i'm just curious how many of the wonderful people on here have gone to another religion?.
i recently left the wtb$ and the non-jw friends of mine are all inviting me to their church.
i politely decline the invite saying i'm not ready.
For Me I could not... I tried to go back to a religion because it was what I knew and was comfortable with, tried with a few different places. I got involved with a rather large Baptist Church and partially involved in a few christian churches in town. It didn't take me too long but in the end, I couldn't deal with it. Reminded me too much of the JW's.
I think as a JW we are taught not to believe in different gods, I simply learned to take it one god further...
nobody in my immediate family has, as far as i know.
there seems to be an unwritten rule against them among the witnesses.
(or maybe a written rule i'm not aware of).
Yes I have, I met with a couple for a lil bit before I left. My mom set it up and her exact words were to talk to him, let it all out and listen to what he said but don't listen to everything he says cause they can try to stir you away from the truth...the first one was not much help, they medicated me.
The second guy I met was much easier to talk with although it was kind of weird talking to him at first. Unlike the first guy who had no clue what to say, do or ask, this second guy had treated some ex-witnesses and other ex-religous/cult members. His background, he with grew up and an "extremely religious" home and had a similar dilima, and wanted to help others. I think talking with him really helped.
how do you like them?
i would like to know the recipes.
thanks!
Pineapple Chunks in ground beef for a hawaiin style Burger
if anyone has yet to see the excellent danish jw-themed film .
"to verdener" ("worlds apart"), check your local blockbuster!
last time i was in there, i saw the dvd on the shelf, with a .
Thats crazy I was just looking it up today and you can buy a used copy from the blockbuster website for $9.99
when we were jw's we 'volunteered' our time to help others learn the 'truth'.. in what ways do you volunteer your time now that you are out and are free to help others as you see fit?.
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The co-worker, whose family adopted me, has kids enrolled in the program and is always asking me to join them. Even though it is not a religious program, it is held in the classrooms of a large local Bapist church. I do believe it is part of a national program, although I dont remember the name, where eventually kids from here will be sent to areas to compete in a region setting.
I have lost a lot, I really have. It hurts bad, it is the worst feeling that I have ever had, the feeling of abandonment, being lost and loosing everything. I was put away in a mental facitity and am currently seeing a theripist, who I don't think is helping much at all. Some days are harder then others, some days I feel so phyisically weak and some days I fall apart and then there are bad days.
I may have lost everything, but I have gained so much more, it is that that I have to focus on. I am truly free and young enough to start over fresh. I have found the meaning of true friendship and learning more about myself everyday and finding out how strong I really am. I find that when I dwell on all that I lost I feel so much worse. But when i focus on the good that has come out of all this I feel so much better. When I can help others I feel so much better about myself as well and thats where volunteering is starting to come into my life. It give me a sence of accomplishment helps with the self esteem.
when we were jw's we 'volunteered' our time to help others learn the 'truth'.. in what ways do you volunteer your time now that you are out and are free to help others as you see fit?.
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I have been adopted by another family and I volunteer much of my time helping around their house.
I have also Volunteered at a Homeschooled Youth Debate group, that was quiet fun. Have learned a lot from them. These kids are the brightest and most polite young people I have ever met. For most of them, their public speaking skills are far above JW youth that I know.
Getting ready to volunteer to help set up a couple Community Christmas Displays at the end of this month, looking forward to that.
I am just trying my hardest to break out of my shell and meet new people and try new things. I lost everything this summer/fall, friends, family, my wife, my home and lot of my stuff. I spent many years before this depressed and this was and still is, a bad blow for me.
I read it somewhere but I thought it appropiate for my life "All of the people I know that are perpetually unhappy are those that jump from one self-help program to the next. The problem is not with themselves, it is with their focus. Self-self-self. If they spent that time volunteering in their comunity or helping their friends and family, they would be much more content."
So with that in mind I started and I am starting to feel a little better.
......what in the hell is "the flying spaghetti monster"??????.
it's referred to here all the time, but i haven't seen it defined anywhere.. help me.
i'm dying of curiosity.. .
Ramen
in my 4 years of fading i only had a couple of calls and visits.
does that make me lucky?
i am now being hassled to "chat" to an elder via my mobile.. .
I've been there, done that, have the scars and a crappy t-shirt too.
I spent a few years changing isles in grocery stores, parking behind the house, parking down the street, hiding in MY house, avoiding phone calls, avoiding the subject with the family. secretly celebrating my birthday, secretly giving christmas gifts, making a couple new friends, secretly researching the subject to death (secrety hoping to find that all this apostate stuff was a lie), secretly sneaking in another church (at first to one of their fun functions then once to an actual sermon), hiding at work on Saturday Morning. I spent years, years feeling like a little kid, years shaking, years hiding, years feeling guilty . . . years wasted years.
I finally had enough and fell this summer and I have never felt so alive.
Even though I spent years hiding and researching and preparing and it was all over in a matter of a couple weeks it still took a while for things to fully sink in. I had my bad days and my worse days, but I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope.
The only things I wish I did was A) Took all that time to make more friends and B) done it a lot sooner.
Funny a lot of things, a lot of plans, completly fell apart and I completly lost it there for a while, (to be honest I still loose it a little) I concentraited on how lonely I was and felt worse. Then I thought more and more about nonwitness friends I had and nonwitness relatives and slowly they are starting to "pop" into my life again. I concentrait on the good in life and I feel soo much better.
I just hyjacked your thread, sorry . . .
To answer your question, yes, I have gone though great lengths to create and even greater lengths to keep my faded status, but just to let you know, it feels so good to just let it go.
I love cyberjesus' suggestion I have got to try that.
last weekend i was enjoing the good weather in holland with my mother and my kid sister, who still is a jw, on a terras, drinking a beer.. my mother always tries to tell something positive that happened at the cong or something that she read in the washtowel and then i react negative or not at all.
it's a kind of game i don't know.. this time she said something like despite the fact that armageddon doesn't have to come during the generation of 1914, that does not mean that it isn't near... and then my kid sister reacted on this and said yes...possibly 2012.... i was pretty stunned... of this remark.. has anyone else heard something about the jw's now focussing on the year 2012?.
That is going through the gossip lines here and with witless family 1800 miles away.
The story is that a computer was made to outline the future of mankind and the computer stopped at 2012 because of how bad everthing is getting.
Or something along those lines.
These are the same ones who warned us of the big Y2K Disaster that ended the world, invisably.
i always wondered about this when i was still a jw.
i just assumed that it was improper for a jw to eat any meat that wasn't thoroughly cooked, especially steak.
i though everyone could see that the red juice contained blood, which, if eaten, amounted to a violation of the prohibition against eating blood.
Talk about Straining the Gnat and Gulping the Camel
Or should I say
Straining the Fraction and gulping the Rare Steak
