D.Rudžinskaitė, who wrote a memoir about life in the family of Jehovah’s Witnesses: I was raised as a humble martyr | Culture

“I don’t encourage pointing fingers at others, I just want to share my experience and invite you to be careful observers of your environment,” says photographer and stylist Deimantė Rudžinskaitė, born and raised in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Šiauliai, who is debuting her memoir “Pasaulietė”.

The first to pick up the book published by the “Baltas lankas” publishing house will be the visitors of the “Capital days” – “Pasaulietė” will travel directly from the printing house to the publishing house’s stand in the “Book Square”. Friday, August 30 at 4 p.m. the presentation of the book will also take place at the Lithuanian National Drama Theater: the author will be interviewed by advertising specialist, TV presenter Dovilė Filmanavičiūtė.

Personal archive photo/D.Rudžinskaitė in her childhood

“When you read Tara Westover’s Enlightened, her Mormon life seems so far away that it couldn’t be true. Deimantė’s extraordinary openness and courage reminds me of Tara. Only Deimantė saves herself so close that her body slowly walks away realizing: this story happened in our yard”, says D. Filmanavičiūtė, who has read the book.

A true story about life in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Growing up, Deimantė believed that the end of the world was already waiting on the threshold, so together with her mother, she spread the “good news” on the streets of Šiauliai and in the stairwells of apartment buildings: when Armageddon comes, Jehovah will invite all the people devoted to him to his kingdom. True, Deimantė also knew that paradise has a price – complete separation from the “worldly people”, people who do not believe in Jehovah, and their supposed satanic influence.

The girl’s loneliness was exacerbated by the fact that she could not tell anyone about the horrors she was experiencing at home – the violence of her mother and father, like the scourge of God, every time she disobeyed the strict rules. Later, the fear turned into anger and teenage rebellion: the girl was not afraid to change her appearance, run away from home… In the long run, resistance to her parents and their faith became life-threatening.

Personal archive photo/Deimantė Rudžinskaitė

“Pasaulietė” is also a story about liberation from psychological, physical and spiritual violence. The book tells about the power of self-belief and hope in an honest, frank, sometimes ironic way.

Breathtaking openness

“Life is different, and so often we play it with not the best cards. Reluctantly, you ask yourself: Does it all make sense? Why do uncomfortable, painful things happen? Is it punishment? Or maybe lessons? The book is breathtaking in its openness. With each page you yearn more and more for a breath of fresh air. I bow my head for a brave heart and a great love for life”, – Viktorija Urbonaitė, a specialist in strategic communication, writer, host of original shows, shares her impression after reading the book’s manuscript.

Five years passed between the publishing house’s offer to tell his story and the publication of the book itself. The author says that huge changes took place during that time, not only in the manuscript, but also in her life.

“The long period of writing the book helped me understand my own attitude towards the things that happened to me, I had enough time to analyze everything thoroughly. In the original manuscript, I was what I was raised to be, a humble martyr. But every year the manuscript became bolder and more open.

Now I can say without fear that I have kicked all the doors and walk freely in my inner world. If I were to compare the first manuscript with what readers will find in the book, I probably wouldn’t find a single similarity. I would say the same about my insides,” says Deimantė, who shared her candid memories in the book.