So What Tipped You Out, Then?

by Englishman 41 Replies latest jw friends

Naeblis

I was sitting on good ole Sammy (my toilet) and I picked up a song book that was on the shelf. I opened it up..looked through it and then realized I'd never have to sing these childish, badly written "songs" again. I laughed for 10 minutes, wiped, washed my hands and never looked back.
Moridin

For me it started with the change of the policy on civil service and then the change on voting. After that and much research I woke up one morning and said to myself, "I'm f****n free". It was the greatest day of my life.
Simon

I was looking into the chronology and science of the flood / creation and where dinosaurs fit in. I found loads of wierd stuff in the WT's and other publications and then lots of misquotes and very bad science in the Creation book. If they have lied abuot this, I figured, I should check out all the other stuff so I did some thorough research and guess what? Nothing stood up !
So here I am...
There was also a lot of personal stuff that they were doing to my familly which didn't help their cause any - part of what convinced me (and why I now feel that they are a cult) was their reaction to what I told them and how they have tried to silence me ever since.
doubtingsister

Well, I'm not out yet, but what led me to this forum was an unleashing of all the doubts I had shelved up to this year.
I've had a lot of personal demons to overcome and for the first time in my life I finally have the confidence I always should have had in my life. Of course, much of it has been due to discovering that I can make a living working for myself. I work mainly with the internet and now it seems that I'm being criticized for that. I can't win. Anytime I have something in my life that makes me feel good about myself I have to give it up to serve Jehovah more "fully".
After a recent meeting of "the internet is evil" and you should be doing this and that and everything else I almost snapped. I have two kids, work from home and squeeze in the meetings and study the best I can. All this without the support of my husband. While I was at meetings last year he was spending time in online sex chats. Of course, I could just throw it off as "Satan's trying to destroy my marriage and faith sort of reasoning)
It's been getting hectic and stressful, but I'm doing it. I started feeling like this is just too much for me and that I've lost any joy I might have had due to all the commitments.
Of course, what really convinced me was my reading of Crisis of Conscience a few weeks ago. Needless to say, I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how to still associate with my friends and yet get away from the WT hold. I guess I'll just end up losing them all, which isn't going to be easy.
Oh, there you go, now you know a little bit about me. Thanks for letting me share that and hopefully I'll get off the fence sometime soon.
A
waiting

Hey Sis,
Sit on the fence as long as you like - get comfortable with your own mind and feelings. It's very necessary. I used to get so aggravated when I first came to the web - a lot of people wanting to push me off onto their side.
I just wanted to sit, read, and think - with a little chatting company, however.
I was allowed to do all the above. We were a sleepy forum back then, it's more hectic now, but welcome.
I finally told another poster "It's my butt and I can sit on my fence post as long as I want - I'm the only one getting stuck."
Got tired, got an education and got off my fence.
Nice to meet you.
waiting
RedhorseWoman

Yes, I do remember the exact moment when I decided not to go back. It was a long time coming, but when the realization hit, it was total.
I had noticed inconsistencies for years, but I always blamed myself for not having sufficient faith or looking at imperfections of men rather than concentrating on the perfection of God's organization. The doubts, though shoved to the back of my mind, still remained.
After I got married (to a very new brother), the treatment we received from our "brothers" and "sisters" during an illness that my husband had right after our marriage, discouraged me tremendously. I became sporadically inactive, and my husband became totally inactive.
I kept trying to reactivate myself for quite a few years, but there had been so much that had happened that I found myself experiencing panic attacks any time I went to a meeting. Sitting through two boring hours of meetings while trying to deal with a full-fledged panic attack is not easy.
After moving to a new congregation, my husband and I located the nearest KH and determined that we would put forth every effort as a couple to reactivate ourselves. We started attending meetings regularly and began studying with the elders. I still had doubts, but I figured that if we could get back to the "truth" as a family, my doubts would finally be resolved.
My husband was determined to become active again and he started asking a lot of questions....too many questions for the comfort of the elders. I could tell that they were becoming uneasy with the questions for which the only answer was, "you'll have to accept that on faith". They started looking for a reason to get my husband out of their way.
They found it. At one study, one of them noticed an empty, clean ashtray on the coffee table. He asked my husband if he smoked, to which my husband replied that he did. They gave him a thirty-day deadline...stop smoking or be disfellowshipped.
We discussed the option of annulment of the baptism because my husband had never understood the implications of it, had studied for only three weeks, and had gotten baptised solely so that I would date him.
To make a long story short, the lies and deceit that the elders practiced through this whole process that led to my husband's disfellowshipping were what pushed me over the edge. My final decision came in the parking lot of the KH at my husband's judicial committee meeting. I questioned one of the elders about his statement that they would, in fact, annul the baptism and asked why they went back on their word and disfellowshipped him. This elder blatantly lied to me twice within five minutes, and in doing so also totally contradicted himself. I realized then that this couldn't be God's organization, and I never went back.
claudia

Englishman, I will have to agree you have a wonderful way of expressing yourself. But who is Irma Bunt?
tergiversator

