Why don't you just take it like a man?

by AK - Jeff 199 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  lola28

  I was the jerk that posted that reply on his previous thread. My point was that every action has a reaction and sometimes the choices we make have devastating results. The decision to leave is never an easy one, no one comes out of that situation unscathed, but when we leave we all have an understanding of what’s going to happen, so why be surprised when we realize that we are treated the same way as every one else who leaves?

  My other point Jeff was that I really can’t understand your need to be respected by a group of people that you have such disdain for, also I can’t understand how you could ask for respect from a group of people that you loathe and treat with disrespect, I mean that takes balls!

  There is always a trade off and sometimes we have to give up a lot to gain just as much. I had to give up people that I loved to bits but you know what? I gained my life back and that was to me a fair tradeoff. I understood what was going to happen when I left, and I went ahead and did it anyway, I can’t bemoan my fate.

  While you sit around and let the anger simmer stop for a second and think about this Jeff, the watchtower organization and it’s members don’t give a f*ck about you or me, all that anger,all that hate is never going to hut them, but it’s hurting you and your wife, you might not go to meetings or out in service but either way you are still their slave, they own you until you finally say “screw them” and manage to move on and live the best life you possibly can.

  Lola
• 

  Hope4Others

  The only thing is they never allow you to leave with any dignity...

  The talk and lies spread of those that leave never ceases to amaze me. No one ever knows the truth.

  h4o
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  AK - Jeff

  Thank you for that, Lola. Honestly.

  But go back and look at the thread in which you originally posted the comment. It was not about me gaining respect from those who disdain my existence. It was about my wife's situation, and her witless sister trying to trap her into saying things that might get her disfellowshipped. Your comment in that venue was completely without compelling reason. And it showed total lack of compassion for the fact that not all deal in the same manner with having been mind-F'd.

  Additionally, factors are different for everyone. I don't just sit around simmering with anger toward Jw's. But I will be damned if people I have known for 5 decades, people who I would have died for, are going to walk past me as if I am dead. I am not dead yet. They don't have to respect me - but they better be civil toward me. I have done them no harm. I performed some of their weddings. I buried some of their dead. I helped some of them build their houses. I gave thousands of hours to many of them to listen to how their marriage was a mess, how their husband was a con, how they wanted to kill themselves. When they were suffering I was there for them.

  Do I expect them to stand and carry on conversation? No. But I know they can make enough conscience choice to show human dignity.

  Let me ask you - how old are you? I am 54. I spent 48 of those years as a JW. You think those who have so done can just cast it aside like it was a used pair of shoes? Most cannot. Hence this forum. You have not fully done so - or you would be somewhere else - am I right?

  In 1945, the most devasting genocide-effort ever known ended for the Jews. Six million of them were dead. Every Jew still alive had to deal with that devastation. We are now 64 years removed from that event. Still there are Jewish men and women who want to assure through words and actions they make today, that never again will such an event be recorded. They can never assure that the evil empire that consorted to kill them will ever 'respect' them. That evil empire is gone. But they might make a difference.

  And who is to say that they have not lived a good life in so doing. Perhaps a far better one than had they never been affected, for they made a difference. The same may be said of myself. My life is pretty damned good. I hate the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. Sometimes, perhaps I seeth in hatred. But, when I draw my last breath, I don't want it said that I just walked away and allowed others to suffer while I lived. If just one person leaves because of something I say, if just one person fails to join because of something I do, my life has been far better than it would have been.

  Jeff
• 

  jamiebowers

  My choice to join was far less informed than my choice to leave.

  Sadly, that's what it boils down to. The WB&TS wrote the contract dishonestly to begin with. There can be no real informed choice to leave, because people who become jws aren't told the real truth when they join.

