I dont know how i can leave my family!

BlackWolf

My mom and I were talking today about how next summer I will be 18 and she said that just thinking about it might make her cry. That made me think about how much more it would hurt her if i quit being a jw. I really do love my parents, I know they are just being cruelly manipulated by a cult and that they really think they are doing what is best for me. That is why I am so afraid to leave. I want my parents to love me and accept me, I don't want them to think I am a bad person or fear that I will die at Armageddon. But at the same time life as a witness seems so unbearable! I have so many dreams beyond knocking on doors and being a good little jw girl! I want to truly be myself and live by my own rules, and have friends who accept me for me, not who the watchtower wants me to be! But that seems like such an impossible dream :( Do you guys have any advice that could help? Thanks :)

out4good4

If you're intent on living your life the way you want to, you're going to have to eventually hurt their feelings.

Bob Loblaw

Sorry, no advice, but I feel your pain. I left at 17 and had to da at 20. It's not easy. It's terribly difficult, but you can't put a price on standing up for what is right. The freedom is refreshing. 23 years later now and I have my own family and real friends and life is good. However, I have this nagging dark side to my life where my own blood shuns me. It hurts,...and it's absolutely ridiculous that we even have to make such decisions. Its a travesty that teenagers have to decide whether or not to lose family just because of a difference in belief. Conditional love is not real love.

Crazyguy

Life is to short, live it to the fullest!

Village Idiot

Just keep making plans to leave.

dubstepped

You can't live your life for others. It simply isn't possible, and you'll end up with health problems if you try to be someone that you aren't, whether physically or mentally you'll suffer one way or both. Change in life is inevitable, but for now you're just a kid and you just need to worry about today. Don't worry about tomorrow or what those changes will be. In the end, you can't control life. You can do your best and live it as who you are, but you can't control what your parents or anyone else thinks or feels or how they react.

So, for today things are good with you and your parents. Appreciate it. Take what love you get from them now and try to be present mentally when you're with them. When and if the time comes that you need to make changes you'll do so then. No amount of worrying about it today changes what happens in the future. You'll be a different person then, with different coping skills and goals in life. Your parents may be too. All that you're guaranteed is this moment, right now, so have gratitude for what you have and don't worry about what you might not have later. For now, you have them.

This is coming from a guy that lost his family due to leaving the religion. It does hurt, but I can look back and know that I did everything I possibly could to make things work, to enjoy the time that I had, and I have peace even in the great divide between us now because I didn't leave anything undone and I did my best to appreciate what I had and make it better. In the end, any relationship takes two people, and while I'm still open to a relationship they aren't, and that's on them. I have peace in that I acted right on my end. They have to live with theirs. It isn't my problem. Love isn't control. It take a lot more love to have a relationship with someone that you don't agree with everything on and that you may not even always like than it does to love someone that is just a little robot that does what you say and obeys. My love isn't so small that it can't survive a religious disagreement. My parents' love is that small. That makes them toxic, and people that ultimately I know it is best for me to be separated from anyway.

smiddy

Actually you do not have to leave

Don`t play the victim card

You are a survivor

As stated above you have the right to live your life the way you want to live it ,within reason under their roof.

The ball is in the court of your parents if they truly love you they will respect your decision .

If they have only conditional love for you , and want you out of their house , then it`s their decision not yours and it`s better to find that out now while you are still young enough to get on with your life.

I`m not saying it will be easy , it wont ,but if they want there life dictated too by 7 men in Brooklyn ,then you will know where you stand , and it maybe a wake-up call for you.

I feel for you & hope everything works out OK for you , and your parents.,sincerely.

smiddy

OnTheWayOut

Nobody should expect you to live a lie. If you want to try to leave without exposing any life choices that violate JW rules, it is a tough choice but not impossible. You can just not discuss JW issues after you leave. You can hide your sex life from your family, along with other things.

I don't automatically recommend this, but it is better to try this than to remain a JW for others. Moving far away might help.

Otherwise, the truer to youself you strive to live, the more at peace with yourself you can be. It is sad that this can make you risk family ties, but you may have to do that.

BlackWolf

Thanks everybody :)

naazira

Just make sure you're stable as in having money/ a place to live in mind maybe with a roommate or on a college campus, before you break the news. I would suggest leaving in the same manner the guy in the prodigal son returns video did.... Ya know for.... "Career Opportunities". :-)

Enjoy YOUR life... You only get one! Best wishes

I dont know how i can leave my family!

Share this