The beginning of the end for me was the last Sunday of April, 1999. I had just turned in my time for auxiliary pioneering that month after having essentially been pressured into it ("you always pioneer on spring break...").
The speaker was giving some talk on some old, old topic, and he kept saying the exact same phrases that the Society always used on that subject (I don't have a clue what subject it was, anymore) and I finally realized that I wanted *out*. Out of being in that stuffy little hall watching people nodding to the same old cliches, out of feeling pressured to tell people about something I doubted more and more every day (I was really good at the art of pushing the doorbell enough to fool the person I was with but not enough to make it ring).
I waited a few more months until I moved away to college to make it official. And ah, what a wonderful feeling of peace that was....
thinkers wife

Excellent question Englishman,
It was a very long process for me. But if I had to put a finger on what finally made me realise it couldn't be the truth. I would have to say the lack of love. For so many years my ex-husband and I were mistreated by the elders and the individuals. All the while, my ex was abusing me too. I kept trying to hang in there and do the best I could. Pioneered for a long time. I just was never good enough. There were a lot of back-biting sisters, and their husbands never did anything about it, even though they had to be aware of the situation.
I am not talking about small things. I am talking about the PO's wife (a pioneer) coming in to the meeting for F.S. and saying hello by name to each and every one in the room by name and ignoring me. Ignoring me in the car group. (she wasn't the only one) Then when the abusive ex finally left me, they kicked me out from living behind the KH. And pinned the blame on me for his leaving. This had gone on and on for seventeen years.
I too had panic attacks in the KH. When you sit in a chair for two hours with tears running down your face, and no one notices after knowing you for years and years, you begin to wonder "what is wrong with this picture".
I moved, to a much more loving congregation and to give credit where credit is due they were very kind to me. But it was too little too late. The words sounded hollow. I began to notice that it was nothing but boring repitition with no real proof.
I didn't really start to find out the doctrinal discrepencies until I was out. Simon the scientific differences were pointed out to me by Thinker. I was simply astounded.
After getting on this board I was amazed by the vast changes in doctrine in their own archives. It still amazes me. I read parts of Crises of Conscience too. What struck me was Ray Franz's kindness despite the unfair and devastating behavoir of society. I was so impressed by his concern and loving attitude after what was done to him. And I remember all the bashing he took. Heard it through the grapevine.
Anyway. I decided I was tired of carrying around a name that I could not and didn't want to live up to. So da'ed myself in June of 2000. The amazing thing was after being in since birth, all I felt was a sense of relief and freedom. It was like a huge weight being lifted off of me.
Now I am so happy that sometimes it scares me.
TW
Edited by - thinkers wife on 5 March 2001 6:29:56
LovesDubs

I really think I was looking for the door before I was even dried from my baptism. How sad is that? Things just werent right ever and the behavior I saw amongst "Gods People" was so abhorrent to me that I couldnt stand that we were going door to door telling people WE had the truth and them and their Bathtub Mary were doomed to a bloody destruction at Armageddon...and oh I think I want THAT house when those losers are ripped to shreds as carion for the birds. What sickos we were. Who thinks like that? Certainly Christ didnt....but I digress. 14 years it took me to get the guts to leave.
The very first JW I ever met picked me up in a bar and slept with me...that shoulda been a clue. But...I was stunned to my core by the change in the generation...which the Society poo pooed as of no account as usual. Then there was a man in my bookstudy at my HOME nonetheless, who was very very "spiritual" and always "Jehovah this and Jehovah that and wait on Jehovah and trust in Jehovah..." whos wife was very ill. She died on a December day. A year later, on the anniversary of her death my kids were making a card for him, we thinking he was mourning her loss, and one of the sisters said "oh DONT DO THAT" and I looked shocked...why not? "Oh you cant tell anyone but he has been remarried for a year now" "A YEAR?? She only died a year ago! How could he be remarried and WHERE IS SHE??" Turns out he was remarried within a month of his wifes death and to a worldly woman he worked with. And the elders knew about it but were all keeping it secret from the entire congregation! I was furious that he would sit in my house and be all holier than thou and then marry outside the "truth" then LIE about it then pretend he didnt know this woman PRIOR to his wifes death so well that they had planned this all along. And he still had his privileges. He said he had to marry "hurriedly so he wouldnt commit fornication"...what there arent 48 kazillion JW women he could have chosen?? Brother or not, I called him up and reamed him out for that.
Then my best (married, pioneer) friend told me she was having an affair with one of the elders who had been "counseling her" on her own marriage problems. Then some sister was in the john accusing two people of stealing from her...and another 38 year old sister abandoned her husband and teenaged son and ran off with an 18 year old brother and committed adultery, and this during PIONEER SCHOOL nonetheless. I had just had it. I told my husband I was never going back, get those people out of my living room and dont call me.
Loves
"My task is to bear witness to the truth. For this was I born for this I came into the world, and ALL who are not deaf to truth listen to my voice" - Jesus before Pilate, John 18:37

So What Tipped You Out, Then?

Share this