Where were you when the realization hit, that the WTS was not in the truth?

by whyizit 61 Replies latest jw friends

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  greendawn

  I was in my room when it happened looking out towards the garden I thought that the JWs were not really manifesting the spirit of love that was to be expected from the approved organisation of God that they claim to be. Given their claim to solely possessing the truth they should be doing a lot more by way of self denial and charity at least within their society with the corporation first and foremost giving the good example.

  They really frowned upon the charity idea as being one for the much despised rice Christians. And that uncharitable mindset basically gave their game away: a wolf under the sheepish appearence, or a:

  
• 

  luna2

  Hawkeye said: I was a walk-away believer for 3-4 years. I stopped meeting attendance, but still believed the WTS had the "truth".

  This was me too. I stopped attending because they'd finally made me feel so awful and unworthy that I was nearly suicidal. I was resigned to the fact that I'd die at the Big A because I couldn't bring myself to go back to the constant browbeating and double talk (didn't quite realize it was double talk, I just thought I was too stupid to figure out what Jehohum was trying to say via his publishing company).

  The real epiphany took place in front of my computer in April of last year. A good friend sent me some information via email, which started an internet search, and that was what finally opened my eyes and broke through the brainwashing.
• 

  Wolfgirl

  Lightning had to strike me more than once.
  I knew something was wrong when the elders tried to convince my father, who had just admitted to sexually abusing me, to remain an elder. But I was in so much pain and shock at the time that it didn't completely sink in.
  I completely stopped going, and got disfellowshipped for living with my now-husband before marriage. I was considering going back, and wrote the elders a letter, asking them some questions and saying that I really needed answers to them before I could think about reinstatement. I never got a response, and after a year of pestering my sister to find out why, they finally told her it was because I sounded argumentative to them, so they weren't going to answer. (Translation: They had no answers and couldn't justify their actions.)
  My husband, who is an athiest, asked me a few simple questions that I had absolutely no answer for, and it completely shook me that I couldn't answer him after 25+ years of 'studying the Bible.' Then my DF'd aunt found me online, and showed me the UN scandal, Silent Lambs, etc.
  That was the final bolt of lightning.
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  lv4fer

  I was on the compuater being studious for an upcoming talk. It had to do with 607 BCE and I stumbled upon the 587vs607BCE website. It was an eye opener. Then I started to do more and more researach. A couple of months later we went back to NY and visited family and went to Bethel (This trip had been planned long before), We new a couple who were there and met for lunch with them. My son who was 17 at the time said you know this is just a big corporation and we all agreed and then cut our visit short and went into the City to see more of the sites we really wanted to see.
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  Mary

  I was on my way out of the library after having just read the first half of Crisis of Conscience. I was in shock. While part of my brain tried saying "this must be Satan trying to make me doubt", the logical part of my brain knew without a doubt that this was not the one true religion. I will never ever forget that moment. It was like the entire world stopped.

  I did a slow fade and haven't been in a quite a while. Well, I went to the summer assembly last year so I could post notes here. One of my coworkers has invited me to his church (I think he and his wife are Reformed Presbyterian).........I have to proceed slowly on this. I miss having some sort of religion in my life and quite often listen to Charles Stanley (In Touch Ministries) on Sundays and on the radio on my way into work in the morning. Although I find him a bit "over the top", I still enjoy listening to his sermons far more than sitting at the Hall. Maybe because he seems to build you up instead of telling you that you're not doing enough for God.
• 

  misguided

  they'd finally made me feel so awful and unworthy that I was nearly suicidal

  This was me, too. I just couldn't, I had 6 kids to raise - but the thought did cross my mind more than once.

  No matter how hard I tried to understand, things just weren't adding up - among other things, the 1914 generation change, the literature by donation arrangement, the fact that brothers could sexually abuse me as a kid and get away with it, yet if I did as a consenting adult, my sins would be dragged in front of 3 men where I'd have to describe in every detail what happened. Let the guilt get to you, and confess twice - and you're the one thrown of the Org. If you're a good at lying, well you could get away with it for a long time - as was the case with the elder that abused me. The fact that the elders get this blanked-out look on their faces when you go to them for help with the sexual abuse you went through as a child by those in the Org. and then they make you feel like it's all in your head - like you dreamt the whole thing up - crazy making!

  I went to college in 2000, and one of my assignments was on Scientology. As I researched for that assignment, many things about that cult and JW's came up so very similar. As I researched for that assignment on the internet, information about JW's was commonly with that of Scientology. I had a bit of an eye-opening then. I found a site that listed 10 traits to identify a cult, and in my opinion, JW's seemed to fit 9 out of the 10.

