Death-Cult Adjacent Pt 2
Meet the Panopticon
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In Death-Cult Adjacent Pt 1, we ended with the drive to Atlanta.
I met his family, all of whom were Jehovahs Witnesses. Five hours of rehearsed questions and answers as we drove to his hometown outside Atlanta. I had to lie to his entire family about our relationship. I should have ran then.
I was told to lie about how we met. I did. Mutual friend introduced us. In a gothic literature fanclub. Non-Witness friends. No the internet. Not a chat room, playing an RPG. And not Vampire the Masquerade, of all things. His mother believed he spent all his time “gaming in graveyards” which destroyed his marriage to the child bride before me.
But the internet was the BIG scandal- I find this hilarious as on JW Org there WERE 138 articles about the dangers of the internet and now they’ve been scrubbed ONLY in recent days. There’s just a few about the spiritual risk to young people now
Never mind the woman who was a bad JW for using social media for her successful jewelry side hustle business promotion who was seen as spiritually weak, materialist, and a bad JW demonstrating envy and JW bitchiness shown at the assembly programming just a couple years ago. Watchtower and Alive propaganda mags warn about the web and Satanic and world influence of it. They created a TikTok and Instagram socials just this week, reversing 30 years of doctrine. “New Light” or die. It’s too late for a web presence to help.
Of course, the JW’s disabled comments at launch. Luckily, audio can be reused so the ex-witnesses are having a wild time mocking “The only true religion” using their TikTok for secular education which can’t be responded to by survivors. One click from their safe press room channel and their Original Audio on TikTok is already being used in hilarious ways. They let the cow outta the barn and thought disabling comments was enough. Silencing works but not the way they intended on socials. The Borg decided “if you can’t beat them”,(the world), make a token gesture, and “join them”. In appearances only. All smoke and mirrors.
We arrived in Walton County, and were meeting his parents and sister at an Outback for dinner. My engagement ring locked and surrendered by me in the glove box. He’d pulled into a Mickey D’s enroute to explain they weren’t ready to know we were engaged. I was made to take off my ring. I was deeply hurt.
I was not his fiancée this weekend. I was a girlfriend meeting the family and the entire family were in a cult. I had been warned I would be made to stay at a relatives house as an unmarried couple cannot be unchaperoned. I was 27, he was 23 and we’d been sharing my bed for months but I would endure this to impress his folks.
It was weirder than that. I was made to feel like a dirty open secret and ashamed of my commitment and love for this man. We had traveled 5 hours alone together in a car unsupervised, so we arrived scandalously and he was deserving of rebuke. Oh my! This bad behavior shown in this video below by a woman who couldn’t ride alone with her own fiancé!
His sister showed to the meet and greet late. She’d been out “in service”- volunteering and going door to door annoying people. I thought service was a job or such. She was a Pioneer and part time community college student. Her job was proselytizing. Her parents supported her so she could show up at people’s doors at 9am on a Saturday and learn Russian with the Russian congregation. It was before the “literature cart witnessing” was introduced in 2006.
She showed up late because I was not a Witness. She talked to her brother at the meal, and while his parents grilled me basically, asked strangely specific questions I was prepped for by wasband, and I responded with my practiced prepared socially accepted answers, but she didn’t ask me a thing. My future Sister-in-Law talked above and absolutely around me. I was an empty seat in the booth as far as she was concerned.
I was the reason we even gathered for dinner but didn’t want to meet the new girlfriend. I just thought she was young (she was) and flighty. She was actually far worse, she was an extreme JW zealot. The shunning was just “soft shunning” and “not congregation approved”, I learned very recently, but was still permitted somehow!
I’m sure she spoke to her family and brother about my danger as someone “doing the unknown”. Had she asked questions or spoke to me, I’d not been unknown. I knew these were my future in-laws, even if they didn’t yet, and I was excited to have a sister in law to be friends and close with.
