How Have You Changed Since Leaving The Witnesses?

SPAZnik

Why is it the simplest questions are the toughest? :)

PrimateDave

My hair is definitely longer and way over the ears now. I haven't shaved for a week. And I'm going to a Christmas party Sunday night. I feel good!

Dave

I resigned in 1983 because of the conscience issue, or I should say because of the lack of being able to excercise our conscience, I can say I have since grown into a whole person, and could not be more happy. Feeling complete.

I remember my ex-son-in-law, being so upset over my decision to leave the org, said to me: "what are you going to do now, anything you want?" I said to him: " remember, the righteous will keep on doing righteousness, and the wicked will keep on doing wickedness"

Hopie

Confession

I think I'm different in that I understand myself better now. I was always an open-minded, thinking person--but I allowed a human organization to keep me from being fully open-minded and thinking for myself.

zagor

I'm different in a way that I've gained enorumous self-belief through things I did later, but my core personality is the same. Which is why I was never accepted as one of them.

to add: I guess it all depends how much one let himself/herself be manipulated by their mind bending, they were never able to do that to me. IF I followed some line of thinking it was because at the time I myself thoght it was the only right way, not because they've had any control over my mind. I've had strong willed father who managed to instill in me instincts that many times saved my life and eventually got me out of this cult too.

jaguarbass

Are you very different now??? I have more time. I am older and more mature. I am not paranoid about the end of the world. I am an agnostic. I do not know. I am leary of anyone who does know, as I have been there and know what that was like, faulty reasoning. Originally I was angry and mad at the witnesses for the deception, for not having the truth. Now I realize no one has the truth. Man, the species wants to have answers to unaswerable questions and wants to have things in order. That is what I feel the jws were doing. I have evolved or grown beyond that. Religion can be likened to a spiritual kindergarden in our growth as spirits having human experiences. I could say I wish things were different and I had never encountered the witnesses but then I have no way of knowing whether my life would have been better or worse. The vast majority of people I encounter have lifes that are much more difficult and trying than mine is today or was back in the days when I was a jw 23 years and more ago. When I was a jw I was 0-32 years old as an ex jw I am 32-54, and I hope another 30.

abbagail

Get to read anything I want w/o guilt, including other Bible versions!

Get to know everything the WT did not want us to know... AND MORE... (stimulating vs. mind-bending).

Get to partake of communion w/o being part of a WT "head count" nor "approved" as to whether I should or not.

Get to love the REAL "whole association of brothers in the world" which includes Christians from ALL denominations.

Still somewhat of a work-a-holic but I get to do it stretched out on a bed and at my leisure.

Peace and Contentment!

Older...

...and Aging...

Yet W-I-S-E-R ...

...and F-R-E-E !

/abbagail

PS: And Hopie, GREAT ANSWER to your son!

blondie

I have gradually eased out. It is the mental changing that was the hardest. Everyone at the KH made it so much easier by being so unloving and liars. I no longer have to go into a room full of people trained to watch and judge you, to make secret rules that you have to abide by to be accepted. I no longer believe that people are going to die just because they have not gone through a formal ritual making themselves a part of a self-proclaimed spirit-directed organization.

Merry Christmas,

Blondie

thecarpenter

i'm happier