Naomi was raised in one of those JW families that didn’t have a tv and that limited books because they were reflective of Satan’s world. Their lives, even their limited traveling, revolved around the Kingdom work. You’re going to see how even in such a controlled environment a child still has their own mind and thoughts, and how that plays out. It was really interesting what woke Naomi up, and you’re even going to find out how a Buzzfeed quiz can get a JW reprimanded.
James was a member of the Old Order Swiss Amish but James is gay and that obviously caused a lot of difficulty for him. Just this week he had his story shared in The New York Times. He’s taken his life from a place that is closed off and drab and he’s built a life of openness and color.
Today we have a story that’s different than the norm. We’re going to get to know Dave Warnock, former pastor and member of a charismatic evangelical Pentecostal church who is shunned by his children. But the story is bigger than that. Dave has been diagnosed in the last few months with ALS, sometimes commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and he knows that he only has a finite time left in his life. This is truly inspiring story and we talk about a subject that few want to talk about, death. More than that, we talk about life, as death isn’t as scary as never truly living.
For Dave’s contact information, more information about him, ways to support him, please click HERE.
Chloe’s family was in the circuit work, but her family also had a lot of pressure in the house, pressure that she’ll describe in a way that will put you right there, pressure that perhaps you felt in your home if you too had a particularly volatile parent. Chloe, like so many, lived a double life and ended up getting married young to another JW. Today she shares custody of her daughter with that JW and at my request she provides some really amazing advice for others in that situation. There are a lot of things here that I’m sure you’ll relate to on some level.
Today we have Nico’s story. Nico has actually already been on the podcast, at the end of episode 23 after Sherrie’s interview. He told the story of his first Christmas in the Facebook group and it was such an amazing story that I had him call in and record it and played it on the show.
Nico is one of the youngest guests that I’ve had. He was able to break free from the cult with so much life ahead of him, but the life that he left behind is still fresh and he lost a lot of people that he cared about in the process. In his story you’ll see what kind of person he his, how he tried to live that dub life, and also how things happened that led to him waking up. In fact, there’s a story at the end that involves another person, and I know that you like I will want an update on them. So I have an update for you to share after the interview.
I really had to think about how to describe this episode. A word kept popping out at me and that’s “tough”. Yolanda faced verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse inside the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but she comes through with this tough and resilient spirit. Yolanda isn’t officially shunned and we’ve done things to protect her identity. She has become a haven for some shunned people in her local area. Her story needs to be told because it’s indicative of a lot of what goes on behind closed doors inside the organization. They used to talk about a scripture that referred to whitewashed graves that looked nice but held dead men’s bones inside. There is so much in this story that is going on that will show you inside just another JW family, and you’ll see how some things like sexual abuse are perpetuated through the veil of secrecy in their hierarchy.
Georgia grew up in what Jehovah’s Witnesses often refer to as a “divided household”. Her mother was a faithful JW, her father violently opposed. In this episode you’ll see how that opposition actually played into the hands of the Witnesses. You’ll see how someone from an abusive situation ended up in another abusive situation after being raped. Georgia faces PTSD after a life of abuse, secret Bible study drills, and the doctrine of an imminent fiery destruction of the world, but she does so with a sense of humor and going for her dreams in life.
Nicholas was a member of an online ministry that seems to have some hallmarks of a cult called Is, Was, and Will Be. This is a really unique look into how what seems to be a cult can get its hooks in someone that is never even present physically. Imagine getting sucked into an online world where your fellowship is primarily through email chats and a website with information on it. There must be some profound mental games being played. This is a great look into some of them. In fact, I don’t mention it during the interview, but the term gaslighting comes to mind at times.
Teachings seemed to be somewhat misery and suffering based, Nicholas was wrestling with his own sexuality, and in the end the annihilation of the “self” was something that caused him to be lost for some time. After much trauma therapy Nicholas is on his way back to finding himself again.
Resources Mentioned:
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Welcome to the shunned podcast we expose religions that you shunning as a tool to control people before we get ended a story I like to take a minute to promote something that I have coming up starting Sunday, March 10 at 7 PM Eastern time I will be leading a coaching/support group for people that are interested the goal is pretty simple I were to work through our past to discover things about ourselves that will help us are present and were gonna figure out who we are and then work on trying to compose a better future life’s about growth it’s it’s easy to get stuck after leaving a cult some looking for just six people to participate in this if you like to join me go to the website Sean podcast.com click on the coaching page for more information and you know hopefully you have really nothing to lose here and a lot to gain you know I think that it will be really beneficial for people to work through some of the stuff and you discover some things about themselves because a lot of times it’s really covered up when you grow up in such a controlling environment all right so now let’s go and get on with the show today we have the story of Nicholas now Nicholas was a member of an online ministry that seems to have some of the hallmarks of a cult called is was and will be so yes that’s the title is is was and will be the really unique look into how this call gets its hooks into somebody that never even been present physically if you really think about that is one thing to get somebody into a cult when you have the love bombing physically and then all the physical unit of people are coming to your door and things like that like and Jehovah’s Witnesses but imagine getting sucked into an online world where your fellowship is primarily through email chats and a website with information on it or maybe their videos and things like that there really has to be some profound mental games being played in such an environment and this is a really good look into some of them in fact I don’t mention it during the interview but there were several times during it and actually mentioned this necklace later he kind of agree but that the term gas lighting comes to mind so without further do let’s get to meet Nicholas my name is Nicholas I’m 34 years old I was a member of the is was and will be cold and I’m shunned I necklace so then how did you come to be a member of that that particular cult was it later in life you I was around the age of 21 area I kind of had some exposure to the Bible before then mainly to my own interests and pursuits and I didn’t actually have anybody in my immediate family that shared that interest until my mother married into the very distant sky and in him and his dad was like an ex-minister in the kind of thing and he and I was having Bible discussions and I kind of noticed that he and I had a similar view of the Scriptures we kind of had a spiritual act like really trying to kind of look at the spiritual meaning behind certain things which I hadn’t been exposed to in my experiences with religion before then so I was like drawn into discussions with him and he recommended this Bible teacher named Ray Smith and at the time he had a very large online following because he basically created this website and he had meticulously dismantled the entire doctrine of eternal torment and sort of showing to the Scriptures that no everlasting punishment no going to hell no all the stuff he’s just completely dismantle the whole idea and how all men will be saved in the end and when you song about this teacher it instantly resonated with me as being true and just to shorten the story will work more I started reading his papers which led me to a different teacher named Mike Vinson and at the time you just started a website called is was and will be.com where he had his own teachings and desert reading his papers and they were very ultralight spiritual readings of the Bible and I was really drawn and about and so I talked to him off off and on for about three years by email and it wasn’t really like a church at that point this was the call that ended up joining him. At that time it it wasn’t really a concrete like fellowship and but within three years it was kind of Mormon established church and it was by that time that I was a regular member against while that’s that’s a pretty fascinating journey I believe you said it was Ray Smith started you off kind of with breaking down the teaching of of everlasting torment and I was thinking you what a great lead-in that is for anyone because a fiery hell is a great fear for a lot of people and so if you can break that teaching down that is going to be something that is going to have impact on others for my view as as a former Jehovah’s Witness that was actually Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in a fiery hell and that is something that is very attractive to a lot of people so you so I can deftly see how you just just even that one points getting involved in that way you start you down the path and then you lead you to Mike Vinson and Ann this other in his teachings so you then I guess were directly involved or maybe maybe involves the wrong time but you were around at least for the very beginnings of this new colt which you need that a unique place place to be so will get a yeah you have very few people get to be at the at that that point about him not so sure that that’s a great thing but it’s the unique thing it and and and and and Mike Vinson had actually been in fellowship with Ray Smith at the time and I just now I putting the pieces together like that group like Mike Vinson’s group basically formed out of separating from from Ray Smith this off of a doctrinal difference and say I was definitely like that I want it all began for for Mike Vinson and he may have developed followers Reno people that were into his his thing because of the connection to Rissman wow that’s interesting how these things all play off of one another amid I don’t know how many cults are really created in a vacuum it seems like a lot of times they spin off of something else and usually it is some doctrinal difference something they want to set themselves apart from that other group that there there breaking away from so let’s let’s get your background a little bit there before you got there was there anything what was your childhood like you growing up what what was it you know him most people like we’ve talked about before don’t don’t just end up in a cult for no reason usually we have things that that happen in our lives the kind of attract us to it I know you know for my in my own family I believe anyway that it was probably my mom hasn’t trauma in her past a lot of times people are looking for certainty looking for something that that strikes a chord with them and sometimes it strikes a chord because they have other things in their past that kind of lead them in that direction so you kind of what was your childhood like what was it like growing up were you that you mentioned that you weren’t super religious but she kinda got involved later how that can play out for you him well my parents split at a young age and my mom basically had no like there is no churchgoer anger talking about praying or God or if there wasn’t like any of that kind of him in the background but my dad he he was he was definitely more drawn to and interested in like the Bible and trying to figure out the worldliness and he remembered when I would visit him when I was younger that he either had all these books on the shelf about setting the Bible and he himself studied the Bible that you never like tried to teach me stuff about the Bible it was more like I kind of saw his interest from a distance and he he did take me to you to go to church at the time you since left the church as well but he am he he did take me to church sometimes when I was younger a Pentecostal kind of churches and but I can’t say that it really impacted me at that point the real impact came when I got a little bit older mosaic nine or 10 and I visited my family in Austin are upset of St. Louis and they were very involved in the church just kind of general Orthodox Christianity and their entire family very large family would like read the Bible together pray together and one thing I noticed when I visited them was that their family system was very peaceful was very orderly and there is something about it that was like a relief to me in some ways when I would visit them and so I would if if I received any indoctrination I would’ve done to them or any influence on it was mainly through them and it was actually my visits with them that created my first interest in like getting a Bible reading the Bible and I remember and so after that I kind of study the Bible on my own or least reading it and thinking that there is something important there but not really knowing exactly what that meant for us so it’s kind of the religious background what up to everything I guess yeah and it seems like there might be even kind of a was it wasn’t you talk about the peace in this family was that something that was attractive to you because your parents had splits or had that happen to Kurt yet is wondering if you maybe sometimes you can see this peaceful family dynamic and maybe that kind of drew you in because that something you are you are really wanting in your own life at that point utilized as a kid yeah it’s kind of difficult to describe but there is definitely something living you know there is something in my home life that was not stable and I remember actually I recently remembered this that I when I came back from one of those trips to St. Louis I remember actually having the courage to tell my mom at the time that I that I wanted to to move there and then to live there with them so I and in retrospect that’s not a really good sign from the child is saying that Seattle must and I’m still now I’m out of the cold system I’m actually starting to look back at all these things and to process things little bit more thing happened even outside of the cold better the kind of set up a false view of the worldliness you can see that I can see that and yes I do think that coming home and pretty much being like I want to go there with those people know that the death not a good sign whether whether it’s whether it was the family dynamic or whether you are just attracted to the teachings I guess that that were leading to what you saw in that other family you that’s that’s not really great I don’t know I’m just starting to learn about attachments myself and attachment styles and things like that the way you’re supposed to attach to your own family of the child and things like that it is a fascinating study itself as to how we how we connect the things and the yeah definitely a person with a a great secure attachment home is typically not going to want to go live with someone else and and I think that you’re definitely not alone that I think there are a lot of kids who who grow up and in, feel the same way so so you started your getting some interest in the Bible you got this extended family there that that has kind of gotten you off on that start how does that develop as you as you progress as a child and your teenage years the young adulthood Gothic you said you’re pretty young that how does that continue to to grow I guess until you end up where you and eventually ended up on wall there is also this other dynamic of you know growing up were you know I kind of had the realization through my peers at school that something well-off about me and I know I do kind of slow realization.I’m gay and that wasn’t something that even my mom who wasn’t trying to push any kind of like religious stuff farming likeness of something that wasn’t you know wasn’t approved of and so I think from an early age like there is kind of already dislike self annihilation kind of thing growing you know where you have to like somehow like deny deny a certain part of your personality or you are and and so was already kind of primes for that the concept of denying the self into killing the self things like that and but it didn’t other interest and this is all stuff that I’m learning now away after the fact but like there’s the concept of like dissociation through traumatic types of things you know and so we look back on the process leading up to the cold join the cold joining I can see now I was asked so incredibly dissociated from my own perceptions of the world and and what I really felt about things and am so I kind of don’t really see myself as sort of like my authentic self back then you up but at the exactly specific time at the call came into my life I just gotten out of a well but a year after I got none of the four year-long relationship and it was a relationship with a girl and get going back to dissociation and really not being taught anything about what I was doing with you I kind of didn’t put things together and I just thought that my intense interest or my enjoyment of spinning time with her neck and stuff was you know indicative of who are really was and am so whenever that relationship ended I really definitely felt like I didn’t know who I was nose, afraid of that part of me and so yelling that was kind of the stuff that was going on right before joining the Colts along with some career changes and things like that at the pilots a really fascinating observation just the the part about the self annihilation or in our annihilation of the self and I only imagine what it must be like like you said your family wasn’t specifically religious but just growing up and realizing that your “different than other people who are portrayed as the quote Norm in society for it is I’m glad that it’s changing that there is no more more acceptances time is going by of our differences but I can only imagine how much the the vilification almost in the culture of of being something difference of a something is and submits at personal as one’s own sexuality that has to that really has to be so difficult and in it in that I hate to see that the people get stuck in and I guess the role trying to find yourself I think we we all do that a lot of ways but sometimes that that comes through a denial of who we really are and I can definitely see how that could set a person up to be right for the pickings when something comes along that is all about denial of the self which most of these cults are the minute it’s all about them it’s not about you here yeah hadn’t really produce the most things together until recently about here I didn’t even need a colt to tell me that I am had to deny myself analyst is true for a lot of people but you mean what’s the part of the work culture is called him the when you look at the prevailing culture of American society being different is never been it has has often been a problem and the it’s not as it accepting that used to be a day I guess it’s getting better but the still have a long way to go as far as accepting the other butts it when you grow up in a I guess is just really human dignity were all very tribal when you grow up in the in a mindset of of seeing people grouped in these different tribes then it’s easy for a person to start denying who they are to try to join the tribe because we all want to fit in every body wants to fit in somewhere and it’s very difficult when you feel like the the odd man out and really sorry that you had to had to face that you know within yourself as far as her sexuality went everything that’s I know that’s very difficult for people yeah him I hadn’t yet separately that relief like you found her tribe there is a point that feeling because the I don’t know exactly how does with Jehovah’s Witnesses but on a colt suffering was a really important thing you know and it was really like that’s our purpose in life is to suffer and suffer for Christ and to kill self and experienced this this the pain of losing your life with those are all really really good things really noble things and really heroic things to do that so I don’t know like I’m a blended the two together or something and if I will maybe the reason why my life is you know your seems like I can’t really limit that that that that that means that me like that that’s why I kind of resonated a lot with this group because because like 01 yeah maybe God has been calling me you know this entire time he’s been preparing me for this very specific group of people which is also very ironically very self-righteous self-righteous aware of where way of twisting it all that they like you know maybe that’s maybe that’s why all of this has happened is because I’m a part of this group that God is calling to experience this unit extreme suffering are now at that actually like understanding and agreeing with our doctrines which I also know resonated with me so I that was even more indication that or maybe this really is who I am now while that’s that’s really fascinating yes Jehovah’s Witnesses have a very Missouri-based view of the world that that it’s as they call it this wicked old system of things and I think it attracts a lot of people who are kind of down and out or have had a hard time conforming or fitting in or succeeding in this world and so rather than looking inward it’s easier to just say hey this is all part of a plan and God has set these things in motion and instead of instead of being and see you be special in different ways you can be special as an outcast or you can be you can be special because you’re being persecuted and it’s also a persecution complex or suffering because because this part of God’s plan and or as part of as they see it though this wicked world that we live in so that that’s that’s pretty fascinating because that is a lot of there is a lot of suffering based feelings as Jehovah’s Witnesses even and I imagine that’s the fact of the don’t talk to Brenda who was a fellow the Addison and different ones you gather is there is a a feeling of being special and a feeling of making things right are being writes and at the same time things going so utterly wrong and being so painful on the other side and the religions, help smooth all that over these cults by telling you that you ultimately these bad things that are happening in this pain that you have that’s really because your special what what a great sales. Tell because so many people on this earth we all have pain in our lives you know and if somebody can can take that pain and make it a a special thing that that you actually think is good and they can easily draw you to them and I can definitely see how that how that would happen has interesting stuff from there made that’s an interesting connection how today so how did you hear me talk a little bit about how you went from Ray Smith to Mike Vinson how you how you kind of got in that realm in the first place how what was it’s a C what was that was the appeal might yeah yeah what was it only was it just as the suffering aspect because of me obviously you have a lot of pain in your life you’re you’re denying who you are and that I can’t imagine and I know how painful it was just to deny myself and be inauthentic as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses let’s say butts to deny your own sexuality and and like you said there were other things going on in life for some career changes in such when you’re in that point about people what was it that can you say or maybe you can’t pinpoint what was it that attracted you to Mike Vinson I think I keep one memory that stands out from that specific transition is you know this Mike Vinson’s group like really focused on the spirit meant that was like probably the most uttered words like in and everything that we talked about and this idea that there is a spiritual understanding of things and there’s a natural understanding of things and so I think that was the thing that really really compelled me at first was this idea of having a spiritual understanding of the world and not if I had a spiritual understanding then the world would make sense him now and so remember specifically praying at that time for to be given a spiritual understanding of things and even Paul talks about this a lot you mean about having a spiritual mind and remember specifically wanting about and so whenever I read papers written by Mike Vince and and they made sense to me I thought the government that I have asked that I have that I’m being given you a spiritual understanding which says apparently some unique thing you know that only the group has and on that was really the biggest thing that first remand and I can describe a little bit like our doctrines I know some of them are very similar to Jehovah’s witness yeah I’d be interested in hit you know what what the doctrine kind of was in a nutshell because I am having a he will be fascinated to hear that so when they read the Bible the way they read the Bible was from cover to cover every single word there is not a single word that was looked over as an insignificant and along with that there was a real focus on deriving like the spiritual meaning behind the letter and kind of getting past the letter because the letter blinds people to the true meaning of Jesus spoke in parables so that they would not understand that only a few people would understand what they really meant that I was kind of the general philosophy about reading the Scriptures has furs like really specific doctrines they themselves wouldn’t switch say that we haven’t no list of doctrines because to have a list of doctrines is like a Orthodox thing to do so they were just say something like the Bible is our doctrine that over time you can kind of isolate the big things the circle drive everything in the to the number one thing is like God is 100% sovereign so you know God creates good and evil God is working all over the snow like God allows or anything like that like we literally had no say in the matter he’s written the entire story in advance we have no free will and also the world is basically divided between the true church and everyone else in that the Orthodox that that Orthodox Christianity specifically is sort of like the great deceiver in the world because they’re mixing in a truth with lies and so there like deceptive on a greater scale and also if your believing the ways of the true church and you sort of resonate with Hertz resident with the suffering on a lot like Van that means that your special or even called out or whatever and not now your job is to be as Christ so there are very specific about how it wasn’t just Jesus Christ in the flesh it was also about him calling on disciples as well that would basically have the same experience he had been in our lifetime we spiritually not necessarily physically so we may not necessarily be persecutor no across her things like that but that we would basically be living the same exact suffering that Christ did on the earth to overcome the earth with him and so is once you’ve gone through your your life and you overcome the world and overcome yourself then that makes you part of Christ’s rulers think and revelation it talks about how hundred and 24,000 you how in the first resurrection like Christ you know like Christ and his rulers you know like that there’s multiple people that are can carry out this process of saving the world and bring rest of mankind into the fold so yeah there is that idea that if we stay on this path and we overcome and were faithful to the end than will be in the first resurrection and then if that doesn’t happen that so God’s will and if somebody is shunned or if they have a doctrinal difference that means they were never really part of the group and things like that big focus on killing himself having Christ sort of takeover your thoughts and everyone else’s blinds and led astray you know specifically by God’s will is not like they are deceived and it in a way that is somehow a serving God’s will yes is there a belief in Satan or the devil area but it’s a belief that he was created by God so okay I gotcha so he still exist so as not another word is not God who is orchestrating the good and the evil but God created the devil and so therefore I guess directly or indirectly he created the bad things that go on yeah so if someone is is if someone succeeds for you according to then God has sent an evil spirit to him bring about it’s interesting because there there’s there’s a theme that I’m hearing a you as you’re saying all this there’s a theme that I’m hearing and it’s almost I want to say it’s acceptance but acceptance is healthy it sounds like resignation it’s like so you have a God who is pretty much resigned good and evil happens whatever just accept it or no just be resigned to it don’t try to influence it just just let it happens to be resigned to that and then it sounds like you’re also to be review as a follower in this this one true church are supposed to be resigned to whatever happens in your life happens and there’s nothing you can do about it and even the teachings when it comes to this spiritual outlook and it sounds like you’re not really trying to see the cassette you not really trying to glean it any any solid points from anything that happens you’re almost as kind of resigned there as well to whatever happens it must’ve been God’s will oh yeah definitely everything gets filtered through what you’re going to learn about everything in the world spiritually yes is not about yes on about but that spiritually thing is so so nebulous there’s no real form to it in the so you’re just kind of resigned too well that happens and then it sounds like you’re not really trying to so that each person can kind of make it their own on a level let’s not have rules so to speak let’s individually it seems like if you’re individually looking at each thing that happened in your life through a quote spiritual lens and if no one seems to be trying to solidly interpret that it seems like it’s kind of everything is kind of open to interpretation a little bit spiritually so then you kinda get to make it what you want without be an accurate depiction yeah yeah deftly heard numerous times like if if if something was perceived as a contradiction in Scriptures United States and like it’s also because you just don’t have UG just seeing it spiritually and yeah and that’s actually stuff that I struggled with the group whether I vocalized it clearly you’re aggressively enough that those kinds of mysteries over time really do you start to wonder you know after certain after certain time like when we really talking about here you yet seem like there’s not a lot of form to it is not that there’s not a lot of substance it’s the fairly looked open to interpretation then what really is there a guy it’s that’s why I guess maybe that’s why the group was so heavily focused on studying the Bible all the time so Sir focus was kind of like on interpreting the scriptures and learning about our heavens like that that’s what they refer to a lot of his or her mind you really getting at a sense of what’s happening in our heavens spiritually which in retrospect now I’m out of it all it’s really interesting a lot of the parallels you know that you concert to see about what the Scriptures are kind of alluding to the things that happened you know psychologically accepts the problem with these religious spiritual groups is that everything gets put into this framework of something nebulous in something that you can’t see something that involves spirits sort of know going through our minds and you’re the sort of like other altar reality that sort of barrel all the time serving we were kind of getting specific but really just in terms of interpreting Scripture’s address and learning how to deal with the mind I guess like what like what underlies and what are truths basically and had assertive see-through things that are lies I guess so what are truths that according to them because it sounds like it’s kind of open to interpretation almost individually yeah that or is it is a interpretation did was Mike Vinson the one who was truly interpreting everything everyone was to follow his interpretation I don’t like I have yet like a concrete sense of the really high specifics of what was going on with the teachings and even out of it like it I like I was like my response to the question of what is truth according to them would be there focus on things like this sort of the the mind of Christ basic was what they were calling like developing the mind of Christ the way you respond to things the way you operate I guess in the world and like that those things are truths I guess that there all encapsulated in this mind of Christ kind of concept data and what it is and so now and then ask what is the mind of Christ is like it is like each thing becomes like the next level of a guest a phrase or or something like nothing nothing seems very concrete and to be quite honest like it sounds like it sounds like a very philosophical mind fuck the whole thing it sounds it sounds kind of know it’s at the most like they’re there letting you leaving you to your own on some level but kind of more almost like directing how you do that or something if it is a that interesting concept yeah I think I know you mean it’s I did like I don’t really know too much about other cultic kind of groups I know if it was like if that if that issue is like common with other groups are not by union others definitely remember saying to one of the elders at one point that it feels like I’m like if you like a mind like it feels like everything were doing is and I wasn’t saying this like out of like trying to challenge that I was saying it out of fear way what if all of this is a mind game so yeah I have a vague understanding of of your confusion and like it’s just like it’s the way that I like it’s the environment I was in for so long so not really know how it’s perceived by other people say it’s interesting to hear you seems very undefined you mentioned that so so what was life like in it and did you that you have to go live with them over her how how did you play out this life obvious and there’s a website that seems like you can probably maybe do this wherever you are in the world or does that draw you to them in some way yeah it’s sir online kind of group and they people usually find them by doing a Google search on some topic or something and they start to read teachings on the websites which there’s thousands of teachings even down to like the spiritual meaning of the color white and like everything the spiritual meaning of the color white yeah I know I take apart like all these references to white in the Scriptures and you know that’s so weird detailed I’m just now starting to realize like they could literally like they had to have material to really supports that mysterious group like where we actually doing here and so I think that’s what they do like that’s all they perpetuate is like through all of these really really intense detailed studies so kinda become so focused on the book I teachings and not and you I rehearsing it is just like a big mind game really is interesting the I was on my ministry and so people just kind of find them randomly and then read the couple papers and go a while or actually a lot of the members came from orthodox Christianity were maybe even kicked out like X you know people that were shunned from other groups because of beliefs and so like they’d find Mike Vinson’s group and they say like while like the the people and I’m looking for my entire life would actually think that where like believe what I believe him so is very scattered group like all the world literally almost and but still there is maybe only 50 really active members say I was online Bible studies through like GoToMeeting or things like that like every day of the week we had a email forum and we also had conferences away we had like meet ups in person as well we usually have like a couple big get-togethers a year and then if you lived by anyone locally and often travel so I mean I actually met my concern right before it became difficult because he actually lived an hour away from my family in Georgia which was kind of a weird realization but so I went and visited him after been talking for a while one surrealist relived so there is also like in person element but is not as common as sending an email making a phone call or things like that gotcha so how do you join how does a person actually what is it you get baptized or something or how’s that work on that’s kind of creepy now that I think about