  But the "thunderbolt" moment, that one when you know you're really FREE, came at last year's memorial. I hadn't been to any other meeting, assembly, etc, since the memorial the year before. I went with my 6 kids. I wasn't sure of the time it started, and came too early for a df'd person. So I sat there, and watched. Some people came to where we were sitting, and basically talked to me through my children...you know, like, "You should let your mother know that she is...blah,blah,blah...or that she should, blah,blah,blah." I just about walked out before the whole thing started. But I stuck it out. I listened to the talk like I'd heard it 40 times before - maybe that's because I had. It just no longer felt like the truth. The people looked unhappy, drone-like, worn-out beings. It was cold. I knew as I walked out that door, it would be the last time I'd ever set foot in a KH. It would be the last time I would subject my children to the brainwashing.

  Rose
• 

  Narkissos

  I can recall a number of "moments," all of which happened right in Bethel (France). None of them were exactly about the WTS being wrong though -- I guess I had all the elements to realise that for some time, what was lacking was a good reason to admit it to myself.

  I had been having a lot of deep conversations with a few friends. Especially one "sister," a DO's daughter, who had been working there with her husband for some time; we understood each other as neither of us had ever been understood. And she was leaving Bethel very soon.

  I remember one day, while I left my room, I was struck with the certainty that my life would never be the same again. I was not afraid, just plainly desperate about the grey, dull, uninteresting days to come, and it was a choking, unbearable feeling. As I was descending the Bethel stairs, a pretty odd idea hit me. Instead of living my life and planning for the future I would henceforth be watching at it, minute by minute, with only mild curiosity of what would happen to me as if it happened to someone else. This was possible. I leaped through the last steps and reached the ground floor with a strange lightness of heart.

  A few weeks later, I took a pause in my office to read a page of the New Testament (I was then reading it all again in the original Greek, and it was fascinating). I had reached chapter 8 of Romans, and read it as I had never read it before -- taking it naturally to myself instead of some special "anointed" class. I was breathless, crying of joy at what I was reading -- even before I realised I was putting myself in serious trouble.

  A few days later, my mother (who was never a Witness) called me in the office. She was moving to a smaller flat and asked me what she would do with a few things I had left in her home. To my own surprise I found myself replying that I would take care of it. As soon as I hung up the phone I started to write my resignation letter, without having planned it before.

  I have found that very often, the most serious decisions are secretly prepared in the depth of our soul and reach consciousness in the most casual way, overtaking our self-defence strategies by surprise.

  This reminds me of a case I read some time ago on a French-speaking forum: a (now ex-)JW was preaching from door to door with an elder. At some point the householder asks him: "Do you really believe that?" He looks at him, says "no" and walks away never to come back, leaving the dismayed elder and the householder there. Funny, and so true.
• 

  KW13

  My story isn't very interesting, rather i think it probably has similarities to other peoples which just shows how bad the org is.

  My stepdad used to hit me and push me around so i left, during that time i learnt about the org and stopped being a JW. Later i dedicated to a church despite mum kicking me out for doing so.

  I love Church, i am C-of-E
• 

  nicolaou

  I was sitting in my car, it was about 6 in the morning and I was setting off to work.

  I'd recently finished reading Crisis of Conscience and started In Search of Christian Freedom and I had just begun posting here. It wasn't so much a realization as a crystalisation. It was freezing cold and quiet. I sat there for a few minutes reflecting on all the things I'd learned and I finally spoke those important four words to myself, "it's not the Truth".
• 

  jojochan

  For me it was several things. The politics of who to d.f or to give private or public reproof. The blood issue, the conditional love. "Their" bible, but when you look in the bible in living english it mentions of jesus' crucifixtion. The doctrial changes, ect. You see where this is going right? Deep down inside I always had this naggin feeling inside of me; questioning is this all there is to my life? Running to the hall, and pushing magazines out in the streets? Being obssesed with turning in feild service time? Time that I could never get back? I gave my youth, I gave my heart..What I learned in return from that place was how to give circular reasoning, yes...I learned how to bullsh&t!

  Plus when I learned that they had joined the U.N and did'nt mention anything to the lambs, that was it...They could've made a new light policy change like they ALWAYS did...but they did'nt, which makes them suspect. Plus it was too much like the matrix, it did'nt feel real. It was phoney. I got screwed more in the collective than on the outside of it. Strange indeed.But also I've noticed that more of my "friends" that were inside at the time were on anti depressants. Most of my family is on antidepressants, and anti anxiety meds as well. And they "that" was the truth...The funny thing is, now that they left; they did'nt need them anymore, the reason was they were struggling to embrace the lie for their family and for themselves. Many a time I had to sit ther and listen to them cry about how they did'nt feel good enough for god that they did'nt go out in feild service. inside I was pissed. It's just so pharaseical of the organization to impose this on the flock in this way. That's when I came to the realization that I had to escape for my own sanity, and if I were to be in a relationship again...for HER sanity as well...If that ever happens.

  For me it is an ongoing struggle, I have my good days then bad. But I'm satisfied with my life now than how I was 8 years ago.

  That was a mindfu^k in all itself...believe me.

  jojochan.