00:00I went back to get a drink of water and he took me into the coat room and forced himself
00:05into my
00:06mouth. An abuse happened there as well in my own home. My parents were completely blinded to it.
00:11They ignored all of the warning signs. I started wetting the bed at eight years old. I started
00:17gaining weight at a pretty big rate, which is very common in boys who are being abused. I started
00:23having trouble at school, becoming very withdrawn. At 14 and 16 years old, as a teenager, I did the
00:30things that normal teenagers do with girls in school and got in trouble for those. I was sentenced
00:37to my own judicial committees as a child. For any child to have to go through that is traumatizing.
00:44At 16 years old, a lot of people stopped hanging out with me, socializing with me, because now I
00:49was labeled as bad association in the congregation. For the longest time, we weren't allowed to grow
00:54beards at all as men. Women weren't allowed to wear pants to the meetings. We weren't allowed to say
01:00cheers, and it was displeasing to God. Then I met my wife when I was 18. I was married at
01:0719 years old
01:08because a lot of youths get married in the Jehovah's Witness organization very young because it's the
01:15only way to have sex without getting disfellowships. Fortunately, our marriage survived. We've been
01:21together now over 19 years. But as we progressed in our life and our marriage, I became a ministerial
01:26servant and then became an elder.
