Upbringing

This is a bit personal and will probably be very very long so if none of you chose to read it I can't blame you for it. I just wanted to vent a bit. So there is your warning....

Saturday night I received a phone call from my sister. I had previously told her that I had been recommended to see a certain therapist in Fort Smith for depression and she decided to go too. She called to ask me if I had gone to see her yet. Which I haven't...I am beginning to think I really don't need to. Especially after this incident.

She started telling me what the therapist does, she starts from 'when were you born?' and asks questions about your childhood, the discipline in the house, current relationships with family members and especially the parents. Of course I won't get into what she discovered too terribly much out of her own privacy. However I will say that she brought up a lot of things from my own past and upbringing that, while I had realized it and come to terms with it, I hadn't thought about in a very very long time.

I am sure you all are at least somewhat knowledgeable about Jehovah's Witnesses. But growing up in a household that follows that spiritual path is something else entirely. You are taught from early on to never question, to respect adults to the point that even if they are wrong, you cannot speak up for they are older than you and thus are correct no matter what. I can remember from a very early age...probably 3 or 4 years old...being scared to death of doing something wrong and thus losing favor in god's eyes (no caps for that word anymore damnit!).

My father, of course, was extremely controlling. My mother on the other hand, was the type that would say 'you just wait til your father gets home!'. We were expected to be the prim and proper children that got straight A's in school no matter what, and always looked nice and never talked back to anyone. And heaven forbid we step out of line! We would get spanked to the point of having marks on our backsides that lasted a week or more. The therapist told my sister that by today's standards it would be considered child abuse. However, I am not really complaining about any of that, I am thankful for my upbringing for the most part since it did make me the person I am today. And I have had to come to terms with all of this.

There was a point in my life that I blamed my parents for everything. I blamed them for the fact that my entire life was centered around that church! I was told who to be friends with, what to wear, how to think....And after having that your entire life...that being all you have ever known, and then it falls out from under you when you realize that it isn't the right thing for your life...it is very very difficult. All the people I had befriended, the people that I had been raised around were no longer allowed to speak to me. Everything I had been taught...none of it mattered anymore. My entire life was built around that church and I was told that as an adult I was to serve that church...and all of that was suddenly gone! I was lost! It was like starting all over as a teenager but being 20 years old. I had to figure out who I was and what I really wanted to be on my own! All the things that children start exploring and figuring out when they are teenagers, I was having to do as a married woman with a child. And I was extremely resentful towards my parents for this.

Gradually I came to the realization that, although I cannot control my childhood, I can control how I let it affect me now. My parents did the best they could do with what they knew. I did research on the internet and discovered that that church meets ALL of the warning signs for a cult, and that my parents were completely brainwashed. I became proud of who I am and my experiences, and for the fact that I can say "I got out of this situation on my own!". My sister is still dumbfounded at the fact that she and I are so terribly different. I always stood up to my father, always asked questions and when told to shut up, I would get in his face and argue with him. He never instilled that fear in me that he so deeply rooted into my sister.

I do not blame my parents for how I was raised. However I do blame that church! I blame those men that sit there and call themselves elders and tell everyone how to run their lives. I blame them for being so critical of everyone to the point that when you walk in the door you are bombarded with questions like 'oh I saw you here with so and so. what were you doing there?'. I blame them for my mother having extreme depression because none of those people gave a shit what she was going through. I blame them for not coming to help us out when my own father was serving as an elder in the church, while I was at home dealing with a mother with extreme depression by myself. And I especially blame them...for going up to my father a few months ago and saying 'If your wife and your daughters can't come to the church then you don't belong here either'. And he hasn't gone back since. This church has been my father's life for so fucking long (excuse my language here) and they dare tell him that he doesn't belong there!?!?!?!?! All the hell that I have gone through thanks to these people, the hell my sister is dealing with now because of these people and then they do this to my father?!?! When I was 13 years old I told my father that if the people at that church are supposed to represent their god, then that isn't a god I want to have dealings with because I hate his people.

I want to get beyond all of this. Right now my sister is still dealing with the way she was raised and the wrongs that my parents did to her. I am beyond that. I am dealing with the church. I want to get past the wrongs that have been done to my family by this church. I do not like having resentments. I do not feel it is healthy to resent anyone for anything and I try to avoid it at all costs. I especially do not like hatred as it is just a negative energy that solely affects me. I know none of those people care if I dislike them or not. But I cannot help but simply want to...GR@#%$#%^@$#!
Anyways, I will stop ranting now. For those of you that actually read all of this, I thank you for the attention and apologize for it being so long. I just had to get this off of my chest. I was up til 4 AM Sunday morning with all of this going through my head.