#so until/unless the watchtower org decides to update their doctrine on same sex relationships on an organizational level

[luthwhore]

oh dang you were a Jehovah Witness? that must have been tough growing up

it was... something for sure. my grandmother raised me and she converted when i was about eight or nine, as did most of her sisters and my great grandmother. i was very invested in it as a kid, mostly because i was the sort of kid who REALLY wanted to impress adults and JW meetings are very participation-based.

my grandmother was very restrictive growing up, both in terms of who i was allowed to hang out with and the media i was allowed to engage with, so i wasn't allow to read harry potter or watch buffy the vampire slayer, for example, bc jehovah's witnesses are very big on not engaging with anything "satanic" or "demonic" which... includes basically anything with magic, or anything that could be a "stumbling block to your faith." (that was a phrase i heard a LOT growing up.)

i also wasn't allowed to hang out with non-jehovah's witnesses outside of school, but because my grandfathr wasn't a jehovah's witness, none of the other witness kids were allowed to come over to my house, so i didn't really have a lot of close friends until i was in my teens.

somewhere around 8th grade i started to question, for... a lot of reasons, but i was sort of back and forth between pulling away and sticking with it for a few years until i was about 15-16. jehovah's witnesses are VERY big on 1) not dating anyone outside who doesn't share the same faith as you, 2) not dating until you're ready for marriage, and 3) not even being alone with a member of the opposite sex that you're nor married to. and i wanted to date a boy from my high school and i wanted to play dungeons and dragons and i slowly just stopped going to the JW meetings, despite my grandmother clearly being unhappy with it.

the elders at my grandmother's congregation had also taken me aside and lectured me about how i shouldn't be dating which. at the time was very heavy and made me feel awful and did not make me want to go back.

my grandmother eventually gave me an ultimatum that i had to either go back to the meetings with her or formally disassociate myself, which is A Big Deal because if you disassociate yourself, other jehovah's witnessess are supposed to shun you (including your family members). i guess she thought that i would fall in line if she did this, but i ended up disassociating myself instead.

you'd think that would be the reason my grandmother and i have little to no contact now, but she was willing to break the rules for a while in the hopes that i would repent and return to the fold. the thing that actually made her go no contact with me was me coming out as gay.

i actually know for a fact that another family member of mine hasn't come out yet almost exclusively bc they know that it will destroy their relationship with her. and it sucks bc i'm 100% sure if it wasn't for the shitty cult she's fully bought into, i don't think she would actually care that much.

anyway if you ever want to know more about jehovah's witnesses, the website jwfacts.org is super informative and breaks down everything from doctrine to history to organizational scandals. knowing better on youtube also has one of the most well-researched and accurate videos about JWs i've ever seen from someone who was never part of the religion and i would HIGHLY recommend it if you want a good overview of the history and beliefs.