This was my breaking point, that told me something must be done, and quick.
What was your breaking point?
by soundbox_guy 46 Replies latest jw friends
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zulukai
For me it was numerous nagging doubts about the character of the people who claimed to be the cleanest people on earth, morally speaking. So many cover-ups. I'd go to meetings and feel a strange yawning emptiness...look around at the people and see, with very few exceptions mask-like faces, some of the women especially, so stupid you'd say "Hi", they're stuck for an answer. It was being at another hall for a meeting where a brother tried gently to disagree with the ludicrous statement that all performing artists were immoral skanks..his sister 'was an opera singer and lived an exemplary life'. He was told to stick to the words in the study article (the script) and to refrain from dissenting comments (genuine expression). I went over to him and told him he was a brave man to say what he did. It was watching me and my little kids tossed aside like yesterday's trash for leaving an explotive, loveless marriage to an ignorant, crude and abusive dub, and be told I was unfit association for leaving. I can totally relate to EvilForce's take on the Chinese torture, Death of a Thousand cuts...the cuts so thin and deftly inflicted that you die by degrees,your personality and uniqueness drained away, your mind reeling from assaultive Double-speak, disoriented from the doctrinal ground constantly shifting from under you. One day I attended a CA and the eerie presentiment of evil was just too obvious to ignore. Even the air in that place was thick and unhealthy. I got up and bolted out of there. It was like escaping a manniquin warehouse, row upon row of plastic people just sitting there getting their minds deleted. Once the questions start...you're on your way out! You just can't help it.
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free2beme
When I grew up and realized their was no Santa Claus coming to Paradise town ... and Santa was about as real as Jehovah.
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Whiskeyjack
It was two main things for me that slowly came up on me after finishing high school and drifting purposelessly in life.
One was the Orwellian nature of the cong. social stucture. Watching young people (I was about 21 at this time in a new town after moving away from home to aux. pioneer) engage in relativley normal, stupid adolescent behaviours that required that they lie and pressure/threaten/intimidate/exclude others that was the last straw for me.
The other was the "infallibility" of the GB who took fifty plus years to decide that smoking was a "sin", etc.... The fact that there was no debate or discussion allowed got me wondering about what else they could be wrong about (this was a couple of years before the "new light" in 1995) since they were obviously figuring it out as they went along.
I had my first real job in an office by this time (as a "good" JW youth, I led a pretty lonely, cloistured life) and decided I had to go to University if only to prove to myself that "I could have been something". I realized that most these "worldy" people were better moral individuals (or at least honest about themselves) than many of my peers at the hall who only filled me with distaste.
Soon after, I faded away.
W.
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rebel8
Fourth rude awakening: realizing that certain people begrudged me my self-respect as an intelligent human being. They don't like you to feel good about yourself.
Fifth rude awakening: hearing stupid things from the platform and reading stupid and shocking things (the change in the generation teaching).
Sixth rude awakening: having so-called dub friends betray or turn their back. That was the second to last straw, realizing the friends were conditional.LHG I can related to all you said. It's true that people often have many rude awakenings that lead to them leaving.
#4--That is so true.
#6--I had one of those myself when my dub boyfriend started dating my underaged sister. That would be an extremely difficult situation for anyone to deal with, but was especially so for me since I was a teenager. It was really horrible, but it really opened my eyes. People were literally saying to me how much they looked forward to our wedding one day and saying it to my sister the next day. When I confronted them, they denied saying it to me. I mean hordes of people saying I imagined all of it. I had only 1 true friend who was honest and supportive; I'll never forget her. (She has since left the borg and I wish I could find her.)
Then the wierdness of people encouraging an underaged girl to have a relationship with an adult male. No one thought a thing of it and wouldn't discuss it when I brought it up. My sister started physically attacking me out of jealousy and again everyone said I was lying, although I had visible injuries. My so-called friends, so-called loving family, and even the elders told me I was Leah, the less loved sister, and I should just accept that I'm not as well loved!
The kicker was my ex and I were both pioneers and had to see each other often in FS. I worked with him and refused to speak to him. I was told by the elders I'd be DFd if I didn't accept my ex's headship over me (he was 19 at the time, come on!) and interact with him socially. My mother said I had to meet with him at my house. She brought a MS relative of mine over to coerce me into cooperating. I was instructed to apologize and promise to begin speaking to him normally, and not to say another word about this topic to anyone else. I was told I'd be thrown out of the cong and out of my parents' home if I didn't comply. Of course I had no funds to live on my own, so I agreed to comply but told them I am only complying, not agreeing or forgiving. I said show me in the bible where it says I have to, so they dropped it.
The dubs began inviting my sister & ex over for dinner and all the in-crowd couple activities. They would invite them in front of me on purpose, watch for my reaction, then gossip about me or tell me off. I told them all off many times, told them they are unchristian and showed them scrips to prove it.
I got kicked out of my parents' home for punching my sister in the face on Christmas Day, after months of ignoring constant verbal and physical abuse from her. Left with a few bucks and no possessions. Never looked back. Will never forgive my sister either.
A meaner group of people would be hard to find.
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zagor
It was not just one particular thing. Nothing around me made sense anymore. I couldn’t understand who those people were, or who I was for that matter. I saw my life spiraling downward as if it was being sucked down by a cosmic black hole.
Every advice I received from elders was to my determent and for preserving image of congregation peace and unity. In reality, all they were trying was to stay in position of power by keeping control over me as they’ve had control over everyone else in my family and beyond.
I was penniless, jobless, friendless, miserable, and lost general sense of direction.
Hope that answers your question.
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lawrence
I was studying at the Harvard Divinity Library (servants and pioneers shouldn't do that) the history of prohetic interpretation in the Church Fathers and everything fell apart. Suddenly the 3 stooges (Russell, Rutherford, and Fred Franz) were no longer God's mouthpiece anymore than Tertullian (in his day) or Origen. These men were full of bullcrap and I was a dupe. The house of cards fell apart and I was sitting at a desk in front of stacks of books and realized I knew NOTHING anymore, closed up the volume I was reading, shelved the books, and went drinking (after 5 years of abstenance) - a few days later I knew even less. "Where was the brother for field service arangements?" Drunk in Harvard Yard.