it because the really isn’t a concrete system so basically someone will contact Mike Vinson or one of the elders and talk about their interest in the group address and how it resonates with them but it’s really weird I think about how inside the group which is in a have to be on a special email system or special email address I guess that you don’t really care about people coming in in school or when new people can come into the group it’s really through this email system in a way I mean there are some people that went on the email system just come to Bible studies online but using people came and it was almost like they were like they like when they came on email system they were coming there to see if it was the right fit like they were like it was almost as if they came NRA nine like this is the group for them and they were they were almost like presold yet another think about is a market and a weird kind of weird that most everyone seemed to come in like they’d made up their mind in a way like this was their people and so there is no like official process for rank some land but there’s a very very official process for removing someone says, on another think about it that you know that they basically I guess you just kind of show your your fruit I guess like the fruits of the spirit is what they would probably say your question that Sarah will if somebody showing fruits of the spirit and are contributing in their an agreement on that the must mean that are part of us are some to be honest I’m just taking notes here because I have a Facebook group now for the podcast and to start my own little cult that I get people presold with the this whole podcast is just a a façade to bring people into my group and I really have a I’m sure you get the trip I would imagine you may have gotten some detractors this point as well no actually I do have one of have some people who go on iTunes and leave the one star you click the one start thing but there’s only one person in so far his left me a of a one star review and actually had the guts to speak up so that’s kinda interesting maybe you can start the coffee I don’t have any detractors that we are doing this wrong or maybe is right I don’t know yeah that is really fascinating though that you just like anybody can kind of wander into this this email loop that you’ve gotten this cult but but they’re coming deep down the line already so is there like some sort of like an unseen process or is that copy on the website just that good or what it what is it that getting them but you know well yeah there is actually at least in some examples there is kind of a pre-I think there is a pre-selling I also of the group because I have noticed in some correspondences that are made public or even stories I’ve heard something out of the group that you know a lot of times people write to Mike Vinson or somebody else in the group and also showing all the things about their life and you know and how the teachings makes sense than the and a lot of times you can definitely see that very subtle indication from Mike or one of the other leaders that young maybe there is something really special to this and the answer there is I think a pretty fast or quick jump I think on Mike Sanders many other leaders if someone writes writes them that they immediately probably commiserate with the person more than speculate should share what you’ve got but it’s basically a suffering based cult that I’m sure there’s a lot of commiseration on that in so that what is in this for a because it most in most cults there’s something in it for the person at the top B money power sex notoriety may be feeling special themselves like their the Messiah or their saving people or whatever do you know so I did did was there a lot of that you have to do a lot of contributing financially or again that’s what I’m doing with patriotic my own podcast here what was it that they got people that that what wasn’t in it for them either as you would think that there would be something in it for them that’s been one of the things it’s really been really challenging to kind of pull apart in the aftermath is what was the real benefit hearing I can definitely see some benefits like announcing this was the case for them although in the past week I’ve heard some developments about this group to kind of confirm the suspicion that it is definitely the possibility of some kind of power that although they probably wouldn’t call it power you know and then I guess cultic systems have like this unspoken unconscious sort of process if you like I like getting to the top maybe are you like there’s a sort of the subtle process for people and getting sucked in like wanting to be helpful and then if if people start saying that their wives are they have a lot of wisdom or something like thoughts Mr. churning like all like is this should be a teacher you know there’s kind of this built-in culture I guess and itself there that has something to do with power or raising sure a higher place but no there was not any like really obvious like really obvious signs of like the cold exploiting people interesting because there is no asking for money there is no although it was talked about occasionally there is no there is no like coverts control like people getting like labor out of people or things like that now you you mentioned that I think in one email you actually called it an authoritarian Colts where what would you say you made it authoritarian to him while VM because it was really strictly governed by a group of people so there’s maybe five people is sort of renovating except my concern he was saying that he’s not the leader parts he definitely acted that way but city have had a group of leaders that return to make decisions like hard and fast like doctrinal decisions about things and so is authoritarian and not science up and are expected to conform to that new doctrinal belief yeah I mean they they could say like you can leave whenever you want or you can believe whatever you want but there is also this whole other layer baggage were urinary in that belief system so I mean like if you leave then the knots really the ultimate kind of being lost I guess yeah okay so so if you leave your scene is supremely lost what you mentioned earlier that if you do try to leave so there’s no process for getting in but there is a process when you leave so do you want to discuss so what that process is or would you like to tell your own story and in how this all played out for you well there’s not really a specific process for help PR for people that just want to leave a lot of times people will just kind of drift away or no without saying anything or they’ll bring up some issue that they have weathered stock during or whatever is no processor people just to just want to leave but there is a process for if the person is really trying to influence maybe their disagreement so someone is really like disagreeing then there is a process that the church you know deals with that disagreement and then if they don’t conform to whatever the official statement is done the nurse Sean Berger kicked out and you have this dull just alert the entire church you know about the person in the disagreements and where and you know not to associate with them any further in business for like associate them with them and no way at all and not the purpose of the shunning is to make them ashamed and to their their phrase was to to lots Satan destroy their flesh you know of course in a spiritual context everything but what met me suffering is suffering optimal yeah so there is you know like every few months I don’t know maybe not that frequent but there is at least 10 people you know in my 8 to 10 your involvement that there is a least 10 people that were shunned and probably you know a handful of people just can’t disappeared on and if they shun you this if if they shun you there’s also this process of coming back and I don’t know that it’s a concrete process could never witness to.I on I never saw like this concrete process take place but they say that they have to do is they have to inspect you spiritually if you were to come back that fence KV is that me and straying in the just like they just email back and forth with you or something and make sure that your legit or yeah the sad thing is I don’t think that they really have a system for the gun not the stone something that they believe in their minds like their local talk with you maybe but to call that a no inspecting for spiritual what leprosy is the call that you are just has basically are unimagined just a conversation with someone but you have the make sense so what was what was it said before I get to what woke you up or how you got out your life inside of its what were your feelings when you are inside of this is seems like it’s had quite an impact on you may be out of psychological user is a right word, but it’s been somewhat dramatic this hold this whole involvement with it what was it’s that that really got to you and in a negative way there was I think about the 3 to 4 years into her I was when things really started to deteriorating for me sir can you repeat the? Just the basics yet is one that you know you’ve obviously had somewhat of a traumatic experience through this process what was it what was it about being involved in this cult that was I guess so traumatic for you what was it that that really messed with you while I’m like 16 months out of it now and I’m still configuring SFL but I have isolated some things there there was definitely like there is a family like this sense that I wasn’t growing in the group that I wasn’t developing the court” fruits of the spirit that the group was and you know because after a few years I can really say why specifically but like I started to really get very confused about all the very like disoriented because it’s like trying to understand everything and it was always the like always this dynamic of somebody telling me what the truth is in telling me what the reality is and so after certain about that after certain time like I trusted the leaders more than I trusted my own mind and so if I didn’t understand something and that was me doing with aligning spirits or me being deceived to me not having enough faith things like that seems like a lot of Seth self-doubt and self questioning yeah and what’s weird is I had it all the time I never really doubted what I can ever? Is this a cold or no man in my and something that’s bad for me and that I did I think subconsciously I started I can’t like like I mentioned earlier like feeling like it’s all online game you know like those things really started to bother me when I would realize things that make sense for certain contradictions to me but it was like I didn’t really feel like I could go down that path of really really questioning and if I did they would always have an answer for him for everything every confusion and there was always some meticulous breakdown of Scripture on Sardis the stuff it was like damaging I guess would’ve been like being in this group and like feeling trapped in a sense because like this is the way like this is the way the world works this is your goddess God is sovereign and a free will so like he apparently did you know will all of this to happen and so if I’m not growing and I don’t belong at it and I don’t usually do I I belong to the true body of Christ like just that the fear of like wall if I don’t belong there were no but I deftly don’t belong anywhere because I agree with this group like I was the real disorienting thing about it was like I agree with like I know the things they they talked about made sense to me to certain degree and I thought that there is a lot of meaning to what the group held but if you then didn’t fully agree and then you had us lying spirit or whatever so then it’s almost like God was rejecting you is that that kind how you felt yeah that was the sense I had over time was that because their definition of God loving someone is if he know that that technically like you this goes back to the whole nebula six spiritual concept which spiritually God loves everyone but also he only loves the hell like the true body and those are his true songs is true children so beautifully that impression after a long time like wall if I’m not growing and they’re hinting at this idea that I’m not molding I don’t belong there that I maybe I’m not really a child of God and to add to that confusion even more they would get mad at me if I selected and belonged so that if I said so that if I said that the to be these are the kinds of things that are really like hard to like extracts like for my brain’s like it’s so weird like that that if I said that I felt like I didn’t belong then they would sales into lying spirit but if I was feeling things are thinking things that were you know not growing demand would be the ones to kind of comply that I don’t have enough faith or unite and then it slowly devolved into getting worse and worse they now I will say that there is also an element on my end that I’m still trying to process through but like you know whether it was some type of like your talk about attachment trauma earlier you know if there is some trauma that are brought into the group that was exacerbated or something by this group or if stuff happens inside the group specifically but I am now is very unstable in the cult when I got to select for years and so I was like really badly like it emotionally does regulating in dissociating and I didn’t know I was doing that at the time was constantly confused and’s and I would pretty regularly like every couple weeks have some kind of confusion breakdown and I would seek out the help of other people in the group and so when I goes on for many years it starts to wear down the group as well and you wasn’t it was like I was lashing out at or disagreeing with them or things like that or they’re just like complaining or some like I really strong drive to understand things and to make sense of it all for God answered my prayers to finally give me that special thing that everyone else has but over time it slowly devolved with them to Reno taking I was accusing them of certain things that I was trying to dominate them and that there is something about me I guess that they considered a threat that was trying to divide them I have no conscious awareness of trying to do that by discount that’s kind of the things that they developed as far as so by the end there you know according to the group there just wasn’t there something wrong about me or something to be cautious about and then did they kick you out or how did that how did you end up out yeah they are icon in sense that the that I was going to be Sean like a couple weeks before it happens because I guess like I could sense that whatever that was in me that was unstable and not really responding well to this environments or whatever the environment was triggering or whatever was like I sense that that part of me was like growing stronger so there is a pointless sense that I was to be Sean the couple weeks before happened and so the very day that I was shunned I can assure this personal thing with the group that you just sort of way realizing what happened all these years that and in a sense in trying to like except that I didn’t unit that that apparently God was bringing me into this group and so I assured one morning that I felt you know God had pushed me to this place no IQ journey to this place and I was having that me having all these struggles was sort of driving the group away maybe your work or causing issues I guess and so I kinda was coming to that realization and acceptance of that of whites God was working in my life and I said that I… Kind of kind of a resignation and acceptance kind of thing but anyway so when I sent this message out to everyone very a few responded very angrily that I had accused them of abandoning me when I the intent behind the message was that I felt God was pissing me and that I understood why you know why things were working out I guess and why and why there was this natural sort of division happening I guess between the two of us and they like automatically took that as me accusing them which happened very frequently in the last year that I would say things and they would sales accusing them that I just I really was so confused like trying to figure out how I was accusing them privately like trying to work through it like what was just I couldn’t see and so buddy I gotta tell you I’m listening to this and I’m confused this that this is the way they they act and everything it sounds like like it almost sounds like it sounds like you are really sincere dude who probably have little pain in your life well maybe a lot of pain in your life and just just the whole sexuality thing alone as it is enough to be a lot and’s that you are is something you are a sincere dude was some pain who was trying to fit in who found the group that you thought you could fit into and it sounds like you tried everything you could to fit in and these people had at best a confusing doctrine of that I don’t know the type that the whole doctrine thing is it seems like because it earlier like a mind fuck and then it seems like whenever you bring something out up like it’s all secure in a group of narcissists and anything that you brought up they made about themselves like you like you said you’re accusing them and they made it all about them instead about of about you and it really gets confusing me because they did devote so much time do you know and they are I know exactly the same but yeah that becomes very difficult afterwards because you realize like well that they were so getting and kind and patient by a certain then you have certain moments where he was like while that was it really makes no sense to young and sometimes sometimes you have a thing where there are people who are pretty narcissistic or whatever a lot of times are some of the more charming people that you will ever meet and that’s just as lower UN and or maybe they just flip-flop I don’t know I mean it it’s very it sounds like you spent eight years and was this something that you did like I don’t know what the frequency was how often were you in contact with these people because I was a part of the email group yeah everyday so like I would receive no emails from everyone liked group good group emails and yeah it’s I was very that that’s the really weird thing like I told you the specific reasons for the shunning that they gave me but they are the really ironic thing is that I was so devoted I was so devoted to the group like there like at the time I wanted nothing more than to have what they called the one mind of Christ and to be in unity within the meaning for me to not for for me to to not have the confusions that I had that would cause issues I guess you wanted to fit in and you wanted to be one of them and you know I did fit in with them the first four years whatever you know or you know I would have moments of understanding that would come and they would talk about how they would relates to and they use this weird back-and-forth was very confusing alike sometimes I was I sometimes I belonged and sometimes I didn’t and I can’t tell if that was something that was happening internally or something it was kind of happening because of the environment but anyway like setting the reason I see I gave a thought I was accusing them and that message and they so they swiftly called for my my shunning from the group and they give me multiple reasons this I was trying to destroy the church and divide them I was trying to spiritually murder the flock I was literally creating spirit I was clearly creating spiritual bloodshed that I was antichrist that I never belong to the entire time I was trying to deceive them the whole time like I like I was some kind of on Alex and kind of person that they knew that they didn’t belong you consciously like they were trying to dislike I was trying to do deceive them and manipulate them or something else said that I was abusive that I was mocking men and that I was a sacrifice of God for their benefit and growth meaning I’m I spent all those aged 10 years and only got worse but they actually that I was actually created you know by God this was the implication of a statement that I was created by God to brought into this group to cause tribulation for this group said that they would grow and become better saviors you know of the world and grow in their faith and also that I had there in words do what is it that’s pretty stern words that the water rebuke you so there is multiple reasons and I believe them like I believe everything they said but that’s how this was so weird to me as just the contrast of them thinking I was deceiving them or trying to destroy them that actually believed everything they told me when they shun me and it took a while not believe the and how long have you been out now said the 18 months or something yeah 1660 month I don’t know maybe this is a bad comparison did you when you broke up when the relationship ended with your girlfriend did were you the one to break that off or did she either of you did okay gotcha all right I was a sizes one and it almost sounds like the others wondering if if you just the second honestly a lot of what you’re saying here about this about this group and it almost sounds like a bad relationship you know it’s it’s almost like the Q got into a relationship that you thought was good and then like the guy or girl at the end like you think everything is okay and added at the end they end up in your trying so hard and at the end they end up dumping you anyway and just you know what a heartbreak and how awful that would feel but this was even more than that because it wasn’t just a relationship it was it was your belief system that was it was what was in your mind and heart and so it’s really hard to to be cast off from that and and especially to still believe it there a lot of people who who are what the time it disfellowshipped from Jehovah’s Witnesses usually for some sort of behavioral issue for having sex outside of marriage or whatever but anyway so there disfellowshipped and although there outside of the organization they still believe it and that such a hard place to be to be cut off from the very people that you thought were your friends and you thought were your spiritual family and then that you still maybe even still believe the same doctrines so how did you starts actually I guess waking up and getting healthier because it sounds like you are cut off but but you still believed and you probably did you still want to be a part of them agree, sounds like you did write yeah I mean I think the week following that I know like they didn’t like kick me out there’s no confident shunning I wouldn’t say for this group by they basically said like you know you have to be away from the group for at least a year and that you have that you have to return if you look if you return we we have to see the fruits of the spirit off to you like really inspect you and you’ll have to like attend the Bible studies online but you will be allowed to like say anything or you like as if I was at that time trying to say things to the group to confuse them or destroy them or pull them away from God or something like so they set up you if you spend a year attending the Bible studies behind plate glass and you stand up showing Fritz the spirit when you return when you can be back with us again but after a week of sitting in accident for a very long but after a week of sitting without a kind of realized Unida I’d already reached like a certain threshold in the group so you have to spend a year like with the belief system you know trying to figure out like is a God’s will for me even to be part of this group like that was too much to like except to get on the path so I kind of stopped thinking that way and I started really researching things and learning a lot about things that I never surprisingly like I never really looked into your researched and thought about in great detail elements of where like I am there is actually I was working in my shop one day and was listening to this audiobook by Joseph Campbell and everything that he was talking about about mythology like the human experience in like it was sort of the first inspiration I had to really like a really connected with me and started connecting with ideas or thoughts I was having in the group whether I was conscious of them are not started studying the really detail old stuff about how the Bible was constructed seeing you know like asserted looking into other religions and realizing that there is some other mainly Eastern religions that are a a lot of the same link spiritual concepts that our group had you like slowly realizing that our beliefs weren’t as unique as they claimed they were and even I claimed in the group and learning about a group psychology and so like there was like a six-month time. After the shunning where I really just immerse myself and honestly a lot of it was driven by fear because I was afraid that auditing the site could be true so there’s kind of an anxiety about the process of of going down that path of things that they would call deceptive because I was just afraid of of the year the idea of being deceived or something yeah so they said that anything on the outside of it was like specifically self-help or whatever would be a quote deceptive if it wasn’t from them you start like people like the roles are propping up your loving yourself or you just things that like are very minor loving yourself their understanding of it’s really weird like’s as much as really detail as they were about the Scriptures like I realize in retrospect that even these like much older teachers have been rolled longer than I have like seeing now the things that they thought about science were about philosophy or history even like to see that it was so like or even their their understanding of psychotherapy like their understanding of those things was so incomplete and they totally have this depiction of those things that were not really the reality that I found outside of the group may not make sense there a lot there are a lot of people who have claimed to be special to have special groups and special knowledge throughout history there a lot of people to follow those men or women and there we can look back now use the information age we’ve all got the Internet we can look back now and see how incomplete and how flawed those those systems are saying the world were and the so that the has to be kind of jarring you know only I know it is a I know in my own and my own the experience and how it is to to wake up and start reading other things and getting other perspectives from people on the outside who are deemed to you know deceptive or whatever and it is it can become a scary at first but it can also be very freeing of once you start realizing that the that you are free you’re out and and you can find other passive being you have to so what’s do you what are some things that you’ve learned that have really made a positive impact on your life since you’ve been out I guess like the idea of autonomy like having a personal like being completely autonomous from Lake groups and people and things like that and sort of a growing idea that I can be my own person with like my literally my own truth which is something like couldn’t have like imagined leaving the group is and in the group I would’ve said there’s only one truth and and I think that’s true for someone to say like for themselves in a sense like nothing your truth is everyone else’s truth that your truth is like the truth for for you and so I think really having to be brought into that place like release it all it also exerts to make you question the world at large to add to some degrees like because I I kinda discover that have like this you know it’s common like an impulse to like find like some system like her some way of thinking about something you know people naturally want to understand things and I think most with that’s what like you seven easy steps to lose your belly fat yellow stuff like that of a like that that’s why that stuff selves because we’re all looking for a system to buy into you know of some sort that that the true individuals very birthday yeah and because I’ve seen the negatives for you because because I’ve seen like how bad things can go really like fiercely attaching to a certain system or way of thinking like a minute and I just really like brought into my awareness I think of resisting like that impulse to try to find a certain framework really find the person that you really has a good handle on things and I think that by doing that it’s is have opened up a lot more like the world is just has more depth I guess and it’s more interesting and but it’s also a scary thing to do to cut off you know every system were like framework or philosophy or a note to cut those things away and really like perceive your reality you know as you perceive it to really like trust yourself and things like that so I think that’s it still like her a long process but I think that’s the one big thing that I’ve caught onto so far you the minute that’s something that most people never see her never learn is the is to have that autonomy have you had any have you had any big wins are any big revelations in that realm like have you has there been anything when you’re like or even small things like idea I like this food that I never thought I did because you know people told me that this is bad for you are this is batter like is there anything that you you kind of discovered that has been positive through this this new thinking of the first to come came to mind is you know when your entire backdrop is like you know that that urine disorders harrowing spiritual battle all the time and that’s what your life is like I don’t know if other people in the group experience to good like that’s that can be good for like your nervous system, can’t be good for your physical health or your mind even like to be constantly in that state of I just like knowing that your life is has like universal implications nine-year I like using even their words that going through the lake of fire which is what they called going to this suffering in this life like that’s that’s the hardest thing they would say that’s the hardest thing in the world any person can do so coming from that framework of like that really stressful thing it’s I’ve been I guess surprised how just enjoyed like enjoying really seemingly insignificant things is like an okay thing to do like a beautiful thing to do yeah like that it’s that it’s a normal thing to do’s you know and you know I’ve I found that I have dissociation working with the trauma specialists and that was a revelation for me so essentially you’re kind of detached from your physical senses and it’s is something that develops over time so as I’m coming out of dissociation things like’s sight and hearing and smell and taste and touch like all those things are starting to become more vivid so it’s I’ve been surprised how it’s both eight a normal thing and a healthy thing to just be neutral like to just do do something that has no meaning to like reading a book that is not does not know anything to do with learning something just for fun is just yeah just you just things like that that life at United it sounds like in the environment that that is so focused on suffering you could easily be a person that shuts off and dissociates like you said from any enjoyment of life because suffering seems to be the thing you’re going for and it would be easy to shut those things off I I can say that as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses the the focus on all the things you do in life having some sort of universal significance.might not of been quite the same as yours we had our own way of looking at it but that the stress of that immunity kind of especially if your sincere person kinda burns out your adrenals a little bit with adrenaline fatigue is just so stressful and in it’s a state of high anxiety in and it’s not an easy way to live and then succumb out and to to just be able to read something that because you enjoy it and that’s good enough like it doesn’t have to have universal appeal is just something that appeals to you and you enjoy it like that so that’s a really free place to be compared to thinking that everything you do has so much hanging on the weight of the world literally so I’m glad to see that that you’ve been able to find some of that God’s it’s interesting to hear how that manifests another group send it some I definitely there is that weird though there’s that weird element of where the spirituality is kind of dismissive of your physical experience and so it just kind of there is no way that all the stuff couldn’t affect your physiology absolutely and if you think about it what’s the opposite world I don’t know if this is psychologically true but I’m just going to say this logically the opposite of dissociation is being present and what you are doing as you say these different things are being turned back on for you is you are becoming presence is like most of if you were to do like a mindfulness meditation focusing on the breath focusing on the present moment things like that to be able to experience that after dissociation even in little bites as as it comes back to whatever that’s a that’s a big thing man that’s that’s that’s progress that’s a really huge I love you as a milestone or whatever to be able to hit is to be able to to experience that an IV I did not experience things quite the same as you is what you’re describing here bots I will say that since being out of the Colts of Jehovah’s Witnesses and it’s been three years now I guess is over three the things that do occur on a daily basis I can be more present with and a and more focused on just the small little winds of of life are just beautiful moments are things that happen than I ever was in a life where I was so focused on the Bible and the witness teachings and that he wants to get your thoughts yeah yeah yeah you can you can be just as addicted to your thoughts as you can be to a drug or alcohol or you know whatever we can get trapped in our minds and the beer to come back out of our own mind and to participate again in life actively and presently that’s that’s a beautiful thing and some I’m really really happy for you that you’re starting to get that again and you I I really hope that you continue on that path I’m sorry that that it was kind of stolen from you like it was that this not obviously I deal with is a setback but it doesn’t it’s not the end than you’ve got you a lot to look forward to as you start to get those things back and you know I think I’m on some level maybe I appreciate some of the things that I have now and that I can be present with more because I lost them for so long and I mean it’s kind of a cliché but the feelings that I have about those things now that that that I’ve gotten back or that I get to experience now for the first time at 41 years old you know it the I don’t know it’s really true that’s I think it I think it does actually make it more will be Abby United definitely makes you appreciate it a lot more and it is also got on a few experience of like kind of also a sadness about the degree life like that you weren’t seeing the world like you that that using everything like much more diminished before yes to pretty much everything in life there is a good and a bad of their few things that are all good or all bad and just as on one side of the pendulum swing you’ve got that feeling of gratitude and impact that this new free life gives you on the other side when the pendulum swings the other way there are those lows where you realize that you missed out on things that or just sucks to have thought that to feel like you are tricked for a while that that really sucks I remember hearing a podcast one day and it was just about the Christmas and is kind of just showing how like there were some kids who believed in whose parents went through elaborate ruses to make their kids believe in Santa Claus and spoiler alert there is no Santa Claus of 30 was listening yield these kids though reacted in different ways there were kids who were appreciated who appreciated after the fact as adults looking back that their parents went to such lengths to keep the magic alive for them and there were other adults that realize that his kids they were how they were tricked that were really devastated by it and the links that their parents went to to trick them to keep some dream alive and we all react differently to things and there’s again any Yang and yet it’s normal in the grieving process to feel those intense moments of freedom but then at the same time and made at the same time but not sure shortly thereafter to feel intense moments of grief and pain over what was lost or the fact that we were we were tricked by somebody it doesn’t it doesn’t feel good to realize that were all human and that we are all subject to those things you get interesting about the Christmas the samples reactions yeah yeah I thought that was fascinating and I remember thinking immediately after hearing it that that kind of made me there was a first time I realized that intentionally or not I was tricked whether anyone had malice in doing so or not I was given a false worldview I was I was given something that’s that was kind of honestly looking back a waste of my time and date that set me back and gave gave me pain but there are very few people in this life to escape life without that and if it wasn’t joining a cult let’s not