If there's room for another story, I'd like to post mine. So here we go.
By the way, none of the names will be changed because there is NO ONE INNOCENT TO PROTECT HERE, LOL!!!
Well as you all know (or most of you know), I'm Missy. The future police officer. Yahoo! Sorry, I know this is not the arena for future goals. I am from Chicago and have lived here all my life. I am another person who was born and raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. When my parents got married, my father, Greg, was a Catholic and my mother, Joyce, was a Lutheran. Now I
don't know the exact story (in my house, everything was a big secret, and no one ever talked about the past, especially my parents' past before they did
the big switcheroo) but a couple of years into their marriage, apparently some JWs came knocking at the door one day and I believe it was my father who
was originally receptive to the truth but it took some convincing on his part to get my mom to agree to it. Obviously this can't be confirmed because:
1). I hadn't graced the world yet with my presence; 2.) I am completely cut off from my family and
3.) they would never confirm it for me anyway. This
is what I always believed how they ended up joining the Borg.
One of my non-JW relatives once told me years ago that the rumor was my parents were on the verge of divorce, hence their becoming Jehovah's Witnesses, but again, this could never be confirmed and to this day, I have
no idea whether or not that was the case.
I know absolutely nothing about my parents' past lives; i.e., what their lives were like growing up (pre-JW), which is something I always wondered
about. I wanted to know what in the world happened or what was so wrong with
their lives that they ended up becoming Jehovah's Witnesses. The only thing I do know is that on my mother's side, she was the youngest of five kids (her
mom gave birth to her when she was 40 I believe) and her father was an alcoholic. Her parents were both deceased I believe by the time I was born. I know absolutely nothing about my father's life growing up; he only has one sister. He (or somebody) somehow got his mother (my grandma) to join the religion as well, but her husband (my grandpa-God bless his soul, he's gone now) never joined.
My father was 20 when he married my mother and my mother was 18. Apparently this is some sort of family trait (marrying young-can't wait to start having
sex I suppose) that has somehow eluded me, I'm 28 and still single, LOL!!! I have three brothers, Greg III, age 31, Mike, age 29, Little Ole Missy and like I just said, I'm 28, and Anthony, age 7. I have a younger sister named Gina, who will be 23 in November. Greg III is married, Mike is married, and Gina is married and you got it, they're all married to fellow JWs and they're still in this religion deeper than dog doo doo. Mike and Greg both have children (I have nieces and nephews who have no clue as to who I am and
probably aren't aware of my existence). As far as I know, Gina does not have any children yet. But since everyone seems to produce at a rather fast pace
in my family, only time will tell when she'll start pushing out a new generation of robots.
Before my parents got themselves totally into this garbage, I do remember as a child, a very young child, in grammar school, I did some after school
things like tumbling and dancing. I did have a couple of friends that I do remember hanging out with and there were a couple of kids on the block where
I lived that I played with. I've always been a very sensitive child, and a very independent one. I've always been shy and I am still like that to this
day with people I don't know. And I'm still very independent as well. I consider myself to be a sensitive soul with a heart of gold, it just takes a
while to let people to see that.
I really didn't have a clue when I was a young kid as to this religion so it never really bothered me. One of the greatest and probably only nice memories I have of the kingdom hall is when I was a baby, I remember always screaming a lot so one of my parents would have to cover my mouth and take me into the back. I always say that they should have taken that as a sign of
things to come.
As I got older, that's when it really started to hit me with this going to the meetings three times a week a couple of hours at a time and then out door
to door preaching up the wazoo. Eventually my parents wouldn't let me hang out with any of the kids after school anymore so I was pretty much on my own. There were a couple of girls at the kingdom hall that I attended, Alisa and Kitty, but a lot of times they tended to act bratty and left me out of things
which always hurt. I hung out with them, going by their houses, sitting next to them at the halls. But even still, I just started feeling left out and
stopped feeling close to them or anyone else.
At home, I was never really close to my oldest brother Greg, but I was somewhat closer to Mike since we were only a year and a couple of months apart. With Gina, it was always up and down I guess, but I wasn't really
close to her either. I just always felt like I didn't belong somehow, but at that time, I just didn't know why. I felt unwanted and at times, unloved. I wanted my parents' approval and love so much. When I had their attention all to myself I was happy. I always felt like I could never be as good as Greg and Mike or as smart enough as them in their eyes.