From the Google AI on JW use of “avoiding those doing the unknown”-
“unknown” generally refer to people, ideas, and societal systems outside their religion. Because they believe the outside world is alienated from God and controlled by Satan, they are taught to avoid unnecessary socialization and be cautious of secular philosophies. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The specific boundaries and definitions regarding the "worldly" involve several core concepts:
People and Association: Anyone who is not a baptized Jehovah's Witness is considered "worldly" or "from the world". Members are advised to limit their close friendships and romantic relationships strictly to fellow believers to avoid being led astray or adopting bad habits. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The "Unknown" System: Witnesses believe that all secular governments, commercial enterprises, and worldly religions lie in the power of Satan. Because of this, they remain politically and socially neutral, often viewing outside institutions with deep suspicion. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Worldly Thinking and Values: This encompasses philosophies, moralities, and ambitions that do not align with Jehovah's Witness teachings. Things like prioritizing higher education, corporate career advancement, or secular entertainment are often discouraged as they distract from spiritual goals. [1, 2]
Spiritual Danger: Unfamiliar, worldly philosophies are viewed as potentially contaminating to a Witness's faith. They are taught to rely solely on the organization's interpretations of the Bible to discern right from wrong, avoiding independent critical thinking that contradicts official doctrine. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Ultimately, Jehovah's Witnesses believe they must be "no part of the world," remaining physically and spiritually separated from non-believers while awaiting the imminent arrival of Armageddon.
His father was nice to me and liked I was a historian and in Classical Studies, his mother was what I consider the “middle-aged beauty queen denying reality who peaked at 21 and never matured since” and his sister was a 20 year old “old maid” by JW standards. I liked his dad, he asked questions about me at least, and knew this was a family entry level position interview and took me seriously.
I didn’t realize they only dated with intent to marry so they knew why I was being introduced. They all ordered well-done steaks while wasband ordered medium as a compromise and I ordered my filet medium-rare. JW’s insist all meat must be cooked throughly so no blood remains. They enjoy beef charcoal briquettes. All food is overcooked and its doctrinal. I taught their son to enjoy medium rare beef. Not a huge fan of chain restaurants.
At that first meeting and meal, I asserted I was Jewish culturally, I was Ashkenazi, I knew JW’s were killed in the Holocaust, but in small numbers on scale to my kin, don’t believe in a Chosen People of any Desert Sky Daddy, asserted Jewish was NOT a race several damn times, and that I was secular several times. I consider it Anti-Semitism. I also let them know I had no interest in their religion and saw “their culture” as Southern and American. They informed me they can’t vote etc. I asked if they had US passports and GA birth certificates. They wanted a “Theocratic rule of Jehovah God”. They realized quickly I was stubborn. I realized they were true believers in their religion. I know his dad admired my attitude. I wasn’t ever going to be easily converted. I never did.
JW Terminology
I failed to win the women’s approval though. They’d judged me long before we ever met, probably even before P. was divorced from his JW wife and had already found me lacking, wanting, and worldly.
They had assumed at 27, I was divorced and had children. I laughed aloud at the table, embarrassing my wasband. It was beyond their indoctrinated minds that a woman my age prioritized education and had not ever married and had children by that age. I wasn’t a Witness!
After the meal, we went to his grandparents. I was being passed around like a contaminated bong, socially. Or treated with the idea that short exposure to me was the only safe way to indulge their boy. MawMaw and PawPaw were too nice. More interviewing and they were my ex-MIL’s parents. They were elderly, Southern, sharecropper roots, and he was an JW Elder. Pawpaw wasn’t annoying though. MawMaw was adorably ditzy, a 1950’s sitcom housewife and spent all her time in the kitchen. They owned “The Washtub” the only laundrymat in town and had a farm/compound where their son, his wife and their 5 kids lived in houses and trailers next to their farmhouse.
We were left alone in the living room to talk once and I expressed my rage and anxiety. It was so abnormal to sleep at the home of people I’d just met! At their declared bedtime, P. And I walked to his car and they turned a blind eye as I kissed him goodbye. I was left with strangers to prevent all possible sinning. 😬🤣😫
He drove away a few miles back to his parents house and I stayed there at his grandparents. The next time we came down to GA, I was apparently the Devil whore evil Babylon fiancée by then, and I stayed at Mama Lib’s, his paternal grandmother’s home. We had good conversation and drinks!
I struggled to sleep in a strange place amidst complete strangers. Rural noises and PawPaw snoring convinced me a bear was outside the thin walls of the house. MawMaw and PawPaw found my night of fear and thinking a growling angry bear was on outside of the thin wall all night hilarious as I’m a city girl.
