Books

Finding my voice, both in life and fiction

Jodie Chapman’s upbringing as a Jehovah’s Witness thwarted then inspired her writing

Jodie Chapman: I decided to begin the contemporary novel I felt compelled to write. Yes with sex, yes with swearing, yes it would likely shock those I loved. But I was done with fear.

Jodie Chapman
Thu Jun 3 2021 - 06:19

As a child, I was often told I was “difficult”. You’re so argumentative, they’d say. If the sky is blue, you’ll say it’s red. Always saying something different. Always asking questions when you already have the answers. Difficult, that’s you.

There is a side of me that enjoys healthy debate. But this giving me a label before I had found out who I was, stuck. I soon realised that an assertive spirit was unwelcome. In the Jehovah’s Witness world I was raised in, a woman’s opinion didn’t really count. “Meek and submissive” were preferred feminine attributes, a phrase prevalent in the literature or quoted by elders, who were all men. I knew early on that my course within this patriarchal environment would not run smooth.

When I was 19, I wore trousers to the weekly book study at someone’s house. Women are banned from wearing trousers to meetings or preaching from door-to-door, and I knew it would raise eyebrows, but a part of me thought why not? The trousers were smart, comfortable and surely more modest than bare legs. Where does the Bible say that women can’t wear trousers? “Have you come straight from work?” someone asked when I walked in. “No,” I replied. Their raised eyebrows said it all.

Gender aside, it is common within closed groups and certain social structures to dampen the individual’s voice. This ensures cohesion of the group. It was normal within my community to set aside one’s personal desires for the seemingly greater good. You do not go to university, because what good is a career when the end of the world is coming and lives must be saved? You do not dye your hair a wild colour, because what if it offends the householder and they ignore the message? You do not report to police any allegations of child sexual abuse within the congregation, because would it not bring reproach upon God’s name?

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Thankfully, this final example I only heard about and never experienced, but I became used to squashing personality traits that didn’t chime with my creed. Still, my forthrightness meant I became known as “a sister with opinions” and my job as a wedding photographer marked me as a “career girl”. I laughed at these labels, acknowledging them as ridiculous and sexist, but I also felt sad that the parts of me I liked most were unacceptable within my tribe.

When I began to have children, doubts I had always felt about my faith resurfaced. I threw myself into reading the Bible and the organisation’s literature, hoping to prove to myself everything I’d been raised to believe. But the doubts multiplied.

There were countless rules to follow and many I didn’t understand. I couldn’t see myself bringing my children up in such a tightly-controlled existence with little room to manoeuvre and find their own way.

Stepping away was a terrifying prospect. From birth, I had been encouraged to only cultivate friendships with believers, meaning I had few links with the outside world. Unbelievers were “worldly”, controlled by Satan and portrayed as people who would ultimately hurt me. My family would be encouraged to sever contact if I was no longer an active member. I spent many days and nights crying as I debated the best course of action; stay and live a lie, or follow my doubts.

There has always been a tendency within the community to label anyone with doubts as “weak”. That is how I was described. Weak in spirit, weak in faith. This contrasted with people outside the religion who called me strong. You’re so brave, they would say. Brave. Strong.

These two opposing opinions were liberating. I realised that I couldn’t please everyone, that whichever path I chose, someone would always say I was making a false step. I had no option but to listen to myself.

There was no clear path to follow. I was setting off into both darkness and light. As my life began to unravel, I knew there was a danger of being consumed by the pain of being rejected by loved ones. When my instinct said to find a creative project, I sat down and began to write the novel that was burning away inside.

When I had first started wrestling with my doubts, I enrolled on a fiction-writing course in London and began a 1930s love story. I had loved writing as a child, nurturing dreams of doing it professionally, but fell out of the habit after leaving education at 18. A historical romance felt safe, not requiring me to engage with sex or swearing, both of which would have shocked my community. I threw myself into the novel, but even as I was writing it, I knew I was treading water. It was a front, a smokescreen, and the words I wrote rang hollow.

Two years on, I was finally stepping away from everything I knew, and decided to begin the contemporary novel I felt compelled to write. Yes with sex, yes with swearing, yes it would likely shock those I loved. But I was done with fear. How could fiction inflict worse pain than the act of me taking hold of my life?

I began to write, and the words flowed out. For a while, I had nurtured the idea of a story of two brothers who deal with shared childhood trauma in different ways. Nick and Sal felt real to me, their pain coming deep from my subconscious, and their relationship immediately came alive. Woven throughout their story was Nick’s affair with Anna, a girl from a doomsday religion who cannot love an unbeliever. Into fictional Anna, I poured cups of my own experience; the conflict, confusion and pain. These two different strands essentially explore the same theme: what does it mean to love? Do we risk rejection for the life we want?

Writing distracted me from the chaos of real life. That thirties romance will never see print, but its purpose was to find my writing voice and so not a single word was wasted. Rather than spend time on regret, I apply the same thinking to the 20-plus years I spent in that world. My voice may have been lost, but it was down to me to find it.

And so, I began Another Life.

Another Life by Jodie Chapman is published by Michael Joseph