What triggered your doubts / awakening?

by Tornintwo 64 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Finkelstein

  That's the basic problem when one opens themselves toward seeking a relationship with god, you inevitability are confronted with the ignorance, corruption and futility of mere men posing as a direct channel to the spiritual world.

  Most of that crippling and damaging trouble comes from men emulating and interpreting what other men scribed in texts thousands of years ago.
  

  There is a lot of what mankind has discovered about himself and the world in which we live in from those ancient times to be sure.

  Maybe It might be better to learn and adhere to what mankind has found about himself so far rather than adhere to what ancient civilizations inherently knew or believed ?

  Just to provoke the use of common rational sense.
  
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  Tornintwo

  Finkelstein, Sounds a bit like 'humanism', I went to a humanist wedding a few years ago when I was a very zealous jw, still I was very impressed -even then I thought, now that's a good alternative!

  great answers - thank you all so much. What's really helpful about this site is that in our hypnotized stupor, there are so many things we have never analysed critically, so when someone else here raises a reason for their doubting/leaving, you have the opportunity to see something you'd missed, do some research and clear the fog a little more .

  It's clear that the generation change had a big effect on a lot of you - it did nothing for me at the time, even though the teaching was one of the things that brought me into 'the truth' a few years earlier, I just thought, well it could be a bit longer but not that much longer . I find it quite amazing how the org gets millions of people to just swallow these fundamental changes without complaint. Now I'm awake, I see the front of the 1984 May watchtower and think, 'that's outrageous'! Just learned about it from a Cedars video and the great scripture Deut 18:22 which blows the org with its false predictions out of the water.
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  FayeDunaway

  Finkelstein I haven't found that to be true in my case. I joined a religion that lets you question and wrestle with God without people telling you what to believe. I can't really explain to you how great this is for me without being annoying here :). My problem with my church is on a personal level with a woman there who has a very strong personality. But dealing with it has helped me grow as a person.

  My point in writing is, if you want to have faith, and that is a personal choice, there are plenty of places to go. I agree with the poster who said 'anywhere but there!'...well, I would avoid the more legalistic churches....but really, almost any church is 100 times better than sitting through a meeting and feeling absolutely nothing, where there is also nothing to engage your mind. Remember the hard part about leaving the witnesses, cuz you liked a lot of the people? Yeah I had that too. I've met so many wonderful new people tho. They embraced me fully, but without sabotaging my brain. It's awesome.
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  sasha kirov

  It was kinda like a bottle slowly being filled then overflowing.

  I always hated the shunning. I was shunned in school.

  Not for being a witness kid, but for not being rich enough. It was private Montessori school for the elite, so yeah two places where the elite-minded mingle. Filipinos, even witnesses, look down on the uneducated. There is a weird cult phenomenon here btw.

  Anyway. I remember trying to comfort two sisters during the meetings right before it was announced they were df'ed. There was one time I was trying to talk to a brother (I had a crush on his fleshly brother) during a meeting, only to find out he was dfed later on. I wasn't baptised at the time the brother and one of the sisters were dfed, but I do remember my parents trying to keep me from talking to them. Nowadays, I smile at them when I see them, and sometimes I "bump" into them to apologise and smile.

  On the other hand, what really opened me up to accepting that may not be the truth, besides the internet, was the death of the sister that studied me.

  I remember being angry, cheated, and just plain distraught that I struggled with really dark thoughts for months. Doesn't help that I eventually lost contact with internet friends because I realised that they were toxic and they kinda bought out the worst in me.

  Fiction comforted me more than the brothers and sisters at the congregation did. The thought of living forever via body decomposing and the energy going into the soil then to plants and to animals comforted me more than forever in paradise did. Spending time with my pet comforted me a lot as well. Eventually, the doubts I had since I was younger came up again, and it didn't surprise me that there was a part of me that didn't believe this anymore. The more I searched about the world around me (particularly the lgbtqa community) the more I realise that the wtbts was out of touch of the reality about the world. I was just glad I had worldly friends that I can rant to.

  For the last year, I've been fantasising about either fading out or disassociating, then I decided if there were tips on how to leave the org two weeks ago, then I found apostate sites.

  Now here I am. Mentally out and my parents know but decided to keep it secret from the cong (dad is an elder).
• 

  FayeDunaway

  Sasha I enjoyed your story! I remember searching on the Internet years ago too for 'how to leave jw's'...at the time this fading approach was new. It took me a long time to find that suggestion from someone. But whoever it was, described it so well, I was like 'yeah! That's what i'll do.' And it suggested a move to aid the situation. It wasn't on a forum, I think it might have been on ask.com. Whoever it was, if you are here, thank you!!

  Sasha, welcome. It sounds like your parents have sort of accepted that you are mentally out.