many years ago, i attended kingdom ministry school for two weeks in chicago, illinois.
our instructor was a man i quite liked named dennis trumbore (sp ?).
he seemed quite reasonable and kind in his teaching.. i later understand he ran into a 'snag' with the society for some interpretation of scripture (in ezekiel, i think) that differed with the official watchtower views.
I knew the Trumbores when I was a kid - he served as PO for the Sullivan Indiana congregation. Lost track of him and his wife after he went into the Circuit work...
Yes, I agree, he was a very mild and caring person and was one of the better elders that I have known.
EO
ugh...i did.
im so damn spiritual id leave well oiled spots on your suit if you rubbed up against me.
yeah...i packed kingdom hall clothes and service bags to go on vacation.
Not sure if a Honeymoon qualifies, but....
We got married on a Friday evening - so that many of the friends would not miss service on Sat to travel to our wedding.
Our wedding reception consisted of cake and opening presents, no music, no dancing, no alcohol - over by 10pm. Also, the fact was we were so very poor, since we both worked part time in order to pioneer...
On Saturday, we didn't know what to do since no chaperone - we ended up doing dinner and a movie - Rocky IV.
On Sunday - we went to the circuit assembly!!!!
On Monday - we went home and went out in service as married regular pioneers...
YUCK!
i posted awhile back, been "lurking" pretty much daily over the past months and from reading everyone's posts - i actually have gotten to know some of you... sort of... if you read my profile you will know i was a lifer, pretty much knee deep in the 'borg (picking up the slang.... i stopped cold turkey last fall - didn't go to memorial, special assembly day, district convention, circuit assembly... no field service in almost a year... these are all firsts... and i am 40 years old.... guess what, i have ignored phone calls, messages from the cong elders, everyone was panic'd for the first 3 months or so... then it all stopped... no calls... they have written me off i guess... of course it has helped that i moved 45 minutes south of my congo, back to my home town - where everyone in the congs around here know me... the rumor mill has told them something is up, but since i'm not df or da, they don't know how to act - so they just ignore me.... i just need to vent abit - feeling down lately because of the things i have learned - feeling betrayed by my parents for joining such a cult.
blaming jw's for ruining my sister's lives, blaming jw's for wasting my life... i want to go to a meeting and yell during the public talk about how foolish everyone is for belonging to this cult... .
it seems i have accepted the loss all of my conditional friends - hundreds of them in central indiana... i see them at the mall, at restaurants and they look right past me... kinda funny now, but it still hurts when my former friends - even the best man at my wedding - refuses to talk to me or even call to ask what is going on and why i stopped... i am invisible.
hello all, can't seem to close out this thread - so many good thoughts... at what point does a thread get outdated??? :) thanks again to all of you for your kind words. EO
i posted awhile back, been "lurking" pretty much daily over the past months and from reading everyone's posts - i actually have gotten to know some of you... sort of... if you read my profile you will know i was a lifer, pretty much knee deep in the 'borg (picking up the slang.... i stopped cold turkey last fall - didn't go to memorial, special assembly day, district convention, circuit assembly... no field service in almost a year... these are all firsts... and i am 40 years old.... guess what, i have ignored phone calls, messages from the cong elders, everyone was panic'd for the first 3 months or so... then it all stopped... no calls... they have written me off i guess... of course it has helped that i moved 45 minutes south of my congo, back to my home town - where everyone in the congs around here know me... the rumor mill has told them something is up, but since i'm not df or da, they don't know how to act - so they just ignore me.... i just need to vent abit - feeling down lately because of the things i have learned - feeling betrayed by my parents for joining such a cult.
blaming jw's for ruining my sister's lives, blaming jw's for wasting my life... i want to go to a meeting and yell during the public talk about how foolish everyone is for belonging to this cult... .
it seems i have accepted the loss all of my conditional friends - hundreds of them in central indiana... i see them at the mall, at restaurants and they look right past me... kinda funny now, but it still hurts when my former friends - even the best man at my wedding - refuses to talk to me or even call to ask what is going on and why i stopped... i am invisible.
sass,
I haven't talked with my brother since last October... same type of attitude toward me as my father... that I am a traitor...
I received an email from them after I left with a cute little story about a kid doing some bad and his sister saw it and instead of telling on him, made him do her chores - making him her "slave" - and the moral was that Jehovah is looking out the window and sees everything and when you want to stop becoming a slave to Satan, Jehovah will be there... Implying that I'm a slave to Satan... Whew... That's scary stuff.