Morning came and I was fed biscuits and homemade fig preserves from the fig tree in the yard for ages. The fig preserves were delicious and no better homemade biscuit ever existed. To this day, MawMaw made the best biscuits ever. Blood glucose shot up over 400 and rest of day was spent hoping my Glucophage and Amaryl could let me survive meeting the family. Even their food wanted to kill me. I had glucose syrup in my veins instead of blood.
No one gave me any warnings about their beliefs although the way they said “The Truth” a lot was creepy, they only said their weird grace, there was no holy trinity, and no one but his father asked any questions about me or what or who I was. I felt uncomfortable left with his grandparents. We were chaperoned/supervised again in the morning before we left when he called to ensure we were awake to come over to retrieve his spiritual burden (me).
I enjoyed the time I stayed at Mama Lib’s later that year as she was the only person who had a personality and curiousity. She converted in her late 70’s and was now in her 80’s. She’d be reunited with the love of her life and so she studied with them and was baptized. She wasn’t near as hardcore as the rest of them due to age and wisdom. She had profanity potholders stashed in her kitchen she used around me and she cussed. She was educated and had a career as a single mother ( she was widowed young) before joining the death cult. She had COPD, so she rarely went out in “service”. Her children had been baptized in the 1970’s. She resisted for a while. However, they worked her over and wore her down as she was a widow and eventually won over by their Resurrection Paradise Reunited materials.
The vulnerable and grieving are ideal people to lovebomb and give false hope to. You don’t become an actual witness until your baptism and only then get all the books and membership details. You’re theirs then and under their rules. She broke the rules when it was just us though. They never removed her spine. She was a secret PIMO always. At her memorial service, they didn’t have a whole lot of JW stuff to praise her for. She was never “privilege”-driven. Didn’t like service or volunteering, driving around with “the sisters” and relying on the other sisters. Hated the gossiping “sisters” and the Hall being so corporate and beyond bland, having formerly been Episcopalian. She was a sassy bitch biding her last days and making Pascals Wager on the Witnesses.
Show this grieving Ex-JW some support, compassion and kindness as she proves how they use funerals and exploit death for cult gains and for control. They didn’t honor the dead, they honor the cult at funerals. 😓😢
We continued dating, I put my ring on before we got on I-85 heading back to NC. He drove up after work every Friday but one weekend and drove back to GA on Sunday evenings. I’m an idiot, but as I stated in Pt 1, I thought I was never going to have the American dream and my heart was dying.
Eventually, they learned we were engaged. There was no party or announcements. No fuss. No joy. I was a an uneven yoke on their family. An outlier. A corrupt influence and spiritual impure threat. Unclean!
His parents were a special kind of crazy. One weekend during Fall semester, P.’s cell rang. It was his sister. She needed his help. His parents were in jail for domestic violence. Apparently a blender custody issue resulted in a blender being thrown. A normal kitchen blender. No one was injured. Just the blender was injured, really and only minorly.
His parents were divorcing. She wanted another lump sum settlement again. She wanted the blender, too. He allegedly threw it at her feet. She called the cops on him. The cops came but took them both in! She was arrested too. Cops were not having her drama and bullshit. Both parents hauled in. Paul refused to drive down, resolve things, and pay his mom’s bail. He chose me that weekend. My ex-MIL never paid her daughter back for posting her $300 bail.
P. acted as if this was normal. It was insane. Third divorce and both on jail over a blender. It was just a blender. It’ll never make sense. She’s gotten a newly build lakeside 2 or 3 bedroom condo and it was fully furnished and a new SUV in this third divorce. Their prior divorces were messier due to the kids. As teens, they lived with their dad, an “ministerial servant” in the Cult who gave “talks” (sermons), often. Only P. chose his mothers house at 17 for some sneaky freedom as she worked as a medical office assistant and therefore he had some unsupervised time. He never actually did bad things to risk JW censure as he was so wholly brainwashed. I’m serious. I never really even noticed how he actually bathed. He was compulsively clean, but I’m sure he felt guilty everytime time he washed his genitals.
She also abandoned her kids with her husband several times when P. was a young child and she did some real adultery and disco nose candy. She says his father was the addict. She was censured many times as a JW though. She was forgiven and they civilly remarried since civil divorce doesn’t count and that’s how his sister was conceived, as your JW spouse is always fuckable and your spouse as JWs don’t recognize legal divorces as spiritual. They’ve a doctrinal bootycall loophole for horny single guilty Witnesses. Give your spouse their “marital due” even if divorced. Be like Hosea, apparently. Bonkers!
