THE ORACLE- It is gut wrenching when we read stories like NYergirl and others. I'm glad you and other positive people are here on this board to be an assistance to these individuals ! Peace out, Mr. Flipper
Newbies - Tell Us Your Stories Getting out of the Witnesses
by flipper 27 Replies latest jw friends
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Robert7
For me, although I had always believed it's "the truth", I never really drank the Kool-Aid. For example, I never believed in the no-college mentality. My philosophy (for me and the kids) was 1) You are just a man and you do NOT tell me what to do, and 2) I am going to work 40 hours a week no matter what, and I may as well make more money with an education than struggle with a low-pay job.
I feel like Winston in 1984, where I went along with it all, but something inside felt it was not right. I started disliking the organization internally I was rebelling. So slowly, without consciously doing so, I started fading years ago. I stopped commenting at meetings since I felt it degrading to my intelligence to just repeat a line that was just read in the paragraph. It just seemed supid. I went out in service once a month just to keep active. Never prepared, prayed little, etc. The difference is that 1984 ended with Winston being brainwashed and saying sincerely "I love Big Brother". Won't happen to me.
So after years of unconsciously fading, all of a sudden, last December, my "Bu!!$hit alarm", or my "Bu!!$hit circuit breaker" went off. It wasn't any one thing that did it, it just all added up and I just couldn't take it, it was all wrong. Some examples of things that I had a hard time with that set off my alarm:
- Biggest problem: You must have full faith in The Society, even though they are imperfect and can (and have) made mistakes. You must treat and believe them as perfect even though they are not. I later learned that this is Cognitive Dissodence, or doublethink.
- So much emphasis on "Watchtower", "the society", "the organization", and "the faithful slave", seemed like more than the Bible, Jesus, or God.
- So much emphasis on meeting attendance, meetings about meetings, meetings about controlling your life, like dress, family, entertainment, etc. It felt like the pharasees.
- All the stories around 1914 and 1919 and how the organization met Bible prophesy seemed like BS.
- Service was a complete waste of time. Turned off my the over-emphasis of service in Witness life.
- Meetings never felt like 'Worship to God'. Just boring adminisrative crap at a third grade level. I actually never felt that I ever 'worshipped God' as a Witness.
- Constant comments in the literature about Witnesses being hated and persecuted, but always referring to WWII as examples. (thinking what have you done for me lately) Fact is, Witnesses aren't persecuted any worse than any other faith. And if they are, it's because they instigate it with stupid beliefs.
Fact is, before the alarm going off, I never really visited apostate sites. This was all that I derived with my own thoughts. That being said, after the alarm going off, I started doing a lot of research, and quickly joined JWD where I posted my first post "I think I am an Atheist". All my research proved exactly how I felt. And ironically, contrary to what you hear on stage, these 'apostate' sites are not full of lies. They are plainly stating facts, and quote actual WT magazines that I was able to verify on my CDROM. Fact is, I have found very few actual lies on apostate sites. So I was coming to the conclusion that I was right. I bought COC and Search for Christian Freedom, and this even moreso convinced me.
In December, I told my wife exactly how I feel, what I am reading, and that I don't want to go to meetings, or do anything in the faith. I only will go Sundays to support the family. She initially was defensive for the society, and this has put a huge strain on our marriage, but a few weeks later she completely has turned around (read COC too) and she mostly agrees with me, but still goes to meetings due to friends and 'where else do you go'. Fortunately our marriage is great again.
So as of now, I pretty much lost any belief that the Bible is God's word. If there is a God, I believe that he has absolutely no impact on our day to day life. I feel that all religion is man-made, used for control, and there is no perfect religion, and I don't want to be a part of any of it.
It's not over. The Elders know I have doubts, and actually they are really being nice and supportive. My goal is to keep fading, and ensure I feed them enough crap so that I don't get DF'd. I am not spreading my thoughts directly to anyone I know, since this will be a very quick trip to a JC and DF.
Ironically (to the view of the JWs), now that I've "turned apostate", I'm actually very happy. I have this huge weight lifted off me, and I can live life to its full. I have more time, and I am very comfortable with my decision. I am obsessed with this all though. I read JWD and do research every day, and I think it will be quite a while before I can really let it go, with family and friends still Witnesses. I look at it as part of my therapy, to help let go.
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flipper
ROBERT 7 - Thanks for sharing your experience ! You really have been through lots of changes . Be good to yourself and patient with yourself - it will take time to get over some of the " cult mind control". Sounds like your fade is going well . Glad that your wife is coming around to see the scam that is the Watchtower ! Good luck to you, and we look forward to more of your posts . Any help I can be at all - let me know
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Robert7
Thank you. It is so hard because in a normal situation I would just DA and move on with my life. But because of family, it is always in my face, and I have to constantly see the crap and be reminded of it all. This leads to a situation where part of me wants to believe the story (being sucked back in) but I have to regularly remind myself that it's all fake. It's quite a lot of work both mentally and time-wise.