I've always been the brunt of constant teasing. At school most definitely because of course, I was "different." In school it was the kind of teasing
that really hurt. I did have a couple of friends as I started hitting the teen years before I went to high school, but I was definitely not popular or well liked by everyone. I was definitely not what any guy would have considered attractive or cute.
It was in high school that I had a really hard time of things. Because I was now older and could actually start, god forbid, thinking for myself, I want
what other normal kids my age had. I wanted the celebration of holidays, I wanted to participate in after school activities, I wanted to just be a
regular kid. But that wasn't to be. The teasing in high school (the teasing was mostly about my looks, etc., I was the nerd with the big hair and big
glasses, then braces) was about 50 times worse than it was in grammar school and there was no one in the world that I could talk to about my severe
unhappiness with school, with my family's way of living. Not a single soul. At this point, I had no friends (I wasn't interested in developing
relationships with any of these clowns, although at the time I didn't know why) at the kingdom hall and I couldn't really hang out with anyone at my high school, so I had NO ONE at all!
I remember whenever my mom did something nice to me, it was always with a condition: that I had better improve my attitude toward the religion. It was
never just out of the kindness of her heart. In the 18 years that I lived at home with my parents, my father hugged me one time, and that was when at age
11, I got baptized. Yes, at age 11 I was baptized. Maybe that's why I always felt older than I was, more mature than most people my age. I don't know. How is an 11 year old supposed to have a comprehensive understanding about all this nonsense? Well, somehow I passed their tests and I was baptized.
That's the thing. I never really bothered to try and understand this crap. I didn't want to understand it. I just knew in my heart I hated the life, the going to the meetings, the books and magazines, the preaching from door to door (the possible embarrassment from actually seeing someone you go to school with answer the door), and the not being able to celebrate birthdays and holidays and do what normal people did in their daily lives.
Another thing too. As far as I can remember, being as religious as we were, there was never really any warmth, love, kindness or any of that. It was a
very cold environment that I grew up in. Now I know that it was an environment full of fear. Not something I would wish on anyone.
I started getting the rebellion itch around my junior year of high school. I didn't get into drugs or anything like that, but I started cutting classes
with the few friends I did have just so I could feel somewhat normal and be around "normal" people. I drank a couple of times, but that was it. That was about the only time I had fun in my life. I did end up losing my virginity at age 16. My parents never found out about that until I, for some crazy reason, ended up confessing it to my parents. My father thought (because we did it behind the school) that people would think I was a dirty slut. One
time (I think I was 16 or 17) I had finally had enough and, with my friends waiting outside for me in the car, I said to my parents that I was going out. Just like that! Now, if you knew my father, I had plenty to fear-not only because he was an Elder and strict JW, but he was Italian and had a bad temper. My mom said oh no you're not and I said yes I am and she PHYSICALLY tried to hold me back but I managed to get away and ran out the door and into the car. My parents followed me and my father threated my friend's boyfriend that if he drove off he would charge him with kidnapping. My mom had said that I had changed my mind and didn't want to go out after all (okay if that
was the case why the hell was I still sitting in the car). So I had no choice but to get out of the car. They dragged me back into the house where my father proceeded to beat the shit out of me but not enough to leave any physical marks.
I ran away twice from home. The first time was overnight (for lack of anywhere else to go to, I slept in a laundrymat that was open 24 hours). After the first time, my parents and I sat down and talked for hours, BUT FOR NOTHING. In fact, they wanted to send me to a shrink, because they thought I was crazy. But I never did go. They almost had me drop out of high school (I guess with the influences of other people that would lead me to actually start thinking for myself but thank god that never happened). The second
time I ran away, when I came back, my mother slapped me and hit me like crazy (again nothing that would leave marks of course). And I was banished to my
room. During my high school years I spent a lot of time alone in my room, with the door closed. It was better than anything else since I couldn't DO
anything else.
I graduated from high school in June of 1992. I moved out of the house in October. My father was no where around the day I left. My mother let me use her car and I moved the few measly possessions I had by myself. I ended up moving in with a MALE roommate. It was no one that I knew, I just answered someone's ad in the newspaper looking for a roommate. I never ended up meeting with the elders, I just knew one day, my mom told me that I had been disfellowshipped and to this day, I really don't know the exact reason
(living in sin I guess, even though he was JUST A ROOMMATE).
This is just the beginning of my story. I kind of got tired because I didn't realize how long this was turning out to be. Stay tuned for part II.
|