by BERNARD 27 Replies latest jw friends
Mom & Dad (unless I call and press it)
sister (still lives w/ parents)
Aunt & Uncle
3 cousins & their spouses
grandmother
Sis-in-law (my bro is DF'd) and nephew
All this and I'm not even DA'd or DF'd
closer
Failing is not falling, it is staying down and not picking yourself back up!
friend a mine invited me to his weddin years back. His Jehovahs parents looked at the weddin list and when they saw my name there announced, because I was chopped by the organization,that he had to strike me off the list.
He said no, so they said choose between us or him.
His own parents didnt go to the weddin because he chose me.
I thought that was pretty bloody big.
My mother
My younger sister
My older sister and her husband, along with their 3 young children
Wow, I thought I had it bad. I'm thankful that my extended family is not JoHo. It must be hard to have EVERYBODY turn their back on you.
AMarie
CCRRAAZZZY!
People not going to their child's wedding cos theres someone DF there!
Well it just shows how hypocritical they are...because I went to a wedding last year where the brides brother was DF and he attended, so did the brides parents who are JW and a bunch of other JW friends. I attended and had a great chat with the DF guy in full view of them all.
Shunning is OK when it suits them. There are not enough of my family who are JW to shun me, they live far away anyway. My mum is JW but I live with her so she cant really shun me.
I left the KH and teachings that truly hurt my heart to continue in. One needs to follow their conscience, and gut feelings. When I did this, at the time I thought ALL those friends of many years would be my friends because they cared about me, and my family. In reality, I learned I was always the better friend to them, than they ever were to me. For my friendship was alway loyal to them, not the cult they cling to. It still hurts. But they're friendship,is not worth the price of selling my soul to the Watchtower Publishing entity. It is interesting, because when I first stopped attending meetings, it was due to the devestation of what happened with our family that is being covered on Dateline. The sheer pain of abandonment and betrayal of trusted friends, and spiritual leaders, ripped our hearts. But God always lays a way to grow from the pain, and the experience taught me to look at and research the teachings we lived by, and it was truly like waking up from a long sleep. I and my family learned what "truth" is and is not. We are doing fine now without those "friends". Yet if anyone of them every needed me or any one of our family, knowing us, we would always be there for them no matter what. AND THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US AND THEM.
Hmmm... My Mother has disowned me for leaving and hasn't spoken to me in over a year. My sister thinks she's so godly and doesn't speak to me. I've missed watching my baby sister grow up, she is now 10 and we don't even know each other. If she saw me out on the street, she wouldn't know me. My best friend, Tasha and her sister. My whole former cong. It was a very small town and a small cong of about 40 publishers so we were all close, like a family. They all look down their noses at me when I am in town.
OH, the day my mother annonced that she had disowned me (standing in my living room) she stood on the stoop and proceeded to spit on my husband. Now, my mother being HEP B Positive could have found herself with a large lawsuit for attempted murder, but we didnt' feel that was appropriate at the time. Although now I wish we had gone through with it. We really could use the money and they really shouldn't have all that drug money lying around in the bank if they are such good Christians, YWIM?
Shelly
Former victim and recovering wonderfully from a broken spirit
Smile, because we all have been freed from slavery!!
I'm not DFed or DAed but I can say that ALL of my witness friends have shunned me. I used to make a point to walk up to them in a store and say hi, how ya doing. But they always looked nervous. Now what pissed me off is I have never said anything "apostate" to a single witness. All I did was to stop attending. Only one witness has been honest with me. After I told him to stop by for a visit he told me that he considers me "dangerous" because he has doubts about the organization himself. I told him we could talk about sports and that religion didn't have to be the topic. He won't come by.
My only family in there is my son and my son maintains contact, but very little.
Never Squat With Yer Spurs On
Reading all your stories I feel lucky because my whole family decided we hated being witnesses and disassociated ourselves. The only people who shun us are members of the old congregation we went to. That's not bad at all seeing as how towards the end, we depised them all. The hard part is I have a JW student (I teach) and I am afraid of her finding out I'm DA'd, because then she might want a new teacher. She's really smart and I hope she doesn't stay in the organization.
My mother speaks to me...however all her sisters shun her and I. I am not DF'd or DA'd. I drifted!
3 aunts
6 cousins
Uncles-all dead-did while alive
Former "friends" all. Not one witness came to my wedding. My mother only invited her "worldly" friends.
my sister and her husband
my brother and his wife
my dad shunned me for about a year after i da'd. i was still living at home. it was hell. but then his mom called him on it. she said to him something like, mike, we didn't shun you when you left our religion to become a jw. after that, i got my dad back. :)
everyone at my former hall shuns me, except for the few that have since left. it's weird, the times i go back to the hall, i get lots of smiles, a pat on the back but no one says anything! lol, except this one guy. he is my best friend's (who's inactive) uncle. a very sweet man. he just walked up to me at the hall and started asking me how i was and what i was doing and how great it was to see me! i loved it!
hugs to all who are shunned. it's nice to know that others are experiencing this same bullshit as me.
love
harmony
