CHEVYSNTATS,
Thanks for your kind words. I like myself a lot better now that I am a fake publisher and lead a true "DOUBLE LIFE".
ACSOT,
Is it not wonderful to be off the frantic JW merry-go-round?
I was two people at once, were you?
by christopherceo 20 Replies latest jw friends
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undercover
I didn't live a completely double life. I tried to be a good dub, but some things I just couldn't help. R-rated movies were rented but we never saw them first run at the theater. I bought what music I wanted without questioning the debasing effects of it, but I did keep some of the more questionable ones out of sight. Didn't smoke. Drank but never got drunk, though some thought I had a problem cause I always ordered beer in a restaurant. Cussed around the guys and family but sparingly. I even avoided sex before and outside of marriage except for a few blow jobs. I had friends outside the truth, though I did not announce it to too many other dubs. I didn't purposely set out to live a lie , but as time went on, it became apparent that some of the things I did would have kept me from the responsibilities that I was given, had it been known to the elders. But some things did not bother my conscience so I did them, even though I knew that it could be trouble if an elder found out. So I don't think I was two people at once. I was just living within the confines I was given and making do with what I had.
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acsot
CHEVYSNTATS said
I just hated the self-righteous dubs. I used to have an English friend who was like that. He recently got engaged to one of my old best friends. She's beautiful, intelligent, funny, the most caring person I know, independant, a pioneer. And bless her heart, always tried to do things the JW way. On a recent trip to him in England, he called off teh engagement because he didn't think she was "spiritually minded' enough.
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acsot
where's the rest of my post?
CHEVYNSTATS: I agree with you. I knew an "officially very spiritual Bethel elder" who dated a gorgeous, friendly, warm pioneer sister only to break off with her after about a year (he told her he wanted to tell her something "important" one weekend - you can imgine what she guessed it was!). Then breaks off with the pathetic explanation that he wanted to go to Gilead but that wasn't her goal. Br. Jerk shortly after married a divorced JW gal with children. Real Gilead material, huh? grrrrrrr
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dottie
yea...I had the double life...unbeknownst to my mom. I would often sneak out of the house on Friday and Saturday nights. Go "over to stay at a friends house" but really be at the wicked cool house party on the other side of town drinking and smoking everything I could get my hands on !
But come Sunday a.m. I'd be sitting in the KH with my nice clothes on...trying my damndest not to fall asleep...and Saturday a.m. out in service praying that I wouldn't be in the territory of the house party the night before ! Tuesday and Thursday nights I was always very good and commented all I could...
Damn! I'm getting nauseous just thinking about it! Thank GAWD for freedom...do you know how hard it was to keep up with all those parties???
Dottie...of the party till ya puke class
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refiners fire
After speaking with numerous ex witnesses, I think there were a lot who lived double lives . behaving wickedly while appearing spiritual. Somehow these ones were able to rationalize ,in their own minds, their dual behaviour and live with themselves. Others, regrettably were eaten by guilt at their dual thinking and behaviour and felt a constant need to confess every sin to the elders and felt condemned by God utterly. I was one of these latter.
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Swan
Yes. And it was pure hell. The person they all saw was not me. For a while I wasn't even sure who I was. I struggled so hard to be a good dub and deny myself. In the end I realized that pummeling myself and beating myself over it was getting me nowhere. I realized that God made us the way we are. If he can read the heart, then he above all would understand whom I was. He would know that I am still a good and loving person.
I once learned that the word righteous is from a root word meaning balance or having to do with balancing scales. I feel more righteous now than I ever did back then. Back then I felt like a hypocrite. My two lives were constantly at war. It was a constant conflict that could never be reconciled. No matter how hard I prayed, studied, witnessed, and attended meetings, it was never enough. If anything, the scales tipped way out of balance.
Now I am just me. I don't make pretensions. I don't try to be pious. I don't even know if I believe in God (agnostic). I have learned that if there is a God he will accept me as I am, because I now accept myself. I don't hurt anyone else. I don't turn other people into the elders. I live by my conscience, my own inner voice that tells me what is right or wrong for me. I feel very balanced. Buddha said of a stringed instrument, "If the string is too tight, it will break. If the string is too loose, it will not play." Buddha is right about that. Balance is so important in your life. Being yourself, accepting yourself for who you are, forgiving your own imperfections, and doing your best within your personal limits is so much better than fighting with yourself to be someone you are not.
Christ basically preached a freedom from numerous regulations; those tiresome, exasperating, and irksome laws. He preached about not judging others. He preached about loving people in spite of their human shortcomings, and this included loving ourselves. Ironically, I seem to be following his example more now than I ever did as a JW. I don't know if there is a God or not; to me it doesn't really matter anymore. Paradoxically, I seem to be more Christ-like now than I ever was as a dub. In accepting myself, even with my human frailties and limitations, I am finally free of the conflict that haunted me for 35 years.
Tammy
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outoftheorg
I guess I am different from some here. I never did lead two lives. The person you saw was the person I was. Raised in the troof, I believed most of it.
It was after I became an elder and saw them in action in their private meetings etc. that I got angry with them and all the requirements.
Like many, I was TOLD, in one way or another, that I didn't measure up to the standards of the wbts.
I had a family of 4 kids and my jw wife left us, me and the kids. I received NO offers of help, from anyone in the jw community. I did receive offers of help, from those I knew at work and those I sold to in other businesses. Still I hung in there and went to meetings. Married another jw woman had some more kids.
