You have three minutes - talk fast!

by expatbrit 12 Replies latest jw friends

expatbrit

Alright, I'm fed up with the shit going all one way!
Today I had my periodic phone conversation with the family back in the UK. As usual, they veered the conversation around to "the truth".
"Did you go to the meeting?"
"No"
"Have you been lately?"
"No"
After that it was the usual cliche's:
-"you should widen out, make more friends at the kingdom hall" (I've made more friends in the past six months than in all my years in the WT)
-"stand back and think deeply about the truth" (that's why I stopped going)
-"your business wont make you happy" (I'm happier now than I was a year ago and it has nothing to do with my business)
-"the rotten world is going down" (the world isn't rotten, it's a better place now than it's ever been).
My response to these statements usually gets as far as three words, then they cut me off with the next one. It's almost like they don't want to hear my response.
After that the emotional blackmail, wrapped in false humour:
-"well, you can't visit us unless you're in the truth ha ha ha"
-"we don't want any apostates in this house ho ho ho".
SO: I've had it with the Mr-nice-guy-soak-it-up-like-a-sponge-and-don't-provoke-a-conflagration act.
I am going to mail them just a few of the reasons why I am no longer ensnared in the WT cult.
BUT, I suspect that once they start reading this stuff, they will only read a little before the walls go up and the WT blinders come on.
SO, those first items need to be powerful, irrefutable, and hard hitting, like a battering ram against the walls of WT conditioning. If they can just loosen a few bricks, shake their thoughts inside those walls, maybe in the future THEY will stand back and take an objective look at "the truth".
I have some ideas about what to send in this first volley, but would welcome, please, your thoughts on what I should confront them with.
It should preferably be something that doesn't involve the internet i.e. material I can get from the WT publications or available scholarly textbooks or higher quality news-journals.
I would like to concentrate on showing the idiocy, fraud and sheer rottenness of the WT organization.
While I will continue to mail stuff to them in future, I may only get one shot at actually getting their attention. Please give me your input. Thanks!
Expatbrit
safe4kids

Hey expat,
Hugs to you, my friend. I do not have any words of wisdom to offer you in your 'first volley'; I'll leave that to the deeper thinkers who post here. I just wanted you to know that I feel for what you are going through; all of my family, with the exception of my wonderful sister, are still in the borg and so I can relate to the types of comments you are experiencing. Who knows what, if anything, will reach through to them?? But I am here for you as are so many of the people you've met. Feel free to email me; although it is hard for me, I am capable of a serious conversation .
Hang in there!
Dana
Had Enough

Hello Expatbrit and fellow Canuck:
I understand your frustration and enthusiasm to "hit'em with both barrels" but I truly feel another approach might get you further.
Instead of outright bombarding them,which would only serve to put their defenses up and an immediate wall between you all, please consider this approach I came across.
If you were to write them about some "questions" some "worldly people" have asked you about things you can't answer, and so ask them how would they answer them....and not with WT articles but with the Bible...perhaps their search might get them thinking when they can't find the answers. It would take some work by you to find the subjects but we have here a wealth of info that is contradictory in the WTS doctrines .
I got this idea from a post on freeminds and have since found out that it was written by our own 'Amazing'. It's at:
http://www.freeminds.org/psych/exithelp.htm
He used this approach with his children once he found the WTS was false in its teachings. He records his sample discussions with them.
I found this fascinating and so productive because it didn't put them on the defensive like an outright bombardment of "facts" would. That approach would just serve to close your parents minds to any gems you would have for them.
Please consider this approach instead and visit that website to see what I'm referring to.
Hope this helps....
Had enough
Simon

I know exactly how you feel expat - I feel like screaming at them sometimes if it would only make them understand. I'd be happy if they just listened...
Sometimes it takes a while but getting snippets of info across whenever possible is good. I like when I can tell them things about changes coming in the society before they are told by the WT. I know they must think about what I've told them when they are sat at the hall listening to it.
One day they will see it for what it is and thank me for not giving up on them and having the patience to keep trying. My hope anyway
SixofNine

I haven't even read your post thoroughly, but I do have this comment. Start you letter off this way:
Dear Mom and Dad,
-"well, you can't visit us unless you're in the truth ha ha ha"
-"we don't want any apostates in this house ho ho ho".
"Mom, Dad, I have to tell you just how completely sick to my very soul that kind of talk makes me. Even if you are only sort of joking to "encourage me", being raised as a Witness, I know just how close to home those words hit in some dysfunctional family members minds. This sort of emotional blackmail is disgusting to me, especially now that I am a parent (use it if you are, Expat).
I know you guys only want the best for me, but what is best for me is up to me to decide at this point. Just like every other human on this planet....."
Anyway, you know your parents, but I really do advocate a bit harder hitting methodology than most people I have seen on these forums have taken. Remember, WE (apostates) are the ones who have at least a desire for truth and a passion for honesty on our sides. Use it.
Cautiously, of course.
crossroads

