Posts by jwundubbed

30

Experiences After Leaving

by Freeatlast2024 in

i am writing to ask if anyone cares to share their experience and/or offer advice for people leaving.

i was raised in the religion, and both my parents died when i was very young.

i recently stopped associating because my conscience no longer allows me to preach or support the organization.

jwundubbed

I left the cult in my 20s. There are some things that I did right, and some things that I didn't do that could have made transitioning so much easier.

First, stop using their language. Use the language that the rest of the world uses. This helps other people relate to you when you do talk about your past, but it also helps you to think like the people that you want to be in a community with. It is also a part of deprogramming.

Jehovah's Witnesses = fundamentalist Christian religion (or in my case a Doomsday cult)

Kingdom Hall = church

Sunday and Weekday meetings = services

bible study = bible study (this meeting where groups meet outside of the church to do bible study is actually quite common in other Christian churches)

assembly (all of them) = convention

Brothers & Sisters = church members, parishioners, you choose what works for you

Elders, circuit overseers, the Governing Body = ministers or pastors

Governing Body (if you need to make the distinction) = church administrators

You can easily look up titles to make changes to your vocabulary.

Others have already give you great advice for navigating making new friends and creating your chosen community, network. I'm going to tell you something that I find most of us do not want to hear.

Get therapy.

I left and did what I could to separate myself from the cult. I changed my language. I got right out there and started making friends. I got into romantic relationships. It was a decade later before I realized that I had significantly underestimated the impact that the JWs had on how I relate to people. I was born in. The JW way of relating to people entirely shaped me during the formative years of my life. I think people who join later are also effected by this. For me, I don't know what I don't know. I can see all kinds of areas of my life that I can change to be a better person and to separate myself from the cult. But I cannot see the intricate details of my interpersonal relationships and where I might be going wrong. Just yesterday I realized that I need to find someone who is a step between a therapist and a life coach to help me work on my friend skills. I've come so far, but I am incapable of seeing what I need to see without someone else to help point it out to me. I need to learn from someone who can articulate it and help me find the tools necessary to make successful relationships... even just friends. I got therapy to deal with some PTSD issues and it helped. I didn't do a lot. I did not get therapy to help me navigate interpersonal relationships, and I now think that I could have learned so much and gotten better at relationships so much faster if I had. Therapy/counseling doesn't have the stigma that it used to have and there are so many different types available now. There are support groups that meet online, like on Zoom, and just share their struggles. Some are formatted like support groups while others feel more relaxed like friends meeting up. You can even make some friends with people who share a similar struggle.

I realized just yesterday that I haven't been making the friendships that I want to make. Making friends is much harder as an adult. It isn't just that you are no longer thrust together in an environment where you are forced to interact with each other, as children are. It is that the other adults aren't interested in making those connections. People will make those connections given the opportunity, but they aren't seeking it themselves oftentimes. You really have to work at it. I have 2 friends right now. They are really good friends. I have acquaintances at work. I'm going to try Meet-Up to see if I can find a group that gathers to do artwork together. I'm not a naturally social person. I'm fine all by myself. But it isn't healthy. And at the end of my life, I want more than 2 chosen people by my side. I want to make a difference in other people's lives and have them make a difference in mine. I feel like I have a lot to give.

I hope this helps and I hope you can start making new friends and creating a choice family soon.

95

Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?

by liam in

i didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.

practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.

now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.

jwundubbed

Does anyone know anyone who actually died from COVID? I know of people harmed by the vaccines, but the supposedly deadly virus? It was media hype.

Yes. I know a lot of people who died from COVID. Here are just a couple of examples. My stepbrother got COVID during the lock-down. He died within a week. I knew a very elderly woman who died of it. Then her son contracted it and killed himself. I know a lot of people who worked on the front lines and saw a ton of death. It was, is, and will always be real. But then, so is the flu and pneumonia, and bronchitis.. all of which used to kill a lot of people before we had the medicines to mitigate the risks. My very good friend, who was only 48 years old, died of complications from pneumonia in 2018. While you cannot deny that it was real, there isn't any good reason to freak out about it and make it into more than it is.

I have a different perspective on vaccines, apparently. I'm a child of the '80s. Everyone I knew growing up, were always thankful for vaccines. It meant we didn't get measles, polio, scarlet fever, small pox, and etc. I had grandparents that still talked about how scary it was to get scarlet fever and small pox. I knew how lucky I was to not have to worry about getting those diseases.

It wasn't until I was much older that the idea that vaccines cause autism started. I never understood why people could be so stupid about that idea. If it really causes autism... why aren't there more cases of autism? Everyone, every single baby and child was required to get the standard vaccinations, but the number of autistic babies is quite low compared to the entire population. It doesn't even make sense. It isn't just JWs that don't have logic skills.

In the US, you couldn't work in certain fields if you didn't have the standard round of vaccinations. None of that is new. I came up knowing this was a requirement. It boggled my mind when people thought it was some egregious new law that they couldn't work in some places or ways if they hadn't been vaccinated. To me, that was just people being dumb.

Vaccines have been around for a while now. Yes, some people have reactions to vaccines. That's true of all medicines. But I'm also not afraid of COVID or monkeypox or whatever will come next. There is a shit ton of crap in the air that can kill me. What's one more? What's a dozen more? Either it will get me and I will die or it won't. It isn't the worst way to die. It isn't the nicest way either. But it certainly isn't any scarier than anything else. I fear death. I hope to go in my sleep. I hope not to be violated and dismembered and cast into an unmarked grave by a serial killer. Fearing dying of COVID falls under 'dying from some awful lung complication'. I do not understand why it is so much scarier to people than any other way of dying.