P. decided to move up in 2000 while I was wrapping up my MA in Classics. We planned to marry in April 2000. We found a cute 1930’s 2 bedroom cottage in NC, but ran into a glitch. My student housing lease couldn’t just be terminated at end of semester. We could use a valid marriage license to break my lease. We had to get one eventually, so we got the wedding license to break my student housing lease.
He started moving stuff up on the weekends. We set up house in the cute cottage. His cat Sidney and I bonded. He gave Sidney to a shelter at 13 rather than let me have the cat who loved me.
2003- Me, Sidney and my Son
Suddenly, he refused to cohabitate saying his parents wouldn’t approve. We needed their approval. We needed to get married to please them and not “live in sin” and just move wedding plans up or his life would be hell. He was too cowardly to do his own thing and risk disapproval or shunning. We had to get married before he moved up!
We’d spent the entire mere 9 months of dating and our engagement living in different states! I’d never even lived with a partner before. I wanted to live in sin first as a practice run before I was legally bound to someone I only saw on weekends! I had no idea what marriage would be like. Perfect JW wifey material, except I wasn’t.
With just three weeks before the end of the semester, we tackily emailed out a few sudden wedding invitations. It was meaningless for me. I wasn’t a joyous bride. This wasn’t how I wanted it to be. My dream was reduced to obligation.( A JW approved marriage in many ways). I planned to marry only once and not have it be a shotgun wedding without the need for a shotgun. Their cult was the gun. I got my last Depo Provera injection just days before the wedding as we wanted children.
I had no wedding dress. No flowers. I was at Belk the day before wedding and bought a red velvet sheath dress and shawl to wear on my head to be a Roman bride. I had all the joy of commitment and any wedding day traditions from my Jewish culture taken from me, so I wore red as an “fuck you/fuck off/fuck them” to my wedding/funeral. Courthouse in Greensboro, NC,, December 17th, 1999. None of my invited cousins came or sent gifts. Two sent congratulation ecards. I threw up in the courthouse bathroom twice and wanted to bolt before the ceremony.
My ex MIL made me wear makeup and have a department store Clinique counter horrible quickie beauty counter makeover with her before ceremony. (I still like Clinique Black Honey lipstick though. I don’t have any and haven’t since the 90’s.) I knew I was making a terrible mistake — but just like him and what he told me about his marriage to his first wife, “I had to keep my word”. I had to help him save face. He even slept on the couch the night before we went to the Courthouse.
Only two people were there at the wedding besides us, the judge, and a court clerk- his dating-again parents. An empty courtroom, otherwise. The blender and arrests already forgotten and no charges filed. His sister was suspiciously missing. Any reasons for her absence wasn’t mentioned or spoken of to me. There was no reception. My boss at the museum sent a handwoven basket with dried hydrangeas in it, which means “heartless” in the language of flowers. My favorite flowers. It awaited us at home. A small 🚩 warning from a dear friend that I ignored.
We dressed up, they even drove us to ensure we were married. I choked my panic attacks down, we said vows, tears choked him, possibly me too, though he smiled. I think I possibly smiled too, though I was dying inside and on autopilot and in a fawning response, with his parents there and the only words of the vows I recalled were “I pledge my troth”. That phrase struck me as absurd. That troth line was all he remembered clearly too. Only that stuck with me of my wedding. We laughed about it.
None of the wedding photos turned out. None. (No picture of us together as a couple existed for two more years and it was someone else’s wedding where I was Matron of Honor and he wasn’t even in the wedding party. I don’t recognize myself in that photo with my wild curls slicked and gelled and shellacked into a straight French twist with a few tendrils artificially chosen and coiled wrong. The dress was beautiful though. I barely am connected to the man beside me, my husband. This was my replacement for the all failed wedding photos of my own wedding no one saw and was given as a consolation gift by the bride to me.)
No photos of the bride and groom or even the newlyweds exist. No pics, but it happened. Only the marriage certificate and new white gold bands on our ring fingers proved it ever happened (and later, a divorce decree.) Fresh camera batteries allegedly died. Just black shadowy darkness and blurs on the developed film. No one seemed upset but me.
That was a major omen. It was a bad sign.
To Be Continued…
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