The Dark Secret at the Heart of the Jehovah’s Witnesses | Informer

Any organization that demands the shunning of loved ones cannot be any good.

I really wish this organization could be stopped, they destroyed my life and tore apart my family

I was a Jehovah Witness.... And I can confirm. I've gotten out of my deep depression when I got out. AMA

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. At about 15 I said ENOUGH! and that was it. My own mother was supposed to shun me but she didn't. I'm 68 years old now and have absolutely zero trust or faith in ANY church or religion.

That trauma reaction was him dissociating, and yeah… you get a lot of trauma from this cult. I grew up in it. Left when I was 17. A few years later, as my younger brothers got old enough, they left too. After a few years of us all trying to talk some sense into our mom, we finally got her out, too. My stepdad stayed in as an active member. She divorced him. He is still in the religion, even though he abused me for years, and all of the elders know it too. I repeatedly begged them for help, but they refused and said I’d better not say anything to my teachers, doctors, police, etc… because if he went to jail, I would be responsible for the reproach on Jehovah. It’s such a load of horseshit.

This is NOT EVEN A FRACTION of how psychotic those “nice people” are. The abuse and manipulation is so unreal. The craziest part is that all of the members are literally brainwashed so it’s pretty spectacular to ever wake up AND escape. Congrats to your family sir!!

To shun your own flesh & blood is unbelievable. The fact that a person would even ask that of you is evil in itself

I’m disfellowshipped for about a decade I’m practically alone I lost my family and have suffered but I’ve found people along the way that became my family

The beautiful thing about the social media era is seeing lies and degeneracy exposed on a large scale. As a (more conventional) Christian myself, seeing all the cover ups of abuse has been heartbreaking, but necessary. So many people in positions of power are preying on their congregants.

As a former JW, I can tell that there are many good people still trapped in this cult. Thank God I have never suffered or heard about any case of sexual abuse, but I can't say the same about psychological manipulation and emotional abuse. If you stay in for too long, the sure consequence is pain and regret. I'm a member of a broken, resentful family and when I got out, I ended up hating God and myself. But His plans are perfect and He reached me. Now I understand His true principles, which has allowed me to build for myself a happy and loving family.

If someone sexually abused my daughter they would never be able to do that again.

I luckily got out of it early. It is an incredibly judgemental, hypocritical, restrictive, and abusive organization

i fucking knew it when i was a kid i felt something was off when Pokémon came out they sat me in a room five of them tried to convince me the show was devils' work

I was sexually assaulted by a ministerial servant, 20 years ago this year. The only witness was my mother, who walked in before it got too bad. She blamed me. Her reason: "When he did that to your little sister, she fought back harder." I wanted to go to the police, but my mother threatened to disown me if I did. She said the elders would handle it. They did nothing; there weren't two witnesses. They still prayed over him, because OBVIOUSLY I was the one at fault, and he was merely weak to my evil seductions. (I was a young woman; that's "evil" to them.) That was the end for me. I refused to go back. I already strongly disagreed with their view on education (I rebelled and went to college), their anti-science opinions, some really gross levels of homophobia, antisemitism, and racism against some of my Black friends (many textured hairstyles were banned, one mother from Nairobi was told to not wear her traditional outfits because they were "too colorful" while a Japanese immigrant in a bright kimono was totally fine) but this was too much. As I looked around online, I realized that this was not unique. It wasn't that my elders were horrible. They were following standard operating procedures. I began to think back, how many times I questioned things, how often I was scolded for DARING to question. They're fine with simple questions, but when one's love for history becomes a serious threat to their brainwashing, the reply is, "Don't ask that, don't speak of that again, or you'll get in trouble." They are TERRIFIED of facts that clash with their beliefs. Thankfully, my mother refused to cut off communication with me. She kept getting in trouble for it. She finally moved to another state, so she could talk on the phone with me all she wanted, and no one cared. She never apologized for blaming me, we had a rocky relationship until the end, but at least she still loved me and enjoyed talking to me. That alone was rebellious. The last time I stepped into a Kingdom Hall was when I flew out to visit her and my (non-JW) dad. I reluctantly agreed to go. Mom introduced me to their head elder, and someone teased that he and two other elders used to shoot kittens and set dogs on fire when they were teens, something he didn't deny but merely laughed about. I was horrified. That's the psychotic types of people running the show.

I had a weird co worker that was a JW. He talked so bad about them to me the whole time he worked there. He said he only stayed due to his wife. The amount of abuse he disclosed to me was so sad. He said he even went and file a report on an elder for sexually abusing a 12 year old that ended up pregnant. He said i could take that crap no more. Due to him working with kids he was a mandated reporter and he told it all. They opened a case thw family was investigated. They disfellowshiped him after that and 2 weeks later he no longer worked for our company.

This comment section is breaking my heart. Prayers to all of you who suffered.

I knew a family of Jehovah's Witnesses when I was a kid. I went to school with their twin boys, who both had problems of their own. It came out in the woodwork that one of them (let's call him M) would receive endless praise as he did well in his studies, was good at sports, and was well liked by teachers and students. The other boy, (let's call him D) however, was more into theatre, trains, and classical/40's/50's music. It came out that D would get beaten and berated almost every day by the parents whilst at the same time they'd be showering M with praise, cursing D that he wasn't more like M. Eventually social services got involved, but by that time they were reaching their late teens. D managed to break away from the family and get a job driving trains, his passion. M on the other hand lost all of his charm, charisma and potential, breaking down and getting addicted to hard drugs and gambling. These two kids were so smart and in their respective paths would have done so well had it not been for their fanatical, insane cult led parents.

This cult has a lot of ignorance, lack of accountability, and manipulation. Hypocrisy thrives in this environment. I am so glad I left when I was a teenager.

I was brought up as a Witness. Took me 35yrs to get out of it. Now i am much happier and living my own successful life. People get deceived by this religion. I feel truly sorry for them.

I had been a Jehovah's Witness for 28 years in Brazil and I can surely tell this is all true. Being a Jehovah's Witness was the worst thing that ever happened to me but I moved on. My brothers are still manipulated by that cult. I remember a friend of mine telling me he was abused by an elder and I was so mad at him because I used to say he was lying and couldn't accept the fact that he was saying bad things about an elder. I regret it so bad. Today he is still my friend, he is still a Jehovah's Witness because he doesn't have a place to go so he doesn't want to be shunned by his family. He is into a very bad depression for years.