Impact on Family and Friends
While not all participants experienced the same level of ostracism from their families, each participant’s family and social ties were deeply affected by their excommunication. The effects of ostracism were not limited to the participants’ family of upbringing, but also affected their own parenting styles, as well as future generations, as decisions needed to be made about whether and how their own children could have a relationship with their grandparents and extended family. Philip speaks about his experience living with his family while being excommunicated the first time:
‘I hated the world, and I hated reality because everything in my reality turned against me, isolated me […] I was even ostracised in the house. Uhm, while living there, my brother and sister still communicated with me fully, as did my mom and step-dad, conversationally, but still, there was their Jehovah stuff, and I didn’t want anything to do with that, so I took part in that separation, this is your world, and this is mine. I suppose I didn’t really see that as ostracised at that point, but again in hindsight that is what that was.’ [Philip]
Philip shares how he felt isolated and ostracised against a backdrop of ‘full communication’. Philip describes a divided family life, one where communication occurs normally and conversationally, and one that is religious in nature and from which excommunicated members are excluded. This arrangement is typical for what in Jehovah’s Witnesses terms is referred to as a ‘divided household’, one in which non-Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jehovah’s Witnesses live together. The Congregations typically instruct this arrangement. Philip describes his own active role in this separation, caused by his desire to be left out of the religious aspect of his family’s life. Even though he states that this separation is partially self-inflicted, this does not prevent him from feeling isolated and ostracised in his family home. It is only on reflection that he labels his family’s behaviour as ostracism. There is a sensation of him reliving his own childhood through his children, as he describes how, through raising his own children, he has gained a deeper insight into his own lack of security as a child:
‘The removal of security, the security that you get from leaning on someone that you know you can trust. I have seen it in my own kids when they needed that security and I provided it. I have been acutely aware that I didn’t get that.’ [Philip]
Philip was similarly isolated and ostracised in school, for a duration of two and a half years:
‘I wasn’t allowed to hang around them [non-Jehovah’s Witness children]. I was pushed out of the general population into them [Jehovah’s Witness children], but then they weren’t allowed to talk to me, so from first year for two and a half years until third year.’ [Philip]
This extract describes how he was trying to find a peer group where he was able to fit in and be accepted, without finding one. Not being allowed to spend time with non-Jehovah’s Witness children meant that he was only permitted to associate with other Jehovah’s Witness children, something that was no longer an option after he became disfellowshipped. Thereby rendering him completely isolated at school. As mentioned previously, the school environment is often the only source of outside contact Jehovah’s Witness children have. Thus, the experiences these children make at school in their interaction with non-Jehovah’s Witnesses may play a crucial part in their adjustment process to life outside the group, hypothesising that positive experiences from interacting with outsiders may lessen or weaken the instilled fear of outsiders imposed on them by the group.
Philip’s experience as a teenager later impacted his own parenting style:
‘Anything that I saw as a big influence in a negative way, that was in my childhood and the stuff from her [wife] childhood, anything that our parents collectively have done that harmed us or that caused us issues, that we as adults had to try and fix, I made sure that we didn’t impose those things on our own children. Breaking the chain, breaking the cycle.’ [Philip]
Philip’s extract evokes a sense of drive and responsibility, of learning from ones’ own parents’ mistakes and of not repeating similar patterns. Furthermore, there is a desire of providing his children with something that he lacked in his own childhood. There is pride in the way Philip speaks about his parenting (‘I made sure’). Philip speaks about fixing ‘issues’ from the past as an adult. This extract is filled with positivity and possibility of being an active agent in the process of changing and ‘breaking a cycle’ and turning a traumatic experience into something positive. This positivity is re-iterated in the way he speaks of himself and his wife collectively, as a strong, forged bond.
As Philip’s wife fell pregnant, he was presented with another challenge: What would it mean for his own children and their relationship with their grandparents that the family ostracised their dad? While his parents and extended family were not allowed to associate with him, they were able to build a relationship with his children as his children were unbaptised and thus regarded by the organisation as potential future members.
‘When we were pregnant with her [daughter], there was a decision to be made, do we tell them, do we let them have any association with them [grandparents], because they chose not to have any association with me, but they are their grandparents. I had a choice back then; I could have said to [wife] ‘they are not getting to see the kids’. But that would have created a mystery, you know, who are those people, we don’t know who they are? Like conjuring up an idea of what they wanted them to be like.’ [Philip]
Philip’s extract describes the difficult choice of whether to allow his parents to have a relationship with his own children. Trapped between his own feelings of being ostracised by his parents and wanting his children to have a relationship and realistic view of their grandparents. There is uncertainty or even fear of what might happen if he allowed this ‘mystery’ to happen. Is there simply a fear of his children missing something if he prevents a relationship between his parents and children, or is there a fear that his children may develop an idealist or romantic idea of their grandparents and the Jehovah’s Witnesses as a group? While his children were able to form a relationship with his parents, Philip’s interaction with his own parents was purely of a logistic nature, to arrange dates and times for meetings. His parents would not interact with him when picking up the grandchildren for the visits.
