What is wrong with me?...........

oompa

why oh why can't i seem to shut up!......i am not the ragin open doubter/apostate i was two years ago and who raged on for a year.....making me a shunned being to most of my so called friends and causing my wife scars on her soul..........but WHY THE HELL do i feel so compelled to wake up my retired mom and dad and wife/son/?......and the other jw friends that will still come over for one of my famous grillouts (just ask changeling, newlite, robert7, and wings)???. i know it is tough enough for me to move on socially at 45 but how much harder for my parents? why the hell do i so want to alert/wake up them and my wife and son and anyone else i care about to the lies we have believed since birth?.....after all, they do have a right to believe what they want, and i (hope) i respect their position.....so wtf is wrong with me there??.........oompa

I

purplesofa

A JW friend of mine that now is OUT thanked me for not pushing what I knew about the organization on him.

I was fading out and he was a JW.
We would talk, but as I was learning more and more about the real truth of the organization,

I was no longer encouraging and he picked up on it and for a time we did not talk.

Imagine how happy I was when about a year or so later he

found out on his own, and even came to this board.

And he thanked me for not telling him all I had found out.

Eventually he read Crisis of Consience at my house on the infamous purple sofa!!!

oomps, sometimes you just gotta let people have their own journeys in life

no matter how much you love them.

purps

SnakesInTheTower

oompa...nothing is wrong with you....when you believe someone is in danger, whether it is physical or spiritual or emotional, it is natural to want to help them. When it is family and close friends, the desire to help them escape is exponential. I know.

My 65 year old JW mom has doubts, but yet she has known nothing else in the last 40 years. When she moved states a year or so back, that would have been the perfect time for her to fade. It was then I tried to talk some sense into her. It did no good. The JW life (field service™ and Meetings™) are her whole social structure.

Worse, by attempting to get her to think, it put an unconscious wedge in her mind that exists to this day. She promises not to shun me, but it is easier for her to say that when she lives 10-12 hours away. We talk only every week to 10 days. Why? Because it is hard for both of us. She wants to share her experiences from service and meetings and I want her to be able to do that. Conversely, I find it difficult to pretend I am interested in the subject, even if I am intensely interested in my mom.

My mom and I have to agree to disagree. (Or as French philosopher Voltaire said: "I do not agree with a thing you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.") I like Voltaire.

Now back to your situation. You know if you are open about your doubts and disbelief all bets are off, right? What you have to decide is: How much bull$hit are you willing to put up with for the sake of peace in your family? Because in the end, either way, they will keep believeing. Based on your previous postings, it appears you will NOT "wake up" your JW family. What can be different is whether you are still a part of their lives, with a chance, remote or not, to affect their thinking quietly.

Will it mean making sacrifices (ie, going to Meetings™)? Possibly. What other sacrifices are you willing to make for your family? Would you give your life for them? Of course. That is the difficult hand that WTBTS is forcing in your case. They may not be asking for you to commit suicide, but they are forcing you to give up the freedom of the life away from the cult.

Does any of that make sense? I do not envy you your position. Feel free to PM me if you like. We on this board are each other's support in this ongoing battle.

Snakes ()

OUTLAW

Oompa..Your way too emotional.....Go kick a Pit Bull in the Nuts.....That should take your mind off your worries.....When your running for your life,there`s not much else to think about!

Laughing Mutley ...OUTLAW

I quit!

It isn't what is wrong with you. You only want what you believe is best for them. The problem is what you want for them isn't what they want for themselves, at least at this time. I know the feeling of wanting to scream at members of my family to wake up and see the truth about the WT but it wouldn't do any good. Being pushy only causes more walls to go up. I believe life is a learning process and we all learn at a different rate and need to learn different lessons. All I can tell you is you will be a lot happier if you can learn to accept what is. I'm not that good at it myself but I do know that things are better when I'm in that frame of mind.

parakeet

"so wtf is wrong with me there??.........oompa"

oompa, there's only one thing wrong. You can't control the thoughts and actions of other people. You can only control your own.

Accept that you can't change people that don't want to be changed. That doesn't mean you should give up. But obsessing over something you can't control is counterproductive and stressing you out.

You just need to learn where that line is -- the one that straddles trying to help others and beating yourself up if they don't listen.

truthsetsonefree

As mentioned, you're probably a caring individual who wants to help them. It's tough to see people believe in BS and know that it's such and then just keep quiet. Of course, that's also the JW excuse for knocking on doors.

Isaac