I don’t even know where to begin. So I hope I’ll make some sense. Basically, I’m 26 years old and was “raised in the truth”. I never really took to any of the teachings and was always the rebel child. Nothing major, but my older sister was a “bible head” and was always counseling me on my music, the fact that I liked guys and usually challenged things. I guess I should mention that this was while we were growing up so like around age 12, 13- and my sister is 2 years older than me. She got baptized when she was 12 years old and totally immersed her self into pioneering, etc.- much to my parents delight. I was the one who slept during the assemblies, hung out with “bad association” and was always being grounded. When my sister got into high school, things changed. She had a lot of doubts in her mind about the witnesses and started questioning them to my mom who freaked- she called in the elders, etc. and basically my sister was told she was “weak” and needed to go to more meetings and just basically stop worrying. She was frustrated with that response and basically decided to just run away from home because and announce that she no longer wanted to be a JW. My parents were extremely distraught- it caused a huge uproar in our family circle. I was only 12 at the time, but I saw the havoc it caused with my sister leaving, so I figured I better not “leave” as well. My dad asked me if I wanted to get baptized so I said “sure”- talk about a dedication huh? I got baptized and got all sorts of lavish attention. I felt really good- everyone was praising me, etc. My sister was a freak- I couldn’t believe how she “ruined” our family- There was no way I was going to cause that pain to my family. So by the time my sister was disfellowshipped a year later at the minor age of 15, I was gung ho about staying a JW to please everyone and do the “right” thing. My sister, in my eyes, was bad association and wasn’t worthy to be spoken to.
Gosh, I guess I could go on and on about what transpired over the next 11 years, but that would take forever. But looking back, I realized I was never truly dedicated and just never ever had the zeal that others in the congregation had. I remember wondering why people would bend over backwards to simplify their lives so they could pioneer- or why they would give up great careers to go do temporary work at Bethel ( aren’t they concerned about finding new jobs after their temporary work lets up?) or even skip college to pioneer, or I would cringe when someone would ask me why I don’t celebrate something-it wasn’t an opportunity to preach like we’re told to view it, it was an opportunity to confirm to myself that I really didn’t care and I hated answering the question since it was a lame reason anyways; or why I scoffed every time I was asked to do something as simple as hall cleaning or when they asked my husband (A ministerial servant at the time) to stay late to handle literature. Why could I not have a “giving spirit?” is what I always asked myself? Was I not studying enough? All these things always went through my mind and I would have these “spiritual highs” that I would get on in hopes that at some point all this “work” I’ve been doing would feel validated and I could feel confident. When others told me their experiences out in field service I would think “why are you getting so excited?”- I hated going to my return visits because well I didn’t feel passionate about the message and I hated the idea of having to devote time to actually conduct a bible study- I had better things to do with my time.
For a long time we struggled- what was wrong with us? How come, no matter how many times we made the meetings and field service a habit, did we just not feel excited about going? Why was it that when we decided to go to school to pursue something that we could find the time to do research papers, attend classes, make the deans list and have fun doing it, but we could NEVER get our field service time above 10 hours (let alone 5), we never felt motivated to study the WT, and just hearing the word “gathering” made us cringe? (I guess I’m now speaking for myself and my husband).