Isabel shares a similar effect on her parenting style:
‘I have always been conscious that they have to be allowed everything that the other kids are doing. So you know, even to extremes like, if they had been invited to a party ‘he has to go to that party, because he can’t be missing out’, so if we were doing something else, I’d be like ‘no, no he has to go, I don’t want him to miss out’.’ [Isabel]
Being aware of the restrictions she experienced in her own childhood growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, she now finds the idea of her own kids being restricted and ‘missing out’ intolerable. There is a sense of attempting to seal the gap between what her own children are allowed to and what the other kids are doing.
Other participants spoke about the effect disfellowshipping had on their desire to become parents themselves:
‘My girlfriend has this huge extended family. It’s like family life is important. Whereas I never … been brought up to believe that family life is important, being a Jehovah’s Witness family is important, but being a family isn’t so important. And that’s one of my big regrets I suppose… I suppose if I had believed more in families, I may be more interested in having one myself.’ [Michael]
‘I’m not really a children-orientated person, but probably because I don’t trust anyone […]. I think that would be too much for me to bear, just in case if anything happens, if I make a wrong decision like it has been made in my case, that kid will suffer. So, it’s better not to have it, and make mistakes.’ [Agnieszka]
These extracts describe how their own experience of childhood and family life has impacted their perception of families and in turn their desire to build a family of their own. In Michael’s description, there is a dichotomy between being a Jehovah’s Witness family and being a family. Being a Jehovah’s Witness family was something he perceived as important and something that was to be aspired to. Whereas being a family, as in family life being an end in itself, was not something he was brought up to value. This devaluation of ordinary family life influenced his struggle to find value and meaning in having a family of his own. Agnieszka describes the impact on her desire to be a parent as a fear of making mistakes. As with other participants, there is a sense of reliving and healing their own childhood in their children. However, whereas other participants found a means of repair and restoration through raising their own children, Agnieszka is confronted with a blocking fear of repeating her mother’s mistakes and what this would ultimately mean for a child. Not everyone strictly adhered to the Watch Tower and Bible Tract Society’s rules regarding friendships with non-Jehovah’s Witnesses.
‘I lied a lot about my friends to my mum, because I wanted to be involved in a social life and because my mum worked long hours, I just sneaked into the house before she actually came home, so she didn’t even know about what I was doing. And probably that kept me a bit sane because I could still manage as a social person.’ [Agnieszka]
Agnieszka here describes what she believes to be her source of sanity, growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness child. She describes herself as a social person, who longed for contact with other people. Her sanity is only possible through a veil of secretiveness, going behind her mother’s back and ‘sneaking’ in and out of the house during her mother’s absence. Having had contact with non-Jehovah’s Witnesses also provided some support out with the Congregation and fostered the building of trusting relationships with what is in Jehovah’s Witness terms labelled ‘worldly people’ or ‘worldlings’.
This was different for Christina, who did not have any friends outside the Jehovah’s Witnesses:
‘I completely shut down [after being disfellowshipped], because the only thing I had were the Witnesses, so that was gone. My brother to whom I was very, very close to, couldn’t associate with me anymore, my mum was scared to walk around town with me. She felt so guilty about doing that, because the Elders if they saw you mixing with a disfellowshipped person unnecessarily, it shows that you condone what they have done.’ [Christina]
This extract highlights the isolation and separateness Jehovah’s Witnesses experience from the mainstream population. After Christina had been disfellowshipped, she was left without a support network. While she was still living with her mother who had continued normal conversation within the house, her brother broke all communication with her. Outside the house, she experienced, even more, isolation, as her mother feared the repercussion of openly associating with her daughter in public.
Urszula speaks about the situational circumstances that forced her to move out of her family home at age sixteen:
‘The situation became very difficult, it wasn’t for me, mentally, good to stay at home and live with my parents. I had to stay in the kitchen and eat dinner on my own, or when I was told that I can’t access my room because there was a meeting of JW’s [Jehovah’s Witnesses] and so I had to stay again in the kitchen. It was like psychologically it was unbearable, and my parents communicated me that, it’s their house and that they’d behave as JW’s [Jehovah’s Witnesses] and that, it was my decision to leave JW’s [Jehovah’s Witnesses] so therefore, I had to carry on with the consequences of it. So, I’m not sure if I’d say it was my decision, I was forced to it. Yeah, I was forced to move out.’ [Urszula]
This extract highlights how Urszula’s everyday living was impacted by her being disfellowshipped. Mundane tasks, such as eating dinner or accessing her own room, were no longer ordinary and in fact became tasks that she experienced as mentally challenging and exhausting. Urszula was deprived of the access to her own room, at times, a place where otherwise she could have sought refuge. This sensation of being without possessions is further reinforced when the house she has grown up in as a child, is no longer regarded as her family home (‘their house’). Again, there is a sense of houses being places where one cannot be and behave like themselves (‘they’d behave as JW’s’). Urszula was being robbed of the place where she can be most like herself, in her family home and in her own room. The restrictions and ramifications following her disfellowshipping ultimately pressure her to leave.
