Do you remember the moment that you stopped believing that it was "The Truth"?

by freeflyingfaerie 43 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Terry

  One night I slipped between the cool sheets of my winter bed and turned over on my back with my hands laced behind my head staring at the ceiling.

  I began to pray (as I always did).

  "Heavenly Father Jehovah........." and I stopped.

  Something was different.

  What was it?

  I started again..."Please forgive me for my sins. Help me to do your will......"

  I stopped again.

  What is going on?

  Then, I knew. I really KNEW for the first time in a REAL way....

  I was just a guy lying on his back talking to himself!

  Nobody there but me!

  I may as well have been saying "Blah blah blah...blah blah...blah blah blah blah.."

  A weight was lifted! A mighty weight, indeed.

  I was just talking to my self.

  People who talk to themselves and pretend somebody else is listening are not mentally sound!

  I smiled.

  "Okay. No more of this nonsense!"

  I haven't prayed since then.

  I wasted thousands of hours on prayers talking to my invisible friend and where had it gotten me?

  If I were a piano I had been de-tuning my head!

  Mental illness? Me??

  That hurt.

  I determined I would get better. I would recover.

  Whatever had put me in that state of mind--talking to myself--would have to be rooted out.

  That was probably 20 years ago!

  Now I only talk to myself when I stub my toe getting up to pee!!

  This is my life. I get to decide what is best for myself. The rest is somebody else's ancient fantasy.
• 

  snowbird

  Sylvia when I first moved to Okc six years ago the black "brothers" in my hall were telling me that the KH used to be segregated here. I was shocked! I mean I know about segregation but you'd think in the "True Org" that wouldn't be the case but they swore it was. Is that true?

  It is the truth.

  Sylvia
• 

  fokyc

  Just a few seconds after the JW's knocked on the door in the 1950's;

  trouble is my wife totally believes the whole bundle of rubbish.

  I have tried even going along with it and studying, but it just

  becomes more like a load of horse manure, which it is!

  Then a few years ago the elders lied about their own organisation!

  SO it definitely isn't "the truth".
• 

  Anti-Christ

  I love reading all your experiences. I can not pin point an "exact" moment because I was born in and many times things would bother me, little red flags went up. although once at a meeting I was sitting at the back (as usual) and I looked at everybody and said to myself what if this is all a lie....the strangest feeling came aver me, a mix of euphoria and fear but that was not yet the moment I totally stopped believing it took a few things and finally the last drop was when I wanted to see what the WT had to say about medical marijuana and discovered that the information they had was all BS, it was the first time that I did a research on subject that all the information I had was not from the WT and that I looked at the WT informations after. Evolution, science, history all of these subjects where first taught to me by the WT and then later I would learn at school or other sources but the mind control would kick in to prevent me from accepting something that was contrary to the WT teachings. After that...well now I'm free.
• 

  Balsam

  I think for me it was a collection of small things over the last 20 years I was in tipping the scales to the negative about the witnesses. The so called brothers were very secretive about the the bad stuff going on in their families, like child abuse, wives being beaten, money problems. Kids rebeling began to make me look closer then my kids came along and I began to understand more about how the children really felt about it the forced compliance with JW rules. It happen gradually till it finally tipped the negative scale over and I had to leave. The final straw for me was my son dying and blood issue being a part of it. That ended my JW marriage and my trust in the JW religion.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I had a gradual awakening, but if there was a moment in my life when I was 100% sure after the moment but wavering before the moment, it was when I was at a convention in the early summer of 2006. One of the Governing Body members was the speaker. I had never even heard of the guy and I realized that I was supposed to "know" the truth based on trust in Jehovah's anointed. The only anointed I knew of were the GB, as I had met a handful of others but they didn't have any say-so in the doctrines.

  How could I promote the doctrine from the platform as an elder if I didn't know the least thing about the men in Brooklyn, even down to their names? I knew I was being conditioned to obey orders like a cult member instead of being upbuilt in "the truth."

  Before I could change my mind about needing to get out of the Witnesses, I went and had a lunch with my Dad (never a JW) and told him what I figured out. Once someone else knew what I was thinking, there was no turning back.
• 

  JWoods

  Sylvia when I first moved to Okc six years ago the black "brothers" in my hall were telling me that the KH used to be segregated here. I was shocked! I mean I know about segregation but you'd think in the "True Org" that wouldn't be the case but they swore it was. Is that true?

  Awildflower - if you mean Oklahoma City, when I was a member there in the 1960s and 1970s there was definately a black congregation there in the Northeast and about 6 or 7 white congregations elsewhere. There was no specific rule, but everybody pretty much stayed on their own side of the invisible line - I always took it to be as much geographic as anything.

  For what it is worth, the black congregation always met with the whites at the circuit assembly so that was integrated. The black congregation also had a baptismal pool built underneath the stage (they had a removable cover over it) and this was where everybody was baptized for a long time up until my parents built an inground swimming pool in our back yard on Council Rd.
• 

  awildflower

  Thanks Woods for that info
• 

  JWoods

  Awildflower - thanks.

  My point was that no single kingdom hall or any assembly ever had segregated facilities to my knowledge. It just sort of turned out that way in the 1960s for the one black congregation because of geographics. No WT rules whatsoever.

  We should note that black brothers came to white congregations to give the hour talk, and vice versa.

  When I went to pioneer in Clinton, Oklahoma in 1968 the congregation was integrated because there was only one in this small town.

  So, the legend of "segregated congregations" in OKC was not really true in my experience.
• 

  snowbird

  It happened in Alabama.

  Sylvia