid it seemed like forever. That's the only time during my childhood that I remember feeling really scared and insecure. I thought that my parents were going to get divorced because they were fighting so much.I didn't know it at the time (my mom told me much later), but while my mom was in the hospital, locked down on a mental health unit for attempting suicide, the elders paid her a visit. Whenever a member of the religion violates a rule of conduct, a "judicial committee" (JC) is formed. A JC is made up of three elders from the congregation who must question the individual about their conduct and judge whether or not the person's actions warrant strong punishment. If the elders decide that the individual has violated the religion's rules, they must determine whether the individual is repentant of their sin or not. If the elders judge the individual to be non-repentant, the person will be disfellowshipped from the congregation, meaning that they will be completely shunned by everyone in the congregation. If the person is found to be repentant of their sin, they will be reproved. Reproof carries with it harsh restrictions and places the person in poor standing in the congregation, but others are not required to shun the individual. A judicial committee was formed there at the hospital and my mother was privately reproved for her suicide attempt. Yeah, she didn't feel shitty enough. Let's just dump a heap of guilt on top of it all. Heartless bastards. She was stripped of her "privileges" of commenting at the meetings and giving talks. A little humiliation goes a long way in controlling the weak.My parents really struggled for a while. My dad threw himself into work, and that's when he landed the job at P&G as a computer technician. We moved into a larger house in a nicer neighborhood. We started going to a different congregation and I guess that gave my parents a new start. They started applying themselves as zealously as they had when they first became JW's. My mom started regular pioneering and both of my parents had a couple of Bible studies that were coming to the meetings and eventually got baptized as Jehovah's Witnesses. One of the studies they conducted was with a couple who had five young children. I would study out of the Bible Story Book with the children while my parents studied with the adults. Often the kids would lose interest and start playing, and I would go in and listen to my parents as they studied with the adults. I was fascinated. I believed it was the truth and I wanted to be a JW. I remember my parents studying with them about the need to get baptized. That evening I rode home with my dad in his truck and I asked him if I could get baptized. He seemed surprised. He asked me why I wanted to get baptized, and I told him that it was because I believed it was the truth and wanted to make Jehovah happy. He seemed very pleased. He told me that we would talk to the elders and see what they said. I was only nine years old.We talked to the elders and they asked if I had studied through the Live Forever Book (the book of basic JW doctrines used to prepare people for baptism) myself. I had been with my parents on many of their Bible studies, reading from it as we studied with others, but nobody had actually studied it with me. So they said that I needed to do that first and then study through the United in Worship Book (the book of organizational structure also used to prepare people for baptism). So we had a plan. Every week I had to study with my mom out of those books. I didn't realize it at the time, but she arranged those studies with me during my favorite TV show time. I suppose I should have clued into the fact that she was testing me, but for some reason I didn't. She gave me the option of watching TV or studying. I often wanted to watch TV, but she would remind me that I couldn't get baptized unless I studied. I always chose to study with her. It took about a year to work through the two books, and I got baptized at age 10.A couple years after that, my sister got baptized and then my brother. They were each 11 at the time of their baptism. I was always held up as a good example. My parents praised me often for being a good child and for being such a positive influence for my siblings. My sister and brother looked up to me. If I did something and my parents praised me for it, they wanted to do it too. Throughout my childhood I had been the model JW child. I regularly attended the meetings and had been going out from door-to-door in field service since the age of three. I had been baptized at the age of ten, which sealed my fate within the religion. I was an official member. I knew that my decision to get baptized meant that I was never allowed to leave the religion, and that any deviation from the religion would result in total alienation from my family and friends, but why would I ever think of leaving? I had the truth and all of the people I cared about were there with me. They had the truth too. So the thought that I might one day leave the religion never even crossed my mind. I viewed my baptism as a lifelong commitment and my parents had no problem with me making such a huge decision at such a young age.More to follow later...Cheryl Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too? -Douglas AdamsEdited by: NaddiaAoC  at: 10/12/06 11:48 pm

[Chris OConnor]

This is such a powerful story. Please continue when you have time. I'm printing it and reading it away from my computer at various times. I just finished the above post and wish there was more to read.How do you feel about BookTalk creating a page on the site where we have your story featured? I'm brainstorming and trying to figure out a good way of getting stories like yours some visibility. Let me know if you like the general idea of having it on a permanent page.

[Federika22]

I'm hooked too. Thanks for sharing this personal tale. I can't wait to read the next part!

[Chris OConnor]

This is all background information. Wait till you hear about what she went through when she started drifting away from the JW church.