Reopened Mind

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Posts by Reopened Mind

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  19

  Hello

  by apocryphal in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  Reopened Mind

  Hello apocryphal,

  You are in a tough spot with all of your family in the cult. Have you read any of Steve Hassan's books, namely "Combatting Cult Mind Control" and Releasing the Bonds"? He has a third one out which I have not read but is also highly recommended by others here.

  My husband, TotallyADD, was a born-in like yourself. Fortunately for us I was not and had some nonJW (I hate the term "worldly") family with whom we were able to reconnect. The point is, do you have friends on the outside of the organization? This will be most helpful as your fade progresses. Take your time. There is no Armageddon.

  Our fade will we hope soon be coming to an end as we are awaiting our boys and their families exiting the cult.

  Good luck on your fade. Come here often to vent and ask for help. There is always someone who has undergone something similar to you.

  And CONGRATULATIONS for waking up at an age when you have your whole life ahead of you. We were in our fifties when we began learning TATT.

  Reopened Mind
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  49

  Mouthy Protesting Against The Watchower

  by Bangalore in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

  here is where i found this pic.

  bangalore.

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  Reopened Mind

  Mouthy,

  Your courage and actions are inspirational!!

  Reopened Mind
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  12

  One year anniversary on JWN & some updates (not so good news)

  by Kool Jo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  good day everyone....its been approximately one year since ive been on jwn, not as active as i want to, i guess i will be as time goes on.. its been an interesting year since been fully awaken about the lies behind the borg...thanks to this site, along with the many well put together blogs from cedars, marvin, jwfacts, randy & others, life has been much better for me.

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  Reopened Mind

  Kool Jo,

  Fading is hard work. TotallyADD and I have been doing it for the last 6 years. We are doing it for our children and grandchildren. We moved a 1000 miles away from our old congregation to ease the transition as we gradually explained to our grown and married boys what we were learning. We are hopeful that our fade is shortly coming to an end and begin living an authentic life.

  I feel for you if you are keeping in touch with your parents even though you will be in a different country. It may make it easier to feed them a little at a time, and much harder for them to check up on you.

  Best of luck.

  Reopened Mind
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  29

  Post cataract surgery Great News!

  by Lady Lee in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my vision before the surgery was 20/60 in the eye that has had the surgery.

  i saw my eye dr today and it has moved up to 20/30.

  this is way beyond what i expected.

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  Reopened Mind

  Lady Lee,

  This is off the top of my head:

  I can see clearly now the rain is gone

  I can see all obstacles in my way

  Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

  Gonna be bright bright bright sunshiny day!

  Glad that your're seeing things better literally as well as figuratively!!

  Reopened Mind
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  31

  What do they want from me?

  by MrFreeze in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  okay, so the jws (and my mom) would be so happy if i started going to meetings again.

  i've made it clear i don't believe what they say so why would they care if i went to meetings?

  do they want me to go meetings and be an open dissenter?

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  Reopened Mind

  MrFreeze,

  You can't unring a bell and you can't unlearn "the truth about the truth".

  Your mom should be pleased that you came to "an accurate knowledge of truth". (tongue in cheek)

  But that doesn't answer your question. What they want from you is your life, your devotion, your youthful strength, all your resources, your worship, your mind, and everything else that you think belongs to you. But you are far too intelligent for that nonsense. You have your freedom of mind and integrity intact. Wish TotallyADD and I could have said that at your age.

  Reopened Mind
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  59

  How do I tell my husband?

  by dissonance_resolved in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i'm a born in, baptized as a young teenager, whole family is jw.

  i just recently woke up after the new understanding of the fds was announced and it seemed to me to smack of power-grabbing.

  i started looking at all the websites we're not supposed to, and now i know why.

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  Reopened Mind

  dissonance_resolved,

  First of all, WELCOME to the board!!

  My husband was a born-in and the PO when we exited together two years ago. When he expressed doubts about the flood of Noah's day being global, I offered to research the subject for him. (I had been lurking here and on other sites.) If your husband has any responsibilities in the congregation plus providing for your family he has precious little time to research.

  Billy, Mouthy, and ding have advised to go slow. That is good advice. Time is on your side as you have probably figured out that Armageddon is not going to happen. Steve Hassan's books are excellent.

  We have had to do a slow fade as we had grown boys and grandchildren; the other grandparents are staunch JWs. But the good news is that both our boys have also discovered "the truth about the truth" and are planning their own fade in good time.

  As for me, the blood issue was the first thing I researched. The odd thing is I didn't have any doubts about refusing blood. You see, the day my second son was born we were told he would die without a blood transfusion. We steadfastly refused and he recovered dramatically. So for years we were convinced the Society was right-----until I stumbled upon www.ajwrb.org in 2007 and began reading.