Then after a few years I was just exhausted, angry, dissapointed, no longer gave a damn about pleasing anyone. It was at this point that my 2nd jw wife began throwing "the GB says this or that" at me and finally my reply was "f++k the GB! Well she took that to the elders and it was all down hill from there.
All during that time I behaved myself, but the cognitive dissonance, "trying to do everything I really hated to do & trying to believe everything I did not agree with" was too much. I felt like I would split down the middle and become two, half there, people. Read crazy.
I can not put in words, how amazingly good, it felt to be out and free from the wbts. and my now x jw wife.
It was at this point that I "misbehaved"? Well just a little.
Outoftheorg
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teenyuck
Dottie summed it up for me too.....
I led a double life....Since I was alone often and had a car (1971 Pinto {exploding model}), I was able to drive to school, work, friends homes, bars, etc.
I started hanging with a worldly girl in 5th grade. We were both new to the grade school and somehow we became friends. I met some very nice, friendly, Latino gang members through her. I did not know or understand they were in a gang. We lived outside Chicago, in a suburb. I thought all the gangs were in the city.
I started drinking with them when I was about 15. One guy, a few years older, was the leader of our pack. Ulysses....he was a Mexican whose father deserted his mother and he....His mother would be upstairs in the living room reading and we would be in the basement, drinking, playing darts and getting high. (I did not get high until I was 19) We danced, sang, told stories, and just hung out.
We started frequenting a local dive bar. It always let us in and never carded us. I was 16. One night there were quite a few "older men" in the bar. (they were in their late 20's). My girlfriends thought they were checking us out and felt quite happy that someone "old" was interested. I had just got my first beer when suddenly the bar went dark then all the lights came on. Next thing we knew all the "older men" were drawing guns, telling us this was a bust.
I ended up in the paddy wagon with about 15 other kids who did not have fake or any ID. The drinking age in Illinois was 18 back then. I got taken to the local police station and was put into a cell with all the girls. We were terrified. I was really frightened by what my mom would do when I called her.
Bail was $50.00. I had $4.00 in my pocket. My friends drove to the station and bailed me out! I thought that was really nice because they could have left me to call my mother.
I did not tell my mom. However, in the local newspaper was a story on the front page!! It listed our names and our parents names!! Since my mother never read the paper I figured I was in the clear.
About 3 days later my mom called me at my job (I assembled picture frames) and told me I had to come home. I rushed home and she brought out the newspaper.....
She said my father, in another suburb, had got a call from a friend who read the local paper and saw my name. Was it me? I told my mother that I had not drank (I got my beer and we got busted-I did not technically drink) and I would never go to that bar again. I apologized.
My mother told me she got picked up for being truant once and understood what I was going through. At this point I thought my mother was an idiot. She bought my story hook, line and sinker.
I continued to hang out with that group of people for years. While I went to college they all had jobs. When I was 19 my mother insisted that I must be doing drugs (no, just drinking on weekends with my friends) and I insisted on trying pot. I did it when I could afford it. Which was not often.
I did coke a few times and 'shrooms 3 times. That was it. I don't think I sinned, though I did lead a double life. Going to meetings was murder on Sundays after a night out with my friends.
Somehow I went on with this for about 4 years. From 16 to 20 I hung with this group of friends and every weekend was party time. We ended up frequeting bars over the state line in Wisconsin when Illinois raised the drinking age to 21 when I was 17.
I look back in amazement that I was not injured. I figured out, when I was 19, that my friends were gang members. My girlfriend thought I had it figured out years before and just ignored it. I just did not get it. When one of the group was arrested for major drug trafficking it hit me....he always had a gun and wads of cash. The drug laws were much lighter then so he was out of jail in about 5 years.
Once I got out of college I had to work. I had to pay off loans. With that, I could not party like I did. That is when I started fading and stopped going out in service. I actually lived a better, cleaner life when I left the dubs.
Tina of the "partying with gang members will kill you" class
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RAYZORBLADE
Oh...I look back, and recall my own experiences and frustrations as a Dub.
Back in late 1983, just as I was pretty much done with all things related to the WTBTS, I finally caved in to my desires, and had sex. That was my second attempt that fall at auxiliary pioneering, and did not make my hours. It was a real psychological nightmare for me, and I simply gave up...'enough was enough'.
The thing that I awaited the next morning after all was said and done. Some sort of divine wrath or sign of my impending destruction. You know what? It never came!
I was sharing a home with a married JW couple, and they just assumed I was working loads of shifts (night/overnight). I did find out however, that they did call my work. (nosey) Thankfully I told my supervisor to cover my ass, and he did, no problem. He worked with me on that. So I was, around November 83' living a double life.
It was ironic, my belly-aching about others doing similarly and getting away with it, used to rile me...now there I was, doing almost the same, but in some ways: WORSE.
To me there was a testing of sorts going on...waiting, wondering...if anything BAD would happen. The only bad thing that happened was my conscience wreaking havoc upon myself, but aside from that, everything was fine (I just didn't notice that until much later).
Last meeting: New Years Day 1984. I remember being in a complete haze, and knowing that I could not get into this religion and all that accompanies it, any longer. I was done. Then...I tried to disappear. But leave it to nosey Dubs, they wouldn't leave me be. Good thing when I moved out of the area/congregation, I did not leave a forwarding address. So, occasionally, Brother & Sister Nosey would call my work. It never stopped.
Anyways, I'm outta there now, and more true to myself than I've ever been.
I laugh when I read some of the anecdotes on here. But for the most part, we're on the same playing field now. I like it alot!