Posts by OneEyedJoe

25

I feel trapped...I might return to the Borg....

by JustHuman14 in

i have being thinking quite a while before posting.

actually i haven't post for quite a long in the forum and i guess i'm one of the old ones, since i became member since 2001.. after leaving the borg for almost 16 years and disfellowshiped 10 years ago.

you can see my relevant post:.

OneEyedJoe

From what I've read on here it seems that reinstatement takes a minimum of 6 months, but there's been a recent push at elder's schools to keep them from reinstating in less than a year. It can depend a lot on the congregation, though so maybe you'll get lucky. I know for some it takes multiple years. They'll also likely grill you and try to get you to confess any and all sins that you committed in the last decade, and I suspect that will also influence the amount of time that it takes for you to be reinstated.

Best of luck to you!

15

Give Jehovah Only 6 Months!

by naazira in

jw
friends

main question: what do you think would happen if jehovah's witnesses stayed away from the watchtower organization for 6 months?

instead of "us" staying in their world for 6 months.

personally, i think they would be like the amish youth on rumspringa- many to never return.. i came across a thread here, where the poster said that their parents told them to give jehovah's org 6 months.

OneEyedJoe

I can see the "commit to it completely for 6 months" thing working on a lot of people who are just beaten down but don't know TTATT. The way cults work is to get you to participate in spite of your better judgement and that causes cognitive dissonance, which forces you to have a better view of the cult (your participating in cult activities is contrary to your negative feelings about the cult so you either have to change your actions or your feeling about the cult - if you've committed to trying it for 6 months, most likely it will be the latter).

What I'm wondering is if this 6 month trial period is an institutionalized thing. Is it a recommended tactic in the elder's manual or at the elder's school, or is it just a fluke that a couple elders hit upon the same thing? It always interests me to see what bits of the cult indoctrination and mind control come from the top. It seems like most of it does, but there have definitely been a few cases that I've seen where it seems like a few elders or a CO have happened upon some particularly unique method of controlling people that isn't used by the organization as a whole.

21

I was unkind & I am deeply sorry

by Dolosus in

early this morning, i was stopped at a service station dealing with a mechanical issue with my motorcycle.

i was approached by 2 young men who pro-offered some of your reading material.

i deeply regret that i was very unkind; in actual fact, i was quite mean in my response to them.

OneEyedJoe

I don't take it personally how I was occasionally treated in the past while trying to push my cult on other people. I was (unknowingly) trying to force people into the same mental prison that I was in... I think that warrants some hostility.

In case you haven't worked it out, this forum is mostly made of people that have left (or are trying to leave) the JW cult :-)

25

I feel trapped...I might return to the Borg....

by JustHuman14 in

i have being thinking quite a while before posting.

actually i haven't post for quite a long in the forum and i guess i'm one of the old ones, since i became member since 2001.. after leaving the borg for almost 16 years and disfellowshiped 10 years ago.

you can see my relevant post:.

OneEyedJoe

I'm sorry to hear of your health problems. That's difficult with the best of support systems... for someone who's left their family behind to exit this cult it must be incredibly daunting. I hope you have some support outside the cult.

Personally the only reason I'd go back is if I needed the support of my family and had no other options. It sounds like you're only considering it to make your family feel better. In your situation, you don't owe them anything. It's well within their power to put you before their cult and you shouldn't feel bass for leaving a barrier between you and them because you're not the one putting it there.

Whatever you do, there's no shame in either course. Just remember that you have value for who you are, not for what you (pretend to) believe. Being around people in this cult make it easy to forget that.

28

What Convinced you to Leave?

by LaurenM in

i've been posting here a lot, but these last few weeks have been very difficult for me.

anyways, lately, i've been thinking about confessing everything i've done to the elders and going back, but deep down, i don't really think it's the truth...so my question is, what convinced you it wasn't the truth and that leaving wasn't a horrible decision that everyone in the truth makes it out to be?

OneEyedJoe

For me it was a culmination of a life full of "that doesn't seen right"moments. Then allowing myself to see the false prophecy for what it was, and discovering the dishonest, deceptive, and untruthful statements in the literature (most notably in the creation book) was the final push that sent me over the edge.

