I was 21 years old when I left the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I had started to have doubts and had skipped a few meetings, yet leaving the religion I no longer believed in resulted in being shunned by everyone I knew. Five years earlier, my older sister was also shunned after she was disfellowshipped (excommunicated). For five years, she sat at the back of the Kingdom Hall at every meeting, hoping for reinstatement by the Elders. Not only were my younger sister and I not allowed to talk to her, but we weren’t even allowed to turn around and look at her. If we did, we were reprimanded and told we were like Lot’s wife, who was condemned for looking back. Sometimes, turning around resulted in us being hit.
Despite my growing doubts, I tried to follow the rules. But one night, I went out with some Jehovah’s Witness friends and got home at midnight. My mum was waiting. She was furious, accusing me of having no respect for Jehovah. Without discussion or compassion, she ordered me to leave the family home the next day.
I packed what little I could into a couple of bin liners and left, alone and terrified. With nowhere to go, I crashed on the couch of a coworker I barely knew. For about a year, I bounced from one couch to another, struggling just to survive.
During that time, the elders from my congregation told my Jehovah’s Witness friends not to speak to me anymore. Their obedience was absolute. Overnight, I lost everyone I had ever known. Friends, family—gone. The isolation was crushing.
It took me many years to recover from the emotional devastation caused by being shunned.
Today, I share my story not for pity but for awareness. Mandated shunning is a cruel practice that tears families apart and leaves people like me to fend for themselves without support. No one should have to endure what I went through. Today I work for a charity that supports people who have left high-control religious groups—Faith to Faithless, a service of Humanists UK. We have many ex-Jehovah’s Witness service users all of whom have experienced significant shunning, along with service users who have left other religions and experienced shunning amongst other abuses. This is a cause I feel passionately about and I work hard to support those going through the aftermath of the effects of religious abuse and extreme exclusion.
