New girl in town here for support (page 7)

jamiebowers

Welcome to JWN and the real world! Don't feel bad about comng out at 40. You got your child out, so there's still time for a good life for him or her and you too.

Scott77

	The choice to never go back gave me a huge sense of relief but now I have the regret of not doing it sooner and that my life is half over. Trying to readjust that feeling of a wasted life to one of rebirth at 40. This is my start :)
	joyfulfader

Welcome. Thanks for the post. I particularly liked that part. Its very true to most of us here. A significant part of our lives have been wasted. Regardless, we keep on. Life is good. Enjoy it.

Scott77

Showing my daughter the hypocrisy without being like the org is working. She has 2 friends in another district that she still hangs with but she sees the religion as a trap. I still have to give her the choice I think since I was never given one but she will have to see the real deal AND have other ideas to contemplate. I have also said that she cannot get baptized under my roof because we all know how it is...when r u getting baptized???? When r u getting married??? Hurry hurry hurry...I want to just put my foot down but she does not go to the KH but once in a blue moon (many many miles from old KH) and she is very turned off by the hypocrisy she is seeing firsthand...elders with dui's and elders beating their wives and kids. I just think that she has to see it for herself and make her choice as a young woman. College is right around the corner and that will take her time and energy. Right now she just loves her friends and Justin Bieber. She is an awesome young woman who is loving and smart so I am confident that she won't have any desire to be a witness. She doesn't want to be one now.

jws

If you're collecting different bibles and want to save some money, there's also a free website called biblegateway.com. They have several different translations and you can get whole chapters at a time, if not whole books. And you can easily switch translation, hit Go and see how it's worded in another translation. I count more than 30 English versions. Oddly enough, no "New World Translation". What do you think, copyright infringement or it's considered too poor a translation? And anything you can't find online, do you have a Half Price Books nearby? I used to find some great reference stuff there. I even found a green JW bible there once in nearly mint condition.

In addition to reading the different translations side by side, I heard one Bible scholar suggest reading the Gospels in parallel. That is, reading each different story side by side. So you read the birth account in one book, then in another. And so on for other tales, the last supper, betrayal, death of Judas, crucifiction, etc. Take note of the details. It was interesting (and a bit shocking) to see how there were differences here and there. Different quotes, different people, different orders of events. And we were taught to believe men did not write this, they were just being secretaries and jotting down what God dictated to them to write. So why all the contradictions? If God was the author, every quote should be identical between books. I have come to believe that like the published works of the Watchtower Society, the books of the Bible were also authored by mere men. And probably not the men we used to accept as the authors either.

You will read the things that the JWs taught you to support their doctrine as well as new things you hardly ever heard before. And some of it will seem contradictory. So go slow and figure it out and what you can accept and what you can't. But know that there are contradictions because mere men wrote it. You've just got to figure out which stuff makes sense to believe.

As for being 40, well, I left the JWs in my early 20's, so I can't relate on that score. But I did get divorced a couple of years ago at 43 and I feel younger and happier now than I did for many years. I think once you get out on your own, whether it's leaving a marriage or a controlling cult, and free of comittments to others, you'll feel better, able to be yourself finally. For the first couple of years after I left, it still felt funny to be home at night on meeting nights. Or to not have to wake up early on a weekend. You're not old and there's still plenty of time to start anew.

I'm also a northerner who moved to the south. Luckily I was already an ex-JW by then so I don't have any JWs here that know I was once one. Which makes things easier. My mother died years ago, but my dad was still alive when I left. I didn't disassociate or disfellowship. Just like you plan to do, I just faded. I did have to walk a fine line to keep my dad and other family talking to me. And when I first learned some of this stuff, I wanted to share. I dropped hints to them, tested waters to see if they wanted to hear more, etc. My advice, don't. Respect that it is their religion and if they want to practice it, fine. At one point, I was testing waters and my dad told me if I was going to continue talking about such things, we couldn't talk anymore. Better to just play along and pretend to still believe basically what they do. And with your trauma, just pretend like that's what drove you away. Worked for me as there were some people who my brother and I got on the bad side of. So my dad attributed it to that at first. If one of my sisters came to me and wanted to know more, I'd help her. But wait for them to come to you.