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flipper
ROBERT 7- I understand what you feel. Most of my family is still in the witnesses , and they would probably be " thrilled " if I went back to it . But I would be untrue to what I believe in to do that . It would be fake. I could never align myself with an organization that covers over child abuse and allows young people to die without blood transfusions - and lots of other issues as well
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flipper
Just wanted to bump this thread up for newbies wanting to tell their stories . Look forward to hearing from you
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Layla33
Now that I am home from a long week, I can add my story, it's been about 18 or 19 years since I have been a witness of any sort. I left when I was 18, but I had drifted out at 17.
I think it started for a while, things didn't make sense to me, all these new information WT and new understanding started to get on my nerves. I distinctly remember watching a movie reel about the JW religion, it showed all the way back to the beginning, it showed JWs out with picket signs talking about the end of the world, and 1975 situation, and it just didn't make sense. I remember standing in the back after the meeting and looking at everyone there, it seemed so silly how they almost seemed like robots. "Great movie, Bob", yes it was "Brother Smith" and for the first time it seemed surreal.
I never allowed myself to question all the stories, situations I had heard and witnessed through the years. Having uncles, grandfathers that were very high up in the organization, I got to hear a lot of the other side of the religion. I don't consider my story to be about some prominent JW family because my father was DFs many times, along with my grandfather - always for cheating with other women, etc but everyone is "back in" and always came back within a few years. But I learned a lot about what was said and how people actually acted. I saw a very high up pioneer sister have an affair with my DFs father in our HOME, mind you. This brazen woman used to take us out in summers, pick us up to play with her kids, and yet somehow she was sneaking over and screwing my father as well.
I learned about the closet homosexuals that were forced into marriages, the wife beatings and yet the wife was kicked out for fighting against it. I knew a lot of things, even to this day which would shock the people "in". I remember a girl I grew up with that had sex with another prominent “brother” in the congregation. She was kicked out, he was not even reproved. Why? Because he said she seduced him. I saw many times that women were kicked out, reproved and men weren’t even criticized. And after a while the whole anti-women, archaic women are beneath men started to wear on my soul, even as a child.
But honestly as a child growing up, I just loved my family so much, that I did what they said, I saw the JW organization as a backdrop. Most of them loved us so much as kids and grandkids and nieces and nephews that even to this day that love survived the theology we were forced to accept. I guess I would feel a bit differently if they all completely cut me off cold turkey and I empathize with anyone that suffered such a thing. For me, even when they attempted to do it, I tried to reason with their love and reasoning skills.
I was actually the first in my family to actual rebel openly. Thinking about it now, I would have probably done some things differently, but I was young and full of fire. I woke up at around 15 one night and realized I truly didn't believe in this Armageddon thing and I thought about the fact that they may just have everything completely wrong. I tried to make sense of it, but I realized it was a lie. I thought about that film, the JWs with the signs, and all the incorrect information they routinely preached and how they tried to explain it away with a sentence. Did they think people were that stupid and gullible? How much new information and new revelations must you have before you realize that just about everything you are preaching is wrong, wrong wrong? My family had been in this religion since the 1950s, my grandparents were some of those people who believed in the 1975 predictions and to see them still trying to explain it away, was quite frankly sad to me. One day my paternal grandfather said to me, "It's not so much that we believe every little thing, it's about tradition really." And finally I thought to myself, maybe I just want to have a different tradition for myself.
I came across my diary I kept at 15. To read it is almost shocking, everything is Jehovah God this and Jehovah God that and Demons here and Demons there, but I see the little fragments of dissection in me, even as I tried to be the perfect JW.
One day my father, grandmother confronted me at 17 they wanted to know why I wasn't attending meetings anymore. (Somehow I had wrangled my parents to letting me live with my grandparents my last few years of high school. I adored them and yes, the spoiled me rotten.) I had found a way around going to meeting and going in service by getting a job part time and showing I was willing to take care of myself, so one day they just decided to do a JW INTERVENTION to let me know my actions were not ignored by “the family”. I still laugh about it. So my father goes on about me having friends that aren't JWs and my grandmother (whom I was really close to) wants to know why I don't go to the meetings and after them going back and forth I said, "I just don't believe what they teach". My grandmother put her hand on her heart and starting crying - yeah, they love the drama and guilt in my family. My father raises his hands up to the sky, "why, oh Jehovah?". I look at them and laugh, they were so mad. I said, "why can't I believe what I want? why can't I pick my own friends? I am not doing anything wrong, I just want to do what I want religiously". My grandmother looked at me shocked because it was the very first time in my life that I had ever went against what she said. Suffice to say, it didn't go anywhere because all I said was "well you can't force me I will run away, and you will never see my again, I will live in the street and beg for food, is that what you want?" Yeah I knew how to do the drama thing too. They just said they would revisit it at a later date, which never happened.
