This JW Life

This JW Life is my true life story as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Four decades of life changes are laid out so that others can understand what it is to be a JW. Whether you are a current or former Jehovah's Witness, or you just know someone that is or was, or you are just curious as to what that life is like, I am sharing my firsthand account.

Episode 10 - Announcing "shunned" 09/06/2017

Episode 9 - Let's Send This Thing Out Right - Where We Ended Up 08/08/2017

Episode 9 - Let's Send This Thing Out Right - Where We Ended Up After leaving the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses we learned even more eye-opening things about it. Then we applied the same scrutiny to the book that everything we ever believed was based on. Where did we end up? How is our life now? How will I end this last episode of my story? Listen to find out. [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:01:59] I'm going to break down the nearly two years since my wife and I left the call in different sections to tie up some loose ends and and report on what life has been like after the call. So let's just jump right in. First section we're going to talk about is what I've learned since leaving the cold about the cold admittedly Jehovah's Witnesses know very little about the religion that they pledged their loyalty to. As far as history goes and they also honestly don't know a lot about what is involved in it. Presently you see a good magician only shows you what they want you to see. They don't slow things down and show you the sleight of hand used to make the allusion appear seamless to your naked eye. I've had time now to slow things down to get away from the indoctrination and to get that detailed look at things that I never even had any clue were going on. Around the time that I was coming out there were two big events that happened in the Colts. First the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Again these are the leaders of the cult. They started coming out from behind the curtain. Now when I was growing up. One of the selling points of the cult was that our leaders were unknown to us. So it couldn't be a call right. You know these people were behind the scenes they weren't doing it for personal glory. So it wasn't like we were following some man. Well those men have now decided to make themselves known. And it is glorious. [00:03:28] Now I'm just going to sit here and take shots at them unnecessarily. But if you've ever seen a picture of them or if you ever hear them speak the mental illness in them just drips off their words one of them looks like a caricature of Cecil the turtle from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons and speaks about like him. It is so creepy. Others have he's really flat facts as though they are dead inside something that kind of tends to do anyway to people by robbing them of their humanity. But they are truly caricatures. Now one day around when I left there was a huge meeting that was broadcast throughout all the congregations. This was a big deal. [00:04:11] It was a special thing and everyone flocked to their kingdom halls to watch this live stream on video screens of the governing body during a special meeting. This [00:04:21] wasn't something that the average Jehovah's Witness ever got to see. [00:04:26] There were these annual meetings that were held up at Bethel or the headquarters in New York in New York City. But this wasn't something that the average person got to participate in. But they took the opportunity to come out pretty much to great fanfare to be seen on these video screens that each congregation would either buy or rent so that they could show the members this live stream now this is a great chance. [00:04:58] The governing body could speak to anything they wanted anything in the world. They had their subs subjects were captive they could encourage them in any way they wanted. Would you like to know what the highlight from that meeting was Anthony Morris one of the governing body members used his 15 minutes of fame to go on a rant about tight pants tight pants. [00:05:25] In fact he is no now as tight pants Tony he could have talked about anything he could have encouraged single parents that were going through tough times. He could have encouraged young people that had to live a messed up life in the cold. But instead he chose to harp on things like how tight the pants were that people were wearing. And if you don't like it as he is so fond of saying take it up with God because you know that's right there in the Bible in the book of fashion you know the chapter about how tight your pants should be. He he talked about those Spanx as he called them just to show how out of touch he is. He talked about those Spanx as he called them that women used to work out in. And how appalling it was that they would ever wear those out of the house. Then he went on to talk about how the homosexuals that design men's pants want to see you in those tight pants the more slender dress pants as opposed to the pleated pans that looked like balloons were. Remember those as I remember when I was younger you'd wear these pleated pants a little balloons in your crotch when you sit down. Well you know these homosexuals they're just making you wear these tight pants so they can see your bold young men. That's what it's about. You could see how out of touch these human beings are what their world view is like in just a few statements. It doesn't take a lot. [00:06:51] You don't have to get to know these men. This man is a God. A G O D or a guardian of doctrine as they literally referred to themselves as at one point. What a shame that instead of helping people. All he did was put more burdens on them like the Pharisees in Jesus day that Jehovah's Witnesses liked to poke fun at that talk helped to wake a lot of people up. He even went on a rant about the socks that brothers wore with crazy colors on them or designs really now also around that time was the live streaming online of the Australian Royal Commission. The FARC is investigating religions in Australia and how they deal with childhood sexual abuse in their organisations. Now it isn't just Jehovah's witnesses that were being investigated but it was the Jehovah's Witnesses that got special attention not just from those of us that were watching. Ex Jacob's but from the commission itself you see ANGUS STEWART Now a hero among us ex SJ Dubbs was not fooled by the court's appearance and persona. He went in prepared in part because the ex Jehovah's Witness community reached out and gave him things that helped him to prosecute the witnesses in his court. I'll let you in on a little something regarding Jehovah's Witnesses and child sexual abuse or honestly abuse of any kind. Let's say that Little Susie claims that a relative molested her she tells her Jehovah's Witness parents first her parents will go to the elders not to the police but to the elders as that is pretty much how everything is handled in the creation's. [00:08:38] Then once they're little Susie would have to sit down in front of men elders and tell them what happened. Faced probing questions into it again. I think I mentioned earlier they want to know all the details. Then the elders would call the legal department at Watchtower headquarters for advice on how to proceed. Now Jehovah's Witnesses will deny that this is the case but the case is that Jehovah's Witnesses have always been discouraged from going to the police. As a general rule remember they're concerned more about appearance than anything and they will avoid the courts because they don't want the organisation to look bad publicly just like they'll encourage people that seek psychiatric care. So then please don't disclose that you're one of Jehovah's Witnesses because it reflects badly on them. So Susie has now been through this ordeal and the elders would then go confront the relative in the congregation that was accused of molesting her. Often it would come down to a judicial hearing and the little girl would have to face the person that she accused often an adult and likely a man in this scenario in front of three men in the end unless the accused confessed. There could be nothing done unless there was a second witness. Now how many times do you think someone witnesses such predatory behavior. So the relative goes free to molest others and only if another person comes forward later. Will they then have their two witnesses. They have what's called the two witness rule. They take it from one particular verse in the Bible out of the mouth of two witnesses and they use it in this particular scenario. [00:10:27] And because people aren't going to the police it really causes a lot of problems and there's a lot of behavior that has repeated There was an elder that was being shaken down by Angus Stewart that was on the stand in the course of questioning Mr. Stewart asked him what he was doing to protect the general public. Her he got all indignant and was like well you know of course we care about other kids but how could we protect everyone. Well Mr. Stewart beautifully pointed out that by keeping everything in-house and avoiding taking matters like this to the police they were at best only trying to protect those in their own cult and that even if the abuser confessed and was disfellowshipped that did nothing to protect the community at large from a predator. The elder as if thinking about this for the first time in his life thinking about other people he turned blood red and was humiliated. You see Jehovah's Witnesses are so full of themselves that they don't even consider outsiders. This was an eye opener. In the end over 1000 cases of pedophilia were documented and not one was ever reported to the authorities. Jehovah's Witnesses have a policy of also destroying notes taken during such questionings of abuse cases and when questioned on the stage on the stand as to whether or not they would continue doing so. They said yeah that's our policy because again it's policy over people. Now people have even been threatened with disfellowshipping if they were to take these accusations of abuse to the police. Justice McClellan who was presiding over that court pointed out that Jehovah's Witnesses were the worst organization that he had seen in dealing with this. [00:12:22] And the quote was defiance at every turn in areas where they were expected to cooperate. They even hired an outside expert to sing their praises. That was snowed by them as to what the reality was. [00:12:36] And then when this woman gets up on the stand she looks like a complete tool because she had to admit as their own hired expert that they were not doing what they should be doing at all. [00:12:49] She didn't realize what the real situation was and so she got on the stand. She had gone by what the organization had told her. All the flowery things about how wonderful they are and then when she got confronted with the reality of it she had to admit what that reality was she was absolutely taken apart on the stand. [00:13:11] In fact it's also funny that they have a woman up there as an expert in the first place. [00:13:16] We all know as the Jehovah's Witnesses at least know that only those with a male appendage know anything of use. They're the only ones who could be an expert for them to actually put a woman up there. It's just so counter to who Jehovah's Witnesses are. In fact the court was hoping that the court would allow women to hold a role in these types of abuse cases particularly where girls or women were being abused so that they didn't have to go speak to men about it. And of course the court declined to consider that I could go on and on. I could do an entire podcast about the RCC alone but I'll leave it there. The organization of Jehovah's Witnesses actually has a database of thousands upon thousands of such accusations of pedophilia and even known pedophiles who have confessed to what they did. They have a database of thousands upon thousands of these situations around the globe that they keep secret. The court is not co-operative and holds those databases close even redacting basically any information they want when forced to cooperate by the judicial system. Further showing how little Jehovah's Witnesses regard outsiders was another event that happened at the time there was a massive earthquake in Nepal that killed thousands and injured tens of thousands. It was a nightmare it was all over the news well the way the witnesses react it bothered me so much as I was waking up. That actually put a post up on one of the SJW forums in a thread entitled they only care about themselves. [00:15:02] I said I've watched the reaction to the Nepal disaster for the first time with eyes open. What do I see. [00:15:09] Lots of comments about praying for the brothers and sisters affected the official release on the Web site because the witnesses main web site they actually have kind of like a media section where they address things that happen in the world regarding them. [00:15:26] So there is this official release on their Web site references only the sister and her two children that died along with the impact on the brothers there. That's it for an organization that is supposed to be marked by love for all of the gum flapping about how much love for neighbor they show. They can't even be bothered to shout out to the thousands killed and their families and friends. Would it be too much to even acknowledge that other people you know the ones that you supposedly love so much that you go and preach to them door to door even exists. [00:16:00] I understand taking care of your own but you don't have to ignore everyone else like calous Narcissus. [00:16:07] So that's the end of my post that I had made. I just couldn't believe how they wouldn't even acknowledge that other people were impacted. There was literally no mention of those other people. It shows again how little they care about anyone that is outside their group. Here's some other random things that I've learned since being out. I came to realize that there is now no concept of grace in the Colts. They don't use the term grace. That's something that I heard for the first time outside of Jehovah's Witnesses Instead they use the term undeserved kindness so that you always know that you're not really worth anything. I also realize that they they use a lot of weasel words like the word evidently when about to make a point that requires a huge leap and has no real basis. They like to make leaps tobacco whatever ridiculous thing that they're about to posit. So they'll use a word a use word like evidently to get you to make that leap with them. On that. No. They often use the term present truth and the other does speak term present truth to let you know that you have to obey because whatever they're telling you is true but that truth is subject to change. [00:17:29] I learned that they are involved in all kinds of things that they would never allow their members to be a part of or even given the appearance of association with. The biggest example of this is the United Nations now. Jehovah's Witnesses are not even supposed to join the local YMCA because it is a Christian organization not affiliated with the cult and thereby it is false religion because remember they and they alone have the truth. But the colt which claims that the United Nations will eventually cause the nations to turn on and shut down religion and which they see as the scarlet colored wild beast in Revelation. They Jehovah's Witnesses actually became an associate an NGO or a non-governmental organization of the United Nations in 1992 the Guardian and the United Kingdom actually broke the news in October of 2001 that the Jehovah's Witnesses were a member of this organization that they claim to be the scarlet colored wild beast of Revelation. [00:18:38] And that very same month the cult withdrew and disassociated as an NGO member of the United Nations. They are hypocrites of the highest order. If you look up the company of Rand cam that's R.A. in the space s.a.m Aranda cam if you look at their SCC or Securities and Exchange Commission information as a traded company in the United States you'll see that the Watchtower holds a large stake Rand's cam makes engines and is involved in the defense industry the war machine something that Jehovah's Witnesses are opposed to. [00:19:16] Do they think do you think that they would have let you as one of Jehovah's Witnesses do anything that even sniffs such an industry of course not years ago Jehovah's Witnesses aligned themselves with the well-known televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and listing themselves as a quote friend of the court during his case regarding sales tax on books sold. You see Jehovah's Witnesses used to sell their books and magazines from door to door. We would go and we would sell them we would collect money for them. Well one day we got a notice from the top at one of our meetings that we were so blessed by Jehovah that we were going to start relying on him to make this organization go. [00:20:01] We would show our trust in him by going to a donation arrangement instead of charging for the literature we were given suggested donations and proof that Jehovah was backing us would be demonstrated as the organization would have an abundance materially under this new system of getting funding through voluntary donations instead of charging for our literature. [00:20:22] This was God ordained right. Well what they didn't tell us and what I found out later was that the government decided that selling books like this should be taxed and they didn't want to pay taxes. [00:20:34] So that is the real reason that the donation arrangement came about it wasn't blessing from Almighty God. It was prompting by the almighty dollar. In the end it is the members of the congregation that donate the money for the literature that they then go out and give away for free. Most of the time they jilted their members into funding all of it. Well-played colt. Well played another great play is this. It used to be that every congregation was its own entity and own its own property including the building the local brothers and sisters would donate money to the upkeep of the building. They donate money to pay the mortgage or eventually save money for a down payment on a new building if needed. Well the organization often funded those mortgages and the local congregations would get a loan for their Keenum hall that they would you know them be so proud of well Watchtower headquarters decided that they were going to be nice a few years ago. They sent out a letter only part of which was read to the creation and part of which was for the elders eyes only and which they forgave all the mortgages those congregations that had a loan with the organization we're now debt free. That's awesome right. [00:21:53] I mean really how can you mess that up. Well as with just about anything. Read the fine print. What they actually did was to forgive the loans to be sure but they had all of the properties turned over to them. They now owned everything including Keenum halls that were long since paid for. They scarfed up all the properties. [00:22:17] They also told the Koreans that since they were taking care of everything now there was no use in the individual congregations having much money in the bank. So they took everything over a certain amount of basic operating costs. There are creations that had tens of thousands of dollars saved up and earmarked for a new building and all that money was just taken to sweeten the deal for the cold even more. [00:22:42] They told the members that you know what since you've proven that you can pay X amount for your mortgage over these years you know whatever they had previously been paying for the mortgage you could just keep donating that amount through a pledge. And what they did is they handed out slips of paper for everyone to write down how much money they would commit to giving each month so that they knew that they would still be getting their money. In other words don't think you can relax and not keep donating just because you don't have a mortgage anymore. They weren't about to take that foot off the throat of their members. [00:23:15] This new arrangement is forever. So yeah you don't have a loan anymore but you have a commitment in perpetuity to pay at least the same amount. And oh yeah that's took all of your money out of the bank and they took your... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5619158

