Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: June 04, 2018 10:44PM
Yeah. I'm sensitive about it. Maybe that's why I avoid calling them cults.
From being on this board, mostly, I guess I have a bit of a complex about it. Surprising how many call us double-dippers all manner of stupid. If I were feeling defensive (which I still do, to an extent) I was 16 yrs old, my family had moved out of town, I stayed behind to finish high school (amazed that Dad would let me do that and yes, danger lurked). I moved into a apt with girlfriends whose boyfriends were less than squeaky clean, known to police, and predatory (which obviously I wasn't aware of before moving in). Three bad experiences.
First, a mob fight on the lawn one late night. Strangely, to me, everyone on one side held back while one of their own was getting severely beaten up by several thugs from the other side. The victim had veered off to urinate on the grass, with his back to both groups. He got jumped from behind. I was exceptionally naive let's just say. I yelled "hey, that's not fair" and waded in to get them away from the stricken one on the ground by then. Fortunately for me perhaps we heard sirens and they all scattered.
Second, the girl who had invited me to live with them had her boyfriend overnight in the room I shared with her. Yeah, uncomfortable. Then he wanted to climb into my bed. Instead of a decided NO WAY, she encouraged him, laughing. Not funny to me. He was most persistent but I managed to fend him off.
Third, I was out of town visiting my parents and sibs and when I returned the police had been through our apartment, including searching my belongings, on suspicion of drug activity (I had no knowledge of that but it could well have been the case). I really did not like that and moved out that day, showing up at school with my little suitcase. My favourite teacher noticed my plight and kindly found me a place to stay right away. Happened to be with his mom. Who was a JW. I felt so grateful to her and we got along really well and I came to love the rest of his family as well as his mom's friends and their families. They were all JWs (not my teacher or any of her other children or her husband, from whom she was separated due to his disdain for her conversion to the WatchTower way of life).
So we talked. I was always curious about religion. I was not brought up in any specific faith, just with a vague acquaintance with the principles of Protestantism. I was wounded, for several reasons, in ways I did not realize. In talking to a woman I was fond of about her abiding faith I felt warm towards it and more than willing to attend the Kingdom Hall with her. The message I got was basic, simple, welcome, appealing, seemingly reasonable, desirable. Especially as they did not rush me to join (unlike Mormons with their investigators, as we know) I got deeper and deeper into it. They wouldn't even let me get baptized until I was 18, which gave me two yrs to inch into it, like the frog in cold water that finds itself eventually cooked. I don't usually do things by halves. Once in, I had one goal - to be a missionary (I've always been kind of that type). My idea of a huge adventure was going to Quebec, somewhere different, not all that desperately far from home, and I already knew quite a bit of French from yrs of classes at school (not that I've ever mastered the accent - it hurt to see Quebecers wince when they heard me, ha! But fair enough, I did the same when I heard their distinct French accents too - they sound way different from the Parisian French we got at school).
I loved it at first, fell in love a few times, met many people at the doors who weren't nasty to us, even got a job. For reasons I've mentioned here before, gradually I came to have serious questions about many things. Foremost was the whole women shall be silent thing. "Elders" (not the young guys as in Mormonism) had absolute authority, women cannot talk in meetings (as in give "sermons" from the podium), question men, think outside the box, make suggestions, or even "teach" a male who was getting close to being baptized without covering her head (as even unbaptized males have more authority than baptized females who are teaching them the beliefs).
Two major head-shakers got me on a plane home. One: Good friends who I was living with (I eventually realized I gotta be more careful about who I bunk with!) were newlyweds but the wife had a 3-yr old son from another relationship. The husband, who had been a good friend of mine here at home before we both went to Quebec, who I thought was so nice and pretty darn good-looking and zealous in the faith (important to me at the time) turned out to be a rigid authoritarian. He became more and more harsh with this sweet and darling little boy, who eventually started wetting the bed. I awoke early every morning to the sound of the new husband first yelling at the kid and then beating him because his bed was wet. He kept thinking the boy was doing it on purpose. Clueless. I couldn't stand it, and knew the husband just didn't understand the first thing about bed-wetting. I eventually got the courage to speak to the wife about it. She would not question him, saying "he's my husband" as if that was the end of it. For her it was. I next went to the wife of the "presiding elder", thinking she could talk to her husband who was in charge of our group. She told me they don't "interfere" in domestic matters. I think everybody knew something was wrong as that little kid got hauled out of every meeting for some imagined and exaggerated infraction and was administered hands-on punishment in full hearing. Horrific. I couldn't stand it and moved out. They never asked me why. I didn't know what I could do to help the boy. I had absolutely no clue about going to civil authorities.
Next thing was when my dad had a bad fall from a height and his severe injuries were life-threatening. When Mom called to tell me, of course right away I said I'd fly home to help out. My best friend in Quebec, who I lived with at that time (sigh) said I shouldn't go as "we're your family now". That shocked and disgusted me. As if you wouldn't walk a country mile to help a stranger, never mind help your mom and three younger sibs. At the least I could take them to the hospital every day (Mom didn't drive). And obviously I wanted to see my dad in his badly injured state in case it was curtains for him, which it very nearly was.
So, perhaps predictably, getting away and back with my family (who had by then returned to town from up country) gave me time to think and in a very short time I called to tell the local presiding elder that I quit. The guy's only question? "Have you been with a man?" The reason for that, I figured out later, was that his only concern was whether I needed to be ex'd for sexual sins or not. Nice.
I was shunned, though, as they do. Also, disfellowshipped (aka ex'd) for the mere sin of just leaving.
That wasn't enough for me though. I next went EV (with a friend - another big sigh - fundamentalist, I came to realize much later and again did not fit in). Then I made a friend at a volunteer job who happened to be Mormon. Became friends with him and his family. Rinse, repeat. Tried out their church. Some of the most hurtful of all my negative experiences with religion, as I've detailed here.
I sure know how to pick 'em. Or maybe not. Now I just read thrillers and leave the mysteries of the universe to others. :)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2018 10:51PM by Nightingale.