How Long has it Been since you Last Attended Meetings and What Caused...

by flipper 152 Replies latest jw friends

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  MrFreeze

  My last meeting was in November of 2010. I went to a couple funerals in 2012. Went to my sisters baptism last winter.

  I was not mentally in anymore. I was an MS regular pioneer. I wasn't getting my hours. I had stopped putting false numbers on the time slip. I told the PO I didn't want to be a pioneer anymore because I couldn't handle it. He refused to just let me stop pioneering. At the start of one meeting he told me he wanted me to meet with him and another elder after the meeting. That whole meeting I sat thinking about it and I decided I was going to take a stand. I was not only going to step down from the regular pioneer service, but I was going to step down as a ministerial servant. I wasn't going to tell them the real reason why but I was going to try to start a fade. Well it pretty much blew up in my face. They prodded me for about an hour. Told them I wasn't going to meetings anymore. It came down to their teachings.

  It is nice to not have the weight of the WT on my shoulders. I was getting physically ill as well as depression from the stress of being a JW while being mentally out. I had panic attacks. Still dealing with the issues of being mentally f**ked since birth. Lost a lot of "friends". "Friends" that I've known all my life. It still hurts. Have to remind myself that they deserted me. I didn't desert them. I'm definitely happier since I left though.
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  jemba

  I always hated it all. At 15 Id had enough, wanted to stop going to meetings so my parents kicked me out of the house.

  I returned out of fear a few years later, I found myself obsessed with armaggedon and dying- just what they want!

  I continued attending sporadically until at 38 late 2011 I learned TTATT.

  What a relief to know its all a bunch of crap, at first I was heartbroken at all the lies I was led to believe. Now I am getting happier and feeling more free everyday, I finally value my life, Im not unworthy scum deserving of death at armaggedon, Im not going to 'kill' my children by my actions. Im no longer depressed.

  I love this forum, I love TTATT.

  Thanks for this thread Flipper!! xx
• 

  Hortensia

  Not sure any more, I think it was Feb. 1982 when I quit going, or soon after that. I was severely depressed (pioneering can do that to a person) and just gave up. Saw a bumper sticker that said, "Since I gave up hope, I feel better." It turned out to be true! The bumper sticker helped; one of the last talks I attended was about the difference between a spiritual man and a fleshly man -- that convinced me I was birdfood right there. No point in trying to get their approval any more.

  Counseling helped enormously. Distance helped quite a bit, too.
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  NVR2L8

  June 13 2012 right after the final talk at the DC. The generation overlap was discussed in the WT study review and in the final talk. I had been researching the truth for quite a while and I had stepped down as a MS a few months before. Seeing the whole audience going along and applauding at the generation "new light" that had no scriptural support or even a valid and clear explanation made me realize that only brainwashed clones could go along with this nonsense. I told my wife that was it...no more meetings. A few months later I attended a funeral talk (WT info-commercial) where everyone attending were jocking and laughing before the start of the talk...Never again.
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  FlyingHighNow

  ..... you to stop attending ? Injustices ? Disagree with the teachings ? Some of both ? Or other reasons ? Are you happier now that you don't attend ?

  I stopped going in 1990.

  I stopped because the burden of the meeting schedule, field services and three assemblies/convention a year, buried me. I had so many extra responsibilities at home, big ones like caring for children with big challenges and a lot of the care for my mother. I kept thinking, Jesus said his yoke was kindly and light, yet the WT load was heavy, burdensome and my little family was cracking under the load.

  I had a list of things that made me go hmmm. Don't all JWs? Injustices played a part, too.

  I am infinitely happier now that I don't attend. A bad day out here more than beats a good day inside the org.
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  FlyingHighNow

  I'll add. I was born into and raised in the Episcopal Church. My mother had her problems, but she never used God to shame or scare us kids. My church never used God to shame or scare us. The church was the opposite of JW's, in very good ways. I didn't get involved with the JWs until I moved in with my sister and her family in 1976. My family hadn't attended church since June of 1970, when we moved to Atlanta after my parents' divorce. I was 17 when I moved in with my sister, who was studying with the JWs. I did not study with the JWs until a couple of months after my oldest brother's death. I studied off and on. I got baptized at 20. I left when I was 31. The year and a half before I stopped going, I was very irregular due to my family having strep throat for 9 solid months and a profoundly serious surgery.
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  2+2=5

  A week or so. Been busy. I do enjoy staying at home or doing other things.
• 

  JWOP

  I haven't stepped inside a KH since November 2004, during my Appeals Committee. I was disfellowshipped as an apostate, and my only regret is that I didn't have the wherewithal to handle it with my family better.
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  Aunt Fancy

  I went to the Memorial last year and started to have a panic attack and was just so depressed being there. I had felt for a long time that something wasn't right but I couldn't put my finger on it. I didn't feel the love and hadn't for years. We went to another meeting at a different hall after that and I felt the panic attack again so I really knew something wasn't right. I had read two books by that time but I didn't put it together until I read COC. My husband followed me out and neither of us have set foot in a KH since 4/12.
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  Borges

  Memorial 2007. Left right after the prayer and never set a foot in a KH again. Didn't know TTATT at this time, just felt that I don't want to do this anymore.