How long did it take you to leave the org?

by sandy 27 Replies latest social humour

• 

  sandy

  I was wondering how long it took for all of you to leave the org.

  How active were you and for how long while knowing the "truth" was not the truth.

  I ran into an old friend last week. She attends the meetings regularly, goes out on field service, hangs out with the "friends" but that is about it. She is not involved in the ministry school. She is in her 40s and she never married.

  I often wonder why she stays or if she even believes in the org. I am willing to bet that she dates worldly men casually. She is always upset with somebody in the hall. I remember her always flirting with worldly men. She just doesn't seem happy in the org. I wish I could talk to her about my current beliefs but I am afraid it will get back to my family.
• 

  refiners fire

  I stopped going to meetings when I was 23, but didnt fully realize it wasnt the truth till I was about 35. So it took some time.

  As for your family, its a shame that so many are held ransom by the org thru this blood tie. The only consolation is that youre not alone.
• 

  garybuss

  
  
  My body left in 1974.
  
  My conscious mind left in 1992,
  
  My subconscious mind left in 1995.
  
  
  
• 

  liquidsky

  I started having doubts after my babtism in 1990. I became inactive in 1996. I did attend the memorial this year, but I promised myself it would be the last. I'm through. SO in answer to your question, about 7 years.
• 

  Ravyn

  I started doubting in 1993 but didn't know I was doubting until Dec 17th 1995, when in one hour a body of elders ended my 15 yr run as a regular pioneer because someone else gossiped about ME--that is what they said anyway. By the following CO s visit when he forced them to apologize to me and offered to approve a new application for pioneering for me, I was done. I took most of that year to plan my physical escape and clear my mind by researching on the internet etc. I left physically January 1997 and never looked back once.

  I am still getting over it. Next January I will have clear up the last of the financial burdens(hopefully)--that took me 7 years. It is rare now for me to have a KH dream or find one of those Watchtowerisms still stuck in my craw--but occasionally they do pop up. The emotional and mental break was sudden tho--it was like a nervous breakdown, I was just 'saturated' and could not take anymore(back in 1996). I went thru a few years of wanting revenge and trying to get on the Borg's Top Ten Most Wanted List, but even that got old. Now I help those who ask for it, and live the life I should have had the chance to live all along.

  Ravyn
• 

  Brummie

  I reckon I had niggly doubts over a period of years, probably from when I was 20 up until I was 25, I still believed it was 100% the truth though just as I had done since I was a kid.

  Now the hounding doubts that eventually did my head in was over the last 3 years of me being a JW. The niggling doubts I could answer for myself so they didnt have much effect. The hounding doubts made me physically sick.

  brummie
• 

  hoodwinked

  6 months!....call me Genius.

  Hoody
• 

  liquidsky

  Hoody, Your a genius!!!!!
• 

  Austrian

  I was raised in the Borg and started to miss meetings at 22. I became fully inactive at age 24. And my nightmares of Armageddon ended about a year ago. I have no doubt in my mind that the Borg is a mind controlling cult.
• 

  nowisee

  a loooonnng ten years. beginning with father's crisis of faith. then a game of doubts, denial, doubts, denial, then conviction that the organization was full of pharisees, then rebellion, then exit. though it has taken these many 27 years later to absolutely become convinced that wts is false prophet; and even then absolute certainty did not arrive until this past year.