by Honesty 7 Replies latest jw friends
Is it better to make a clean break from them or to prolong it?
I don't have anything other than my own experience to compare with and I made it clean, fast and hard. It hurt like being stabbed in the back by a best friend but the hurt went away to be replaced with wounds and scars that are still healing.
How about your experience in getting out?
It's surely gonna vary by person. Some people have a moral objection to remaining in, even if in name only. For them, staying in is a constant battle with their conscience. Others risk losing contact with family and don't see the value in officialling leaving, especially if they don't intend to act in a way that would get them DF'd.
I would've faded, but I also wanted to celebrate Christmas overtly. Those didn't mix. :-)
Dave
hmmm,
it depends of your circumstances, background, fears... i'm all about "clean breaks", tearing the bandade off with one quick pull - but then the outcome only affects me. leaving the org, in my case, would hurt too many people i care deeply for.
I lingered on like an onion fart in the birthday card isle.
I was like a ship on the rocks, visible, but not very useful.
That lasted 18 years.
Started rebelling at 14...skipped meetings, jumped out the window and ran when that young "brother" my mother had put on my case showed up for the Bible study...caved, went back to the meetings...then quit again, ran when they showed up to pick me up for meetings, ran, ran, ran, run Forest, run...then caved and went back, quit again. The turning point was this: My JW-grandmother (on my dads side) died when I was 17. She had told me flat out, by the way, that I would be killed in Armageddon if I didn`t come back, and it would be so horrible for my (dead) father when he was ressurected, that I wasn`t there. I would be killed for sure, because "I had known the truth, but turned away from it". Well, her service was held at the KH. This one, horrible, older guy, I don` t think he was an elder, maybe MS (who had kissed one of the little girls, maybe 7 or 8 years old, in the bathroom at a home study, and everyone was scared of him because it was, rightly so I believe, suspected that he was a pedophile) came over to me, at my grandmothers funeral, grabbed me and held around me and said "we`re so glad you`re back, Øyvind". And then he kissed me on the cheek! - and the thing going thru my mind, my only thought was: "Judas!". Like a Judas-kiss. Not like I`m comparing myself to Jesus or anything, but that was the thought, the word that went thru my mind. It made me sick to my stomach. I never went back after that.
"onion fart in the birthday aisle"......hilarious, garybuss
"...onion fart..."
Great one Gary!!
carmel
fading...and then marrying a nonbeliever...then moving 2100 miles away....
worked for me.
Go with what is comfortable for YOU. If you need to have a clean break...just go...but if you are concerned about being shunned by family members, then I would suggest thinking about doing it slowly.