Episode 8 - Get Out Of Her, My People - It All Comes Tumbling Down 08/03/2017

Episode 8 - Get Out Of Her, My People - It All Comes Tumbling Down There comes a point in life when you know too much to ever go back to the person you once were, or to the cult that you once called home. Unfortunately there are no easy ways to leave a cult. This is my journey out and I detail the price that was paid for my freedom. [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:01:52] If you notice the title of this week's episode and you were never one of Jehovah's Witnesses you may be wondering what it's all about. Get out of her my people. It all comes crumbling down. Is a shout out to the scripture in Revelation 18 that Jehovah's Witnesses like to point at all the other religions of the world and Revelation 18 verse 2. We see that the subject of all these proclamations is Babylon the Great Jove's. This is believed to be the world empire of false religion as Babylon in ancient times was a hub of false religion. So they end these verses at false religion today. Jehovah's Witnesses have again the truth. They believe that it applies to everyone else. For those of us that learn the truth about the truth we can just as easily point this back at them. The Scriptures read Revelation 18 for through a and I heard another voice out of heaven say get out of her my people. If you do not want to share with her in her sins and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues for her sins of mass together clear up to heaven and God has called her acts of injustice to mind repay her in the way she treated others yes pay her back double for the things she has done in the cup she has mixed for a double portion for her to the extent that she has glorified herself. I live in Shameless luxury. [00:03:16] To that extent give her torments and mourning for SECU saying in her heart I sit as queen and I am not a widow and I will never see MORNING. [00:03:25] That is why and one day her plagues will come death and mourning and famine as she will be completely burned with fire because Jehovah God who judged her is strong so I took these verses and pointed them right back at Jehovah's Witnesses and this is my account of how it all came crumbling down for me and for my wife as well. [00:03:48] Jehovah's Witnesses like to project a lot they love to point out that straw in the eyes of others while ignoring the rafter in their own. [00:03:55] Another call back to scripture. [00:03:58] So by now you have a working understanding of how Jehovah's Witnesses think and feel about the world around them. [00:04:06] You've seen how they use their teachings to control and manipulate those that are subjected to them. You've seen how they brought me to my knees. [00:04:14] And you've also seen the information that helps to start wake me up now it's time to show you how things progressed as I was learning all this new information. You'll see how we got out of that debt that we had amassed how my relationship with my dad changed and how everything really started changing for the better. But eventually came there was a hefty price to pay for that. So let's go back a bit to where I left off with my story. I was depressed I was suicidal ideations and my life was a wreck. I started to become enlightened and I was getting deep into the realm of self-help and psychology and was realizing that this organization that I was taught to look to for everything didn't have everything that I or others needed. This was my awakening process during this process. I got healthier and decided that I wanted to be the one to right some wrongs even if I wasn't the one that started them. I wanted to help others and to have better relationships. For starters I wanted to give my youngest brother and my sister that is 20 years younger than me. A better life. So I would take them out and buy them clothes. My wife and I would help decorate my sister's room. [00:05:24] We gave them things like on our Nintendo we we bought them skateboards and things we tried to give them things that maybe I would have gotten like when my grandfather was alive he would bias things. [00:05:39] Not that you know buying something for someone is the end all be all to a relationship or that someone was trying to buy my love. [00:05:48] But he had the ability to make some things happen for us that you know growing up kind of poor we we really didn't have those opportunities. So I wanted to you know grandfather my grandpa wasn't around anymore so I wanted to help out where I could. It's tough when you grow up without the money to do fun things or you just don't have much. So my wife and I use some of our money to try to give them things that maybe I didn't have when I was a kid or or that others had given me like my grandfather. Aside from that I wanted to make sure that I did things with my younger siblings. We took them places and had a good time. So a it came about when I found out something about how things were going at my family's home with my dad and my youngest brother. [00:06:32] My mom would tell me things I had and I wasn't going to just let it happen and continue on like it was it was it was you know nobody likes to see somebody get bullied. [00:06:46] And at this point in my life I didn't I didn't live at home I didn't have to put up with this anymore. So I told my mom that I was coming to get my dad and we were going to go for a drive. Something we had never done before. My wife and I went over on a Saturday and while she and my mom took bets on who would come back alive. I invited my dad to go for a ride. I took him to a nearby park parked the car and we got out. It was honestly one of the harder things I had to do up to that point because my dad was very authoritarian. He generally refused to be questioned in any way to be challenged his answer was No to everything. He didn't want to hear what you had to say. And that was that it was his way or the highway only in this case I held all the cards he was in my car and I took him out and I didn't live under his roof anymore. So the power balance has shifted. Well basically I told him everything from how I felt as a child to how my brothers felt. I told him what a jerk he was to be quite honest and that it needed a change and this is his wakeup call. It was I guess a jerk intervention of sorts. I didn't really mince words. [00:07:54] In fact that's something that I kind of started to put into an earlier episode here and left out because I didn't really feel safe being that vulnerable at that point when I was doing that episode but I'm going to go ahead and throw it out here. Now this is something I had to tell my dad when I was a kid I would leave these notes to my dad at times I'm sure my mom probably threw them away and I'm sure he probably never saw them. I don't know. Nothing was ever said to me about it. But admittedly his emotional abuse was getting to me. [00:08:25] I would cry myself to sleep at night. [00:08:27] A lot of times when I was a little kid there was just not really not really a lot of love in my family. Now people typically have one or two responses to a given challenge. We have the fight or flight response. [00:08:43] I'm not really one to flee. I'm just not wired that way. And it wasn't like I had anywhere to go to as a kid anyway. [00:08:51] So fight it was in one particularly disturbed moment as a kid. I actually got up in the middle of the night with tears in my eyes after a particularly bad day with my dad and went into the kitchen and had plans on or at least impulsive thoughts on putting an end to his abuse. [00:09:14] I went into bed or went to bed. What is the kitchen. I grab the knife and I obviously couldn't go through with it which is for his benefit and from hide as well. [00:09:27] As a kid but I just ended up going back to bed but I told my dad this and this moment if that doesn't wake a person up to the realities of their impact on other people then I don't know what in the world could well my dad said all the right things. [00:09:49] He apologized for things he told me a bit about his own upbringing. And I have to say that his own upbringing was pretty messed up from what he told me and facts. [00:10:02] You know I think one of the things any parent wants to do is be a better parent than their parents. And to be honest though were it doesn't sound like we're setting a very high bar here. [00:10:15] I think he may have done that from some of the things that he told me. But anyway when it came to us he just thought we were moody teenagers so we were staying away. [00:10:26] He didn't know that we truly despised him so much that we actually went to a doctor and I and if you know my dad next shall be telling you a little bit more about him later. My dad did not volunteer volunteer to go to doctors. You'll understand more about that later. But he actually went of his own volition and got medication for depression. [00:10:49] Now from what I was told by my mom he changed for the better. But it wasn't long before he went off the meds and decided that he didn't need them anymore and that everything was fine before. [00:10:59] So whatever good was done there. I don't I don't know what the impact was kind of it was always kind of a tough thing with my dad to tell where he really stood on things. [00:11:14] But my relationship with my dad did start to change because I mean I realized he was never going to make it better on his own. So if I wanted something better it was up to me. I reached out to him invite and invited him to do things. I'd take him fishing to baseball games. We went out and ate. At times we had fun. I even took him to his first ever University of Kentucky basketball game. [00:11:38] Despite my love for the rival school and my loathing for all things blue or cats I told them that I would make a deal. [00:11:48] I wouldn't clap for them but at least refrain from booing actually. You know I tease. But it was the one time that I ever really rooted for them. I wanted them to win for my dad. In fact I picked the game. I mean you know props to Kentucky they have a great basketball team. They do pretty much year in and year out. But I wanted to make sure that we went to the game that they were going to win. There weren't a lot of opportunities for this. So I hope there's no Gamecocks fans listening but I pick the South Carolina game because their basketball team at least back then. Right last year. So props to them again. But back then they were terrible. So I picked this game. We went to Kentucky blew them out. My dad had a great time. I had a good time. And you know that's what it was about it was about trying to have fun. In fact I kind of started to get to know him better. Like I mentioned before I found out a few things about his upbringing. But I started learning some about his past how he grew up. You know what he did things he was interested in because he had never spoken a word about any of that in my entire life. And although he wasn't extremely open about things he was pretty reserved. [00:13:11] He did you know begin to open up even works for me at a point as I mentioned before he and my wife and I would get to be pretty good friends or so we thought we'd go out and eat lunch together at work if we were at the same property as he was that day we went. [00:13:31] My wife went fishing with us when we would go to baseball games together. You see though the problem as I mentioned earlier you never really knew where you stood with my dad. I do remember that one time he told me he was proud of me when he was working for me. And that was cool. I mean it was very strange and off the cuff was a response to something that was going on and he was. He said he was proud that I created the business that I had back then. And that's that's pretty much the only time I can remember my dad ever saying anything positive to me. [00:14:07] However he you know he and I would have these great conversations and he would say all the right things. But then later my mom would tell me that he got home and trashed what we had talked about it was really messed up and hard to figure out what was real with him he was he was just a really hard person to ever pin down and a great actor. Now as I mentioned before I don't drink because I was told that alcoholism runs in my family and my dad never drank. [00:14:34] However my dad did have a problem with sugar and I'm not talking about eating one too many brownies and putting on a few pounds. [00:14:42] He had a real problem apparently when he was 20 years old. He was drafted into the military and he was turned away because he had crazy blood sugar and high blood pressure. [00:14:54] And in fact they told him they weren't going to take him or that he should go take care of himself. He never did at 50 years old. His body was wasting away and in an elder at the Kingdom Hall cornered him and invited him to take his blood sugar with them. It was something I don't know it was an astronomical figure like 400 or 500 or something. [00:15:16] And my dad went to the hospital the doctors basically told him that his kidneys should shut down years ago with his medical history and that he was very lucky. They gave him a new diet. They gave him some pills to help manage his blood sugar well. [00:15:34] Denial was my dad's middle name. He lived a life full of it. In this case he didn't really change his diet. [00:15:41] He was fairly non-compliant on the meds as well. Just like he was with the depression meds and like he was honestly with everything in his late 50s he was wasting away again. My mom caught him throwing up in the bathroom she had noticed that he wasn't eating much but apparently it had gotten to the point where he couldn't even hold down water. She asked how long it had been. You know that he had had this issue with vomiting and he said a month. [00:16:06] He refused to go to the doctor. So I was called to be the adult to be the dad to come in and make him go to the doctor. So I did I told him that basically he's going to go one of three ways he could either go on his own. I could pick his weak self up and take him or he would go when he fell out and an ambulance was called. [00:16:27] It was his choice and he went voluntarily Well what had happened is his kidneys finally shut down. He was in end stage renal failure and they said that he would have died within 48 hours had he not come in right then he was put on dialysis and his life completely changed this time. [00:16:46] You see he had the change because when you do dialysis you can't hide what you are doing. You go in and get hooked up to a machine three times a week Monday Wednesday and Friday for him and they know all of your levels. They knew what he was eating. They knew what he was doing. There was there was no hiding anymore. And you know his life was also changed. He felt so stupid and and he knew that he had done it to himself. He said so. He was a sugar addict. And you know if you think about it what does alcohol if not sugar ought to be honest I struggle with sugar myself. It's not just like sweets sweets literally calm me down. The opposite of the effect it has on many. You know I could go drink a mountain dew and go to bed. Sugar is a stimulant and the meds that they give to people with ADHD are stimulants and they have the opposite impact on our brain chemistry as they do on the average person. Of course you know I don't I don't know exactly 100 percent what is it from my dad. We had some talks and it seemed like he kind of had some of the same issues but again he would tell me that and then go deny it to somebody else. Who knows. [00:18:05] But my dad ended up having to quit his job and go on disability his life for the next six years or so would consist of going to dialysis in the morning sleeping the rest of the day away as it was very tough on his body resting the next day. And then the following morning getting up and doing it all over again. Sad to say the only day that he ever even felt decent was Sunday because that was the farthest he ever got from a dialysis treatment. So you know he would go. Friday morning he would recuperate. That day Saturday he would he would rest but he at least you know be up and around some. And then he had that extra day of Sunday where he would finally start feeling decent again. And then of course Monday morning he started over again. But you know regardless it didn't matter. None of this slowed his Jehovah's Witness activities down. I mean I guess it did a little bit but you know he still gave public talks from the stage. He still would go visit other corrugations and give talks he still went out door to door. [00:19:09] Nothing could stop that oh I guess I forgot to mention that apparently my dad was also blind in one eye. We went out to eat with him one night and he always drove and after eating he got in the car and forgot to defrost the windshield. I asked if he was going to do so or not as he started to leave because I could barely see out of it and I was sitting up front with them and he played it off. It turns out that that's how everything looked to him. You've heard the term. You know he's blind in one eye and can't see out the other. My dad was literally blind in one eye I had never told anyone and he literally could not see out of the other one because he had a cataract on it. That did I mention something about denial earlier. [00:20:01] He also had neuropathy in his legs where his nerves and everything were dying from poor circulation. He would stumble around a lot because he couldn't feel his lower extremities very well. Yes. There he was though going up steps going from door to door knocking you know out in the field ministry. He fell off a porch at least once. I think a few times I know he was bruised up a few times. He had issues while he was giving public talks to other Keenum halls where he had to stop and talk. [00:20:31] I think he almost passed out one time there were there were issues but it didn't matter. No matter what that man's compulsion to do anything that Jehovah's Witness has asked him came first. Remember he told me when I was young if they asked you to do something just say yes. And that was my dad. Anything they asked him to do. He said yes. It didn't matter what his physical capabilities were. In fact want to hear something ironic. And every summer convention My dad was assigned to be the head of a department. So there are these various departments at these regional or district conventions. You know they have 10 departments they have departments for information or media relations you know cleaning things like that one. Guess what department. My dad was the head of hope not cleaning. Even though he cleaned for us not the attendance to help people find where they're going to the convention center. My dad was the head of the freaking First Aid Department's just let that soak in. [00:21:42] Year after year they made that man the head of health care while he was killing himself and doing nothing about it and they knew about it. He was falling out while giving talks a total trainwreck physically. [00:21:57] Do you know how that made us feel to see him set up as the head of first aid rushing to go take care of people or handing out meds while he destroyed himself for that awful cold. I mean not to mention that if you were not going to the doctor at my house unless something was super super wrong I believe I've had it. I can only do this in retrospect at least two lives Frank injuries. [00:22:29] In retrospect that's what I think they were. That's essentially the ligament in your arch pulling off from the bone. My foot turned to black twice when I was a kid. Well once in each foot and my dad had actually had similar injuries playing basketball when he was young. There were pictures of him with casse but me when I got hurt there was no going to a doctor. We didn't go to the doctor for that stuff. And here's my dad handing out meds like candy to people and being like compassionate with people. Again another exact... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5605214

