What Things Did You Hate About Being A Jehovah's Witness?

by minimus 65 Replies latest jw friends

  • dh
    dh

    tuesdays, thursdays, saturday mornings, sundays, christmas, birthdays, cheap suits, green carpets, being a kid knocking on peoples doors and telling people how much i wanted to be there, days text, having to prepare the watchtower, yellow highlighter pens, hard plastic seats, chrome microphone stands, green carpets, the 'brother' who did sound, and of 'doing' the microphones... only jw's talk about doing microphones like that!

    one of the main things i didn't like, barring the above, was the fact that you could not answer in a meeting or book study with your own opinion, you had to prepare answers from junk they have written with the answers they wanted already in the text. to me this was always rubbish and from being very young i used to lean over to my mom in the meeting and tell her i thought something or other meant something else, and being hushed.

    another thing i hate is the illusion that jw's live under, being that 'the society' never makes mistakes in their publications.

    i hated us being refered to as 'jehovah's witnesses' and everyone else being refered to as 'the world' - the world always seemed like it had more substance than the small org of jw's, because after all it is a whole world, compared to a single line of rhetorical reasoning that the jw had to offer.

    i think i could probably go on for ages about things i hate about being a jehovah's witness, but at the end of the day i guess it boils down to the individual. for myself, i am a free souled person, and i guess that's it.

    and green carpets.

  • beachbum
    beachbum

    Being a newbie here, I concur with everyone's sentiment. I was born into the religion, so I didn't realize that I was 'missing out' until older. My poor sibling was 7 years older than me; I think her response would be much different. However, as an adult looking back, I depise the do as I say not as I do attitude, and the gossip that followed.

  • jason bourne
    jason bourne

    I totally agree with the green carpets.......and the uncomfortable seats

  • DesertRat
    DesertRat

    Missing Saturday morning cartoons because we had to go in field service. Having to get all dressed up & go out into a territory where I knew kids from school (& also knew what teasing would follow on Monday...)

    Getting picked on for not saying the Pledge of Allegiance, or for having to leave the classroom whenever holiday activities began. Sometimes just the stares hurt most of all.

    Getting slapped for using the word 'darn' in a sentence..

    While out with 'worldly' relatives & my cousins are getting new toy pistols, my parents saying, "We don't let our son play with things like that.."

    Struggling through a Bible reading or demonstration in the Service Meeting (even if it meant getting sick afterwards), only to hear later, "You're just doing what Jehovah expects of you.."

    The constant feelings of guilt, often for no reason that I could think of, & the thought that I absolutely HAD to let everyone know who I was & try to 'witness' to them somehow, or their blood would be on my head & I too would die at Armageddon..

    All of the prayers that went unanswered. Trying to make sense of a God who supposedly 'loved' me but could paradoxically annihilate me at any moment..

    Elders coming to me in the hospital, telling me I was weak & needed to 'try harder' spiritually. "You know, once you feel a little better, one of us would be glad to pick you up for field service sometime." (Spoken while I had my head in my hands, trying to shut out the whole world...)

    The full knowledge & awareness that no matter what I did, no matter how long or hard I tried, it was never, ever, EVER going to be enough!!!

    Anything & everything that made me feel even more alien & unworthy than I already did..

    DesertRat

  • serendipity
    serendipity

    Welcome beach bum!

  • Bstndance
    Bstndance

    As a pre-teen and teen knocking on someone's door and the person who answers the door is someone from school. Ugghh that was the worst.

    Spoken to by an elder that I should play Saturday Basketball with the brothers more because i need the association. I hated it. Everytime I played I was patronized. If the ball was passed to me, everyone would move out of the way so I would feel "special". LOL

  • Trippin2962
    Trippin2962

    well let me see... #1 Field Service

    2 - going to boring a** meetings

    3 - preparing for boring a** meetings

    4 - preparing and giving talks

    5 - commenting at meetins (always shy and it made me very self-conscience)

    6 - feeling like an outsider in the real world - feeling like an outsider in the cong due to cliques who wouldnt accept you

    7 - only encouraged to pioneer or pursue JW goals - Never encouraged to pursue a career that was fulfilling for you as an individual

    8 - recreation choices being condemed (parties, going to clubs, watching R-rated movies)

    9 - freezing out in friged tempertures in FS trying to place dumb magazines that you haven't even read yourself

    10 - the gossiping and backbiting - being spyed on whenever you were dating someone

    11 - having to choose another goofball JW to marry since you had to only "marry in the Lord"

    12 - going to outdoor conventions in the blazing heat WITH KIDS

    13 - Phoney smiling JWs at the hall that you knew didn;t give a flying f**k about you really

    14 - feeling guilty about EVERYTHING and never measuring up

    15 - the whole DF/DA thing (never agreed with that at all)

    16 - walking to the KH when I had no ride

    17 - JW funerals - when the dead one is not even acknowleded (talk is only about serving Jah, blah, blah, blah)

    18 - horrible "Kingdom Melodies" - JWs have the worst religious music of any religion IMO

    19 - having to wear pantyhose in the summer

    I'll stop here ----but there is so much more!!

  • grey matters
    grey matters

    "The full knowledge & awareness that no matter what I did, no matter how long or hard I tried, it was never, ever, EVER going to be enough!!!"

    Yeah, Desert Rat, that one is at the top of my list. The constant stream from the podium - "could you do more, brothers? Are you doing all you can? Could you do more?" I think the local brothers know it is unreasonable to expect more from most, but are just parroting off whatever is coming down from the top. I finally got to the point where I decided that every time I heard that, I was going to do a little bit LESS. It didn't take long before I was doing NOTHING.

  • parlay
    parlay

    Cowards and fakes (elders, CO's, DO's, bethlelites, etc.) masquerading as someone important.

    Corporate ladder climbing mentality.

    Double standards.

  • whatistruth
    whatistruth

    The constant "where have you been?", "you missed the last meeting, what's wrong?". Or that those in the cong think they own you. Like they think they have a right to know what you are doing everyday, like they have a right to know where you were if you missed a meeting or service. NO THEY DON'T!!!!

    Gimme a break!!

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