The mental filing cabinet where I stuffed the "wait on Jehovah" files started to overflow.
What Actually Helped You Leave The Organization?
by minimus 43 Replies latest jw friends
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JeffT
Robdar, your experience sounds like mine. These young 'uns think its all about the internet. We had to walk to the library, through snow. It was uphill both ways!
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dgp
Marked.
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not a captive
God had been kind to me before the Witnesses showed up. I knew He had answered Cornelius' prayer even when he hadn't known everything because he had forgiven me and dealt with me too. So they never were able to make me believe that they were the only ones who know the way to God.
They "Bibled me up" but finally I saw that the last thing the brothers actually cared about was Jehovah's Truth. They were all about vindicating the Faithful and Discreet Slave! They were scared about being thrown out of the synagogue.
Because I was unable to support a certain thing that came up over and over again in the literature I talked to the brothers about it. It was never resolved. Eventually I sent them a letter that said I couldn't do it anymore, that is just sit back and say nothing . They told me I couldn't talk about it to others. But it was the love of Jesus and the confidence that God would deal mercifully with me if I stood up for my conscience toward Him. The brothers told me I couldn't know any truth except through the FS. Since I already knew that God had been merciful before to an ignorant sinner like myself, I figured I should pay more attention to following Jesus than following the Branch's counsel (they wrote me a letter that was not full of Holy Spirit). I decided to move on with the God I had once trusted and begun to know before the WTS way-laid me for 22 years.
It's been since Feb. 2009 for the process to get this far. I sent my letter of disassociation 2 month ago after leaving meetings 12 months ago and ditching all my literature. It was both liberating and traumatic. Meanwhile I have seen so much about how crooked this Organization is.When the brothers asked if I was promoting a sect I told them the last thing I would ever do again is join a religion, much less start one.
I am sad for the friends that don't talk to me because I'm "infectious".
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vivalavida
In my case it was several things. About 10 years ago, I read on some website (don't remember what it was) about the Mexico/Malawi fiasco. The more I read, the more alarmed I was, until cognitive dissonance kicked in and I stopped. Even though the questions and scary thoughts lasted for months, eventually I was able to let my "wait on Jehovah" knob be cranked all the way up.
However, questions about several things and never cleared doubts kept nagging at me. For three years, about that time I was disfellowshipped while being a MS and had the common experience of thinking "well, if I'm going to die in Harmaggedon anyway, do as you please while you can". That lasted about 3 years and then I couldn't bear it anymore and went back, became an MS again and then an Elder. A week after my appointment as an Elder, the NBC news of child abuse and JWs came out. On top of that, the KM came out with that article about not reading other literature, not learning greek or hebrew and just reading the WTS information.
At that point a huge light bulb went on in my head. And the question "What are they trying to hide?" kept nagging at me. So, I gave myself permission to check everything about the organization's history, it's critics, read CoC and Christian Freedom and other books and discovered what was it that they were trying to hide and it was a huge lot!!! The rest is history.
Vivalavida!
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Broken Promises
Minimus, it was Kent Steinhaug who ran the Watchtower Observer. He comes from Norway.
Apart from the lack of love in the congregation, and doubts about various doctrines, the internet was a great help. The Watchtower Observer and Jan Haugland’s website (can’t remember the name?) had a lot of information. Also helped were various websites that were connected in a ring called “witness recovery” or something like that, which were all these personal experiences written by JWs all over the world. It helped me realised that “local” problems weren’t so local.
Then I read COC and well, the rest is history!
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minimus
Thanks, you're right, BP.
It's noteworthy that I think one person said BLOOD was the issue.
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willyloman
most people need time to make the transition to actually get out. It's not easy, especially when you have friends and family deeply entrenched
I credit this forum and the folks who post their experiences for making me realize people leave all the time for reasons of conscience and that there really is life after the WT!
I'd been struggling with doubts for several years but leaving seemed like a mountain to climb. Reading others' experiences here, I got the courage to talk to my family about whether we would ever leave "the truth" and discovered that my wife had been asking herself the same question but - like me - was reluctant to bring it up. Once the conversation was out in the open, we talked about nothing else. We bought and read Crisis of Conscience, which really lifted the veil and broke the final link in the chain. That's when we began planning our exit - another idea I got from one of the posters here - and before you know it, we were working the steps in our new "plan." Things just clicked and fell into place and pretty soon we were out.
The freedom was liberating. It's been an incredible journey.
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Finally-Free
I didn't want to be part of an organization that protected child molesters. The fact that I still believed they had "the truth" was irrelevent.
W
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minimus
No wonder the Society hates the internet.