Tom Howell: One Family’s Devastating Experience with Mandated Shunning

My name is Tom Howell. My wife Linda and I built our lives around our family, faith, and the Jehovah’s Witness community. We raised six children in an atmosphere of love and encouragement. But beneath the surface, the practice of **disfellowshipping—mandated shunning—**was already leaving scars.

Linda’s pain began early. At just 12 years old, after losing her father to leukemia, she was forced to obey the cruel rule that even within her own family she could not share a meal with a disfellowshipped relative. She prepared dinner for everyone else, then carried her own plate to the garage to eat alone. That image has haunted me all my life—no child should bear that kind of isolation.

Years later, I became the target. I was disfellowshipped on false charges. Overnight, everything I had built as a father was destroyed. My children, who once trusted and loved me, were told to fear me. Their warmth was replaced with suspicion and distance. The damage was devastating: two of my daughters came close to suicide, another suffered a breakdown so severe she ended up in a wheelchair for a time, and my son—traumatized by what he saw—refused baptism altogether.

We tried to protect the family, but the elders’ interference never stopped. My daughter Jeanne, who lived a life of service and kindness, was disfellowshipped while battling cancer. She was literally fighting for her life, yet they treated her as an outcast. Even other congregation members were shocked because there was no justification for it. Shunning didn’t just affect Jeanne—it scarred her children and drove our family deeper into pain.

What made it worse was the hypocrisy. I saw pedophiles in positions of authority go untouched, while ordinary members who questioned leadership or made minor mistakes were cut off from everyone they loved. Love, loyalty, and compassion were replaced by fear and control.

The effects have lasted for decades. Even forty years later, I still feel the pain of betrayal and the loss of trust within my own family. Mandated shunning stripped away my role as a father and left wounds that never fully healed.

I know my story is not unique. What happened to my family happens to countless others in high-control religious groups. Mandated shunning is not spiritual discipline—it is organized cruelty. It destroys families, silences questions, and leaves lifelong emotional scars. No one should ever be forced to choose between their faith and their family.

This practice turned love into fear, loyalty into betrayal, and family unity into brokenness. That is why I believe mandated shunning must be exposed, challenged, and ultimately made a crime.