Feeling better today - my rants and venting yesterday helped tremendously... thank you all very much for being here for me. I will try to start contributing more to the posts I read - and I do read them all...
EO
i posted awhile back, been "lurking" pretty much daily over the past months and from reading everyone's posts - i actually have gotten to know some of you... sort of... if you read my profile you will know i was a lifer, pretty much knee deep in the 'borg (picking up the slang.... i stopped cold turkey last fall - didn't go to memorial, special assembly day, district convention, circuit assembly... no field service in almost a year... these are all firsts... and i am 40 years old.... guess what, i have ignored phone calls, messages from the cong elders, everyone was panic'd for the first 3 months or so... then it all stopped... no calls... they have written me off i guess... of course it has helped that i moved 45 minutes south of my congo, back to my home town - where everyone in the congs around here know me... the rumor mill has told them something is up, but since i'm not df or da, they don't know how to act - so they just ignore me.... i just need to vent abit - feeling down lately because of the things i have learned - feeling betrayed by my parents for joining such a cult.
blaming jw's for ruining my sister's lives, blaming jw's for wasting my life... i want to go to a meeting and yell during the public talk about how foolish everyone is for belonging to this cult... .
it seems i have accepted the loss all of my conditional friends - hundreds of them in central indiana... i see them at the mall, at restaurants and they look right past me... kinda funny now, but it still hurts when my former friends - even the best man at my wedding - refuses to talk to me or even call to ask what is going on and why i stopped... i am invisible.
hi Earthtone...
Her dad was the PO of her cong, my dad was PO of my cong - so we all hung in the same circles... in fact, this is so wierd... her dad went to college with my dad - and if you remember my earlier post - how in the world could 2 smart guys be duped into this cult... (LIGHT BULB!!!)
i posted awhile back, been "lurking" pretty much daily over the past months and from reading everyone's posts - i actually have gotten to know some of you... sort of... if you read my profile you will know i was a lifer, pretty much knee deep in the 'borg (picking up the slang.... i stopped cold turkey last fall - didn't go to memorial, special assembly day, district convention, circuit assembly... no field service in almost a year... these are all firsts... and i am 40 years old.... guess what, i have ignored phone calls, messages from the cong elders, everyone was panic'd for the first 3 months or so... then it all stopped... no calls... they have written me off i guess... of course it has helped that i moved 45 minutes south of my congo, back to my home town - where everyone in the congs around here know me... the rumor mill has told them something is up, but since i'm not df or da, they don't know how to act - so they just ignore me.... i just need to vent abit - feeling down lately because of the things i have learned - feeling betrayed by my parents for joining such a cult.
blaming jw's for ruining my sister's lives, blaming jw's for wasting my life... i want to go to a meeting and yell during the public talk about how foolish everyone is for belonging to this cult... .
it seems i have accepted the loss all of my conditional friends - hundreds of them in central indiana... i see them at the mall, at restaurants and they look right past me... kinda funny now, but it still hurts when my former friends - even the best man at my wedding - refuses to talk to me or even call to ask what is going on and why i stopped... i am invisible.
hello friends,
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments... moving forward my goal is to replace the past with new experiences, new ideas, new beliefs. Currently, I am spending time confirming the erroroneous doctrines of JWs, proofs that support what most of you already know - that Jerusalem wasn't destroyed in 607 BCE thus rendering the foundation of the 1914 structure valueless. That the blood issue was the brain child of the GB, that neutrality is relative (UN, Malawi, Mexico...), that the "ministry" is a sham - busy work to keep the drones occupied, that the pharisaic structure of the organization is committed to controling every aspect of the R&F's lives... etc etc...
i posted awhile back, been "lurking" pretty much daily over the past months and from reading everyone's posts - i actually have gotten to know some of you... sort of... if you read my profile you will know i was a lifer, pretty much knee deep in the 'borg (picking up the slang.... i stopped cold turkey last fall - didn't go to memorial, special assembly day, district convention, circuit assembly... no field service in almost a year... these are all firsts... and i am 40 years old.... guess what, i have ignored phone calls, messages from the cong elders, everyone was panic'd for the first 3 months or so... then it all stopped... no calls... they have written me off i guess... of course it has helped that i moved 45 minutes south of my congo, back to my home town - where everyone in the congs around here know me... the rumor mill has told them something is up, but since i'm not df or da, they don't know how to act - so they just ignore me.... i just need to vent abit - feeling down lately because of the things i have learned - feeling betrayed by my parents for joining such a cult.
blaming jw's for ruining my sister's lives, blaming jw's for wasting my life... i want to go to a meeting and yell during the public talk about how foolish everyone is for belonging to this cult... .
it seems i have accepted the loss all of my conditional friends - hundreds of them in central indiana... i see them at the mall, at restaurants and they look right past me... kinda funny now, but it still hurts when my former friends - even the best man at my wedding - refuses to talk to me or even call to ask what is going on and why i stopped... i am invisible.
