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MarkofCane

James Jack

No guilt trips either about missing meetings to take about 10 mini vacations a year(3 or 4 days off in a row). Life is to short and there are many "beautiful places" on this planet to visit to get your batteries recharged. My wife and enjoy being together and LIVING LIFE!

That's awesome, in the last 2 years we have taken more trips than I've taken my whole life. When ever we would take a trip before we would always get the sideways look like what about the meeting? Your family need's your direction as the head of the family, they need to be out in service Blah, blah, blah. Now if they see me at the meetings they act impressed. They love bomb me and my family. My nature is to be kind, I tend to joke a lot to keep thing on the light side. But you have to fight fire with fire, behind there facade there is a spiritual warfare going on in there minds, whether you believe that or not, so I chose my words very carefully. Its a battle of wits.

fleshyheadedmutant

Glad to have you here on the forum.

You are able to express yourself quite well. Your feelings brought back memories to my husband and I. Yes, bewilderment comes first, then anger, depression, hopelessness, anxiety-the full range.Then, you begin to appreciate the open door and your own ability to think and reason. To make your own choices.

Now is the time to set some goals. Education? I went to college and received my degree at 61 years of age. I am now a teacher.

Travel? I never had money to travel....only scrape together motel money for conventions, etc. We are planning our first trip to Europe this summer, a tour around the United Kingdom. i can't wait.

New job or hobby? What would you really love to do?

My regret is that I didn't find out the truth earlier. I drew back from my "worldly" parents and have to live with the guilt that they were lonely and I could have enjoyed their company instead of dutifully going out in the door-to-door work, attending every meeting, etc. as you mentioned-the treadmill of JW activity.

I sincerely hope that you and your wife can communicate in the coming weeks and months and all in your family can be freed from the WTS. Please be patient. It can take time.

MarkofCane

Findthelost

Do you think this "study" waited till you and your wife were more at ease and disarmed before attempting these questions? Do you feel they were waiting to witness to you about TTATT?

And,

Did you ever go back to the "study" and answer the questions or discuss your findings?

I will try to answer this the best I can, for all I know that young lady might be reading here. The young couple that we were studying with, she is a very bright young lady she always prepared and answered spot on. Her mother is a born again Christian and would tell her that we are a mind control sect, her mother I believe supplied her with information and instilled doubt in her mind about the study. She had printed out information about the society and read most of it out to us. So we knew it was apostate derived. After learning TTATT I could not return with a Bible in my hand. We did go back as friends and just told them we were going through some stuff and would not be able to continue the study. We never brought up any of it, she never brought it up neither.

Looking back it burns me to think how I would go to people homes in a suit and tie and presume I had all the answers, turns out I didn't even know the basics of my own faith. What a tangles web is life.

The Searcher

Welcome MoC. Your story will have touched many here!

BluesBrother

Four decades of systematic indoctrination came crashing down on my conscience.

I will never forget that moment either . I just sat there blathering like an idiot ,saying "It's not true, it's not true , none of it, it's not true........"

Looking back it burns me to think how I would go to people homes in a suit and tie and presume I had all the answers, turns out I didn't even know the basics of my own faith. What a tangles web is life

So true. When I look back at the presumptuous things I said , even to workmates , I can see they were very tolerant - good people.

I did enjoy your post. Keep 'em coming.

Alive!

We stood as little more than hypocrites when we criticized the members of the churches of Christendom for lazily leaving matters of docttine in the hands of their leaders when we as Witness were the same.
So true. It's the criticising of other 'Christians' and their churches on a wholesale basis that gets me these days - what hypocrites we were.

FindTheLost

To: MarkofCane,

Thank you for your time and answers.

Don't beat yourself up to much, we were all presumptuous and condescending that we had the "truth" and everyone else were the poor sops that were going to be destroyed.

Take care
FTL

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

Welcome Cain and thanks for sharing! Waking up to TTATT also involves a grieving process, anger, sadness, regret, etc.

The elders are trying to set you up with a CO shepherding call? Reminds me of the last CO that had a one-on-one visit with me while I was fading. Within 4 months of our conversation, he'd left the the road. He was so unhappy and seemed to be asking me for advice after my experiences as a bethelite and an ex-bethelite. I "encouraged" him to look for options where he could control his own life and future rather than to leave his fate completely in the hands of the often very fickle branch management. I tried not to be too obvious about finding options outside of being CO, but I suspect that he already was wanting to quit and I was the last little push. I'm not sure what happened to him after that. He was a nice guy... much too nice to be a CO.

millie210

Welcome Cane,

I am so glad to know that people are reading here and getting something that helps them even if they have never posted.

It makes me want to write more thoughtfully. So thank you for that reminder!

brandnew

Hi cane.....and welcome☺

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