Hi, I am with my friend dedpoet again, we've been out for an hour or so, and he has kindly allowed me to post again from his pc as I have no internet access at home.
I have been reading all your kind replies to my posts of a few days ago, thank you all so much. Afew things have happened to me in the last few days which I would like to share with you all.
I missed tuesday nights meeting, as I have been doing for all the meetings for the last few weeks, and at around 930 had a visit from the PO and another elder. They didn't even phone to ask if it was ok to call, just turned up. I let them in, and the po informed me that they had come round to "straighten me out" as regards my missing meetings and my continued association with Trev. He said that I could either return to the fold and break off this "unwise" friendship or face a judicial committee - my choice. I think that they expected me to capitulate, if so they had a shock! I (relatively) calmly informed them that I have no intention of either returning to the meetings anytime soon or breaking off my friendship with Trev. I also told them that I'd been alone with Trev in his home on Monday evening, and you should have seen their faces, I wish I'd had a camera handy! I did tell them nothing happened, we are friends and nothing more, but I don't think they believed me. I told them that I thought they had acted in a very unloving way toward Trev, and that's why he had left, and now they were giving me the same treatment, and I was no longer prepared to accept it or even convinced that the Watchtower teachings were the truth.The po asked me if I really knew what I was saying, maybe I was a little confused, and I replied that I knew exactly what I was saying, my thinking was clearer than it has been for years, I then asked them, none too politely, to leave, and they somewhat unwillingly went. I have had a couple of phone calls from them since, but have not engaged in conversation with them, although they threatened the "ultimate punishment" for my "offences," disfellowshipping is what I would think they meant, though they didn't say that, but I am thinking of saving them the trouble by jumping before I'm pushed, so to speak.
So, I guess I have left. I know what to expect now - shunning from all my former "friends" in the congregation, but I am sort of prepared for that, though a kittle scared. I have been a jw for a long time, and until recently thought I would always be one, but I know deep down that it is not the truth and I can no longer be part of it and stay sane. I feel I have missed out on so much being part of that organisation. I have never married, I just didn't meet the right jw man, will never have children now, though I would love to have been a mother,have worked part - time at menial jobs so I could spend more time in service, I was a pioneer for many years till illness forced me to step down, and now it all seems to have been for nothing. I no longer believe in the promises I once believed in. It is so hard to come to the realisation that I have been duped, but I now know that that is the case, I have read and seen too much in the last few months to think otherwise.
So where do I go from here? Well, I at least have a shoulder to cry on. Trev is my best friend, he has been so kind and so supportive, and I know I can rely on him. I am also so pleased to have joined this forum, I know that there is support here from genuine people, not conditional friends like the ones I have left behind in the jws. I know the next few weeks and months aren't going to be easy, but I am relieved it's over now. I guess it will take me a while to recover from this, but one day I hope to feel the same sense of freedom and happiness that Trev and so many of you feel.
all my love Linda xx