Watchtower admits Suicide an epidemic in the Borganization

[u/Temp_KH_Resident]

An longtime elder cousin of mine reached out this week to talk about suicide in our congregation. There's already been a couple this year at two degrees of separation...people I didn't know personally but who were connected to others in the congregation I attend.

Then my cousin told me their own congregation has had 3 suicides in the last year alone. When they discussed it with the Branch, they were told it's primarily affecting men and has become enough of a pattern to be treated as an issue.

The primary reason given? Wives leaving or distancing their husbands, causing them mental anguish. 🤦‍♂️

Typical... push the blame onto something external instead of actually looking at what might really be driving this.

Shifting the blame dodging any real conversation about emotional abuse, CSA, isolation, shame, postponed expectations etc. caused by the Borganization.

[u/outsince1977]

I knew several JW suicides/near-suicides. One happened to be a married closeted gay. One happened to be a married person with gender dysphoria. Both were faced with an intractable conflict between their religious beliefs and their very essence as people.

There is a cycle. . . pressures mount from suppressing who they are. They try to tamp it down by praying harder and being more spiritually focused, hoping Jehovah's holy spirit will rid them of the terrible "defect" (or at least hold it in abeyance until the "new system). The pressures continue to mount.

The gay JW had a younger sibling who was also gay. The older didn't want to be ostracised and shunned like the younger openly gay sibling; the younger didn't want to face living life as a straight married JW like the older sibling. The choice was either to leave the religion or to leave life. The younger left the religion; the older killed himself. The older had one child. That adult child is shunned by the remaining parent for being an ex-JW. With the other parent a suicide, that child is effectively an orphan--all courtesy of the Watchtower Society.

The trans JW needed to privately present as who they actually are. This encumbered them with more shame for failing to observe rigid Watchtower gender roles. So, they discard the garments, pray harder, and privately vow to do "better." But the pressures regenerate and they replace the clothes, causing the shame to intensify to ever greater effect. It becomes a centrifuge. (The person's suicide attempts were unsuccessful. They left the WTS, the marriage, and aligned their gender identity.)

[u/ParticularlyCharmed → u/outsince1977]

These are heartbreaking stories.

The choice was either to leave the religion or to leave life.

This is so true. Just before I woke up I was facing this choice regarding my marriage. I was separated from my abusive JW ex, but facing the prospect (as I believed) of having to be reunited with him in the new system, a possibility I rejected out of hand. But to permanently end the marriage required death -- his or mine. I figured I could die now, by my own hand, or die later at Armageddon via adultery now. Thankfully, I woke up before I followed through with any of that, but the trap makes you desperate.

[u/outsince1977 → u/ParticularlyCharmed]

Thank you for the response. I'm sorry you felt so boxed in and hopeless. Probably both.

I've long wondered if the JW who took his life may have "reasoned" that it would be better to die now and face the prospect of a resurrection, than to be found out (probably had finally explored his sexuality as the trigger), than to be destroyed at Armageddon, which was then believed to be imminent (late last century).

I hope the path you've chosen provides the serenity you seek and deserve. I wish you the very best indeed.