And I watched for years from afar. I read posts here a lot to keep up on what was going on. If there were any new "advice" on how to treat people like me, I wanted to hear it here first. That way I could react accordingly. Cherish your time with your family while you can. I'm not saying it will end, but with the Watchtower Society, who knows? They know that the internet and the so-called apostates are winning the war of attrition. And they will be trying to seal up leaks wherever they can. Who knows what the future will hold on policy? The next Watchtower could announce that if anybody has been inactive for 6 months to start treating them like disfellowshipped people. You just never know. Policy has seemed to fluctuate, but over the years, I was able to keep talking to and visiting my dad and other JW family members. That or maybe they weren't exactly following policy. My dad was a devout JW, but he leaned in favor of love and caring for people.

I found Crisis of Conscience a great book. There were people that I'd meet at the door that would argue doctrine, but I was trained to tune them out. That they're just twisting things somehow, reading out of context, etc. (Imagine me thinking it was them and not me). So if you came at me showing me Trinity or the "once saved, always saved" stuff, it wasn't going to work on me. But Franz's book is different. From what I recall, it doesn't so much go after some basic religious beliefs of the JWs. What it does is show how man-made the JWs are. How they claimed authority they should not have. How they made a LOT of mistakes. The behind the scenes look at the Governing Body I never had. I just assumed they were somehow communicating directly with God. Not so or why would they even need voting on issues? And he does attack a few doctrines. But not some basic ones like Father/Son are seperate, no hellfire, etc. And he doesn't try to replace your beliefs with new ones. That's up to you to find after you have mentally severed from the Witnesses.

Best wishes in your journey and welcome to the board.

joyfulfader

@jws Thank you so much for the valuable input. Your experience with your dad sounds like mine and you are so right...just leave it alone. My sisters faded years ago and my parents have now set a precedent so they cant shun me. They are a bit harder on me overall because i was "the good girl" who always did the right thing but i cant see how they could stand to lose us all because of a change in how to treat inactive ones. I will look up that bible website. Sounds like a great way to compare translations. I have quite a bit of work ahead of me. i so wish I was where no one had any idea i was ever associated with the witnesses but i am here and have to deal with that for now.

It may seem strange but until I introduced myself and read the posts here I kept thinking I needed help from outside sources to study to figure out what I believe (we always had to have a book to study). It never actually occurred to me to just read the BIBLE!!! Yes I am comparing and reading translations but I keep trying to use other books to figure things out. I think I am going to put away everything but the Bible. Maybe outside works will be helpful down the road but I think the Bible is the beginning as it should be (still going to read Crisis of Conscience and Hassan's books just for cult enlightenment).

Thanks so much everyone!!!

wasblind

Welcome joyfulfader

mouthy

Welcome to the family..... "OUR FAMILY"

Mouthy

joyfulfader

you guys have no idea how much your words here have encouraged me. i dont feel so alone anymore.

ziddina

"Hmmmmm...my posting notes tell me I can post 92 more times in the next 24 hrs. Doesn't mention the 10 per day limit. How is a girl supposed to vent with just 10 posts??? LOL..." Joyful fader page 1

Okay, now I'm jealous...

When I first joined, I was limited to 10 posts per day for over a year - er, maybe it just FELT like a year, 'cuz I'm such a yakkity dragon...

Anyway, welcome to the board!

Zid dragon kiss

poppers

I'd just like to add my welcome, joyfulfader. But I'd also like to add this: you are now about to enter a huge marketplace of beliefs, religions, and philosophies to explore, and it's tempting and common to simply switch from one to another. Is that what you want, to replace one set of ideas for another? Which of those beliefs is the right one, and upon whose authority does that declaration rest?

Perhaps you can allow yourself some time to let it all drop away so that you can get some distance from the whole dynamic of religious ideas, and then later, if you are so moved, you can re-enter that marketplace with a greater clarity of mind. You asked yourself some very good questions earlier about what thoughts are yours and what were given to you or provided by others. Now is your chance to find out by letting the idea of having to believe something drop away.

New girl in town here for support

Share this