fool ourselves to think it would you note could’ve been something else because they’re very few people who live just your happy lives throughout we all go through these. If suffering is a part of life we all go through these periods of it but it’s on the other side of that it can be great joy as we grow and learn and you know experiencing that suffering with an autonomous you know kind of view of of the world in a different experience with you you I agree really agree so where you, now in your journey it seems like obviously you’re still growing is there anything that you’re feeling that you’re looking forward to her anything yeah started doing like him therapy for like my dissociation like six months ago and so been doing that and is the point of opening up the world more and I I know how important you know because the cold is so isolating not to mention I wasn’t even seen these people in real life on a human on weekly basis just like I I know I can learning how important it is to have a support system just in general obviously but you know when ruling I just isolation’s not good when you’re trying to make sense of all this stuff and so deftly kind and I’m deftly getting more to the point of wanting to leave behind that whole isolated way of living and you start developing friendships you know however that pans out and release you know just doing something more more healthy and in him and that way and I’m currently living in a really small town and population 250 leaders really meant it like nobody that I know besides my family is close by so in January I’m moving my myself and my business to bigger city and I am hoping to grow the business and start to branch out a little bit more I don’t really have any like concrete plans at this moment I’m still just like enjoying like the smaller things like we talked about and interestingly enough the girlfriend that I had in high school for four years she reaffirmed that but I split up with we were very closely come it didn’t end badly but we hadn’t spoken in my 12 years and then literally like two weeks after I was shunned to she contacted me and him that you and and she’s married now and and everything and then chose been really is been really nice to have her like as a friend you know again and going through all this she’s entering this social work field and so she kind of has a frame of reference for this for a lot of these things so I’m just been really great and really great encouragement through this process that is awesome I’m really happy for you that’s another funny how things work out sometimes isn’t it in 02 weeks later she reaches out to you that know what life will hold the arts interesting and she has this weird fascination with colts as well like like when returns are not everything like she had this has this weird fascination with colts also weird is normal and so it was just weird on all kind of pieced together when she came when she contacted me so that’s awesome maybe I get a new listener out of it seamless plug peer friend of is anything that’s that I wasn’t able to do I didn’t ask you that you specifically wanted to say like I know you I gave you the questions or whatever and and we kinda went off script a lot there enough there was anything you spent time you may be formulating an answer to that you would like to say like if you say anything to your family and friends that shun you or something like that you know if you had anything to say to those people will address it’s been it’s been interesting seeing the way like your friend likes my family wasn’t in the cold so they thought I was in the cold wallows in the cold and you know they just didn’t get it and stuff like that but it’s interesting to see know I’m out of the that it’s I don’t know what value does hold sharing a bill like they it’s been normal life it’s been a normal occurrence for me to realize that a lot of people don’t realize the significance of him being in a cold and it’s just not as sauce is awesome and it’s easy to communicate to people because they tend to attend so maybe maybe make them uncomfortable or I thought that the thought of that or they him they think that once you’re out of the cold that you’re just like happy like to be all and’s and measure should be something that you should come move on from very quickly you and so yes yesterday for anyone else that’s gone through that experience the pick for myself I haven’t really been able to talk to a lot of exquisite members but it’s I can definitely relate to the people feeling like people really see the depths I guess of how that experience kind of impacts life yeah for sure people will for one thing people don’t like see other people hurt so it’s easy for people that care about you to kind of dismiss what you’re going through a little bit just because they don’t want it to be that they want you to be okay they want you to be happy because I care about you but it’s also on the other hand they just they can’t understand if they never been through it and the it is a difficult thing done to explain the people really is it that it’s a very unique experience that thankfully I guess a lot of people will never have to go through but so but it is a process when you come out you don’t just leave those things behind immediately you have to you spent eight years in you’re not going to just walk away one day and be happy as it is not the way it works and then be careful that you don’t join join another colts yeah that’s the back they can be a very dangerous path for many things jump out a one into another one about the people that shun you now from that group is there anything that you would say to them there anything you would say two-year-old group on letter process in itself we I would say I would just wish to communicate to them how how sincere is there a workaholic how much I really believed what they believes and that I would also probably get into the explaining you know more of the physiological components may be the contributed to the wear acted in the it’s very dangerous for colts to keep you from to to keep you from people that have a better understanding of the way the body works and deals with trauma or whatever you call it that there is a real like physiology to the way those things affect us that can really confuse the mind and the body ends so I don’t know like I know it’s pretty common for colts to keep people from the world of psychotherapy are like mental health areas and that’s one thing that I feel is definitely dangerous and it’s a little time is on like it’s easy to say that occult is dangerous for like keeping someone from medical care for some fire asserting only right for physical this one for they also keep people from Suffolk and really helped him like my dissociation therapy it’s like literally physical rehabilitation type stuff so you know they really don’t know what they’re like they do have a lot of blind spots have a lot of things that they that they don’t understand about the world you when you’re a so focused on one booklet say the Bible that is literally all you can see how you’re missing out on a lot of of what’s going on in the world but you can washing your hands before eating yeah yeah I miss you just can’t be that focused on any one thing and still live a healthy life is just not make it happen this week they are either method would be of interest but they are they dissolve their group had a major falling out this past week that I found out about a couple days ago there was a major doctrinal dispute that literally almost flipped the group in half rethink and so am it’s kind of no longer the group that it was like us to consider so that’s been kind of is just a weird thing to see something like that happen there is a blogger actually FedEx that is has been trying to expose this quote for a long time and so I guess apparently he has insider access to the cold without knowing interesting so maybe some ethical issues going on there I don’t know but the blogger’s name or site I think it’s it so I WW be exposed I think that’s so like some communications of come out since the fallout that he publicly sure that really show very and very concrete terms that my grandson is really controlling and very like a kind of it’s due is difficult like you get subtle ideas over the years but like this like this the stuff that’s happened recently, things he said and done like this becomes very overt and very obvious that he’s more concerned about keeping people in this group people that are being swept away by the other group you know that his main then and just to see his tactics that he uses for trying to elicit fear people that go to the other side because it’s just like it’s it’s kind of vindicating but not in a really powerful way… It’s very weird to see it all I can overt way fear is the one tool that colts use for everything in it a really all just balls down to that you know the you scare people and control them through fear and the hopefully whatever the schism is will result in maybe some other people finding some freedom and some happiness in life as well and it’s a shame that these things continue to go on but the chances are as long as humans exist that that will that will happen because the fear is a very powerful tool as it is a powerful thing that causes sometimes human beings to do unspeakable things and the cyst not the super healthy tool to use you while I’m really glad that the that you were able to get out I’m glad that you’ve got professional help you through therapists that can help you to deal with your dissociation in and to define the evenness the small wins the color and life the joy and I hope that’s the hope you continue down that path and hope you I wish you well on the move I hope that that goes well that you start making some friends that you’re not isolated in the that you can make a life that’s that’s everything you you end up wanting it to be in the express your true authentic self without fear or without judgments think that something that that all of us are really looking for going to lunch and am thank you also for the of the form you want to do these kinds of things and to connect in this way is my pleasure man among glad to help really want to thank Nicholas for working through the mental trauma he’s been through ends at speaking about this even though it was very difficult for him at times of been in touch with them after the interview and because I do stay a few months ahead so it’s been a while since I’ve spoken to Nicholas but that he is doing much better he’s gone through various treatments for trauma he’s made his move to the big city and I couldn’t be happier for him things seem to to be going much better if you’d like to send a message to support the necklace you can do so by going to shun podcast.com where you can leave a comment form on his episode you can also find resources mentioned in any episode there you can find a video for the sound he chose to represent his journey Nicholas chose the song here in the vineyard by Anna and Elizabeth there to represent his journey while you’re@shunpodcast.com you can also send me an email you can send me a voicemail that I can use on the show there’s a tab on the right of each page where you can ask questions or leave comments that I can address on the podcast you could even support the show by picking up a T-shirt or a hoodie on the store on the site so there’s some shun swag therefore you all right now that’s not the only place you can comment on the episode or get involved we also have a Facebook group call shun podcast where you people get together and discuss episodes we discuss our own lives we try to do some fun things build community and try to be a building a supportive I also announced things in there before anywhere else even started this this month at a starting apostate pets post where everybody share their full four-legged apostates in their own those those kind of fun you can also find the podcast on YouTube under the channel shun podcast on histogram shun podcast or on twitter it shun podcast and in all cases those are one word if you like to hear my story and insight into how the occult of Jehovah’s Witnesses works you can do so at the podcast called this JW life also founded this JW life.com like to take the time to you just think everybody that helps me to make the show possible by supporting it financially it does take time and an energy effort there are expenses along with the hosting audio in the website transcript all that stuff as you know from the Vic as I posted the beginning of the year of step back from some cleaning work so that I can make some some time for doing double episodes this this month or this year doing two-month so if you if you want to support it if you can up to you it’s encouraging to see people who want to support what I’m doing here and you can do so@patrioton.com/shunned if you’re so inclined if you and if you don’t have the means or are so inclined you can also support the podcast both shunned or this JW life of one of the best things you can do is to recommend the podcast on other social media to share it so that other people can find it and also if you can leave a five-star review on iTunes or maybe even podcast apps wherever you can do so that helps the show to get found in searches and then more people can find it and I hear all the time I get emails from people who are being held or listening and ultimately that’s what this is about I want to help as many people as possible to the more time I had to dedicate to it and and the more that the podcast shows up in these different this is essentially whether search engines through these different podcast apps then more people can find that help in the next episodes can be the story of Georgia Georgia was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and even grew up in the now infamous Fremont congregation where Candace Conti one of the first big court cases ever over sexual abuse inside the cult was from Georgia also experience rape in her own life and unfortunately in and you see how that was handled in the fallout from it as it all relates to her life story in a closed episode out tonight there today because it really doesn’t matter what time I’m doing this because the episode out at whatever time it is for you I would the song know how yet by fair voyeur you can find a link to her song to the patriot on page the resources mentioned in more not just on the website with your listing on a podcast that you can also get it on the app by looking at the description on one last reminder don’t forget to sign up for the four week coaching/support group that we starting Sunday, March 10 seats are limited to just need six people and I look forward to seeing you join others in discovering things about your own life and journey is to shun podcast.com/coaching or go to the website to see the the page for coaching and if you sign up there will love will get you on board and I’m looking forward to doing this so as we and all episodes love others do no harm and go be happy in
PIMO – \pee-moe\ noun – short for Physically In, Mentally Out, a person held captive to the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses because although they are awake, to let others know would cost them everything they’ve ever known. They stay in physically to keep spouses, family, friends, the only social structure that they’ve ever been allowed to have. Sometimes they do this while plotting a “fade” where they gradually walk, sometimes even move, far away so as to escape. They know the truth but they cannot express it in an organization that refers to itself as “The Truth”.
Daniel is PIMO. This is his story. Identities have been changed to protect the innocent.
Resources Mentioned:
If you are interested in the coaching/support group opportunity you can sign up HERE.
Welcome to the shunned podcast where we expose the religions that you shunning as a tool to control people before we get in today’s story to take a minute to promote something that I have coming up starting Sunday, March 10 at 7 PM Eastern time I will be leading a coaching/support group for people that are interested through an online video chat platform I’ve gone through certification training as a life coach I have been going through a specific program myself that I was interested in teaching but I went through it as a student and as you know from listening to these podcasts I’m all about helping people process their stories in this group were to be going over questions and doing exercises that will challenge you to look at your past and to come to terms with it the start of the goal is to be able to move forward more in life but first we kinda have to do an autopsy of sorts on the past to see where we’ve been process things that need to be dealt with and worked to see what we can learn about ourselves through that fast doing this together in a group we can all learn from one another and nobody has to do this alone after we deal with some of the past we can start working on the present working 01 a look at who we are today how we work what motivates us what holds us back at where to find things to celebrate about ourselves and then from these present observations will start to look forward to the future and dream together you know there was actually a time where we all had the same cookie-cutter dreams you know if your Jehovah’s Witness is a vast environment you came out of we all had that same panda paradise to look forward to but now that were free we can dream our own dreams is over and help discover those of this is gonna be a four week course so it will be one month that will challenge you to find yourself in your own story and were going to work on writing a new story together that takes your character wherever you want to go in life again this will be held every Sunday night starting at 7 PM this Eastern time and were to plan on going till 9 PM so will be two hours for Sundays in a row the cost for the program will be $99 paid up front so just $25 per two hour session so I do try to keep the cost down I’m only going to be taking six people for this first class that I doesn’t mean that you’re here at a luck if you’re not one of the first six if more people signed up and that that I’ll look at either setting up another class to run concurrently or will do more after this one I just don’t want to many people in any single group come prepared to be open and you’ll get out of this what you put in I literally just did a version of this myself in a group of six people none were from the background that we all have but every one of them including myself walked away a better person so I’ve adapted and built upon that program tailored it somewhat to our more specific needs and I’m ready to help people change their lives in new ways if you want to help create a better life for yourself if you’re still struggling are stuck in ways after leaving the call this is for you go to shun podcast.com and click on the page for coaching and you can sign up there all the relevant and if information will be there as well and included a link in the description for the podcast so you can probably just quickly from your podcast that if you use one if not just go to shun podcast.com and you’ll see the page for coaching there I’m really excited to do this so be obscene for my own eyes what this can do for others Heck I wouldn’t like us and I went into a similar program and one of the reasons I went into it and it kinda had you the seed of an idea an inkling that that I might want to be a coach myself and yet here I am so I know that this can spark positive change in people’s all right now let’s go and get on with the show today we have the story of Daniel now I know this is called the shun podcast technically Daniel is not shunned right now however part of shunning isn’t just the actual shunning if the threat of shunning it’s the fear of it and how it keeps people stuck in the coal so Daniel is actually one of Jehovah’s Witnesses he might be sitting in a kingdom hall near you but we’ve done things to protect his identity I think you find this fresh look interesting if nothing else it so interesting to know that their people sitting there in the kingdom hall right next to other Jehovah’s Witnesses that aren’t what they seem as I release this episode I’m actually can be traveling to meet a sister from an area that is an atheist yet she goes door-to-door with her Bible and present in the congregation as your average witness maybe even above average all of these people are what we call chemo PIM oh physically in but mentally out what a surprise you to know that there are even elders and congregations that know the truth about the cult and that are struggling to figure out how to get out of their predicament of a there might be an elder giving a public talk this Sunday in your congregation that is going through the motions because and in order to not blow there cover the King of the can’t make any sudden moves the kid to suddenly be like to forget this I don’t want to be an elder anymore they’re gonna have to slowly back down from these positions so how does this happen and how other people how or how do these chemo’s exist how does this happen to a person while let’s meet Daniel and let’s learn how one man’s story develops my name is Daniel Bell I’m 13 years old I am one of Jeremy’s witnesses and I’m not shunned by Dennis that’s an interesting way to kick this off so how did you become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the first place I was pretty much race and religion and my mother got baptized when I was about six months old however my father was never witness and you will be a witness he is a military man SARS race. One put in one put out since I was a baby I would have to say I leans more towards my mother pretty: a mama’s boy I’m going to follow the lead of course in and did she said so I am not sometimes I was raised only as a witness because my father so different when it came to religion and nestled yet at that make sense of and how did your your mom become a witness in the first place it sounds like you are pretty young do you know how that came about him from what she’s told me she’s had exposure to witness to witnesses her entire life and ever since she was a child of parents with the type that they would study some days with the witnesses of the days they would hide internal lights and they want insight should been exposed since she was a child but she did not start studying until about a year before I was born she was living overseas and eyewitness not until this is the story my mother told me and it sounds like one of those convention stories of course she said she’s overseas because my father was going to see and a witness came to the double and five minutes before she had been praying to God please I want to find you send someone in literally by minutes late eyewitness not to talk and she grabbed a hold the folder inside and the witness told her thank you for calling me inside vision may be on the street was going to call the cops on me is not supposed to be in his name and so this is at least what I’ve been told and it sounds like one of those you know we trade in gold came stories you hear the regional and district mentioned in the Soto from that the stories told pretty much want to start studying if you accept what you’re being told you I’m you to start keeping a store that know you so you it’s funny that you all those years the witnesses have been around her but this one time this is the time that counted a half-dozen so that her parents ever become witnesses or did they all were they always just kind of thought in and out of studying them or they were always in and out what ended up happening was my mother and both the assistance my mother was the best of the family but her and her sisters were became gems witnesses and baptize that parents never did they were the inside of the egg out of the country but I grew up and down sitting they were very into two traumas and will be sold something so it was one of those things that was like a crutch for them I guess it’s like a lease when starting at least trying to do with right of the Bible and then you know they go off on back to their old ways and not do anything with it they were those sort of how to describe it better than that no I understand it economy like it’s almost like it’s as long as they had Jesus or Jehovah or they had this religious ego thing on one side than that, felt that it was it, made up for what they were doing on the other side) yeah in other than that I mean they were very wonderful people we of course since my father was in the military we moved around a lot but we visited them every day and even though it seems like when we were that they decided not to talk to the week and we would have so much fun with them to spending time like they would refund them in a test time he was they were all right it took like growing up to be but have fun with them because us children know that you know they were the profile more proper family the my mother’s family was on the and I guess you would say like redneck circle you we go out and they had a bunch of lands we would be a run around and play on they were very generous people for all their faults of a very generous they would always spend as much time with us teaching arm above my mother’s for the tea to my brother like a tall and you a lot of varied interests is a really close them on my mother’s is it’s funny how we can you we who were Jehovah’s Witnesses in our always told certain things about people on the outside and in so you would you would ultimately instantly judge someone you know who is maybe involved in drug culture or whatever as being like this bad person but you can see all the that that’s not the whole of who they are and what I have obviously you don’t from what you’re describing here they were genuinely good people and some just they had the demon/Realty sure gently good and in the along the same lines of what you’re saying I don’t think I was of a fully affected by that type of rhetoric from the witnesses because even though they did I did to some extent believe that’s I grew up with a father who is not much of and so I sold my Tyler my entire life and soul know there is this good man when the title “he’s a good man like I never had a problem with him until my parents divorced and I was a teenager at the time but I I remember being five years old is it’s one of my earliest memories and five years old and talking with my mother about God and Jesus and always thinks and she told me that we needed to be good examples for Michael and that we need to do everything we could to help him to see the light see the truth because if we didn’t that during the great tribulation he would most likely be the one to 10% because he works for the donations for the military so it when the military came knocking the premise in the concentration camps he would be the one and now at the time I didn’t think much of it other than that not my dad but now looking back I just think of the excuse my French but what do you think this how the five-year-old about his father horrible and of course I know my mother wasn’t trying to say or do anything terrible sheets you really believe that you but I think that’s what makes it so much more damaging and she wasn’t trying to throw Shane and my father she was literally trying to teach me what you needed to help them and I think that makes it so much less know I agree I agree, is easier to dismiss if it was a sterling shade rock but with genuine enough front cut comes from the heart that that’s a lot tougher specific room mom I want to back up to one thing that you had said it went animal I want to revisit or visit how your this dynamic played out you know it is inside your own home you had said that your mom was praying just before the witnesses knocked at her door do you was there something going on there or was it was there something in life that was you know may be getting to her that made her vulnerable to the witnesses when they came because a lot of times through these calls I find that people have trauma in their past or something like that that that that is impacting them and then the witnesses show up and provide them with a set certain sense of certainty that makes them feel better Saunders, wondering you know you happen to know what the background was about you know I I honestly can’t say what was going on in that instant that made him pray about it and this is just sort of what I remember from the story I can ask my mother now she passed away but a teenager but from looking back and speaking with my own brother and sister who are older than me knowing more about my mother now I would have to say that she had a lot of parenting she didn’t have the drug issue that my grandparents had but she did have alcohol issue that for me I was young I never noticed until I was a bit old until I was around 1314 until but am apparently speaking with my unit my siblings she had that that issue heard Tyler so it’s a mixture of God effect of parents had on him because of course not only with a into drugs but when she was younger they were not as great a people as their will and they were older they you know what very physical and beyond just the regular spanking to the child and so she did and they were a very very cool well they lived on the top of Mount write it so that there were very poor family in then my father comes in my mother meets my father in I believe a school and the ring set into this new wealth of you know he’s not rich but he’s definitely lower middle class and he drinks that you because he’s military she’s able to travel around the country and around the well and it’s just this completely new lifestyle that she was probably should probably enjoyed it but was not used too at the time you select will be a kind of like a culture shock to the right go into this new world like that right so that’s the background I have on it yet is on site on that so that’s what I believe it’s just a mixture of the traumas from childhood and now this new I mean they had been married for a few years all this chunks meeting of a witness at the toll but it was still poorly studied or at the time sure so then you now you you’ve got a mom who’s a witness who your dad is not that is not only not a witness but he’s in the military which obviously the witnesses have some issues with our how did Howell did you the religion itself is gonna give you a certain worldview your mom kind of it has already as you mentioned, played into that worldview so what how did you see your dad how did you see the people outside the organization how did it make you see the world around you to question him for me things just kind of what what they were but that wasn’t much of a we had the us versus them mentality shall my father was not to be honest I mean I was angry at him when he left my mother when I was up in my midteens but to be honest he didn’t leave we left him long people in the sense that we were never very close to how could we be entitlement on sure you he was yes he was off all the he was mall the man took care of us you his own parenting style he was more of an absentee father and and I don’t say that to unit the upset with him or anything I understand a lot more now that I’m an adult but he he did the best with what he knew how to do and what he knew how to do was provide for you was never that emotional person I don’t think you can be when you’re in the military no I don’t get a trust that said to be that emotional support that we needed at times he was never that he wasn’t as much of a teacher that was some things he told me that I still remember to this day but for the majority he was the provide consider it would always be old when he would want to do something with the family not all that you wanted to but it was an old dynamic because it was like okay will will go fishing with you will will do this with you this Saturday will skip service and go to the next sense that they were going back and set both course of course got got up with things first in the can’t be held right so as you said that he taught you some things can initiate care to share anything the, stuck with you what I think the one of the things that sticks with me to this day that looking back at sort of funny now I guess you know in your you start learning things kids at school and bring them home and things you should know and you consider itself so I I had lunch test from these kids in school right I came home and I guess I don’t know how it happened by purposely test the spots that my pants but my mother got installs like pistol she took me my father was usually likely she took me she told me not to cast why shouldn’t Castro was elected she spent the crap well you make sense of your first offense for so later on my father came home and he came into my room. And it was I don’t know if I was going to bed or if I was just like rabbits are just laying in bed and I remember him coming into my room and am sitting down with that and talking to which was red because like I said is less of a teacher and model provide he told me he said son you are actually cursing at school and and that’s not right and you know everything you must told you is true and he said but I I wanted to give you respect and of course I’m at this point I’m am speaking from memory in the same exact words from what set but he said I want to give you the perspective is and what he told me he said words this is gonna be more more accurate to his exact words he said words have me everywhere has meaning even bad words and when you use those words in that way you sound like an 80 the purpose of passing is to call people down all or it’s too to make an emphatic point and you don’t want to put people down the know Ms. like and don’t use those words and like those interested in as an adult it sounds silly and not so profound but as a world when I was nine or 10 I was like how I that’s better than us making like this making this made me hide it this I actually can say, because while the really great right there yes the sacred major hide in this he actually reached you yeah you not reaching a kid so well when you’re just hitting the I mean sometimes you do something that I improvement sometimes gets the service banking sure I understand it right right right but I have to say that you know he he you know you kinda said he is more than the physical provider but you that’s really quite emotionally intelligent what he did there have to sit down in and have that discussion with you now good friend up that’s nice so so then what was it like a home for you growing up as a witness you know between the two parents just what was it like for you as as meal being that child that little little witness kid at home how do you feel you know to me it just felt normal I didn’t feel good or bad way about it just was what it was time that it right and in and being in that circumstance in moving around to different military bases we would meet other families that were in the same document we would meet other witnesses who the woman came in after being married to the mountains and military shadow self and the children so it didn’t seem out of place until we move those one area the country removed to where there were no other people in the same predicament and so in that particular all we were sort of looked at as it was weird because some people look to us as the oddballs will be Catholic around them and others and others look at it that’s like mad Mike best father husbands in the military and their still sticking with it like at the example as it was a really good I would think that would be almost like hero status than enough to be in a variety around it wasn’t as much karate as was just like you know most of the people look at us in that way and not in your status there were a few that would like to be kept around then you have no daughter but for the most part it was normal to me anyway and’s need to give me a little more balance as I listened to every set of your podcast and I’ve heard stories of people who they basically own the other spent time with witnesses of the witness kid and because we had that little bit more balance of marble my father not being a witness I grew up playing with my it’s all the time my next-door neighbors were my best friends because we live next to each other even though they went witnesses nice in my mother sort of had to be okay with it to an extent because it might if she had told you know you can’t biscuits my follow-up probably wouldn’t without a one since I didn’t have growing up is that I always had a choice my father was never opposed to the witnesses but some of his ideas were so I remember when my when my brother was in high school only because he’s the oldest he wanted to go to his problem and my mom didn’t want to to and my dad said I don’t care if he can go so growing up I have these examples I can see the split between how they treated my brother and my sister and I can always see like now I have a choice but I’m choosing to be a witness even though really I was still in doctor even though I had a choice yet I was Dr. Jan but I had the sense of choice yeah that’s that’s that’s a cool perspective I do I have found there is anecdotally it seems like people who grow up in the witnesses in a quote your divided household it seems like they have more of a chance at living a quote unquote normal life at some point it seems like they they have a different perspective that that gives them that allows them to I guess maybe not be a as afraid of leaving as other people I’m sometimes because they aren’t I know when my wife and I left in