Michael had a different experience with his close family with whom he was living at the time he was disfellowshipped:
‘I do remember that I used to go home every weekend for the next couple of years. Even then, my mum was perfectly pleased and happy to see me every weekend. So, there was no, back in the early 80s, there was no close up shunning of family members basically. They would just say don’t have spiritual association with them.’ [Michael]
This extract shows that individual differences exist in the application of shunning rules, across time, congregations and individual families. However, even though his family continued to associate with him normally, his family relations and living situation were affected by other members of the Congregations, as he explained how he experienced pressure to leave his parental home:
‘The thing that made me move away from home, in the first instance was because I was being shunned. So, nobody could be near the house. So, my parents got shunned as well. So, it made sense for me to move, get a job away from home. So, at least the Congregation would stop ignoring my parents. They wouldn’t ignore them at the meetings or out, but they wouldn’t come by the house anymore in case they came across me.’ [Michael]
This extract highlights how the effects of shunning do not halt at the disfellowshipped individual, but similarly affect their broader environment. He experienced sorrow at the way his parents were affected by his shunning and found it intolerable that active members of the Congregations avoided his parents’ due to the possibility of running into him. He rationalises his move away from home as a means of enabling his parent’s lives to resume normally.
Agnieszka shares the impact shunning had on her social network:
‘It was bitter-sweet because I was glad that no one is nudging me, no one is constantly telling me how bad I am and that I should repent, putting me down as a person, but on another side, I lost everything. I had no community, no social life, no friends, obviously, the worst thing, no husband, from renting a flat that was kind of my space, I started renting a room, everything was different. You feel that literally, you have to run. You feel like a fugitive.’ [Agnieszka]
Agnieszka experienced contradictory emotions. While she was glad to have escaped the constant criticism of the Congregation, she had also ‘lost everything’. Agnieszka shares an urgency of leaving behind her home and finding another place to live. This urgency is coupled with the feeling of being a fugitive, of being on the run and escaping a situation that was unbearable.
Urszula describes a complex relationship with her sister, who faded from the Jehovah’s Witnesses after she had been disfellowshipped:
‘Me and my sister had lots of ups and downs when it comes to our relationship; we are both very troubled by what happened to us. We feel a lot of pressure on our relationship because we know that we have only each other. We felt the pressure to be close, to be very close because we have got only ourselves when it comes to family members. So, probably because of this pressure we weren’t able to sort certain things, we were kind of brushing things under the carpet, things were building up.’ [Urszula]
This extract shows how family reunions and family recovery from high-control groups can be very challenging. The pressure of being a family in the backdrop of being shunned by the extended family meant for Urszula and her sister that they were unwilling or unable to be open about their experiences with each other. The segment describes an urgency to leave difficult moments and emotionally loaded memories behind in order to experience the positive emotions of being a family again. There are hesitancy and fear in lifting ‘the carpet’ and revealing ‘certain things’, due to an uncertainty of what this would mean to their relationship. Would lifting the ‘carpet’ allow for closure to take place, or would it drive the only family member they were able to associate with away?
For some children who are raised in a divided household, having a parent that isn’t a Jehovah’s Witness may offer respite from shunning. Philip here shares his feelings towards his biological dad, who had died by the time he was disfellowshipped:
‘I was too young. So, I couldn’t leave. I wanted to leave, but my only choice was to run away from home. That was it. This is one of these things, I hated my dad, my original dad, because him dying, took one of my escape routes, which is frustrating. His parents died, and my mum’s parents died, they all died, while I was between 9 and 15-16. During that time period, where I could have done with them, they were old people suffering through cancer and all the various illnesses, that eventually killed them, so they weren’t capable of looking after me. So, none of my escape routes were there.’ [Philip]
Seeing no ‘escape routes’, Philip perceives running away from home as his only escape from the constant shunning he was subjected to while living at home and being forced by his parents to attend meetings.
This theme explored how shunning affected each participant on an individual, social and familial level. Participants struggled with the isolation and loneliness shunning brought about and adversely impacted their mental health, with some falling into depression and attempting suicide. The effects participants experienced went beyond their individual circumstances and impacted upon the lives of future generations, such as their children and their relationship with the extended family who shunned their parent. One participant also recollected her experience of rebuilding and recovering her relationship with her sister and the challenges they faced. (‘A Loving Provision? How Former Jehovah’s Witnesses Experience Shunning Practices – Julia Gutgsell)
Research from the 2014 Religious Landscape Study involving over 35,000 Americans[1] indicates that the group [Jehovah’s Witnesses] has among the lowest retention rate of any religious tradition with 66% of those raised JWs no longer identifying with the group, and that 65% of all adult JWs converted into the faith. While it is difficult to ascertain verifiable statistics, this work implies that many people appear to leave the faith.[2]
A growing number of persons are calling for such practices of undue influence to be investigated.
“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society
and is entitled to protection by society and the State.”
— Article 16.3, Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations
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Shunning is a Crime – Campaign Against Mandated Shunning
How Have U.S. Courts Decided in Cases of Religious Shunning? This will be discussed in the next article.
[1] (Pew Centre 2018)
[2] Grieving the Living: The Social Death of Former Jehovah’s Witnesses. Journal of Religion and Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01156-8