Posts by Smart

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

Anyone living in Wales, UK? I honestly dont know what Im going to do with her. She is so nice.

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

I am going to have to ditch her aren't I. I told her now yesterday that I havent been to the meetings in weeks but she not reallly bothered by it and still loves me. She is really sweet actually!

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Wow!!! Now I am truly free!!!!!!! I just been reading vinny's thread proving how taking blood to save a life is actually not a bad thing at all. There is no way I am ever going back to the kingdom hall ever again.

My mum is over the moon about that because she always thought I was being brainwashed. So we just had a big hug and she is very happy.

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

I havent left yet. I haven't been to a single meeting since I wrote at the start of this thread. The elders and brothers and sisters are all texting and phoning me and inviting me to dinner, play football, come to the meetings and sheparding visits. I am probably going to go to the meeting tomorrow night.

I have still got alot to say on here to you all.

I am in a messed up situation. There's a girl who likes me, a young sister. We have been secretly dating behind her parents back because they don't think I'm good enough for her! Her Dad an elder basically shot me down saying he doesn't want me to date her. It's because I'm not pioneering and because I have only been baptised for about 2 years. He went on my facebook page and started looking at things I wrote, pictures and stuff I did 5 years ago before I studied and showed her it all. She told me this. She was upset. Can't believe him. No faith in me at all. That really punched my heart and I am really upset by it.

I just want to leave the org for many reasons now. I don't know what I'm going to do (job wise) if that happens or how I am going to tell this girl. Her dad will only justify his scrutiny when this happens anyway so I will look bad what ever happens. I am really really upset.

Anyway worse still is that she thinks I am in good standing in my own congregation. She is in a different congregation not far away and she doesn't know that I haven't been to a meeting for weeks and that the elders are all chasing after me.

What a stupid situation I'm stuck in.

I'm actually laughing now at how stupid this is, yet how upset I am.

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

Wow! Everything I read on this site about what other people say is exactly the thoughts I have been thinking for a while. I've been on here constantly as soon as I come home every day. I can relate to so many of your experiences.

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

Oh man! Thank you all. I am very pleased to meet you, even though it's on the internet. It would be amazing if we could all meet in person. I need people like you guys who I can talk to without the judgement from people in the congregation.

I remember quite well when I began attending meetings. I put up a hard fight to keep going there in the first place, let alone at this late stage. I was showered with attention and people came up to me asking me my story.

The first time I went there I was dressed in ripped old baggy clothes because I had no respect for myself. I slowly started to fit in, answering up, wearing better clothes and always attending.

I quickly gained a good reputation for always being there, answering up and going along with it all. I sincerely tried my best. I got put on the sound team immediately after I got baptised. No six month wait. I thought I must be doing well. People could see me progress and I liked that! But after a while it all very slowly changed for me.

Not long after I got baptised a big giant man began to come to our hall on his own. He had a strong English accent and came by motorbike. Everyone thought he was a spy working for the Government. He kept coming for a few months but often disappeared. When I got to know him he seemed a bit dumb and told me he had problems with his ears. I have to admit he seemed strange! When he first came to the hall I was told to "watch my association with him because we think he's a spy", a sister whispered in my ear behind his back! She called me away from him when I began talking to him.

People in the hall never bothered to give me half as much of the attention they first did. There's lots of elders in our hall and they never stopped to actually get to know me at the meetings. Not once. Nobody took me under their wing to keep me spiritually refreshed with light hearted chit chat to build friendship.

I remember the first time an elder stopped to talk. It was when he noticed I went through a low period of activity. I think I missed a few meetings because of a drug relapse. I'm not sure. But he just expected me to open up and tell him my problems. "Bloody hell", I thought. I didn't even know this man at all. I didn't feel inclined to open my heart to him. Neither he nor any of the elders had ever taken any time to get to know me. I can't remember when that happened, but that's one of the first times I started to wonder.

I remember beginning to fight against bad thoughts, against my parents subtle objections and against every inclination to miss meetings and keep attending at all costs because it became all about my reputation. It seems silly now. For a long time I refused to wear a suit, I didn't see the need. My dad didn't see the need either. Now that I have bought one or two and began wearing them every meeting, it feels a bit over the top. For a while my dad kept telling me that, and while he agreed I looked smart I kept defending the organisation. To be honest, I felt like a Freemason going to a gentleman's club every Tuesday evening.

The ministry is something I have always struggled with. I don't know how many times I have thought about leaving the organisation because I don't like going on the ministry. There is so much apathy. It is soul destroying. I don't feel a sense of achievement or any happiness from it. Yet, they expect a report from you at the end of every month. I can't do it. I should be doing it if I want to. It's not like I Have To. It feels forced. Still, this will make me seem spiritually weak, right!