her late 30s we were terrified of the people around us which is the stupidest thing but this is what we were given you know it was it was all he knew to be able to to have that balanced perspective does seem like a gives you more of a chance of of waking up someday I will go ahead I lost my train of thought okay love you ASCII so then I so that little aside aside how did you feel at school how was how is your life at school growing up as a young witness Sue in order to answer this I first need to say looking back at my childhood I was indoctrinated but no I can honestly say it was never 100% effective because if it was then when I was a child at school I would’ve spent a lot more time talking to kids about the fact that I was a witness in trying to help them in witnesses yada looking back I didn’t it just never came out and it wasn’t out of the fear of trying to hide it or anything it was just simply I mean you’re you that’s because I didn’t have that divide of who I can only hang out with kids at school unlike a lot of people to know what about like I you still have the holidays the flag salute all that did did that set you apart a little bit I’m the earliest thing I can remember is being I believe I was in kindergarten and I mean I I was a good that the only witnessing I can remember doing at school was being about five years old in kindergarten and I had brought those tracts with me I forget the name of them I think it was like something about the new wealth and at the picture of all the different family of the paradise and had a bunch of these tracks and when we were leaving school and school without understanding of the stairway at the exit and as kids were walking by passing them out not saying anything that is holding it up to get to those my little witness that’s only witnessing I can remember doing when it came to the holidays most of my teachers were actually pretty good about it like they didn’t announce to the class like he has to leave us to celebrate or anything like that I remember going to the library which to me as a kid I didn’t mind I’d vote to read so for me it wasn’t like I when we had a magic library it was just a grade I can get out of the stump foster mother about this body read my books the you are at your pretty chill Canada’s of is like you just you just kind of went with the flow you just kind of accepted things as they came and now were really upset about it or anything as of as a little kid yes as I got older and you know when you’re in adolescence I believe that’s when you start to get more self-conscious about things you in it still wasn’t that bad I don’t of course I still don’t remember maybe I did but I don’t remember hiding the fact that I was a witness I just remember it of course not coming up but I do remember things when it came to date that’s when it started to get is the kids around the metabolism that boyfriends that girlfriends as I I’m about to put the holidays none of that ever really got to me is the teachers were mostly really good they could be like another assignment something but I think dating is when it really got to me however even though my mother was a witness and I was fairly fairly well indoctrinated I think of that points by the time I was interested in dating my brother had dated and on witness and my mom didn’t handle it well my sister had been disfellowshipped because of dating and on witness my mom didn’t handle it well so by the time like I was old enough like 14/15 thinking about those things my mother was more relaxed on the topic except she said she still didn’t want me taking on witness but my first go but my mother knew about I was 14 years old and the skeleton of a witness and she was okay with it because at least I wasn’t dating love this yeah yeah yeah so in my my sister was and she found out that what the hell you’re leading to the youngest was always get away with everything dammit as I was the oldest and that’s up to it because when you’re the baby and you the parents will that baby but I think I honestly think the biggest reason the youngest ones get away with more is because the parents realize they were too extreme the children have some like my mother was on a walk with my one micro the data is not skeleton what she was so tickled my ability to prop open it information just like as long as she is a witness in I’m better every time your client yeah yeah no it makes perfect sense to you is we all learn from our mistakes that we send him into my mother’s credit out of the three siblings I’m the only one that was never disfellowshipped both of my siblings were and they came they came back reports but since then you know my mother passed away in some of the things that happened in my where rolling in different places and like now but as a note late teens and early 20s I was proud of that I was time on the only one instance fellowship I get exactly) like you moaned yeah mom was right to let me do think that the stories dating another witness and it wasn’t physical and she was always that in it now looks like successful with the standpoint speaking of that witness dampers within how was it at the Kingdom Hall for you growing up I mean you know you mentioned that you were able to date when did you get baptized I got baptized and if the witness had me say this there beside him mad at me I was either 13 or 14 I don’t remember my baptism date exactly it was like either July a cold June 8 I can’t remember Daniel what was over think of you if you knew you didn’t remember the date WWJ 2000 and so I mean I was always respected… That’s right with tempted I was always doted upon by the congregation because it I gave my first talk before I could read I was my very very best talk I was a household I was four years old I wanted to be on the school so what they did there was an older brother in the hole he was in his 50s he was like my best friend at the time he actually gave the talk and I was his household like the system is used to give talks back that you develop a demonstration my second talk I gave I was five years old and I was just barely learning how to read so school oversee yet he made me memorize it it was Psalms 23 and he said if you’re going to give a talk because you can barely read but you need to memorize a stock if you really want memorize the entire song Psalms 23 is probably the short assignments only success as long as it was time for a five-year-old and keep a five-year-old attention that log it’s pretty good right for because of that and because I was always active so that on all especially in that one of these because it’s like Bob is five gave a talk and that that’s the only time I ever remember my father coming to the meeting because I told you so me memorizing it and I told him it’s a time love it if you would be that many came and he was redo my talking states the entire meeting and I remember like he was proud of me at the same time when I got all for the rest of the meeting I was you I had my nitpick and I would trawl I would always draw during the meetings it was more the physical tick I had to be doing something with my hands I remember my dad like telling me is like having everyone paid attention to your talk you should patent and that but what what he didn’t understand because I would I mean it was a physical tick move anything I was paying attention in my mind because I was my mother would always say I would sit that might be drawing and I would suddenly raise my hand and she wouldn’t know what the heck I was gonna say in the night on since he liked both of you but it was was that sort of thing’s like I would & book to say no to sing really loud I gave my talk is still fairly young soak in it and of course we were the family that father was military and we still made it so in almost every holy but it looked like super locked and just doted upon by the congregation and when they have a young brother like that who is eager to to participate there are a lot of hopes and dreams of other people that seem to get on that young brother that he’s gonna get baptized that he is gonna know go to Bethel or Pioneer or whatever so you will have them here: yeah to U so so your baptized RAM 1314 how did things progress as you went on your into your teenage years obviously you said you will actually let me ask you first what made you get what made you get baptized at 1314 what do you remember was there like an impetus to or was it to something you wanted to do on I believe most of us who are raised as witnesses we’ve always had the pressure from kids and from adults in the congregation of so there was some of that elements I don’t remember what the exact point was I I do remember roughly what it was we were at a and assembly I forget what they were called at the time but it wasn’t the district it was one of the other assemblies and because of where we where we had the hotel because it was far away from where we lived and I remember all the remember is that assembly affected is a remember coming back to the hotel that night and I lie down in bed at the hotel and items from praying to Jehovah I was just affected by that day for some reason to Jehovah I wont serve you in and I did my my dedication cried that night in the next day comes the two days something in the next day at the assembly I told her that I said I want to get baptized since most I don’t remember if it was a specific talker was the whole day of what it was that’s that’s as much as I remember to be honest did you have is what it is you maybe have a friend who got baptized that they are anything new actually arm but I do it was something that was said that I just got a right I just don’t remember who is a specific talker it was the likely arrangement of talks gotcha so that after you get baptized how did things go for you know where you that were you the kid that was out there auxiliary pioneering you know when there wasn’t school during the summer or you reaching out in other ways honestly not real not at the I got baptized and this is why believe I was actually that in 14 this is not long at got baptized that I met my first girlfriend got microscope and my mother knew about anyway so I was distracted by that her a while when that ancient I was around 16 years old my parents were going through a divorce at the time and I my mom allowed me to drop out of school into homeschooling program in because because I wanted to my distal blessed moment like my friends my ex my girlfriend at the time and my other friends were all in this particular homeschool program it wasn’t witnessed sponsored it was a legitimate program and I just sent you know what I need to go to school when I can do it this way and I can knock out all the rest of my school work in six months and then of course I got the program and I never did it par for the course for a lot of people’s she allowed me to drop out to do that and when I dropped out I got a job working with a brother in a construction company to run his own construction company and I would work with him part-time and then from that I left that to get a job at a restaurant and when I went to the restaurant that’s when I began like my spiritual court spiritual career so to speak because it was a bit it’s a more flexible Job you work a lot more evenings afternoons so I remember there is one brother and all that I was very close with that I would go out and service three times a week and with in particular like everyone’s day was okay we would go out in service Wednesday morning we would eat at the restaurant where I worked in the you would go home and then I would start like that was like my routine and I got on Saturdays with my family and in another day of the week so that’s when my would include spiritual Chris started I never did find the I did auxiliary quite a bit throughout my life and I’ve done and I started reaching out more more at that time but not immediately after getting baptized so nearly you’re pretty much going into your young adults and your seems like you’re you’re kind of you say starting your spiritual career year, reaching out honestly often what you said you what the work and having friends and everything is sounds like you as far as witness lives go you are leading a pretty decent life is sounds like you had friends you had you had worked it that you was flexible you are able to to fulfill these different aspects of of life within the congregation as you got older how did things go you know because like at every young witness around 18 to hit hits that that point where they have some decisions to make and that’s no what they’re gonna do or where they’re going to go live or if they’re going to date or whatever you how to things, progress for you as you got your up around that age services this is where things got off track this is where my life started to change right before I turned using right before I turned 18 my mother passed away so when I turned 18 I was in the middle of this depression is upset and I was still working at the restaurant and got him into the restaurant that I had went to high school with before… And so we reconnected became friends again I had already sort of I stopped going to the meetings not because I didn’t believe not because I was upset I stopped caring because every time I was at the meeting someone would try to be encouraging Silas so sorry about him or no so sorry I just wanted to move on is much as I loved and missed out I didn’t want that reminder and no matter what and I think that most people have the social awareness to stop but there is this one brother it is sweet as he could be used in is like Jesus 60s and he was autistic so of course is so he didn’t quite have the social understanding that most people have yet he is probably obsessed with it right and is like every single meeting. Come up to me but his hand on my shoulder and tell me and I appreciated the sentiment at the same time it was just that reminder that I I didn’t want and so I I sort of stopped going good I was like if I go to talk to me I go talk and whether other derogations you could’ve gone to him just I don’t know you where you are located or anything wool in this particular I’ve been pretty vague about baptisms to I yeah I just wondering if this is the got to give you the way in in this particular area of the country the nearest the congregation I went to was about 15 minutes from my house and it’s a rule area so that was one congregation in the hole in the next closest hole was like an hour and a half away right and I was not doing that you had that one choice in fact that’s all that my girlfriend was from when I was talking is I know I’m not trying to basically still going to didn’t want to deal with that and then you know I’m at work one day in the scope of high school comes in we always thought was pretty and we sort of reconnected his friends and got progressed and I went to sleeping together when the dating for a while while since I wasn’t going to meetings but I still believe I just wasn’t in a place I was depressed and I was depressed I’d recently been broken up with an it’s it’s a shame to say this this friend from high school was simply a rebound I lost my virginity on a rebound which is terrible to say but it’s the truth would happen in so of course people, holding see me around town with scope I never saw them but they clearly saw me because the brothers came over one day my mom passed away but I’m still living my brother and his wife and the elders came over one day to do a and call them and then as they were leaving best to come out and they just said are you taking so-and-so because people simply seen you around town and I said no adjustments and that they had nothing they can do about it so they decided okay we want you to come back to the hole in in and they tried to be encouraging and then they left they knew I was lying on a date they didn’t have it was weird at the time anyway the way the two with select was they wanted two witnesses of the same exact instance so one person would see me unit say Walmart is to me at Best Buy so it didn’t Have it to is that you are having but they would have to have evidence that you were dating not just evidence that you are friends right there they want to go to prove but I will most of them any association between a male and female you must the day to write and I think the pickup was I found out later I didn’t know the time but my brother had told them that you will be and seen my call outside the place overnight as I was doing a lot of times I wouldn’t come home because also was with her are I was with work friends of something and so you told him that it was the only even think to bring his wife with them but second witness so they decided to accept it at the moment they knew I was lined with a clip it and moved on in it that was the beginning from then on I was about 18 and I’m that he now from the past 12 years of my life it’s been a back-and-forth with the wit being a witness or not for different reasons every time something that it wasn’t for lack of believe I was just depressed and I can do it and I couldn’t be around especially this particular estimate always reminded me to him and so then you got to give yourself some some compassion to me you lost your mom and and I know it was a it was kind of a rebound as far as the dating world goes but I’m sure you were just heart and you know, feeling alone and and I was yeah I mean it makes it makes it really makes sense and I feel sorry for that 18-year-old kid who was so broken you know because there’s that’s actually tough you I don’t you haven’t really discussed and you don’t have to put the details out there about whatever transpired with your mom leading up to her death but you know that’s is a tough thing to endure but in 18 you know you’re at an age where there’s a lot going on anyway and that’s that’s really tough so you know it’s not some I know as a witness we would’ve it would’ve been as it’s unfortunate that the elders would if they had known what you had done what ashamed you for it instead of trying to understand you and and that’s that just a shame because they really know if you put yourself in that position you can easily see where a person is reaching out for for love affection understanding comfort whatever in any way they could probably get it that’s that’s tougher that what were the elders to the congregation, rally around you when your mom died or cage speak to that underside is that enough people did in they didn’t so I need to get back I’m just forgetting to mention things when my mom passed away she was actually disfellowshipped wow so the progression is my mother my call the start going to the divorce this is around the time my mom’s drinking my mom’s drinking problem is getting worse but it was always a problem is getting less I just never noticed it because I was a kid involved in my own sure in so have problems getting worse I’m thinking you started drinking because dad left you so I’m pissed off at my dad and bought drinking is now it’s no longer it’s where having congregation gatherings at the house and you know everyone comes over my moms inside the process having a my mom comes out waste so the brothers all trying to help because they know what she’s going to be trying to deal with the in it be nice to after so many sins of this happening they said you know what we love you want to work with you but we can’t have this continued habit you can’t have you intending to be like this about people and so they disfellowshipped and so she was disfellowshipped it was a few months is at least rip before she passed away and at the time when she did pass away I didn’t know why because we did all the news I I went to split shift I worked in the morning at work and work in the afternoon so between shifts I came home it was only 10 minutes away and I took a and I woke up in my sister-in-law screaming like running down the screening like what the hell are you stupid but she was loud so I got up and walked out and she had run into the backyard will be cool and I walked back there and as soon as I opened the door I see my brother my mom is light bang down the side of my brother is like half in the pool at about trying to get the CPR and like freaking out and his wife is freaking at and I just like I was in shock as I looked that I looked at the situation and just turned around and walked away as I was in shock and at I’m surprised myself to this day because being at that age but I think it was a shock as I walked away I walked inside the house and I dialed my thoughts and my boss pick up the failure and I said I can’t come in to work this afternoon I think my mom instead a she said you know okay no no do with that she she let me go course and then I called my friend at the time and I was like come over you and your mommy to come over I can’t be because by and by the time I called her I knew it was like my brother’s wife had commented in like we can’t get back the ambulance a company could help her so I that’s when I called my up my girl from the University to come pick me up now because I can’t drive over that and I copy it was just I was in shock it was kinda selfish but it wasn’t bad like with my brother but just that’s only way I can deal with it you they came to pick me up and I left and I just and I came back later but Dion wouldn’t call them the people in the ambulance I can think of many minorities EMTs yet that the EMTs they just like the Aussies just passed away and they took the they didn’t do any sort so I’ll talk to mind out over that so I didn’t know what time what caused it and I didn’t have to know because I just needed the prospect of process and she was gone you three doesn’t matter as much them and then I did find out just within the past year to my sister had been living away she was living across the country but I unite schools called called her and said mom and mom passed away and she came to where we were to to be with the family and for the funeral and everything and while she was that she took my mom’s diary in she apparently found in my mom’s diary of suicide that basically saying which in Evan when I found that out even before I found that out I had a field because everything is going in them i.e. I blame the organization not immediate it was years later that I blame him as she she passed away I lost my girl I suffered meetings I was depressed for a while and this lasted about a year and I was in meetings until I finally said you know what I know I need to get back in the right space I can’t be here in this house anymore when my mother is I need to go back to the meetings and he still believed sure in so I called my sister lived on the other side of the country and I said I want to I need to get out of here can I come with you and I’m coming back and she told me she said yes he can come to go back to the meetings of the before you do you need to go to the elders about what you can do and she said sister if it was actually very good because she set out to you here either way you but I need to know that if you really want to come back to the all and you know you’re serious about you and I said okay and that’s how you show in so I I was not only dating the scope but I’ve been smoking and not because I thought it was cool but literally the reason I started smoking was because I am at the restaurant I went that I was ticked off because everyone got smoke breaks whenever they wanted I only got my 215 minute breaks and whatever they left several illiterates I did I was in an so stupid I wasn’t even inhaling I would just like talk on it to make it look like a smoking second God but the stupid thing is witnesses and see me do it so when I went when I I knew didn’t see me because the elders had told they had asked me about that as well in so when I went to tell the others but I was doing I didn’t tell them that I had slept with the scout they asked me and I like but I did tell them I said but I would have been smoking and I quit and I quit and so I got through it was funny because they told me they said they sent me out like they always do they disgustedly brought me back in and they said they told me strata they said we don’t believe you’re very repentant but we do see a trace of repentance and because this was all probably brought on by depression from losing your mother were not going to start shipping which is going to release they were honest about it but they are more conscious than you are very right but I think the reason I like because I was afraid that if I told them the truth they with was sure to and so they they recruit me I called my sister and I said I went to them that are not in your approval tomorrow night when can I come out that in so we set up and I you over the next month and a half we got things ready my brother was moving away to none of us wanted to be in the house anymore and we sold off everything my mom’s old stuff. Other than sentimental wanted to keep sure we were all moving you are our separate ways and so I moved across the country and started a new chapter of my life at that point I missed okay if a second as I have been talking while until you have questions about something well I guess I have a question about your job had where was where was he when this all went down to have a habit of forgetting to mention things that that’s okay so I obviously mentioned multiple times in the military keeps he was deployed he was overseas why even have him write he had been since I was about 14 years old he had been overseas here at this point at that point in time it been gone for years he had went to this was all around the early 2000’s okay my mom passed away who six so from like 02.06 he was in Iraq and Afghanistan and back in Iraq than Korea them back in Iraq he was back he was was overseas the entire time at the time my mom passed away he had been in Korea for about a year and he was the one who told her he wanted divorce so they were literally when she died that divorce it only been finalized like a multiple because they had been going through the process of who gets water and you know of course moms to get the kids but what’s alimony and all the stuff so when she died I was only about three months away from turning 18 so my dad didn’t tell me like have to come because render 18 he asked me if I wanted to and I said no stated place I stayed with my brother in the understood he understood why was Matt I was an angry teen used of course my mother were never that close anyway I I was I was in a really bad place of course of about him anyway and of course I was depressed as well once I write something okay also I had a question about so your mom was disfellowshipped when she died if that carries a stigma you in the congregation so your icon as so how did how did the congregation responded to her death like which she was there a memorial was there any memorial manager this is so hard there’s a what what happens there I don’t even know she had good friends in the congregation oceans dispose of the course the brothers they wouldn’t do the memorial in the whole of because she passed away now this was in my arm as this was in the southern part of the United States at the time so that the big regions I can get away with saying that what you would call the Bible yet writes so course people a lot more stripped-down that I mean even witnesses were live now all way more liberal than they are in the southern United States the still witnesses still a cult but I’m so interested she passed away they wouldn’t do the memorial in the whole right because she was associate they didn’t do it at the thicket which you would call it the building that’s at the cemetery that one was done that and a brother gave a talk about half the congregation showed up because I literally had some people tell me like I remember one for the particular told me he said I love you I love you I love your mother so I hope you don’t take it will be at the funeral I just I’m not comfortable since she was discussed that she passed away in I was like okay whatever but I didn’t I was never argumentative with people I didn’t like it but I was walking instead so yeah I’m trying to think I want him thinking about that one right now myself at the US like now is the time we of times your choosing will be low point in my life to exercise write this since it I don’t know it just seems really do she is like but that’s what I was behind the about half the congregation and that yeah other half was just like well she’s dead and since the painful so will be they say you have the time to do that would always talk about how you go to a funeral or memorial or whatever and it’s not it’s not even just about that person but it’s about supporting the survivors and here is a freaking kid and a human 18-year-old kid you’ll have a hard man go to this thing in and support this kid they really do a terrible job of keeping people they just don’t rally around people at all it that’s really sad to me good for the hafted still had their humanity intact and went in and tried to support you where the 55th I don’t know man love is so conditional is just so is so conditional not unlike is nothing like Christ love you it’s it’s not even conditional on anything that matters is so technically it’s like technicality driven like well technically she was disfellowshipped even though she never did a damn thing to me and hurt anyone other than herself if you know as they saw it like come on man it is you it it it was pretty wild on but of course I was in my I wasn’t thinking these things at the time you still you believed in I was just I was in my own head dealing with my crap right you and you could understand because you saw the same technicalities in life that they saw probably you know to some degree because we all did they just there’s just the way our humanity is shut off by that doctrine it on different levels of is astounding to me you know every time I hear some new way that that that it was done a man on my own case of your wasn’t invited to my my dad’s funeral or memorial service and you just the way they act around that stuff is so silly in someone mentioned to me years later even though I moved across the country I still kept contact with some old friends and I remember somebody on this is actually new didn’t I’m nevermind I remember because I told I would tell people my story of course when getting to know them they were met with you all all these things that I told they knew that my mother was a witness she passed away during the time of the disfellowshipped and it was an older couple remember being at the dinner table with them and now my aunt had passed away and she also passed away but she was disfellowshipped, in so I was in a we were having dinner with them and then they had asked me something about my family and I said oh yeah I just had my out passed away in my cousin called me in so I was on the phone with my cousin in and I basically felt it was just being consoling because and I been through it myself and I told them I said you know what it’s it’s okay can you you’ll see your mother again and I’ll see mine again it’s it’s working to see them again and this couple I was at dinner with Dave the kind of looked at each other when I got off the phone so wife it was funny because they had to argue about it I did have to say anything the wife said well she said I’m glad you know it seems like it would good consoling that person looks at but the mothers with disfellowshipped when they died in open feedback by and the husband like flipped out it was like way wait wait wait wait wait a minute you know that this kind voice in his life that they died they died and paid for their sense we don’t know them in like they started going back and forth that it was crazy guys just this even her, it could be so will now this was our or five years after my mother passed away side moved a little bit but if is that it happened right after I would be really pissed off that’s not either so tone deaf that’s not the time to it’s not just bladder but if you have a upper and it also shows how silly the doctrine is because they can’t they don’t really know any of this you know the one hand you say that death does away with the of the sin but then if that’s the case then you know Hitler died in Adam and Eve died in so it’s a very selective application of how all this works so that they went over that it he was like well well learned and no wait a minute added many now say they send and sent man into death and in in gold killed been basically said that the difference but you hit the show I needed the body so stupid 000 in retrospect but now know so you talked about you said that you know in your is in your in your 20s so so I guess you so your mom is died in earlier 18 you go out to move move out with your sister and you kind of you are starting again and he said you know in your 20s or whatever the things vacillated a lot for you yet so how did how did things progress you after you went out there and moved in with your sister so I moved out to where I am now with my sister and not long now my sister and husband with the college because they were glad what was that you said they were both in college in college got so where we live now like you said witnesses are a bit more liberal students player in the College of Liberal yet you like the whole I’m in now I’m in a for a foreign language congregation and just about every elder official in just about every member of this congregation has been to college what the shocking proceedings article will be witness of God not not I’m from me there are plenty of people go would still be with us as I write this letter to the mulatto successor nurture yesterday records at the time and my sister’s husband at the time got accepted to grad school on the other side of the country so I really only lived with them in about six months before they had to move away and now she moved before she did she she was just like she was finishing up her degree here and risk and will look for work out there so she would hurt it was basically a year after typical she was going to and then I had to get my place which lasted very very briefly and then I went through another shocking. Which I was dating someone new at the time because my whole life ripples around women as is dating someone at the time I most my job so I could take my place and my sister had moved now so I didn’t have family to move in with you and then after I lost my job this sister her stepfather yet has stepfather convinced her to break up with he said he’s not working you can take care of you while you still thinking in so that ended so I cannot do so now I’m basically broken up with again in my whole life ripples around I don’t have a job site Place I ended up being homeless for about three months lightly early homeless and living on the street or the car literally found an abandoned house and slept in a tree house homeless’s other brothers and sisters exactly taking care of you where they know they were not why am when I was still going to know I wasn’t trying very hard I was going to the hole but not in service semi cell death is like I hear you’re homeless you’re not going out in service which still making some of the $50 sale yet so I started unit I have nothing else to do I couldn’t find work I I was able to keep a gym membership so that I had a place to go shower so at least I looked at him trying to get a job and so what I would do then as I said you know what I was at this point I had never will be dealt with my mother’s death I was about 20 years old so was a little over two years and she died and basically just like put it behind me moved on and so during these three months I was you know trying to look for work on getting more and more depressed and finally I remember one night I’m lying down in this tree house where I was sleeping and I just I pulled on channel and I started writing a letter to my mother in it was like 20 pages long of just everything that happened in my life since losing in the entire time writing it I’m sitting there crying upset and finally you like dealing with this release in in my own way and it’s like within a couple would like immediately after that you know I also prayed to Jehovah to help me to finally like to deal with my mother’s passing and some wanted to create a better life in so I did that one night the next morning I woke up and I went to the kingdom home and I went service and I and I started a new pattern of service every morning look for work in the afternoon could sleep my tree house and is still present but now that I was out in service to now the brothers wanted to take notice of try to help you out seriously there’s no words to describe looking back now there’s no words to describe how ridiculous cities yet they help with human how will but their children their charitable organization with tax-free status is now the other side of it I’m glad for it at this point because I had to do it myself I had to rely I thought I was relying on Jehovah but I had to rely on myself which looking back to Mike it was good for me in that it it always out in the end but it’s still not the right way to treat people and some of them will help but use and now they wanted to help now someone said who I noticed for the year he needs a roommate and he doesn’t pay that much in red so you know it won’t head if you copy of the first couple hearts so they connected me with this guy so I got a place to stay while I went to a just behalf how what you’re doing by doing that is their setting up the dynamic where will Jehovah provided because because so these are the blessings you’re getting for for you going out in service now like they they withheld help know you did what