The Depth of Friendship
You’re sitting across from one of your closest friends, the living room feeling small and somber, and you’re finally, finally, at a loss for words. Everything that has been weighing on your mind for what seems like the very beginning of time is now out on the table for scrutiny. You know what comes next. You have been on the other side of this conversation; maybe it was a simple “I’m getting disfellowshipped”, or maybe it was a more complex explanation of their views on religion. Either way, you did what you were conditioned to do. But now the tables have turned. You’re about to be shunned.
Like most high control groups, Jehovah’s Witnesses instill a strict social order on its adherents. It’s a courtly dance of written “principles”, unspoken rules, and a culture of shame and alienation. One step out of the intricate choreography and you’re sent to the dark sidelines where it could take years to properly participate again. The result of this has a strange impact on the way relationships are formed within the group. Even your closest, lengthiest friendships could be gone in an instant, as all JW’s are taught early on to be prepared to cut off anyone not following the norms; even those they dearly, shallowly, love.
Developing shallow friendships is common. It starts when you’re young. You know some kids in the congregation are probably not spiritual enough, or don’t come from the “right” families, to invest too much time in. Maybe you were that kid, and only ever had an acquaintanceship with your JW peers. Because you didn’t come from just the right family, you never had the right kind of friends in the congregation. For most JW children, friendship outside of the congregation is prohibited. Those kids at school are classmates, not friends, and that creates more isolation if you aren’t close with fellow believers, or if, like so many, there is no one your age in the congregation.
When you’re a teenager, you inevitably lose friends to “the world”, that is, anything secular that isn’t approved by the group. They decide not to get baptized, or even worse, they are baptized and then commit some vague sin that outcasts them. You’re ready to cut contact at the drop of a hat, or, more factually, at an announcement from the stage at a meeting. I remember being in high school and a friend of mine was disfellowshipped just a year after baptism. Oh well, I told myself. We had drifted apart as it was and now I was justified for having been distant. I didn’t want to be her friend anyway.
Sometimes the pressure to drop a friendship doesn’t involve a formal punishment. A well-to-do member of the congregation simply has to suggest someone isn’t “good association” and you’ll be pressured to limit contact with them lest you find yourself being viewed as “bad association” as well. When you’re young, you feel these losses keenly because they’re new experiences. Over time though, calluses begin to form and you learn not to put all your eggs in one basket. You have a lot of friends, hopefully spread across congregations, so that when someone inevitably fails to live up to the high standards or just chooses a different course for their life, you can remove and replace them with more ease. It still hurts, but you weren’t that close anyway.
All of this culminates into shallow friendships, even the ones that feel deep. There’s a plethora of topic items to be avoided in order to stay in good graces. Even if you do swap sordid stories or ideas, confident in each other’s discretion, there’s always the possibility that one of you will fan the flames of faith at a later point and confess any slight sin, resulting in counseling from elders. There is always the possibility of divulging a guilty pleasure to a close friend only for them to feel guilty and offer you counsel to correct your ways. This is especially infantilizing when the guilty pleasure is a television show or book genre that is mildly mature, and as an adult you have that wretched feeling of “being in trouble “. You can still feel connected to people, you can still love them, but there are guidelines, and some things you just don’t talk about.
Yet, if we were lucky, we met those who were closer to us than anyone else. We shirked the unspoken rules and spent too much time together having fun and bonding. We became clique-ish, reveling in a closeness that meant the world to us. There would be counsel given to spread our association more evenly, but if you found someone in the small pool of candidates who resonated with you, it was difficult to be casual about it. There was the occasional sting when, after some private counsel from elders, one of you would avoid the other at the meetings so as not to look so exclusionary. It usually didn’t last. Too often, we paid a heavy price for this closeness.
We always stood ready to lose friends and family. We were taught it was the noble thing to do, and that God would reward us for it. Definitely. In the future he will for sure reward us. So when we see our friends slow down in their ministry, we pull away from them. Our friend grew a beard, or spent time with others we didn’t have a high opinion of, or watched movies that made our bible trained conscience uncomfortable, we distanced ourselves. We began other friendships with people that had an appropriate level of perceived spirituality and didn’t talk about the taboo, interesting things of life. It didn’t matter if that closeness felt like the most authentic thing in our lives. It didn’t matter if there were no secrets between us. We pulled away as instructed, hoping they’d come to their senses. Then, when the tables turned, when we were the friend straying, the friend asking questions that brought discomfort, the friend peeking out the windows to the world beyond, we were the ones left solitary.
I was told on more than occasion that Jehovah was my best friend. The concept was that I didn’t have one best human friend; I had friends in the congregation of equal standing and God was the best one of all, the one I should be the most loyal toward. The younger generation of JWs grew up with the cartoon series “Become Jehovah’s Friend”, where the protagonists, Caleb and Sophia, learned that the happiness of their mute, jealous God was above all else. Many lessons tell the young viewers who are worthy to befriend. This kind of thinking is meant to guilt members into not being overly close with just one person, but to be friendly with everyone, even if your personalities clash. It is meant to give you room if those you bonded with stopped being the faithful JWs they were required to be. You’d be less depressed if they left, and you always had back-up friends to keep that smile plastered onto your face. But we felt, maybe more deeply, the hollowness of riding around in the car during service on Saturday with a poor imitation of our dearest friend in the seat next to us. Someone whom we were forced to like.
Leaving an environment like that usually means losing all of our friends and family. Rebuilding a new social circle from scratch is insanely difficult for many people and made more difficult by the fact that many who leave have difficulty investing in themselves. We struggle with isolation and loneliness, especially for those who were disfellowshipped and were unfortunate enough to believe they deserved to be alone; that this was God’s perfect discipline. We feel far behind our non-JW peers in every aspect, and may struggle to feel normal in social settings. History has shown us that you can lose your friends at any moment, and it can be hard to open up to people when we are worried they’ll disappear from our lives, or judge us for our most human thoughts. It’s like moving cities your entire life; you never grow roots and you never let yourself feel at home because you’ll eventually leave for a new place. It can feel impossible to show our true selves to others. For one, we may struggle with who we actually are after leaving a high control group that required uniformity and putting on “the new personality” of being a good, indoctrinated JW. But also because when we have spent our lives guarding our thoughts and feelings, feeling shame in our honesty and humanity, it can be difficult to be open with new friends. It’s hard enough to make friends as a normal adult, but as someone with trauma? We often feel like no one understands what we’ve gone through. Battle-weary, having lost all those we love.
Yet, we’re fortunate now in the age of the internet. We’re not as alone as we thought. We may feel broken and traumatized, but we can find the connections we need to heal and rebuild. We can become better, happier, and experience love and friendship that strikes us deeper than anything. It can be frightening to take those first steps in a bright world all alone. But others are out there who have experienced similar things. Not just former Jehovah’s Witnesses. People are leaving religion and other high control groups at a higher rate than in the past. They’re sharing their stories and reaching out to help those still escaping. So, you’re not alone, and you can finally take a deep breath and dive into the deepest parts of true friendship.
