by leavingwt 32 Replies latest jw friends
I'm glad to have escaped and happy for everyone else who does. It seems unbelievable that I have...adverse circumstances brought about my downfall/disfellowshipping which absolutely floored me by its injustices, but then life and meeting new people, especially my husband now, made me question so much more. This site was the final hurdle with CofC being advocated. After reading that the only way was permanently OUT. What a journey...so many losses...but worth it.
Loz x
I'm pissed off that it took me so damn long to escape...
If it hadn't been for the battering, I would have left at the age of 9 or 10... If I hadn't been so isolated from my non-JW relatives, I could have called THEM and moved in with them - one couple almost adopted me, shortly after I was born, due to the "issues" that my parents were having...
But hey! We're out now!!
Yippee!!!!
My wife and I still sometimes get chills when we realize how just one little change could’ve prevented us from waking up. My awakening boils down to preparing for a single bookstudy (in which I was substituting for the conductor) and cracking an encyclopedia, at which point I stumbled over the 607BCE chronology issue. That was the first domino.
Had the regular conductor NOT been sick, I wouldn't have been as thorough in preparing for that study and that domino might never have been tipped... and I might not have started down the path of critical thinking.
To add a bit of perspective, I had just played the role of Timothy in the 2005 DC drama a couple of months before this happened. I was convinced it was the Truf.
SBC: It sounds like you and I have similar, sobering reflections upon what might have been, etc. Scary stuff.
Freedom is amazing!!!
There were questions here & there but being a true believer I would not allow myself to think anything ill of God's organization. I like how Zoiks put it "In my mind, individuals could err and show bad traits, but Jehovah's Organization was always right and Jehovah would take care of everything."
March of this year I realized I had the heavenly hope & my awakening began I started to realize the teachings don't make sense. In April I read Crisis of Conscience, found Watchtower Comments, FreeMinds & Watchtower Documents and I reached out to Barbara Anderson. The thought of my having been betrayed landed me in the psych ward from the stress. I still could not allow myself to believe I had been lied to. I tried to look for reasons to stay and only found more reasons to go.
In June I read In Search of Christian Freedom and found JWFacts. One month ago today I started to browse this site looking for someone I knew who went thru what I was now experiencing. The next day I came across the thread with Donny's Bethel pics. I emailed him and he was a great help. I joined this forum after I read Cruzanheart's letter of disassociation www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/47789/1/My-Letter-to-the-Elders-in-My-Late-Fathers-Congregation. That letter brought me to tears. 2 weeks later I wrote my own and am now free.
I look forward to having years free behind me. I want to pay it forward and hope to be of help to someone else.
I hope for my husbands freedom.
I was a total 'believer' myself. In my eyes the organization could do no wrong. If the information came to us from a Circuit Overseer, Assembly, meeting, watchtower....and on and on. I would view it at coming from Jehovah himself. I was scared to death of apostates, I'm pretty sure it amounted to a hatred. I believed every thing I was told, one spoon at a time.
The only thing now that seems odd, having had almost two years now to look back, is that so many times I was soooo close to seeing it for what it was. Yet, I would dismiss it. I remember telling my wife, "Can you imagine how hard it would be for us, if we were wrong, and had to leave this false religion. It would be the hardest thing we ever had to do! Thank goodness we are right." LOL Little did I know!
I am amazed that we both escaped in the way we have. It will probably be official soon. I am at peace with that now, being Df'd or DAing now seems like it would be a relief.
Thanks to many here who whether you know it or not, have been such a BIG help!!!!
LeavingWT,
I've been out for nearly five years now and every so often I still get those feelings. I'll think back to ten years ago, what it felt like.....Sunday morning, bright 10am sun in my face....stepping out of the car at the end of a street and looking down.....at all....those....houses....never having a clue as to what I was going to say.....praying that every one of them would be a not-at-home. Oh yes, I still remember that sense of dread, and when I do I get down on my knees and thank whatever higher powers may or may not exist that I was able to break free.
I was like you too. The chances of me getting out were virtually nil. My service partner and I were JW "poster boys." Pioneers, ministerial servants, intelligent, well-spoken, and generally liked by everyone in the congregation. I never made it to Bethel but certainly had aspirations and submitted two applications. My one weakness was women. After years of Watchtower-imposed celibacy I got to the breaking point and it finally led to my being disfellowshipped. It took nearly two years of "drying out" time for me to have enough courage to read Crisis of Conscience, which started the exit process.
It's a hell of a thing, going from believing that you will never grow old and never die, to finally accepting that yes, you will. The one ugly question that looms before you is, "Now what?" And decades of Watchtower dependency make answering that question very difficult.
The only thing now that seems odd, having had almost two years now to look back, is that so many times I was soooo close to seeing it for what it was. Yet, I would dismiss it.
Yes! I remember visiting Randy's Watchtower News site reading the Watchtower News site from my Bethel room. I was scared to death.
Here's a Paul McCartney song that probably fits the occasion. I thus post it on your honour...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm2YyVZBL8U
V665
With the news from Barbara Anderson today my wife and I our thankful we have escaped. It's been a long jounery for us but a feeling of doing the right thing feeling. For many months now my wife keeps saying to me we escaped just in time. It has been all on this board that has help me so much in waking up from this cult. I feel so sorry for all who are still trapped and scared because of mind control to get out. I hope that very soon the WT will be exposed worldwide for what they really are. I sometimes wonder were I got the courage to finally leave but when I think about it all of you have had a part in that. The displays of your own courage. Your experiences you wrote about. Your research you all brought out. And finally your life stories that hurt you while you wrote it but at the same time help heal you of many emotional wounds you received by the hands of this cult. Yes I am happy I have made the break from this cult but it was all of you that made that possible. Thank you for all you have done for my wife and I. Totally ADD