  The transition to a nonJW life will not be easy. We are interested in your continuing story.

  Reopened Mind
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  68

  POLL: How long did you remain a JW from point of baptism to leaving the KH

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was baptised --1963. left in 1978. fifteen years.

  pre-baptism, another 5 years.

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  Reopened Mind

  Baptised in 1973, 20 years old.

  Studied for 5 years previous.

  Began waking up in 2007.

  Last meeting was the Memorial in 2011.

  From baptism to last meeting = 38 years.

  Reopened Mind
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  140

  WT Society holds EXTREME Responsibility for 1975 and False Expectations

  by flipper in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  however- many jw's who have come into the jw organization from like 1985 forward virtually may have no knowledge of the wt society's 1975 debacle and false predictions of the end times or armageddon predictions.

  just like in in the book 1984 by george orwell the wt society has a way of not only erasing it's history so no newer witnesses will be aware of their false predictions, but also they are re-writing their history as if those false predictions never happened.. so for those of you here who may have never read or heard of how whipped up into an emotional frenzy witnesses were in the years just before 1975 by the wt society claiming the end was any day now- this threads for you.

  to see the pressure that was put on jw's by the wt society to get rid of everything before " armageddon " .

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  Reopened Mind

  First of all, the Society has never been good at taking responsibility for their false prophecies expectations.

  I was 20 in 1973 when I was baptised after having studied several books with girls I met at school. They had convinced me that the big A would be coming in 1975 by showing me "the signs of the last days" alongside the made-up WT chronology. I married in 1974 primarily to have someone to go through Armegeddon with. When 1975 came and went unevenfully the spin doctors and aplogists of the congregation went to work. "We know the season but not the day and hour." "Although Six thousand years of mankind's existence ended in 1975, we do not know how long Adam was alone before Eve was created." "We don't know Jehovah's timetable." etc., etc. Speculation pushed the date of the worldwide destruction back for at least 20 years. Within those next 20 years we had two boys, hubby had become a MS, then elder, I pioneered; in other words we had become deeply entrenched in WT world. We were so entangled that even if we had realized we had been duped it would have been extremely difficult to extricate ourselves from the organization.

  As Smiddy says the 60's were a tumultous time with the threat of nuclear annihilation looming. It is easy to see how the WT grabbed hold of this opportunity to promote Armageddon. They just capitalized on the fear of the times to promote their own agenda. Now they have to settle by saying Armageddon is coming "soon", whatever that means.

  Of course we finally did extricate ourselves from the organization. It took a move to a totally dysfunctional congregation, a newspaper article, the internet, along with our own nagging doubts to finally wake us up.

  Reopened Mind
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  76

  Whacky comments! What the craziest comment you've ever heard?

  by toweragent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  last week a sister in my new hall made the following comment,.

  "a brother once told me that it is better to be wrong with the organization, than to be right and be on your own without the organization.".

  wow.

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  Reopened Mind

  Not long after it became permissable to accept organ transplants one sister raised her hand at the Watchtower Study and commented, "Well, I would get a kidney transplant or I would get a liver transplant, but I wouldn't get a heart transplant." We wanted her to get a brain transplant.

  Reopened Mind
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  41

  Our Story

  by Auntfancy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi everyone, i have been on here for a little while and haven't introduced myself to you.

  i can't tell you how much all of you have helped me sort many things out in my mind.. i was raised in a very good christian home and married my hs sweetheart.

  i left home and moved half way across the country with a husband and a brand new baby.

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  Reopened Mind

  Aunt Fancy,

  Your story is very similar to mine. My husband was a born-in and I was a convert and we left the organization together. He also served as an elder for many years as well as volunteering on the Regional Building Committee and various local remodeling projects. I see we are about the same age; my husband is 58 and I will be turning 60 next week.

  At the beginning of our fade my husband read "Crisis of Conscience" with the idea of finding something wrong. When he finished he said he could identify with everything Ray wrote.

  Do you have any children or grandchildren? We have two married boys whom we raised in the cult. We are in the process of a slow fade until their families are completely out.

  When you realize that the WT is a multi-billion dollar publishing company you begin to understand why field service is put above everything else. We, too, experienced the lack of love when the man we were taking care of (a brother, by the way) died the week there was a district convention. The response from the "friends"? "Sorry, we are getting ready to go to the convention." Lucky for us my nonJW cousin and her husband came and sat with us and brought us dinners and gave us the support sorely lacking in the cult.

  Best wishes on your recovery from cancer and from the cancerous cult.

  Reopened Mind