by Gayle 24 Replies latest social family
From beginning to end, how long did it take you, when you first started your personal questioning and re-evaluating the Watchtower organization and concluding that the WTS was definitely not true?
My sister is asking this. Some of us (who left a couple decades ago - pre-Internet) are saying it took about 10 years on average. I hope nowadays it is taking less for individuals because of so much literature and Internet available.
It took me about two months to reach the conclusion that it DEFINITELY was not "The Truth". However, I continued my research for many more months.
One of the first stages that a cult member must go through is: "Perhaps this anti-JW material I'm reading is a ploy from the Devil."
All JWs have been conditioned to EXPECT critical information. They've been trained to dismiss critical information as LIES, without even examining it.
What was helpful to me was to put the information through an "Outsider Test for Faith".Look at it from the perspective of a non-JW who is interested in joining. The Bible study conductor should be able and willing to answer all objections to the JW faith. An interested person cannot be an apostate and asking tough questions does not make one an "opposer".
It's painfully obvious that Watchtower has NEVER refuted the eye-witness testimony of Ray Franz and others. Why?
About 4 months. I did a LOT of reading.
I never doubted for a moment, I always knew it was the truth.
Over several years i became increasingly inactive, but I still believed.
At one point I decided to stop attending completely because i could no longer stand the dysfunction in the ranks, but I still believed.
Then one day i was cleaning my house, thinking of nothing in particular, and a little voice in my head said,
"What if none of it is true?"
And in that instant I knew none of it was true ......... I fell to my knees and let go of a scream that came from the depths of my being.
And I was out.
About six months, but I didn't even think of the internet as a resource until after I left...probably never would have even showed up except someone told me about a website for ex-jw's...I remember thinking, "They can do that?" lol.
In three days, (the time it took to read CoC), but...
After 10 years of stuggling with doubts and concerns, I had a moment of clarity about a year before I read it, where I knew it was in all likelihood not the truth. I tried to "hang on", but just couldn't do it for long. I stopped attending meetings within 5 months.
CoC, (or any other other material, no matter how convincing), will not work unless someone is ready for the truth beforehand.
j
I would say it took a month or two.
Ten seconds.
I first started to have my doubts as a child, but would never have aired them. I could see pockets of hypocrisy within the congregation, but felt that I was too young to question 'the truth'. I lost my beautiful Witness mum to cancer aged 13 and that's when the hypocrisy from congregation members really kicked in. (Abusive Witness step-father. Another thread!)
It was in my early teens that I jealously watched older teens leave, knowing that I would leave one day. I did, 2 days after my 18 birthday, 17th July 1986. Hard to say how long the re-evaluation took, because it was such a gradual process.
The guilt lingered though and I often wonder if I would have been able to leave so easily if I still had Mum. (I have come to the point where I think that she would have left by now too, as her best friend (an elder) has seen the light).
Welcome to the forum, boopoopidoo!