One thing I'd suggest that you try would be to stop calling it "the truth" for a while and see if that changes how you feel. Getting people to call it "the truth" was probably one of the single most manipulative thing the jw leadership had done. Words are the tools you use to think and when you allow someone to tamper with their meaning they have a great amount of power to influence how you think. When you stop calling it "the truth" when you think about it, you might find that it becomes easier to find how you really feel about things.

34

Hebrew Was The First Language

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

according to the newest watchtower:.

jehovah communicated with adam in the garden of eden, using human language.

god likely did so in an ancient form of hebrew.

OneEyedJoe

They've been making this absurd claim for a while. Last years convention had a 10 minute part on a symposium about how people would speak Hebrew in the new system because it was the first language. The "logic" goes that the predecessor of the Hebrews wasn't involved in building the tower of babel and so did not have their language confused. Therefore they continued speaking the original language. Let's not go getting things confused by bringing facts any archeology into it, now.

21

Did You Ever Hear a Non-Witness Opinion After They'd Attended Their first Meeting?

by snugglebunny in

i was about 12. i took a friend along to a meeting and he said he didn't mind learning stuff but it was a shame it was so boring.. i was about 14. i had my very own bible study and took him along.

he just kept whispering about the girls there that he fancied.. i was in my early 20's.

i took along a lady that i knew.

OneEyedJoe

Once a woman stormed out in the middle of the memorial muttering something about how crazy it all was... Too bad she was so animated that she seemed like the crazy one at the time.

28

help me understand: My wife seems to be utterly detested by skelletons and skulls. Why?

by goingthruthemotions in

so, here i am again....asking more questions to help me understand my wife.

she was brought up in the cult in the 70's and 80's.

so i can only imagine what kind of indoctrination she deals with.

OneEyedJoe

Somehow I picked this up (I'm only 30). I remember shopping for t-shirts and seeing one I liked that had a small skull somewhere on it and thinking that I couldn't buy it because of that. The thought was definitely because of the cult, but no idea where it originated from.

21

Wife Equates Having A Good Marriage With Being "Spiritual"

by JW_Rogue in

so i've noticed lately that my wife seems to think that in order to have a good marriage both people must be "spiritual".

she thinks being close as a family is all about family worship night, field service and praying together.

i know where these ideas are coming from but it is very hard to combat them.

OneEyedJoe

I don't really feel like I can talk to her openly about how I feel about the org. Sometimes she will complain about the Elders or say that she doesn't see any point in going to meetings. However, when she says those things she is looking for me to set her straight and tell her what she needs to do. If I agreed with her then I'd be letting her down. According to her thinking I'm supposed to be the "more spiritual one" as the head of the household.

Been there. My wife tested me in so many different ways and treated me like shit every time I disappointed her with my lack of zeal for the cult. While it was rough for a while (and things are still very much up in the air in a lot of ways) it turns out that just being honest with her was the best thing and I wish I'd done it earlier. Your wife is probably scared. She knows something is going on and since you're not telling her she could very well be inventing stories in her head like mine was and that's likely making her very insecure and unsettled about your marriage and her future. That tension isn't going to result in anything good - even if you're not open with her about your issues with the cult, I think trying something to reassure her of the strength of the marriage (buy her flowers, take her to a nice place she's been wanting to try, take an afternoon off work to spend time with her, whatever) and your commitment to it would be a good idea. If you can make her feel comfortable about things without bringing the cult into it, you'll only be making your relationship stronger for the difficulties it's likely to face in the near future.

Just my $.02, take it or leave it. You obviously know your wife better than I do and you know your situation better than I, but hopefully this is a little helpful. At the very least know you're not alone in this and whatever happens you'll get through and have a great cult-free future.

21

Wife Equates Having A Good Marriage With Being "Spiritual"

by JW_Rogue in

so i've noticed lately that my wife seems to think that in order to have a good marriage both people must be "spiritual".

she thinks being close as a family is all about family worship night, field service and praying together.

i know where these ideas are coming from but it is very hard to combat them.

OneEyedJoe

That's one of those things that I think is difficult to really convince someone of just by talking about it. Especially when it comes to someone that's insecure about the status of their marriage. Most effective way is probably just demonstrating that being "spiritual" has nothing to do with having a strong marriage. Do things together that you enjoy (other than cult related nonsense) and hopefully she'll soon realize that you're together because you enjoy each other and that your family relationships are strong because of shared experience and mutual support, not because of your level of involvement in a cult.