6 years. I would sit at the meetings bored to death at the same dribble year after year. My mind would wonder and I began thinking about the concept of the Bible itself. So much just didn't make sense. Then with all the doctrine changes and rank hypocrity in the congo it took about 6 years total to finally DA myself...
How Long Did It Actually Take You To Leave The Organization?
by minimus 28 Replies latest jw friends
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Bubblie
It took me at least a few years of thinking about it but when I made up my mind to leave, I just didn't go back anymore. That part wasn't hard.
Kit
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WTWizard
They used up their last chance in 1996, when they told me that I should just meet men at a$$emblies. That took all the potential for anything worth going right away--and, I spent the next 9 years playing games with them. The purpose for that was to waste their time, giving them false hope, and hoping to distract them so they would bauble on other major issues. It also served to confuse them as to whose job it was to hound me back.
Once 2005 got here, I pulled the plug totally. I simply quit going to any more boasting sessions--I was already going to so few that they wondered which congregation I go to, and probably still do to this date. I wonder what they are going to do when I am not at the Grand Boasting Session when the "a generation" bomb drops--and I already heard it way back in the middle of May.
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not a captive
I wrote a letter raising a concern of mine with a matter in the literature. The warm brotherhood morphed into... the Organization.
That was Feb.2009. I wrote my letter of DA March 10 2010.
In between there was a sort of judicial review of the matter, some remarks by our new C.O., there were a few shepherding meetings before I presented the issue to the Branch. Another 3 months ,a letter, another meeting to see if and then I DA'd.
They had told me from the begining that I could not even mention the matter with fellow Witnesses. I quit going to the meetings more than a year ago.
The process was a revelation of how little the Organization works for the "joy"of fellow Christians or for Jehovah. The long quiet while things sort of processed through let me try to understand how a faithful sister could get in the situation that I was in.
It took me just over a year.
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Designer Stubble
After being in for close to 40 years, I decided to research my decades of doubts and started reading. My first book was CoC with many to follow. Between reading CoC and leaving was a period of ONE YEAR. It took me so long as I wanted to research everything, including the origins of the Bible before making a final and definite decision.
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jamiebowers
Hey, don't feel bad Min. It took almost seven years of beatings and being strangled and terrorized for me to leave. The first time the elders told me to "wait on Jehovah" I knew in my gut there was something terribly wrong with the organization, but I held on until doctors and judges took action against my abusive jw husband. When the organization came back with their standard answer for me to keep waiting on Jehovah, I ran for my life still believing the Watchtower was God's earthly organization. I was really slow on the uptake!
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wobble
It only took a few weeks from the time I decided that the Governing Body had taken the position that only belongs to Jesus Christ.
I attended the memorial and one more meeting, and that was it. (2008)
Looking back there was a long lead up to this though, in 2006/7 I stopped preaching having decided that 1914 was not in scripture, I could not teach a lie.
This followed on from many years of rejecting the wacky stuff, like Cedar Point Ohio conventions fulfilling prophecy etc.
I wrongly felt that "Jehovah" would correct the nonsense.
Once they went beyond the pale it was a few weeks, I have not stepped in to a hall or assembly since.
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MMXIV
Faded for nearly a decade. I just didn't buy the 1995 generation change, was bored mindless by repetition and precise prophecies that were assumptions based on assumptions. Most of the "common sense" I heard from the platform was rubbish. By the time the Silent lambs stuff came onto TV it was just a matter of time.
I did as little as I could get away with. Went to college, sorted out my career, bought a property and was financially independent.
I reduced the number of friends I had in the truth to a handful that weren't in my KH so kept a really low profile. Was considered very weak by the end. Then came that moment of deciding to stop going - just told family that I wasn't going to go to any more meetings. Bang - the fallout was upsetting and I was watching my back for a while.
I'd built up a surrogate social world at my work which gave me the confidence to leave. Even though I knew the Truth was a lie - it is pretty hard to leave.
Free forever and it just gets better.
MMXIV
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not a captive
Hey, Min, I guess I should amend my post from "It took me just over a year." to "I got in over 21 years ago and it has taken 21 years to get out"