My last meeting was the end of December 2011. I saw too much over the top hypocrisy and politics plus the 1914/generation thing bugged me as well as no birthdays but baby showers and wedding anniversaries are fine. Waaaay too many double standards. Tell a householder to analyze their own beliefs and change no matter what and jw's ask one valid but unanswerable question and r labeled apostates. It's the arbitrary labels placed upon ones based on which set of elders one gets in their game of spiritual roulette. An elder stopped by the other day. Just one. I told him that I was NEVER coming back. He said "but I want you to live". I said "for the first time in my life, I am".
How Long has it Been since you Last Attended Meetings and What Caused...
by flipper 152 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
punkofnice
It was the meeting after the grand boasting session where they introduced 'overlapping generations'(TM). Overlapping(TM) was the final straw. I'd had serious doubts over a fairly short time period.
But overlapping(TM)............I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry.
I should have cried!
I announced to my family that the Governing Body was wrong. At the time I was certain Satan had infiltrated and turned the WBT$ 'apostate'(TM).
I'm now an agnostic/atheist/couldn't careless-ist.
My uber JW wife left me 5 months ago. I've committed no 'sin'(R) apart from getting DA'd for going to a church at that time. The wife said she didn't leave me because of 'the truth'(TM). This confirmed to me that she DID leave because of the WBT$..........there was no other reason. Especially after she'd told me a few times: 'I only married you because you were a Jehovah's witness!(TM)'
I hold a deep loathing for the GB. Don't anyone tell me to let it go....I can't. If I was in company alone with a GB member and there was a carving knife with us........goodbye GB member!
-
whathehadas
I hold a deep loathing for the GB. Don't anyone tell me to let it go....I can't. If I was in company alone with a GB member and there was a carving knife with us........goodbye GB member! Punkofnice
LMAO punkofnice I agree. Give me a baseball bat though and a Ball pin hammer. I would like them to experience some agonizing pain.
I have'nt been to a meeting since July '09 of the DC. I think I went to 2 days out of the 3 and I left after Lunch on that Saturday. I JUST could not take it anymore. I was fed up with allllll the BS and fake friends. I'm relieved to be out and feel somewhat normal.
-
punkofnice
whatthehades - LOL. Yeah. I think a little revenge would make me feel better!
TBH. I'm glad to be out of the cult and the further away from it I get is the less I remember about how I felt when I was under 'mind cleansing'(TM '53)
-
donny
The last meeting I attended was in January of 1992. I took time off after that to peruse the local libraries and I came across "Crisis of Conscience" by Ray Franz and "Apocolypse Delayed" by James Fenton. After I finished those books, I knew I would never darken the floor of a Kingdom Hall again.
Donny
-
rowan
11 years ago in February. I had been DF the year prior and was planning to leave the country once reinstated. They did not want to reinstate me. But I had done my effort and my father supported my career move. The hall had a long hallway to the street. It is one of the unforgettable moments of my life, running towards the street through that hall, knowing that I would never have to step on it again.
Then I met my husband and he set me mentally free. I attended meetings after that (I got reinstated after several years, so I could see my parents again) but I was free. Those don't count.
-
20yearfader
It's been 21 years since i attended a meeting.One of the reasons i stopped going was that i was in a relationship with a worldly girl.My father who was an elder told the co about it and it led to me being public reproofed.After that i was done, my father and the other elders were brought in to replace the old body of elders because of a power struggle.Every move i made was disected by the elders that had been deleted, i even had one approach me in the street after i left,try to persuade me to talk to him in confidence about what i was doing since i was wasnt attending the meetings anymore.Bottom line i'm much happier since i left and i will never go back.
-
flipper
You are all so brave in stopping attending meetrings ! Remember- WE are all survivors ! Something to be proud of ! Keep the great experiences coming ! Thanks for sharing- all of you ! Peace out, mr. Flipper
-
OnTheWayOut
I faded out by the Memorial of 2007. I stopped totally at that point. I went one year later, while on vacation, to the Memorial of 2008. I have a thread about it on JWN. I just needed a ride to the airport and traded a Memorial attendance for that ride.
Since then, I attended a single wedding at another K.H. with people that don't know I faded and I attended one funeral Memorial for my aunt recently at a K.H. where nobody knows anything about my status. That was kind of creepy, going back into a cult speech center, but once you have fully taken the red pill, there's no being fooled again.
I was never burned by a congregation. Nobody was trying to DF me and nobody made me do anything against my will. No family member was humiliated. I was never shunned for something.
None of that.
I just knew something wasn't right. It had been bugging me since being appointed an elder just before the 1995 change in "generation" and it had been bugging me when I saw elders giving their own family special treatment in avoiding judicial matters and it bugged me to hear at an Elders School that the Watchtower-defined "sins" of elders could be overlooked in the exact same circumstances that they would never be overlooked for a non-elder, with continued elder service being proof that they should be overlooked.
There was a small amount of injustices I saw, but not to me or mine. There was a small amount of favoritism I saw. These added to the mix. So one day after trying to figure out what was wrong, I said to myself- "I google everything. Why don't I google 'Jehovah's Witnesses?'" When I did, my eyes were quickly opened up to the United Nations thing. I knew nothing about it. There was Ray Franz. I knew nothing about him. There was the parking fee scandal for conventions- while I never knew about it, I remember the same thing happening in Columbia, SC about the year 1993 or so. There was so much.
I think I would have walked away eventually without all that. The work was not a real joy. The whole printing company was about productivity and selling those damned magazines and books. When they gave them away for free, then it was about putting money in the box. It wasn't what I thought it was when I joined. But I might have left thinking it was really the truth and the problem was with me. I am glad I know the problem is not with me.
You know how they kept telling us we were the happiest people on earth because we knew the real truth. I pretended, to myself, that it was true. But I am truly much happier now that I am out. I am happy when I have real friends who can have their own opinions on guns, birth control, education, holidays, politics, and whether Big Foot exists. If we disagree, they won't turn me in to the thought police or shun me for the rest of my life.
-
speargrass55
My last was a COs talk about what youths should do with their lives. Dude was boasting that he had no higher education. Intact he knows no prominent brothers who'd had higher education. You don't look for employment with a company that is going out of business. I was sitting in the front row. It was either scream something at him or walk out. Left halfway through never to go back. I attended the DC later and walked out when that talk came on. It was 2010 I think.