An Ex-JW. “I got baptized when I was about 10 or 11, mainly so I could get my dad off my back about when I was going to do it. Things only went downhill after that. At my baptism, I wore a leotard and some P.E. shorts. (I took gymnastics class at school, so it was just my P.E. outfit that I wore in class every day.)
As I was waiting in the line to get dunked, I was pulled aside by a man I didn't know (presumably an elder), and told that I would have to wait for someone to determine whether or not they would let me get baptized, because my clothes were "improper." I stood next to that man while I watched everyone pass by in the line and get baptized, and I cried because,
1) I didn't understand what was going on and what I had done wrong, and
2) I was afraid that if they didn't let me get baptized, my father would never forgive me.
Eventually, it became ordained from on high that they would let the little Jezebel take the dunk, so someone brought me a wet t-shirt that somebody else had used, threw it on me and took me under. I never told my parents this story. (What's funny is that while I stood there crying next to the line, the people who were in line actually thought that I was crying tears of joy, and they would smile at me as they walked by. It makes me sick to my stomach today).”
I feel pity for Jehovah's Witnesses who may have lost their lives/the lives of loved ones, suffered medical difficulties (including loved ones), were dis-fellowshipped (including loved ones), or had tormented consciences because of abiding with doctrines that were later changed. Furthermore, if a person was dis-fellowshipped in the past for violating a doctrine that later changed and showed their action was not definitely a sin, would that person need to display repentance over their past "sin" to be reinstated?
Thanks to the Witnesses, I have parents who tell me repeatedly that they are disappointed in me and can never unconditionally love me, even though I've begged them for that so many times that at one point I drove myself to the ER because I knew I was going to kill myself.
I am financially independent, have bailed them out financially, skipped grades, won a scholarship, have 2 degrees with honors, and I volunteer all over the community. And they still tell me they are disappointed in me. So I cry in the shower because I can't win; I can't be a JW and dead inside for them. I have to be myself. Do these feelings ever go away? Will I ever make them see that I'm a good person? Please help me.
Another Ex JW: When I was rather young (about 10 or so), my mother had a heart attack. At that time I got to spend a lot of time with her just talking about things. It was during this time that she told me she had had heart surgery around 1944. Her surgery was performed at the Mayo Clinic to close a "patent ductus" that failed to close when she was born in 1918.
The doctors said it was a miracle that she had lived as long as she had, that she only had about a 50% chance of surviving the surgery (which was performed by going through her back, cutting out a rib, and then correcting the problem with her heart), and that she would not live even a year longer without it.
I also learned that at the time of this surgery, my mother received blood transfusions. She explained that "the Society" did not forbid blood transfusions at that time; that came later, in 1945 I think. My mother survived, met my father when he returned from the war (he was a WWII Navy Veteran), married him, and gave birth to me and my sister.
I was very young, but even then I could see the connection. No surgery, no marriage, no me. Blood transfusions, I was told, were BAD. I was told that under absolutely no circumstances, including danger to life itself, was I to have a blood transfusion.
I was even told, "No one has ever lived BECAUSE of a blood transfusion. People simply survive blood transfusions." But my mother would have never even had her surgery if she had refused blood in 1944. No surgery no marriage no me …But... but... but...
Such is the struggle of the Jehovah's "Witness". Against God. Against common sense. Against family...
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