I wish the best for you in your marriage. And I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets depressed after assemblies and conventions. I didn't go to my special assembly day in September, because I was just getting over my depression after the convention. Now, the circuit assembly in January makes me nervous. Maybe, there will be a blizzard. One can hope, but, then, the blizzard usually starts after you get there.
A freshly minted Assembly Hall, as seen through the eyes of a free man
by sd-7 18 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
sd-7
AudeSapere--I concede that I'm reading something into the architecture that probably isn't there. I'm just paranoid about it, that's all. Second point, I have discussed these issues with my fiancee. I'm not entirely stupid, you know. I wouldn't dare marry her without saying SOMETHING. She was unfazed by my concerns with our beliefs, pretty much threatened to leave, so I backed off of the issue. Is it immoral to pretend to believe something or else lose the woman you love most? Certainly. But the Society stepped in the gray area a long time before I was even thought of. Anything I've done is perfectly justifiable if they're allowed to continue to exist.
Third, she's not a die-hard JW, but she, like most others, believes it is the truth(TM). I tried the path of honest discussion about this, and it was met with disapproval. So, I did what was necessary to preserve the relationship. I accepted the lie as truth. I'm willing to live with that decision because in the end, it doesn't matter anyway. It's just another religion. Believing it or not is irrelevant. But if the difference between believing and not believing is the difference between losing her and most of my family, then I see no other logical option. Morality doesn't enter into it so much anymore. The organization was gracious enough to relieve me of the burden of conscience.
As for the 'hounders', well, obviously they're there for security reasons. But if I was trouble, I'm sure I would've been easily spotted and tackled well in advance in such a wide-open area anyway--another benefit to add to the one you mentioned. I just walked in with a woman and a child, completely unarmed. What the heck was I going to do, stick 'em up while I waited for her to change the kid's diaper?
I never asked for things to be this way. I never intended to find out these things about this religion. I only sought to understand why we felt it necessary to turn off our compassion and our conscience and lose touch with the spirit of Christ all because of adherence to the letter of the law. That, I thought, was everything Jesus stood against. So if anyone's perpetrating a fraud here, it's them, not me. So please, point the finger at the people who are responsible for putting many, many people like myself into impossible situations. Thank you very much.
SD-7
-
Goshawk
sd-7,
Hang in there. You alone know what you can or can't endure. Lots of good advice and well merited concern in this thread. Be careful not to fall into the role of a martyr because you are numb from the past.
However you might be applying Tzun Tzu's principle of choosing a "death ground" (a place of no options except to fight or die) for the battle in order to ensure that you have to perform the mission to survive; I don't know.
Remember that you do matter and you do have value.
Goshawk
-
out4good3
I've had everything else taken from me. I've nothing left but her now. One day, I may lose her, or be reprogrammed. That's the chance I'm willing to take. There's nothing left for me. If I gain her even for a moment, as I have done, I can die having fully lived. That's all any man can ask for in this life, on this God-forsaken planet.
Damn......
While I don't think any woman is worth the price of sanity, she must be one hell of a woman to throw yourself on the blade to that degree.
Good Luck!!!!
-
Balsam
SD-7,
Something occured to me when I read your experience at the assembly. You were there because your fiance' wanted you to attend with her and you love her. But at the same time you've learned that the JW organization is not what you thought it was. Is your love for your sweetheart strong enough to endure her continuing active believe in the JW's? Will she still love you if you try to fade once your married? Love is a wonderful but strange emotion that can go away as quickly as it came if it causes us doubt, pain, or distrust. The reason I say this is because I recall a sister years ago who married this brother who was hanging the JW fence so to speak. She was passionately in love with him and he with her. They married and she became frustrated that he didn't make it to all the meetings. That frustration turned to anger and in the next 5 years they were married. She had come to hate is resistance for the JW way of life. They stayed married and the last time I saw them was after they had been married for 15 years. Their eyes were dulled and the passion and their love seemed tarnished and wounded. Not long before I saw them together I saw him alone at a Lowes hardware shopping. I asked him how he was doing and he said ok but he looked so depressed. He said he and Gail just didn't see eye to eye on spiritual things and they both felt exhausted and sad and he didn't know if he could continue on. He didn't attend meetings anymore, she attended them all alone. They never had any children together.
That is not to say the love you have for each other can't survive the spiritual divide but it will take a lot of self sacrifice on your part to be as she wished you to be. Can you be strong enough to be that self sacrificing for love? Your fiance is a fortunate woman, you must love her very very much. I've heard of love surviving some amazing times in the JW's I hope yours is one of those stories.
Ruth
-
jamiebowers
My dear friend, I hope you'll take to heart the kind advice that most have given you. You know that I agree with them. Good luck, and God speed.
-
sd-7
Thanks for your advice, everyone. I'm no martyr. I'm just another bug under the wheels of the big machine. I think our biggest problem is thinking that we're somehow relevant in the first place. This is what the organization made us believe. I always knew better. I just never knew how irrelevant we really were until now.
Sun Tzu said many things I've found to be useful. "If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles." I know my enemy, and now, I know myself better than I realized. I know what's coming. Not in perfect clarity, but I can feel what's coming.
It is not my intent to fade at all, in fact. I was intending to leave, but she showed up again, and in that moment I knew there was no other way. I have lost the favor of my family and the organization by now. I may never regain it if I voice any doubts to the wrong people. But regardless, I'm not fading. I'm going back to them. I see no other choice. I'm not leaving.
The words of Prince Malagant come to mind once more. "Self-sacrifice is easy. It is when you must sacrifice someone you love, that puts your convictions to the test." The reason I became an apostate in the first place is because I could not sacrifice her. Now, I must become a humble servant of Jehovah who puts his trust in Jehovah's organization and in Jesus' brothers, the faithful and discreet slave class.
If I fail, if I lose her, so be it. All these years, I hated myself for being unable to break a bad habit. And then for falling in love with females who rejected me when I could merely have controlled those feelings or avoided those girls/women in the first place. For more than a decade, I pondered what tool I could possibly use to inflict the greatest vengeance upon myself for the sins I committed against heaven, against peace, and against myself. I believe, at last, I have found that tool. I have found the perfect vengeance, the perfect punishment. Now I will finally face every bit of the suffering I've deserved for years of incompetence and weakness. Now I will knowingly become a slave, for as long as I draw breath.
This, for me, is the single most beautiful moment of my existence. To live a complete lie that is utterly intolerable, to finally know true fear of loss. To finally know pain as intimately as a passionate lover. That's just the beginning, really. It's nothing compared to what many of you have been through. But for me, it's everything I've ever wanted to inflict upon myself for everything I've done.
Now that I know that, I believe this journey will be much, much easier. It will not be happy at all. And that's the point. I never counted on being happy. Now, I never have to again.
But I'll be around if I happen to have any new nonsense ideas to post about. At the very least, I just want to keep an ear in reality, just because it's nice to do. But I can't leave. I don't really think it would accomplish anything anyway. I'd just find a way to be enslaved to something or someone else. Better to be slave with what I know than to be a slave with what I don't.
SD-7
-
JWoods
This may be very close to being one of the saddest stories I have yet read on this board. And I mean that sincerely.
At least not taking a blood transfusion would probably be a pretty quick way and you would likely be pretty well drugged up.
Indeed for a fader or questioner, the robotized & lobotomized assembly is the true test of personal conscience...I hope the poster is having a serious one and that this is the source of this thread.
-
ninja
record everything....ask awkward questions....prepare the questions in advance ....prepare for any scripted answers they give you ...then give them
another one to chew on
everybody leaving try recording the events.....and get them online