Raised in it . . . duped, dubbed, dunked, doubted, damned, dumped, departed!
did you escape BEFORE baptism?
by kid-A 31 Replies latest jw friends
-
garybuss
-
tetrapod.sapien
like a jackass, i got baptised with a big f-ing smile on my face.
eee-ohn! eee-ohn!
how were you freaks so damn smart at such a young age? what the ... is wrong with me?
TS
-
chrissy
yeah, you kids were so smart. i got baptized at fifteen and everyone wondered what took me so long. lots of pressure. except from my elders. they tried to talk me out of it.... and i was a good girl relativey speaking. so i was crushed they didnt support it but did it anyway. little did i know...i should have really listened. tho i dont see how my views of life or the world would be all the different had i not been bap'd. i was never big on symbolism.
-
oldflame
Yes just about 2 weeks before
-
I quit!
Once when I was a teenager my friend and I picked up a couple of girls hitchhiking (back when people hitchhiked). I was just getting into the JW thing. I mentioned to them that I was studing with the Witnesses (great pick-up line). One of them told me she was raised as a Jehovah's Witnesses and her father was an elder but she had never got baptised. I began telling her how wonderful the Watchtower was (I was being love bombed at the time). She told me she had see a lot of horrible things go on at the hall and said there were a lot of hypocrites there. She told me that they were just like any other religion and that she would never go back. I was shocked at her attitude. Before meeting her I had never seen anyone who was associated with the Witnesses ever do anything but grin at me and tell me how wonderful it was to be in Jehovah's organization. She tried to warn me not to get involved. Too bad I didn't listen.
-
rebel8
I got baptized in obedience of a directive given by my mother, not out of personal desire.
However, I have never suffered any negative consequences from getting dunked, so it didn't matter one bit.
-
GentlyFeral
Both my kids are still dry behind the ears. My son had decided by age 17, and my daughter by the age of ... oh, eight? ... that they would never be jaydubs.
Of course, they never told me about it. /:)
GentlyFeral
-
hybridous
From the age of 10 or 11 years old, I knew that something was seriously wrong with this 'religion'. I tried to extrapolate and figure out what my life would be like if I did what was expected of me (got baptized).
For the life of me, I just could not visualize a nomal happy life for myself if I continued down that JW path. I knew that something was very wrong here, and that something would eventually make my life intolerable until I eventually killed myself.
When I was alone, I would pray to God and beg Him to help me sort it all out. If this is the right religion and way of life, why does it all feel so damn WRONG? I just asked that He show me whatever it was I needed.
I never did get that confirmation from above. I went through my teen years always knowing that I was playing a part; always knowing that eventually I would have to leave this miserable cult. And I was a model JW teen, too. Ministry school, field service, quick builds, etc. I did it all. Right up through high school.
Then the cognitive dissonance reached critical mass, and I broke the news that I was done with Bible study, would not be baptized, and would not attend meetings. I had postponed baptism, presumably because I knew all along that I would leave, and I wanted to be able to have a relationship with my family that was as normal as possible. Leaving before baptism allowed me to avoid certain labels.
Yeah, those of us who left prior to baptism dodged a bullet of sorts, for now. I would not be surprised if the WT soon invents a new category for us and instructs JW family to shun us as well. Until then, I will try to have my family be a part of my life.
I could go on about this forever, but I don't want to bore people......
-
I quit!
I could go on about this forever, but I don't want to bore people......
-
144001
Count me as another person born into the cancer that is the Watchtower but who was never, ever, interested in being baptized. I hated this cult from an early age and never once contemplated baptism. The only thing I ever thought of was how happy I would be when I stood up to my parents and made my exit. I did that about a quarter century ago and have never regretted the decision, although the Watchtower still adversely affects me via family involvement.