Ex-jw who joined as adults: How did you come to trust your own conscience? (page 3)

jaffacake

immediately lost any privileges they had

Sorry to digress, but I'm not a JW and have seen this expression a lot. What sort of privileges can be lost?

Check_Your_Premises

Cool Sweet Tee! That is exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

I know it is a difficult question. I think most can relate to some experience where the light came on for them. What I am trying to get at is what were the circumstances in your life that led up to that moment. Not the light coming on! Rather the fact that when you did see something, you didn't automatically assume you were wrong and the slave was right because they are God's organization.

The moment you noticed something, you decided that you trusted yourself more than you trusted the slave. That is a very important moment.

It might take some thinking, but I hope you all can spend some time thinking about what really gave you the confidence to stand on your own.

kazar

1. I was 17 when I joined the Witnesses. Although I was chronologically a teen, the fact that I had two children by that age compels me to list myself as an adult. I always had doubts from the time I joined Jehovah's Witnesses. Although I believed it all, I could not dispel the doubts I had, especially about evolution, psyciatry, the universe, etc. I was in the world more than I was with Jehovah's Witnesses because I was raising three children alone and had to work and more doubts arose as to why people who were genuinely kind to me, however worldly would lose their lives at Armageddon. I despised field service, and the Witnesses bored me.

2. I was disfellowshipped because I confided in a Witness sister I was close to that I did not want to live forever. I had lost infatuation with the idea of eternal paradise. I had tried for reinstatement several times but never made it back to them because I couldn't keep going to the Kingdom Hall for every meeting. I had to work and did not have a car to take my children.

3. It took 15 years for me to completely abandon the beliefs holding me captive.

4. As for my departure (by that I mean having finally a free mind), it was this board that opened my eyes in February, 2005. I did not have a computer until then and knew nothing of the internet.February, 2005.

5. I have grown as a person since February and no longer need the security of all the answers. I had been growing all along by nurturing my doubts. It just took the experience of this board to confirm it.