Episode 7 - Getting Healthy and Waking Up 07/23/2017

Episode 7 - Getting Healthy and Waking Up Learn how I went from an unhealthy and suicidal Jehovah's Witness to a happy and healthy human being. I list exact books and podcasts that helped me in my journey to overcome the toxic and dysfunctional life that I had been given from my cult upbringing. Whether you're a recovering cult member or just your average person that has been blessed to never go through my experience, you can learn from this episode. This healthy information is something that everyone can benefit from, and I hope that you find something that improves your life in this episode. Resources Mentioned (in no particular order): Books- – Edward Hallowell and John Ratey – Viktor Frankl – Henry Cloud – Brene Brown – John Bradshaw – Beverly Engel – Robert Pressman and Stephanie Donaldson Pressman – Eckhart Tolle – Donald Miller – Henry Cloud – Tal Ben-shahar – Randy Pausch Podcasts - [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:01:52] Before we get started I'd like to give thanks for the iTunes reviews that I've received. They mean a lot to me personally and they kind of give the show credibility for those who are looking for shows like this. I had asked for some a few weeks ago and some of you responded and I really appreciate that also. Just hit a little mark. We're hitting 5000 downloads today. Just a week and a half ago to give you some idea. We hit 3000. So it seems like things are really picking up which is pretty cool and something that I really hadn't expected. This has gone far better than I could have anticipated. Now today I'd like to start with a little public service announcement something happened this week that hit me after last week's episode. The singer for the band Linkin Park Chester Bennington committed suicide. That kind of hit me hard for two reasons. One I just kind of got done reliving my own story and my own suicidal ideations and things and putting that out into the world. On the last episode to his music personally helps me on my journey. Their music ran the gamut from screaming to let out rage to these beautiful compassionate messages that mean he could sing at all different vocal ranges. They sing about things like codependents and depression and overcoming things. I could be totally frustrated with my life. Listen to one of their songs and feel like I either got the rage out or that I was understood. Sadly his own issues presented themselves in the end. Often it is those that hurt the most. [00:03:27] That kind of churn out some of the most beautiful art. If you're listening and you're hurting I mean I don't know how many people are listening I know. You know with 5000 downloads maybe there is somebody out there that's hurting. I just want to say that there are better ways out. Sometimes the disease wins as in his case and it is profoundly sad. However many do beat these thoughts and feelings. Our stories just don't make the news because shocking will triumph inspiring for ratings any day. I'm one such person and I know that there are many others. If you need help reach out with an open mind. You can find new ways of living and you can find what all of us are ultimately chasing which is happiness. The suicide prevention hotline can be called any time. 1 800 2 7 3 8 2 5 5. In fact if you google suicide prevention hotline It appears that they even have an online chat which is pretty cool. Just just reach out. Just please reach out. People do care about you and you can learn to care about yourself. [00:04:34] At the end of last week's episode I discussed this newfound revelation that I might have been dealing with some sort of ADHD for my whole life. This revelation was huge for me because it took away the moralization of my struggles that I've been giving my whole life and showed me that the cult that I have been taught to turn to for everything didn't really have the answers to everything. In fact there was a famous talk that made the rounds by a brother Mack in the organization that highlighted how we're all just getting by on pills and prayers brothers pills and prayers. This world is so wicked that it's on the way out and it's so hard to make it through well. That never sounded like a good life to me. It sounds more like an existence not a way to live. So I took this opportunity to dive farther into things I wanted to learn more about ADHD of course. And I dove headfirst into some online forums about it. I wanted to see how other people lived with it and kind of see how I fit in. I mean after all it is a spectrum. So you can't. So not everyone is going to have the same experience. I would spend the next couple of years heavily involved in that community not only receiving help but I also stuck around and tried to help others as much as I could. What I learned was that ADHD is an executive function disorder. That's exactly what it sounds like. [00:06:03] It's a difficulty in executing things in such a disorder you may face some measure of impulsivity and difficulty carrying out what you want to do unlike what the elders in the corrugation had just told me which I mentioned last week we all do what we want to do and it all comes down to choice. Well I was learning that our brains are often hijacked by many chemical imbalances and different disorders and sometimes just situational things. It doesn't mean that we have no choice in this world but it does mean that life doesn't merely come down to a matter of choices. If it did and we had this total control and all we needed to do or make better choices in life then we could be perfect for and if we could be perfect you know as this Christian I thought I was why would there be a need for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that I held in such high esteem. Why would he need to sacrifice himself because we could overcome our sinful or imperfect natures simply by making better choices right. Speaking of choices I ended up having one to make here. You see Jehovah's Witnesses ridicule self-help they also for many years pretty much condemned any kind of psychology. After all the only thing that you really needed was prayer and faith. Faith could move mountains and if you did go to the realm of psychology just don't mention that you're a Jehovah's Witness is ok. I mean if you do so and then talk about all your problems you might make Jehovah or Jehovah's Witnesses which is what they're really concerned about look bad and we can't have that. You see you can see here how they are all about appearances which I've mentioned before the outward appearance. [00:07:50] They like to talk about a scripture that references whitewashed graves that look good from the outside but inside we're full of dead men's bones and they would apply that outward to other religions. They did a lot of projecting. In reality they often claim things about others that were just as true if not more so within their own call. I was quickly realizing that I needed to look outside for some things. After all this one revelation was changing my worldview. It made me have some compassion for myself for once instead of self-hatred I had to accept that I might not be able to do everything that I wanted to do because I like every human being have limitations. Now that doesn't mean that those limitations have to destroy my life or dominate it. It just means that I might need some coping tools or strategies to manage it. In the end I did end up leaving that 80 forum that I was a member of for so many years at a point I realized that we all play roles in life. Some are the victors some are the victims but your attitude about things impacts your experience. I knew that I couldn't get rid of ADHD but I could better my life with it. A man without arms might not be able to catch a ball in his hands like everyone else. But that doesn't mean that he can't find some way to catch a ball. Humanity seems to find a way if it looks hard enough. Again don't don't take this in a perfectionistic way like what I would have back in the day. [00:09:23] I'm not saying that we can all do everything because we can't but we can all live happy and productive lives even if they aren't exactly everything that we thought we wanted. My goal with this episode is to show you what I learned over the next seven years from audio books and podcasts that changed my perspective that open my eyes and it gave me a new and healthy life. It got me out of this cult mindset away from the dysfunction and the toxic ways of being. [00:09:52] I learn so much and I want to share it because whether you were in a cold or not. This stuff can help everyone. I mean these aren't cults or anti-coal books these are just books and podcasts. I listen to that were healthy for anyone. This is what I learned that turn my life around from a narcissistic suicidal self-loathing guy that was putting on pounds in debt with ease to a person that has empathy for others and acceptance for myself and that has dropped the weight gotten out of that and is actually happy and healthy. [00:10:29] On my website this J.W. life dot com you'll find links to these books and other resources under this particular episode. Episode number 7. They aren't affiliate links. I'm not in the bookselling business or anything here I'm just trying to make this easy on people. If you need help you can find this help that you need as well. We can all learn and grow no matter our lot in life. It is difficult to look back over those years and to figure out exactly in what order I learned these things so I can look through. I have an account with audible dot com which is an Amazon company and see in what order I bought the books from them. Unfortunately though not all came from there I believe I bought some also Barnes and Noble has a good selection or at least they did have a good selection of audio books on their site so I'm going to kind of do my best to reconstruct this period of life. What I learned. I do think in a way the order did matter somewhat because you know one book would kind of build off the next day. I would learn something in one book and realize that maybe I was having you know this other issue that was kind of really preventing me from from applying it. And so I would get a book on that issue after learning about ADHD. I realized that I had a big problem with perfectionism So I started looking into books on the subject. The one that made the greatest impact was a book called happier by Talb been Shahar. [00:12:05] My biggest takeaway was this one phrase happiness is the ultimate currency. In other words that's what we're all striving for. We think that once we get to a certain place we'll be happy. For instance you might go to college and you're pushing so hard to achieve and you think that once you get that degree you're going to be happy. Then you get a degree and you're not. Now you have this job that you need to get. So now you're looking for this job that you're going to get. And you say that once you get that dream job then you'll be happy then you get that dream job and you're still not happy. Well you know once I get that dream car that dream house or that family whatever whatever it is for you that goal becomes happiness postponed. We have a distorted view of goals in the western world. Goals are there just to give us a direction. They tell us where we're headed. But in the end it isn't about that goal or that and it is the journey there that really matters and that's where we find our joy. By you know sometimes literally stopping to smell the roses. In fact there was an example in this book that actually impacted me very specifically. Happiness isn't about what you do as much as it is about why you do it. So I did a study on people that clean and hospitals those people were studied. And it was found that they were very happy people. Why. [00:13:40] I mean after all they're surrounded by people that are sick or dying and they have to clean up things like surgery rooms and other areas behind profoundly sick individuals every day. It seems from the outside like those people would maybe hate their jobs. In reality though those people didn't see what they did as just cleaning up blood or vomit. They were helping people. They got to know people and saw what they did for what it was instead of just the act that they were performing well this really hit me because back when I was listening to the book I was cleaning. I'll let you in on a little secret. I didn't clean because I liked cleaning. I mean let's face it the janitor cleaner is the butt of all the jokes. Sometimes people treat you as a servant and see you as nothing more and you don't always clean up the most pleasant things. But why did I clean. Well for the same reasons that many Jehovah's Witnesses have cleaning businesses it's all we could do to make more money than a minimum wage job because we couldn't go to college. It gives many Jehovah's Witnesses a flexible schedule to work around so that they can devote more time to pioneering and other Jehovah's Witness interests. For me I kept trying to get away from it but I kept getting sucked back in because we needed the money. Now I did like working with my wife. But here's another secret all of our clients today will notice that I clean all of the bathrooms in every house. Want to know why. It's because I had bad social anxiety and if I clean bathrooms nobody would talk to me. [00:15:18] I wasn't out and about in the House of course now people know me well and maybe wish I would start talking at times but it's better than where I once was. So I learned how to find the joy and happiness in life or in my work even I literally became happier just like the title of the book. It was such a contrast to the way the cult taught me to see the world. I was taught to see it as bad and awful and to look toward the future for happiness rather than today. I started to see our own cleaning business for what it was which was helping people which I'd love to do. In fact I started to realize how good cleaning was for me. Being a perfectionist it gives me an outlet for some of those tendencies. It helps me to work physically while I listen to audio books and podcasts that expand expand my mind every day. Now I actually love what I do and the people that we do it for. In fact he's in the intro and we'll do here again cleaning kind of save my life and I'll explain why in the next episodes about our journey out of the call another book that hit me was the book mankind's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl in it. It is his tale of surviving the horrors of concentration camps. The quote that is famous from this book rings true. His famous quote is everything can be taken from a man except the one thing the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way. [00:16:53] Now as with everything nothing is absolute and through other things I've learned since reading this book and I've I've come to understand that although we do have that choice we may or may not have the tools needed to make a healthy choice but if we have healthy tools we can choose to see things differently. There are people in those camps that lack the tools and that gave up and died or that turn into people that they wouldn't have wanted to be otherwise. Frankel observed this and was able to see beyond those immediate circumstances. Clearly he had tools that others didn't around him. Nobody with the tools for something better would have chosen death just like those that commit suicide wouldn't choose such a course if they had better tools so as to see a way out or is I believe the depression or whatever actually blunts these tools. But I digress. It does help though not to get wrapped up in the present situation when it is negative. And to look for the good in the book boundaries by Henry Cloud I learned how to set proper boundaries with other people. This is big for both me and my wife. When you're in a cult it is difficult to have proper boundaries when the overreaches those boundaries on a daily basis dictating how to believe how to think how to behave how to feel. Back to that bite model I discussed an episode about the fog. There are a lot of narcissists and codependent people in the cult which makes sense when you think about what it takes to make a call. My wife was super codependent with me and I had my narcissistic tendencies. [00:18:33] I bought this book to help put things back in order where they should be in a healthier place. I guess actually if you think about the shows that I wasn't a true narcissist because a true narcissist would never admit that they had a problem in the first place or look for a solution. So like I said I had narcissistic tendencies. Another good book by Henry Cloud was called necessary endings. I read this probably a little too early in my awakening process to see where it really could have applied. And exiting the cult sooner. But the lesson is so good for everyone. How do you get a rosebush to grow. Do you just let it run wild and never touch it. No. You have to prune it. There are things that are dead that you have to remove so that the plant has energy to devote to new life. The same is true for our lives. There are often things that we're involved in or people that we're involved with that are sucking us dry. I like the term vampires for people like that but they really just take from us without offering us anything in return. Maybe it's a job a person or a hobby or some other commitment that just really shouldn't have a place in your life anymore because it's just not giving you anything so that you can grow by getting rid of it. You will have the energy to grow. Just like those roses I remember at one point years later looking at my wife and pointing out that the cold just took and took and took from us and it never gave us anything in return. [00:20:04] Eventually we both outgrew it and it was one of the healthiest things we've ever done to let it go. Probably my favorite book was a book called A million miles in a thousand years by Donald Miller. Now I don't know if this book had the greatest impact but I loved listening to this book. The book is all about writing a better story not necessarily a fictional one but your own. It's about editing your own life taking that 10000 foot view of it all or watching it as an outsider and looking at the roles that you were playing in it. I had notes on this book and many others but they were lost when I had a memory card that got corrupted years ago so. So what I had to do for this book is I went looking for quotes and this one really sums up the book a lot for me. The quote is. And once you live a good story you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life and you can't go back to being normal. You can't go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time. You think about it. This is so true. I'm at the point now in life free and outside of this cold. I could never go back to what I used to think was normal I want to take this opportunity to beg you if you're listening to this and you're unhappy with your life. Expand your mind read books that challenge your way of thinking or being no matter how uncomfortable it is. There is something better out there you just have to find it. [00:21:41] And by challenging those areas in which you're unhappy you're likely to find a way out sooner. If it's not for you. Find out now. Don't wait. Find out now. You know Jehovah's Witnesses often talk about people like me that leave and they say that I left because my feelings got hurt in the congregation or because I just wanted to go live some the botched lifestyle and then in that way they can trivialize it. Well I never sought to leave. I had no intentions I could have never imagined that I would leave Jehovah's Witnesses. It wasn't one thing it was a process of learning that took years. And once you learn something good and healthy you can't go... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5566283

