My life - a brief history. Part 2

Galileo

This is part 2 of my journey out. part 1can be found here.
Choosing Madness

Over the next several weeks I did intense research. Every question that had ever made me uncomfortable, for which the Society had no answer or an unsatisfactory one, the questions I had been taught to put out of my head, I now put under a microscope. I did not do what most witnesses think of as research, i.e; read whatever the Society has written about it and accept it without question. I opened the Societies publications only to verify their position on things, then closed them and looked at genuine reference publications.

I was dumbstruck.

Again and again, the Watchtower Societies publications were so wrong that they either had the most incompetent researchers imaginable, or they were being deliberately misleading. The “Creation” book, one of my favorites because it seemed to explain so clearly the evidence for design in nature from a scientific perspective, was absolutely worthless from cover to cover. To an evolutionary biologist, that book is a joke. It became clear that it was not written to convince scientists at all. It seemed to have been written to convince those with little or no scientific education that science supports the idea of an intelligent creator behind everything, which it does not. (A brief aside: The idea of an invisible hand directing events either currently or in the distant past is both unverifiable and unfalsifiable, and therefore generally considered by scientists not to be a scientific question).

At some point, I don’t remember the circumstances, I came across Leviticus 7:14-16. Of course virtually all Witnesses are familiar with Leviticus 7:14, but I don’t recall ever reading verse 15:

14 For the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood by the soul in it. Consequently I said to the sons of Israel: “YOU must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it will be cut off.” 15 As for any soul that eats a body [already] dead or something torn by a wild beast, whether a native or an alien resident, he must in that case wash his garments and bathe in water and be unclean until the evening; and he must be clean. 16 But if he will not wash them and will not bathe his flesh, he must then answer for his error.’”

If you came upon a body that was already dead, then it couldn’t be properly bled. The blood has already soaked into the meat. So this scripture says, in effect: Don’t eat blood. But if you do, take a bath and be unclean until evening?! This is the issue that is so important that we were dying over?

When I was seventeen I had watched a friend, a beautiful young Spanish teenager named Maria, slowly die over a period of eight months. She had Leukemia. Some friends and I would go visit her in the hospital on weekends, watching her life’s force drain a little more every week. Even in her last days, when she was too weak to even get out of bed, she insisted on her sisters and mother helping her get dressed and put her makeup on when we were coming to visit. When I met her she was so beautiful, so full of life, that you never would have guessed she was sick. The last time I saw her, less than a week before she died, she couldn’t have weighed more than sixty pounds.

In most of the population that has access to modern medicine, Leukemia has a very high survival rate. But among Witnesses, because of their refusal of blood based medicine, it’s a virtual death sentence. In the years after my eyes were first opened to the deception of the Watchtower Society, whenever I heard a Witness express some variation of the standard “Even if it’s not the truth, it’s the best way to live”, it was Maria’s beautiful young face that always came into my mind.

There were other issues. Many others. Eventually I began thinking about the burden of proof. I thought about how before I learned these things, I was convinced that the Watchtower Society was correct, and so anyone trying to make the case that they were wrong had to prove it overwhelmingly. As the scales tipped, and one fact after another shifted away from the Watchtower Society’s favor, I began to realize this burden, seemingly insurmountable at first, had been met. I began to find it harder and harder to answer the question “Why do I believe?”. Then finally the answer came: I believe because I choose to. In spite of the facts, in spite of the evidence, I would force myself to believe. Admitting disbelief would mean losing everything I cared about. My family wouldn’t speak to me, my friends would abandon me, my wife would certainly stay with me unless I gave her a scriptural reason to go, but her sadness would be unbearable. I would never be able to explain to her why I stopped believing or she would leave me on the grounds of apostasy. So I chose to believe. I decided if I was going to do this, I might as well go all in. So I not only stayed in, I became positively zealous.

I threw myself headlong into spiritual life. I started taking off two days a week to accompany my wife in the field ministry. I was used more and more as an example in meeting parts. I always commented at meetings. I became close friends with elders and pioneers. All the while my faith in religion and god was slipping further and further away.

By the time I was appointed a Ministerial Servant I was an atheist. I had stopped praying altogether, except before meals with my wife or if asked to in public, in order to keep up appearances. I began giving Public Talks. I wondered what the congregation would have thought if they’d known that their speaker was an atheist. Then I wondered how many others were doing just what I was doing, simply going through the motions because they had too much to lose. I have come to believe it’s quite a large percentage.

I kept this up for years. The emotional toll was tremendous. I became withdrawn. I rarely slept more than a few hours a night. I felt as though everything in my life was an illusion. My marriage, my friendships, my identity itself. It was tearing me apart inside. I had managed to keep everything, everyone I cared about, but the price was a pretend existence. I could pay that price for a while, but it added up quickly. After three or four years of this, I became desperate for breathing room.

