easier to leave...born ins or joined later???...i know the answer........

by oompa 33 Replies latest jw friends

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  beksbks

  If there were no df'ing, shunning or the like, this whole issue would be gone.

  gubberning, I'm thinking you were not born in.

  It's like being told from birth that the color of the sky is red. Everyone in "the world" says no, it's blue. But you know better, because your whole life is based on the fact that the people who told you the sky was red are the only people in the world who aren't actually evil. The only ones you can trust. Then one day you allow yourself to step out, maybe. You begin to see that it's really all those people you loved and trusted that were wrong. You still deny it, because it's such an unacceptable thought. It must be Satan getting in your head. If you are able to withstand that long enough, and get out there in that evil world enough, pretty soon you know it's true. Then you're really screwed. Until finally you begin to realize, it's not you, it's them. But trusting anyone now? Highly unlikely.
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  Lucky Calamity

  perhaps it depends upon whether or not the converts who joined later in life and did not have families in the borg lost their respective family ties as a result of joining, and could not get them back even after leaving the borg.

  My feeling though, is that generally, being born in, you're almost guaranteed to lose your family and not get them back if you try to leave. You can check out, but you can never leave (with a family intact).
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  hybridous

  Born-in-but-never-baptized here...

  I've developed a narcissictic edge since I left. I think it goes back to the enormous set of stones it took for me to stand up, all alone, and say THIS IS CRAP AND I DON'T BELIEVE IT. Damn the consequences. I told the truth.

  And yes, I do think I'm someone special for many reasons, especially that one. How many people thought what I thought but caved to the pressure to stay in and shut the hell up?

  Again, not to diminish what any one of us has endured - we're all here for the same reason! But born-in is born-behind-the-8-Ball. It's amazing that any of us learn to function or think at all.
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  beksbks

  But born-in is born-behind-the-8-Ball. It's amazing that any of us learn to function or think at all.

  H, I totally agree.
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  willyloman

  What purps said resonates with me. That's my story, too. Thanks for putting words to my thoughts.
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  oompa

  i aggree willyman...purps said it all very well.......my question in my subject line is in error....it should have been more about easier to leave "mentally".....us born in or converted............ we born in, in general have VERY much more to lose if our family and friends are all IN.....but that also is in GENERAL..........as we can see from purps post..........i think for any who found it EASY to leave.......you are the minority, but i wish there were a lot more of us like you.......oompa
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  Tuesday

  I'm a born-in and I actually feel the opposite. I think that it's easier to leave when you're born-in because they feel that you'll return. You know the whole "foolishness is tied up in the heart of a boy" type thing. I think if you were a convert you have to be convinced and hence when you find out you were wrong there's an ego involved with not admitting that you were duped.

  My two cents.
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  hybridous

  Hi Tuesday:

  Oh yes, THEY might think you will return someday. In fact, my poor mother has set her life to revolve around that day. But I can say that when I decided to leave, it wasn't with any intent of returning. What did you think when you left? Did you think you would come back? If so, why leave in the first place?

  I had seen and heard enough to know what it was. I knew what I wanted out of life, I knew what the 'religion' had to offer. I knew it had failed me miserably as a child, and I would allow it to fail me no more.

  I'll say that the lack of another frame of reference in life is absolutely crippling to a born-in. This is what makes it such a herculean effort to leave. It's like stepping off a cliff only because the lions are bearing down and there's nowhere to go.
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  Tuesday

  I knew when I was gone that it was the end for me. My mother does still think I'll return, but there wasn't a person in the congregation that thought I was coming back.

  I actually think the lack of perspective is more of a factor to leave than not to. Every child rebels against their parents and because religion is so important in the lives of JWs I feel this just increases the chance that children will choose to rebel by leaving the religion.

  The problem lies that in rebelling they'll do the thing that they're told not to which is research the religion, in doing so they find out just how wrong and how destructive the religion is. Once their eyes are opened there's no returning.

  Wasn't there a study done that showed that only 37% of children born-in stay in the religion, that would mean to me that it's not that hard for children to leave.
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  startingovernow

  Interesting responses. I would say that it matters not so much whether someone was born in or joined but how much they thought it was the Truth. For me, if it was just based on hypocrisy and lack of love I would have left a long time ago. But then would I have not been proving Satan a lier. I'm embarrassed at how much crap I put up with before becoming inactive, but even after that I still was in mentally. I still viewed anything from "apostates" as dangerous. I came in my own and could have left on my own at any time, but well not really because I really believed Jehovah had sought me out and so to read anything contrary to what the FDS said would make me prey to the demons, and to leave Jehovah meant he would turn away from me. Once I read CofC and CCMC all that fear was lifted and I had no reason to stay in.