Learning the truth about the Watchtower Society can be very painful for a number of reasons. First, it is so disconcerting to realize that the core of your existence and the foundations of your beliefs are false that it can throw you for a real loop. As Witnesses we are so confident in all of the answers we have been given, to questions that we never asked, that we mentally put ourselves up on a pedestal above the masses of poor, blind, “wicked” humanity. It sucks to realize that you are in the same place as all of the people you would look down upon previously. It is terrible when you look back and consider that your entire life up to this point has been devoted to faulty concepts generated by similarly deluded men.
Compounding this is the fact that once you learn the truth about the organization, if you are an active Witness you must continue to act as if you believe in the organization and the “unique teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses”. If you choose to leave quietly you will lose your reputation, your friends and possibly even you family. So you find yourself in the position of losing your pat sense of security in having all of the answers to mankind’s problems, your hope for the future in a paradise petting lions, and you begin to consider your own mortality. What makes it all worse is that many of us continue to go through the motions of being a Witness because of the fact that there is no way out of the religion without doing major damage to ourselves or more importantly our family.
You begin to consider that you have limited time to live on this earth and it is downright depressing to think that you will have to pretend to believe in and support a lie, that you must call truth.
There are many of us who are trapped in the Watchtower Penitentiary. Learning the truth about the organization does set you free, in terms of releasing you out of the mental prison cell you have been put in. What is funny about it is, the cell doors were never locked, we just were told that they were. However, there are many of us who even though we are released from our solitary cells, continue to roam the corridors of the penitentiary waiting for the moment when we can walk out as free men and women.
Some of us can’t bear the thought of remaining in the penitentiary for the rest of our lives and storm the gates. Others calmly and quietly wait for a door to open that will allow them to escape. Still others resign themselves to imprisonment for the remainder of their days.
As I think about my situation and reflect on how I wander the corridors of the Watchtower penitentiary with my newfound mental freedom, I realize that it is most important to stand up for what I know is right and receive my physical freedom also.
So I have determined to speak out against the wrong doctrines and practices that I see. I know that this will result in damage to both me and the ones I love. However, as a born-in who has been taught from infancy, I have always felt that it is important to take a stand for what is right, even if it means a great loss. So for me personally, I am breaking out of this prison that I have been born into. Soon I will be able to introduce myself in real life. Life is too short to allow yourself to be forever imprisoned mentally and physically by an organization that is based on a fallacy.
Psst, to those reading this that are lurking…..Your cell door isn’t locked.
SIAM