At this point, my husband (who also grew up a JW) I were living outside of our territory and decided perhaps we should move to the congregation in our territory and that maybe that would help encourage us. So, we moved congregations after being in the one that my husband grew up in and that I was a part of for the past 7 years (since we got married and reinstated- yeah, that’s another story. LOL)
So now we weren’t going to the meetings to see all of our friends, but we were now in a hall where we knew no one. At this time, my thoughts, questions, doubts weren’t really communicated to my husband and vice versa other than the obvious we don’t go out in service much, we hated him having privleges, and meeting nights were a pain in the butt. But confess our true feelings? No way- Because we didn’t want to get in trouble. Side note: isn’t it sad that as a couple, we weren’t comfortable being honest with each other because of our religion? One that encouraged communication and honesty among marriage mates, but reiterated limitations or repercussions of what would happen if we truly expressed our feelings? I actually feared that my husband might “tell” on me! *rolls eyes*
So we had a 2 week vacation planned- we had our little farewell “gathering” before our vacation and planned to start our new hall when we returned from our trip. Secretly, I wished that it would be nice to just not even start the new hall but to just have a clean slate and not even be known in the territory as JW’s. But of course I quickly convinced myself that I was stressed out and that this move to the new hall would be just what we needed. It wasn’t- we started to think “what the heck is wrong with everyone?” they’re like brain-washed followers? They were all gung-ho about preaching, commenting, having privleges, etc. In fact, one elder asked me if I would love to have the privilege of writing everyone’s name on the Kingdom ministries? Would I? what am I five years old? I was offended that I was being patronized. At this point, I seriously wondered what was wrong with me if I had such a bad attitude. My husband decided he didn’t want to come into this new hall as a Ministerial Servant and decided not to do it. Oh boy, did he get flak for that. I was livid that at almost every meeting, the brothers would approach him asking him to do this and that and reminding him that when he was ready they would reappoint him. Well then I found out I was pregnant- I missed a lot of meetings because I was very very sick- and the elders had the audacity to tell my husband that even though I was ill (and at that point depressed because I was sick for 5 months straight), he needed to go to the meetings, help the congregation and that by doing so, it would help our family and help me. I just wanted everyone off our back already. Why couldn’t we just do things at our own pace (I believe even the JW’s call it “trying your best”) without getting flak for it? I missed a month of service and got no time in because of my pregnancy illness- for the next 4 months I got asked several times to think back and try to figure out if I got ANY time in because even 10 minutes would count. I finally retorted, “if it’s perfectly understandable that I couldn’t go out in service because of my condition, why am I getting hounded every month about it? Why can’t we just move on from it?”
They even had the audacity to recommend the Pioneers Assist other- seriously, why did I find these “helpful programs” to be a pain in the butt?
Around my 7 th month of pregnancy, my husband and I went out to lunch one day and I said to him “we need to get our act together because if we’re going to raise our daughter we need to be consistent”. To my relief, my husband said “I don’t know if I want to raise our daughter in this”-
I almost lost it- I was so relieved! Finally, this was the start of us finally being able to express how we really feel about doing all this!
We talked for weeks about all of our doubts, anxieties, feelings, etc and discovered we both pretty much felt the same way. There was no way we were going to encourage our daughter to pioneer, etc. We never felt that desire and thought it was pointless- but how could we be JW’s and not do that? We both felt that kids getting baptized was the stupidest thing in the world. That because my sister was baptized as a kid and then as an adult decided she didn’t want to be a JW, that we had to hold her “dedication” against her and cease communication. It didn’t make sense-
We want our daughter to feel like she can talk to us about anything without fear of being rejected- and I know I was never going to argue with my daughter about whether or not she wanted to join a soccer team. And I wasn’t going to be one of those people who went to meetings just to save face, but then be “lenient” with my kids. Because we all know “those” people are weak and their kids are always bad association. I didn’t want to be labeled that way. Plus, why put ourselves through that if we don’t really care? We’re either going to do it, love it and encourage our children to be a JW or not do it at all. My husband and I knew we fit the latter. So we decided to stop going to meetings about 2 months before my daughter was born. Oh my gosh, we got literally 13 calls in one week from our book study overseer. He called us on our cell phones, home #, and even called my husband at work!
It’s been 8 months and life has never been better-
I guess lately I’ve been feeling frustrated because we finally decided to stop pretending with our “friends” from our old hall who apparently had no clue we stopped going to meetings. We recently bought a house and kept getting “what hall are you going to?” questions and I finally told my friend that I wasn’t sure what we were doing and that we were kind of in a rut. No way did I tell her my true feelings- I’d immediately be an “apostate”- anyways, she basically ‘broke up’ with me right then and there. I was so pissed. I mean 4 years of friendship and with one conversation she let me go. I mean, I guess I was naïve in thinking that maybe she’d be understanding and just kind of phase me out, but for her to be so abrupt like that just cemented why I hated this organization in the first place.
