Make no mistake, just because I now hear things at the kingdom hall differently doesn't mean I have found my way. I am frightened. I raised my three children in this religion. Thankfully they are all three thinkers. Deep thinkers. I guess you would call me a liberal witness. Two of my three children are inactive like me, but they occasionally still attend meetings. Letting go is not easy as many on this forum who still actively attend meetings can attest to. My mother and my sibilings are still active and they are worried about me. Somedays I believe I have been lied to my whole life and other days I buy into the fear that SATAN has got me! Still, I come here several times a day searching for answers. Searching.
THIS is a DANGEROUS PLACE
by peggy 46 Replies latest watchtower bible
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zulukai
Peggy, one of the things I found that fed my starved intellect was going to college. Four months after I left I was enrolled in nursing school. I can wholeheartidly recommend the challenge of an interesting course or two to revive your mind and jump start your latent potential. I once had the same doubts and fears you do...some that left tried to tell me things I didn't want to hear either. Then my whole life began to unravel.
I still clung for a long time to the hope that someone would believe me about the corrupt congregation I was in and the abusive JW man I was married to. It didn't seem possible that such things could exist in a religion that insisted it was the one true clean religion. I had been told the stories of others who left, but it always seemed to me that they had somehow "misunderstood" or failed to be forgiving or had been too easily stumbled. Or, Satan had got hold of them.
It was unthinkable to me that the stories were true..UNTIL it happened to me.
Now I know it was much worse than I ever would have believed. The WTBTS KNOWS full well that the KH I attended was a cesspool of corruption They only sent a Bethel rep out to hunt people like me down and mark them for being a whistle-blower, not to investigate the problems. The person at the center of it all was sending Bethel untold thousands of dollars and they were not about to let a woman in the know, so to speak, bring down their golden goose.
Most of us here have similar stories, some worse. I had a near breakdown when I realized the whole thing was an elaborate, albeit cheesy hoax. Having the goal of getting an education so I could provide a decent life for my children forestalled that crash and burn scenario. I had a goal, I was coming to life and actually enjoying life for the first time ever. You sound alot like me, the way you think and the way you raised your children. I think you are on the road to really thinking for the first time ever about the JW religion and what's behind it. Don't stop!
Both of my kids are critical thinkers and both were raised in the religion. But they both know it was and is a scam. They have careers, are responsible and have done far better than they ever would have as stepford-like witness women.. When they heard that I was on an ex-jw site they cracked up laughing.
I hope you keep reading and weighing the evidence. There is plenty of it all over the place. Will look forward to seeing your posts in the future. -
sonnyboy
The dangerous thing would be NOT discussing things in a rational manner.
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zulukai
Please bear with me, not to hijack the thread at all...but HOT DAMN Terry........I want what you wrote in your marvellous post on my wall !!!! Poster size! That was awesome...thank you!
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PopeOfEruke
Zulu
agreed! That was a cracker, Terry! Just sent it to my JW relative....
And Peggy, you've come to the right place. As the good book says : You will KNOW the truth and the truth WILL set you free!
Pope
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Rayvin
I too have noticed that when I last went to a meeting ( quite a while ago) I was listening with.. imagine this.. an open mind!!!!!
It was an eye opener. Like I could see for the very first time. It was refreshing and depressing at the same time. This was also before I was shown this site by a very smart and very close (and for you ladies out there..he is attractive) friend of mine.
I used to have this way of knowing the real truth but still feeling unprepared to defend them to other JWs. Now that I have been at this site its helped me realize my own strength and faith in myself to tell how I feel with pride.
Its dangerous however, since now I have this new found strength I fear I may be so excited to share w/ relatives (jw) and may be 'outting' myself.
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Happy Guy :)
But, the promises and the ideology are actually just those piles you step in while crossing the pasture on the way to the bunkhouse where the flea-festation of duplicity and backtracking swarm over your consciousness each time the New Light flickers out like a guttering candle in a stiff east wind.
lol nice one Terry
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Hellrider
NAH PEP, I just think it is interesting that the WT warns against the internet. I guess;I took that as a danger, a danger to my spiriual health. I have never been very good with rules
Unfortunately, and very sadly, those people (that aren`t very good with rules) are usually the ones that are able to escape the WT-brainwashing. The rebellious, angry (often damaged) kids are the ones that break out when they grow up, and having been told their entire life that "worldly people" engage in promiscuis sex, constant drinking, doing drugs, etc, they think that it`s ok for them to do this too, now that they are "part of the world". And anyway, Jehovah is gonna kill him/her anyway in Armageddon, right, so why not? (The belief in the religious system of the WT still hangs in there for many years after having gotten out, it definitely did with me, even today, more than a decade later, I feel this anxiety in my gut whenever I hear about some disaster somewhere in the world, end times, boooohh ;o). I know that one of the sons of one of the elders in my congregation went from drinking at his first "worldly" party, to having tried heroine (!!!) for the first time, in only two months! Cause thats what "worldly people do". Wild youth break out, and damage themselves even more, when they do. Whereas the good kids just stay behind, trapped in this "religion" (cult). It`s so sad, my wonderful niece is now 18, finished high school with all top grades (cause she`s a good girl), and now she`s going to pioneer (cause she`s a good girl). She`ll probably be trapped in witnoid hell for the rest of her life, until she is brainwashed beyond hope (cause she`s a good girl...).
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Crumpet
and having been told their entire life that "worldly people" engage in promiscuis sex, constant drinking, doing drugs, etc, they think that it`s ok for them to do this too, now that they are "part of the world". And anyway, Jehovah is gonna kill him/her anyway in Armageddon, right, so why not?
Hellrider - thats an excellent summary of precisely what happened to me. I'm very thankful I didn't end up a junkie or a prostitute although sometiems the I've had but narrow escapes. I still have problems, but something held me back from going to the ultimate extreme. Maybe I had some self respect in there somewhere.
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katiekitten
Welcome Peggy. Good to have you.
Somedays I believe I have been lied to my whole life and other days I buy into the fear that SATAN has got me!
Yup, thats totally understandable. I went through about a year of that. It was finding out things that were, in my mind, ABSOLUTE LIES from the society that made me realise it was the former and not the latter that had occured.
Find something you absolutely KNOW is not true that the borg have told you, and its something different for everyone that finally does it, and you will be returned to happiness and mental health.