Frank M – Ex-Jehovah’s Witness

.:FRANK M – Growing up with family members who were Jehovah’s Witness pedophiles, he couldn’t wait to leave this religion.

Growing up in a perverse family of pedophiles, Frank’s Jehovah’s Witness childhood was riddled with sex abuse and spiritual confusion. As a child, Frank had dreams of pleasing Jehovah and ruling with Christ, but these dreams were quickly squelched by rejection from his father and the religious hypocrisy he experienced in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. By nineteen, Frank had enough, and he left the organization. Although Frank’s spiritual journey is far from complete, he is happy to be free from the dictates of religious oppression in the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I was born into a Roman Catholic family — a perverse family whose members were nothing but pedophiles. At the ripe old age of six, two Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door and started converting my mom to their religion. Given the super-strong personality that she had, once she believed, she quickly converted my dad and us children. At the same time that I was being converted into the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I was also being converted into a pedophile’s victim. My Uncle John started molesting me at age nine.

Talk about confusion! On one hand, you have these people telling you that you cannot have sex until you are married, and then on the other hand, you have a trusted godfather who was touching you in those very places that you were being told you couldn’t even touch yourself. Our conversion had begun; there was no turning back now.

The Christmas of my ninth year was the last we celebrated, and it was the saddest. My oldest sister was thirteen when our path to “the Truth” (Watchtower organization) was started. The youngest sibling was only three. The five of us were like obedient little soldiers in Jehovah’s army, and we did exactly as we were told — even to the point of alienating my grandmother, who was there for us from the beginning. I started knocking on doors when I was ten, and I loved every minute of it. I thought I was doing God’s work by spreading “the Truth” to all who would listen. Those who didn’t, I felt sorry for. I figured they would learn the hard way what it was like to anger the only true God.

By the time I was eleven, I was giving talks in the Kingdom Hall. I was so proud of myself and so was my mom. Around the time I was thirteen, I was convinced that I was so blessed by Jehovah that I believed I was one of the “anointed” (a member of the 144,000 “heavenly class” of Jehovah’s Witnesses). I thought I was going to sit in Heaven as a judge with Christ. “Wow! The disillusionment of a child who doesn’t know any better,” the Jehovah’s Witnesses thought. That dream was crushed in a hurry.

Over the next year, I was instructed very intensely so I could get baptized. This happened when I was fourteen.  By that time, all four of us older siblings were baptized. The first one out of the organization was my sister. She was disfellowshipped when I was sixteen, and I was out by the time I was seventeen. But since my mom was so strong in her beliefs, I went back until I was nineteen. By then, I’d had enough. I wanted out and away from those hypocrites and my dad. I should tell you that my dad told me that he never wanted a son. So, I wanted to give him his wish. I was now free to live my life to the fullest, without the condemnation of my father. At first, my mom tried to shun me, but it was too hard for her not to talk to me. She eventually caved in and talked to all of us. Her family, her children, always came first, although she did stay very strong in her Jehovah’s Witness faith until her death in November of 2007.

Leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses was the best thing I ever did. I can now feel guilt-free in doing whatever I want and not be depressed by telling the people we meet along the way that they are going to die at Armageddon for not listening to our translation of the Bible. Since leaving this religion, I have come across many of my old friends that are now also out of this religion as well. It is so great to re-unite with friends that had stopped talking to me, but who had now seen the error of their ways. Well, that’s my story. Thanks for reading it, and may Jehovah bless each and every one of us.