Greetings all,
I posted awhile back, been "lurking" pretty much daily over the past months and from reading everyone's posts - I actually have gotten to know some of you... sort of... if you read my profile you will know I was a lifer, pretty much knee deep in the 'Borg (picking up the slang...) was in the "club"... pioneer, elder... basic typical drone...
I stopped cold turkey last fall - didn't go to memorial, special assembly day, district convention, circuit assembly... no field service in almost a year... these are all firsts... and I am 40 years old...
Guess what, I have ignored phone calls, messages from the cong elders, everyone was panic'd for the first 3 months or so... then it all stopped... no calls... they have written me off I guess... of course it has helped that I moved 45 minutes south of my congo, back to my home town - where everyone in the congs around here know me... the rumor mill has told them something is up, but since I'm not DF or DA, they don't know how to act - so they just ignore me...
I just need to vent abit - feeling down lately because of the things I have learned - feeling betrayed by my parents for joining such a cult. Blaming JW's for ruining my sister's lives, blaming JW's for wasting my life... I want to go to a meeting and yell during the public talk about how foolish everyone is for belonging to this cult...
It seems I have accepted the loss all of my conditional friends - hundreds of them in Central Indiana... I see them at the mall, at restaurants and they look right past me... kinda funny now, but it still hurts when my former friends - even the best man at my wedding - refuses to talk to me or even call to ask what is going on and why I stopped... I am invisible. I am free. I am ME!
Lots of emotions... lots of changes...
My father has not talked to me since last September... I left my wife of 20 years last October... She took a while to come to grips that I am trying to find who I am - outside the cult... that we married at age 19 because it was the "thing to do"... good examples we were! we regular pioneered in poverty for years... I had the typical janitorial business... We were so young - we didn't know each other, we didn't know ourselves... I hung on faithfully for 2 decades... not knowing myself... not even really knowing what love was, because the Watchtower didn't tell me... long story short, we get along better now than ever before - she actually has become inactive and rarely attends meetings - if only I was honest years ago, things may have been different... but the cult makes you put on a veneer and a "happy face" and you can't even be honest to yourself much less your spouse about how you really feel - don't want to cause trouble... the cult makes you weak and fearful... don't want people to think you are spiritually weak or have them gossip...
I read an economic article about belief in the future and capitalism and a comment really jumped out me that I'd like to share:
"Belief in the future is perhaps the most important value for a free society. It is what makes so many interested in getting an education, or investing in a project, or even being nice to their nighbours. If we think that nothing can improve or if we think the world is coming to an end, we don't work hard for a better and more civilised future. And we will all be miserable."
How true these words ring. Think about it... JW's do not plan for the future, they don't enjoy life now, they don't have goals that bring physical benefits... I was raised in a family where all energy was put towards field service, meetings, conventions, bible... yada yada. Hobbies were not encouraged, recreation was limited, no real family vacations except to go to the convention... creativity was stifled. My parents did not raise me - they let the Watchtower raise me. LAZY. Entire generations of JW's now that have no desires, no real tangible goals - what a waste!
I'm rambling now... too many thoughts pouring out and it's difficult to put into words my feelings - typical of one who has broken the bonds of a cult - and is repairing the damage... for those of us how spent decades in the cult and giving so much of theirselves - we are exhausted mentally and even physically when we realize it was all wasted effort. Each day I thank myself and nobody else, not god, allah, jah or whoever that I was finally man enough to stand up, think for myself and say "no more".
Question: what have you done/doing now to diffuse the anger/dismay/hurt ?
I've read many comments about getting a new "support" group of friends - and that is going well - I have lot's of real friends now - at work etc... so the social scene is good... I'm talking about how at night, when I close my eyes - I flash back to things that are so obviously cultish and controlling... it's almost an obsession with me... when I talk to my wife (we are still married... for now...) the conversation always ends with a rant from me about how I blame JW's... one day I looked to the sky and gave god the finger... we were talking about money and the lack of enough...
enough for now... thanks for letting me ramble...