they wanted and then they help that is so evil but you know what I was sold on a hook line and think of just writing that you brother started calling me saying I don’t have a Job but in our current days with a black of you out mutual course they did Jehovah provide input in this was also all around the 0809 the stock market crash that’s why it was hard for me to find a new job yes on it was hard for everyone around 0809 it wasn’t because I wasn’t going to set this is because of the economy was an adult of anyway so that and I finally found another job will a few rounds of jobs in thinking about going to the local community college but going back all that but I eventually found another job and in that works out for a while and I was taking things seriously and I was always moving up in the congregation I was exhilarated I was working I had a place with this brother I was also reply nearing I was carrying the mics in the all starting to get all the privileges I was all the way up to train people praying at the opening (the meeting and that’s like it at least in my whole of the time that was like one step away from getting appointed as a ministerial segment so I’m I’m on the track I still believe I never not believe I just fell away for different reasons right right at this at that point anyway sometime right before Brenda become a seven and then Facebook stops my progress so you know how on Facebook or not basement you know you you will you go to website to look at something in the last all these permissions and you just don’t read it and click yes no yes it does whatever he so one night I gave one nightto give the opening Pratt and they said you know what on some of the beginning of the meeting said actually we need to do something else that I like what I’m excited about instead and then at the end of the meeting to brothers wanted to talk to me and April in the back room and they said you know Daniel people have brought to attention some posts you’ve made on Facebook it in like dirty jokes like will posted a daddy check my Facebook and the like don’t hate you not trouble with Justina we needed to talk to you and talk to you about it and they pulled up my Facebook page and showed it to me and I was I’ve always been somewhat somewhat vocal and reasonable and reasonable and I looked at them in with with absolutely no disrespect I said I’m sorry to you know how Facebook works because if you look at that it shows that I did not post that it’s on my wall but I didn’t post this is how X and they were like well and in and they would come in and they’re like okay so we understand you didn’t post in the light bulbs is if you’re this close to being a settlement you’re supposed to be an example for the whole show will not go so we do not have you do the press anymore when I take away from the discussion group but which is not have you do the press anymore I’m in will not have you been the mics for a while until like this is completely off your Facebook and in it sort of mono because people will say 07 and he does post this and that and I understood but I’m still frustrated because I’d worked so hard I wanted to be a settlement in the welcome email the one day so frustrated and deflated the time they just can’t let somebody walk up the stairs without tripping. Is normal thing to have stopped your progress for Roy wonder anybody ever makes it to Elder some freaking Christ to be another man winter and out in most usually a really awful thing you want your analysis and so that happened and I was upset but I wasn’t so discouraged I was going to be I just you know like well I’m in a take a break from trying for a while I’m just getting the disc and the garden service in be a pothole and I’m not been a push to reach out always thinks for a while since that holding back room for a while anyway so I slow down a bit and I started reading more I did want now I also decided I need to really get serious about this religion because I’ve always had questions unanswered questions I never doubted to the extent of maybe this is true but that is only as I can remember I had questions about things that I’m just not sure I like back to the five-year-old saying know my father put him into the government does always been some sort of question in my mind in another thing my dad taught me that I still hold onto to this day is a particular way of thinking where no matter what belief I’m taking on I always square with the question of what if I’m broke to find what what what does that lead to and so I used this I believe completely different things now than I used to but for instance just an example of that the blood issue the way I used to swear it is okay believes the Bible says we don’t take blood we should take blood what if I’m wrong about well if I’m wrong about that I die but I still lived a good life and good will still know that I’ve done my best to him and that I only did it out of my belief in him so I’ll still be resurrected so it’s okay, okay he doesn’t mind you look you are the whale be that that’s how used to swear one of my boys and I still swear my beliefs roughly the same way but to come to different conclusions and in some things I don’t swear it that way and we will get to that but so I just decided at the time of the accident got this to be only use for these extra things right now can use that extra time to really start to study and answer these unanswered questions in anyone who’s undertaken this endeavor can attest to when you start to study the witnesses material to the and makes less and less sense and calls more and more questions you’ll you’re not supposed to read this letter to reading only the witnesses material and but you know Charleston’s Russell did say that you can’t read the Bible itself you have to read it with studies in Scripture quotes and accents right so I undertook this endeavor and it raised more and more questions it didn’t answer my questions and what what I initially did was I said you know what I believe I don’t want to have these questions I’m going to stop this site. The endeavor cognitive dissonance is called this in at its finest absolve so I stop that and then just forgot back in the swing of things and I just became I didn’t push for more I got back to what I was running the mics again and I was happy with that you know I do need be so that I missed you I can run the mics I can go in service speaker witness in and live a good life you I don’t need to be a seven or an elder I I want to serve Jehovah by raising a family by raising my children and that’s the routing for a while and I was looking at a new job and at a retail store with pretty much all witnesses except for one person is one person that was witness and he would always question us about things so I would witness to him or I would try to witness them in ways that make sense because now that I’ve done some studying I know more things that don’t make sense I had a few classes in college identity career anything at this point but had a few classes so this things unlike evolution is real what she had God created through evolution so I don’t believe the southern crap about evolution not existing so when this guy was asking questions and I try to witness to them I would hit other people giving the West in my opinion the West witnesses it would be he would ask a question like well why don’t you guys had beards because he had a really nice bit it’s not a super doctrinal things that matter but the get the West answers from these other people and so I would purposefully be like like I remember one brother told him you know we tend because it’s on it because I forget what his explanation was really dumb it was something like we don’t because of the way the world looks at them yada yada and in you know we want to be above reproach and it is okay that might be okay and less and less sure talking to someone who has a beard you’re just telling and he has reproach now is what you said you lately so I remember because of that I stopped shaving polite and registered my bed in and my boss my boss was a witness and he’s like a are you doing that so that you can prove that witnesses can have bids and I was like these idiots keep giving the sky the West witness on the planet is shook his head and walked away so it was like they were accurate what they said though I mean it’s a it’s a bad witness but that’s that’s what they believe they were in it so I was going through a phase of being rebellious not from my beliefs but from the way they were handles that makes sense and then at that point’s I started I was reading a lot more was listening to a lot of podcasts some of them that maybe witnesses should Joe Rogan podcast Sam Harris THINGS like that I was reading a lot more books that were known witness books they perspectives yes and so for the first time in mice in my life I started open the question the witness and not to other witness I in my own mind like actually saying well what if this is a true and so I had tried to do this study project to get to believe more in that it may become more questions. So now I’m saying well what if this is a true and I’m going to the meetings I’m at home studying my own not apostate material just other material science psychology things like that and I came to the conclusion that I thought about was thoughtful and I said you know what his long as I’m going to the whole it doesn’t matter what I read it doesn’t matter what man from these other books because if I’m continually going to the hole and putting that in my mind of course I’m going to I want to examine this on its merits simply on its merits in order to do that I need to stop going to meaningful in order to give it a fat chance because I’m just plugging this information to my as I think by this time I had learned about propaganda and what that it’s right and I met my brother and I having a conversation I told him I said what we getting at the meeting as propaganda in and I told her that I don’t mean it’s bad I just mean it’s his lungs were constantly plugging it into law brain course would need and he’s like yeah he’s like guys like if you want to lose weight you put yourself in the propaganda about healthy eating it’s propaganda government so that’s what I dislike that you know what I want to examine the merits and stop meetings for a while so I started the other day I stopped going to the meetings cold turkey started to study these other things in I was finding more satisfying artist my questions but I was asking very superficial questions that in the end didn’t I wasn’t plugging I was digging into the history of the organization I was digging into the blood oak like the things that matter to me now I knew nothing about the child abuse these were just simple questions about how well it works and whether this belief squared with that squared with known psychology and science so it was allowing me to I was still indoctrinated because I still believe I just said I believe this is the truth that is wrong about certain things that’s the conclusion I came to at the time this is the truth with a little falsehood in the cognitive dissonance is a bit revolving to reflect this and this is got organization but it still currently run by Mansell course that something’s wrong that at but I was still not going to meetings in it was around this time so might also the time was a witness as I said I guess she knew I wasn’t going to meetings he knew I was like studying more science and second psychology stop and this was a man who was he was incredibly intelligent he is he had his faults too but he was very intelligent and he was a very good salesman and salesman are good at and what I mean by good salesman is a good salesman someone who can convince you to buy something in a way that like buy into the concept of soul is a good salesman a good salesman doesn’t convince you to buy something he makes you think it was your decision to buy that makes you feel like it’s your idea that immigrants sales the sharing enthusiasm for something so used to sharing his enthusiasm and if you can get you to become enthusiastic than I did go in and he was he was also very intelligent he did know a bit about psychology and so he pulled into his office one day after work is to have a conversation as we did a lot. That type of loss was very close to the suite we what we talked little different to so it will be at the top and he was asking me like I wasn’t going to the meetings what was going on and I explained it to them things like you know that I was studying like there’s no way that’s what happens if you believe in the end it was right around the time there was an article saying like a flood could have happened in the types of species now a ball from those types in it so I got into the whole supercharged evolution argument within but not as much an argument just exchanging ideas and what he did it was he took all of that and he ignored it and he got at me he got my emotions he started digging and I could feel it welling up inside of me was just weird like I can remember every detail but that the questions you are asking what pointed at my emotions of course and he he told you like asking and I could feel something like welling up in my text like an emotion like about to come out and not he asked me he said why is it that you’re so upset right now is when he asked because he could see I was getting upset and I was just like I did not surmise got my mouth shut shook my head in he said what he said what are you blaming the organization for what is the organization done to him like in that instant I thought about but I held it in because I didn’t want to I felt like it was rude to say and I was also getting emotional by self and kept asking kept pushing at me until finally he asked me what time I dispensed out if booking killed my mother it was an emotion I didn’t even know I had he was intelligent enough to pull it out of me but it was also very minute looking back when he looks at it that way on not because what that did the moment I said it I cried for a moment and then I felt so much better in and I sort of left myself again: dissonance and I said this religion didn’t kill my mother why was I holding onto that looking back now of course it did in now that now because of the time I didn’t know she committed suicide by just because the debt now that I knew she committed suicide she was disfellowshipped from the Army community she had husband’s overseas yeah I mean as soon as you said that she was disfellowshipped for drinking my first thought was why is she drinking it a lot to begin with and a person who is depressed and drinking doesn’t need to be cut off from the only people that they know they need help right now I mean there can be an intervention and things like that and sometimes you have to cut people off to get them to take the help of blah blah blah but I said that’s a whole another euro thing that is done professionally in the right way that is not what this fellow shipping someone and shaming them and cutting them off that’s that’s horrible right and so in after that but I don’t know like I don’t know how I came to the conclusion now that he didn’t kill it because of course like I felt it in the moment and him and I talked a bit and then by the end of the conversational like names and didn’t I don’t know why was holding and in a wide felt that course of the time I also didn’t know she can. Make that’s why fell for it and in and that was like a reawakening and I said you know what I can do this they did some things right the wrong about the club the wrong about evolution but overall it’s a good religion it’s a good way to leave role there right about most things so it took so I can do this so like not go for long like Elkton stereo 70 that I can feel what to get back to reading and so I started going back to the meetings literally two weeks two weeks after this conversation with my boss I met the woman that would become my wife and what finally woke me up was my wife but hated would hate the fact that this is what finally woke me up was getting married was what fully woke me up was after we got married I started serious good boy I’d always known I wanted to get married I always knew I wanted to have kids in the family plot you know when you’re in your teens in your 20s you don’t really think too much about it you know it’s something you want and that’s kind of the just of it we got married and I started seriously thinking about if and when I have kids how I handle such a way certain situations and that’s what woke me up I can definitely see that what what are some situations that they got you to think about the very first one was meeting it will also when we got married is roughly the time that I switched over to foreign-language competition which I think that has also played a part of me waking up because it’s sort of the same idea that I’m in the Fords foreign-language I’m not really plugged into the indoctrination and absolutely when you serve if you can get a break from it I don’t know if you know who Kristian and Katja are yes there is to say what you said yes and yes okay so I think that there just for the listener who doesn’t know there a young couple that that that left the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses that are and they do a lot of YouTube videos and I believe that one of the things that help them wake up was they went to a foreign-language congregation and suddenly they weren’t being hit with the same level of indoctrination because they couldn’t quite understand it as well and I know that for my wife and I taken that 18 months off to pay off the taxes that we owed and getting away from the indoctrination that was a big deal for us it’s like if you can get away from it for a while your brain finally starts processing stuff at end and making you think about it and then it becomes a problem so how did that work for you going to the foreign-language variation and then you with all the thinking about the kids as well will I think the first the first thing that hit me so that I thought you know floods wrong the wrong about evolution whatever stupid things they don’t matter it’s it’s know the way my sister describes that we talked about it is we all have a shelf everyone of us has a shelf where we can say I believe this this unlimited this and put it on the shelf and just ignore that but eventually you put something too heavy on the shelf and it breaks the shelf can only hold so much or can only hold certain size things so the flood evolution these are the little things they’ll fiddle myself perfectly fine we were doing a study is about three years ago because it is not long after we got married and in that had to do with blood the blood topic and I was going through the study and a cleaner you the Bible says this is the Scripture is this it makes sense I believe it and then I started thinking to myself if we what would I do my wife got into an accident tomorrow what I do if we had children and they were in a situation what they needed blood and I came to the conclusion that even though I believed it I would follow it because I absolutely couldn’t my wife died if I did I couldn’t let my children directly had them I couldn’t I would feel responsible even though I didn’t physically stop them I would feel like I had the power to make sure they go needed medical hat and I didn’t make sure they can itself and in fact I would be killing myself in the that either sitting I couldn’t do Ya I believe that’s what the Bible says once but it’s absolutely couldn’t do that in it it it hit me that I don’t know how to describe it but what would it made me eventually do was study more into it and the more I studied the less evidence I found all the witnesses being right about that and then I took my own thought process I mean that there’s so many things that effectively I don’t you know who Sam harasses aliens okay so I’ve been listening to him for years now to and so I’ve got a lot of lines of reasoning a lot of things I say now like a pretty much direct quotes from the in the Sam Harris call now because I just I wanted to study more I said well if I care believe this and not do it but I can’t like do it and not believe it either so I started studying that subject more and I started to find that the Scriptures and the Bible that was simply talking about eating blood but yes I know they make the argument that of course it doesn’t mention transfusions available back then put my argument would be when it’s supposed to add anything to the law and that is a strict example of taking something the law says and adding to its it’s a very in my viewpoint now is that this is a very pharisaical religion that’s that the local dishes are single religion to me anyway is very pharisaical because they had so much to it and you know so I started studying I found little evidence in the Bible I started thinking my hold regular well what if I’m wrong you point right myself if I’m wrong about the like whatever into good like a cat but if I’m wrong and I let my child I owe my wife time they died in a dumb reason that effectively met them myself I can’t do that I can’t believe that I am and I looked more into it and describing the whole process is can be kind of odd but I basically where I’m at now is a I don’t believe that’s what the Bible says I don’t believe that’s what God wants if there even is a gold as I’m better now but that but what I do believe honesty is I’m beyond the questioning of what if I’m wrong and beyond and I think we all have to come to that point where I can’t think of wood right now but I’m I can think of it but does they talk about standing up for what you believe that this is a word for it but I can think of right now but to have to truly have that quality so they talk about that and they also talk about doing what God says if you really have that quality and you believe that something is wrong you do it anyway because God says to do it you don’t have a: so for instance if I don’t believe it’s right morally I don’t care what in second gas detector so I don’t care at this point I no longer What the Bible says what God wants when it comes to that because if I have integrity to say oh God wants it so won’t do it I’m only doing it for one of 2° as I want the reward because I’m afraid that’s not so now it’s like this is morally wrong in if you really exist “and if you really want me to do that to my child one I’m sorry but thought you well and nothing to do with the foreign accent it I I began the progression when it came to blood as he did ask Abraham to sacrifice his son and then at the end was like psych and that’s where some have resorted comes in a is a quote if you go on his boat just waking up THE very very first episode is not actually an episode it’s something you pulled out from a debate he had been told how to speak to Christian I’m sure I’m sure you’ve had at least some quotes from it and in that sense that the God of the Bible he says I’m sorry to break it to you but Christianity is not a religion that repudiates human sacrifice, Christianity is a religion that celebrates human sacrifice specifically one as though it were the men and you get deeper into it and you realize the Bible is actually known against human is nothing in the Bible wishes that go to tests human sacrifice is only one time and the only reason according to the Bible that you detest it is because the sacrifices were made to mold back in the because the I know exactly what you’re talking about because he goes from the egos from same from requiring a human sacrifice of from Abraham and then saying no no I’m just kidding to celebrating sacrifice the sacrifice of youngest daughter to do testing it because firstborn children are being sacrifice the moment that ultimately requiring a sacrifice in order for him to be allowed to give the rest of humanity which data the concept of salvation about if she refuses to forgive us without sending some down here and killing them and what kind goats that is a really wet/easy exists in Romans as I think it’s in Romans it says that without blood God cannot forgive so I’m going to see this will not allow up there is a podcast called the Bible says what all the I just encourage you to listen to that of a book about right now the site is called the Bible says what and this man calls different pastors and there’s some things that he brings out from the Bible that I didn’t realize or even that I didn’t realize were there that I had to look up and holy crap all yeah there is there are things in there that I did not know where in there the did not fit into the narrative that I was provided my whole life that as of begun to look at and I can often look that a camera where it is but some of the it was in Romans but anyway yeah it’s some there there are some things when you start really thinking about it I mean like you said Jephthah’s daughter what we were always taught is that she wasn’t actually killed and burned sacrifice and that she was just dedicated to Temple service but see I have up on my phone call the Bible by the new version and it has about like 50 different translations of the Bible on so almost every single other translation as they owned adult all yeah it’s very clear what happened to her only in the New World translation does it say they did obeisance to driver something more because why would they want someone state that you coming to said exactly what was going to happen to the first became a minute words and then apparently followed through and that was okay to God but whatever did you know all details but the yeah it’s some it is you know when you start opening your eyes to all that or you know let let’s take let’s take blood for example in the witnesses view of blood if if blood is the symbol of life but yet you would avoid giving someone a blood transfusion in order to save the life that you are putting the symbol above the actual thing it symbolizes will let a person die so as to protect the symbol of the life yes which was all nonsense you’ve probably seen it it’s a video of great friends in Spain answering questions read his book and he break but that example he brings up the example of the wedding ring yes as you give up your marriage would you give up the wedding and someone told me send in such a Christian freedom but I read that okay I have read that it yeah it’s been a while floods private in their habit I think that line of reasoning was also on JW fax.com and that’s where I thought at first when I was researching the whole the whole blood issue is one of the first things that I started to do research because I was pretty interested in that and what I let my wife die over that our no problem let myself die but let my wife that would’ve been a problem as the sound like were on the same way that you absolutely has lived in any know if you if you read it in acts 15 where you know Paul is discussing the blood if if you read the context of it which witnesses always there on other religions for not reading the context of things if you read the context of that of those verses there was a problem between the was the weather promise when the Jews and the Gentiles or something like that is a problem between two groups and he was just basically saying look to donate blood and just appease them you like here you do this and you do that let’s all get along and let’s move on that’s what he was saying it was never some big sweeping rule that was to you know go deep into the future and impact blood transfusions it wasn’t wasn’t about that like you said that’s adding to him it was clear what it said and then you’re adding to this and then you can get all science see it and take technical and taking a blood transfusion you’re not digesting the blood you’re not eating the blood in any way it’s basically an organ in your body that you’re transplanting just like you a transplanted kidney or anything else the blood itself is basically an Oregon and but you know they don’t want to hear that they’d rather be rather sacrifice people to the doctrine that was created a long time ago aerobic eligible channels yes and their pregnant wives who die in pregnancy and childbirth know it’s it’s it’s horrible horrible and insert like that that was the first and main catalyst for me I had already been in my first you know legal study work to get out you know about the flood and evolution all the things at that time I had already had a disagreement with shunning but it was one of those things where I felt like that that’s the rule however I don’t have to do it and no one needs to know what right but now that now it’s starting to build because shunning is becoming a allotted thing because I’m realizing that without shortening the literal doesn’t even matter fact notables without shunning old to give way applications get heavy admit very considers that and then the last thing at this point I realized that and I said you know what I can do this but the only thing in my crazy in my the only one who thinks about this the one who realizes this so I started looking for and I can already the extent of the summer and I can John see this channel and I came upon a copy of the names are now the old couple is a little bit crazy but funny how my Kim Mike and at first I did not like that it is at all but they grew in the group will be at first but big room and started finding these things in it and it wasn’t about searching out more problems is about finding out that I’m not crazy that I’m not the only one that thinks this way oh absolutely that’s it in this is a huge moment when you realize you’re not crazy yeah I literally went to therapy one time I I I decided I needed to talk to a therapist I went one time I started pouring my heart out and you are talking about some of the religious stuff or whatever and she was like will you not crazy that sounds weird and I like you know what I’ll need therapy were done with just one person to tell me I was not crazy in this world all I needed was one person to validate me and then of course you know when on some forums and things but it’s a big moment when you realize that you’re not the only one that sees something a certain way right so I mean that was I was doing it for that purpose and at that point I found out about not just the child beside head about that before but not believed it and I think that when I was about 12 or 13 was around that age there was something like those in a Nightline report about some it wasn’t kind’s critique is Candace Conti’s most recent but it was about a child abuse cover-up in the witness and I remember Anderson probably and often I remember that it was coming on TV but we didn’t watch it I didn’t believe that I thought was a hit job by apostates and cats right but now this is around when I’m going through this process now is around 2015 so you know what I came across in 2015 was not just one person being abused and built the congregation alone possibly covering up I found out about the Australian Royal commission and its I think that’ll put me over the edge did you because I I did I was sitting here at work in this office on it right now and because they’re in Australia so was that we had time and I sat back here and while I was doing my work I had it on and I was listening to it and I was just floored at the fact that it was 1001 it was in the 1700 cases in the thousand and one alleged perpetrators and not one of which had been reported to the police that there were a lot of amazing points made in the ARC in it and that’s what put me over the edge in it that I said I’ve got to do something because like when I immediately realized I didn’t want to be a witness anymore I felt bad because I was newly married to the best woman on earth was a believing witness and I just felt bad I felt like I wish I’d known this before is now like if I leave I ruin her life unit sorry it just had me a little bit says it’s a very emotional thing it’s the very tough place to be a intentional thing is she so damn small I feel it I want the I wanted to wake up to him but I also know I can’t force it she needs to be ready when she’s ready if it happens this but I am so I realizes and I said you know what I’m going to tell the truth is I can’t lie to I cannot just have this is a charade in the number of Americans based on a lie and exit but I also know if I just put it all out that that’s not going to go well you to search I started slowly letting information in I printed off the ARC printed off the whole of the Leica of paper recorded such hundred pages of something like that I printed off the whole thing put it in the binder stuck in my bookshelf as I read through myself said she’s can see this one day and then the first thing I told him glad to do it slowly was about the blood I told I called her one evening I said some catch and we sat down and I told her I said I want you to know that I recently changed my mind about something I need to let you know because-and I said I didn’t agree with the organization’s stance on blood transfusions and Jesus she sat then and just looked at me she knew I was in a talk like she didn’t look surprised which told me that she did look surprised she discredit was looking up and letting me speak and I said I don’t believe the stance on blood transfusions I said I told her I said I will do whatever you want I will respect whatever your wishes are whether I agree with him or not I’m asking that you do the same for me if something happens to me I don’t want anyone to stop the doctors from doing what they have to do I don’t want any witnesses in the hotel room coming in the hospital room until like that process is done and she agreed and she said okay and I left it at that for the moment because it knowing it has to be like slow drip sort of thing and then like a week or two later and we were sitting in our apartment complexes a hotel we were sitting in the hot tub and she asked me and that’s what I was “I didn’t want to have to bring it up again I wanted had asked me and she asked me some like what brought you to that conclusion what made you change your mind and I went through the whole thing I went through Ray friends as example of the wedding ring I went through the fact that it’s only talking about eating blood and that I feel that seeing a pharisaic to add on to that you in it was a very good conversation it seemed to go very well and at that point I told her I said I will to I want to respect your wishes if you don’t agree with me but honestly I’m telling you right now if something happened to you I would like to die and she just thought a lot and she said okay and then the next day I had to get something out of the pass and I opened up a wallet and what her blood clot is normally it was gone so I was happy about that is very happy about that I don’t know if since she’s gotten a new one and but I know like she took it out at least at that time maybe she took it out she needed to get someone new to the assignor I don’t know but other since then I haven’t seen it in her wallet which is good to so I started out slow like that I eventually I I took that binder of the PARC and I had it I was reading it in bed in I read some to you know she’s just a man people make mistakes I can’t believe this could happen but you know it’s still human and humans mistakes she is what we would call the waiting Job attitude yeah yeah yeah a lot of apologists who is imperfect men and so which is what I was for a long time I need to but what do I think the good thing about that is if you’re an apologist then you recognize something’s wrong you have every everything I need to apologize if you’re and apologists the right thing just hasn’t come up yet but thought it at least in my point of view made but that’s how I choose to be sure that means the right thing hasn’t come up yet to completely change your mind so I’m glad for that and since then we’ve had a lot more conversations and I told her at this point it’s the most recent conversation we had is when I was finally able to put it all out those about 34 months ago now she’s asking me questions like I told her like I’m on a journey I’m reevaluating everything I believe all type of messaging you in on this journey and about 34 months ago unit she brought it up again asked me like and I basically told I said at the point now that is what I told etc. the point now where I know this religion is not the truth it’s not like the it’s not run by gold like authorities and I even questioning his existence I don’t even know if I believe in him at this point that I told us that but what I do know is that if there is a gold and if he’s worthy of my worship then it doesn’t matter if he’s worthy of my worship and is gold that judges me based on my hot site even though I might be wrong about an existing and I’m doing everything I can to be the best person I can I’m doing this because I want to know what’s right not doing it because I hate the religion in it was that it was a very good conversation the way it played out was she knows I believe in this religion she knows I’m questioning God’s existence not that I’m definite yes that questioning it and I I did make a commitment to I said I will know disassociate myself religion because I don’t I know what that means I know what happened to you I do I know the consequences in the congregation the way people will treat you I don’t care about the consequences to me I was nothing my sisters and her witness able my brother is I lose my brother and as much as I love him that’s his choice by lose him a well but but that’s the only thing I present at the my wife is she loses her nephews coming over whatever she wants because Wyrick insisted that the children be in-house but the