My entire childhood was haunted by endless teasing and lots of time spent in tears in various counselors and other authoritative figure’s offices. As I mentioned earlier being a child of JW’s did not help. The only way to be accepted with the other kids was to get involved with after school activities (sports or clubs) and basically give them a reason to like you. I have always loved sports and wanted to be able to play on teams as far back as I can remember. But my parents would not allow me to participate in after school activities because that just means spending more time with kids that were not JW’s and of course spending time with those kids was the first step that would lead us to all kinds of godless bad behavior…
However this is nothing compared to what I encountered this afternoon with regard to others horrible experiences in this cult that is moonlighting as a acceptable religion. I watched a video of a young girl that was giving a speech to her class on all the awful things she and other women she knows have experienced at the hands of the JW’s and while I can say I was fortunate enough to not have to deal with the awful things she spoke of, I went through plenty of experiences that pretty much prepared me for the inevitable fact that my father would disown me once he found out he has a daughter and not the son he hopped I was.
When I was 16 years old my father and step-mother had made plans to go out for dinner and a Broadway show. So knowing how much time that afforded me I planed one of my many trips to my step-mothers closet and makeup drawer. I had been experimenting with her clothes one item at a time over the past several years and was so prepared that I never got caught. Had a number of close calls but always seemed to find a way to escape detection. Let me say that by no means am I proud that I violated her personal space and had I felt like I had another way to go about what I needed to do I would have taken it… while I did one day apologize to her for violating that very personal space I never apologized for trying to discover my true self and I never would… So anyway there I was dressed from head to toe in feminine finery and feeling such an overwhelming state of bliss that I failed to notice that she had pulled the car into the driveway and by the time I heard the door shut it was too late. As she reached for and turned the knob to the garage door I panicked and without thinking ran into her bedroom and tried to hide in her closet. But considering that my male clothes were scattered on the bedroom floor and her makeup I had experimented with was still laying out on the counter in the bathroom I knew I was just delaying the inevitable…
I can honestly say I have never been so terrified in my entire life. I kept running through various scenarios in my head about what was about to happen. One of those was that she would actually embrace this scared and confused child and put aside her shock and disgust and try to understand something much bigger than a violation of privacy was happening here. After all she was the one that actually believed that there are some things out there that are beyond our control and need to be understood not just shunned. However when she opened the closet door the look on her face said it all… I was doomed and I knew it. The series of events that followed that evening unfolded about how you probably expected. I won’t go into the details but I can honestly say that the one positive that came out of it all was my brother was there with a big comforting hug and absolutely no judgment whatsoever. He held me as I lied on the floor crying my eyes out trying to tell me it was all going to be okay but he knew the same thing I did and that was it wasn’t going to be ok…
I became a prisoner in my own home as I was grounded and of course there was an immediate lock installed on my parents door. I spent the next day stacking all the wood that my dad had gone out and chopped to deal with the horror that his child was a dirty, perverted and godless freak. After all how could I disappoint god by giving into my disgusting and unnatural urges. Not only did I have to deal with his wrath which was mostly looks of disgust and silence I also had to go before a group of older men (elders in the church) to receive discipline from god. The result of which was a private shaming and religious encouraged therapy as I now like to refer to as their version of corrective therapy. And I will go into this more in my next post.
As always thanks for reading and all the encouraging support I have received! If you want to watch the heartbreaking video I mentioned earlier in this post you can find it here: https://youtu.be/RDvT_gYq-ls Its kinda long but worth your time.
HUGS ERICA! 🙂