Comments on: The Watch Tower: Enabling Abusers

By: como exitar a una mujer

como exitar a una mujer — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:22:34 +0000

Enjoyed the post!

By: Nisha

Nisha — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:49:23 +0000

And btw, John tauro, your beliefs are grounded in absolutely nothing. if I were you, and thank god I’m not!!, I would take my sorry ass back to whatever magazine it’s been hiding behind.

By: Nisha

Nisha — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:43:40 +0000

I always avoid these kinds of sites because I feel that I want to leave all of this “stuff” behind, but sometimes I feel a desperate need just to connect with someone who understands. I was raised a jw and my dad ended his involvement abruptly when i was 13. He was never disfellowshipped etc and my mother continued her involvement. Over a period of about ten years, my whole world fell apart. Fighting, multiple residence changes, loss of all former family an friends, and the deterioration of my relationship with both parents. I hid the pain from people at school and had a very hard time making friends… I felt that no one would be able to understand what I was going through, and for the most part, I was right. I struggle now as my relationship with my father is still very unmanageable and though I am closer to my mother, it breaks my heart not to be able to share any part of my life in the world with her. I don’t really know how to leave it behind me… I try very hard to wear the face that I’d been taught to wear… The “perfect child” mask… But underneath I am stilll not sure of who I am. I’m not giving up on myself but some days I feel that it is hopeless.

By: John Tauro

John Tauro — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 17:00:16 +0000

It’s highly inappropriate to blame our loving father Jehovah or the Watchtower for individual actions.

By: Evelyn Harabedian

Evelyn Harabedian — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:49:26 +0000

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By: Jw Survivor

Jw Survivor — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:32:58 +0000

You are a Jw Survivor! I am proud of you for telling your story, because without people speaking out . . . the abuses that go on in the congregations WILL continue!

Here’s a message to those that made negative remarks to this writer: “Wake up! and pull your freaking head out of the sand! Abuse is happening in the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses right and left. This is NOT an isolated case of abuse . . . it is widespread and the after effects of it are ENORMOUS! The saying . . . walk a mile in my shoes, and then tell me how to walk straight . . . does come to mind. Unless you have been abused, had it covered up, ignored or even glorified . . . then you have NO room to talk! You should HOWEVER . . . listen and I mean TRULY listen and see what you can do to help. Turning a deaf ear to the one that is crying is an abusive trait in itself.”

Now, back to the writer of the article . . . My brothers and I were abused by my mother during our childhood, I then was seduced by an older man at the age of 16 and got married to him by the age of 18. We had 4 children together and I endured 16 years of mental/emotional abuse. I went to the elders the last year and a half of my marriage . . . trying to make it work. They never followed up with us and when I returned and said to them, “I feel as if I have been emotionally abused.” (Not even knowing that there was such a thing.) They just stared at me and never said a word!

I eventually had an affair, after 5 years of hardly no intimacy from him and always being put down. After having been removed from our checking account (even though I was the main bread winner.) One day, as I almost had a mental breakdown . . . he ordered me to get ready for the meeting — I laid on the couch crying relentlessly . . . as he walked out the door he said, “GET AWAY FROM ME SATAN.”

I was disfellowshipped and the next three years that followed were the most trying times of our lives! We went into the domestic violence program and lived without child support for 1/2 of the time. I worked 50+ hours per week taking care of them and watched my children struggle with depression, as the elders refused to call them and offer any kind of emotional support (I was told by an elder that “the children live with you now, and it’s your responsibility to provide them with spiritual food.”) One elder went as far as telling my ex-husband and a family friend of ours . . . that I was not allowed to even pull into their driveway, order to drop the children off at their house.

So, not only was I shunned . . . but the children were too, and after years of abuse by him . . . it was more than we could take. I eventually got full custody of the children and he is allowed to see them on regular occasions. He seldom picks them up, asks me to feed them before they come to his house, tells our 9 and 11 year old that “they are from the dark side, that there is no light in them and that they are even making the light dark.”

This man has been allowed to pioneer, read for the Watchtower and help to get the new Spanish congregation off the ground. THE MONSTROUS PART OF SHUNNING IS THAT WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION and therefore THEY NEVER HEAR OUR STORIES! That is why we tell them out here . . . because out here . . . someone actually cares!

By: matt rafferty

matt rafferty — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:35:10 +0000

thank you for sharing your story. I too was raised by an elder step-father. I left when I was 17 and lived in my car through the last semester of high school. I was disfellowshipped at 19 for admitting that I would take a blood transfusion to honor my temple, though I was not in any medical need, and have never to this day, 14 years later, had need of a blood transfusion. my mother is still married to my nazi step-father and I am shunned. the bright side is that my example led my sister and brother to leave the organization over the ensuing 14 years. I want so desperately to bring the Tower down!!! oh, to be a medo-persian or Babylonian conqueror! to 16 year old girl trapped: you are not alone. you are not crazy. the j.w.’s are crazy.

By: c

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 02:07:52 +0000

Unfortunately I grew up in much the same way.
My father and my aunt’s husband were both jw elders. Each helped to build new congregations and council people in need. Each abused his children and used the religious structure to their advantage. My father verbally and emotionally abused my mother (still does b/c she is too religious to divorce him), and he verbally, emotionally and physically abused me and my younger brother. I have perfectly clear memories of hiding from him from the time I was four years old (my brother was one). My aunt’s husband beat the day lights out of her and verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually abused their three kids. Because my aunt had the audacity to bring it up to the elders, she as disfellowshiped and yet somehow he still leads the flock (there are court documents and medical exams on all three kids to back her up). When those in power are abusive, there is very little you can do. I left as soon as I could.
After much thought and self reflection I too became an atheist. My childhood did not make my decision for my, but it most certainly helped.

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