Episode 6 - Life Gets Dark As One Of Jehovah's Witnesses 07/16/2017

Episode 6 - Life Gets Dark As One Of Jehovah's Witnesses In this episode you're going to see just how dark things can get as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. You will see my life as a young person growing up, into adulthood, and into my married life. This is a very personal episode and although it will get dark, you will see where the light came from in a very unexpected way that helped us to eventually exit the cult. Resources Mentioned: - Edward Hallowell and James Ratey [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:01:51] So after the last two episodes you should have a good idea of the influences that were put upon me. And of course other Jehovah's Witnesses though obviously when you're young and you're in your formative years these things weigh heavily on your mind and heart. I myself was also always kind of the kid that took things very seriously. It's just the way I'm wired and I pay attention to words and words have always had a lot of meaning to me. For example when I was really little my grandpa told me that he was going to take me to the circus. [00:02:24] He said we're going to have a ball. Well when he showed up without a ball I was crushed. I didn't know what the circus would be like but I thought that he was going to bring a ball and whether it was a baseball or basketball. When those rubber bouncy balls whatever that was always my favorite toy. So he said we'd have a ball. And then he didn't produce one. So as a tiny child I had no frame of reference for this phrase that he used and he had to buy me a ball before we could go to the circus. [00:02:58] So you know take that child. And I guess you know I don't know maybe it was just me. Maybe it's most children that you tell something like that. When reading this propaganda that Jehovah's Witnesses produce. When I was at meetings and it was being fed to me from the platform I took it all in and took it very seriously. After all I was told that this meant my life and my happiness. I've already spoken as to how my life changed when I was eight or nine and my parents became witnesses and things changed at home and at school. And now I've laid out the fog and what I was living in as far as the teachings and the structure of what was expected of us goes. But now I'm going to kind of chart my course as a young Jehovah's Witness growing up into adulthood so that you can see the progression of things. And as promised I'm going to get to an event in 2008 something that just came out of absolutely nowhere that set my life on a different course a much healthier one. I had no clue that that was going to be the beginning of the end for a lot of things for me at that time. As a kid in the creation I took my first steps as a young Jehovah's Witness by going out in the field ministry with my parents at first just accompanying them to the doors and then later I would get a knock on the doors myself and give presentations. [00:04:24] Kids are awesome little weapons for witnesses to use at the door because let's face it who's going to turn away a cute little kid in a suit or a dress that is offering some sort of well at the time it was cheap and now it's free literature. So when you look at it kind of like cements to this child that this door to door ministry thing is actually pretty cool and easy. [00:04:46] People like you and they appreciate you coming to their door when you're cute and you're well-dressed you know they'll look at you and say oh you know look at how well-behaved he is and things like that. You place magazines with them and you feel good. [00:05:05] So then I became an unbaptized publisher. This is where the organization started to get more of a grip on me because you start being able to turn in field service reports of your time and literature placements even though you aren't yet an official baptized Witness. You kind of almost feel like you're cheating. It's like a cheat code. You start feeling like you're the real deal. You meet with two elders in a back room and they ask you a few questions to make sure that you're a morally upright person and that you're you can represent the organization publicly. I'm pretty sure honestly most of the questions probably don't even apply to a little kid. But you know it's a big deal it makes you feel like you're doing something. My parents were still studying with me. I was going to all the meetings developing as a young minister going out publicly declaring the truth. And then I started feeling pressured to get baptized. Now in order to get baptized it's called actually dedication and baptism. So first you're expected to dedicate yourself to God Jehovah in prayer water immersion or baptism is the public symbol that a person has dedicated their life to Jehovah or more accurately Jehovah's Witnesses in prayer. The funny thing is they act like that's between you and God. But in order to get baptized even though you prayed and dedicated yourself to God you first have to go over these baptism questions with three elders in the congregation. They would determine if you are ready for baptism not some prayer between you and God. [00:06:45] So there's a book and in the back of our questions for baptism you pore over these questions reading cited material and scriptures. You have to meet with three elders one for each section to show that you have a working knowledge of the truth and what they want you to have a working knowledge of. Most Jehovah's Witnesses remember who those three brothers were. It's a very personal thing. I remember the three who met with me. However one thing that I remember is that even as a child I realized that I was smarter than some of them and it made me wonder about some things. For instance a good sign that any Jaida of making the truth their own which is another Jehovah's Witness time making the truth your own. Or as I like to call it dub speak for brainwashing and that it's working if you could answer these questions in your own words not from reading from one of their publication that shows that you have made the truth your own well there's one elder in particular that would ask me questions and what I would answer them in my own words he would tell me that I was wrong and then give a simplified version of my answer. [00:08:00] Word for word out of some publication like he didn't get it when I put it in my own words. It was a little disconcerting even as a kid. Here I was basically going for extra credit and it was over his head and he was an elder. I thought I was going to fail and not be able to get baptized because he wasn't the brightest person ultimately though those three brothers got together after going over the questions with me they discussed my worthiness even though I'd already dedicated myself to God in prayer and then they decided what was between me and God was cool with them and approved me in his absence. So [00:08:37] I was able to go get baptized on July 4th 1990 to 14 years old. I was officially baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses at the district convention that summer at Freedom Hall in Louisville Kentucky. It was in front of probably 10 to 12000 people. Scientologists like to talk about their billion year contract or whatever but I just locked in a forever contract between me and Jehovah's witnesses they're going to have a billion years. I call it infinity on it. Things started to change after that. As a baptized brother I was now expected to pray publicly at the meetings to either open or close them as they say a prayer before and after every meeting. So I did that at times. I started getting more talks at the meetings instead of just the bible readings for five minutes. Sometimes I would be given a subject and develop a talk around that subject and give that for five minutes. I forgot to mention this before but after each person gave their talk they were actually graded on it publicly from the platform. By that the Kraddick Ministry School conductor you were always given something to work on like hallways or gestures logical and coherent development and so on. If you didn't do well you would be told to work on it again. Or if you did you'd be given something else to work on. There is always something you could be doing better. [00:10:02] I was given responsibilities in the congregation like handing out magazines that people would order taking orders from people keeping him in story. I'd help my dad count the money that was donated after the meetings to sign off on it before he took it to the bank. I cut the grass at the Keenum hall every few weeks when it was our turn. I clean the Kingdom Hall after field service on Saturdays when it was our turn. When there was a convention we would volunteer to do something at it. Maybe it was cleaning or do some Once we did security at night and kind of like stayed overnight. We never really took vacations. But once or twice I do remember us taking a long weekend to go to unassigned territory to help some congregation out. For those who are unfamiliar with the term that means that some congregations often in rural areas couldn't cover the large area that they had to cover. Maybe they had an entire county or maybe there wasn't even a congregation nearby so groups would form from different congregations and they would go down to these areas that were never hit with our message and we can go on an all out blitz and spread the truth in that area. I guess that was our idea of a vacation. So in addition to meetings three times a week for five hours spending back then probably 10 to 20 hours a month or more knocking on doors and going to school. There were all these other things that I just mentioned that I had to prepare for and do as a young Jehovah's Witness. [00:11:31] Oh and it's so hard to capture all the things that I actually forgot to mention the most important day of the year for Jehovah's Witnesses. It is the memorial of Christ death the one observance that Jehovah's Witnesses have once a year they get together after sundown on the day that corresponded with his Last Supper and his death and they will do the whole bread and wine thing. Only they don't partake of any of it. We just literally sit there and pass it around to each other in you know the wine goblets. Or on a little plate for the unleavened bread according to Jehovah's Witnesses there are two groups of people that are going to live forever. One the vast majority will live on a paradise earth. Remember they kind of believe it's going to go back to the Garden of Eden that that was God's original purpose and he's going to fulfill that. And then the other group will be one hundred and forty four thousand anointed ones that will rule as kings and priests in heaven with Jesus over that paradise earth. [00:12:33] Now how do you know if you're one of that anointed heavenly class you just know they say I think that God's Spirit speaks with yours and if you are you and you alone can partake of those emblems at the memorial. Now most corrugations don't actually have any anointed ones that will partake. This was our one ceremony that we did a Jehovah's Witnesses and we passed around the bread and we passed around the wine and we just sat there appreciating all that had been given for us to have the hope of salvation. I know that's not exactly on topic but I mean I'd feel bad if I'd left that out it was. There was one thing that we did each year that was special to us. It was I guess it is kind of like our one holiday or whatever you want to call it. [00:13:24] It was a it was a solemn occasion it was to be taken very seriously now but there was joy because this was what gave us our hope. The death of Jesus Christ and this thing that he instituted there was actually also a large public outreach to the community. [00:13:44] When that comes every year in the spring you'll see Jehovah's Witnesses going door to door just leaving these little invitations for everybody to come to the memorial service. All right. Now back to my story. You know once I turn 16 Things started changing even more. I was actually given a car to another brother at the Kingdom Hall. It didn't run but I got it to run. It was a rusted out beater but it was my first car and I loved it. I hated being at home because of my dad and I knew that a car was my gateway to freedom so I got a job working part time at a Wendy's near my house that I could walk to save up money fix the car got my license and with that came some measure of sanity and distance from my family. Obviously I didn't have a ton of time with you know all that being a witness entailed but at least I could you know drive to meetings by myself or go out in the service by myself or even you know do so with my friends. I didn't have to be at home or honestly be around my dad for the most part and I would do just about anything not to have to. Actually I even still walk to work because it took longer than driving. [00:14:59] So it would save me time for having to be there with that car I was now able to auxilary pioneer in the summer months when we were off school. So I signed up to spin basically 60 hours a month and I signed up for June July and August to go knock on doors. I wanted to be a good Jehovah's witness and was told that I was setting a great example for other young people in the congregation. I liked that praise it was about all I got so it was a feeling that I was doing something right. I started being asked to read from the platform at the meetings and in the private homes that we went to for book studies. So I would sit up there with the conductor and I would read all of the paragraphs of whatever book or whatever lesson from the Watchtower we were being indoctrinated with that day. [00:15:51] It's funny because you know although things were changing even throughout my childhood life as one of Jehovah's Witnesses is kind of like that movie Groundhog Day where every day is the same. I have to say at that point I was fully and truly brainwashed. I was 100 percent in and I was 100 percent certain that we had the truth. [00:16:18] I had a lot going on but I also started to develop some good friends. Once I got my car I was able to go out and actually get my friends and do things I was kind of one of the first to have a car. We usually just you know went out and played sports. I loved basketball and football. I would play those all day if I could. Honestly I'll never forget that time. [00:16:42] It was one of the best of my life. Not necessarily the the Jaida stuff that was going along with it but I had friends and we were we were pretty tight. [00:16:52] We go to movies we went fishing we just hanging out playing video games. Just it was it was an awesome time. [00:17:03] I kind of felt like at that point I felt like I really belong. It was great it was a great feeling. Now I've already mentioned that I graduated high school and turned down college to regular pioneer but I haven't mentioned yet is that Jehovah's Witnesses even pressure you to have a certain type of car. All the ex witnesses now will shake their heads. You had to have a good service car. You see you want to have a Ford or a car or. [00:17:32] I mean if you're really spiritual You might even have a minivan so that you can use it to drive everyone around out in field service Well it was a good thing that the car I was given had four doors because that's what I needed for this period of my life and I was a regular pioneer. The only problem is that I always drove and nobody ever chipped in for gas or where tire anything. Eventually my car died. I was working several part time jobs going out knocking on doors for 90 hours a month still doing all the Jadot stuff. I was then appointed as a ministerial servant in the corrugation one step up from where I was as a regular publisher a regular brother in the congregation but also one step under being an elder. I guess you could say I was I was on my way. I conducted various parts at the meetings. I gave talks I ran the literature department I ran the magazines I helped with the sound department. [00:18:34] Oh yeah. [00:18:35] And I was also pioneering doing all the regular JTA stuff and working three part time jobs each month as a ministerial servant I would have shepherding calls to go on a shepherding call is a term for essentially the elders in each congregation are supposed to call on ones that need help each month. That's why you know so I like look through your field service reports and say oh this brother here didn't go out last month. We need to go encourage him and have a shepherding call or you know I heard Sister so-and-so is depressed and you know we should go see her what I kind of realized was that a lot of times these calls didn't actually happen when they did it seemed like we only ever saw the same people. Lots of people never even get such a call. Some people feel intimidated by these calls and think that like the elders are coming to you know get them in some sort of trouble which is kind of funny and know just hit me while I'm talking about it. And this shows that the control of the authoritarian regime of sorts in a congregation where even the shepherding calls that were supposed to be of encouragement. They were supposed to be just coming to tell you what a great person you are and give you some something of building from the Scriptures. And most people were terrified of having these shepherding calls. [00:20:04] So it really kind of shows you know the attitude and the device and the division between the elders in the congregation and the rest of their supposed flock that they're basically afraid of the elders eventually you know through working all these jobs and doing all this stuff I burned out I stopped pioneering. I was out of money. Car was broken. I was going into debt trying to get another car. A little cheap car to drive around. I kept praying to Jehovah for help. I mean here I am supposedly doing all the right things and everything is going wrong. Of course that's not a lack of Jehovah's help that's Satan bringing me down. So you know here I was trying to do all the right things and Satan was just putting up all these obstacles in my path. [00:21:01] I ended up stepping down as a ministerial servant too. I just I burned out so hard. I needed to go back to square one to start again. Of course when when you step down from any of these positions they even announce that from the platform. [00:21:17] And so you know just like if you were disfellowshipped they'd say brother so-and-so is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses if you're no longer an elder or a pioneer or a ministerial servant they will go up on stage and let everyone know brother so-and-so is no longer serving as an elder or in my case a ministerial servant and a pioneer in the creation which I honestly like whenever something like that is said it kind of cast a pall over you. Like people start looking at you different. It's not it's not that you're just burned out. There must be something wrong with you. Anyway this is a big deal for me. It was you know one of the first issues of cognitive dissonance I had already always heard these stories these virtual miracles that were performed when people prayed to do the right thing and how Joe would swoop in and make it work out somehow but it wasn't happening for me. You know here I was doing all the right things. I was praying intently to Jehovah and nothing was happening for me. For me it just meant me working more and more hours you know doing something pioneering or whatever that I was absolutely miserable in. [00:22:28] And I gave up so much to do this. Where was God. Where was my help from hell. I would push it down in China to think about it or think that you know maybe it just wasn't part of his plan for me. But I tried so hard I just couldn't make it work. And... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5544710