EO
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maybe you have some fond stories of this.. my story is that i was forced to join when i was about 12. i always got an assignment that dealt with beastilaity in exodus or somethin.
correct UnderBeliever...
I stopped going to meetings last September - don't miss it at all! But, the new guidebook is a change in direction for the school. The "private" counsel ends up being a short one on one session with the overseer and he dates your book that you have completed that particular assignments focal point and then assigns your task for next time - more subtle "CONTROL" by the organization. Now you have replaced your counsel record slips W's, G's and I (improved) with the blessed sign off from the powerful TMS Overseer...
The new book now has "exercises" that you go thru after you read the material - I have yet met anyone that completes those... There are also "approved" settings for the sisters - no more freedom to pick and choose your settings - which sometimes were the most enjoyable part of the sister's parts - in fact I wonder if any here can recall some memorable settings... the most cliche'd ones always include "in the car out in service" - where you set the chairs up side by side and one sister acts like she is driving the car... too funny!
EO
.
maybe you have some fond stories of this.. my story is that i was forced to join when i was about 12. i always got an assignment that dealt with beastilaity in exodus or somethin.
Hi all, first time I've replied to a post...
some of your posts very funny, some really hit home regarding the undo pressure put on new ones or the JW children. The TMS is supposed to make ones better public readers or speakers or more adept in the field ministry. However, after decades of "schooling" - the TMS has turned into a forum to showcase the difference between "strong" dubs and "weak" dubs.
I spent 5 years as the TMS overseer - and to be honest it was a joke. When I first rec'd the assignment it was because no one else wanted the job - so they gave it to me, the rookie Elder. I had been in the school since age 7 and was an over achiever - always loved the limelight and always put humor into my parts - stand up comedian type... anyway, that carried over nicely to the "show" I put on as the TMS overseer. I vowed to not make things so serious. I laughed on the platform, didn't berate the friends when they screwed up or stammered or did something that was against the "rules" in the guidebook. Thank god I stopped being the Overseer before the new guide book came along.
JW's want their young ones to grow up so fast - and what better way to do that by putting a suit on them and giving them a briefcase and have them stand up in front of a 100 people and talk for 5 minutes. And then critique them publicly... gotta love the organization!
When it came time to start the school, I had no clue what was going on - barely prepared, but to fake it was so easy - just use your JW'speak efficiently and tie everything into the ministry... and all the "sprititual giants" out in the audience will eat it up. When Sister Pioneer gave a talk, always say - "we can see she's no stranger to bible discussions..." or "We really appreciate Sister Pioneer's effective use of the bible and excellent viewpoint questions..." that always worked good...
Bottom line: the school was okay if you wanted to get over fear of public speaking or reading, but after those butterflies go away - it is pretty much worthless - just another way to show up one another... get the accolades and attaboys for a good talk...
Laters.
EO
my parents became jw's in 1972 - i was 6 yrs old.
i followed their lead, baptized at 15, regular pioneer at 19, ms at 21, elder at 27. have given district and circuit talks, tms overseer yada, yada, yada... .
last september i stopped and haven't looked back.
Hello all,
Rec'd some emails from the group with kind remarks and also some suggested reading. Will do. Interesting that over 600 have viewed this thread - guess I really am not alone.
Right now I am taking the time to process all of this - so please bear with me as I do additional research and contemplate my next course of action. M
My first thought is to prepare for a discussion that I would like to have with my father - who is the presiding overseer of my old congregation... He has offerred to sit down with me to discuss why my thinking "has changed"...
My mother refuses to discuss anything spiritual with me - it makes her "too upset" she says and that she can't believe I am rejecting the "truth" and wonders what she did so wrong... she has no real foundation in her beliefs other than "it has to be the Truth" and "we used to be Methodists and saw the hypocrisy in other religions" and "the organization is so very correct in its beliefs about hellfire, the trinity and the paradise earth"... My comment to her was she started studying with the Witnesses in 1970 and she had young children and her emotions about living in paradise got the best of her - especially when everyone was talking about the end in 75. Her reply was that 1975 didn't matter - that regardless, it's still the best way to live... then I said - other folks around the world live good lives too... but in her mind, no one else lives as good or is as honest, caring or spiritual as JW's... tough to crack that emotional connection.
I want my brother, who is a MS at a neighboring congregation to open his eyes as well, but he is so immersed in the organization (as I was) that I will have a tough time having a constructive conversation with him.
I just want my family to see things from "outside the box"...
Anyway, I am at work so I am not going to be quick to respond to all of you, but from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU and please continue to assist me...
EO
