What was YOUR wake-up call before you left the JW´s organization?

by Mr Fool 64 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  sherrie11

  Alone in a hospital bed for two months' a curiosity job'. death of a child. but the only encouragement i got was when are you coming back to the meetings. And dont take the blood!! the time alone gave me time to rediscover that i didnt have to cowtail to this mob and a husband who was ignorant of what i was going through. and a daughter lost separated from her mother left with a man who professed to be christian but in reality a liar and very cruel emotionally man to her.

  I paid out on myself for five years knowing that i was damned no god to pray to daughter confused. the truth about the truth came to me in about 2002 when i discovered the internet. and typed in jehovahs witness's
• 

  Calebs Airplane

  I noticed so many unbiblical teachings and so many things wrong with the Organization years before finally leaving.... blood policy, disfellowshipping policies, field service reports, the elders' fakeness during the CO visit... the list goes on and on....

  But I kept holding on because of one thing.... 1914

  As silly as this sounds, I attributed all the negative things to "imperfection" and thought that this must be Jehovah's Organization because he allowed Russell to "predict" 1914...

  But when I read Gentile Times Reconsidered, I became furious... How dare they flat out lie to all of us like that? I became even more furious when I discovered that the 2,520 year (7 Times) calculation actually originated with John Aquila Brown in 1823 (not Russell 50 years later)

  That was it for me... I immediately started my fade... Actually, it was more like running for the exit and never looking back.
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  rubadubdub

  Mum, like you I was a lone JW in an "unbelieving" family from age 9-19. I grew up Pre-1975 and married an ex-Bethelite who began fading when our children were under two years old. Later, our two kids left the bOrg, one DF’d, the other DA’d. I was the last woman standing, and decades of cognitive dissonance was making me crazy. How was I supposed to love and live in subjection to my “apostate” hubby and listen to the brothers’ constant reminders that soooo many people (including my children) were going to die at Armageddon? I was just not going to shun my son once he left home, and I felt the noose of control tightening.

  Of course, I knew the “overlapping generation” doctrine was a scam. That was my doctrinal last straw. When I first heard it, I thought, “That’s crap!” I guess I just wasn’t ready yet.

  I had an out-patient hospitalization in early 2011 for severe depression. In May, something just snapped, “If one more person tells me my kids are going to die. . .” I was out by July 3 after the last day of my D.C. From the outside looking in, I knew I was in a cult. It took me a few months before I began my online research and learned TTAT.

  I chose my family and my sanity over the WTB$, and guess what-- no more depression!
• 

  Fernando

  The deep but hidden contempt the Pharisees aka "elders" aka "ruling religious clergy class" have for the "unabridged gospel" or full "good news" in particular key ingredients such as "personal salvation" and "imputed righteousness".

  ---

  (Why does the "true religion" secretly blind its followers to the "Good News" according to Paul, Moses, Isaiah and Psalms?)
• 

  sspo

  144k go to heaven. I always had a hard time accepting that and trying to prove that from the book of revelation.

  A book written in signs and symbols.

  Internet research of the watchtower opened my eyes about this religion being a cult.
• 

  scooterdoody

  Primary reason, when a committee was attempting to force me to stay with a psychotic, abusive, mentally ill and drug addicted husband. Then they had the audacity to public reprove me for reproaching my husband when I spoke out against him. Thank the Lord, this was the proverbial straw for me.

  Additionally I had really started to question the bulls**t I had been taught. Another, big thing I had noticed, for a long time, and never had the courage to ask someone: did you ever notice in the book studies that so many times the question did not fit the answer in the paragraph. I thought I was the only one not seeing the obvious; but didn't have the courage to confront out of fear of being labeled "weak".
• 

  Comatose

  Rubadubdub isn't that funny? You leave the happiest people, and the only true religion and depression and anxiety go away! For me, I also successfully overcame alcoholism (so far) when I left.

  For me personally, I was born in and raised in by great parents. My dad served as an elder since I was young. My parents were the type who always had over C.O.'s and pioneers for gatherings. I was taken out of public school before high school and private schooled at home. I was encouraged to pioneer or go to bethel or be a missionary from a young age. When I was a younger teenager I began pioneering. Served as a MS at a young age and for a long time to follow.

  I'm very observant. I notice even very small details. For the last 7 or 8 years I had problems with the flood, the Tower of Babel, why the different races on earth were adapted for the climate or area they lived in... I was too deep and trained since born to think critically. Instead I was pummeled with confusion and discomfort that I began drowning in alcohol. It started slow. But over the last seven yrs the alcohol went from stress relief, crutch, escape, and finally the only way to get thru the day. When I finally realized I was drinking lately to cover my doubts in god, I decided to stop drinking and confront all my doubts.

  I started with just the WT pubs alone. I began in depth research. I looked up and googled quoted sources... One of the scariest days of my life. I had a partially formed thought that the Society believed what they taught a d that I was just an unbeliever who would choose to go against the evidence. When I found the misquotes and lies, it hurt.

  From there, I am now here. And happy! For the first time in a long time. Stopped drinking a while back. Going through the struggles of having all my family in, but managing. I wouldn't go back if given the choice. My son is too much like me. Always asking deep questions. I would have had to tell to many lies. I would have had to make him miss out on too many things over beliefs the wife and I didn't believe.

  We are happy.
• 

  Narcissistic Supply

  ComaTose,

  Yeah. Is'nt it sad that you would have to lie to your own kids to keep them in that POS. That's what i dont understand. What an effing Fraud these people support every day. 24/7/365.
• 

  WTWizard

  When, after telling me that they would help me meet the opposite sex, they start telling me to just meet other men at a$$emblies and consistently keep the opposite sex out of my reach at doors while in field circus, and they kept pulling whatever good out of my life and stripped it to where there were the same 3 or 4 men around me during theocraptic activity, I had enough. Better Gehenna than to live forever with nothing but men--just men--and realize I drove the women out of the organization and was responsible for their destruction. Now that would have been a guilt trip far worse than "murdering" people by not staying out in field circus.

  That was the big one. There were other factors that helped. One was this scumbag that always insisted I worked with him (or his wife, if the group was odd--and he would work alone) so that thing could be picky about every little detail of every little action. That thing would invariably show up some 15 minutes late, just as I was hoping to go with someone else, and take me away. Or, it would have me working with someone else for "a change", only to call SWITCH!! 2-3 doors later and I got stuck with that thing again. This was the hallmark of stagnation throughout the whole week, not just while in field circus. Incidentally, this idiot was (deservedly) poor materially, and only once I cut back on association with that thing was I able to extricate myself from stagnation.

  Now, to hope that thing wound up in the real heaven--that is, that green cube the book of Revelation talks about where souls are taken to be destroyed and fed to the Draconians. Let that happen, and I will never have to deal with that ugly thing again in any future life. Or, if Satan decides that thing was nothing but a parasite (which He is not very tolerant of), He can destroy that thing's soul and extricate me from any possibilities of dealing with it again in future lifetimes.
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  Brother of the Hawk

  Reasoning Book page 89 under the subheading 'Cross' then I went to the Imperial Bible Dictionary and looked up the quote directly, yep cherry-picking at its finest Brother of the Hawk