The following experiences are related in
‘A LOVING PROVISION’ ? HOW FORMER JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES EXPERIENCE SHUNNING PRACTICES. by Julia Gutgsell
Master’s thesis Academy year 2016-2017
The current study explores individuals’ experiences of religious ostracism in the form of case studies. Participants in this study are former members of a religious community that practices disfellowshipping and social exclusion- the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Active members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are discouraged by their community from having ‘unnecessary contact’ with members who have left the movement of either free will (‘disassociation’) or have been disfellowshipped (disciplinary sanction for unrepentant sinners). ‘Having unnecessary contact’, including acts as little as greetings, may lead to disciplinary actions taken against members who willfully engage with former members.
Impact on Self
Participants described various ways in which the exclusion and ostracism affected them. Most notably, participants experienced a decrease in their psychological well-being and some developed psychological disorders during or following the disfellowshipping. Several participants spoke about a lifelong lasting effect.
In this extract, Philip shares the hurt and pain he experienced following his first disfellowshipping:
‘When I got disassociated [term has historically changed] at thirteen, that was a massive trauma, massive. It’s impacted the rest of my life, and it will continue to impact the rest of my life. There is a pain; there is a level of pain that’s different from physical pain, the emotional pain, the psychological pain even. I remember that pain. I think it does stuff to you, that kind of pain. That was without a shadow of a doubt, the most hurtful, painful, traumatic experience of my whole life.’ [Philip]
Philip, who is now in his early forties, reflects on the pain he experienced as a young teenager. This extract is particularly poignant in his description of ‘remembering’ the pain. In fact, Wesselmann, Nairne & Williams (2012, p. 314) suggest that social pain, or as described by Philip ‘emotional and psychological pain’ can be re-experienced by individuals as they reflect on it, in opposition to physical pain that ceases to exist. Philip personifies his experience with pain ‘it does stuff to you’. Pain here becomes a living entity. Philip describes how the pain he experiences will never fully cease, ‘it will continue to impact the rest of my life’. This is further echoed in his description of the period in which he experienced the ostracism:
‘The psychological torture on a daily basis, the weekly torture on the group basis, the shunning, the treating me like a pariah, the fact that I was some devil inside like I was the spawn of Satan.’ [Philip]
‘I would class it as a prison sentence. It was an open prison, where my accusers, detractors and so on, were the ones that were guarding me, I wasn’t with other inmates. At least if I’d been in with other inmates, they were the same like me, and we could have gone on fine, we would have hated the pressure, but we would have had the solidarity, there wasn’t any of that. The solidarity was within myself.’ [Philip]
In the following segment where Philip offers a comparable experience:
‘We can all associate with someone getting bullied at school. So, imagine school is your whole life, and you can’t go home. And everybody in the school, the teachers, fellow pupils, everybody is against you, that’s what it’s like.’ [Philip]
The home, a place that children should experience as safe and welcoming, as a place where they can be themselves, becomes a continuation of the ‘psychological torture’ Philip experiences. The contrast between a child being bullied at school that sees his home as an escape, and himself who has nowhere to turn for safety and security. Philip, who was disfellowshipped for the first time at age thirteen and for the second time around his seventeenth birthday, reflects on the difference between the experiences:
‘I’d say they were both the same. […] The only real difference between the two experiences is, the first time they maintained it as a torturous event throughout a whole two and half year because they were able to keep me captive. The way I was able to react, was different because I was bigger.’ [Philip]
Again, there is a theme of loss of control in his first experience as he was unable to make his own decisions as a minor being subjected to his parent’s guidance ‘keep me captive’. As he is older, we observe a shift in his ability to control his situation and to influence his experience.
Urszula, who was age sixteen when she was disfellowshipped, fell into a depression following the announcement:
‘It [disfellowshipping] was a massive shock because I used to get a lot of attention from my parents, but my parents stopped talking to me. I felt like I had to move out of my family home, because of this, I became depressed quite quickly, I have been depressed on and off since I left, so it kind of never went away. The shunning has affected my entire adult life, I think. I definitely lost a lot of confidence because of it; I have to kind of fight the feeling that, loneliness, and emptiness, and longing for a family, every day.’ [Urszula]
Here, Urszula describes the impact disfellowshipping had on her everyday life. Communication with her parents ceased, and she felt that she was no longer welcome in her family home. Even though the Watch Tower and Bible Tract Society does not currently have any concrete rules that require family members to leave the family home after disfellowshipping, members may still feel unable to live in the same home, as many activities families would have shared in the past may no longer be possible. Similar to Philip’s experience, Urszula speaks about a life-long, daily impact of her disfellowshipping and shunning by her family.
