How old were you when you left? Started fading late teens/early 20's. Once I got my hands on some exjw stuff a decade later, was well and truly mentally and emotionally free in my early 30's.
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? No internet back then...
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? None. I lived in fear of the big A for years and years.
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).
I would rather be dead than live forever on earth with nothing but JWs around me, and I despised meetings and FS more than anything else in the whole world. So I thought I'd go "worldly" and enjoy whatever few years I had remaining having fun.
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?
Randy Watter's Free Minds Journal and David Reed's Comments from the Friends. THANK YOU RANDY AND DAVID FREE AT LAST
What year did you leave? offically 2003 mentaly 1994
How old were you when you left? I was 26 when i offically left
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? no it just helped me to realize that the WTS was wrong and it was not the truth but that was about in oct 2003
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? None i just was spinning on my own
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). My fiancee helped deprogram me
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? My fiancee
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave?
A bit. Randy's site, Free minds
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision?
I read all I could get my hands on. COC ISOCF Thus Saieth, Apocalypse Delayed, Gentile Times Reconsidered, Signs of the Last Days, and a lot of material from Free Minds.
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).
The 3 dots. When I started researching the WTBTS publications, and researched their quotations from their old publications, and from other non JW publications they quoted from, I soon discovered that those 3 dots in the middle of a quoatation. usually amounted to complete sentences, sometimes paragraphs, and in case of a quote from Russell in the Golden Age 3 pages of missing script. In each case they took quotations out of context, such that the poiont they were trying to make backed up by a so called similar viewpoint, was in fact a lie. Lying Deceptive Bastards.
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?
The last nail in their coffin was when they changed their "mission statement" in the 1995 Awake, to basically call God a liar. "God's promise of a peaceful and secure new earth before the generation that saw 1914 passes away". I remember catching a blurb about it on CNN, where the newscaster said something to the effect, 'that with Jehovah's Witnesses, the end is now fluid'
I started to fade in 1997, but still attended Sunday meetings and memorials.
How old were you when you left?
Started to fade at 18 yrs. old
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave?
Yes, it helped me research into the cult, helped me discover COC, and talk with like-minded ex-dubs.
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision?
An article in the newspaper (2002) about elders being charged with sexual molestation in KH's. It floored me to read about how the society was not handling the issue. I read about Silent Lambs in the article...found Bill Bowan's phone number online and called him to thank him for being strong to speak against the WT. That initiated my research online.
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).
Unloving, uncaring, cruel, mean people in every KH my family and I ever attended.
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?
The newspaper article I mentioned above was the catalyst.
Made my decision to leave when an elder started a sick rumor about me.
At that point, I was'nt sure it was the "truth" anymore.
I thought what Purplev thought
I would rather be dead than live forever on earth with nothing but JWs around me, and I despised meetings and FS more than anything else in the whole world. So I thought I'd go "worldly" and enjoy whatever few years I had remaining having fun.
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? No, I was too scared to peer into the exjw sites until I was disfellowshipped for about six months
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? My friend Debbie who DA'd herself the year before lent me "Crisis of Conscience"... http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/44458/624359/post.ashx#624359 That fully convinced me that the wts was nothing more than a cheapo publishing company with slave labor in the name of gawd and I was being lied to my whole life
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). Even being df'd, a person can still decide they don't want to leave and struggle and beg to get back in the borg. Thankfully, I was not like that. I recognized immediately upon my df'ing that the elders were human judges without mercy or love ... and God was a separate entity who was totally unlike any elders I ever dealt with. Immediately after my df'ing, I prayed and I felt supported and loved and safe ... then I knew the elders were full of shite
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? NA ... thankfully, the elders themselves convinced me fully that they did not have the TruthTM ...
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave?
nope
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision?
nothing
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).
Getting objective opinions from people outside the organization, I realized that the little world I had grown up in was little more than a cult to anyone with a rational mind and a little education.
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?
Didn't really think it was the truth, but two years ago I read Ray Franz's book - Crisis of Conscience. It put to rest any thoughts that they were anything more than a bunch of liars
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave?
No, didn't know I was leaving at the time. Later, was convinced by my husband's research (on the internet-LOL) and by my own personal (actual book) reading
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision?
Hassan's "Combatting Cult Mind-Control" and Franz' "Crisis of Conscience"
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing).
Before I knew I was never going back: Nasty mean people. What made me know I was never going back: WT deceit and legal maneuvering in policies regarding blood, politics, etc.
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind?
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? Yes. I never thought it was the truth for a long time, but after looking up on the internet(Lurking here in 2000/2001 then joined 2003) I realised just how bad things were and how much I didn't want to be a part of it. When I joined this site last year I was working on getting reinstated.
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? Nepotism, and the amount of control they had over you. You could be given advice for you to make your own mind up but unless you made the decision they wanted you to make you were in trouble.....
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). The realisation that it was a cult and the level of corruption.
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? N/A
Did the internet have anything to do with your decision to leave? No, not at the time. But later it would make a huge impact.
If you left before you got on the internet what reading did you do about the WTS or cults that helped you make your decision? None immediately, but later getting my hands on Crisis of Conscious was crucial.
What was the one most important reason that helped you decide to leave (even if the decision was made for you through a DFing). The lack of love. How could that hatefulness and judgementalness be God's TRUE organization?
If you left and still thought it was "the truth" what helped you change your mind? This board. Until I came here, there was always a sliver of my mind that thought I'd go back at some point. Now there is no question - I will NEVER go back.
