How do you feel, relieved or sad? (page 3)

evergreen

hi jula71,

Im pretty much in the same boat as you. I feel all the things u have said. I also feel a void because everything that u once 100% believed in has vanished away perhaps quickly , perhaps over a long period of time as in my case.

I sometimes think to my self have i done the right thing. My relations are witnesses and that can be a pressure at times. But then i read all about the failed prophecies , all the ridiculous policies and flip flopping in the past and ask myself , how can God be using this organisation.

I just cant see how the God of the bible could be getting it so wrong and so often over such a long time. That is what brings it back to earth for me.

I 100% believe in Gods word and still hold onto the hope of the bible . I would like to think that i, like many others will find "the way" as spoken of in the scriptures. But in the meantime life goes on and i try to enjoy life as much as i can with my family.

happehanna

Mixed feelings but in general I had known for a long time that there were some serious flaws in the teachings etc.

It was a relief when I found this site and the healing began.

Leaving the JW's was the hardest thing and in some ways easiest thing ( a contradiction I know) I have ever done after being born into it and not leaving until 43, support is needed to get through.

jula71

I'd like to thank all of you guys !!! you really are making this transition easier for me. It's just a struggle, having believed in something for so long then to realize, it never was there. It's just difficult at times. But I'm back in school and going full time this fall. that occupying my time will make the transition ever better for me. Thanks guys !!!

Scully

During the early stages of my exit, I kept a diary for about 2 years or so. It didn't intially start out to be a diary, but I wanted to write things in one place as I organized my thoughts about what I was figuring out. When I started, I had no idea that I would no longer be a JW at the end of the process, in fact, I did it because I was desperately trying to hang on to my beliefs as a JW.

Since I was already depressed, I tried to read scriptures to help cheer me up. Sometimes it worked, but other times I found scriptures that were completely contrary to what the WTS was teaching. So I'd go look up what the WTS published. Then I'd get annoyed... and sometimes downright furious at how they pulled the wool over the eyes of not just me, but 6 million other people.

I wrote down nightmares that I had and dissect them - most of them ended up being about how I was terrified of being found out for my "apostate" thinking - so I resolved to proceed very cautiously and not discuss my findings with anyone until I was prepared for the outcome. I also wrote down things that Brothers™ and Sisters™ said and did to me and my family, because I wanted a record of both the good things and the bad things - and found out that the bad stuff was way more frequent than the good stuff, and that the good stuff was practically non-existent.

One of the most overwhelming revelations of this process was arriving at the conclusion that I had no right whatsoever to impose my belief system (whatever it happened to be) on anyone else. I felt angry that I had been used by by a publishing company to peddle their literature voluntarily for almost a quarter of a century, with nothing to show for it. I felt devastated that the Paradise Earth™ that I had looked forward to wasn't really going to happen, and furious that it was just a "carrot" that the WTS was using to manipulate me and every other JW into servitude.

I'm glad I took the time to write all those things down. Not only do they serve as a reminder of how those events unfolded, but I can almost see the progress I made one step at a time. If I had to predict 10 years ago, when I started that journey, what my life would be like today I can honestly say that I would have underestimated myself in a huge way. There's no way I could ever go back to the person I was in 1993.

You did what you knew how to do, and when you learned better, you did better. ~ Maya Angelou

Carol

I moved 1100 miles from the area I had been born in, grown up in (38+ years) and where I knew everyone..to an area where I only had myself and my two children (aged 14 years and 15 months)....didn't bother with the KH until the witnesses found me (go figure the first JW's at my door were a couple I had grown up with, they had married at 17 and were pioneering here). I tried the occassional meeting route, but I wouldn't give demos or go in field service (I had pioneered for 5 years and they knew it)...all of which was faithfully reported to my mother and sister in my old congo. I finally decided that I received more help and true friendship from the "wordly" people I met and became friends with, so I haven't attended anything but the Memorial since 1991 and I stoppeed attending the Memorial in 2001 because and elder walked up to me, in front of my daughter 13 year old daughter and a group of sisters and said "Do you really think your once a year sacrifice to Jehovah is acceptable to him, what do you even bother?" with that I picked up my NWTHS and Song Book, took my daughter by the hand and walked out, to the distress of a number of sisters and brothers in hearing range.....I have not walked into a KH again and have requested a "do not call at this address" slip be put in the territory map covering my neighborhood. Yes, you can do that, then you don't have to be bothered if you don't want to.

The God I grew up believing inis a loving God and judges what's in you heart, not the showey display and outward appearance and as I don't believe I'm going to Heaven or Hell, when I'm dead, I'm dead and won't know what's going on unless I am resurrected into Paradise, or who knows Heaven! This site has helped me more in the last few weeks that anything I've done in the last 43 years.

willyloman

All of the above, plus...

It's wonderful not to feel like I have to judge every person I meet! JWs are the most judgmental people on earth. To paraphrase Scully: Who the hell am I to tell people what to think in their innermost thoughts? It's liberating to shed that "responsibility," which was never really mine in the first place.

delilah

I feel relieved....liberated, and not one bit sad. I hated being with a judgemental group of people who went about telling others that their religion was the wrong one, and they needed to do some changing in order to survive the impending doom of the big "A" . I did not like the mind-control, and the repitition of the same old information, droning over, and over again....far too many meetings, and assemblies...far too much association, as far as I was concerned, with people who professed they'd "die" for me and mine, when in actual fact, they'd rather shoot me first, and run. No, I don't miss it at all.....I like to think, that if there is a god, he is an all-loving god, who is not like the JW's perceive him to be.

Delilah

lola28

Both. Relieved because I found out the truth before it was too late, no one that I care about ever became witnesses so I can move on and I don't have to be afraid of lossing my family. Sad because everything that I believed in turned out to be a lie.I feel sad that I was in an organization that hurt so many people and that I at one point also believed that shunning people was okay.

Lola (of the I can't believe I fell for it class)

Mr Facts

bump

Phizzy

The initial feeling was of immense relief, no more boring meetings, no more knocking on stranger's doors, no more feeling I was not doing enough.

Then I felt a little sad, for the lost years, sad that we won't see the little children we knew grow up.

But happy to be SO free to do, think, and study what I want.

My life is so much better !

How do you feel, relieved or sad?

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