okay - since larry isn't gonna ask it... i will.. did you attend your high school graduation?
cap & gown stuff - the whole nine yards?.
it wasn't even a consideration, either.. heck... i wasn't allowed to go to senior 'honors' night - where i was elected to receive some sort of recognition.
Nope - missed out on that too thanks to dub-dumb!
I was disfellowshipped at 16 and finished out high school via a home school program that gave you a real diploma (not G.E.D). I was NOT going to go to school and sit in classes with the JW girls from my hall.
I had never made any real non-JW friends at school anyway.
When I think about how much I missed out on in life thanks to the JW crap I could just spit!
Thins are going to DIFFERENT for my kids, that's for d*mn sure!
why do so many of us show such antagonism towards jw who post here?
we know they won't listen.
we know how it feels to have religion forced upon us.
Good thread and interesting comments by all!
I have refrained from posting on any threads involving someone who is still a JW because I get so angry at what they say.
I can't trust myself not to say something really nasty in return.
And I do not feel comfortable trying to respond to them nicely - I guess I feel that I spent a lifetime being put down by JWs and treated as if my opinion less than mattered - I don't need more of the same.
I'm sure that the motivations behind current JWs (who are pro JW) coming to these boards are varied. I hate generalizations. But you can only be hit by a truck so many times before you step out of the road. And I've been hit by the emotional "truck" of dub-speak and hate and scorn too many times to count.
If someone is polite, that's one thing. I can handle that. The holier-than-thou stuff will immediately cause me to just turn away. It's a defensive reaction from my "exiting" days that I haven't shaken. Right or wrong, that's just me.
it was a depressing feeling when i realised i was actually going to die like everybody else.
who me, die?
no chance.
I agree - the promise of everlasting life is a powerful one. Above and beyond that, due to the constant "the end is right around the corner" bs, alot of younger people tend to think that they will be "young forever".
I know that the realization of mortality was especially hard on a dear friend of mine who exited at the same time I did. She had really bought into the whole idea and was a dedicated JW until circumstances revealed how unloving and cruel the organization can be.
I, on the other hand, never thought I would be good enough to make it through Armaggedon. So I always figured I was going to die anyway. Thus, the transition was easier for me...
In fact, I "gained years" by leaving the Witnesses. As opposed to being convinced that the end was coming any time now and that I was going to be executed, I can now look forward to long, happy (hopefully) life!
jgnat - thats hilarious!
I can't stand Mr. Cruise either - and you couldn't pay me enough to see any of his movies.
hello everyone.. i am new to this forum...at least i think i am...i swear that i joined before and left a message...but maybe i was just dreaming.. anyway, i am, what seems to be termed in this forum, a fading jw.
my wife is still a jw and when i try to talk to her she will go on about me becoming an apostate, but i have learnt so much about the wtbts these last few months that fading and leaving is so easy for me now.
i know that there is a lot of hate and false stuff said about the wtbts but also a lot of things are true, like the famous ngo business and being a shareholder of a company that produces parts that are used in weapons.
Hello kero-kero! And welcome!
Hey there, sis! Looks like your first thread is doing great!
Yep, that's right folks, Ariel84 is my little sister! And I am thrilled to share her with all of you!
My thanks to everyone for making her so welcome! You guys are the best!
well.......i figured it's about time to tell my story...bear with me, it's close to bedtime and i'll probably have to break this up.... .
i was born on may 22, 1985 into a family full of dubs minus the dad...my father never had much to do w/ religion.
after that, it's pretty much blank, except for what was recounted to me by family members..
{{hugs}}
I can only imagine how difficult it must be to share these stories. Thank you for doing so. Always ready to listen...
for me anyways.. i still have nightmares about demon attacks.
that was the one belief that really had a grip on me growing up.
i was terrified of demons and even thought i was being attacked one night for bringing home a toy with a pagan symbol (ying-yang) on it.
I was raised JW and my mother did her best to scare the bejesus out of me & my sister with her demon stories. Not only that, but cargroups out in service would sometimes get on a demon story telling kick.
All of this nonsense would be abruptly terminated when someone said "But if we keep talking about them, that will draw the demons attention to us." Which left me feeling panicked and exposed, somehow...
Looking back, I cannot believe the superstitious crap I was fed! The stories that scared me the most were about my mother's best friend (personally I think this lady has some mental issues and/or just wanted attention). But to a child, it seemed that the stories must be true if they were happening to someone I knew.
I had nightmares, occasionally, for a couple years after leaving. I always woke up trying to scream the name "Jehovah" which ends up coming out as a cracked whisper. The worst dream was after I bought a scarab necklace (a tourist trinket purchased at the Luxor in Vegas, for god's sake).
I woke up from a dream where I was fighting off demons to stare at my dresser in the dark, where I knew the necklace was lying. I threw the necklace away the next day. What's worse, I expected it to show up on my dresser again. THATS what my mother's loving care taught me.
Time should help this fade. I strongly second the idea about combatting the fear head on through gaining knowledge of symbology. I wrote down the book reference to "Man & His Symbols" and plan to read.
What stopped the night terrors for me, ultimately, was getting pissed off. I was laying in bed in my apartment, terrified to move, when I finally just got angry and said to myself "I refuse to live my life in fear!"
It was like a weight rolled off my chest and I immediately felt defiant and relieved all at once. My "phobia" has never been that bad since. I still deal with fears, but its at a manageable level.
.
they haven't knocked on my door but either they have gotten in or someone in the building is one.. i live in a russian seniors residence.
almost everyone is russian and most of them speak only russian.. i saw this in the hall outside the elevators and snatched it up before someone else decided to take it home and read
Good job in performing "damage control"!
I always confiscate any literature I see left around the hospital I work at - or any public place I visit. Right into the trash it goes!
It's not hard to spot - you can recognize the cheesy artwork anywhere!
i was intrigued by an earlier post.
the point was made that the jws are going door-to-door to meet a quota and are not really concerned about the people they are witnessing to, but only in saving their own butts.
has anyone ever had a non-jw friend and asked them if they could talk about jehovah for a while to them, in order to fill the time they need?
As I recall, a typical Saturday morning excursion in service would involve a cargroup of 5 -6 people crammed into a mini-van stopping at someone's return visit for the very first call...this would let us "start our time"!
Then after waiting 5 - 10 minutes, more if they were actually home, we would drive to country territory and take one house at a time...
By 9:45AM the car was headed towards the break area to meet with all the other cargroups at 10AM. At 10:45AM (or later) the car group headed out again to do all RV's. Normal quitting time for service was 11:30AM.
Another common time user was visiting a Witness that was shut in or someone slightly inactive - you know - on the "pity" list. Single moms or people with disbeliving mates, things like that. Sheesh.
All in all, what a productive use of time. But you know what - I prayed for mornings like that.
The worst was being put in a car group with someone who was gung ho - then you'd be canvassing neighborhoods and actually knocking on tons of doors.
When it was my turn at the door I would pretend to press the door bell, positioning my body, etc. so that my partner couldn't tell. Sometimes I would say, "Gee, you could barely hear that bell inside there, huh?" {innocent blink}
So we'd be standing there on the steps and I always wondered if someone was inside thinking "WTF? Why are they just standing there without knocking/ringing?"
Thank Gawd!! those days are over!!!
