Theocratic parental horror stories

 So I am reading my new favorite book "I'm perfect, you're doomed" and the flashbacks have started. This book is like my childhood all over again. Anywho, it reminded me of the horror stories my parents would create. To get us kids to sit still at the meetings, my mom would say "Remember what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back, and did not look straight ahead?"

 My question is this: Did other parents have strange ways of making you abide by their rules like mine did? If so, what did they say/do?

This is so in the wrong thread. Sorry. I don't know how to move it to the right topic.

I moved it to Child Abuse, because all that scriptural intimidation of children in an effort to get them to behave is most certainly abusive.

My mother's favorite saying was "Don't do it for me, do it for Jehovah." Whenever she needed me to do something, I had to do it for Jehovah. When I didn't want to go door to door, she'd give me that line.

I remember the Saturday morning I didn't want to get out of bed and go in field service. My mother told me "Don't do it for me, Do it for Jehovah." This particular morning, I didn't feel like doing it for Jehovah. She came back and said, "Let me put it this way, do it or else you're going to GET IT."

Right then I knew doing it for Jehovah was all bullshit.

Wow!!..Scully..You hit the nail on the head.....

When I was a toddler..

I got the shit beat out of me in the Kingdom Hall parking lot..

I screamed so loud..The Dubs inside the Kingdom Hall complained..

                                                                                 .................................OUTLAW

I don't have the book to which you are referring, but I remember something that my dad used to say, in the most disgusted and judgemental tone he could muster, whenever he wanted to guilt me into behaving the way he wanted:  "And you call yourself a Jehovah's Witness!"

He actually did it a couple of times directed at other JWs too - but not where they could hear him.  I remember he muttered it when someone cut him off and took a parking space he'd been waiting for at a District Convention™.

And then there were the "reminders" about Dinah going down to Shechem and getting raped when Worldly™ boys called the house for me.  Or the paranoia they induced about Worldly™ kids and how they were going to force me to use drugs and have sex, as I was preparing to start high school.  I was so distraught that I cried myself to sleep in terror the night before my first day in high school.

And then there were the stupid Theocratic™ "poems" about associating with/marrying non-JWs.  And the threats that they wouldn't come to (or finance) my wedding if I married a non-JW.  The current standoff involves me not being allowed to see the children of my JW sibling.

With all that ongoing colossal mindfarking happening, in retrospect I really can't understand why I even wanted to maintain a relationship with my JW family members.

Now that I am out and able to look back on my JW childhood with open eyes, I can see that my parents and no doubt many other JW parents as well used the fear and guilt tactics common to the WTS as a means of controlling and disciplining us, instead of good parenting skills.

There was always a fear instilled into us that we needed to learn to be very obedient in every little issue so that when (not if) the time of persecution came we would not give in under pressure, even under torture.  We constantly had those horrible experiences in the yearbooks and awake about the witnesses in Germany or Malawi etc read to us to reinforce this tactic.  I lived in constant dread of being tortured or watching my family being tortured for our faith.

Another thing that was constantly instilled into us to keep us in a state of fear and guilt was that Jehovah can see everything.  Yes every little thing that we may do wrong, he is watching. And we had to remember that all day, every day, we were a Jehovah's Witness and therefore if we did wrong it would bring reproach on Jehovah's name.

Hopscotch

I hated all those stories of disobedience.  Remember Lot's wife, remember Dinah!

I detested the whole Dinah story.  It was used against me everytime a boy called, or I wanted to go to a party.  Bad association, ya know.  *barf*

Scully, you moved this thread to the right section.  Being bombarded with stories of death and destruction constantly from birth IS child abuse.  The constant fear of displeasing a bloodthirtsy God is alot to put on a small child's shoulders.

Then you move on to your teen years and they tighten the screws.

when i was like 3 or 4, i have vivid memories of my dad praying with me when it was time for bed...one night he wanted me to say my own prayer out loud.  i was embarassed cuz i didnt know what to say...hes proceeds to yell at me and forces me to say a prayer even though i begged him not to make me.

I think I was around 5 when my mother used the story of a child who didn't obey their parents enough, Jehovah^TM saw the child being disobedient and killed the child. Gave me nightmares.

And of course Dinah and how the little vixen got what she asked for... hanging with worldly^TM people like that,  heard that one a lot when I made friends with worldly boy at around age 12.

Ha, I just remeberd about the Dinah one after reading this - so are they saying if you hang out with "worldlys" you deserve to be raped? hmm lovely.

When we used to get smacked - really smacked too, me & my bro (with belt, shoes, slippers etc) they'd say "I dont want to do this, but the bible/soceity tells us to"

My other bro & sis (younger) -  never had this - He was nowhere as strict with them as he was us. I have mentioned this to him & he sort of apologised as that was the done thing then & accepted

Dont hold it against him or anything, but its hard to accept that that was "ok" at the time

Loving parents use the rod Beating kids mentally and physically to mold them is Godly training.

Geez, every time I heard the "Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt" story, I thought about how stupid those adults were - here I was, a kid of 9 - 10, and I recognized the mythological re-telling of a volcanic eruption similar to the pyroclastic flows that destoyed and entombed Pompeii and Herculaneum...  The similarities between that so-called 'pillar of salt' (and the "fire and brimstone" aspects of that story...) and the entombed, preserved-in-volcanic-ash bodies of the Roman Pompeiians - too obvious to miss for all but the most DENSE minds...

But all those adult numbskulls around me were mouthing the stories without really LISTENING to what the stories actually said...  Or maybe they all flunked Earth Sciences when they were in school.

So, I pretty much ignored all the BS - heck, if they couldn't even recognize a volcanic eruption when described to them by primitive, superstitious, Middle Eastern nomadic writers...

Why should I listen to them?  I pretended to, however, to avoid the beatings...

Zid    

I heard the the story of the boys who were mauled by she-bears for teasing Elijah(Elisha?), whenever I would complain about something an elder said.

i am so glad i was not born into the jw`s, my heart goes out to all of you.

From a young boy, whenever I disobeyed I was given a sit-down lecture from the Bible about how the birds would pick my eyes out and them at Armageddon. 

There's more... much more.

iamcleared: Just read your story, and I think it is amazing that you are so well adjusted. Very sad. You are right that we all have stories. Some are just worse than others.

TJ...just read your life story.  That was the saddest, most angering, and then most inspiring personal account of escaping religion and abuse that I've ever read.  Thank you.

I remember the Saturday morning I didn't want to get out of bed and go in field service. My mother told me "Don't do it for me, Do it for Jehovah." This particular morning, I didn't feel like doing it for Jehovah. She came back and said, "Let me put it this way, do it or else you're going to GET IT."

Right then I knew doing it for Jehovah was all bullshit.

I got the same BS line and my brain still didn't click into gear.

Good one Nos.

Cheers

Chris

Michael Jackson's view of childhood.