what were you thinking when you got yourself baptised? (page 2)

Number 6

I was just numb. I thought to myself: 'Is that it?'

For me it was easier just to go with the flow. I weighed up getting baptized and going through the motions against rebelling against 'the truth' and all that would arise out of that in my family home. My parents had long told me that should I cause trouble in their 'theocratically run' home that they would have had no hesitation in throwing me out. Being practical I decided to go along with it until the circumstances arose that would allow me to get out.

So I took the attitude; if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Of course I was a totally naive 17 year old who had no other life experience other than being raised in the JW's so I had no other frame of reference. My mother recently told me that I had the 'choice' whether or not to get baptized.

Yeah right!

6

TresHappy

I remember thinking how well behaved the audience was when we got baptized. No one crowded around and acted like the paparazzi taking photos. It was because they asked people not to do that. That was the nicest crowd control I ever saw when I was a witness. Sad to say, it was one of the only times I saw JW's behave themselves in a crowd.

PurpleV

I was only 14 and did it because it was expected of me. My mother had me quite cowed.

I didn't feel anything but depressed. Someone gave me a stick of Juicy Fruit gum. To this day I literally get quite ill if I even SMELL someone ELSE chewing Juicy Fruit gum.

Then my parents took me to Wendy's [insert sad smiley here, can't insert smileys from my work PC].

onacruse

I was 10. It was very deliberately my own decision; I was totally convinced that the WTS was God's earthly channel, virtually infallible. From the time I was 8 I was on a mission to go to Bethel.

It's been an interesting 40 years, to say the least

Craig

anti-absolutism

I was 17 and remember thinking:

Hey dad, remeber how you never let me sit with any of the other young kids at the assemblies?....... WELL LOOK AT ME NOW!!!!!!!... I'm sitting beside Stacey Bonneville..... she's HOT..... and you can't do anything about it.. so what if it's only for a the morning.... anything to get away from your self-righteous, negative personality for awhile....

Wait a second!!!!???? I have to dedicate myself to that God that you guys think is great, who seems to be a real meanie to me!!!

Next thought...... geez, if there had EVER been another person who had EVER walked away right during the talk, I would have had the balls to do it myself.... DAMN...... THIS IS GONNA HURT!!!!!!

No s*it, that was pretty much it!!!!! Man I wish I had more fortitude back then.

Brad

Vivamus

I claim temporally insanity. I thought it was the right thing to do. I felt calm and quiet and looking back, I really wasn't the person I am today [anything but calm and quiet]. I felt lonely in the midst of all those people, and thought that now that I was baptized, I would truly belong there, but I didn't really know them, and I didn't feel any different when I submerged from the water. I felt just as lonely and out of place.

xjw_b12

what were you thinking when you got yourself baptised?

I remember thinking Oh Oh ! I wish I had gone for a pee before I stepped into the pool !

undercover

You got presents??!! I didn't get diddlysquat!!

Seriously though, I was similar to you. All my friends and the other younger ones in my hall and the surrounding area halls got baptized at 13, 14 and 15. I never felt ready. I figured that you had to be really ready to completely devote your life to doing nothing but service, meetings and studies to be baptized. I didn't want to do that yet. I figured it would have to wait till I was at least out of school. But the pressure from my parents, the elders and pioneers was too much. So at the ripe old age of 16 I was baptized. Everybody asked me how it felt after coming out. It didn't feel any different than before going in. That made me wonder if maybe it "didn't take with me". It was another 20+ years before realizing(or at least admitting it to myself) it was a mistake.

Francois

I'm with Viv. Temporary insanity. Brought on by stupidity. Or ignorance. An instance of regarding one pebble on the beach as being more desireable than all the others, even the ones I hadn't looked at yet. I was a waste and a joke.

No voices, no white dove descending, no nothing but the fact that now they think they've got a right to push and pull in any direction and as hard as they want.

I've never gotten over the claustrophobic-like feeling of other people thinking that they had the right to run my life and then having the gall to act on it. Never again. Never, ever again.

Who was it that, when asked for the definition of hell said, "Hell is other people"? Somebody famous. Maybe Geo. Bernard Shaw? I disremember.

francois

greven

My God!

Some of you guys were really young ages 12 13! Such an important decision taken at so little an age! I thought the witnesses didn't do child baptising, seems they simply forgot when armageddon was around the corner!

Nobody got presents?! I earned myself a pulsar watch and several 'worldly' books , Tolkien I believe...

Viv:

I felt just as lonely and out of place

I had something simular, I never could connect with any of these people, not even of my own age. It was like they thought on a completely different level then me. So I felt sad, lonely and out of place too. Now I know why!

Francois:

I've never gotten over the claustrophobic-like feeling of other people thinking that they had the right to run my life and then having the gall to act on it. Never again. Never, ever again.

I feel the same way! I am very hesitant when joining a group, any attempt to control me meets my swift wrath!

Thanx for the input guys!

Greven

what were you thinking when you got yourself baptised?

Share this