Jehovah's Witnesses Disfellowshipping - A Cruel Inhumane Practice

I'm not sure. Although I love legal subjects and not many subjects on planet earth confuse me for very long at all, this subject I still find perplexing at the best of times.

What does annoy me to some extent, not that I'm down playing those who have been through it, but it seems to me that the only one's who are getting compensation as far as abuses go are those individuals who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of The Watchtower.

More power to them I think that's good. But...

Why the focus on just getting compensation for those individuals who have been sexually abused?

It's almost like the current prevailing thinking is that those individuals who have suffered greatly as a result of the physical abuse, psychological abuse and emotional abuse, it's as if what is really being said is that our situation/s are not as important as those who have been sexually abused, which clearly is not fair at all. Why should our personal voices be completely ignored?

Abuse is abuse whichever way you look at it. Yes, sexual abuse is terrible but so is physical abuse, as is psychological abuse and emotional abuse, and I think and believe that anyone regardless of the abuses suffered at the hands of the WTBTS...they should all receive the same care and attention and compensation for the huge amount of emotional distress and suffering they have gone through - sometimes for many years in complete isolation.

I'm really not saying one form of abuse is more important than another type of abuse but sadly this is the situation it seems which is being played out today. I remember too many years ago when Bill Bowen of SilentLambs first made an appearance on the exjw forums. I recall well trying to explain to him about the abuses I had suffered at the hands of the WTBTS. Do you know what he did? He laughed at me and told me to grow up and get real. I was incredibly upset at the time by his lack of understanding and his complete lack of empathy for what I had been through personally.

That experience put me off for many years talking about my abuses suffered at the hands of the Watchtower for many years for fear that others similarly would not take my story and experience of abuse seriously.

Now that I'm 48 I'm just not accepting BS from anyone. I know what I went through and it WAS abuse pure plain and simple. I know I want some form of compensation for this abuse and for the fact that I am still disfellowshipped to this day (with all of that entails).

Now fair enough I was actually disfellowshipped for a few reasons not only because I was asking of the organisation too many difficult questions but also because of my language (us Cornish swear a lot naturally, it's well known here that swearing a lot is part and parcel of the way the Cornish communicate) but also fits of anger but that was due to the fact that at the time I was suffering from multiple personality disorder when daily, almost every hour I would slide through about 9 different personalities.

In my early 30's, I did actually go to see a psychologist about all of this which helped tremendously at the time, so yes it is on my medical records the psychological abuse I suffered at the hands of the WTBTS extensively. Thankfully today that particular condition is no more a fact of life for me. It afflicted me only when I was a young JW in my teens and twenties. Never mind all of the social phobias I had at that time a few of which still exist now for example my huge fear of people.

Even today I still don't really know who I really am. It felt like my personality was split into so many different parts as a youngster that I'm not able to remember or recall to this day who is the real me, if that makes any sense?

What I do attribute all of these mental health problems to over the years is my psychological and emotional and physical torture which I went through continuously as a child and I know I'm not the exception. Torture being the operative word. It fits. Perfectly.

A class action lawsuit? Yeah but how to go about this I have not the foggiest clue. Like many, who do you approach to take your case on when you have hardly any money to start with?

As it is I still live on the road full time in the back of my converted van. I do not have a fixed place of abode. As a single man there isn't any help out there for people like me to get a home to call my own, so I just move around in my converted home on wheels as much as possible to avoid aggravating local communities who take exception to travelers and nomadic people who live on the road full time. (I'm in the UK btw).

Yes I do work as much as possible, I'm self employed and have been for 34 years. I'm a copywriter and marketing consultant although work has been rather sparse lately since the recession started in 2008. The more professional me you can view on my LinkedIn profile here (where I make a lot more sense - on business marketing subjects):

https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/mark-andrews/16/77a/a14

I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm never going to get any answers or help with all of this. I'll probably go to my grave and my story just like the stories of so many others, they'll all disappear into the ether as though our existence doesn't really matter in the big scheme of things. Sometimes on that front I just despair. I ask myself, why should my voice and the voices of others not be heard just because our abuses suffered were not sexual? Does that fact make our abuses suffered any less real?

Which begs the question...

In the exjw community, why is most if not all of the emphasis just on helping sexual abuse victims but not other forms of abuse (and victims) which can and are in their own right just as serious?

Too right I think I deserve compensation. No doubt about it probably thousands of others deserve some too for having to go through similar experiences. To boot the continuing disfellowshipping situation is the 'icing on the cake'. It's just never ending.

When will it ever all stop full stop?

/r/exjw Thread