I couldn’t bear to try to convince someone else to convert. The very idea made me feel sick. I stopped going out in service during the week. We were building a new Kingdom Hall, and I used this as an opportunity to help do site prep on the weekend so I could avoid weekend service as well. If I wasn’t out in service people assumed I was at the hall site, and vice versa. I also started finding projects around the house that would take up my weekends so I wouldn’t have to make excuses to my wife.

I became withdrawn, distant from everyone. I feigned illness often. I was so exhausted from leading a dishonest life that I felt I just couldn’t do it anymore. I started leaving out points in my talks that I felt were untrue, and bringing in extra material that I felt was accurate, yet could still be interpreted as supporting the Society’s viewpoint. No one seemed to notice. On the contrary, people always told me how much they enjoyed my talks. On one occasion the outline for a forty five minute public talk I was scheduled to give was so full of nonsense I couldn’t see how to salvage it. So I just left the nonsense out. I finished in what must be some sort of record – twenty minutes. It was the last talk I ever gave.

For over a year I found ways of getting out of field service entirely, and then made up time at the end of the month. I was getting more and more depressed. My wife tried to help me, but of course she couldn’t, because she had no idea what the real problem was. And how could I tell her? By this time I had been pretending to share a belief with her for over five years, a belief that was the center point of her entire reason for existence. I began drinking heavily. I couldn’t see any way out.

My thoughts began turning more and more towards suicide. I would lay awake at night and imagine what it would be like to hang myself. One day I was home alone and started to search online for painless methods of poisoning. Suddenly the realization of what I was doing hit me hard. It was like I had been shaken awake from a dream. I knew something in my life had to change and quick. I summoned all the courage I had, and when my wife got home, I told her I couldn’t do it anymore.

Although we stayed together for two more years, our marriage ended that night.

compound complex

Welcome, Galileo, to JWD ...

One of my favorite books is GALILEO'S DAUGHTER, by Dava Sobel. It would be wonderful to hear firsthand what you wrote your daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, as your replies apparently were
burned by the Mother Abbess after the demise of your dear daughter. Of your three children, she alone
was a reflection of your brilliance, hard work and keen perception. I am moved by the devotion she demonstrated toward you ...

I trust I am addressing Galileo Galilei?

- I enjoyed your story! At least you didn't recant like your namesake.

CoCo

penny2

Galileo, welcome to JWD. I've enjoyed reading your story so far, look forward to hearing how your life progressed.

penny

mind my own

Thank you once again for sharing! Your story is so interesting. I am looking forward to hearing the rest of it. I'm so sorry for your pain.

MMO

Tatiana

My heart is breaking.....

lisavegas420

I'm beginning to feel you couldn't stay in because you have a gift that needs to be shared.

I'm glad you came. I'm glad you're sharing with us. Thank you.

lisa

OnTheWayOut

It's pretty long, this part 2. I am marking for reading and commenting later.

Gopher

Galileo,

That was a compelling post. And it resonates so true with me, as I grew up in the JW's and too felt that much of life was an illusion. I was waiting for something real, and life in the JW's wasn't it.

I was dumbstruck by the experience of your friend Maria who died of leukemia, and how tragically ironic the JW's cliche is that their way of life is the best way of living. They even have that phrase in one of their kingdom songs. Actually their way of life is a slow death.

It's better to be true to oneself, at any price, than to live a lie and thereby die a slow death.

OnTheWayOut

I was convinced that the Watchtower Society was correct, and so anyone trying to make the case that they were wrong had to prove it overwhelmingly.

Most of us had this mindset. We were able to just dismiss evidence without really examining it.

I would never be able to explain to her why I stopped believing or she would leave me on the grounds of apostasy.

Many stay for their spouse/family. I held out a very short time once I knew I was in a mind-control cult.

I was getting more and more depressed.

Here, many can relate. Pretending the truth (or even living and believing the truth) is very depressing.

Don't leave us hanging too long. You were depressed and contemplating suicide. Your marriage was over.
We need to know if you lived, well- how you coped and lived.

Galileo

I'll try and finish it by tomorrow. I have the flu this weekend so it's slowing me down and clouding my thoughts, but I hate to stop on a cliffhanger, so let me put your mind at ease: I lived. Honestly I was never that close to suicide, and if I would have done it at all, it probably would have been years of contemplation before I actually did it. But the fact that I was thinking about it so much made me realize I couldn't continue on like that.

Once again, thanks to everyone for your interest in my story. It is the first time I've told it to anyone. I know many of you can relate. I hope it may help some who are going through this right now.

My life - a brief history. Part 2

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