apostates are she visited Cedar respect and admiration people obligation so I know what it means that is like to listen to this disassociate myself in fact I’ll be at every meeting with you on your meeting but I can’t attend I don’t attend Sunday meetings because of my work schedule is about the at every meeting icon with you what I decide because you’re my wife and I will keep up with software everyone else but I want to be honest with you in it was an emotional conversation. But she appreciated it and she’s she’s according I’m working now you know the job I have I just started another business on the side and she’s also me even if she knows she needs to be like she most me with more I transcribe by them if we it’s all over the our relationship is basically perfect in every way except the fact that I no longer believe she does it in a manner new relationships that sounds kind of like the. Thing to say but that’s how I feel sure you will I mean that’s is pretty big of her it’s a big of you to continue the façade for her that’s your guess I want to say is the relationship has two people who were currently being very willing to give to each other you are willing to give of your authenticity here to set some things aside to continue if aside to support her and she is continuing to ill be a loving you good partner to you and not to hold against you the fact that you don’t really believe anymore which is that’s pretty big for a witness because witnesses are had tea like that is that you jamming it just shows I heard you what is what I see in this whole story really is your amenity was never stripped and neither is hers you both have your humanity intact your basic your love that that that kind of stuff is still there I know how to describe it now if unconditional love yes it is the time in my life yes even my mother’s love is conditional yeah unconditional love for the first time in my life and honestly saw only the people at the mall yet my work my workmates know exactly where I start my wife that is exactly what my sister knows exactly where I start only the only other person doesn’t know where I stand up people at the funeral and my brother you in only reason my brother doesn’t is because it I refuse to speak about that subject with him as I don’t want to lie to him but I also don’t want to lose him and of course if I do I do it’s his choice not mine but but is still not preference your preferences it’s just that I don’t like to just don’t speak about it to them so that I don’t have to lie to the fact that I understand that basically well I have to say many like I I want to see your wife live in freedom and I and I and I hope someday she can wake up and be right there by your side is this even if you don’t believe wholeheartedly the same I hope she can get out of something that is kind of toxic especially if it if it really impacts are on but I don’t mind believe in God that’s I am quite out of bed or just I don’t agree with the honestly the main things if they got rid of something the blood issue and they fixed the the that that the way they protect children I would be okay sure it would be a façade of like you know what I’m choosing to believe in God and the rest of this is just this is a religion as a tool to set right into the first three things that absolutely yeah the small problems of course you remains ones that come in for me but I think what I what I was yet you know what to say that I think that the fact that that she has remained in has allowed you to to see and feel what is a beautiful thing and unconditional love you maybe even for the first time ever I I don’t know but I think maybe you said that but that’s that’s a beautiful thing to come from what could have been a very ugly thing that I could’ve gone very badly and ends I don’t know I do think that it’s great that you although she still in she’s unconditionally loving you and your unconditionally loving her even though you don’t agree with a lot of things she stands for and I just I don’t know I just think that’s a beautiful thing that’s that that can exist even in the midst of something that they can be so harmful and so you hurt so many people were talking happy for you for that reason the though and I appreciate that on the only thing sometimes I feel like maybe she’s in a bit of denial only because like I made it very clear that I’m like one example of you made it very clear that I’m I’m questioning God’s existence not that I don’t believe (questioning it now still times where one was sitting down for a meal she’ll ask me to write books and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that and I’m happy to pray for us I just if it were me I will I would think like well if you’re questioning his distance I’m not been ask you to pray for pray to buses me and it just makes me think sometimes like maybe there is a trace of denial in the but I tried to result in as possible not have called conversations again but just slip things and so that she knows now like I’m still don’t believe that’s the still questioning on yeah yeah she makes yeah you know it could be denial of his think about it could be denial they could just be that article that she just knows I’m questioning it and that I’m not like I do believe in God is questioning so why would that be a problem trying to like just thinks differently that the origin this route it’s been so routine for her she just does it and you do your and you do it your she requests that you do it you know what she’s just not really thought about that aspect of it because for her that so foreign right yeah a lot of reasons it can be but you are right to be could also be it could be a level denial items I’m as interesting and never thought about how much denial what my wife was in denial when it when I do what I was so openly questioning me she couldn’t deny my questions my questions were pretty direct that I wasn’t good about keeping my mouth shut but some thought I never will I wonder if she was in any denial about how I was really feeling at the time I probably was in denial myself about how was feeling at the time I’m still in denial about some things I imagine a minute I still feel young and sexy but I know Max bottles well you know some things are better than I had profit you are there anyways so I mean I know myself I’ve been out now for three years and something recently hit me that that I never really thought about and driving is a process we all go through me no matter how long you’ve been outside the organization it seems like people still find things that as part of their personality or are many ways that they look at the world that are little difference and some just wondering I get are the is there anything today that you kind of struggle with your being where you are right now it’s a it’s almost like I’m 30 years old and I’m just now finding out who I really am of us in this because like I realized recently I remember being about 14 years old I was visiting my aunt and uncle at the time and learned I was 16 and my uncle was asking me about college I planned on going to college so that I could get a different job at the time I was a believer in the witnesses of course I said no this is my on my downside is no witness and he said Michael says no I don’t know I just can’t imagine is what I told him once you know I’m okay with simple by commercially happy with simple life I don’t need much more than what I have I’m okay just being me and then whatever Wi-Fi shines in us having a simple life and my uncle told me he said you know I just can’t imagine that is like I have to always be trying to get ahead I Feel like I’m not getting ahead in at the time it was just like England you’ll different whatever but the older I get and now that I’m not a full believer and not anymore I realize no way I am actually very on this vicious deep down it was just the out of me for the majority of my life I was told that I shouldn’t be ambitious I’m right there with you I am about goals like Malik I would not imagine like I’m in a position now where I have a Job that I absolutely love yet I still want to do more and it’s not out of not being happy is just the idea that I don’t ever want to be a slave to one thing and even though I love this job if it’s the only thing I have going on that I’m a slave to it so I’ve started my business on the side and inside women I have a good job at playing pays you know not quite 60 is but it’s a decent paying job I don’t need another business like one of my doing this and it’s because this this is something that’s always been in me but I know the fully explore a let out like thinking back I know it was always because when I was 13 years old I had my business when I was 13 years old I didn’t just mow one of my neighbors lines I mowed all of my needs loans to the point where I could do it all in one of my friends that was my age what to me I charged like 20 bucks to mow the lawn and I would give him 15 so he could do some and I can do more so is a little on your this this is always been in my personality but I for most of my life I I beat it out of myself because of what I was sure I said no and I need to keep it simple so that I can do this this and this instead sick now I I have ambitions I have there’s more to me and I let myself see and I’m still finding that things today are you going to find those for a long to become that show this to him and I haven’t even had the experience of leaving like you guys have to sure even when she leaves you find out more about self home for sure for sure use as you do you have any so you can’t you’re not able to fully leverage your choosing not to fully leave to support your wife right and that could I mean that’s an ever evolving discussion in that could change down the road sure together beside that but also decided to not sure do you have anything right now that you want to do her wish you could do that you can’t’s right now I don’t know if that’s a fair question or not but seems to like and it kind of interesting one there are other things that you’re you’re feeling yourself drawn to that you can’t explore in life I guess right now because you there are certain things you have to obviously keep on the down low on not to be honest with you not really I like to spend Wednesday nights at home alone with my wife instead of surrounded by or the other people commuting but and the other thing what are you looking forward to battling holidays and things like that is anything like that appeal to you the holidays not really I mean if we had the kids I would want them to experience have you I’ve never felt like it was missing out on the holidays and what I do and experiences I want to have article to my wife to my wife about it and she’s down I want to travel more and I want to like I’m in a position now where like one promotional way all on my side business going successful away from having money to be able to get back to be able to create something that affects all the that helps other people like to show you had a project water it’s a charity that builds wells in impoverished areas these I want to get involved with something like that and in not just by giving them money by saying you know what business is going well, take a month off from my job and if they don’t give it to me and screw the joke of the business is going well but Sigma will help build these wells will help you know do something that affects other people because another problem I had growing up as a witness is the idea that it’s going strong to take care of everything and it’s not up to us like don’t worry about spending time a charity spend time and separates the hope will fix all that stuff is like know whether he even if he exists I’m sure God was responsible for what we did with the lives you might imagine showing up to to go if he does exist imagine trying out and saying what did you do with your life while I worked at took on my family and I make money so disappointing you like were in America when the richest country on that howl multiple meeting are just one of the richest countries are like all our impoverished people. Over jet then reach people in Africa or other countries like if we make any anything more like we do going to be held responsible by gold for making all over the place and if he doesn’t exist then all the more reason for us to make up all over the place” yeah that’s that’s that’s why is I want us to do something and not just throw money at it but go out into something you want to experience that I am and experience them on vacations and stuff to will mainly like I want to be able to do something that makes me feel that what I used to feel when I went out field service now I understand that you like 10 times more limited essay on because of something that a lot of people don’t think about you’ll buy starting businesses and things like that and I’m not saying that everything capitalist is good but you are helping people by employing people and things like that it’s not the same as going in drilling wells in Africa that’s a beautiful thing yet to be able to do as well but said to be to have I think that one thing that we were never taught to have because we were kept away from the world that we we were in and we were taught to see everything is so bad as as we sometimes lack of appreciation and gratitude for what were able to do and you know are not also were also not supposed to take glory for ourselves or whatever but I mean you’re helping to employ people that’s a beautiful thing you’re helping people feed their family or even just doing this podcast right now I can guarantee you just by putting yourself out there you’re going to help people because there people out there who are in a you hear this that’s Manna me there’s not a lot of people who are in who have the guts to do what you’re doing right now and I dare see you there are other people in my situation I guarantee all I know there are a lot of people in your situation for sure but I listen to either they went posted a podcast for a while but I used to listen to the particle boys all yeah love them that the hilarious and fun-loving is put in a new one just so you know I did I was this week but I listen to no one with wife Margaret is this is a somewhat similar situation except if I understood correctly is what is the net quite as much of my work is right for what he believes but it’s it’s a very simple so I guarantee you there are other people you say you know that’s my situation yes and they need to hear stories like yours and Wi-Fi that what They need to and that’s why one UM pop puppy for my own sanity is to talk to someone about these things and is across the people who go to the same thing yeah yeah and you’re going to help somebody else feel like they are not alone like they are not crazy and ill that’s that’s an amazing thing to be able to do that to be able to really help somebody because it’s there are many lonelier places in life than to be stuck in a Colts to not believe I do think you’re the only person who sees what you see and you know sometimes and I can speak from my own experience to even have a wife or a spouse or her family who doesn’t see what you’re saying either you know that’s really hard place to be but I think it’s beautiful that that you’ve been able to explore that on your own and and it’s beautiful that your wife is supportive of you know even through this because that can go badly sometimes you it’s being around other people and still feeling the Lamisil unit one of us feelings and I don’t get that very much but up one thing I did want to touch on and help us wealthy and Colombian mercilessly and as you have to be is am I did say in the beginning that I’m not sure yes I’m and I notices this and THAT’S about people or some I wanted to touch on the people who are not witnesses in in may not understand what you and I to that all when it comes to the Jehovah’s Witnesses at least that is actually multiple layers yes so to some degree I actually am I’m for the witnesses you’ll understand this I’m the brother who doesn’t come to every meeting because on material materialistic and best of mitral that’s not what I really am but that’s who I am to the title talk I get so my sons completely know but I’m went with the witnesses there is an endless level in groups this is out yet even though you’re inside the witnesses will not at all the meetings so you’re the upper oh so you’re at all the meetings will not office assignments are not alike we also your mail in order tiny like we also your out and I’m sure it goes all the way up to the top while told not to go in and bought a new member like we also your help I’m sure it goes all the weight so that you still a level of we are we are still affected by that to the degree that we don’t have close relationships in the whole partly because of me it’s not because my wife she’s ever camping away right now but she’s that every meeting she’s in service over time but that has been as she people have taken a step back from since we’ve been married even before I start to believe the way I do now because I’m not that I’m not in service as much as people would like the unit so there is that level of shunting that still exists not only robust but other people experience as well is always someone who may not be shunned but is on the upper when you’re said that’s a fantastic point because the others organizationally sanction shining your for people who are disfellowshipped or disassociated like a wife and I did right but then you have there are plenty of people out there who have just quote faded and tried to walk away who are shunned there are people who just our regular at the meetings like yourself who get shunned light or whatever you want to call it where they can still say hi to you but they let you like you’re just there you know because all organizationally sanction because they have talks all the time with them shows your sink just because your witness this because some of the witness doesn’t mean Beckett Association so it fuels this type of in December input about yeah I’d add that I use it’s a term organization signally sanction to Justin and that it’s not it’s not black and white those are the more the quote conscience matters where they don’t make a hard and fast rule but they discourage you from associating with those people right so that gets more to the instead of the rules that’s more like the culture that they create them as I see it anyway and the other kind of they just kind of guilt you first for associating with people who aren’t at all the meetings and stuff like that the center of paranoia inside the congregation that said that Scripture in first Corinthians 1533 bad associations as well as useful habits and end the way they apply it now is to even those inside the variation so you have to look at every body that you’re around and are they worthy of your Association or should you really kind of shunned them and it’s it’s so sad because I just they create us versus them and literally every situation possible of the and that nobody gets help from that so is there anything else that you’d like to say touch on or I guess I guess unless little heartwarming thing that happened the the other day I was my wife is at hand when I was I went to grocery store and on my way home a song came on the radio and when I had it I’ve had this on 1 million times before but have never paid attention to the limits and this time I was paying attention and I was bawling my eyes out because it’s exactly when my wife and I have both that and I went home and I shared it with that I said baby I just had this on the radio it’s exactly where you and I have both that will with thinking about each other right now and I love you so much I just thought I couldn’t help myself something it’s called open your eyes and it’s by snow patrol show you that it must be glad when you read or hear the words they are the words of me woken up that’s what I’m saying to my wife is what she’s saying to me she wants me to open my eyes everyone who’s in our situation I think this is also that I know you do like people to pick a song but just had it the other day and I was like note this this is the song of our situation to people who love each other immensely and want each other to see the light so to speak but when we get off here I want to listen to and you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about when you do what. I will do so I appreciate you sharing that actually no snow patrol so it is it went really well because when she listened to it we would it was just a tender moment that we shed because were very open with one another about how we feel in the situation think that’s the only way to proceed if you do still so I wanted to share that and just I’m not even say the words of of that you listen to myself saying them it’ll hit me again okay it was a very holding moment when I was hoping you would sing it but that’s okay no here you can catch me the carrier I I want to thank Daniel for being brave enough to speak up and to give us an inside look into someone that is living that life as as a chemo of someone who is physically and mentally out there’s always a risk when doing something like this but he wanted to speak the truth and you know it is really ironic as other thing about that now here he is in a cult that literally called themselves the truth but were having to do these things to hide his identity because he can’t speak what is true inside the truth so they are just really messed up situation but clearly Daniel has a good heart he’s trying to do the right thing you he loves his wife he wants to to keep his family together and it’s so sad that he has to hide who he truly is in order to make that happen and if that doesn’t show the cult nature of Jehovah’s Witnesses I don’t know what would if you like to send this message to support the Daniel you can do so by going to shunned podcast.com you can leave a comment form there on the episode page for his episode you can also find the resources that were mentioned in the episode there of the video for the song that he chose to represent his journey Daniel chose the song open your eyes by snow patrol that he mentioned actually in the interview while you shunned podcast.com you can also send me an email you can send me a voicemail that I can use on the show by using the tab on the right of each page where you can ask 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that you probably go ahead and just click on the description there and get any information that you need one last reminder don’t forget to sign up for the four week coaching/support group program starting Sunday, March 10 seats are limited and I look forward to seeing you join others in the process of discovery about your own life your own story helping each other in this and building a little community and if you know that the podcast here they’re all about the story we tell others but the stories we tell ourselves are also very important so what help us all work through those things and so as we had all episodes love others do no harm and go be happy and
Homeless at just 13 years of age, married at 16, raised by extended family that claimed him as their own to create the young Jehovah’s Witness that they wanted, Silvers led a life that encompassed the whole toxic palette of cult life. His life was touched by abuse of every kind and he’s been as low as a human can get mentally and emotionally, but yet here he stands. Today he tells his story to the world. Today Silvers takes that stand for himself and not only will you hear his story but you will get an inspiring update afterward. That’s not to say that life is easy for him or that everything always turns up roses, but his story is a testament to the human spirit. He is one that keeps getting up over and over again and fights for something better.
Welcome to the shunned podcast where we expose religions that you shunning as a tool to control people today we have another former member of Jehovah’s Witnesses named Silvers and there’s some really unique aspects of his story home was a 13 married at 16 everything from the blood issue to physical and sexual abuse Silvers experience that all and not only did he experience so much but he still here standing to tell a story and just him being able and willing to stand up and to tell the story is a huge step in and of itself I’m not gonna spoil it all here but he has been through a lot I even have an update of sorts that I’m in a share after the interview that I think is really cool and if you stick around after the interview you can also hear how the podcast is doing what the next episode is about and we give you some highlights from the sun podcast Facebook group so let’s go ahead and meet Silvers let’s get to know him a little bit and his story my name is Silvers I’m 42 years old I was a Jehovah’s Witness and I’m shot I Silvers and how did you become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the first place well I was kind of born and my grandmother and started studying from what I understand with the witnesses and kind of brought my biological mother and father in and so that kind day that’s how let’s talk and it started with the family gotcha so you said that your was her maternal grandmother you say my maternal grandmother and she brought in both your mom which obviously kinda make sense but she also brought your dad in think my my dad was on the sake I think my dad felt it was bull crap from the beginning and just get anything because he loved my mom a lot… At that time and my grandmother also brought in the majority of the rest of the family on my moms side which would mean her sisters and her mother is in cousins and I just counted the ripple effect within a short period of time a lot of the women in the on the my mom said the family had been married five or six times each so I felt like they probably struggled a little a lot and was probably an easy target nor you yeah they’ve got that vulnerability there they’ve had some issues in their life and their they’re looking for something obviously so sound like your grandma was was kind of patient zero like you know she, got this whole thing started in the family so when you so you are then kind of born in so I assume that it was all you ever knew is that correct not not completely all I ever knew okay there is kind of a more than kind of there is a big black when I was born over the blood issue by my biological mother were strange to now so that’s why say biological she when she went into labor and she needed she was losing so much blood she needed a blood transfusion and the family wasn’t having it so they were in rush her to a hospital and dead two hours away from the original hospital the doctor said he would not do anything with or without a blood transfusion on the way to the next hospital she died and they cut me out into the cesarean and got me out and she was in a coma for three days so during that time my great and really this is my great aunt really wanted me I think my dad bought really hard for her to get a blood transfusion but was up against too many to many other people in the family so that’s, how I was introduced at eight in the for the next four years I would live with my biological mother and father/some pretty good what I can remember a pretty good memories of them and they were not there, teetering I think just to pacify mom my grandmother I teetering and going you know going to the kingdom all and and tell it fell apart okay so wow that’s quite a start to a story is quite a start to a life so you were the blood issue you know touched you very early and I noticed that you said that your great aunt once and you wish you she was was she pursuing custody in some way like white what may be why your mom was in a coma you know I don’t know the complete details of that particular moment although I do know that she has confessed and there’s been any other confessions but one was that she was very jealous of my mother because she was unable my great aunt was unable to have children and maybe she felt like having a child would make her life complete and she did wish you death upon my mother and this was a Jehovah’s Witness that was and in and I just find it so horrid you know that she would wish death upon my mother said she would be able to get me since she had been having this in the forefront of her mind for the longest time and and actually she took care of me for the first two weeks when I got out of the hospital with my biological mother was still in the hospital recovering and she has flat out told me she just wish her dad so she could keep me so this was that this was her cry looking for any opportunity for that scenario to play out it would take four years and it finally did for her all right wow that’s that’s a lot of dysfunction to be brought into into the world into because sure why I left that’s heavy so how do you so you mean you’ve already said that your biological parents you, let us they had you feel something happen I guess of that for your mark so what what transpired what happened that changed it at that for your mark I don’t really know I don’t really get a clear picture I don’t think I’ve ever complete clear picture from the Jehovah’s Witness side just because they would like to paint it something different I’ve had to do a lot of digging and what I do know is that my great aunt sister did try to get custody of me are temporary custody while my mom straightened herself out which I think she got on a little bit of drugs a course for witnesses that could amend she smoked a cigarette art smoke pot had and one time right and sees the opportunity and I know that my great and she did and it I getting me for quite a few years had a very big argument with her Jehovah’s Witness sister is saying that if you don’t let me have him I’ll never speak to you again so to keep the peace. She lacks her sister migrate at take over take me over legal conservatorship which at that is what I found out later I didn’t a lot of this came unraveled much later came to me in bits and pieces and have asked questions over the years and I was able to use the puzzle together and then just flat out confessions once I I had directly confronted them with paperwork and Peru that your human being not a piece of property for people to fight over that’s that’s the that’s really it I don’t even know I just I’m sorry man that this is a really rough really rough way to start life what happened then with your parents a means to get legal conservatorship or something there would have to be a legal issue that always is not like or maybe I’m wrong and somehow they worked it out but is not like Jehovah’s Witnesses could just have like a judicial committee and somehow take away your parents ability to be parents you this is a this would be a legal issue so your parents once you went to live with your great aunt what happened said that a money that they just give up the rights to you or was there some sort of fight your biological parents all my biological parents from what I understand what I’ve been told that my father went to jail and my mother dropped me off at my in her her mom’s house for my grandmother’s house and during that to be gone for a few days and during that few days is when they decided to take the opportunity and say that she abandoned me and then file for legal conservatorship of me which was only supposed to be temporary and I was told that I was it was something a little bit stronger than legal conservatorship and that based on was adopted by my great aunt wow that’s that so there’s a lot of moving pieces there and it’s right kind of interesting to see all of that happening within Jehovah’s Witnesses to have so many people trying to I don’t know if maybe they felt they were trying to get you like you said with your great aunt maybe maybe she was looking to fulfill some part of herself or maybe she thought she could save you in some way you know being that she could introduce you to quote the truth and in get you to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses yourself but to I believe that definitely the case I also believe in it that she even based on what she said so it is that she couldn’t have children and she didn’t want me really bad and I felt like I I do like she really felt like she’d be more complete and the my great aunt married within a few months of getting a legal conservatorship of me to a worldly in the truth world like a worldly man who was a cop so I think she hadn’t really thought out pretty well you know if she’s married to a cob even though he’s worldly shall have financial security with this new son boat” right and she guess she is prepared to deal with a little backlash from the corrugation if that meant having a husband and a child and then she could bring up the perfect child basically what she thought all of her dream would come true and maybe she can bring her husband in which she had tried her whole life to be yeah a lot of people try that so then you were raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses by essentially your great aunts from the time basically that you could really have much knowledge of what is going on you or the baby anymore right or toddler so then what was the the worldview that you are given by the witnesses by your great aunt.how did they have you see the world around you well first off they isolated my parents for me though that the deal was that that my parents could have gotten me at any point I had they dish under the court a little initiative but it was greatly blocked by my grandmother and especially my great aunt that was raising me making them think that they didn’t have any rights whatsoever and change your number my parents couldn’t find me for a while and so I was viewed to see the world was that people work evil Satan was out to specifically target me and my mom was evil my dad was evil so of course I didn’t match with any memories I had of them and but over time it’s not being told their evil there are understandings and plans are there satanic for their demonic then of course that started to to infiltrate my mind where I started to believe that that was true and everyone in it that I had interaction with that was that inside be true or do you know does when the organization of work to be viewed the same way but definitely I would definitely save my parents seem to be my biological parents seem to be the most demons even more than worldly people are you will that work Jehovah’s Witnesses like I can I can understand them doing that and why they did that right that’s it’s quite manipulative it sounds like they played a lot of games to keep your parents your biological parents away from you so yet so then what was your childhood it like growing up at home this this home with your great aunt what was what was life like them very isolated very controlling it was very physically violent and there were sexual abuse sexual grooming from my grandmother’s husband so my grandfather was a ministerial servant and that grooming started almost immediately when I got with my aunt got me at about 4 1/2 so and having a one parental figure my great aunt that was not that was in the Joe’s witness organization and then have any other father figure has been that was no I in him being a police officer there just there was a lot of violence between those guys that she was very much a yeller and screamer and so is he in their it would just get pretty violent and he was above the log as he was a policeman then and there is just a lot of things I can never talk about anyone boat and the congregation and even outside the congregation just regular people because sent to the police but it would be hard for you know me to be believed on either side are even be taken seriously I I can see you you really between a rock and a hard place there she did you know and she really liked her weekends to herself so I would go visit my grandmother and energizing ministerial servant and I just remember you know from a small age at little little bitty things added up over a period of you know seven years or so that would end up happening that I wasn’t realizing that I was being groomed yeah me nobody ever is that back I really didn’t realize I was being grew until I was I sought therapy in my late 20s early 30s sure you the minutes of the manipulations very hard to see heck we were all manipulated just being in a cult right and I did wake up from that allows about 38 years old so you know we it’s very hard to see what people were very skilled at manipulating other people are doing in the moments and then even years later how did things go for you so soundly home life wasn’t wasn’t very good which might be saying it too nicely how was school you know when you you did at least have that time to maybe get away from the situation at home when you went to school what was that like you as a young witness was made fun of a lot in school and bullied a lot I do I did have a couple of incidences which helped out like you know might migrate it was that a violent person and so is my husband and I do remember one specific incident where I was being had a smart mouth in class immune being repressed on all sides there had to be some sort of outlet where I could express to being negatively or not so’s I had kind of a mixed bag at school so one incident that got me send to the principals office and this was back in the time period were teachers themselves could go in and I’m not sure if they do that now but teachers can go in and spank their their student and Argabright bent over to get a spanking and error bruises all up and down my back and she didn’t give me a spanking instead set