How long did it take before you started talking to others about being an ex-dub?

by the real life 29 Replies latest jw friends

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  the real life

  I was just wondering if any of you took time to speak openly about being an ex-witness.

  Sometimes, when it came up naturally, I told some of my friends; in other cases, I felt really uncomfortable talking about it. In fact, it's a little strange, but I felt more comfortable telling casual friends rather than the people closest to me. I often felt like it was a huge revelation to make, often to find that people weren't really that shocked. A lot of people think it's hilarious to imagine me knocking on doors, etc.

  I usually told people I was raised in a strict "christian" or "protestant" religion, but didn't say which one. It took me four months to tell my boyfriend. I'm not sure why it was like that, because we are very open with each other and I'm closer to him than I've ever been with anyone in previous relationships. One time we were reading and laughing at random verses in a Bible he had found in my room, and I noticed a little yellow slip in it (the follow up slips for return visits) and I threw it out the window to avoid discussing it! When I finally opened up to him about my experiences in leaving, it only made us closer and he was very supportive and proud of me for all the changes I had to make. I'm not sure why it's been such a block for me at times. Ultimately, I think it's because I feel like that part of my life was not who I really am. I have a hard time reconciling it with who I am today.

  What were your experiences with telling people?
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  LongHairGal

  I am a 'fader' who did it right away. I got in touch with relatives and re-established relationships with people and told them I am no longer involved with this vacuum of a religion that tried to separate me from everybody who ever mattered to me. I had to make a few apologies.

  I have spent the last eight and a half years or so un-doing what the religion did by making new friends and mending fences.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Like LongHairGirl, I am a fader. I felt the need to come out and tell some non-JW family members that I no longer believed the JW's had "the truth." I thought I might chicken out and stay at the KH if I didn't do that. I needed the non-JW family support system to get out and to counteract the JW family reactions. I knew I needed a network of people who understood, also. Despite the family support, I searched out for friends on JWD and at meetup.com because I knew non-JW family would not get it all understood so easily.

  I was telling people long before I faded that I needed to fade.
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  WuzLovesDubs

  Oh yeah right away I did, as soon as I was officially DAd I told my whole family and HIS whole family and my neighbors...because before then we had to temper and limit our contact with those EVIL WORLDLY PEOPLE (echo echo echo) :) And it turns out they were ecstatic to see me and my kids free and were basically holding their breath around us trying not to offend us because we were JWs. When we left all their anxiety left and I got some fast and lasting new friends, and closer to relatives that were keeping us at arms distance all that time.

  And I went nuts online anti-witnessing trying to undo all the damage I may have done trying to convert people. I made it my mission to get people OUT of the Borg as much as I could.

  Im not at all ashamed of having been a JW. It was a learning experience and has put me in a position to help others get out.
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  nelly136

  quite quick really, i had to explain to my work colleagues why i was being stalked by two ol fellas in flasher macks cos they started turning up there when my landlady wouldnt let them in at my lodgings.
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  ninja

  too quick......the others were still witnesses
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  flipper

  THE REAL LIFE- Like some here - I started telling people right away that I had stopped . I remember the first date I went on with Mrs. Flipper ( due to E-harmony) somehow religion came up and I had been out of the borg for 3 years or so - I just told her I was a witness in the past and didn't believe in ANY organized religion anymore . She was fine with it as she had exited the Catholics as a teenager herself years before.

  In general conversation I won't bring it up these days- butI don't avoid it if the course of a conversation is going down the religious road - I will warn people about Jehovah's Witnesses being a dangerous mind control cult to avoid. I feel I want to protect people from learning the hard way - as I did for years
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  SixofNine

  I started talking to everyone I met immediately, but it wasn't until I shaved* and got a tattoo that Simon allowed me to begin counting my time.

  *shaved a cross into my skull
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  jamiebowers

  I was out for 13 years before I told many people, but I told my current husband right away. The reason I didn't tell many people was because I didn't know what to say. I believed that the jws were the closest thing to the true religion, but I couldn't explain why the sexual abuse I experienced as a child and the domestic violence I experienced as a wife went unpunished or was even dealt with.
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  Elsewhere

  For awhile, that was all I could talk about.

  Now (11 years later) I rarely bring it up. I've even asked non-exJW friends to please not bring it up in conversation when I'm meeting new people. (I ran into a problem in which my friends would introduce me as: This is [Elsewhere]... he use to be a JW... )