Financial Trauma and Recovery after Leaving the Jehovah’s Witness Cult

Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) are an apocalyptic cult that harm their members emotionally, relationally, sexually, spiritually — even physically, since the cult’s policies regarding medical treatment have led to the death of thousands.

Here, I’ll focus on the financial harm this cult perpetrates, and how I’m working to overcome this. First, a bit of personal history.

I’m a 48 year old woman and mother of seven, raised by JW parents. I joined the religion at 14 when I got baptized. As an adult, I woke up to the lies of the religion and have done years of inner work to de-indoctrinate myself from beliefs that once served as pillars in my life.

My parents were adult converts to the cult in the early 1970’s. They were caught up in the utopian promises of restorationist prophecies involving everlasting life on a paradise earth. Idealistic and in love, they could imagine nothing better than being eternally young and beautiful in an Edenic garden, with none of the problems that plague society.

While all of that seems like a faraway, fuzzy dream to me now, what’s in clear focus is how my parents’ adherence to the cult’s written guidelines and unwritten culture harmed them, and by extension their children and grandchildren, financially.