| I think that I was looking for a surrogate family. I was seventeen,
afraid to grow up, and having some... issues with my parents,
especially my father, who never seemed satisfied with anything I did.
I needed a place to belong, and additionally, I was convinced that all
�good people� become good Christians. Y�see, since I lived in
what you might call a little hick town, I knew little or nothing about
other faiths aside from, at the most, their names and that
Christianity was somehow superior -- or so it was implied. I also knew
that I didn�t want to be the kind of so-called Christian that most
of my friends and acquaintances were. I think everyone has met the
type. On Friday, they go out, get drunk and get laid; on Saturday,
they recover from the hangover and lie to their parents about why
they�re sick; on Sunday, they go to their places of worship, and on
Moday, they basically call you a heathen because you don�t go to
church. I was determined not to be like that. Like all decent, moral,
perfect people, I was going to become a �good Christian.�
At seventeen, needless to say, I was a little naive. But I was also
quite studious and perceptive of certain things. I realized that
holidays were of Pagan origin, so I looked for a religion that
didn�t celebrate holidays. I�d picked up (mostly from my dad and
Garner Ted Armstrong) that the human soul was not immortal, and that
there was no such thing as hellfire. So, I went on a quest to find a
Christian religion that didn�t celebrate holidays or believe Hell or
immortal souls.
Long story short, that�s how I got hooked up with the Jehovah�s
Witnesses. And everything was dandy... at first.
When I first started my Bible study, the Witnesses seemed like a
wonderful deal, like the ideal form of Christianity that I had been
looking for. Okay, there were some teachings that seemed odd at first
(like the idea that Jesus was really the archangel Michael), but I
figured, �It�s not impossible, and everything else they�ve
taught me makes sense. This has to be the truth; I can�t drop it
over such a little thing.� I couldn�t live up to my father�s
standards, but hey, at least I had God. I had found God�s truth, and
I was determined to make God happy by being the most faithful Witness
Jehovah had ever seen. And when I started going to meetings, everybody
liked me -- the spirited new girl who �told it like it was.� And
when I was eighteen, I got baptized.
It�s kind of hard to say exactly when things started going wrong.
It might�ve been when, after my baptism, I started picking up on all
of the unwritten rules and so-called �conscience matters� that
could get you disfellowshipped or marked if your conscience led you to
do something different from what was "suggested" in the
Watchtower. No one was allowed to watch R rated movies, couldn�t
watch soap operas, couldn�t visit another church, couldn�t give
money to church-sponsored charities, couldn�t openly disagree with
anything that the leaders taught.... The rules kept piling up and up,
and I went along with them, even the ones that I thought were absurd.
Like every faithful, dedicated Witness, I believed my disagreements
with JW teachings were the result of a faulty conscience in need of
adjustment and kept my mouth shut.
Over time, I did indeed beome the ideal Witness: frightened,
tractable, guilt-ridden, convinced that my every original thought and
desire was demonic, always afraid of saying something that wasn�t
Society-approved, morbidly depressed and not really knowing why, but
convinced it was all my fault for not living up to God�s standards.
There were times when I wanted to kill myself because I felt so
corrupt and worthless, and I didn�t find out until after I left the
Organization that many, many Witnesses felt this way but, like me, hid
it to protect the religion. That�s the thing we�re taught to do:
suffer if you must, but no matter how miserable you are, YOU MUST
PROTECT �JEHOVAH�S� ORGANIZATION. You are nothing; IT is
everything. If you�re not a Witness, after all, you�re part of the
world controlled by Satan, and you can�t risk stumbling the ones who
might otherwise be saved from their enslavement to the Prince of
Darkness and their coming destruction at Armageddon.
The more I look back on my past, the more insane it seems.
In the end, I couldn�t take it anymore. I had to leave the
Witnesses, or else I�d have either killed myelf or lost my sanity. I
even prayed to die in my sleep so I wouldn�t be destroyed at
Armageddon. When you�re only twenty-four, phyically healthy, and
longing for your death, you know that something�s wrong. But even
then, I thought it was me and not the Organization, and I planned on
going back someday, once I was �mature� enough to stop wanting to
think for myself.
Thanfully, that will never happen now. A few weeks after I walked
away, I decided to look into those evil �apostate� Web sites that
I�d been warned to not even think about. I expected to find a bunch
of obvious lies about Witness doctrine and screwy ideas about the
Scriptures. Instead, though, I found out the REAL reason why the
leadership doesn�t want the rank and file looking into information
posted by ex-Witnesses. The reason is because it tells the truth about
the Watchtower�s past, the corruption, the lies, and how familes and
lives have been destroyed by this religion. If I�d known then what I
know now, I never would�ve gotten baptized.
I don�t regret the experience, though, even if I wouldn�t care
to repeat it. If nothing else, I�ve made some interesting friends
because of having done time in the Watchtower as well as learning to
sympathize with people in other controlling religions. I�ve also
learned from my experience that there�s no such thing as the �one
true faith� or even the �one true God.� The only truth there is
is the truth that you find within yourself. |
