Wow!...Chickpea...i cried when i read your comments. I wish i could expect my mother to make the choices you have in advocating for your son. I also am ftm transgender...have moved to the oposite side of town from my mother and from all the jws who knew me. I am not "out" to my mother yet so am in constant fear of running into her unexpectedly. I think very soon i will have no choice but to disassociate myself officially and tell her who i really am and have everyones judgements out of the way so i can get on with my life.
Did you Fade Gradually or Stop Attending Meetings Quickly ? Reasons ?
by flipper 90 Replies latest jw friends
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flipper
TG- JASPER- Welcome to the board ! I feel for you my friend. Hopefully your mom will not judge you if you are open with her. It is tough to dissassociate- but I understand it may be your only route with your situation. You need the freedom in your life to move on in life with happiness. Good luck to you
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shamus100
I frigging moved and dropped out all at once - people still don't really know what happened to me.
If I ever saw them, I'd tell them. No need to disassociate, because it's playing by their rules. It's such horseshit I would never go play their b.s. game that only means something only to certain high-control group members.
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flipper
SHAMUS- My situation was kind of like yours. I moved and dropped off the radar all at once too- cold turkey without being DFed. A lot of people don't know what happened to me- but some do because my JW ex-wife blabbed all over to people that I was rebellious . So there's no telling wHAT rumors go around about me. I actually heard from one JW I ran into that he thought I was DFed . LOL ! Funny- nobody told me ! I told him my story straight up how I won my appeal of my DFing and how unjust the elders were. It really made him think. I'm like you- if I see a JW I'll explain why I left if they ask. After 7 years out- I have nothing to hide
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MrMonroe
It was never a conscious fade, but having a couple of babies helped give my wife and me an excuse to ease out. I was convinced it was the truth but hated the meetings, the patronising, the insincerity, the pretence, the power games, the robotic attitudes, the time-wasting assemblies and the "brothers" with whom I felt I had less and less in common. I would leave immediately the meetings were over. My wife hated the meetings too and we would take it in turns to stay home with one of the kids. When we did go, it was often for only half a meeting. At assemblies we'd go for lunch just to be seen, then leave again.
We pretended to do field service for the last couple of years, attending the group and then saying we were off to do calls, but go shopping and then drive home to get changed. When someone told me about the UN brouhaha I took an even greater dislike to the guys at the head of the organisation. I read bits of Franz's memoir via links at Wikipedia, which made me hate them even more.
I missed a memorial because I was working that night and didn't care. My wife and kids went, but no one was game to ask them where I was. By then I guess they knew I was very sour about the whole thing. I bought Crisis of Conscience and my wife began reading it first and told me she was never going back. I told I'd keep going from time to time, just to maintain some link with God's Organisation and make sure I survived Armageddon. Then I started reading the book and realised I could never, ever go back. April 2008 was the last time we went.
We felt relieved and so happy. It brought my wife and I closer together. Witnesses, meanwhile, avoided us. No one asked if we were OK or had a problem until the PO caught up with my wife six months later and asked her why we'd stopped going. She told him we were happy and didn't want to discuss it. The same guy phoned me a few months ago to grill me about something I'd done and I told him his phone call was inappropriate. Friends interstate have tried to put the guilt trip on us, but we told them we don't want to talk about it.
We'd rather not be DFd because it would complicate business matters, but really we don't care any more.
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breathing
i stopped believeing slowly, it was like a see saw, i would suddenly see through it, but then get scared that this meant id have to leave the religion i was raised in, and our family was always "in the middle of the cong", then id study and "prove" it to myself for a while,
then my gut instinct would get through again and in the end this gut instinct won out,
i stopped pioneering, became a "weak" publisher for an age, and then one day, i just could not make myself go anymore, i was just clingin on cos everyone i knew and all my family was in it, but it was soooo tiring pretending,
i then stopped, but moved out of the family home soon after and 20 miles away so i became anonymous,
i suppose cos i was a sister, they didnt feel id be a threat, so i was just ignored, that was 10 years ago,
i still feel quite sad about the people i left behind and who have nothing to do with me now except saying hello if i see them when i visit family, its such a waste of friendships that could have been lifelong if it wasnt for a stupid religion,
bloody hell its not even like we ever talked about anything spiritual when we socialised, our friendships werent Really based on a religion they were cos we got along, but then as soon as you leave, SUddenly, the religion becomes sOOOOOO important eh!
good to hear everyones stories, x
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d
I left in 2008. But I started having doubts much sooner than that.I started having doubts about the anointed, that never sat well with me, even as a child.The fade with my family was fairly quick,We all just stopped going for personal reasons.We left in November of 2008 but I forget the date of that month. Anyway I have been an ex Jehovah Witness and an Atheist for about 4 and a half years. It feels good to be free
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flipper
MRMONROE- It sounds like you & your wife have faded off the map really good- if not entirely off the radar. It's amazing isn't it how former aquaintances , JW relatives or elders try to come back to us and allegedly try " saving " us ? I'm baffled by that in JW's. I mean, what part of NO don't they understand ? I'm glad you've found happiness.
BREATHING- I know how you feel. I too had doubts for years but tried pretending and put them in the back of my mind. But it gets to a point we can't pretend anymore that it's a lie. It truly is a lie. So like you I lost lots of close friends I THOUGHT I had, but I realized they were all conditional friends based on how I performed in the JW cult. Hang in there. I hope you've made a good network of new friends.
D- Yeah, I hear you- I've always had doubts about the " anointed " as well. It's such a class distinction pushing superiority. I'm glad you have your freedom now ! Take care
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d
Thanks flipper.Those Jw's I think will not last another ten or twenty years with all of these changes.
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flipper
D- I hope you are right. I hope the WT society falls apart also in 20 years or so. It would be a realization of a dream for me