How Would You / Did You Handle Disfellowshipping? (page 3)

minimus

I've known elders that have had 2nd thoughts about dfing a good mechanic or contributor in the Hall.

drwtsn32

We stopped going to meetings almost two years ago, but so far we have avoided talking with the elders and getting DA'd/DF'd.

At this point if we were to get DF'd, I don't think it would matter much. My wife's family shunned her almost completely a long time ago. My parents and a few of my sisters still kinda talk to me, but I'm no longer invited to any family functions. All the JW friends we had in the hall shunned us as soon as we stopped going to meetings.

We have made lots of friends in the real world so it wouldn't affect our social life, IMO.

minimus

That's the KEY! You've gotta make outside connections in the real world or else you'll be DEVESTATED!

roybatty

Now just lonely and feel like my heart has been torn out.

Can one picture Jesus having the apostles form a commitee for df someone? Maybe the "unclean" women who touched him should have been df'd or maybe he was eating with those tax collectors and other sinners in order to df them. If the elders of today lived in Jesus time, they would have had Peter df'd and Paul stoned. Sheesh, makes me mad every time I read an exp. like this one.

Swan

It is very important to build up your own support system to replace the one they are tearing away. Develop close friends who know of your situation and that you can call or visit. Arrange activities with them or find new activities of your own to keep you busy learning your new life.

Pick up a bag of firworks and a flag at the store. Take one or two out every evening and set them off so you know what to do when the big day comes.

Garage sales now are a great time to start buying Christmas decorations, doodads, and lights that you think you might be able to use in your home.

Celebrate you freedoms. Rent and go see any R-rated (or even X-rated) movies that appeal to you. Read a romance novel, watch a football game, or watch a soap-opera just to do it with out it having to bother your conscience. Rejoice that you can now do this whereas before if you did so it was forbidden.

Drive by a Kindom Hall on a sunny Saturday, look at all the cars in the lot, and yell "SUCKERS!"

Tammy

Undaunted Danny

Help nowdays is only a mouse click away.When I was booted out in 1992 there was NOTHING

I was in pretty dire straights....

minimus

Roybatty, that's why sometimes I wonder whether Paul ever thought he was a "Christian".....Swan, great ideas!!

Purza

I was DF'd at 19 and reinstated at 20. My whole life (to this day) has been affected by that one year. My mother never let me forget that I brought "shame" on the family name and a lot of my friends were no longer my friends even after I was reinstated. I was talking with my boyfriend last night about something that happened in my life as a JW (after I was reinstated) and I felt a jolt of pain in the memory.

This time I refused to meet with the elders and I just walked/ran away and moved. I did not want to give "them" the power to DF me again. F*ck that.

I feel for everyone who has gone through the DFing ordeal.

Purza

minimus

For a teenager to be df'd and want to come back a year later, it must've been a v ery heavy burden....Glad you're out now, though!

Fleur

ugh purza, this is what kills me about this cult. they say they'll take you back, but they never do. how many times did i see it? people who'd been out never were treated the same again, always people acted like they were dirty or damaged goods, even tho most of the elders/their kids had done far worse and people winked and looked the other way! i never could treat anyone who'd been df'd like that even when i was a good little borgette.

lehaa, i'm so sorry for your pain. i hope you find help and comfort here. the only reason i ever visit these boards anymore is for people like you, people just out, people in such raw pain. i don't come here to debate anyone about anything, it's a waste of time to me. but i come here to try to offer a little experience from someone just a little ways up the road.

the thing i hate most is if one of my old friends IS df'd, i never find out about it. like my one friend df'd last year, he killed himself 8 weeks later. i only found out about the df'ing after the suicide. if i'd known, i'd have called him up and taken him out with my family for a bite to eat, and given him an earfull and a shoulder to cry on.

but he's gone now. i don't even know where he's buried. i want to find out though, so i can go at least, to leave flowers.

no one else will.

when i was df'd, i refused to go to my judicial hearings (would have been like bringing the rope to my own hanging) and i told the elders to stop calling my house to hound me or i'd sic a lawyer on them for harrassment. i told them that they were to inform me of any decision that they made in writing.

All i got was a letter informing me when the last hearing would be if i wanted to show up, and that if i didn't, they would rule in accordance with the 'direction given'.

now mind you, i'd already written them a da letter, but they had to df me anyway cause no one leaves the PO's son (whether he abused her or not, moot point to them) and gets away with it. even if had begged and cried for mercy (which i had no intention of doing) they would have df'd me anyway.

i heard from my ex that they had announced my df'ing a week later. soon as that happened, he lessened his grip on me QUITE a bit cause he had what he had wanted all along; his walking papers.

if anyone i knew let alone family got df'd, i'd make them the same offer of dinner out and a listening ear. i only wish i could've done that for my friend before he dove off a roof :( i loved him a lot.

lost too many that way.

forgive me for shouting, please, i just have to do this esp. for those who may be lurking here who are down esp. if they're newly tossed out: please hear me. if i could, i'd hold you by the shoulders and look into your eyes and tell you this until you believed me.

THERE IS NO SHAME IN BEING DF'D BY A PANEL OF IMPERFECT MEN WHO HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN LIKE and are LIKELY ARE CLUTCHING THEIR LARGE PRINT BIBLES TO THEIR LAPS to hide their REACTIONS to the info they drill out of people about their "sins"! The shame is on THEM for the way that they behave; mercilessly. How they could think Jesus would ever approve of that, i have NO freaking clue.

if someone i knew/loved was df'd for a crime, murder, child molestation, well yeah, i wouldn't want to be closest friends with them of course, just like any non-jw who did those things. but for anything else? if they needed help (rehab or something) i'd try to steer them toward it; they'd know i loved them, if not their dangerous behavior. but aside from protecting my family from potential perpetrators (many of whom still sit in the KH in the good graces of the cong. cause people don't know what they do off hours!) i wouldn't judge people.

not my job, man. definitely not my job.

i feel sorry for those guys who are out now who are haunted by what they did on JC's. all i can say is, you did what you thought was best at the time. Maya Angelou says that when you "knew better, you did better". my only advice would be if you have the desire and ever get the chance to apologize to someone personally who you feel you may have wronged, by either judging harshly or by 'going along' with those who did, then apologize to them then let it go. even if you can only do it in your heart. i knew what some on my JC were up against. one of them i KNOW was an abused spouse himself and he felt for me and felt they should have let me be after the da letter i wrote. he knew what was up with my ex.

but he was obviously overruled, even if he did try to speak up on my behalf. if he's ever out, i'd love to ask him someday if he even tried. somehow, i think he may have.

fleur

How Would You / Did You Handle Disfellowshipping?

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