So I've reached a point where there is so much expected of me. I have to be seen to be going on the ministry. I have to be coming to the meetings. I have to be progressing by giving talks on the Theocratic Ministry School. I have to help out on the Mic's. I have to be on the sound team. I have to help out on the platform. I have to do personal study. I have to read the watchtower every week and answer up at meetings. I have to do all this. It's too much. I don't want to do it at all now because I'm fed up of it altogether!

It’s become very wearisome to me which is why I took to the Internet to find out what other people say. Please share with me some of your thoughts and opinions and reasons.

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

I'm curious as to why you became a Witness and how you discovered these mentally diseased apostate sites.

Keep being not afraid or is that keep not being afraid? :)

I used to be a drug addict. I started smoking wacky backy (cannabis) when I was 12. 10 years of abuse. I hung around in street gangs. I did all the wrong things. Drugs caused many problems. I needed help and I ran into a man at my place of work, he was a customer. My parents would have probably told the witnesses to go away if they knocked the door. Besides, I had no idea who Jehovah's Witnesses were. So it seemed nice at first when I met him.

My cousin is a conspiracy theorist and told me strange things when we used to smoke weed together. I looked alot of this up on the Internet. I eventually came to look at stuff about 2012 and the end of the world. That's what this Jehovah's Witness man at my work started telling me about and I was hooked. "The end of the world, Wow!" I thought. We studied the bible and it was all nice you know.

I discovered these sites because I simply had doubts and unanswered questions. What do you mean by "Keep being not afraid or is that keep not being afraid?"

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

This is amazing, Wow! thank you for such speedy responses. I don't know what to say!

CultBgone - what's with that love heart? Do you wana date or something?

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

I've re witten my first post so read it again. Sorry.

59

My Relief

by Smart in

what a massive relief!

thank god i have just found this site the other day!

i don't know where to begin!

Smart

What a Massive Relief! Thank God I have just found this site the other day! I don't know where to begin! I am a Jehovah's Witness. I live in the UK.

My name is Do Dah! I'm 27 years old. I started studying with the witnesses when I was 22 and got baptised into the Organisation when I was 25, which was in 2012. I came into it on my own, though I already have a wonderful loving family which I was born into right outside the Org.

I can no longer put my feelings aside. I was afraid of everything inside the organisation.

After reading the amazing JW-Studies-Pamphlet PDF over on JWFacts.com I have been amazed to learn some of the things the Watchtower has published. This has been so disturbing that I felt the urge to share my own experience.

The pamphlet really shocked me. Making false predictions about the end of the world is terrible. I didn't know they did this 5 times. The bible says that no one knows when. How damaging is that though to a person's life and his faith!

They told people not to bother with higher education too, which, as I have been reading has scarred people's lives because now they can’t get good work. I can't believe that.

They also went back against their own teachings on the famous blood issue costing people's lives. OMG. WTF.

Well I am glad to have found you because I have for too long a time bottled up all my unanswered questions in my mind, keeping them to myself. I couldn't talk to my parents because I wanted to defend the organisation, and I couldn’t talk to anyone in the congregation because I was afraid of being labelled 'spiritually weak'. I worried about outward appearances to both parties.

So I've been getting quite depressed as of lately. I told the elders I'm finding it all a bit too much.

Why do we have to record our ministry hours? King David of Israel was scourged for recording the size of his Army because it wasn't necessary. This it is today. It just seems a matter of pride who has recorded the most hours in the ministry. Who appears to be doing well.

Why do we shun and disfellowship? It's not Christian. I've blown the lid off this yesterday; I finally told my Dad what I'm thinking. He and my Mum have both said they can see how bad I look and how this religion stuff is affecting me. It's not helping me at all.

My dad instinctively told me why it’s not right to disfellowship when I spoke to him about it.

"God is all loving," he said.

I thought "he's right," God hasn't shunned humanity even though most people don't listen to him.

My dad never once shunned me when I rebelled as a teenager, when I deliberately did all the wrong things against him and myself. If he never showed the endless love he did, then how would I have ever changed my ways.

What's wrong with these people! Not too long ago when I thought about trying to help others, the witnesses discouraged me not to do other volunteer work, when I thought about Saint John's Ambulance, or the Samaritans, or the Salvation Army. (These are well known charities in Britain).

I have to share what I think. For I couldn't hold it much longer and I feel like I'm going insane with this 'channel' of information.

I'm not afraid.