me down is probably about seven and and she sat me down and asking where the bruises came from and immediately I made up a lie which was kind of interesting that I would just on the fly at seven make up that live and she said that that you know the that she merely recognize the lie and called CPS which then they got a hold of my great aunt which was such an embarrassment to her and I really got it when I got home other things that happened in school is just being bullied by some of the even Jehovah’s Witness kids in the corrugation and went to the same school as me and this get you this kind of an oddball and kind of let my I guess the pressure cooker effect came out in school you know I I didn’t I be discounted acted out a lot finally I did stand up for myself towards the beginning of high school and I had pretty much had enough of the abuse I coming seemingly coming from every direction and so when some of the hotshot bullies in school I finally approach to me I had enough and I got into a lot of fights and with their butts and then, towards the end of my school became popular because I wouldn’t take any crap and also is pretty comical about it that was my way and hope it your Leica you the yoke a lot a lot of people when they have a lot of bad things in her life they turn to comity essentially to to be in the funny guy and this is kind of interesting to see you as the fighter and the funny guy at the same time that that’s an interesting outlet for all of that I have guts, kinda great that at least you were able to kind of take back your life a little bit in that in that one small way even in school so how was it at the Kingdom Hall them for you at your growing up it sounds like you said that even the kids he went to school with you from the same corrugation were bowling you at school though it doesn’t doesn’t bode well for the kingdom hall but you how was how is life for you there it was a little lonely and I was an only child so and I will say that on the spectrum is there to me up like there is a spectrum inside of Joe’s witness organization where the are families that are a lot more lax and lenient towards her children and others and I I was on the spectrum of just being abused quite a bit being covered up so because of that I I felt isolated I acted isolated what I did do that I studied very hard to be able to get the best comments I possibly could so I could at least if nothing else be”” spiritually strong and and that’s really come out played out for me and in the kingdom hall just people were more standoffish and did make fun of me to hurt my feelings quite a bit but I just really try to stay focused on being like the fastest one that can look up a Scripture and the you know that just that I did what I could take them to survive that situation and in my great aunt was not very keen on since she had a worldly husband she was already kind of marked soda and you in the corrugation is kind of keep your distance sort of from her you know from her so that kinda bled down to me as well that but Scott felt was so did you at least you’re trying to be the best witness you could be as far as the “like you said spiritually strong and giving good comments or maybe talks or whatever did you at least get maybe some praise for that was that at least maybe a little oasis in the desert for you enough for a time it was at definitely giving talks was and trying to be be the most spiritually strong person I could be was something I clung on to you and being able to hear if I can do did a good job doing a talk in was the kind of you know that the my outlet I suppose her my focus focus during that time. Zero just thinking you can see how sometimes you have kids and in a kingdom hall that that don’t have a lot going for them even in their own family here or at school there a lot of kids that go through a lot of different types of abuse in the kingdom all and you can kinda see how just that set up then there try these kids are trying to find something good in their life something to be praised for something that people will like them for so they go to the kingdom hall to run and and naturally you’re going to do what you can to get that praise state to get whatever and you and you watch these kids almost in their own way being pushed and manipulated it even though maybe nobody’s even trying to the kid is naturally gonna gravitate toward where he can get some positive reaction so if that positive reaction can calm from being the best little date of in the kingdom hall and getting baptized and giving the perfect talks in and looking the pardon and playing that role then of course any kids going to do that and and of course you we all know their repercussions later if you decide to go back once you’ve been baptized you you’ve already committed yourself but you can see why kids do that in a congregation why they they try to stand out and so often it’s just because they don’t have anything else going for them and they want to to get praise and validation and that’s one way in one place were maybe they can finally get it by playing a role essentially right right so for yourself you’re kind of playing that role a little bit at least at times getting some of this praise as you’re going into your teenage years young adulthood how did things progress you not only I don’t know if there were any life changes that that occurred during them but also you know within the congregation that you get baptized into two anything that was notable in your life as things were as you are transitioning as you are growing as a young human being sure I have I did get privileges in the corrugation are doing the Mike send which is you know that’s a big huge deal of being able to walk with the microphone to hand of someone to make a comment see a baptism I got baptized that surround 11 to 12-ish is pretty and really the reason I I really felt like I wasn’t ready but I wanted to be more accepted in the corrugation and I had befriended and elders son and he was getting he was the only one in his family getting baptized at that convention and and I started ask him a lot of questions and he taught he basically told me how to answer all the questions and make sure I get baptized you were sitting in front of the elders answering the question then making sure that I remembered everything he told me to say that I just wanted to get baptized in public if I got baptized maybe the abuse with an that I would be seen in a different light that maybe God over would approve of me even more and that it would be the catalyst to help what I was holding annual do you know the abuse and when is the abuse I mean there were many not only with the physical and sexual but it was a really interesting dynamic of if I made anything less than a be at school I would have to sit on the edge of my bed or six months at a time so when I got home I would sit on the edge of my bed until it was dinner time is allowed one bathroom break and then I was allowed to take my my bath and then go to bed for six months at a time until the next report card weight like that was her whole life that would get home from school sit on the edge of your bed one bathroom break dinner bad that’s it like for six minus that’s correct until the next report card time and then if I made anything less than a be it would be another six weeks until the next report card said the same scenarios there are literally years that I sat on the edge of my bed and into strange punishments that it is a very strange punishment and that up that was my grade at you know that was her trying to well I would say more LOL honestly I would say that at and some levels a lot of levels life was it didn’t turn out like she expected you and you took it out on you right so to, get me more out of the equation so she can have some free time then basically you have me sit on the bed and be quiet so she didn’t have to deal with a child would like to meet the no Wi-Fi for you and why do all of this if she doesn’t want you want if she wants her weekends free so she ships you off to your grandparents and your as you said your ministerial servant grandmothers husband you know was sexually abusing you and at home she’s abusing you I don’t I see this happen I know it happens a lot I know a lot of kids are fostered or even adopted like I think you said that you might’ve actually been legally and then these people they get these kids and they just abuse them and I don’t get it I don’t know if it’s just an outlet for them or what but is the most horrific thing and it really kind of pisses me off and I’ve I’m so sorry that you had to go through that because it here you have somebody who says that she wants you so badly and then a signal she’s sending is anything but that and she’s trying to control you and make you what she wants you to be it’s all about her it’s not about you and I’m back is this is just stupid fucking it just blows my mind I’m sorry man that’s that’s such a awful thing yet what it so I don’t know if this question is too much let me know but so your kid you’re sitting on your bed on the edge of your bed for six months at a time what do you two do you just escape Mensa leads you make up scenarios have an imagination how do you you escape that prison essentially that you’ve been put in good question and you know I think I disassociated a lot in my mind I just remember it being extremely boring and there is a lot of crying of course I couldn’t couldn’t allow that to be seen or I would get in trouble so I think I just kinda blanked out and quite honestly that bed did they did affect my adult life coming sometimes I do find myself and especially when it did start getting therapy I do find myself did find myself sitting ironically on the edge of my bed discounted staring off into the distance with maybe empty thoughts and once I figured out that oh my gosh this is I did this so much as a child I’m just so used to when you just gonna sitting here and staring off into nothing and of being numb then I you know I began some real work this as life progress that’s what I’ve realized Galliano that makes sense I yeah you they put prisoners in prison and ice in isolation they put them in solitary confinement and it’s a very difficult thing for people and I I understand that you you still maybe had school to go to her meetings or whatever systolic you are completely isolated but right but we love that stuff torture you are also a child that’s that’s horrific and how anybody can can rationalize that it is in their mind as it is beyond me so it really think and I appreciate you answering that because it is your dissociation makes sense if you’re going to dissociate from what’s happening in and we ought them the brain has its own mechanisms of escape if we aren’t able to come up with ones so and and I take it the dissociation that was probably a part of a lot of your life just because these horrible things are happening that’s an unnatural thing that human beings do so you got baptized at 11 you’re going to your teenage years you are doing is how the other comes I guess appoints when every everyone reaches that point where they start to maybe drive ads for whatever age you could get a license where you you lived or there’s the point that where people graduate high school and have choices to make or become 18 and the legal adult so do things begin to change for you as you got older a little bit that absolutely had the age of 12 I finally had enough of the sexual abuse the physical abuse not only that watching it at the age of 12 I was still mentally even though I’m I there is a large part of me that believed that maybe what my great aunt was doing and how she was treating me and some level was directed from God because that’s what I was trained to believe you but as I guess I just couldn’t take it anymore I watching my great uncle beat her into a pole many times in her having bruises on her and I can clean up is that it can take the sexual abuse anymore so that came out and of course I was called every name in the book by my great aunt that had a judicial can committee meet with me and at the all kinds of questions and I’ve got my privileges taken away because I didn’t scream united and yell you got your privileges taken away because you didn’t scream over the sexual abuse right and who would urge you I mean that exactly okay make sense you know that I think this was a common jade Jehovah’s Witness thing that you if you woman it is getting regular phones getting raped you are to bite with everything you guy and if you don’t say no and by regardless of the situation even if fighting mitts on blowing your head off then you’re basically consenting or even if you are a little kid that was groomed and Anne’s had no voice in were up against all odds it says that the stupidest thing is I think I take it from the Bible of which says little something but it’s the it’s just crazy that they would put this on a child and say what you didn’t scream and therefore we’re going to punish you at Mina takes victim blaming to a whole new level upon the victim story to have your privileges taken away which is my only thing I had going for me I felt yeah with Paul on the silvers here right to have it taken away from you just absolutely devastated so that was the the kickoff basically of me standing up masala put up with another six months and I remember having dinner and this is what changed it all in my life started to change for better and worse so I we were having dinner and and I guess that my great uncle is a pretty violent person and beat my great aunt alive in turn she was kind of violent towards me and beat me a lot but anyway he can the typical dinner if he was grumpy which is often would be he would unify gag anything like kids to about having canned carrots or something like that I would get back handed and told to eat it with you know with the approval of my great aunt maybe not with the approval I’m not really sure she was pretty scared of him too but she’s also really mouthy and stood up herself a lot which also caused her to get beat and me to get beat anyway I had just really had enough and he went to back handed me a gag on something and I what he would normally do is flip the whole entire dining room table over and is reasonable yeah that’s the real you can say no I remember he went to backhand me and I stood up and at this point I’m a tall guy and by 12 years old I was already over 6 foot tall so I remember I stood up and I told him to go ahead and do it and if he did it that he better make sure he kills me because I was going to kill him ultimately one of the guns employees at all and then I pointed to my great aunt less than if you touch her again while I’m living here I will I will also kill you said you will never abuse me again and you will never be sorry again this is just me standing up at 12 that’s been the big deal 12 it was a big deal of it the look on his face I’ve never seen that type of luck before especially from him and his eyes were just huge because he knew I meant it and I did mean it at that time had nothing to lose I had it I felt like I didn’t have anything to lose in I looked at my great aunt to just a brief glance and there is sort of a beaning from her like someone stood up for her but I really couldn’t let that sink in exhausted busy just trying to stand up against injustice that I felt was happening all around me and it home and so then I went to my bedroom and within a couple of weeks a another family took me under their wing briefly and when they did they were so nice and so lenient in a lot of ways I was such a loaded spring that I only lasted about eight months there and before I ran away just because there is the aberrant way 13 from them but they were I will say there were Jehovah’s Witnesses as well dated approve of the abuse to that extent and when I ran away from them is when we were hanging also was about 13 we were hanging out with some of their friends and they had some little girls that were probably about eight or nine and I remember that Jehovah’s Witness sister leaning over to her other Jehovah’s Witness friend saying we need to make sure to keep them away from the little girls because I heard that he had been molested and to hear that it 13 after I I feel so strongly about the article so strongly against pedophilia that it made it you’ll like they were putting me in that category before way before anything could even happen are judging me because I it was just another judgment so can I so you are punished for not screaming correct that’s correct what is your abuser your grandfather was he punished him he was punished and he got reinstated really fast yet they took this then at the time to try and understand so either he confessed or they took this at the evidence of just one person or he had he molested other people at that time and they do not know that RR I did not know that he had molested of the people of and he blamed it on me so I was walking which I find really hilarious and disgusting I do try I do deflect a lot of comity for my my sense of humor sometimes could you take a tragic situation that maybe shouldn’t be laughed at my it into something everyone does funny and I’m anyways that I was walking a little too sexy in front of him coming out of bathroom in my underwear so basically you are asking for it right right or it correct God okay so I what I wanted what I was wondering was you know because you are punished for not screaming I was just thinking it would have been the ultimate irony is that he was not punished because you know if you didn’t scream and he wasn’t punished if he’s not punish the nothing actually happened you know so then how could you be punished for not screaming so I guess he he then must have either admitted it out right or maybe there were other accusations against him that added up to the quote to witnesses that they need in order to to handle it wasn’t ever reported to the police he literally lived with a cop so that is you know this is kind of just coming to me but honestly you know that’s the migrate at the event was never Jehovah’s Witness and he felt like he I remember many arguments with those tears and him telling her that it I would that she was brainwashing me which ironically would turn out to be true you actually have a so the he caught wind of what was going on and CPS got involved that is how the only way CPS got involved and it wasn’t that he wanted CPS to be necessarily involved because he was a cop and then to have someone under his roof having been molested would reflect on him as a police officer in his career though he was trying to protect his career as best he could and it just really all that slipped under the rug you know that Elder said I’m sure that you demonized me for the situation and also had a talk with my aunt about not pursuing it so nothing was really proceed I do remember getting questioned by CPS and nothing really came of it and I guess I was in such shock I didn’t really know I don’t so embarrassed sure about the whole thing humiliated embarrassed at the you know and and just kind of went wood with whatever I was told to do and then it wouldn’t take long before I did standards myself and get out of that situation you literally everyone failed to you are surrounded by all these adults and adults after don’t either they abuse you in and they weren’t when they weren’t abusing you and actually had a chance to do something good they still failed you and this is so horrible the other kids get trapped in that situation and I was you I was asking about your some of that because you’re saying you now that you your you’ve taken a stand for yourself and your 13 it and then you overhear somebody telling somebody else to keep their little girls away from their girls away from you because you had been molested and I was just wondering how and how they how they were to know that they were I told them you told the guy I really wanted to to have an outlet I had to it’s been safe and course there can again and demonize you I felt like I was extremely violated that you know when I heard her tell that to another sis sure then I felt really violated I felt good to a label put on me that I didn’t deserve and I felt like at that point I had actually nothing to lose by living on the street anything would be better than being to deliver those kind of labels that I know wasn’t me and said that’s so I did end up living on the street from the age of little over 13 until about 16 when I got married while okay so let’s talk about then the lot here so let’s talk about them so you’re living on the street at such a young age what was that like it was it was a good on a level for you did it feel good and Justin that you were you were free from the weird controls and the the accusation of false accusations and things like that you’re just a tooth for a fresh start even even on the streets fresh start is a fresh start that did was that good for you on a level or was it just an awful situation I’m in the streets for a kid like that I assume could be just another horrible situation for you well for that time. From the age of 13 the I got married and I’ll be on it was an okay situation I there is a lot of kindness from people I don’t really remember of where I slept a lot but I do know that there is a lot of kindness from strangers I did go to school so I kept that routine down like I continue to get high and I just remember like the lunch room they had a free lunch programs I would load up so I would have dinner and then I met the I started going actually I started attending the kingdom hall again but a different one because I still that I thought that you know despite all of that that was an isolated know I had never heard of anything like that McCurry going in the Carnation individuals when it says so I I really felt like that was isolated I justified you steadied some more you know and put more faith than and the Jehovah’s Witness organization are our Jehovah as they liked the dance it then it didn’t maybe this time around it would be different so it’s an interesting that living on the streets was preferable and better than living among all of these Jehovah’s Witnesses that you had you had been with your whole life I mean that’s just that’s fascinating that they we talk about living on the streets you were the first things you’re talking about is the kindness of strangers and these were the quote worldly people who are supposed to be so awful and treat you so poorly and yet it was better for you on the streets than at home right and at the note raising yet is amazing is that while it says a lot so you end up going to a kingdom hall did you how did that play out amended you end up I understand what you are trying to do trite you know and I understand thinking well you this is just my my isolated kind of crazy family or whatever in and obviously I am not indicting all Jehovah’s Witness families and saying that there like what you grew up in lights when you went to this other congregation did you that you start to see things differently in any way me was it more accepting of you or how are you how are you treated there as this kid kind of coming in off the streets I assume you had a publishers card or whatever that would be sent to this new kingdom hall and also where the hecklers are great aunt and uncle did they not try to get you back or anything know because I am what I found out is that she never had full legal conservatorship of May she had said something lesser than that might either one of my parents could have got me at any time which then made a lot of sense why she kept them kept me away from them and also that both of them lives whenever they would frantically call I remember my especially my my biological mother frantically calling so many times and me being and what if it was me that answered me being told to hang up on her so if you can imagine the mother calling her child frantically and I was told to hang up and then that child hanging up on on her so all the while thinking she didn’t have any rights to me at all whenever she dead it was just a lie that was pushed onto earth for her and my father status screwed over so many people are mean this so how did you deal then so that answers the part about about your your great aunt great uncle not coming after you are pursuing you what about this new kingdom hall this new congregation that your reputation precedes you there or did you fit in there how did that go for you you know I I have a I did come to fit in a little bit I felt there I did remember the elders sons that I had befriended before I got baptized and after they had switched to that creation and had a very large family so I kind of fell a little bit more safe and and are and that I had some outlets people to talk to the people to hang out and now that I was married I got to hang out with the married couples a young married couple okay let’s get to the marriage this is that without that has already happened I didn’t realize that it had been so how did you get married at 16 or whatever they mean I guess you parents had no legal right over you but who did how do you meet somebody was out on the streets was that at the kingdom hall it was through someone I knew at the kingdom hall said hey I think you might like this girl at and we met and we just started dating never had sex before marriage and of that stuff we got married and then of course you know she pregnant and we had started going to the kingdom hall very regularly and actually we got a little apartment two blocks from the King of all so there is really no no excuse or whatever you can’t say the car broke down and I could make it to the kingdom hall she was that she was a female and I just so that out there because the sisters in the car geisha and really helped with a making her feel maybe stay more comfortable at the beginning she was that a witness that the gal I married okay so wait a witness introduce you to this girl but she wasn’t a witness right it was a young yes it was a young witness introduce me to this girl she is going to school at so I get out and abide by that it to me was Ken Obama you know that was such a whirlwind back to whatever it took – are to be accepted and to and now I’m switching over to you know my hormones are still raised 16 I don’t like that’s ever a good time to get married but now it switched over into my own what I perceived as to be the perfect marriage and perfect life you know that sort of a white picket fence scenario maybe not the white picket fence but unit you get my drift know you know I was creating my line you know I now she’s pregnant with the child in the way ends and were going to the kingdom hall and I felt like everything was falling into place for me yes seems like you for the first time you’re feeling some stability and no place to call home right and like you’re starting to fit in the juror did your wife take to the witness culture did how did that go you know baptized as you start studying did she attend meeting she did study quite a bit and we were friends with the local elder and their kids which were about our age but neither one of them were married because they were smart and so we hung out with them a lot and she did say she ever got baptized and honestly I’m not really sure I think she really struggled and whether or not it was the truth and she never really told me until much later I went her opinion gone that were and I really feel like I was so blinded by my own quest for norm abnormality that there is a lot of things I could not see then that I would find out later so then how did things go in your you’ve got this seemingly stable white picket fence situation as you said your in your late teens do you do go to college do you the do you just start working and living life how do things kinda progressed enough to your late teens early 20s in your life because that’s a pivotal point in a lot of people’s lives where some independence is finally reached course you got yours earlier than that even but how do things for how did things progresses as you went forward through through this next chapter of your life will run the age of 19, son would have been near three years older right at three and the fee my I had always wanted United having many friends I got the added this guy from the corrugation became my best friend and I was just so ecstatic to have a really have had a friend I can do things of the friend I can go fishing with he was married young at two and a Jehovah’s Witness girl and they would come over a lot and hang out with us and and I guess it was about 19 oh during 20 that I found that she’s been having an affair with that brother your wife had right oh well though I remember they said they both went to a judicial committee nothing was done and the elders encouraged me to forgive her so I did and then to fast-forward another six months or eight months or so it happened again and again the elders asked me to just forgive her and I’m assuming it was because maybe her now her mother was coming to the kingdom hall though they didn’t want to and she wasn’t baptized a chance of roping in her mother so right over the has to keep forgetting his wife is correct so that the third time it happened United been added in a little while I thought we were over it and the third time it happened on a I mean had a really good job at that .3 figures a year for at a very young age he saw all the you know all the people my age going out having fine but Europe, father responsible work 12 hours a day only to be cheated on you basically my whole entire concept of what I thought a Christian life should be are just even a life of normality was just blown out of the water my mind was blown and I decided that this time I did not want the elders assistance in my decision with my wife that I knew scripturally based on what Jehovah’s Witness taught that I did not have to stay with Arabic without keynote about the first time about the second time it especially 3×3rd strike you out right so I fed her down and told her I wanted a divorce and that would and I didn’t know we separated so what I did I really I honestly felt like I wanted to just explore life at that point and I really did it so haphazardly in so not caring about whether or not I lived or died I couldn’t understand anything to me nothing to match with what was being said in the case congregation and so I did get into some drugs there for a year actually a lot of drugs for about a year on so and then after a year a I did pull myself out of that and then went to college and started studying psychology actually on the kind of always wanting to help other people maybe not go through what I went through a minute within a few semesters I realized that I probably need to help myself a lot more yeah I think at the a lot of people who take psychology degrees are in it to help themselves is as much as they are anyone else your so you studied psychology did you finish the program more I did not I would get United to go back to work to support myself and I pay for the divorce and and that was a big chunk and you know also might my father passed away think maybe maybe need to backtrack just a tiny bit my grandmother had passed away when I was 10 years old so she never got to know about they molestation that her husband that my biological father passed away when I was 22 salads just a year off of drugs going to school working full time and ends that was pretty intense for me so resisted discussing the trauma over trauma trauma is so 22 after he died a kind of just went down for a really long time but for years actually and so you say you went numb was that try to follow timeline was that backend did you know back into drugs and things like that to escape and to numb or were it was a just more of a like a depression or something like that I think more of that I depression and a shot you and you stayed in shock for quite some time I really didn’t it was really hard for or data think and because I did get to know my father before but like if you set will a good 85 years before that we had built a pretty decent I was a really awesome relationship and went fishing and my son and in him and I in talking a lot and about spirituality he was very kind never said a harsh word about anyone he didn’t even say a harsh word about Jehovah’s Witnesses whenever he found out about that he was lied to you just took a deep breath he cried a little bit and he said let’s just move on from here sister really laid-back guy and so losing and losing that kind of my only may be my only support I the collectibility of freefall for so long I didn’t just work and I didn’t do drugs other than I did marijuana and I didn’t drink and I started working at a barge for a drink and probably well below probably I was drinking too much there for a couple of years working at a bar and then something kind of washed over me and and I decided that there are so many dreams are like what did I dream about when I was little and always wanted to live in the mountain so I started making my preparations start following some of those dreams and some moved up to Montana for a while and went to the University of Montana Montana continued on my psychology degree which then journeys yet go greatly and which turned in art and I started working on art my own artwork and then I got into horses artworks and and did a few things maybe my father well my father said he always wanted to do and it would take me about five years before actually decried that he passed away I remember I climbed dismount near the University of Montana and got it to the top which took forever it seemed and just lost it I finally all the tears came flooding down from that so that to get a really nice release and deal with the you start dealing with with the grief over that is that the separate a beautiful moment to be able to and a very unexpected I assume two to to be able to have that moment the top of that mountain to grieve your father I’m so sorry that that you are robbed the relationship with him for so long but I’m I’m glad that you before before the end you did get to to have a relationship with him and to finally get to you to work out some of that stuff and to go fishing and take your kid in and all that that that’s a sound like a beautiful beautiful time in your life I’m I’m sorry that it was as temporary as it was what I’m really glad that you got to have that enemy to it really is something I look back on and I smile at something that I look back on it and reflect on the kind of man he was and try to incorporate that affliction to my being as possible yeah so okay so he passes you go numb for a while you end up you gone to the University of Montana and things like that at any point in this. It is you that you start looking at the doctrine of Jehovah’s Witnesses or did you did you get disfellowshipped and leave or did anything happen therein of that change your I guess your status your relationship with the the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses yes before I I ventured out to go explore my dreams I did get disfellowshipped and that was during the divorce my ironically cut my wife at the time called the elders and made up a story about me which basically the story was that I was giving alcohol to minors is not true and they disfellowshipped me that I would not meet with them and I could I told that it was a bogus and that we weren’t even living together pending a divorce and they disfellowshipped me without me even meeting to refuse to meet with them so you have to the oldest disfellowshipped and by default right so I was I ran into a guy at the bar I worked at and he had been disfellowshipped and he was a key discovered talk to you for a little bit night was my first time I realized I wasn’t alone this guy wasn’t a bad guy and is in and didn’t really want to get in death I was still really very scared of talking about the religion so but I did feel a little bit of relief that there’s somebody out there like you know that had a similar maybe experience and he started telling me to question things and about that time I I was listening to the radio and I heard there is a special coming on the morning about Joe’s with the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses so odd that the course caught my attention and I tuned in at that at that time this would’ve been almost 20 years ago and I remember listening to this lady speak about the different things to different doctrines and I called and actually on that show and I had a couple of questions and the I mean it was very quickly my questions were very quickly debunked and I felt really like a fool but I recorded it and I kept that recording when I moved to go pursue my dreams and and while I was in school I ran across I just ran across the pamphlet about the judge Joe’s witness called and I always felt really guilty reading it to read like one page I close off and I was of the Nelson and in this pamphlet towards the end it had crisis of conscience in there and and I ordered it from Barnes & Noble’s and I ordered it for the world for them to stock and they didn’t have it in the stock didn’t have any money was going to school the diamond, barely getting by Sardis River sitting at Barnes & Noble’s and in reading it from cover to cover several times and it’s one in there and read it and I was really blown away I my brain had a hard time wrapping itself around what I was reading and this was the Internet was just starting to me that there is no Facebook and MySpace may be going on a little bit and I was too busy you know it with school and and still numbing myself by drinking at night when you parting with friends so that was my 20s so the