Episode 5 - Enter The FOG - The Culture Of Jehovah's Witnesses 07/09/2017

Episode 5 - Enter The FOG - The Culture Of Jehovah's Witnesses The most damaging part of Jehovah's Witnesses is their culture that keeps people held captive to a concept. You will learn about the FOG and BITE models of control in this episode, and how JWs use it specifically. [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:01:51] Last week I went over some of the structure of Jehovah's Witnesses and the general narrative. However that's just a fraction of the story and like I said that isn't even the most damaging part. The culture of Jehovah's Witnesses is where the real story lies. Because what you believe is one thing what you live on a daily basis is an entire different level. [00:02:13] So now I'm going to discuss the call through to cold models that are often used in abusive relationships of any type. First let's dive into the fog fear obligation and guilt if you can get people into the fog. They tend to find it hard to ever see their way out. I'll take this one by one and break down how Jehovah's Witnesses use the fog. With some examples. So let's start with if or fear now. I've already discussed in previous episodes the fear of demons. And obviously that's one pretty big fear. Another fear is the almost paranoia that you are constantly being watched. Jehovah is watching you judging your every move. And he can read your heart and innermost thoughts. So are openly exposed at all times. Satan is watching you. Roving about like a roaring lion seeking to devour someone as they like to quote from scripture. [00:03:15] Now according to them beliefs he can't read your thoughts but he is watching your actions and always studying you looking for a chink in your spiritual armor to exploit every time you go knocking on doors to the grocery school work or anywhere in the world people are watching you. [00:03:35] And we were told that someone likely has seen us before and knows that we are one of Jehovah's Witnesses. [00:03:40] Are you being a good ambassador for Jehovah could whatever you're doing right now bring reproach upon Jehovah's name members of the congregation are watching you to making sure that you stay in line. Your family is watching you. [00:03:58] And of course probably the most damaging of all you are watching you are relentless internal struggle that can be worse than anything. [00:04:08] So this gets us to crime and punishment and the congregation. What if you do slip up what's going to happen. Well it depends on who finds out and how bad it was having sex with someone's wife is different than getting caught watching porn or a movie with some violence in it. So there's a spectrum first. Whatever happened will be reported to the elders through which everything in life has funneled you will then be talked to by two elders. Usually after a meeting in a private room in the back of the Kingdom Hall It's never a good feeling when someone comes up to you and says hey could you come back here I'd like to talk to you about something. [00:04:50] Doesn't matter how big or how small. It's just never a good feeling. I guess it's it's kind of reminiscent of going to the principal's office let's say in school. It's not a good feeling. They're not usually calling you back to tell you how great you are. So when you go back into this room it's usually going to be a fact finding mission. A preliminary investigation of sorts. It might be that what you did was a minor offense and you'll just receive some counsel right then and there. They'll rageous some scriptures and make a big deal out of a minor offense but tell you to do better and how you've disappointed Jehovah right now. If it's a bit major There may be more meetings with those same elders and you could be reproved. This can be done either publicly or privately. Private reproof means that there's no announcement made to the congregation through a talk but maybe you can't do something anymore for a time like raise your hand and comment at the meetings or give a talk from the platform or even go out door to door. Which is funny because they see going door to door does ministry work. They see that as a biblical mandate. Yet somehow they get to take that away. So God is said has commanded that you go do this but if you piss off the wrong person in the organization they can actually take that that right that command that responsibility away from you which is something that never really made sense to me. [00:06:18] Now rest assured that although this proof may be private remember people are watching you so others will notice that you're not commenting or you know your brother or sister or so-and-so I overheard them comment a while. [00:06:32] I haven't seen them give a talker. I don't see them at the meetings for field service so people will be talking and although it's supposedly probably that somebody is going to know something about you. Jehovah's Witnesses are kings and queens of gossip as could be expected from such a small and tight community public reproof usually happened if someone in the congregation knew about what you had done and it was out already. So they have to make a little more public spectacle out of you. They have to let other people know that they're dealing with it. So in addition to whatever limitations of what you could do in the congregation they might give a talk about avoiding whatever it was that you fell into and then people can surmise what you did. That's that's a great thing to do to a human being. If what you did was serious enough you were then put before a judicial committee if you remember it was on a last episode I mentioned. Jehovah's Witnesses have their own judicial process. So in this three elders would determine your fate you would be super detail questions about whatever it was you did about everything they want all of the details. [00:07:46] From what I've heard if it was something sexual they want all of the details who did what. How many times did anyone enjoy it. Did someone climax. What happened. Who who initiated like they would like every detail so they can determine if you were really repentant or sorry for what you had done. Because everything hangs on your repentance you're proving to these men that you are truly sorry. [00:08:19] Now were you just caught up in a moment of passion or was it something willful unplanned. I've read so many stories of this it's truly horrifying. And I think as much as it is these men trying to figure out if you're repentant Honestly I think it a sexually repressed culture. It's dirty old men getting off on the details. And I'm not the only person that think this. It's really very creepy. Now again remember though this doesn't have to be a sexual thing though let's face it. And this community of Jehovah's Witnesses that's often what it is. It could be something like lying stealing. There could have been violence. Maybe somebody was caught out and was drunk and other people saw it. Anything that they deem to be a major sin. You can end up with your fate resting in the hand of three men that you have to go before and plead your case if they find you repentance. [00:09:19] You may be subject to it or that private or public reproof depending on who knows what. If you're found unrepentant you will be disfellowshipped. [00:09:30] And when you are disfellowshipped they will read your name at the next meeting announced the brothers sisters Smith is no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses and then the shining will start and we're talking absolute shunning here. [00:09:44] You are dead to them and they are not to even say a greeting to you even if you're there who your son your daughter your mom your dad your husband your wife they are not to even utter a greeting to you. [00:10:00] Family Sean's family even if you're in the same home there's going to be some degree of shunning though. You know if you have a husband and a wife oftentimes they just you're maybe not supposed to have any spiritual conversations because they don't want that this fellowship person to influence negatively the quote spirituality of the person who's still in the only real reason that witnesses are ever really supposed to talk to you if you're disfellowshipped is what's called quote necessary family business. This is a term that they've coined so you know what exactly that means is left to some degree of interpretation. Essentially they really just don't want you to talk to that other person but there might be some reason for many Jehovah's Witnesses that I've known what that actually means is that the Jehovah's Witness family member can come to you the disfellowshipped person if they need help for whatever reason. So that would be deemed necessary family business. But of course if you needed something from them if the disfellowshipped person were let's say to become homeless they're not going to help you. This is a one way street as far as who gets to determine what necessary family business is. There are often times where these still end Jehovah's Witness maybe needs some money so they go to the disfellowshipped person and ask for money or they need a job or they need just some some thing in life some legality that they need help with they might go and ask the disfellowshipped person for that. But I guarantee you when the disfellowshipped person ends up homeless and ask the witness for something it will be seen as well. [00:11:53] You brought that on yourself. You know you should never left the truth. Your insight and system of things now and whatever happens to you happens. Honestly they're going to kind of hope that you as this disfellowshipped person hit rock bottom because if you do then they're hoping that you'll come crawling back myself after my dad died my mom reached out to me to get me to sign some legal documents for the estate essentially I guess it released whatever it's my mom because she needed that signature but I've never heard from her again. So now let me go ahead and explain. So you've been disfellowshipped and you want to come back. Well there is a process for reinstatement. You know as I said it's a process. Now we all know the prodigal son story in the Bible son goes out acts a fool does some bad things comes back home and his dad immediately runs out to greet him and accepts him back simply because he retired not here not in the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses. [00:12:54] You must come back meet with the elders and then do whatever they say. A person has to come back to the meetings and it's and all of them and they will watch him make a note of her attendance of course when you arrive you should arrive when it starts that way you don't make everybody else uncomfortable with your disfellowship presence and they don't have to shun you as hard. Now you're going to sit back in the back row. That way nobody has to see you. And when it leaves you are to leave immediately. Obviously speaking to nobody. [00:13:28] Usually you're going to have to do this along with meeting with the elders to discuss your improving spiritual state for at least six months. I mean six months would be a pretty short time usually at least a year or more if you do what they want. They will eventually announce that Brother Sister Smith has been reinstated and is one of Jehovah's Witnesses and the shining ends. [00:13:48] So can you see why this fear looms daily over Jehovah's Witnesses. You better not slip up. Oh and you see this play out. You get accustomed to watching people disappear and never come back. [00:14:03] They also like to tell stories about how you can't hide from what you've done. For instance there was this one brother that was doing something. I don't remember now what they said he was doing but a story that circulates that supposedly while he was giving a talk from the platform he broke down and admitted he admitted his guilt. God's Spirit has worked on him in front of everyone to keep the congregation clean. He just admitted something awful up there in front of everybody. They just want you to know that it will come out whatever it is that you are hiding. So that way they can keep that fear in you. If that's not bad enough we were constantly told stories of how world situations can change on a change on a dime. There are countries like Russia where Jehovah's Witnesses have been banned. In those cases persecution occurs in some countries. I think there was a big deal in Malawi in the 70s or 80s I can't remember but people were displaced from their homes they were raped they were killed etc. just just because of their stand as Jehovah's Witnesses on some particular ground. [00:15:20] If a country bans them they will continue to do whatever they do underground and if caught they may be jailed or worse. Jehovah's witnesses refuse military service even in countries where that's mandatory. So in those countries they're imprisoned even in the United States where it isn't mandatory they would tell us how that could change that could change any day now. They're always harping on that fear it could change. They love to promote fear and a persecution complex. It could come at any day now you have to be ready to give up everything even your life. The Nazi persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses was often used as just one example. There's there's nothing so innocent as scaring little children into believing that they might have to lose mommy or daddy some time and go be faithful little Jehovah's Witnesses on their own in a concentration camp somewhere. Isn't that nice. And of course as I've already mentioned there is the impending Great Tribulation which will come in our lifetime during which all religion is destroyed and Jehovah's Witnesses will have to shine and stand out and be persecuted. [00:16:32] After that is Armageddon which is depicted in horrific hardest illustrations throughout their publications. From the time you're a child you are shown these horrible things that will occur when fire and brimstone comes down from the heavens to kill everyone on earth but you. You are supposed to stand tall during this knowing that your deliverance is here. I don't know about you but if you can stand tall and proud while everyone around you has slaughtered you are a psychopath. They try to deaden your normal human feelings though and honestly they do a very good job of it. Armageddon is always coming tomorrow. Obviously that can't happen in their timeline but the feeling is always there. They like to talk about how you wouldn't want to slip up today and do something you'd regret. If Armageddon came tomorrow because you know you can be a faithful servant for decades and do all the right things. But if your imperfections shines through. One time on the day of Armageddon you will be destroyed forever. [00:17:37] So fear rules. Jehovah's Witnesses. All right so now let's discuss Oh for obligacion as I mentioned before Jehovah's Witnesses believe that they have the truth by default. Everything else is false and from Satan so your obligation is to do whatever they deem necessary for survival through Armageddon to be counted as righteous Jehovah's Witnesses aren't supposed to go to weddings or funerals that take place in churches. Those are houses of false worship their obligation is to the organization that they're a part of only as the Scriptures say for what fellowship does the light have with darkness. If you want a freakin Jehovah's Witness out when it come to your door ask them to pray with you or take some of your religious literature. They hate that they don't believe that you're praying to the true God and they can't mix them with you and your worship. Although of course it's OK for them to come to your door and offer you their literature. They're not going to take yours if they do they're just going to they're just going throw it away. Then again of course let's admit it. What is it you did when I left the Watchtower and Awake with you. You probably threw it away too so I guess I can't really blame you. I used to though when I was a kid my grandpa had a solid gold antique Hamilton pocket watch that had a gold chain and a gold knife and he had promised that to me when I graduated from high school. [00:19:10] Unfortunately he died before I reached that age. So my parents kept watch for me in their top dresser drawer. I loved that watch. I loved what it stood for love that it was my grandpa's. I would go pull it out of its little velvet palette and just look at it open the knife wind it watch it run well the day came when I earned that watch. I graduated high school when I went to go get it the watch was gone. I immediately went and asked my mom where it went. [00:19:40] She told me a story that she found amusing and that I didn't so much and still don't. She told me that one day she thought it had a false religious symbol on it. I don't know what it could have been. Maybe it was like a cross or something. I don't know Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in the cross. [00:19:57] She never specified whatsoever what it was she she thought it had a false religious symbol on it. So she she grabbed the watch and she threw it in the front yard. That makes sense right. Well when she later realized that she was wrong and went out to get I to take it. Imagine that. I'll just leave it there. I'm not going to elaborate it on much more because I can't do so without getting a little hateful. But so that is how deep the ingrained notion is that you have to stay away from anything that could be deemed false religion. If you think something might have a false religious symbol on it you better throw it out. In fact I remember there were people who would be criticized for having fluorides. So we had some friends who had these curtain rods and at the end the knobs were like these Fluor Diddley's. And I guess that was seen as like a fertility symbol. And I don't know some culture and people they would get criticized because someone came over to their house and noticed they had a flu or Dilley at the end of their curtain rod. [00:21:06] That's how petty and stupid it gets. So we were obligated to stick with what we saw to be true worship only. Here are some other obligations that Suppose a true worship involves. There was strong pressure to be at every meeting. Children had nothing to do at the meetings but were obliged to sit there and sit still for two hours and be bored. All Jehovah's Witnesses are obligated to abstain from blood transfusions. Basically they take in a few verses in the Bible that were about specific situations in Bible times and made modern day laws about bought blood transfusions. Even children are obligated to know this doctrine and how to explain it and you better. Because if you should ever need a transfusion as a child you might have to explain to doctors or a judge why you cannot take one. This is serious business. Many people die because of this refusal. Children and adults alike especially pregnant women. There is a lot of risk there and at times blood is needed and if they refuse them both they and the baby may die. All Jehovah's Witnesses carry a card in their wallet that acts as a legal document says on it. Real big no blood so they refuse blood. If they can't speak for themselves in the case of an emergency this legal document essentially speaks for them. It is one of the most despicable and dangerous doctrine doctrines that they teach. [00:22:40] In fact they have a hospital liaison committee or HLC a group of brothers that visits Jehovah's Witnesses and the hospital to help them or watch over them to make sure that they don't give in and take blood and that if they do they find out so that they can disfellowship that person. [00:22:59] Actually I believe that this is seen as an automatic disassociation. I haven't talked about disassociation yet. I will add my own story because... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5520726

Episode 4 - What Do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe? 07/02/2017

Episode 4 - What Do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe? What is the hierarchical structure of Jehovah's Witnesses? What happens at those meetings in the Kingdom Hall? How do Jehovah's Witnesses view the world around them and how history has unfolded? What does the future hold according to Jehovah's Witnesses? Are you ready to learn "THE TRUTH"? I'll break all of this down for you in this episode. [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:00:01] There are over eight million Jehovah's Witnesses Jay Dubbs or J-ws worldwide. I wasn't born one was introduced to it around the age of 8 or 9 and would spend the next three decades trying to process what I had unwittingly become involved in ultimately leaving and costing me dearly. This J.W. life is my response to the encouragement I've received to write a book about my life. In my story you're going to learn about this called and why refer to it as such rather than as a religion. You're going to see how I went from suicidal and incredibly anxious to free and happy. Why I put on 50 pounds and how I took it off while my wife and I owe the IRS fifty five thousand dollars and how we paid that off in 18 months. And while that wasn't even the biggest win to come from that time there are lessons to be learned here whether you're in a Colts or you're just your average person living life for the SJ doves out there. I hope you find comfort in knowing that you're not alone and maybe this helps you process your own pain for those who have family that are Jehovah's Witnesses. I hope this gives you a glimpse into what they're both involved in and up against. For those that have no ties I hope this broaden your horizons maybe sheds light on the human experience a little. And if there are any current Jehovah's Witnesses that listen I hope this gives you something you need for wherever you are now in your journey. But in the end I hope you find happiness and peace. [00:01:24] You've been through a lot and you deserve it. I'm not a professional producer. I'm a professional housecleaner. You'll find out why that is. And as well as how it is possible even to save my life later I'm recording this as a podcast as a fitting way of telling my story as it was podcasts and audio books that helped me awaken to the realities of the life I was given as a child and that I tried to live up to for decades including as an adult. [00:01:51] I want to take a minute at the beginning of this to thank everybody that has listened so far. I've had over twelve hundred downloads and that's amazing. I really didn't expect that. I've also had a couple of iTunes reviews and I can't tell you how much that is appreciated. If you enjoy this podcast please leave a positive review on iTunes. It helps with the ranking and the higher the show ranks the more people will find it. My wife and I are doing all we can to promote this but it is hard. I'm not doing this for monetary gain. In fact this cost me each month to keep us posted and online for everyone to access but I know Jehovah's Witnesses though and I want to make it clear that my motives here are pure and not for any personal gain. So if you can leave positive reviews on iTunes please do. If you can share this podcast with others please do. I'm doing this to help people and by doing so you get to help me help others. Again I am not doing this for any monetary gain. I also want you to know that I've appreciated all the messages I've received on my site through sites like Reddit or there's a forum I'm a member of it's called Jehovah's Witness dot com. That's my jam. That's where I started all this in the first place. The first quote apostate web site I ever went on was Jehovah's Witness dot com and that message board helped me a lot. [00:03:19] So I received good messages there I've received messages on Instagram Twitter just all the places. It means a lot to me that people want to share this with me and you know whether it's telling me that they appreciate my story or whether they share some of their own story. [00:03:37] You know I think it's kind of awesome that people want to share. So here's what I'm going to do. I'd like to invite anyone that has questions or wants to tell their story to email me at this. J w life at gmail dot com. Again that's this. J. W life at gmail dot com. You can also go to my Web site at the bottom right of the home page or probably either page. There's a button that shows the email address. If you can't remember this J.W. life at gmail dot com for some reason. If I get enough questions and stories maybe I'll save them up and do an episode entirely devoted to answering your questions. Or [00:04:22] I'd love to tell other people's stories as well if I could do that at the end. [00:04:28] And finally I know I had originally said that I'd put some pictures and such up on my web site and I didn't do that at first because I didn't have time. But upon further review I think I'm going to have to decline that offer with good intention but I have noticed that I have limited photos. Well first of all I do have limited photos that I received before my shining. It's not like I can go ask for more pictures and some of the photographs I have had family members in them and it's not something I'm comfortable doing in relationship to this show to put pictures up like that. I just don't really feel right about it. There is also some issues that I played around with and there were some issues with formatting them for my site. So for now I'm just going to focus on the podcast itself. Getting the message out there and give people like you opportunity to participate by asking questions or sharing your story if you like. But for now I'm just going to back off the possibility of images. All right. Now this next part of the story really overwhelmed me when I was making notes for it last week so overwhelmed me emotionally because I was reliving some ugly parts of my life growing up at home. But this week I want to take you into the beliefs that Jehovah's Witnesses have and how my life as a witness grew out of it and the path that it took. [00:05:56] There was just so much to discuss that this is going to have to be broken up into at least two episodes maybe three depending on how it breaks out. I spent hours just organizing my notes alone on this and trying to make it understandable to those who haven't been there. So what do you know about Jehovah's Witnesses and what they believe. The first thing that usually comes to mind is there those weird people that don't celebrate anything. And obviously you're correct. You've already discussed that or maybe you know that they believe only 144 thousand of them are going to go to heaven. So you know what's that mean for everybody else. I've always heard that question if only 144 thousand go to heaven. Where is everybody else going to go. Kind of limits the playing field if you have the dichotomy of an afterlife that consists of either heaven or hell and you are right. They only believe that one hundred forty four thousand go to heaven. But you know maybe the only thing that you know of Jehovah's Witnesses are those nice people that come to your door and wake you up on a Saturday morning and again you'd be right. However you'd know so little about what Jehovah's Witnesses really teach. Most people really have no clue. There's a lot of information online and on different podcasts and programs about Scientology or Mormons. But there's really not a lot about what Jehovah's Witnesses are really teaching what really goes on in their culture. I have a feeling that you're going to learn some things in this episode that you never knew unless you were at one time one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Again though I'm going to try to approach all of this through the lens of my life experience personally. [00:07:48] Now let's go and talk about that Jehovah's Witness life a little bit. What we believed and then eventually I'm going to take it to the life as me as a child. And then how I grew up through adulthood and into married life to do this. Let me first give you some idea of what the Jehovah's Witness schedule was. I think I've touched on this a little bit before. But remember this is a very performance based cult. So there were things to do and my family did them all. [00:08:21] I want you to understand the basic setup of the congregation the meetings and what we did when we were knocking on doors. This is effectively what my new life as one of Jehovah's Witnesses at the age of eight or nine began to revolve around on Tuesday night. There was the corrugation book study that was typically at an individual's private home. People would volunteer their homes for these books studies. These studies were one hour long in duration and they would alternate what books we would go through we would go through a book about Revelation let's say and then once we went entirely through that book we would go through the Greatest Man book about Jesus and his life. So it was a question and answer session as a lot of these meetings are. And these were small groups usually 10 to 20 people in some congregations maybe they didn't have enough private homes that were volunteered. So they would do these books studies at the corrugations Keenum all Thursday night was the Theocratic Ministry School and the service meeting. This was a two hour meeting. The Theocratic Ministry School was a program designed to help Jehovah's Witnesses be more effective preachers when they were going out door to door it never really made sense to me how some of this was supposed to translate for brothers. [00:09:56] Brothers had talks such as the bible reading where they would get up for five minutes and read a portion of the Bible there's not a lot I don't know about you but going up to somebody's door and reading for five minutes would be kind of awkward. But this is what they did and I understand they just wanted us to be effective readers. There were also other talks especially of course brothers. I think we're really just being groomed to be effective public speakers. And if you ask a lot of extra ho as witnesses that's about the one thing that we got from this this call when we left that we could take with us was the ability to do some measure of public speaking if we if we wanted to for sisters and the congregation they were to get up and give demonstrations their talks. They were given a subject and the setting and some sort of a setting like going door to door or on a Bible study with a single mom or something like that and they would sit up on the stage with another sister who would be their householder. So one sister would be basically preaching to the other sister. And of course in these scenarios and it was always funny to me anyway that the other sister if there was a magazine or any literature being presented or whatever it always ended up in the best case scenario of course and you know nobody ever said in these parts get off my porch before I call the cops. [00:11:34] But you know this is how they were to be give and it was to be encouraging to the congregation so sisters would get up and give these parts with one another. At least I have to say at least that in some way mimicked what went on in the actual ministry when you were knocking on doors what the brothers had to do had nothing at all to do with such. Then there was the service meeting the service meeting on Thursday night was again about an hour long this was a two hour meeting Theocratic Ministry School was an hour and the service meeting was an hour and the service meeting was taken from the king the ministry the king the ministry is a pamphlet that baptized members of Jehovah's Witnesses receive and it has announcements from the branch office it has specific articles on subject matters. [00:12:38] If for instance it was the end of the year we might have articles encouraging us to preach to people around the holidays whatever seemed relevant at the time or if there was a need for Kingdom Hall is to be built in certain areas there would be a call in there to help with this. There were just different things like that that would kind of stress what the organization wanted you to either help with or to know as well as doing that the Kuna ministry would have parts called the local needs. And this was an opportunity for the local brothers your congregation to decide what it was everyone needed to work on or an issue that was presenting itself in your territory and so the elders would get up for 15 minutes or whatever and and give a talk about that. There was also the announcements where you would learn about who was whose turn it was to clean the Keenum hall that week or to mow the grass or who the speaker was going to be Sunday coming from another congregation or who messed up and had to get disfellowshipped they would announce that during the announcements as well at times or sometimes they would say that to the end of the meeting it just depended on how it works at that particular congregation that particular night. On Sunday there was the two hour meeting. It was the public talk which was typically a 45 minute talk given by one of the elders. It's just a general bible subject. [00:14:18] Maybe like I had mentioned before my dad got to give plenty on how to have a happy family life so whatever the subject matter that's what a talk would be given on and then the Watchtower study followed that which was the question and answer part going over the Watchtower lesson that had been assigned for that week. So each Watchtower had two or three lessons in it to be studied at the congregation. They were question and answer parts. The conduct would stay in the congregation someone would read the paragraph up on the stage and then the conductor would ask questions we would answer them and he was to lead us down the path that the Watchtower lesson wanted us to understand. [00:15:08] There were some unique features to the meetings. There was absolutely nothing for children. [00:15:13] There is no Sunday school no daycare no nothing. There was a mother's room at the congregation that I went to I don't know that they all had them. The mother's room and the creation I would see was almost a soundproof room with black scented glass where mothers could take their children back there and breastfeed or beat them if the children were behaving during the meetings and other congregations that I was a part of. We didn't have the mother's room but there was always rooms in the back where people could take their kids if their kids were acting out or have a little privacy if they needed it. There was no collection plate. There were just these boxes in the back. For private donations you could walk by and donate. This was a this is a big selling point of the meetings Jehovah's Witnesses like to brag about how you know there's no collection plate. You'll see it on their signs sometimes as opposed to those awful religions that pass the collection plate. Of course in years since they resorted to passing out paper slips and usually around something they want the creation of participate in and making people pledge to donate X amount per month for whatever it is that they want. So yeah they don't pass around a collection plate but come on they're passing around slips of paper for people to pledge monthly donations to. And although no one is technically going to know if they don't make follow through with that donation the individual knows and they're going to feel complete shame if they can't keep up. [00:16:51] There's a lot of guilt and shame in this organization and out of me talking heavily on that at some point. [00:16:58] The question and answer parts that were at these meetings were so dumbed down that virtually anyone could participate. It was always encouraged to answer the questions in your own words not just to read the sentence that was the answer from the paragraph word for word but there were so many people who did it was like this mind numbing call and response Keenum halls themselves if that wasn't boring enough Keenum halls themselves are drab and boring. There are often few windows of jokes before us probably so you wouldn't see outside at the colors and beauty while we sat inside and this completely sterile environment. The chairs are boring. [00:17:44] The decor is boring and you know I will say now that the parts on the meeting are abhorring though when I was a fully indoctrinated Jehovah's Witness I wouldn't say that I actually enjoyed it. Some of the parts because the meetings were laid out ahead of time with myriad materials to go over at each one. We were supposed to study before every meeting so that we knew the material and could go participate in this call in response call in response to really kind of dominated a lot of the meetings. There were no like rituals or anything that you could connect to emotionally. There was nothing that most people would I guess kind of refer to as the term spiritual. There really wasn't anything of spirit. It was a lot of intellectual exercise. And this call in response we were also supposed to do Bible reading every day. That's the encouragement at least from the organization I'm not going to say that everyone did. [00:18:58] In addition to that there was a daily text that we could study so that we could it was a little booklet that each witness had so that we could start every day with a verse and an explanation of that verse with whatever point that narrative they wanted to tie this into from some Watchtower publication of the past. And so if you haven't noticed already through the call and response through the study before the meetings through the daily Bible reading through the daily text through the personal study or family studies that were encouraged the indoctrination is so strong here. With meetings spread out like that spiritual food as they called it you really never got away from the messages that were being pounded into your mind and heart they were ever present. And then of course you had assemblies and conventions. I think I mentioned them on an earlier episode briefly but these were either one two or three day events. There was one of each throughout the year and during these there would be much greater crowds. So instead of at a book study you'd have 10 to 20 at a Kingdom Hall you might have 80 to 100 120 for like Sunday meetings at assemblies you might have anywhere from oh I don't know a couple of thousand to eight to 10000 depending on how it was broken up in that particular area. And during these I have to say you know they were kind of enjoyable. [00:20:40] OK the conventions themselves weren't that enjoyable but it was cool. It was one time where you could get dressed up go to another place you could see people you hadn't seen in a long time. As a young person you would see your friends that maybe went to another congregation and kind of hang out. That was cool. But the actual indoctrination sessions were basically it was a full time job you would start at 9:30 in the morning the program would start and it would be over at 5:00 p.m. and there might be an hour lunch. So these were heavy indoctrination sessions in and of themselves. And it just furthered their narrative. There is a hierarchy in the corrugation. Jehovah's Witnesses will claim that they're not elders like to claim that they're just there to serve the congregation. So they're the lowest among the brothers but that's completely not true. The elders have the ability to decide whether or not you get shunned. So there's some power dynamics that are going on here. And I just thought I'd lay out briefly who these people are what the labels are for the different types of people that make up your average congregation. [00:22:02] First you have the rare person that is just the study. Maybe it's just a kid in the creation of one of the families or maybe it's a Bible study someone is studying with someone that they met knocking on doors or at work or... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5500595