I decided to move out right after I graduated from high school. But not before my grandmother decided to forcibly try to keep me from leaving the house moving out. Her teary words were "They aren't going to love you in the world, they are going to eat you a alive, you can't leave your family" at which I replied "I am not leaving the family, I am moving out and leaving the religion". My grandfather the PO at the time told my grandmother to stop and he hugged me and said "I will always love you and we are family no matter what." I loved that man in so many ways because no matter what, he showed me love and THAT to me had nothing do with the JW religion, but who he was as a person. When he passed I never felt such sadness because he was one of those good decent people that are so rare these days. I digress.
I had some money saved up and I got my own apartment. One of my family members who was out of the religion at the time, but still under their silly delusions found out I had a boyfriend and was dating and told me that I should go tell the brothers or she would. I looked at her oblivious, “are you kidding me”? But I didn't care anymore, I went and told them, I knew the routine. They asked if I was sorry, I gave them the innocent look, "yes, so sorry" and then they drilled me for like three hours wanting to know every little detail of my relationship with these boyfriends and I got a little pissed. In fact, one of the elders that was one of my grandparents best friends seemed like he was getting off on it. Honestly, these men are not qualified to carry on police like interrogations and they are not qualified to psychoanalyze anyone. When they would stop, I literally asked them their qualifications for asking such detailed information, which they replied “Qualified by Jehovah”. At which I replied, “Can you tell me where you actually spoke with him? And I told them that their line of questions were bordering harassment to me, at which they told me to calm down and I said, “I am calm” but two of you didn’t even graduate high school, so how in the world are you putting me through this Q & A on the level of a precint? They just said they need to keep good records for their superiors and for record keeping and they said they really believed I was sorry and they wanted to encourage me and bring me back for more counseling. MORE COUNSELING?!!
They said they wouldn't DFs or even put me on reproof, they just wanted me to come back to the KH and that's when it got ugly. I said, "why"? And then I said, "well I have a problem with that" and then they went back and forth tried to call me to three and four more meetings and finally I said, "ENOUGH!" And I told them in no uncertain terms to never call my house again and to leave me alone. About a month later they sent me a certified letter that said I had been "DISFELLOWSHIPPED!!!".I looked at the letter, laughed and went out to dinner with my boyfriend.
My grandfather took it like a champ because he already knew. My grandmother cried like I told her I had cancer. They were hurt because to them it was so interconnected, family/religion that walking away from one, meant walking away from the other. I told my grandparents and parents and whomever cared to listen that I was going to live my life they way I wanted. I told my grandparents that at some point someone knocked on their door and they DECIDED in their own free will to believe what they wanted, so in no uncertain terms I deserve that same right. It has nothing to do with my love for them. It took my grandmother a good three years to get over it and now we have a very loving relationship and I take her out when I can, send her money, we talk and laugh. There are maybe two or three family members that don't talk to me AT ALL, but honestly I could care less because these are the ones I didn't talk to really anyway.
Now, when I first left I didn't know what I was or what I was going to be. I had nightmares about dying in Armageddon for about three to four years. It took me a good two years to get all the JW rhetoric out of my mind and in my word usage on a regular basis. I went to just about every religious organization you can imagine just to see/study and talk. For a while I was agnostic, and then I took some graduate courses on world religion and I realized I didn't truly believe in religion because it is all about people/cultures interpreting God. Buddhism spoke to me because it is a philosophy and I live my life philosophically and not religiously. Zen touched me and I am free. Leaving the JW was one of the hardest but most liberating choices I have ever made in my life. I dared to think and live differently and it was the best decision I ever made in my life.
I share my story because if there is one person who can be helped by what I went through, I am happy.
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flipper
LAYLA 33- That was one of the best experiences I have ever heard of getting out of the witnesses ! Thanks for sharing it with everyone ! I understand a lot of what you went through and your witness families emotions - as some of my family gets real emotional since I got out 4 years ago. You try to tell them you love them the same - but they are so mind controlled, they just don't get it. I'm glad you were close with your grandparents though , my older parents are that way 82 and 80 . Great story- Thanks ! Peace out, Mr. Flipper