next the wake ups would be enough they would come in stages a lot of times I would revert back can go okay these things are what I’m reading it can’t be true and all all kind of read some more Jehovah’s Witness material you know that I found it laundromats or something like that and just held on that are kind of bloated I don’t know out well with the good word to say so you just you would just when you would find that that information is, put you back in that place as a as a witness a little bit is that what you’re saying when I would find the about it being at the false doctrines and different things like that I I would a latch on and I would get really angry at the Jehovah’s Witness organization but then there is a part of me that was definitely trained from the Jehovah’s Witness organization that you think you can have a say that there are some situations in the hall of the Kingdom Hall really need to forgive your brothers and like dad and and they are not really godly person if you can’t get over something, leaving Jehovah’s hands and so he knows being confronted with all his hard evidence of the false doctrines and in many different other things I we get angry and then slowly add start to slip back into OG I think I need to just forget cat let go but all that did ultimately would just keep that keep the trauma buried and it wasn’t until I was 30 that I had a panic attack which I thought was a heart attack and I went to the emergency room and they told me was a panic attack and in what precipitated at her with what led up to that one of the things I always wanted to do was live off the grid in the cabin in the mountains I and I yeah so I saved up all these different books on spirituality do it in obedience to Hinduism you name it I had at night I wanted to read them and studied so I lived off the grid and no electricity add solar electricity via economic generator and stuff like that in a garden and I would say was the happiest year ever of my life and I read all these different spiritual beliefs and and so boring all these different religions into my brain trying to just sort out what I went through what is not and I had a complete and utter meltdown semester to having flashbacks of how far back the grooming when and Jesse Surinder’s childhood flashback the things that I have forgotten are things that I even remember but it was now realizing that these are huge things in the way they impacted the way I interact with people the way I have my self-awareness grew I suppose in the way that some of my reactions to things are working on productive and it just like a ticking time bomb it just kind of went off and ended up in the hospital day there was a panic attack ended up in therapy they diagnosed me with PTSD and that is where the 10 years ago are actually 12 years ago and they through therapy in different therapists and doctors have slowly been unraveling the love your long process now that I’ve got me to the point where now of this kind of slowly unraveling of what happened in my childhood that it was not okay and that there are different tools to that I’ve I’m learning and have learned to integrate into my awareness and and my reactions to help with being able to cope him I add I guess is a little regressive but it just hit me while you are talking about all that whatever happens with your ministerial servant husband of your grandmother your grandfather did that he that he ever pay up price other than maybe being disfellowshipped or whatever is did he was he still arounds kids after that is CEO live the day here whatever happened to him was his eventuality you know I did I had up until I guess the age of 34 I would occasionally check in with my Jehovah’s Witness family and they just said that you was really sorry and he was doing really good and the true as Jehovah’s Witness and that I should consider forgetting him and I kept reminding them it wasn’t really about forgiveness anymore it was more that I was to put myself in I just didn’t want to talk to him there is nothing to talk about horse and its coming he could’ve still been around kids at the Kingdom Hall or Haddonfield service or grooming anybody and everybody is just all well I mean he said he was sorry come on silvers you know he said he was sorry so you know it’s is done and you should just be happy and move on with them right right I mean yes I messed up everything and you get because I I stood up for myself and and I said you know I can forgive somebody that is when I want to hang out that is when I want to talk to them doesn’t mean I want to praise them it doesn’t mean I want anything to do with them I just want to move on and I’m labeled as still part of the world because I would not extend that verbal forgiveness to him like I had to make now they’re asking me to make the first steps of getting in contact with him to let him know I forgive him letting him off the lake and led the spray Jehovah’s Witness why “while I deal with the trauma of just allowing that to be okay so they just don’t get it have no my book is they are they are so they’ve devolved in the call and they lack human that humanity their basic humanity is the strip for the from them and they can’t do things like perspective taking the can’t look at you and try to take your perspective all they can see is what will be best for the Jehovah’s Witness organization and at and that would be for grandpa to be in it and for silvers to be in it as they see it and you know that now you have extra members which as you know that’s all they care about is all about numbers it’s all about getting people in and on the ark as they see it and it doesn’t matter what happened they don’t they don’t care about the details you don’t care about your feelings it’s just about actions and looking a certain way in and what you do but it’s not about how you feel about anything or whatever amine clearly you are being very healthy in forgiving him on whatever level course you’ll forgiveness is for you is not really for him anyway forgetting something you do so you can heal and then you know why would you want to hang out with him again the ureter clearly not going to want to and how they cannot see that is an indictment against them and their cults and how they conditioned out of people just normal human feelings at the threat really for me that I wouldn’t comply and talk with them and it was just really weird how that they are well I don’t know about a day but my great aunt and but I will say today that way and putting words in your mouth that I was an ungrateful part of Satan’s world and and and just really just pushing it back on me now that they’ve been up at give me the opportunity to be a part of God’s organization and how they by talking with the facts as I did and then I am continually in a demonized that you all about compliance either you comply and come back or your evil and you’re the devil is so crazy I just have to laugh because it be other alternative is striking enough therapy that it is you know even though it is depressing tired times it’s very overwhelming but more so that’s overwhelming now is just that I’m 42 and it took this long for me but the laughing part comes with you just as surviving in a meeting you guys gotta find something humorous and at RL said it will take me down though I know I totally get it I may not I’m sure on this podcast of of last in spots that people Midas felt were inappropriate at times just because it is is such a heavy thing in it’s absurd it’s the absurdity of the situation absurdity is is a part of humor and to be able to see that in things just how absurd they are of course there super painful things there you did that that pain on a level that I’m sure cannot be expressed there is no word for that pain nothing they could could accurately convey the deep feelings of that you’ve been through just a tremendous amount of of things it in in your life I am very grateful though that it sounds like you’re having an opportunity to heal your having an opportunity to to find yourself and to to work through all this stuff and you’re not alone there are so many other people that that have gone through it maybe not exactly the things that you have it so many of the things that you have an and we all we all hearts we were all victims of of an organization and of narcissistic manipulative people and we all walk away with PTSD so are most all of us I would assume so how does your is your past life obviously you’re still working through stuff but does it still impacts you your other things you said that you had learned some tools from a therapist about dealing with PTSD and such so your PTSD is not something that just proof magically goes away what are some things that you’ve learned about that are helping you in your in your recovery from all this that you might go to share with others you where do you still struggle me what kind of an update on on the the emotional situation of of silvers as this is all transpired well just a bit of a quick back story on whenever I got diagnosed I do not want to talk anybody I realized I didn’t realize the depth of what the trauma had done and how long since I suppressed it and when it manifested I really didn’t want have anything to do it anyone in the state actually paid for me to go to the therapy to pay for my gas to go to a therapist twice a week initially and I moved further off the grid actually into the national course for about three years because I did not want to talk to anybody at it when it’s seen anybody and when you are one is isolated and alone and it’s a chosen thing and I do have the diagnosis at that time of and do now still of PTSD actually see PTSD complex but dramatic stress disorder then I gathered up a lot of self-help books I paid attention in therapy I talked in therapy a lot and that was my only outlet were a good three years and then I started slowly integrating back into society and that was a very big challenge for me because I had been isolated in the mountains for off the grid for three years at that point but going to therapy twice a week I did have my dog in a couple of cats then so they kept me company in the tools that I learned was just to be self-aware just to be aware of what I’m feeling and try to isolate why I’m feeling the way and feeling and try to control my reactions to my feelings and also my reactions with becoming more in the forefront now is my reactions to other people’s behavior because I there is a I didn’t realize the longest time that I had much more control over my reactions to someone else’s behavior then I was that I was acting on that make sense I would I would assume you’re part of the that I claim no expertise here but I would assume the part of having PTSD in and having all these pent-up feelings and emotions yourself having all of these holding all of these feelings inside then when other people behave in a way that is unpleasant I’m sure it just makes you more reactive because you’re holding onto so much inside and the feel kind of causes that lot that loss of control in the way that you react emotionally to what other people are doing a is that kind of how it is that you’re just holding so much inside sure sure me know I die you know not only do I feel like I but like wise skillful is that I cannot trust Joe’s witnesses at all the but I feel like I can trust the world at large around me and nothing I mean they’re there to me they’re good and bad people were everyone going to go but you know sometimes there are a lot of times having a lot of complex trauma on top of trauma will help will make one see the world and more horrible than it then it can be my mechanism for coping for the longest time is a running away and my running away in my adulthood and especially my late 20s and 30s was to go to the mountain so I get stressed out which is actually is in a bad coping thing and if if done in a planned way so a lot of it was instantly packing up and taking my tent my animals and going to the mountains for a few months at a time which is kind of therapeutic a learn to find a lot of therapeutic tools for me in nature breathing and meditating but open but it also can be counterproductive in that it’s running away from society so right now I try to focus on a kind having a happy medium of knowing you have got tons of camping your crib after you know 15 years or so of of the of exploring the amount of just got a ton of it though I know that I can go at any time and and surviving the mountains and connect with nature like that but it doesn’t have to be during a light are fight restart response could have happened to that it doesn’t have to be because of that I can I can wait and wait that out and get to calm, placing myself and then go a I want to go camping because I want to connect with nature and sometimes that you know that my symptoms occasionally do flare up to where I’m like okay I really do have to today go to the waterfall or gap in the mountains and sit by some trees and just relax and and take it all and watch the Eagles fly over or whatever animals or birds I fear don’t see your so that’s the how Ivan how I’ve tried to leveled that out because they did get a little lopsided for a while and in talking with people of learned that you know we welcome and think everybody has at what everybody does have a story everybody has a perspective of life I may not agree with everyone’s perspective I may not my story is pretty intense sometimes and there’s other people stories that are really intense to so help me to talk to people about what I’ve gone through a little bit today and sort of baring my soul somewhat but I realize that just on daily interactions I don’t have to bare my soul I can give just a little bit of bits and pieces of my life and be empathetic in understanding and I find I get that more in return when I’m open to that and not seeing the world through a bunch of fearful lands that makes it cost that’s beautiful as when so there’s a concept called the gap and it’s sometimes we have the the propensity to look at how far we’ve got to go and we forget how far we’ve come and how far we’ve come is that gap and you know when I think about you it I know what you say 32-ish I think when you were being diagnosed with sepia PTSD and you didn’t want to talk to anybody and now here you are on a podcast talking to a stranger baring your soul telling your story of a like in that gap there there there is so much growth and you’ve obviously come so far you speak so intelligently and not just intellectually at showing intelligence but just emotionally and mentally showing intelligence you’ve obviously learned so much in what is a really a relatively short amount of time compared to one’s life you’ve learned things that there are people in their 70s and 80s you have never learned you sometimes these these harsh circumstances force us to learn hard lessons and it’s out of though the hardest times in life that we learn some of the most beautiful things and I I just it’s an honor for me that that you would that you would talk to me especially after you everything you shared and where you were you know being diagnosed and everything not wanting to talk to anybody you’ve obviously come a long way he doesn’t matter how far you’ve got to go home and you’ll keep working on that I’m sure but I hope you feel proud of how far you been able to come already you know I I am I do feel proud of that maybe I was just hitting me on different levels lately I just how far I have, I would’ve never imagined say 20 years ago whenever I listen to that first a radio show about Joe’s witness told I and I was actually calling to qualify question/defend the colt even though I had Artie gone through some trauma with a cold this organization that I would never imagine 20 years later that I would be speaking very that I would be as knowledgeable as I am about their the many different false doctrines and different things like that but I would also be at an an advocate for for healing and and taking a deeper look into this religious Colts and the damage it’s time I never thought I’d be able to articulate the type way I’m doing today him when I listen to that reporting from years ago I just was and I sounded like a very naïve kid trying to defend something new nothing about you we were all there you know we we’ve all been that person it is strike you I you what we all you mentioned something earlier about being 42 years old and in all the battles you fought to get where you are today in it it is easy to to look at at time that is gone by and to have regrets or toll immense the loss of of one of the most precious assets we have that which is time and I I feel the same way I at times I think about how I just turned 41 last weekend and how I didn’t get out till I was 38 and all the time that went by but there if I hadn’t have gone through that and it doesn’t mean that I wish I had gone through some of the things I went through but if I hadn’t and I wouldn’t be in the place I am today where I actually get to do something that’s quite rewarding and help people and ill for you to I don’t mean to put words in your mouth but you had you not gone through what you went through again not saying that you would’ve wish to have gone through it all in your here you stand at 42 being able to articulate your story so well that there will be other people out there that hear this that will be helped by and it may not make the pass go away and there’s still a lot of pain associated with that but it’s there’s a lot of healing that is going on just I assuming you being able to tell your story today and then you will facilitate healing for others and that’s that’s what it’s all about you we can’t wear all good to go through some shit in our lives whether we were Jehovah’s Witnesses are not in oh everybody like you said has a story and being able to put it out there and so articulate as you’ve done the day you know you’re really able to help other people and that’s the that’s something that that really is kind of priceless I believe so I really am especially lately just the more this been unfolding for man and how other people stories really helped me open up I want to be a person I got to thinking about what kind of person what kind of legacy if I if I could choose the kind of something that people can remember about me and what I would like to be able to do my life is to embrace my trauma at as much as I can embrace it in the sense that I did go through it not going to deny that what can I do what can I take out this trauma and what can I tell people and what, who can I give them to pull through their definite Italy many many many times I’ve felt beyond hopeless and beyond repair and sometimes I slip back into that but I really think the key is talking to people and especially when I’m feeling like that even before it gets to that point keep reminding myself that we can people need each other to hills specially if they can resonate with the trauma and in feel like their story is being validated you as it’s I agree it’s so hard to heal in isolation I understand that your nature is very healing I feel the same way but to heal that part of us that is broken by other people the other people broke we kind of need other people to help repair and by telling your story about being vulnerable and by listening to other people stories we cannot feel so alone in what we went through and it can be quite healing is there anything that you have that your you’re hoping to be able to do in the future do you still you talked about your dream life and things like that and you I know you’re you’ve had some health problems of late but you still have any dreams that your that your looking forward to her hoping to be able to to manifest in your life in the future yes I do one of the things you know by an abaya of archive on accident or by accident I stumbled across living off the grid grid living off the grid for so long to load knowledge of how to be self sustainable side I’d like to pass with that knowledge on there’s a lot of stuff out there now talking about that and also note considering wage considering what I’ve gone through a would like to help other people and help other people not feel so lost and vulnerable whether that’s just talking to them are if my Gedney a financial position to where I can use that to help other people that would be great other life goals are is is to continue working on my art and continue doing some writing on and only be open to the experience I think that’s something I’ve learned recently is his life unique and make you can make plans for how things are going are you like things to be alive does take twists and turns and just be really open to the journey but my value system of wanting to help people feel not to do to feel heard is a really big thing for me while the builder some some great goals and things to to reach out for now I got asked her or we can see you on TV on naked and afraid someday Weiser also you come out man… Sorry could be baking with arthritis I don’t know that God is so cool though that the EI I like I like the camp I have honestly I watch shows like naked and afraid are you washed bear girls back in the day or the there was another guy who was at the same time the blanket on his name and how to show anyway a survivor man that was it and I love those shows I love seeing your people be able to do that out in the wild and and to live in and I think there’s a lot of healing to be found in nature side I think it’s beautiful that you have that yellow skills and and that that place is now maybe a healthier place for you to go to to heal him is there anything that I that I haven’t asked you or anything that you would like to say any stories that maybe you didn’t get to tell her anything you’d like to say that people from your past maybe Yahoo raised you are people who might the maybe you haven’t been able to talk to you and you been shunned by for years as there is anything you’d like to say as far as talking to a beanie family our friends from years ago that shunned me there is really nothing I like to say I did think everything’s been said you I sent letters to a lot of family members and two people that were friends telling them that I love them very much and am basically since they were sending me I actually worded it very nicely but all of their shutting me I was therefore not going to talk to them that I like I deserve to be hurt repetitively over and over again but I didn’t break like that I just said I love I love them and I appreciate it they were in my life and I wish them the best like they possibly have so there’s nothing I want to say beyond that night I’ve Artie said it really it’s just on focusing board without them in my life and it’s not a out of vindictiveness it’s out of out of self-care I don’t finally learning how to take the steps to continue to step on loving myself is for a long time I did not, I’m really glad that you found that ability to, love yourself in ways that maybe others didn’t you know it sounds like there was kind of a dearth of love and a lot of your life and adding it’s great that you can you’ve healed enough in our finding that for yourself and that you’ve got things that you’re looking forward to in life that you healed so much not the journeys over but you’ve been able to heal so much and that now your reaching out and and trying to help others to heal and at’s really appreciate you being open and being willing to do this today for for telling your story for putting yourself out there and for trying to help others yourself I think that’s beautiful and I really appreciate you doing that and I really appreciate you having me on your wonderful for me I want to thank Silvers for speaking up you know it took a lot of courage to say what he did and I also promised an update on them so what I’m gonna do here a minute share a Facebook post that I made the that features this update for him actually features a little background as to how we met as well I’m just gonna read it and I hope that this isn’t just an update but I hope that it encourages you to take action in the sea where you can help as well so this is what I wrote on Facebook this isn’t just my personal Facebook but also in the group that this is a long post with a promise it’s worth it me I am posting this below it’s something that makes me feel weird opposed but I’m doing it to make a point it only takes one person at the right time to change the life of someone else be that person what follows is something that someone posted that mention someone that help them and that someone was me I found this guy broken and scattered and honestly talking of suicide on X JW forum all he needed was for one person to believe in him this is a brag but I have a greater point that I’m in a make after his words which follow some of these are the words of Silvers a direct quote from hit a post inmate an interesting story that happened to me on solstice but first the back story for context year ago I let go of all toxic relationships if there was even a remote question that someone was toxic in my life I let them go so is the mental processing began to my brain relax enough to start to break it all down I got real sick a month after with the flu followed by an ammonia twice then my body started flaring up and shutting down the doctors cannot find what was wrong but there was were plenty of possible scary diagnoses by the end of summer and heading in the fall I was nearly bound to a wheelchair but use the Cain and Walker mostly if there was ever a question whether or not humans need other humans I am proof I am fiercely independent to my detriment I met a person online that really let me vent to listen to me in fact this person was awesome enough to make an effort to check in on me via email my health started to improve rapidly everything healthwise and even of it financially as it too often go hand-in-hand went back to normal and I got in shape again if it were not for this individual I would be dead this person save me from a certain self-inflicted and/or dying of a heartbreak which can actually happen to a person anyway I busted my butt in is a busted my butt in the late fall to try to make up for the years losses after selling most everything to survive I asked nothing from no one I simply believed in someone’s possible belief in me and wrote any wave of that thought I no longer believe in myself so it’s all I had to go on I’ve never even met this person the last 2 1/2 months I worked so hard that I barely remember any of it I was hoping we moved out of the remote area of been stuck in for several years now I never mind I never minded remote areas in fact drawn to them however the lack of real human interaction have become not good for me mentally at this point in my life I lived off the grid and in the mountains for over a decade now with a two-year break so I am no stranger to my thoughts into being alone but humans need other humans the big move did not happen but I did get moved into a slightly better place back to solstice I always try to do something just for myself that day usually or 99% of the time alone even when I had a lot of friends this year something odd happened on solstice night my computer crashed losing all my data from the last 20 years I had a DVD and VCR combo that was left over from a toxic relationship and it to crash that night the phone I had from the toxic era of toxic friends also died on solstice I normally would’ve been upset about seemingly all my electronics with years worth of data gone but I wasn’t I felt like I was set free to continue to have my solstice far through the night and the next affiliate was a major cleansing for me I didn’t get to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas because I was working so hard may be online it looks like I was celebrating but I wasn’t I was simply rushing through them to go to work I’m totally okay with that going for quick motions of the holidays on the same day everyone else seemingly celebrates so a few days ago I crashed from working my butt off and hit a temporary low it lasted a day the next day I dusted myself off and went to a gig for a very manipulative clients on the way which happened every time I would get nauseated this person lacks empathy and it flowed out and really affected me he knew nothing of my year troubles but it hit me that I didn’t want that type of client that I’m worth so much more I let him go and feel amazing yes money will be very tight this winter unless the universe has more which is agreed-upon it’s lit up its sleeve I decided to take all of January off to celebrate regroup and love myself the love I’ve needed more than anything my Christmas New Year’s and even Thanksgiving will be the theme all month my tree is lit and I still have presents from a for a baby and myself to open if you made it this far while what an attention span for Facebook reading LOL also I find is serendipitous that the electronics that had negative things in toxic past relationships simply went in one night this is why I love this year solstice this is why my holidays are going to be in all month affair during January lastly but nowhere least thank you to the one person that was willing to give me a small amount of their time if the only reason I feel I got so far after such a year so you this was his post and then I continued that was his quote and I continued and meant the world to me to see them write this and the know that I helped in some way but this is about patting myself on the back when I was at my lowest in 2008 and was suicidal myself it’s a one person to show me genuine interest and kindness and to point out something that helps me after making a ton of changes in my life healthy changes that would lead me out of the cold of Jehovah’s Witnesses that I was in I looked once more for a person I reached out to get a therapist and I only had one visit why all I needed was for someone to tell me that I was all right I was so alone on an island with the whole Jade of thing at the time and and I just need of one person to see me hear me and tell me that I was a good person put in a weird and cold the place I never went back so I post this to ask you who can you be that one person for who could you show that you believe in who could you just listen to you may never know the impact that you’re making you may not get a message like the one above what you still may make a huge difference to someone look for opportunities to listen to someone that is hurting to hear them out don’t tell them that everything they do is wrong just listen let them know that you are there and then be there obviously you have to watch that you don’t get sucked dry by energy vampires that latch on with no design on making real changes in their lives but the right word at the right time could really make a difference for someone who was looking for something better that’s why this guy came to the form I was on he was looking that should be rewarded with others that reach back I’m so glad that I saw what was happening because the form he was on is pretty rough it was a form the first helped me but you have to go in was super’s thick skin is not for everyone and I shudder to think of what may have happened if I and at least one other pro-poster hadn’t been there to be kind to this guy that was so down and hurt by so many awful things one person helped me turn my entire life around now I got to be that one person to someone else so when you see someone hurting please reach out you to might just be that one person to someone and change a life so maybe maybe you’d like to start by sending a message of support to Silvers if you’d like to you can do so by going to shun podcast.com where you can leave a comment form on the episodes page of your also to find the resources that were mentioned in the episode there and the video for the song that he chose to represent his journey Silvers chose a song love by Lana Delray to represent his journey are right now that’s not the only place you can comment on the episode we also have a Facebook group called shun podcast it’s really growing where we have people discussing episodes in their own lives and I try to do things there to encourage people to find good things in life and grow as I stated earlier I want to give you some highlights in the past few weeks just to give you an idea of the group that we have every Wednesday we post things were happy about in life for the week every Wednesday weekend we post things that were doing for ourselves as part of self-care this weekend immediately this weekend when I’m releasing this were to have our second show and tell Sunday where people can post pics and talk about some things they had that were cool and meant something to them you’ll being shunned we don’t have a lot of people with us anymore that we can share your cool things that we enjoy with and so this is a chance for people to the share and build community one of our members actually announced this month that he is having his first kit on the group before he did anywhere else and I do know that really meant a lot to me that he did that and I as he the group is gone of its own little family in many of us are missing our families and the you not only this guy has bought a house that unfortunately you know he never got to share with us his actual blood family but now you he’s about to have his easy-going analysis is that you have his first kid and so he did that on the group 1st and that meant a lot to me personally and amass also going to be announcing something pretty big and there in the next coming weeks as I I typically try to put things up in the group 1st if I can so there’s things happening in there my goal is to keep it more about us as individuals in our stories and supporting one another informing community than just keeping up with the latest Jacob stuff I put a new way to interact with the show up on the website@shunpodcast.com where you can leave me a voice message for use on the podcast now on the last episode I asked the question but nobody responded so rather than do that what I’m to just encourage is if if you have anything if you have something you need want need or want to say is go to the site click on the tab on the right and you tell me whatever you want tell me a quick funny story about your your life in the cult give me suggestions for the show asked me a question that maybe I answered on the next episode in and include your question this is an easy way for you to be part of the show if you like so you can use whatever device you have weathered your computer tablet phone whatever this click on the tab on the right of whatever pager on it shun podcast.com and I’ll get the message if you haven’t been to the site lately you’ll see that I’ve even got some shun swag up there now I have some ice T-shirts and a hoodie with the shun logo on that look nice people seem to really like them I also have some more ideas that I’ll get up there soon but all in due time so it’s a way you can support the show and get a pretty cool shudder hoodie at the same time you can also find the podcast on YouTube under the channel called shun podcast on is the grandma shun podcast and on twitter it shun podcast and all of those are shun podcast as one word if you like to hear my story and at a great insight into the how the cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses works you can do so at the podcast my original podcast called this JW life also found@thisJWlife.com I want to take the time to think people who really help me make the show possible by helping to support it financially this month both Matthew and Nico signed up to help and support the show seriously though the show takes not just work in time but there’s costs involved in getting audio hosted websites hosted in getting transcripts may keeping equipment working also spent a great deal of time helping people through emails in my Facebook group and other social media so you know you can really help support me in my efforts for as little as a dollar a month and it means the world to me to know the others are in this with me that people believe in me and believe in what I’m doing here so it’s encouraging to see people to want to support it you can do so at page 3 on PAT REO in such patriotic.com/shunned if you are so inclined out and if you don’t have the opportunity are not inclined to do so in a monetary way one way that you can support the show both the shun podcast and this JW life is the head to iTunes and leave a five-star review for them helps them get found in the search engine you them that’s what all these things are like iTunes different things are essentially search engines of podcast so it helps it to get found in the searches shows as popular and then more people can find it and the more people that find it the more people we can help so the next episode is gonna be the story of Daniel Daniel is not shunned right now however you know part of shunning isn’t just the actual shutting it’s the fear of shunning and how it keeps people stuck in the cult so we have up IMO someone who is physically in but mentally LPI ammo he’s one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and we’ve done some things to protect his identity I think that you’re gonna find this a fresh look at things pretty interesting were going to Glenn close the show out now with the song Noel yet by fairway or you can find a link to her song to the page on page for the show to resources mentioned and more not just on the website but if you’re listening on a podcast up you can probably get it all in the app by looking at the description so as we all in all episodes love others do no harm and go be happy and