Episode 3 - Life At Home As One Of Jehovah's Witnesses 06/22/2017

Episode 3 - Life At Home As One Of Jehovah's Witnesses This episode is heavier than the first two as I delve into the personal life at home in my family of Jehovah's Witnesses. You will learn some of what really went on, as opposed to the appearances that were always kept up, as that is what Jehovah's Witnesses often tend to focus on. [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] All right so now let's go and talk about home life not the bugs and such that I mentioned were a problem for me when we first moved but the actual dynamics of our house I'm going to say now that I'm going to try to keep this story as close to the whole Jehovah's Witness narrative as possible. My family was dysfunctional as can be. But I'm going to do what I can to stick to the witness story here not the personal one though obviously they're intertwined. Some parts are going to be necessary to the story and I'll get into those. But out of respect for my family I'll leave a lot of things out that aren't necessarily pertinent to the subject at hand for some reason I still have respect for them even though they're shun me and act like I no longer exist. My goal is to be better than that. As a loving human being something that I've actually been able to become since I left the call. [00:02:45] So let's get to it. I already mentioned that holidays went away. And I believe that last Christmas that I refer to previously was truly my last holiday period. That was it. What the absence of holidays that meant that we no longer saw our extended family much if you think about it. That's actually when everyone usually gets together. I didn't see many of them for decades. In the end they weren't Jehovah's Witnesses and were therefore not really the best Association anyway we could do better. Doesn't that sound horrible. But that's actually how you kind of start to feel the US versus them attitude is a race to the bottom and someone starts being seen as almost inhuman in order to justify the behavior. Us versus Them or paranoia about them being against us is the hallmark of any good cult though. As I stated before I was told that my parents no longer needed an excuse to get me gifts and that I could get them any time not just on specific dates so we didn't need holidays anymore. Well I'll let you guess how many presents I got after that. Even birthdays went away. No celebrations no presents nothing. Speaking of presents let's talk about toys. Things like my GI Joes having guns or weapons on other toys suddenly became an issue. Even water guns are a thing that many Jehovah's Witnesses never have. Toys also aren't supposed to be anything that they might deem spiritist like wizards or sorcerers or ghosts or anything like that. Entertainment suddenly became a big deal as well Joe. [00:04:33] Witnesses aren't supposed to watch anything that might even suggest sexuality violence or obscene language. So you learn to really watch what music you listen to the lyrics and to judge for yourself that liking that song with the great music and lyrics because one line says something that quote Jehovah or God in their eyes won't approve of you start to judge yourself for for what you're drawn to. I remember one talk at the Kingdom Hall about how we should consider that if we wouldn't listen to or watch whatever entertainment it is if Jesus was in the room then we really shouldn't be entertained by it period. This applies to any entertainment videogames as well. We did have games throughout the years but they were usually just sports games for the most part and games like Mario. Things that are fairly innocuous though I guess. Actually if you've got deep enough into the Mario game I'm sure you can find something wrong with it. I borrowed a game that had I had to give back at one time because it was too violent and it was very mild but I don't know maybe you had like an army scene or something like that. We're talking eight in Tendo here so it couldn't have been very graphic or gory. My parents also decided that country music was the only acceptable music they deemed it clean enough to listen to now myself. I love pop and rap music before then leaning toward rap. That's something I always enjoyed. [00:06:10] But that that went away. My parents would no longer let me listen to that. After that it was it was all of my achy breaky heart. So I remember one time my grandparents actually I don't know exactly how old I was but the same mid-teens I remember. [00:06:31] For some reason they had bought me a Walkman or we went out shopping and I bought a Walkman and they paid for it. [00:06:42] But I remember that my mom and dad when I got home and they found out that I had a Walkman. They made me take it back because they quote couldn't know what I was listening to. So again we go back to that level of control over your children. I think it was that last spring that I was talking about on the last episode that needs to be crushed. I had to be controlled. And so even what I listened to in private had to be controlled if at all possible. Again we had to watch anything that could be seen as spirit cystic as well. Like I think Scooby-Doo even though I think it was obviously just someone in a ghost costume that was usually the culprit but things like Scooby Doo with ghosts in it are more notably things like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. [00:07:40] That stuff was seen as being linked with demons so it was out you really weren't supposed to watch those things. In fact there were entire articles in the Watchtower publications devoted to things like that. [00:07:55] So let's talk about demons real quick. Jehovah's Witnesses were often afraid of buying things at yard sales because they might be demon possessed. You know maybe the person who owns that piece of furniture or whatever. [00:08:10] I also had a Ouija board and they they practice that. [00:08:13] And so they invited demons into their house and in demons inhabited this piece of furniture there was actually this is going to sound farfetched but there was actually a story that circulated through many congregations about a smurf doll you see Smurfs weren't really something we were supposed to be watching anyway. I guess I don't remember the narrative of that story. I watched Smurfs when I was little but I guess somehow it was seen as spiritist But regardless the legend was that a child brought a smurf doll purchased at a yard sale to the Kingdom Hall or the witnesses church and this poor kid was about to have to sit through two hours of an indoctrination session aimed at adults. But he brought this also. He could have his little toy as the legend has it the Smurf doll supposedly jumped out of his hands ran up the aisle and out of the Kingdom Hall. Yes. This was actually circulated. And yes grown human adults actually take this seriously and perpetuated the myth. Our next door neighbors the Jehovah's Witnesses claimed to have a chair. I think it was a chair that they thought had demons. I remember that once as an adult. My wife and I went to eat dinner with friends an older couple from our congregation. [00:09:45] We were in our thirties. [00:09:48] They were in their let's say 50s. [00:09:53] It was Father's Day it just happened to be Father's Day when we went out to eat and that kind of caused an issue because people were come home the waiters would come by our table and they thought maybe the husband of this other couple was one of either my father or my wife's father. [00:10:12] And so you know of course we can't celebrate Father's Day so there was a little trepidation over all that but this particular restaurant had hired a magician and this magician came by our table and he joked around with this little bit and then he. [00:10:31] He wanted to tell our fortune and he threw down something on the table called Between my wife and I think we've determined it was called a fortune fish. I couldn't honestly tell you what it really was at this point. It might as well have been a live rattlesnake because the couple that we were with Again grown people in their 50s would not touch this fortune fish. It was some sort of little piece of paper or a toy or something. And so my wife seeing that they were completely freaked out. Quickly I reached over grabbed the fortune fish and cooler heads prevailed. But you would have literally thought that they threw a live snake on the table because they were absolutely petrified of this. In fact I remember there was a big thing among Jehovah's Witnesses if you go to a Chinese restaurant will you eat the fortune cookie or not because that's a pretty big deal there. If you read that fortune so demons were a huge scare for us as Jehovah's Witnesses. But think about it as kids we were having this stuffed drum this stuff drummed into our psyches. My parents were studying one of the publications with a family they had met while knocking doors and the family was telling us all kinds of things about how they thought they had demons. And I remember as a kid sitting in their living room while my parents would study with this couple strangers and I would think I saw stuff move in the house obviously it was just confirmation bias. [00:12:08] I'm sure the heating and air conditioning system kicked on some air was blown in the house and some leaves moved on a plant or something and I'm sure I thought that was demans because that's what I had been told. I'll get into more teachings as such in the next sections about my life actually at the kingdom hall meetings as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. But it was applicable to this part of life at home and how things changed. Everything is kind of so intertwined that it's hard to separate these different issues fully in these episodes. Back to our family. Our parents had to start studying the Bible with us each week. Well not the Bible necessarily but one of Jehovah's Witnesses publications and they were supposed to study with us weekly. [00:12:56] But in the end it ended up being pretty sporadic. My dad as the husband was to take the lead in this our studies were excruciating. My mom never knew when it was her turn to read a paragraph out of whatever book or magazine it was what we were studying. Then my dad would get upset with or we kids would answer questions to show that we were learning to the best of whatever ability we had. My mom was very emotional and she was really into this information. My dad was an emotional desert and he pretty much just seemed like he wanted to get it over with and do his duty as a Jehovah's Witness father. If everyone wasn't pissed off by the end of this study or someone hadn't cried chances are we weren't doing it right. It was absolutely miserable. When I got older my dad liked to wait until I was about to go out and do something with my friends. [00:13:51] And then he announced that now it was time for us to sit down as a family and have our family study. I hated it. And honestly by that time I hated him. My dad was a very emotionally abusive man. [00:14:09] I remember being told once that his own mother told my mom before they got married that quote that boy has never loved anything or anyone. And you think he loves you. Now he never hit us or anything. He was just an absolutely miserable man that made everyone else absolutely miserable in his house. However he was a totally different person at home that he was in public and especially at the meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses. He would be happy and everyone at the Kingdom Hall loved him. They thought he was great. He was a great Jehovah's Witness. He moved up through the ranks he became an elder in the congregation. Again one taking the lead. The only problem is that one taking the lead was supposed to quote and then this is according to Scripture the Scriptures that they use as qualifications for those taking the lead as elders. He should have been presiding over his household in a fine manner Well I'll tell you. My dad never fit that description. He treated us like garbage. Then he would be assigned a public talk. The 45 minute discourses that are given on Sundays for the public and of course. Well primarily the witnesses at the Keenum hall he will be given a talk to give and an outline on how to have a happy family life then he would get up and he would give his talk about how wonderful family was while of course we kids. We sat in the audience and rolled her eyes. My mom It got so bad at times she would have to get up and physically leave the auditorium. [00:15:51] It was easy to see that even as a kid Jehovah's Witnesses valued performance and appearance over substance one of the first memories I have as a Jehovah's Witness is that we were up on stage at a big assembly in front of thousands. [00:16:08] And when I say we I mean myself I know I had at least one younger brother at that point maybe two. [00:16:17] In the end there were three of us brothers. I was the eldest had two younger than me and also had a sister who had it up to 20 years younger than me. [00:16:28] But anyway here we were our perfect little Jehovah's Witness family in front of thousands at this assembly and we were giving a well-rehearsed demonstration of how our family was a great example of a young Jehovah's Witness family. We were sitting there with some brother who was interviewing us or performing an example of how a family study should be handled. [00:16:59] And of course it was all a farce. I was a kid. I don't know how old I was but even then I knew it was just an act. My mom would get upset about my dad and she would go to the congregation elders about him. That's something that you need to know about Jehovah's Witnesses so the elders in the congregation are essentially they've been set up as who you are to go to with any of your problems. So if you have marital problems you go to the elders. If your child has told you that someone in the congregation molested them you go to the elders not the police. You go to the elders. [00:17:42] Everything is funneled through the congregation first and that is seen. I mean that's just so indicative of the cult mentality that they had. So in this case my parents are having issues between them. My mom would get so upset about my dad she would go to the corrugation elders about him. She was hoping that they would either help him or at least take action to remove him as an elder which they had the power to do. [00:18:13] However my dad did anything the elder elders wanted him to do. You know if there were little jobs to be done around the corrugation or a talk to do at the last second or anything my dad could not say the word no to them. In fact he once told me that if I was ever asked to do anything I should just say yes without even thinking about it because I should want to show that I wanted to serve Jehovah. [00:18:41] Of course this wasn't really about serving Jehovah or the name for God as Jehovah's Witnesses teach. This was about serving the organization serving the elders serving the congregation. [00:18:57] It is really a lot of it was just petty work. It was a lot of it was busy work. [00:19:04] So think about that just just think about what it tells a kid to watch his parents completely submit to this organization and to be taught explicitly that your needs don't matter your desires don't matter whatever you are asked to do. That is what you need to do. [00:19:31] It's something I still struggle with today giving weight to my own needs and wants in life. [00:19:40] So my mom is talking to the elders about my dad. And guess what they want to talk to me. They weren't going to just take my mom's word for it. They need a corroboration of some of the stories she told. Well I told them all kinds of things. They didn't care. They didn't care for years when I was in my late teens maybe 18. [00:20:02] They finally removed him as an elder in the congregation. I don't know why but they did. Nothing seemed to have changed. Maybe there was something that happened that they couldn't overlook anymore and had to take action. I don't know really what forced their hand there. I was never aware of anything though. In the end it was all a farce because he was removed as an elder. And then within X amount of time I don't know how long exactly but give it a year or two. [00:20:31] He was an elder again. [00:20:36] So this being caught in between an emotionally abusive father and my mom not to mention my own relationship with each of them was extremely stressful. We were a part of an organization that claims to have the happiest families on earth because they all know the quote truth from the Bible. But we were not happy. And frankly neither were most of the other families that we knew. There is so much drama in those congregations. Most are just completely unaware of it. Now I did have some friends at the Kingdom Hall. [00:21:13] I couldn't have any school of course but I was lucky to have other young people in my congregation. [00:21:21] My wife on the other hand grew up in a congregation without any other young people other than her four sisters four younger sisters and she never really had any friends to speak of. Well there was one girl but that girl moved in and was only her friend for a couple of years before ditching her. [00:21:38] I on the other hand had a good group of guys. [00:21:41] Notice though that I said guys you see boys and girls if they were to get together then they're going to fornicate. I mean sex is immanence. Something that has to happen if a male and female are in the same room. So there are really no reasons no good reasons for people of the opposite sex to be friends. It just really wasn't ok in my corrugation and it was a feeling through most of them though very varying levels of the extreme. I was probably in my late teens before I even spoke to a girl at our Kingdom Hall and it was just to give her some books or magazines or something that you know some job that I had in the congregation. [00:22:25] They really kept us apart. [00:22:29] I was lucky enough to have a great friend who lived right next door. You see the Jehovah's Witnesses that introduced us to the call that a son my age we did just about everything together and we would you know play toys out in the backyard. [00:22:42] We played basketball. We'd make games we'd when we when I got older I drove I had a car. We go places together. We did all kinds of things together it was awesome. I'm glad that I had him. Or it would have been so lonely although I had other friends at the Kingdom Hall Like I said I did have a group of guys. It isn't like we could just get together all the time. Having a friend next door was awesome. [00:23:10] It thinking back I remember that my grandfather bought us a basketball go. I loved basketball. I would have played all day everyday if I could. [00:23:22] But I remember that the goal that he bought us was sitting in a box for a long time at our house. I think it sat for so long the box was getting torn out probably from us kids just playing around or maybe wondering what's inside that box. [00:23:38] I would ask my dad to put it up. And of course he never would. [00:23:43] So I remember one time a neighbor across the alley put up a hoop on the garage in the alley so I wasn't even in their yard. [00:23:50] It was in the alley. Some kids were playing on it and I wanted to play so bad. I remember going in. I asked my parents you know can I go out there and play ball with them. I was told no I can't remember crying and being devastated. I wanted to play basketball. I didn't care that those other kids weren't witnesses. I just wanted to play but that's all the cult cares about. If you weren't one of us... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5470289

