Elle Ariah: Red Flags I Missed—My Life Inside Jehovah’s Witnesses

I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness from about the age of five. My family and I became involved after fleeing a genocide. I remember my parents saying they were surprised by how loving everyone was, and since that wasn’t an environment they were used to, they figured, this must be where God resides.

Eventually, I took the religion on as my own and was baptized at 16. But looking back, my journey to baptism was filled with red flags I didn’t recognize at the time. To be clear, my parents NEVER pressured me… but I held this belief that if I dedicated my life to Jehovah, everything in life would be well. So I was determined to make it happen soon.
 
Red Flag 1: The Pressure to Get Baptized

As a minor, it felt like every other meeting someone was asking me:

• “When will you make your dedication to Jehovah?”
• “Do you not feel like this is the truth?”
• “You know, at a certain age, you can’t be saved through your parents anymore. If this system ends and you haven’t made a choice, you’ll be destroyed.”
• “You can’t serve two gods. You need to make a decision, or you won’t have God’s protection.”
• “So-and-so got baptized at 8… I got baptized at 10.” 

It was overwhelming to hear constant warnings about my eventual doom if I didn’t choose Jehovah. Looking back, my decision came from fear-based coercion more than it was a personal decision.
 
Red Flag 2: The Rumors and Isolation

Jehovah’s Witnesses often claim they’re the only place where you’ll find true love, but what I experienced was the complete opposite. For a while, it felt like I was constantly defending myself against rumors.

One week, someone claimed I was stripping in a car during service. (Which didn’t make sense because… why not ask the other people who were in the car?) Another time, I was simply talking to a boy outside the Kingdom Hall, and a sister approached me to say, “Angels are always watching. You need to think about what they would say about what you’re doing.” (What was I doing? Sitting outside. Talking.)

Then came the claim that I threw house parties. Reality? I had two guy friends over—one was from the congregation, the other was his cousin. My parents were home. We sat on the porch listening to the radio. That was it.

All of this started my soft shunning—even though I wasn’t baptized yet. Other kids were discouraged from hanging out with me because I was labeled "bad association." I internalized that, thinking something must be wrong with me. No one would be my friend except for two girls in the congregation. Everyone else stayed away.

To be clear, I wasn’t perfect—I listened to music with curse words, I talked to boys. But what 12- to 15-year-old doesn’t? I wasn’t having sex, doing drugs, or cursing people out. Yet somehow, I was the one who didn’t deserve friends.
 
Red Flag 3: The Older Men Were Creepy

As a minor, I was frequently told that I would make a great wife because I was good at following directions. But once I turned 18, it was like some of the older men had been waiting for their chance.

Married brothers would suddenly start messaging me. One slid into my DMs, and I had to ask, “Would your wife be okay with this?” Another sent me messages on Snapchat, and I had to remind him, “Aren’t you married?” One actually told me, “I can take you from your ngg*.”

By the time I was 18, I had started to drift away from the religion, and I noticed a pattern—once a brother saw that you weren’t fully in, he’d take that as a chance to say whatever he wanted to you. They acted completely different at the Kingdom Hall, but behind closed doors, they showed who they really were.

Red Flag 4: The Disfellowshipping Process

I was disfellowshipped (DF’d) at 19, and looking back, the process was disturbing. At the time, I thought the elders were just loving me enough to be specific in their prayers for my forgiveness. But now, I see how invasive and inappropriate it was.

I confessed to:

• Getting drunk once at a birthday party (which, in reality, I had only been tipsy—but since I’d never drunk before, I thought that was the same thing).
• Watching p**n.
• “Fondling” with someone.

Now imagine: I was a 19-year-old woman in a room with three men between the ages of 45 and 60, and they were asking me questions like:

• “What type of p**n did you watch?”
• “What did you do while watching it?”
• “When you were fondling, what position were you in?”
• “How many fingers were used?”
• “Did you orgasm? Did he orgasm?”
• “Were you fully naked?”

And they wrote every single detail down.

One elder even acknowledged how uncomfortable the situation was, saying, “We appreciate you being open, as we understand this is difficult.” But looking back, I have to ask—why were these details necessary for my forgiveness?

They teach you that when you commit a serious sin, Jehovah stops hearing your prayers, so the elders have to pray on your behalf. But does that really require them to know every explicit detail? 

Red Flag 5: Hypocrisy in Disfellowshipping

I later found out that someone who had done the exact same things as me wasn’t disfellowshipped at all. I even provided tangible proof that they were involved in even more than I was, yet I was told, "They’re getting the help they need."

The elders claimed that the Holy Spirit directs their decisions. But if that were true, why didn’t the Holy Spirit “catch” that this person continued their behavior while I was punished? How is that repentance?

Red Flag 6: Protecting the Wrong People

I personally knew (and many people in multiple congregations knew "for a fact") someone who committed statutory rape, and he was never disfellowshipped. The next year, he went on to physically abuse his girlfriend, and then he was disfellowshipped—but now, he’s been reinstated.

Meanwhile, when I tried to get reinstated, I was told no. The reason? And I quote verbatim: "If we let you back in, six months from now, you’ll be right back out."

So… did the Holy Spirit say that too?
 
Red Flag 7: Being Shut Out from My Own Parent’s Funeral

One of the most painful moments came when I lost a parent. I was there at the hospital almost every single day. I was the one making medical decisions when they became unable to speak for themselves.

And yet… I wasn’t even invited to the funeral. I only found out about it through an Instagram post. That’s how I knew when and where to show up.

When I arrived, they made an announcement encouraging everyone to comfort the family. But only one person spoke to me (I’ll love them forever for that). No one else reached out—not even the elders.

Except… they did reach out later. Not to check on me. Not to offer comfort. But to ask if I wanted to come to a meeting.

At the time, I brushed all these experiences off as “human error”—not God’s error. I told myself, Jehovah’s people aren’t perfect.

But looking back, my experience as a Jehovah’s Witness was filled with:

• Peer pressure to get baptized as a minor
• Creepy, predatory men
• Hypocrisy in their so-called “divine justice”
• Isolation and rejection, even in the hardest moments of my life

And that’s a snippet of what I went through.