EX--you'll love this I have studied on and off and been
in and out out and in the DARKNESS for the past
30 years. My mom recently told me if I only studied
3 more times yes just 3 more times I would get it.
Personally about the letter you have to go for the name.
Aid book page 884 bottom to begining of page 885.
If Raymundus Martini, a spanish monk of the
Dominican Order is not from PAGAN origin what is?
But mediator from the insight book is what was my
final straw. From pages 360 to 363.you need to read it
all. By the time you get to the final paragraph towards the
top of page 363and you read the final paragraph you'll
say to yourself oh my thats what I believed and did not
even know it. Yes they believe Immanuel-GOD is with us
MATT 1:23 sacrificed himself to save 144,000 people
all others must pass tests and EARN their way and beg
for a good judgement . Mean while ADAM a mere man put
billions and billions of men in a sinful and death like
condition. Jesus came for me and you and your
family ALL MANKIND that is what is written not for
a select few. I asked two elders about this the idiot
had nothing to say. The smart one(if you can find one)
said I'll get resurrected. How nice am I perfect like Adam
now?oh no.But you get the oppurtunity to gain that prize
now. Sorry but this getting back to Adam thing is a GIFT
the Father and Son has given to all who believe in the
LORD'S sacrifice I believe thus I want the gift.BTW tell
them either then or now they will not be perfect and so
can't pay for the gift JESUS has given freely.
Elders left that day DAZED and CONFUSED.
Too much Zeppelin I supose
thinkers wife

Ex Pat,
Unfortunately I have no specific suggestions. But if you come up with something that works please let us here know.
I would love to make some inroads with my family!!
TW
Tina

(((((((((((((expat))))))))))))))
My heart goes out to you dear.

Nothing I've done has really worked with my jw family members,so Im not gonna pass along what is ineffective.
But in the not so distant pass on h20,silentlambs was/is having some probs with family members.
He got some really fantastic examples of approaching them by letter. I'll see if I can find that thread. If anyone else remembers what Im talking about,please,can you help expat by posting a link?
I think it's really helpful and relevant to expats situation.
Thanks and love to all,Tina
outnfree

expat,
I'm having trouble with this. Perhaps I never grew up. But there are still MANY, MANY things (non-Witness topics) that I cannot discuss with my mother (my father's dead many years now). There are places we just cannot go together. And there are subjects that if brought up get ignored or become so thorny that it's not worth my beating my head against the wall!
I realize that the little child in me would like Mommy to soothe me in all my hurts, and leaving the WT is a BIG hurt! (One MY mother cannot understand, never having been a Witness.) But while she will ask me why I've left, her eyes actually glaze over after more than 5 mins. worth of explanation.
Yet I never doubt that she is actually concerned for my welfare, nor that she loves me.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that ALL people have things in their lives that they cannot discuss with their parents. For some it's their sexual views or orientation, for others it's politics, and for others still it's religion.
Some Catholic parents will never understand their children leaving Catholicism or marrying outside the faith. I know a woman who decided to become a Lutheran instead of a Catholic to preserve peace in her marriage and her family are all trying to reconvert her and convert her husband and children. Baptists would have a hard time if one of their children took up with a "Papist"!
Now, neither of my examples would actually have to SHUN their children over their leaving the family's faith as Jehovah's Witnesses must do. Thus, the stakes are MUCH, much higher here.
Do you really want to risk losing all contact with your parents?
I think if you MUST write, HadEnough's suggestion of using Amazing's approach of gentle questions supposedly asked by someone in field service is likely to be the most effective with the least friction.
If you do not wish to lie about having been asked the question by a householder, I wolunteer to be the person who asked the question online on a discussion board and who refuses to let you use anything but the Bible for a reply. (I won't even object to your "different" NWT Bible!!! )
Because I DO think you'd much rather have your parents and family OUT than be cut off from their lives.
I'm wondering, too, how things are with Mrs. expatbrit? That's got to be so much more stressful than your transatlantic dilemma?
Wishing you the very best whatever you choose to do,
outnfree
joelbear

Expat,
I vote strongly against sending the letter. All the evidence is there for those who want to investigate. My experience is that my witness relatives already know everything that I might point out to them. Logic is not what keeps them witnesses.
As you may have read, I have recently switched the scenario around with my family. I have disfellowshipped them from my life. While they are Jehovah's Witnesses, I view them as dangerous to me and my happiness. I have to protect myself from them and their self destructive ideas. Love, or supposed love, from someone who is a Jehovah's Witness is at the best worthless and at the worst, emotionally destructive.
I recently called my mother because I had heard her mother was ill and being put in a nursing home. She asked why she hadn't heard from me. I told her that I hadn't been feeling well and didn't want her to worry. Her immediate response was, "Well, you know where you can go to make you feel better."
I am sorry that my family is sick and codependent on a group that is only interested in what it can drain out of them. I wish things were different. I wish I had a happy family that loved each other in a healthy manner like so many "worldly" families that I know of through work and social outlets.
I am sorry your family is stuck there too. A letter is useless in my opinion. So is arguing religious thought logically. People believe what they need to believe.
I hope things work out for you.
hugs
Joel

You have three minutes - talk fast!

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