Episode 2 - Life At School As One Of Jehovah's Witnesses 06/18/2017

Episode 2 - Life At School As One Of Jehovah's Witnesses My life had changed as my parents became Jehovah's Witnesses. This episode deals with my new life at school and how that progressed throughout the years to adulthood. How did I interact with other kids? What was I unable to do anymore? How do Jehovah's Witnesses view education? [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:01:51] So when we left off last time my life was just starting to change. At around eight or nine years old we just moved into a new house next door to Jehovah's Witnesses. I was attending a new school when we were starting to become involved and going to meetings with my mom. Holidays were starting to become an issue because there are a new faith and of course I think I'd mentioned had just about failed the third grade Well both of my parents were now official baptized Jehovah's Witnesses and that is when things started to really change. There's an illustration that Jehovah's Witnesses liked to give from the platform and there talks about a spring and this spring is used to illustrate essentially what a parent child relationship should be like. So if you have a spring and you compress it or crush it down between your fingers and you suddenly let go of that spring what's going to happen the spring is going to fly off uncontrollably in whatever direction. [00:02:49] But if you take that spring and you crush it down and then you gradually release that spring you can control the direction that that spring is released in and that's how they view children you see much like that spring have to be crushed there to be crushed it held down and controlled. And even when they are let go is to be in a controlled manner. Children are there almost like property to have your whatever it is that you exercised upon that child. So what we're going to do right now is take a look at my childhood and see how like that spring I was crushed. Basically the way that we're going to examine this first is through the lens of schooling and what happened at school the very first thing that I faced at school was a huge challenge that all children of Jehovah's Witnesses face the dreaded pledge of allegiance or national anthem. You see Jehovah's Witnesses believe in only pledging allegiance to God. They would never pledge allegiance to or express love for country. They don't believe in nationalism whatsoever. And so as children when going to school and every day we start out with the Pledge of Allegiance. When I was in elementary school or the national anthem as I progressed and got to high school those were ceremonies that I could not partake in. [00:04:31] So if if it came down to children standing and reciting the pledge I could stand and show respect. But I was not allowed to put my hand over my heart or say the pledge. If children were standing for the national anthem and my standing would not stand out as different than I was to sit down. So it really goes to show that what it is it's about being different. It's not about having some specific moral stance that you know this is how Jehovah's Witnesses do it. We were just not supposed to be like the majority. And so my teachers for the most part were accepting of that boundary but there were some over the years that I really didn't like it. And I mean I can't blame them now in retrospect but as a kid that was all I knew. So some gave me a hard time. Some made me stand out in the hallway while all the kids did that so I had to traipse in and out of the classroom in front of everybody. I had one teacher who really got upset and yelled at me and sent me to the counselors office and we had to have a talk with the counselor and then I guess they were afraid of lawsuits or something because of religious freedom so that teacher no longer gave me a hard time. [00:05:57] But you know just put yourself in the position of a small child going to school knowing that every day you're going to start out your day by having to take a stand for your faith. Of course as a child you're going to feel proud of that at a point. But it's it's still going to be awkward. There's just no way around that. And you're always going to feel different. Then there was the issue of holidays. So in school of course we're going to be holiday parties and holiday activities. I wasn't allowed to participate in any of those. So while kids were coloring their picture of a Christmas tree I was given some alternative projects to color while kids were learning Christmas songs. I was given something else to learn. [00:06:52] Or in the case of one music teacher she decided that she wanted me to bring in our songbooks singing praises to Jehovah for Jehovah's Witnesses and I brought in that song book and my teacher looked through it and found a song for me to memorize. It was called a prayer of thanksgiving. I think she thought it had to do with Thanksgiving the holiday. Whatever the case I don't remember her name but I'd like to thank Mrs whatever her name was for furthering my indoctrination and making me memorize one of Jehovah's Witnesses songs. [00:07:27] I wasn't able to even discuss. You know when kids come home or come back to school after being home for the holidays you know they're all excited they're talking about gifts they got they're talking about family things they did and I never had anything to talk about because I didn't have any of that in high school. We were not allowed to attend pep rallies or we were we were highly discouraged the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses has a great way of discouraging things without making direct rules that way they can say well we never said that later and leave enough gray area. [00:08:08] But we all knew what they said and pep rallies were 100 percent discouraged. I did go to some on occasion. Honestly they were quite fun. I loved the pep rallies but it was one of those things where again allegiance or glory these things were only to go to Jehovah God and not to be given to nationalism on a country level. And I guess you can take it all the way down to the high school level. So school school spirit was seen as a bad thing. I and other witnesses would often go to the lunchroom and work on schoolwork during pep rallies as a punishment for not attending. We were monitored and they made sure we didn't have fun or talk. I went to like I said I went through a few pep rallies over the years for big games. They were fun but there was always this twinge of same in the back of my mind for attending I also wasn't allowed to participate in any after school activities. There is a scripture if I remember correctly I think it's first Corinthians 15:33 and it simply says bad associations spoil useful habits. [00:09:28] And if you were not one of Jehovah's Witnesses you were quote bad association. Therefore I couldn't spend time after school associating with other children because they were labeled bad association. It really did impact my high school years because there were things that I wanted to do. For instance I majored in electronics in high school and I wanted to attend some robotics conventions or competitions but I knew I couldn't participate so that was out. Heck even I couldn't even discuss or be there for the class on in biology class and we were discussing evolution. I had to kind of sit that one out as I mentioned before. As far as the association I couldn't really be friends with kids at school anymore I could be friendly but I couldn't really be friends with them. However I was encouraged as all Jehovah's Witnesses children were to use the children as school as my own personal territory and I was encouraged to preach to them. So it wasn't enough just to stand out for all these other reasons. But Jehovah's Witness children are encouraged to see this. This school the classroom the classmates as a field ripe for the harvesting. So we were encouraged to bring our publications or a Bible to school to read these things in the open so that maybe we would draw interest and so that if the opportunity presented itself we could preach to your children or you back in the day so I did start performing better academically. [00:11:25] If you remember I had said that I almost failed the third grade one a fourth grade. I made the honor roll all year A's and B's and the fifth grade I made straight A's and looking back I think that the perfectionistic messages at the meetings were starting to get to me. You see Jehovah's Witnesses like I've mentioned before a very performance driven organization and their doctrines and their speech are very perfectionistic very all or nothing in black and white. Now correlation isn't necessarily causation but in this case the correlation sure does add up to the sudden change in my academic prowess. Now that doesn't mean that all Jehovah's Witness kids excel academically but there must have been something that I had inside of me that was triggered during that time. And honestly I have always struggled with perfectionism thereafter thereafter I managed to stay on the honor roll for most of middle school and high school. I finished as a salutatorian with a 3.9 6 GPA and yeah I had one B in those four years. I'm still bitter over that to some degree because I was supposed to take geometry class before algebra 2 but the advanced geometry class was full so I was put into the Advanced Algebra II class and it is based on geometry. So I kind of came in last but I managed to catch up and squeak to be out of it. But I still kind of wish I could have gotten straight A's through all of high school. While we're on the subject let's go ahead and look at the role of education in the cult. [00:13:08] Jehovah's Witnesses see education as a means to an end a governmental requirement. If nothing else college is highly discouraged the cult will boast of the academic achievements among their members. And yes there are lawyers and doctors among the ranks but what they are and what they are never going to tell you is that those people became lawyers or doctors before they ever met Jehovah's Witnesses so they like to leave that out because it makes it sound like you know look at us. We have we have these educated people in our midst. But the reality is that it's just happenstance. It's because they became Jehovah's witnesses later. According to Pew Research polls Jehovah's Witnesses are the lowest educated religion with the lowest average income. The way they see education of course is that it will lead to more income. They also think that people go to college for personal glory to become rich and famous that they paint this picture of college and the way they see the world around them. Jehovah's Witnesses are essentially what you would call a doomsday cult. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the world is going to end imminently. [00:14:36] And as they would like to say why would you invest in a titanic it's sinking. This world is a sinking ship. So why would you ever put more into it than you absolutely had to. In fact some in the congregations have actually been counseled for going to college because again I mean Jehovah's Witnesses technically have free will but there's a lot of undue influence and pressure put upon the members to conform. And so in cases where for instance I knew of a case where there was an elder in the congregation. One of the leaders of the congregation and his daughter went to college. She made that decision and he was removed as an elder in the congregation. They stripped him of his title and privileges privileges as they call it responsibilities as more accurate. They stripped him of this because he wasn't setting a proper example because he couldn't control that spring. And that daughter went off to college. They have over time kind of loosened their propaganda against college they kind of go back and forth a little bit. But when I'm talking about college they absolutely pretty much condemn a four year school. But if you want to take a two year trade school or technical school or that kind of higher education is OK. But let's let's add the caveat here that that kind of education is ok so long as it is used to quote further Kingdom interests. Now I understand if you're if you've never been associated with Jehovah's Witnesses you have. You may not have any idea what quote furthering Kingdom interest means. [00:16:44] What it essentially boils down to is Jehovah's Witnesses really put a lot of pressure on young people to serve while they are young. To put more time into the organization while they are young they make it sound as though they want you to do so because you're young and you're vibrant. But at least in retrospect what I believe is that they actually just want you to do this while you're young at that critical stage of your life where you're starting to gain that independence so that you can be controlled so that they can keep you in the fold because if you were to go off to college and learn things like oh I don't know critical thinking skills you might see that as a colt and leave so the goals that they hold out for young people are. There are several. The main goal would be to what's called Pioneer and pioneering is to devote X amount of hours per year at a time when I was young it was a thousand hours per year you would basically sign an agreement and commit to going out knocking on doors witnessing or preaching to people for 1000 hours a year which boiled down to about 90 hours a month. Of course this is unpaid. It's completely volunteer and you have to be able to support yourself in it. The other thing is that they might have you do would be to they would encourage you to go to Bethel. Bethel at the time when I was young was Brooklyn Bethel. It has since moved to another area of New York and it's Was the world headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses and there were primarily young men. [00:18:42] There were some young women who would go to Bethel they would volunteer they would live there they would serve there by performing duties. You know they were always printing presses to run and things to clean and they just supported the organization at the central hub at the headquarters of the organization and essentially devoted their entire life at that point to what they were just completely immersed in it. Another goal that was held out was Gilliatt school. Gilliatt is a school for missionaries and so we all know what a missionary is some Don't spend too much time here. But essentially it was just to go and learn whatever they wanted you to learn so that you could go into other countries and start new congregations or further the preaching of what they saw as the good news of God's kingdom. And finally a goal that they would offer would be to move where the need is greater. So I live in the United States. There might be some usually rural areas but sometimes there's areas in big cities as well where they have a shortage of people there and they need brothers and sisters to come in and help run congregations and help those congregations grow. [00:20:08] So let's look at how this impacted me. [00:20:12] I personally turned down scholarships to potentially pursue an engineering degree. I never took the S.A.T. or I'm not even sure I might have taken the PSAT I can't remember. I never took the ACTC. [00:20:28] The reason I didn't is because essentially the way you are looked upon is if you were to pursue college you were seen as unspiritual. You were seen as a person who was letting everyone down. You were letting God down. [00:20:46] God was disappointed in you ans. [00:20:52] It's really it's hard to express the pressure that is put on these young people at this critical moment of their lives to pursue a course that the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses want you to pursue. At the expense of attaining any type of higher education. It's it's it's really hard to express this if you've never been there. Of course I wanted to go to college. I would have loved the challenge of learning new things and putting all the math I learned into use. And honestly as a perfectionist and a master of an individual I'm sure I would have excelled in those fields but it's the desire to feel good enough in an organization that strips you of your self-esteem and self-worth that leads you down a path to where your self-worth is only received through them where the only way you can feel good is if you do what they want you to do. Because if you don't they will make you miserable. That is a tough thing to face. I do have to admit now as I near 40 years old that's I do have some regrets there. I had some teachers who were deeply disappointed in me for not going to college I had counselors who were constantly telling me what I was capable of. And and I had literature sent to me from all kinds of colleges not even Honestly I don't even know how they got my name or any information about me because I never even took the test. But somehow they wanted me to attend their colleges and I was very torn at that exact same time I was attending high school. [00:23:15] And like I said earlier majoring in electronics and I count out my senior year. They the school told me that if I wanted to because I was excelling academically I could go work half a day at a place that was electronics focused. And that's what I did. I went out I hustled I had to find my own place but I found a company that was willing to hire me as a high school student to come in and fix electronics. I repaired microwaves and TVs and VCR as I installed satellite dishes and while I was working at that place in that strip mall there was a pawnshop where I would go buy CDs at times. And so one day I was in there and I was talking with the owner and he found out what I did that I worked a few doors down repairing electronics and had a business opportunity for me. At the time pagers were the big thing and he was going to and eventually did open up a chain of pager repair and sales mobile accessories and all everything that comes along with that. And so he offered me a store. He offered me my own store and that he would send me off to schooling. I don't know I believe it was in Pennsylvania I can't remember to learn the ins and outs of these devices so that I could run this store and I turned that down as well because I had to go pioneer and go knock on doors for a thousand thousand dollars. I wish I was paid a thousand dollars a thousand hours for that for that year. And so that's what I did. [00:25:13] I went in I pioneered well. So how'd that go. It was miserable. It was awful. I was the only one brother who was pioneering at the time. Brothers and Sisters at the congregation that I attended don't mix a lot. So I spent a lot of time working by myself going out knocking on doors which is a very lonely proposition. I had to work several jobs. It's not like I came from a wealthy family or a family that was even middle class so I didn't have anything any money that I needed had to come from me. I had no support. So I had to furnish my car that was getting driven miles all over the area that I had as our territory for our congregation knocking on doors calling back on people trying to start Bible studies and it costs a lot of money. Eventually I started getting into debt. I was working part time at night from five to nine several nights a week telemarketing. I delivered newspapers every morning seven days a week. I also delivered a local trader publication on Thursday mornings and I eventually just burned out there's there's only so many hours in the day that a person can do can be working. I was not only working getting up at you know three or four in the morning so that I could go deliver newspapers. Then I would be home around 7:00. I would take a shower. I get dressed in my suit. I'd be at the Kingdom Hall at 9:00 9:30. We would go out go out and knock on doors till around three sometimes four go home. [00:27:15] I would then change clothes go to work from five to nine telemarketing and... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5458481