Isabel, who attempted to be reinstated following the first disfellowshipping announcement, recounts the difference she experienced between her first disfellowshipping and the second time, for marrying in a mainstream domination church:
‘Initially, I thought, I’ll go back into it, so the first time, I thought, this was just this period in between and then I’d go back into it, that I just kept as busy as possible, to just block everything out. The second time, was more just like closure. That was the door closing on it, and you knew then, that was it all left behind. So that was more of a [pause], I think it was sad because there were people that I knew that were never going to speak or see me again, but then on the other side it was, like the start of a new life.’ [Isabel]
Isabel recounts a mixed set of feelings. The first time, she tried to suppress her feelings (‘block everything out’), as she was waiting to be welcomed back. The desire to be reinstated almost acts as a pause button, putting her feelings on ‘hold’ until she was back in again. The second time, (disfellowshipping without the desire to be reinstated) she describes in terms of a finality and ‘closure’. The metaphor of the door marks a sharp discontinuity of her old life, a life in which friends and family were left behind, and the start of a new life, which, in Isabel’s case, meant marriage with her new partner. Isabel describes this new life in positive terms. The fact that she was not facing an entirely uncertain future, due to her new partner and the upcoming wedding, may have allowed her to welcome this new life with optimism.
Agnieszka, who was torn between remaining a Jehovah’s Witness and being married to her ex-husband, describes the effect of the social pressure she experienced from other members of the leading up to her disfellowshipping:
‘I felt very lonely. I was not a good wife, I was not good this and that and pressure, pressure, pressure. I went into kind of coping mechanism, destruction, like walking my dog for ridiculous hours, I didn’t sleep much, stopped eating as well, I was around 60 kilos, I dropped down to 47. I was drinking a lot, just to numb the pain. I had panic attacks, to the point that I was paralysed. […] because everything [everyone] was pointing out that I wasn’t eating, […] I started binging, so from anorexia, I went to bulimia. Then when it went to the stage that it was really showing, someone was making a comment like ‘pull yourself together, what are you doing? You are not good example for anyone, you are doing wrong, if you pray to Jehovah everything will be fixed, just put your marriage first […].’ So, I kind of gave up, basically. I took the bottle of wine; I took the knife, I took the pills and um, went for a bath.’ [Agnieszka]
Agnieszka describes how the social pressure of being an exemplary wife to her husband, who held a highly regarded position in the Congregation, became too much for her to bear and how she developed destructive, harmful and ultimately life-threatening coping mechanisms. Suicide ultimately appeared to be the only viable option to Agnieszka to end the social pressure and criticism she was exposed to. Agnieszka, who entered therapy to recover from her experience, explains how she was unable to identify her own feelings:
‘You are always doing everything so that your husband looks good. […] So, your feelings, your needs, your kind of wishes are completely not important in it. And when I started therapy, they asked me questions, about what I feel – and I felt nothing, I couldn’t even realise if I felt something or not.’ [Agnieszka].
The emotional control employed by high-control groups means that members are required to put other people’s needs, the group’s leader(s) or the supernatural being the group believes in, before their own (Hassan, 2015, p. 27-28). Being a high-control group member led Agnieszka to suppress and disengage from her own feelings and needs. This went so far that she was unable to detect and describe her own feelings. An important aspect to understand about Jehovah’s Witnesses, in relation to mental health, is that Jehovah’s Witnesses teach their members that any member who disassociates from them or is disfellowshipped is ‘mentally ill’. Being labelled as mentally ill, on top of an indoctrinated fear of secular authorities, presents a barrier for shunned individuals to seek help from mental health professionals during their adjustment process.
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The next article will continue with examples of the long term effects on family and friends.