Are You Still attending Meetings? If so read on.......

by cantleave 25 Replies latest jw friends

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    OK - I couldn't keep away from this board - but I lasted longer than a week (Outlaw!)

    Here I am sitting in the sun on a beautiful Sunday afternoon drinking beer catching up with the posts on this board.

    I just had to write a message to anyone still attending meetings, despite knowing that they are a forum to propagate lies and deceit.

    PLEASE - stop wasting the precious hours of your life doing something that you know is fruitless.

    QUIT attending, don't worry about fading away slowly, i tried that, it was stressful and didn't work. JUST STOP!!!!!!

    We stopped going to all JW meeting in March, we haven't been hounded and life has improved beyond anything we we could have anticipated. Our kids are happier, we are calmer and less stressed.

    8 months ago I was elder, I am now a properly functioning human being. I haven't lost status just needless anxiety.

    I haven't lost friends, if people no longer want to talk to me because I don't go to meetings or knock on doors, they aren't really friends.

    My family will have to accept me for what I am.

    As for work colleagues, they need to to communicate in order to get the job done, there is no need to talk about the cult or my position (or lack of it) within the congregation.

    These things worried me and stopped me from doing what I knew was right for me and my family. Once I realised these things don't matter exiting was easy and natural.

    So my friends don't worry about what might happen, just do what you know is right - get out and never go back to the Kingdom Hall.

    Now I have said my piece I'm going to get another beer.

  • Black Sheep
    Black Sheep

    Cheers

    Chris

  • cattails
    cattails

    Cantleave, your reasoning is "beer reasoning" you're looking

    at the world through a bubbly golden haze. In my case I stand

    to lose family if I just "STOP" it all. Because to do so would mean

    that the wheels of the WT inquisition would be set in motion

    against me. As it is right now I'm just the daughter of an elder,

    a girl with problems, a bit too much of a free spirit, but someone

    who would be quick to do the "Christian" thing and help anyone

    who needed it. So I'm at an impasse.

    The idea of having several beers in the sunshine by myself just

    doesn't appeal too much to me. Give me a glass of wine any day

    & looking out at the sunset, now that's nice. But as it is, it's

    Sunday morning and I'm having a second cup of coffee and

    reading the comments that came in overnight at JWN.

    Glad to have you back on the forum! You just lived up to your nick.

  • wobble
    wobble

    Hey Cantleave !

    A whole bloody week !!!!

    I cannot last more than a few hours without popping in to JWN !!

    I am off to play bowls now, but will think of you and yours as I sup a few beers after the game, ( or during)

    I suppose cold turkey, just stopping may not work for some, but I think it works better for most, by the time they realise you ain't never comin' back, so much time has passed that they are embarassed to do a major check up as they havn't done a friendly call.

    The friendly call, usually by 'phone, when it comes can be fobbed off, "we have been unwell, busy, depressed, whatever", "we will call you if we need any help" etc. etc. more time passes and gradually you are in the clear, as long as you keep your trap shut.

    Yup, for most just disappearing works well.

    love to Nugget and the children,

    Wobble

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    It helps if you have caller ID, because sometimes the hounders will hound you if you stop going to the boasting sessions. If they do call, do not answer the phone.

  • Scarred for life
    Scarred for life

    I agree with you Can'tleave. It's the best way.

  • shopaholic
    shopaholic

    Cantleave, you're spot on! And all I've had this morning was a cup of coffee.

  • Pistoff
    Pistoff

    Same advice; just stop going. They will leave you alone if you work hard to avoid them.

    Not ONE elder or any other witness has asked me why I stopped going.

    P

  • zoiks
    zoiks

    I can see the reasoning behind slowly fading, or going for the sake of family. For me, cold turkey was it. Once I stopped there was no going back. It hasn't been easy - there are some family members who do a good job of combining emotional instability with religious fervor to make us miserable on occasion. But that is fading as time goes by.

    Less stress, a happier family, and the freedom that comes with being one's authentic self full-time are all things that make cold-turkey worth it for me.

  • tiki
    tiki

    It's different for everyone. Some quit cold turkey, some gradually fade. I faded very slowly and really didn't even realize I was doing it at the time.

    I was going out of rote, habit...when it is all you ever knew for religion, you accept it. I hated the judgementalness, the hypocrisies and the boring, mind-numbingness. It was all I could do to stay awake at meetings, they were so dammm boring. I quit the TMS years ago... I had panic attacks everytime I'd enter an assembly....so it got to the point where my husband wouldn't want to go because he knew we'd get there and have to turn around and come back home. KH panic attacks weren't so bad....I couldn't do FS for years.....and never pieced it together that my brain was telling me QUIT THIS FOOLISHNESS!!!

    A few years ago, I was down to nothing, but still thought of myself as a Witnesss, inactive....and it was the day of the Memorial. I was beside myself all day long, fretting because I felt I HAD to go, but really didn't want to. My husband asked me late in the day if I was still planning on going to the "shindig"....yep, that's what he called it....and I said yes, we have to. Then it came time to get dressed and I couldn't do it...and I went to him and said I didn't want to..............and he told me then and there I never had to go to a KH again in my life. I felt this enormous weight lift off me....seriously. It was the most liberating and peaceful feeling.

    I've never looked back. I read stuff here for several months before actually starting to post. We have Crisis of Conscience and have both read it. It was no rude awakening for me, though because my father had been an elder and he was badly abused by his "peers". I knew a lot of the BS that goes on, so my respect for the organization had been shot years ago. My hubbie is still playing footsie with them...an elderly ex-elder calls on him. Very nice sweet deluded man....but I will have nothing to do with them.

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