Embarassed about JW relatives?

greendawn

Do you feel embarassed if people know that you have JW relatives given the many and well known strange ideas they embrace eg about blood transfusions and the belief that all non JWs will be killed soon? Do you feel reluctant to admit that you have such relatives?

teela(2)

This might be going off on a tangent but sort of fits. My sisters father in law died a couple of weeks ago. Both my sisters and our brother, left the troof as we left home. However my sisters sister in law and her new husband are JW's, came in as adults and live in another town. At the funeral they mention a few things about seeing loved ones again, but all our family just smiled and walked away. (my sister had asked us not to reveal we had once been witneeses in case of problems). So at the reception afterwards , they kept trying to make conversation with us, but trying to lead to the usual witness advertising, and we kept ignoring it and changing the topic. The person that had died was 86 and had been in pain for 2 years, it wasn't a sad death but one of closure. I think trying to flog off religion at a funeral where people are vunerable is in very bad tase.

collegegirl21

I sort of am... people judge you because of what your family is and I dont want to be judged because of their religion.

mustang

It's less embarrassing to have JW relatives than to have to own up to having been one.

Actually, you've given me an idea: I will simply say that a great many of my relatives are JW's.

I'm pretty much reconciled to not thinking of myself as being one any more.

That is especially the case since my last meeting was in '74 and I missed the Baptismal Vows changes of the early 80's. So technically, my Baptism is 'some sort of generic Christian baptism'!!!

This may put the finishing touches on my evolution out of that hellhole.

Mustang

mama1119

I agree with Mustang that it is more embarassing to have been one..My Dad and I want to wear shirts to the family reunion this summer that say NLADUB(no longer a dub)....I think of all the stupid things I "stood up" for and acted so self righteous....then you realize what you were being self righteous about was a crock...

cyberdyne systems 101

I was at work the other day walking along with my boss and this really weird looking woman comes round the corner and as we were talking about relationships at the time I joked saying , wonder if she is available. She then informed me this person was a witless, as if to explain why she seemed weird. So I proceeded to tell her I had been one and the reasons I no longer believed and so on, I admited that I felt stupid looking back, but at the time it was my whole world from a child on.

Now before when I was a witless I would avoid telling anyone, so since leaving I have become more relaxed saying about it even though I now realise I took a leave of my senses during that period - but at least i'm now aware of that and its something to feel good about.

CS 101

tfsm

Yeah, I'm embarrassed enough having been one myself. I don't worry too much about the relatives. Although I about had a stroke when I found out one of them was studying with the dubs. Fortunately, she woke up from her meth-induced trance and realized what a huge mistake she was making. She's back on her meds, staying away from the crazy people, and happy again.