since i woke up and left i've been contacted by others i knew from my youth who've also left the cult.
also people around the world on facebook adding me out of the blue because we have mutual friends and they occasionally ask me stuff or share their story.. what i've noticed in the vast majority of cases, is that people are waking up not because of the arc or doctrine but apathy.
active jws are becoming less and less interested, less and less bothered.
"It was due to the fact that a JW must work, work, work to be even in the congregation - let alone in good standing. Constantly scrutinizing oneself (and others), having no day free to just relax and being told that if you're relaxing you're not giving your all."
this was part of the reason we stopped going-
I also agree with the cry wolf problem and also notice a lot of Jws living their lives now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzsk2k9y7qs&t=835s.
the talk of the cry for "peace & security" from the sunday morning program.
I couldn't agree more half banana with your sentiment at the end- unfortunately I watched them and came to the exact reasonable conclusion as jw doctrine- and how does preparing for Babylon the great being destroyed having anything to do with this totally paranoid everyone in the store is out to get me to wear this rainbow bracelet dramatization?
my wife was diagnosed with ms about two years ago.
we have been living in ohio for the last 5 years but were recently assigned to a new congregation because of the dissolving and sale of our congregation/kh.
my wife's symptoms spiked after being relocated to our new hall back in january.
When you move to Chicago just don't go to any meetings there, just fade- it will so much better for both of you
i dressed up in a hoodie, double layer so that the cameras at the kingdom hall couldn't recognize me.
i looked in the mirror up and down so i knew that the cameras, at least at the angle that i knew couldn't see my face.
i took this disassociation letter, stuck it in the envelope, labeled it, "(congregation's name...boe" by hand and sealed it.
Did anything ever come of this? Love it
i got invited as a +1 to someone's house yesterday to watch the fireworks.
i'd never met the hosts, and it seemed that most of the people in the group only knew one or two other people there.
yet i felt more genuine friendship from everyone there than i ever felt at any jw gathering.
Before I woke up, I used to say to my husband that my customers treated me so much better than the "friends" -I use that term lightly- at the hall. He used to say that they were jealous of my successful business and I said - doesn't the bible say love is not jealous blah blah- glad I don't have to go there anymore
my mother was not the most emotionally stable person.
she was a follower and instilled in me the idea we were better than those worldly people.
its hard to go to school as a child and you can not be friends outside of school, you can not celebrate any holidays, and you are told all these people are going to die.
I'm not pissed, but I just want them to realize that they choose to change religions as a young adult, so why is it so hard for them to realize I should be able to make the same choice for my life. This is not the same religion I was baptized in, so I think I should be allowed to just quietly leave and still have unconditional love from them. Some the cult has indoctrinated them to believe otherwise
i pretty much fell apart for about two years while i was looking at the religion through new eyes.
i prayed my heart out for two years, begging jehovah to clear a certain thing up that the elders and the organization had perpetuated.
this was supposed to be his spirit-led organization so getting things right in answer to possibly just one person's heartfelt prayers should be an easy task for the sovereign of the universe.
I also prayed and prayed and prayed without answers. JW BS speak would say- no answer is somethings the answer🙄. I believed everything and didn't even know I was born and raised into a cult. The org had such a Sneaky way of dodging the cult bullet. Cognitive dissonance is a concept I experienced a lot while in and never knew what it was till out.
in the months or years since leaving the organization, how do you think you have progressed as a person?.
(or if you have regressed too i guess?).
what aspects of personal development are you happy with?.
I feel happier overall, I do not fear Satan and his demons anymore. After the initial shock of realizing everything I believed wasn't true, I now want to live my life in the here and now. I can't change the past and do not know what the future holds, but I feel balanced in the now and want to be a happy positive person. I am a firm believer that positive thoughts are so important to be healthy physically. I really appreciate this forum and it Has helped me more than you know! Thank you!
im not sure if anyone has posted this before?
(sorry if so).
http://exitwatchtower.weebly.com/.
I have no words! This was so good- the writer was able to put into words so many feelings lurking inside my soul. Is this person a member here? I want to thank him!
"millions now living will never die" that teaching persisted for a number of years from the early 1920`s ,sad to say that their would not be anywhere near millions alive today.and with another few years their won`t be anybody alive .. the year 1925 was supposed to see the resurrection of faithful men of old such as abraham issac and jacob and noah who were to be princes in the earth.
of course no such thing happened and we don`t here anything more about that prediction anymore.. the time period between adams creation and eves creation was an excuse why armageddon was delayed in about october 1975 because they didn`t know how much time had elapsed between the two.
that`s all forgotten about now.. six thousand years of human history was supposed to have ended in about october 1872 according to studies in the scriptures vol.2 1906 , the "time is at hand" page 11 (forward 1916 ) puts the start of the one thousand year reign of jesus christ as of the year 1873. so in 1906 they the i.b.s.a.
Spiral- my guess is they didn't understand it to begin with and then when it was gone - the typical reaction was- oh ok...lol
