I was seriously depressed, and tired of the lack of love at the congregations. The constant back-biting, gossipping, etc., not necessarialy about me at all, but other people turned me right off. Now I am not speaking of one congregation in particular here; it was every one that I went to.
When things got hard, I prayed to "Jehovah". They did not improve one bit; rather, it deteriorated further. I was told once that I would never become a ministerial servant because I worked saturdays and I needed to be out in Saturday service to become one.
It wasn't that I necessarialy wanted to be one, but the news delivered to me quite suddenly one fine Monday morning made me stop dead in my tracks and look at them.
I moved back to my home town, and was on anti-depressants. I felt better, and realized why I would go home sick to my stomach nearly every night; because it was not how Jesus disciples acted. When they had a dispute about circumcision, they handled it, and everyone agreed. These people disagreed about personal private things, and yacked about it out in service groups; just sick and demented behavior.
A buddy of mine and I decided to move away. I did not go back there for about 1 month. When I arrived, and old asshole said to me,"well, if it isn't the part-timer". It didn't bother me one bit, I laughed and walked right by him; we were friendly up to that point, but his comment was NOT friendly.
Who said goodbye to me?>
One elder. He just said "good luck" and that was it. Pretty strange since I was running all the dammed microphones and working the literature counter... not one more word was said.
I knew at that moment that this was not isolated, and I had seen people shunned for far less. I decided at that point that I was not going to be a Jehovahs Witness anymore.
When I read crisis of conscience, I was floored. I leave the reader to find out the poor 70 year old man who had to go back to work because he got "disfellowshipped" and had to leave bethel; his "pension" destroyed.
They are truly like ravenous wolves, and I thank them for being so; because they are not god's people. They're ignorance lead me to the right path. One that does not involve judging.
Thank god I'm out. Thank god we're all out.
And there are millions of stories out there from people who do not post on this board, too. If they were to post, this thread would be 1 million replies long.