Meeting Days Felt Different?

by pale.emperor 27 Replies latest jw experiences

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  pale.emperor

  

  I dont know if it was the same for you, but for me when I was a JW meeting days seemed to have a black cloud hanging over them. On Thursdays I knew I would be going to the meeting that evening. That i would be getting into my meeting clothes at 6:30pm, leaving the house at 6:55pm and be sat in the Kingdom hall from 7:15pm-9pm, then milling around for about half an hour before finally getting home for 10pm. Evening gone. Wasted. Nothing new or excited was learned that evening and it was totally boring.

  And that was just Thursday!

  Sunday was the same deal, except it was in the morning so you didn't get a lie-in. Plus you may have had an hour ministry after the meeting so you wouldn't get home until about 3pm. Morning and most of your afternoon gone, wasted.

  Now, I only just realized that it's Thursday. The day doesn't invoke a bad feeling inside me. One of dread.

  And remember when we used to have the book study too? (in my case, it was on Tuesdays). How did we function?! 4 days out of our 7 being hijacked by theocratic stuff when we should have been enjoying our lives.
  
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  punkofnice

  Yes. Even as a dyed in the wool fundy Jobot, I hated having to go to the meetings™. As a kid, all the best TV shows were on a Thursday, meeting™ night. It got so frustrating that I even enjoyed being ill so I didn't have to go to that musty smelling torture house that contained the weird people.

  Even as a fully fundy Jobot, I thought the people at the hall were all a bit mental.
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  WTWizard

  And they wonder why I liked seeing snow on the forecast, measured in meters. And why I would be p***ed if it was too warm (rain) or the storm wimped out on us.
  
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  Willie647

  Thinking about that lately, my least favorite days are Tuesday,Thursday and Sunday. Even today after being out for over forty years. Until I left home at 18 I was forced to attend all meetings no matter what. My feelings or wants didn’t count. No choice. I was so glad to escape that prison. After raising my own family and now 62 years old I still can’t imagine parents that make every decision for their children,how to dress,how to wear their hair,how to worship,how to think etc. Talk about controlling people! I haven’t seen my family in over 30 years because there is no reason as long as they belong to the jws. What a horrible way to raise a family. As much as I’ve tried to let it go,I’m still plenty angry at the org and my zombie parents.
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  truth_b_known

  Especially as I child I hated this. In addition to Tuesdays and Thursdays having to be sacrificed with with the Weekend, my parents made me go to bed early on Friday and Saturday nights because they didn't want me to be tired during field service and the meeting. I remember once there was some special function were a local facility was rented out for assembly sized attendance. A brother from Bethel was giving some sort of talk. It was held on a Friday night or a Saturday night. My whole week was nothing more than one big JW fest. I so resented that.
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  eyeuse2badub

  Looking back now that I know true freedom, both mentally and physically, from the watchtower, I believe ever day had some sort of shade over it. The FOG of being a jw made most days seem at least cloudy!

  just saying!
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  mentalclarity

  Actually meeting days gave me an opportunity to get out of the house and socialize. I was a stay at home mom so I got to dress up get out of the house and see my friends. Enduring the actual meeting was rough, but obviously I was in it for the friends as I'm sure so many others. Often we would go out to eat afterwards to a nice restaurant.

  Just goes to show we all have a wide variety of experiences as JWs. But I totally get how horrible just going to meetings for the sake of the meetings themselves if you happen to be in a congregation with just older folks or super strict.
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  ShirleyW

  As a kid you kinda get used to it, but,when I was growing up he had our mtg on Friday, but in the 70's it got changed to Wednesday,and at first our sunday mtg was 2pm, then got changed later on when they started that rotation thing, first we went at 9, then it rotated to noon.

  But as a kid the older you got the more you resented going to the meetings. Some Congs used to meet, or probably still do on Saturday evening, the best part of the weekend and you have to drag yourself out the house and sit thru that BS, so glad that never happened to the Cong I used attend
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  compound complex

  When in a foreign language congregation in Manhattan, we shared with three other congos. We got the last of the pickings: Saturday night for school, etc. and Sunday afternoon for talk and WT. We got home to Bethel late Saturday night and had to get back on the train early Sunday morning to go out in service all day and then late-p.m. meeting.

  Work all week at headquarters and out almost every night on Bible studies, plus Book Study. Many of us young, healthy brothers cracked.
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  freddo

  When you had a physical job - like a trade or cleaning. And you were physically tired mid week and especially on a warm day when you'd have to shower, shave and put on a bloody tie - even for the group if it was 70f/21c degrees plus outside.

  And it was the fucking Revelation book again and you were the group overseer and had to stick in the "new light" changes and you dragged your poor little kids along even though they had school the next day and you KNEW the seven trumpets of Revelation were NOTHING to do with CEDAR FUCKING POINT OHIO CONVENTIONS!

  What a shitty, foolish, idiotic, indoctrinated parent I was ...