Posts by Saethydd

27

Striking Out On My Own

by Saethydd in

those of you who know my story are aware that i'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents.

up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed.

in a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive.

Some of you have requested to see the letter which I drafted for my family and friends on my departure from the religion. Here is a first draft. I will probably adjust it slightly to be more personal for some individuals.

Dear [Insert Name],
I am writing to inform you of a major life decision. After careful research and a consideration of all the relevant evidence, I have come to the decision that I no longer wish to be a member of the Christian Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I find myself in the position to pursue reinstatement into the congregation, but I feel that to do so would be dishonest because I do not believe that they have the Truth. Make no mistake, this has been the hardest decision I have ever made in my life, I know that it will almost certainly mean that you and others who I care about will shun me, but I have chosen this course because I believe it is the only path that will allow me to maintain my own intellectual and moral integrity in light of the information that I have discovered.
Nonetheless, I do not wish to lose you from my life, so I leave you with this open invitation to resume contact with me anytime you wish, whether it is immediately or ten years from now. Any shunning which takes place will only ever be one way. If you hope that by shunning me you will be performing some sort of discipline which will guide me back, know that you are wrong in that. I am not ashamed of this choice, while not an easy path, I truly believe it to be the correct one.
My purpose in this letter is not to try and rip your faith away from you, so I will not discuss here the reasons for which I have made this decision. If you, however, you wish to understand them I will gladly try to explain after you have contacted me, or not, the choice is yours. If you wish to be a part of my life without discussing this matter that is perfectly acceptable to me. Believing everything I believe is not a requirement for being in my life.
If you ever wish to accept my offer the following email address and phone number should be a reliable means by which to reach me for the foreseeable future.
Email:[Insert Email]
Phone #: [Insert Phone #]
Sincerely your loving friend,
[Insert Name]

27

Striking Out On My Own

by Saethydd in

those of you who know my story are aware that i'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents.

up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed.

in a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive.

Saethydd

Don't hold out any hopes of a normal family relationship in the future though. It'll only get you more and more frustrated. Don't tell them anything about your new life whether it be good or bad. Because they'll latch onto the bad and say "see what happens when one leaves Jehovah's organization".

I know that a normal relationship with my family is virtually impossible at this point, and even just getting one member of my family to communicate with me is unlikely, but knowing that I've left a path for them will make me feel better about the whole thing regardless.

#2 Go out with a bang, big time letter, a lot of good arguments that will not, in general, move a single JW.
Why? Because this is a club and it's due's paying membership and their good standing counts for more then a non believer's truth.
#3. Move out...... say goodbye to your close family relationships and count yourself lucky because you will no longer be in their pathetic lives or under their influence. I know....... it's Mom and Dad....Sis & Bro...it's been your life....unfortunately if you don't think as they do....... they think less of you.

I've been thinking about what I'll put in the letters, and I've decided that I'm not going to present the specifics of my argument there because I don't think it would serve a purpose. Instead, I will offer to explain my reasons to them should they wish to resume contact with me, however, I will also tell them that they don't have to listen to my explanations to get back in contact with and I would be more than happy to simply leave it as something we disagree on because I don't have to force everyone around me to believe what I believe.

27

Striking Out On My Own

by Saethydd in

those of you who know my story are aware that i'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents.

up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed.

in a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive.

Saethydd

Just curious...did your Mom bring up the topic of "reinstatement then fading" coincidentally or does she know that was your intended plan at first? I can't imagine you'd have told her that was your plan

No, something got her talking about my cousin who got reinstated along with his wife about six months before I got disfellowshipped. They went to the meetings for awhile and then slowly stopped going. They live next door to us so she and my sister also noticed that my cousin and his wife started spending time with "worldy people" (the horror.)

Then she decided to that his intention must have been to go inactive the whole time and said that she didn't want me to do that, she does know that I'm having doubts about the Organization (among other things), but I haven't made a firm stand on it yet, I didn't want to do that until I had some other place to go in case I got kicked out, so I've kept the depth of my doubts and research to myself.

27

Striking Out On My Own

by Saethydd in

those of you who know my story are aware that i'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents.

up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed.

in a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive.

Saethydd

I didn't mean damned literally, I meant it in the sense that I am going to shunned and gossiped about no matter how I go about leaving, so I might as well make my reasons abundantly clear instead of letting them smugly imagine me to merely be someone who was too weak. Perhaps mine will become a story that gets someone thinking for themselves.