Episode 1 - Life Before Jehovah's Witnesses 06/18/2017

Episode 1 - Life Before Jehovah's Witnesses In my opening episode I explain what life was like up until the age of 8 or 9 when my parents became Jehovah's Witnesses. In order to understand how much life changed, it can help to understand where I came from. [expand title="Click Here To Show Transcript"] [00:00:01] There are over eight million Jehovah's Witnesses Jay Dub's or J-ws worldwide. I wasn't born one was introduced to it around the age of eight or 9 and would spend the next three decades trying to process what I had unwittingly become involved in ultimately leaving and costing me dearly. This J.W. life is my response to the encouragement I've received to write a book about my life. In my story you're going to learn about this called and why refer to it as such rather than as a religion. You're going to see how I went from suicidal an incredibly anxious to free and happy. Why I put on 50 pounds and how I took it off while my wife and I owed the IRS fifty five thousand dollars and how we paid that off in 18 months. And while that wasn't even the biggest win to come from that time there are lessons to be learned here whether you're in a cult or you're just your average person living life for the SJ doves out there. I hope you find comfort in knowing that you're not alone and maybe this helps you process your own pain for those who have family that are Jehovah's Witnesses. I hope this gives you a glimpse into what they're both involved in and up against. For those that have no ties I hope this broaden your horizons maybe sheds light on the human experience a little. And if there are any current Jehovah's Witnesses that listen I hope this gives you something you need for wherever you are now in your journey. But in the end I hope you find happiness and peace. [00:01:24] You've been through a lot and you deserve it. I'm not a professional producer. I'm a professional housecleaner. You'll find out why that is. And as well as how it is possible even to save my life later I'm recording this as a podcast as a fitting way of telling my story as it was podcasts and audio books that helped me awaken to the realities of the life I was given as a child and that I tried to live up to for decades including as an adult. [00:01:54] So today we're going to talk about my childhood before my family became Jehovah's Witnesses up until I was around the age of eight. I'll give you a warning up front this part of my life is a collection of somewhat disconnected memories and this feels a little bit choppy in places. That's why it's kind of hard to remember that far back. And at this point in my life it's not like I have family to to help build a story around. So it will hopefully become more conversational as we get into more solid memories. But this first part is important. It shows what life was like for me in the beginning of my life. Maybe some of you will find a throwback in here for something you remember as a kid. In the end you can't appreciate the change in my life without first knowing what it started out to be. So you know as a kid started out normally. I was a little boy. I like Spiderman. I like the Incredible Hulk. I remember watching Dukes of Hazzard and playing with my GI Joes. I had a few friends that I remember going to their house and playing with some kids probably from school. I can remember going over their houses and playing although I love toys all I actually ever needed in my life was a ball to give me a ball so it against something. I'll roll it though to myself I could play all day. That's all I ever needed. And sports were a huge thing to me. [00:03:17] We lived in the same neighborhood as my grandparents probably maybe two three blocks away. So there were. We were a pretty close family. We could just walk over there at any time if we wanted. I remember holidays I remember going trick or treating in my neighborhood. I have no idea. Cannot tell you what I dressed like. But whatever it was it was fun. I remember getting buckets full of candy and who doesn't like that Thanksgiving was another holiday that I remember being a lot of fun. We would go to my uncle and aunts house on my dad's side. And you know obviously the family would come. I even had a grandma who lived in Georgia. We called her granny and we'd eat and watch football play outside with my cousins. It was a good time. For Christmas we go to my grandparents house on my mom's side. I remember they give us catalogs when we were little and we were supposed to go through them and you know look at toys and circle whatever it was. I guess I don't know if I believed in Santa. I guess I did. So whatever we want to Santa to bring I guess he shopped at Service Merchandise. So we'd circle those and you know see what he would get. [00:04:33] I remember that when we went over to their house there was lots of good food and cookies and sweets always had a sweet tea. Those who know me know that. [00:04:44] So we would go over there. My aunt and uncle on that side of the family would be there and their kids and they would come all the way down from Michigan and it was just it was just fun to have family. I think there were some other people who would show up maybe some first cousins or something at different times of my life. I can't remember but that's I never really had I guess much of a connection before. We were kind of kind of left our families behind a little bit. Anyway I remember Saturday morning cartoons I remember getting up watching cartoons without a care in the world. Saturday morning cartoons were awesome. I remember coming home from school and there were cartoons I remember. I think there were those after school specials. I probably watched those as well. At the house that we lived in we had a creek behind it. Go back there and play a lot of times like any kids you know. I always wonder what was in the holes around the creek and I'm sure I stuck sticks in there and who knows what I bothered doing. I remember that I had a sandbox the sandbox was awesome. What kid doesn't love that. I remember one time obviously I was playing with the ball in the backyard it rolled next to a tree and there was a garter snake wrapped around the tree and of course I reached down for the ball saw the snake and thought I was going to die. [00:06:11] Who does it. It's a snake. [00:06:14] We had a dog named is a collie. For some reason we gave him away. All I remember is that he he liked to eat the backyard. And so our grass soon became a bit. Life was awesome. The only thing that that really created a change in our life was my dad and his job prospects. He never was the kind of person who could really go out and get a job. He always struggled with that. Someone found him a job he would do it. He loved he would go work. He was a hard worker and an honest guy but he wasn't exactly what one would define as a go getter. So he worked at Brown and Williamson here in Louisville Kentucky had apparently that was a really good place to work when the company moved to Georgia. His mom worked there. So I don't know. I'm assuming that had some influence in how he got the job in the first place given his track record in the future. But anyway so the company moved. He chose not to move with it. I think he married my mom at that time and stayed here and so what started as a good job to kind of change because when that company left. All I know is that he bounced around a little bit. He worked at U.P.S. for a while worked at General Electric which was a pretty good job but they laid him off. And so ultimately being laid off from these jobs. There was a time at which we had to. We had to make a change. [00:07:54] The finances just won't allow us to continue living there. So we moved in the middle of the school year. I was about seven years old. So that would have been the second grade. I remember when we moved to the new school I remember a teacher leading me down the what seemed like cavernous court or two to my new class. [00:08:19] I had to be taken in front of the class and introduced everybody and I just wanted to disappear and die. I've always I've not I'm not a person who likes to be in front of a lot of people. I am not an extrovert by any means. So actually me just doing this is kind of out of the ordinary for me. I'm trying to push myself to do something new here despite you know you know the second great change you know that was nothing compared to what was about to happen in my life. For one thing I remember our new house had some issues I think unbeknownst to my parents our new house was infested with roaches. We had a neighbor who on one side of us who don't know his backyard was kind of horny. There were a lot of TV parts and appliances and things back there and it wasn't the greatest. I don't know if that helped lead to the infestations that probably went through our whole neighborhood or if it was just the fact that we had old houses. But regardless I remember the roaches I remember laying there at night watching roaches crawl on the wall and hoping that they wouldn't come visit me on my bed. I remember my mom would go and get this. I don't know some sort of Wiccan chemical stuff to try to deal with. I remember the term German roaches being thrown around. So maybe that's what we had. [00:09:48] But I know that once the chemical is put down we had mutated disgusting terrifying roaches that kind of kind of upped the ante and raised it to the next level. Ultimately that problem was that pest was eradicated and we moved on. Apparently I've been told by my parents that there was a story where I kept telling them there was something in my bed and I'm sure they thought it was a monster like you know all kids have little little dreams about those kinds of things or nightmares. But once they found the mouse droppings they realized there was actually a problem. So that that was another problem how sad. And then her problem also had cave crickets. And if you don't know what they are they also think they're called camelback crickets. They're disgusting huge crickets with giant back legs that look like spiders. And I don't like spiders either but we didn't have a problem with those. We just had the cave crickets. So those kind of things were kind of scarring to me as a kid. There was a lot changing you know we've gone from house in a nicer neighborhood to now a house and not so great a neighborhood. And you know a new school there was all that going on. But as I was reflecting on this. I kind of came to realize that. So in the third grade I almost failed. I had all my work done. I found it at the end of the here in my school desk clearly wasn't an organized kid. I don't know you know I had always made decent grades before then so maybe it was just to change it moving and everything. But I also realized that it was around that time. [00:11:38] That's my mom I think of course again I can't go back and ask I'm trying to develop a time line now here in retrospect but I believe this was around the time that my mom started studying the Bible. [00:11:55] Well they say studying the Bible but it's really studying one of Jehovah's Witnesses publications a book that they've produced. They are the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York. So they they were a publishing company and one of the books they published at the time was used to study the Bible as they had picked verses to study to fit their narrative of course. So anyway my mom started studying with the lady next door because yes as if the rest of the stuff wasn't bad enough. We moved in next to Jehovah's Witnesses and so there was a family next door. The mom next door and my mom became fast friends. They would talk about life or whatever my mom always had lots of Bible questions. She had a brother has a brother that is a Baptist minister I believe went through the seminary and I don't think he could ever quite answer her questions. And Jehovah's Witnesses or at least not to her satisfaction Jehovah's Witnesses though have an answer for everything. [00:13:08] Now the answer just having an answer doesn't necessarily mean it's a correct answer. But they have an answer for just about anything you can ask. They have some way to make it fit into their narrative so it would have been likely around that time. Things are really changing. It would just been me and I have one younger brother at the time he was three and a half four years younger than I. So I was around you know between eight and nine. [00:13:40] And when my mom probably started studying and you know I don't I think in retrospect I don't believe it was just a coincidence that my grades suffered so bad that year because you know it's not like not only were we in this new situation and my mom was studying but that means she was also taking us to meetings as a Jehovah's Witness at least at that time you would go to meetings Tuesday night for an hour Thursday night for two hours and then Sunday for two hours in the morning. So you know there was a time commitment right off the bat and that that time commitment would grow. I'll get into that later in later years. But you know that's that's a lot for a kid. [00:14:25] And and along with that there would have been other changes so I don't know exactly when but at some point my mom was no longer wanting to do the holidays. So you know because if you know Jehovah's Witnesses one thing most people know about them is you're not going to see them celebrating Christmas or birthdays or anything. They just they don't celebrate anything day. They see it all as pagan and therefore they believe it's not what God would want for them. At first my dad was not interested in that life. My mom would go to the meetings. I'm pretty sure she would take us. I don't know if she took us to some or all but it took my dad about a year to kind of come around and start wondering what it is that my mom was involved in. [00:15:22] Again I believe I can't confirm but I think that the first thing my dad ever went to was a district convention of Jehovah's Witnesses where my mom was baptized. So just to explain that a little bit when you study with one of Jehovah's Witnesses and they have a book that you're going to study through at the end of that book you should have enough knowledge to essentially become one of Jehovah's Witnesses. They want to make sure that you have brought your life into correspondence with their values you need to. You can't be living whatever they would deem an immoral life. So if you're living an upright life as they see it and if you have the head knowledge from these books you can go through another book with a series of three elders. The elders are the group of men who lead each individual congregation and three of those will sit sit down with you at different times and kind of ask you questions you'll answer them. They're kind of evaluating where you are in life if they feel that you're ready they will allow you to become baptizes one of Jehovah's Witnesses those baptisms are held at the assemblies or conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses. And as far as that goes there are two assemblies a year one in the spring one in the fall typically there's a special day a one day in the spring and a two day circuit assembly in the fall. Then during the summer is when they typically have their district conventions. So these are the district is a is a huge group of an area a region as they call it today. Regional conventions. [00:17:10] And so you know back back in the day the reasons were much bigger and you go to. Well we would go to a Freedom Hall in Louisville Kentucky and there'd be how. [00:17:22] I'm thinking 12000 but I may be mistaken. Maybe I'm more like eight. I'm thinking it was about 12000 people. And so the first thing that my dad went to was a big deal from my mom to get baptized. This is a big step that she was taking to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses officially. And I think my dad saw that as a time where you know this is this is getting real and I want to jump in there and find out what this is. [00:17:49] So he did that. It wasn't too long after that there was a very nice charismatic brother in the congregation who kind of took my dad under his wing. He studied with my dad. [00:18:01] And I think the next year my dad got baptized so so it didn't take too long. You know we're talking maybe a year or two if memory serves. For my parents to become a full fledged Jehovah's Witnesses and at that point there were definitely be no more holidays. [00:18:24] I can still remember my last Christmas I remember my mom sitting me down and telling me you know we weren't going to do this anymore. [00:18:32] I can't remember exactly but I'm sure I wasn't too pleased with that. That prospect that it was I was told what all Jehovah's Witness kids are told. [00:18:43] There's a theme that is that is often used and that is that as a child of Jehovah's witnesses you know we don't need those those holidays to celebrate or to give gifts. [00:18:58] You know essentially those holidays people just have to give gifts. It's not real. Nobody [00:19:03] really likes it. We can give you gifts all the time and from the heart. Oh give you. I'll let you place a wager on how much celebration and gift giving there is in the average Jehovah's Witness family compared to you know the celebrations that are set out that everyone participates in in the world in general. I don't know I can't speak for all families but I didn't have a lot of friends as a kid. As one of Jehovah's Witnesses who were receiving a whole lot of gifts or celebrating much of anything. So anyway life changed a lot. [00:19:48] That's kind of the I guess the nexus of the beginning of my life. How it started it started out like I would assume any other kids. And then you know all it took was a chance move by parents you know had a financial reversal as far as I could tell. And the next thing you know we're moving and we just happen to out of all the human beings on this earth move in next door to one of Jehovah's Witnesses and things started to change. [00:20:21] So in the next episode I'm going to talk about how my life changed. Aside from you know a few little things I've mentioned already what it's like for a young child growing up in this cult. What it's like for them when they go to school. What it's like at home. [00:20:40] This is this is not just a religion that you put on when you go to church. This is a life and it encompasses everything you do. It encompasses the way you think the way you feel the way you act. It is everything. [00:20:58] So I really do appreciate you listening. If you like this or think that it might help somebody else please subscribe so that you can get each episode as they come out and tell others about this. I'm putting this out into the world to be of help and it's not going to help anybody obviously. People don't spread the word. I don't have a big podcast network behind me. I don't have the cache of Leah Remini. That allowed her to do a series on Scientology. I'm just a guy that lived a certain life that wants to expose what literally millions of other people around the world have gone through. There are over eight million Jehovah's Witnesses and scores of ex Jehovah's Witnesses out there. There are millions more that have family or friends that are Jehovah's Witnesses that they might be concerned about. Take this to them so that they can see what it's like. And if nothing else maybe it just helps somebody to feel less alone. Visit my site at w w dot this J-ws life dot com if you want to discuss this further. I'll even post some pics and other information there that will add to the story if you like. If you look now you'll find some of my childhood before things changed. Some pictures from that there... /episode/index/show/thisjwlife/id/5458459

This JW Life

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