  There is always a trade off and sometimes we have to give up a lot to gain just as much. I had to give up people that I loved to bits but you know what? I gained my life back and that was to me a fair tradeoff. I understood what was going to happen when I left, and I went ahead and did it anyway, I can't bemoan my fate

  But if the real truth was told to begin with, there wouldn't have to be a trade off. Family members shunning each other isn't humane, natural or normal.
• 

  WuzLovesDubs

  I have had this said to me also. From my husband. I DAd in 1997 and we moved from Illinois to Florida in Jan 1999. So the result of that was moving to a totally new set of neighbors, kingdom halls and JWs...none of whom knew me nor ever would know me. He was angry for me leaving. He went to the new hall rarely. JWs would come to our door and didnt know who he was when i said my husband was a JW and we lived a block from the hall. Many of the people in this neighborhood including my husbands nonJW sister and her family were and are...alcoholics and heavy drug users. I refused to be dragged into that party atmostphere and voiced my opinion about the children being subjected to it from everybody around them. The result was my rejection in a brand new neighborhood which further angered my husband. When I was crying one day from yet another verbal assault from his drunk sister, he started screaming at me:

  "WHAT DID YOU EXPECT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOU WHEN YOU LEFT JEHOVAH?? YOU BITCH AND MOAN ABOUT ALL THESE HORRIBLE THINGS THAT AREHAPPENING TO YOU BUT YOU BROUGHT IT ON YOURSELF! YOU ARE THE BITCH OF THE BLOCK! EVERYONE HATES YOU! SO YOU DONT HAVE A RIGHT TO CRY AND COMPLAIN ABOUT IT BECAUSE YOU MADE THE CHOICE WHEN YOU LEFT JEHOVAH!"

  So yeah.... everything that happens to you for the rest of your life is because you left jehovah and those who say that to you are ignorant, and I believe...jealous that you HAD THE BALLS TO DO IT and they DONT.
• 

  leavingwt

  None of this would ever happen if the following question were to be added to the JW baptismal questions:

  "Do you agree to remain an active and obedient JW, for as long as you live, EVEN if you prove to yourself from the Scriptures that we've lied to you, and we're really not God's Organization?"

  Honestly, who would get baptized, if this TRUE question were asked of them?

  -LWT
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  AK - Jeff

  Good one, Leavingwt.

  Jeff
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  WuzLovesDubs

  I might add too, when I started hanging out with the JWs as a newly single woman coming out of an abusive relationship with no friends...the sudden social life I had with the JWs was very intoxicating. So many months down the line when someone said to me from that group of friends "You know Wuz, if you dont get baptized, we can no longer hang around with you because you will be considered bad association." I was dumb struck and panicked at that thought! I immediately studied harder, got out in service and got baptized...in fact on June 1, 1985, the first time they used the NEW baptizmal questions...and I didnt even HEAR those questions and I dont think anybody DOES hear them. We are all so excited to be getting baptized we would have said "YES!!" if they had asked if we wouldnt mind coming up on the stage after being dunked and doing a pole dance. "YES!!!"

  During my study of the You Can Live Forever book...disfellowshipping wasnt talked about. Independent thinking was not discussed. Being NOT like a Berean was not discussed. Giving up ALL the holidays, birthdays and not joining the evil YMCA were NOT discussed. I think there was a mention in like the LAST chapter of the book about that but by then you are...once again....so hell bent to get baptized you cease to understand the ramifications.

  So INFORMED DECISION? no. not at all. And are KIDS making an INFORMED DECISION being baptized at 9? 11? 15??? Hell no they arent. And yet they are treated like evil, satanic, scum of the earth if they grow up...get informed....and leave....by their OWN FAMILIES.

  Yeah...sure...we "all knew the consequences of our actions" and should be held in disdain for the rest of our lives for it.
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  AK - Jeff

  Just the point I am making Wuz.

  I recall at around 16, a few months before I was dipped, being continually hounded by the other 'youths'. I had been a believer since I was old enough to walk, in a sense. But Mom was inactive during that time and I had to get a second indoctrination in my early teens to finish the 'work' of getting me baptized.

  When I 'finally' got baptized, at the old age of 17, you would have thought I had waited until I was 70 by the comments like 'I wondered if you were ever going to go through with it!'

  Why would I have ever expected that when I left as a mature adult of 48 years of age, that I would have to deal with the bullshit that follows? I shouldn't have to! I have given those bastards the best years of my life. I sacrificed my youth, career, hobbies, on and on for them.

  I shouldn't have to 'take it' because I was duped. They should be sued until their asses fall off for having duped me!

  When all of those who have been so mistreated finally stand up and say 'I'm not going to take your bullshit any longer' maybe the assholes will change the policy so that people can just leave without being mistreated.

  We should be mad as hell, and noisy as hell about it!

  Jeff
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Jeff, check your PM's.