As far as being literally doomed I find myself extremely skeptical of anyone who claims to represent a deity including the Bible itself so the JW threat of being destroyed in God's wrath doesn't trouble me anymore than going to hell for not being a Muslim troubles a JW.

37

Circumcision....Perfect Adam....Uncircumcised....1st century Christians...circumcision ont required

by blondie in

jw
friends

i know this has been discussed many times, but i was watching a news story about female genital mutilation (not female circumcision) and segued mentally into why the hassle about male babies having to be circumcised, christians especially.

even the wts flipflops on this...... if adam, the first perfect man, not under the jewish law code, was given a foreskin by god as an aspect of his physical perfection, why then do so many "christian" people have their boy babies circumcised?.

if a health issue....why did god create the perfect man, adam, with a foreskin?.

Saethydd

In my twenty-one years I've never any direction one or the other from the Watchtower on the matter of modern circumcision. All I know about it is that if my were supposed to have me circumsized they definitely didn't follow that particular standard.

27

Striking Out On My Own

by Saethydd in

those of you who know my story are aware that i'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents.

up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed.

in a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive.

Saethydd

You may just want to consider a clean break.

My plan is basically a clean break from the organization, but if possible I want to leave my hand extended towards anyone else I care about who wants to escape from this group too. At least that way if nobody will take it, I can at least rest easy knowing that I tried.

27

Striking Out On My Own

by Saethydd in

those of you who know my story are aware that i'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents.

up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed.

in a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive.

Saethydd

Why? What explanation do you think you owe them? They will possibly use it to cause you hassle.
I suggest not putting anything in writing, just leave and if asked deny and deflect.

Because I have no reason to deny and deflect, I'm already disfellowshipped, which means that anybody who would shun me is going to anyway. By explaining my reasons to my family maybe I'll get through to at least one of them, or perhaps discover that one of them wants to leave too but they have been afraid to do so. Honestly, I would prefer to take a stand than to quietly slip away, if I'm gonna be damned anyway I may as well be damned for what I really am.

27

Striking Out On My Own

by Saethydd in

those of you who know my story are aware that i'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents.

up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed.

in a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive.

Saethydd

Those of you who know my story are aware that I'm currently disfellowshipped and living with my parents. Up until now, my plan has been to be reinstated and then fade, but recently my plans have changed. In a conversation with my mother a few days ago and she made it clear that she would not be okay with me getting reinstated with the purpose of going inactive. (What she believes my cousin has done.)

So I decided that instead of getting reinstated I'm just going to move out at the end of my Summer semester because as far as I can tell the end result is going to be the same, staying and getting reinstated only means that I'll have to attend more of these insufferable meetings and be dishonest longer, which I hate. I'm going to prepare letters explaining my choice to all of my family members and close friends, in the letters I'll include an open invitation for them to resume contact with me anytime they wish, perhaps one of them secretly harbors doubts and will take me up on it. Maybe I'll even spark curiosity enough among some of them to get them started on leaving the Org too.

It took me all of two days to find someone among my "worldly" friends who was willing and able to rent me a room at a great deal starting in the Fall. They even said not to worry too much about the rent and just pay whatever I was comfortable with. So I think I'm set for my exit from this cult, I've quite a few friends that will be able to help me out and provide social support, and when the time comes I'll line up a job to help me finish my next few years in college. (working for my dad atm, I have a feeling that will have to change when I leave though.)

I just wanted to share my experience with you guys, visiting this forum has been a big help to me in making this decision. I also wanted to see if anybody had recommendations that might improve my plan.

47

We are becoming champions of grief. We lost twin B.

by Darkknight757 in

last week we had a reassurance ultrasound with our ob.

she was just supposed to check heartbeats on the two little ones and they were going strong!

but because she had extra time and she can be quite anal about her work (which is a good thing) she decided to take some measurements.

Saethydd

I am so sorry for your loss.

33

How many in your generation are still JW???

by Christian Gutierrez in

jw
friends

how many in your age group are still jehovahs witnesses?

from where we are at, there aren't many left.

each year it gets smaller and smaller haha .

Saethydd

Most of my generation from the hall I go to is still in or at least working towards reinstatement as far as I know. The only one who seems to have left is my cousin, though I can't be certain of the reason for his fade. I guess my departure will make 2. Though I live in rural area so my age pool wasn't exactly huge to begin with.