Have you ever seen someone else abort a fade?

Mickey mouse

Thinking back I've seen a couple of examples of brothers who have almost slipped out of the organization. Stopped attending meetings for months, inactive in field service and then come back with a vengeance. In the two particular cases I'm thinking of both came back as real company men and have risen through the ranks to levels they previously hadn't attained.

I sometimes wonder whether they were consciously struggling with apostasy and chose for whatever reason to plunge back into the organization? Or did they just have a vague feeling that something was wrong but they weren't sure what?

Anyone else seen this phenomenon?

Mickey.

SPAZnik

maybe they had a bad experience and it skeered the bejezuz outta them

10p

not exactly ... but when trying to encourage me after I stopped attenting meetings, this is what our PO told me:

"When I was about 18, I had doubts about the organisation, and I was just about to leave. But I decided to give it a go, and went auxilliary pioneering. And that really strengenthed my faith, being out with the brothers and sister who had such strong faith, and teaching others about the truth."

I never said anything, not wanting to fight unwinnable battles that would only leave me worse off ... but I wanted to ask him: "so what were your doubts, and did you ever get rational answers to them ... or did you just learn to ignore them and rest on that wonderful, blind faith?"

calico

I remember a couple who stopped going to meeting for close to two years back in the 80's. They came back and have been at meetings ever since. I always wondered what happened.

shamus100

I have had three friends do the 'fade' dance. One came back with a vengance, as you said, which is quite hilarious.

parakeet

I think it was AlanF who said that inactive JWs can be more rabid than JWs in good standing. Don't know why.

Octarine Prince

It can happen.

That's why you have to make sure of the reasons you are fading.

jwfacts

This is quite common for people exiting cults. The process of leaving cults is too traumatic for some people, who opt the easy road of reinvolvement. (The same thing happened in the movie the Matrix - not everyone can swallow the red pill)

http://www.caic.org.au/leaving/postcult.htm provides the following outline of the process a person generally goes through when leaving a cult.

Disbelief/denial: "This can't be happening. It couldn't have been that bad."
Anger/hostility: "How could they/I be so wrong?" (hate feelings)
Self-pity/depression: "Why me? I can't do this."
Fear/bargaining: "I don't know if I can live without my group. Maybe I can still associate with it on a limited basis, if I do what they want."
Reassessment: "Maybe I was wrong about the group's being so wonderful."
Accommodation/acceptance: "I can move beyond this experience and choose new directions for my life" or...
Reinvolvement: "I think I will rejoin the group."

Robert7

There are 2 types of faders:

1) Those who still think it's the truth but just are worn out, tired, or just don't want to go to meetings
2) Those who see the light and don't think it's the truth.

I think the ones who fade and come back are #1. I've talked to a number of people who are either DF'd or are very irregular, but still think it's the truth. Even if they have doubts, they suppress them because it's the truth.

WTWizard

I have seen that too often. One example is the person that brought me into the cancer in the first place. He had been disfellowshipped several years prior but went back into the cancer. Then he was a pioneer and assistant hounder for a time, before getting disfellowshipped for adultery. He was out for 2 years on that, and went back. After that, he was inactive for a few years. One year, he went back gung-ho, only to go inactive for a few years after. He got disfellowshipped for courting a disfellowshipped person, and went back 2 years later. Ever since, he has been a threat to me (that he would try to get me back any way he could).

Have you ever seen someone else abort a fade?

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