tonight i had an argument with both my parents.
my parents are aware of my feelings towards the organization, and it saddens them because i am their first born son.
they had high expectations of me, my father dreamt of him and i serving together as elders.
I don't always agree with the choices my adult children make, but I love and respect them anyway and I wouldn't want them to live their lives in a way they found unacceptable simply to please me. It's sad that your parents can't love and appreciate you for who you are and respect your choices in life, but their mind has been warped by being in a cult, so it is what it is.
Live your life, you are not being selfish.
i'm sure i am not the only one to have heard this come out of the mouths of my loved ones.
it's a very painful thing to hear, especially when it comes from the people like your own parents/family.
even after i've been told that, they would say "we'll just continue life without you.
If someone said I was going to die at Armageddon, I would ask them why they believe an organization that has a 100% failure rate on predictions.
The reality is that I will die of old age (or disease, accident, etc.) just like everyone else since the beginning of time, just like my Jehovah's Witness parent did, even though they believed their whole life that they would live through Armageddon.
Belief does not make things so.
has anyone else had a moment, while still within the organization (and before learning ttatt) that caused them to stop and go, "this is kind of messed up.".
for instance, back i believe in the early 2000's, i was attending a dc with my family.
it was announced at the beginning of the convention that there was going to be a special announcement at the end, so for everyone to please try to remain until the very end of the meeting.
For me it was at a convention, Cow Palace, late 90's. They were trying to guilt people into doing more in the ministry. They said "are you regular in service? If not, why not? If you are regular in service, could you auxiliary pioneer? If not, why not? If you auxiliary pioneer, could you regular pioneer? If not, why not? If you are a regular pioneer, could you be a special pioneer? If not, why not?
All I could think was, what do they do to make special pioneers feel guilty? I had a BOGO ( Brilliant Glimpse Of the Obvious) that no matter how much you did, you would never, ever feel you had done enough, they didn't want that.
fyi (regarding those posters/readers who are interested): 2017 san diego comic con started last thursday, 7/20/17 and is ending today, sunday, 7/23/17.
here are the footage/highlights of it (i'm planning one of these days to attend it ):.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvu6dd59iya&t=93s.
My daughter went last year, she had a blast, scored tickets to the Star Trek movie premier, it was out doors with a full orchestra and fireworks. She was disapointed to not get get tickets this year.
http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/07/court_nixes_lawsuit_by_family.html.
the family of a jehovah's witness who died after repeatedly refusing blood transfusions can't sue the hospital where doctors begged for a chance to save her life, a state appeals court ruled.. the case, outlined in an opinion by superior court judge jacqueline o. shogan, involves a convergence of religion, medicine and the law.. its focus is on what happened before terri seels-davila, a jehovah's witness missionary, died after giving birth at hahnemann university hospital in philadelphia in november 2010.. seels-davila, who had been serving on mission with her husband in nicaragua, chose hahnemann because of its "bloodless medicine" program for patients who won't agree to having blood transfusions, including jehovah's witnesses, shogan noted.
the treatment plan for seels-davila called for recycling her own blood back into her system.. yet that proved to be inadequate when complications of her delivery required seels-davila to deliver by cesarean section.
Another entirely preventable death because the Watchtower refuses to admit thet were wrong to forbid blood transfusions. Very sad, but not the hospitals fault, they did the best they could given the circumstances.
hello, i've been lurking for quite some time here on this forum, reading a whole lot and i've finally made the courage to create an account as a form of escape and in hopes to be understood and not feel "mentally diseased".
little background on me, i am a born in but i consider myself a pimo (physically in mentally out).
i feel like i've always had doubts but these doubts would sink with the meetings and the assemblies and every other little thing that drowns any doubts a witness may have.
Welcome to the forum, I wish you well on your journey out of the organization. It will be hard at tines, but in the end you will be glad you chose to question your beliefs, knowledge is power.
i finally stopped attending the meetings about 4 months go.
i won't be going back - ever.. but i've decided the best reply to the watchtower is to be happy and i do try to be happy every day even thought i wasted my entire life on this religion.
i cherish every day, practice mindfulness and do my best to be content with the life i have.. it is only now that i see that most jws i know are deeply unhappy people.
A lifetime of never feeling like you are good enough is not really a foundation for a happy life is it? Add in burdensome requirements for service, meetings, study and prayer, with little in the way of social support and it's no wonder people are depressed.
Enjoy your freedom.
we all know the rate of suicide is high among jw's.
my question is this- was there some subliminal messages that encourage this.
i was a born in and my entire life i would have these thoughts that could come out of nowhere,"kill yourself.
Good points Steve. It makes sense to me that in general more religious people are less prone to suicide, because they usually represent a strong community of people with shared values, who are likely to provide a good support system, plus most religions have rules against suicide, those who do will not go to heaven, which provides motivation not to commit.
It doesn't work as well for Jehovah's Witnesses, because they tend to see anyone with problems as being "weak" in faith. There is a mindset that faithful meeting attendance, service, study and prayer should fix any problem, when it doesn't, that person tends to become isolated. People may express concern at first, but when time goes by and the person doesn't fall into line they tend to get ignored. If they then transgress in some way they will be disfellowshiped and lose all contact not only with the congregation, but any JW family. A disfellowshiped person is then even worse off than someone not in a relgion, as any support system they have is now completely gone.
Then you add the mindset that such people may believe that they are going to die soon at Armageddon anyway and they really have no reason not to kill themselves, if their mental pain is bad enough.
The JWs are often not aware of these suicides because the person has often not been associated for some time, or the true cause of death is not mentioned, but it doesn't mean their death was not a result of the religion, it just means the organization can claim it's very rare, and no one can prove otherwise.
I personally heard of at least ten in the time I was associated, plus a close family member that attempted twice.
i've created a poll here: https://goo.gl/7xburo.
i'd be interested in seeing the results.. .
#qp_main1119848 .qp_btna:hover input {background:#00355f!important} #qp_all1119848 {max-width:815px; margin:0 auto;}if watchtower scrapped the shunning policy due to "new light" and your family suddenly agreed to speak to you again would you accept them back?.
The poll didn't come up for me, but I would vote yes. My family only shuns me because they have been manipulated and deceived into doing so and they think they are doing the right thing. I cannot judge them for that, because at one time I did the same, my sister who shuns me was disfellowshiped for many years and was shunned by me.
we all know the rate of suicide is high among jw's.
my question is this- was there some subliminal messages that encourage this.
i was a born in and my entire life i would have these thoughts that could come out of nowhere,"kill yourself.
The organization requires a lot, but gives back so little, in support, encouragement and understanding, it's an all or nothing mind set, not a healthy way to live. The practice of shunning individuals who transgress is especially problematic, it can be devastating to lose all your family and friends. They don't especially approve of mental health care, and look down on those who slow down on meeting attendance and field service for whatever reason. They hide and cover up child sex abuse and elders have little education or training in counseling or mental health.
I do know of many suicides over the 30 years I was associated, but it sometimes surprises me that there weren't more, it's a religion that shoots their wounded.