To me, that was the worst part of COVID... the sheer mass stupidity by people, companies, and the government. Quarantine and lock-down was understandable. The last time we had an outbreak like that was the Spanish Flu of 1912. I get why people were freaked out. It's been a while since people had to remember that quarantines and lock down are actually nothing new.

I think conversations like this one are weird. I don't get what all the fuss is about. I don't care about the stupid and weird antics of the politicians. When aren't they trying to influence journalism and control the social narrative? I just don't see why there has to be such melodrama about it all.

Whatever it was, it wasn't informed consent.

No, I think it falls under implied consent... at least for people in the US. The lock-down, quarantines, required vaccinations, work regulations around vaccines... it is all historical standards. If you live in the states you expect to abide by the law both as it stands and as it is enacted during times of crisis.

It wasn't 'informed' consent because people didn't do their due diligence and have all this self-righteousness about their rights without actually knowing their rights and their responsibilities. During COVID, people were watching the fearmongering on the news and in social media. They weren't informed because they chose not to be informed. Being informed doesn't mean that you get the information spoon fed to you by someone else. It means that you learn everything you need to learn to make a good choice. You don't get that from people in social media. You get that from your own research, your own due diligence.

I gave informed consent. I was eager for the vaccines. I like vaccines and I trust them. But if I didn't, I still live in the US and I know what the government requires of me to live and work here. Just by living here, I agree to abide by the law during a crisis. That is implied consent.

Edit: Since some people are indicating their vaccine status:

1976: Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Polio (OPV), Measles, Mumps, Rubella,

1990: Measles (due to outbreak in area)

2013-2023: 10year pneumonia, annual flu shot

2021: COVID Janssen & COVID Pfizer

2022: COVID booster

2023: Flu shot, COVID shot

2024: Prevnar20 lifetime pneumonia vaccine

42

What would happen to a JW for celebrating Christmas?

by Vanderhoven7 in

mark jones writes:.

if they were spied upon and it was reported to the elders they’d be “invited” to a judicial committee whereupon they’d be cross examined in a locked backroom by three men acting as judge and jury to decide if they are guilty.. .

if the elders decide that they are guilty, they’ll then decide if the person is sorry.

jwundubbed

Shouldn't Christians be encouraged to celebrate Christ's birth every day? In fact we should celebrate everything about Christs life and accomplishments... And yet Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot praise him or even thank him for his grace and mercy and sacrifice on our behalf.

Jehovah's Witnesses aren't Christians. They are Christian non-Christians. They think they are Christians... with a ton of cognitive disassociation. It's in the very name of the cult. Jehovah's Witnesses follow Jehovah, not Christ. By the very definition of 'Christian' that makes them 'not Christian'. It never ceases to amaze me at how many people leave the cult but fail to recognize that very important point. JWs don't act like Christians because they aren't Christians.

In answer to the original question... all the responses are correct but there are some exceptions to the rules. People who have one parent in and one parent out, especially if the one that is out is the husband, have some leeway to celebrate holidays.

Also, if you have a congregation with worn out elders they might not do anything to those that celebrate. I was in one congregation where people started celebrating Christmas and even talked about it at the meetings and the elders were too worn down to care. A young overseer came in and livened things up and people just didn't talk about what they celebrated anymore. But the congregation was worn down as well so people got away with a lot more than other congregations I've been a part of. People stopped telling on each other. A lot of the young people left and had no contact with their families. That actually wears pretty hard on people. You have a lot of that and people sometimes stop being so hateful to each other. I'm sure it has changed since then. That was a couple of decades ago.

75

Would you be able to survive a three day Assembly?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

the last assembly i attended was over 10 years ago.

the monotone speakers, boring talks, uncomfortable seats, long prayers and nodding off after the lunch break did me in.

i survived the morning sessions, but the afternoon sessions were brutal.

jwundubbed

I am going to admit a truth that I don't normally admit to. I loved the assemblies. But my experience wasn't the same as you describe. I loved the energy during intermissions. Even walking around during the talks held a level of awesome energy. The attitudes of people was so different to what they were during regular meetings.

I couldn't stay awake during Tuesday night bible studies or Thursday night one-hour meetings let alone during 2-hour Sunday meetings. I always knew I was going to sleep through most of the assemblies as well (that's the truth I don't normally admit). No one ever addressed my problem with this. I didn't snore. That probably helped. I tried to take notes, but invariably, I just accepted defeat and went to sleep. Looking back, I realize that it was really good sleep. I enjoyed it. I could do that again.

That isn't what you meant when you asked if we could survive, I know...

I could survive the experience in that regard. But I have learned that I can't be casual about attending something so dangerous. The muscle memory and nostalgia would make me welcome it. It was my normal, my default setting and that always feels so good. But that is a dangerous place to put myself. It would be mental warfare so subtle they wouldn't even know they were doing it to me. I wouldn't know it either, not until I caught myself singing an old bible song (I don't want to listen to the new trendy songs!! ew!) or thinking in JWisms. In that regard, no I could not survive it again and it wouldn't be worth it to attend just to see what it's like.

33

Let's talk business ...

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

i am thinking that this could be an interesting topic.

most of us never had a chance to go to college, many of us were involved in various service industries like cleaning and such, and we have had some limitations placed on us.

so i thought it might be interested to see what has worked for people, what hasn't, what the progression has been, where people went wrong and where they got it right.

jwundubbed

@jwundubbed, I grew up poor too. I'm sorry you feel so hopeless aside from the pursuit of education and possibilities that it holds, but I'm glad that you do have that thing to look forward to in the future.

Update: 2023 was an awesome year for me. My student loans were forgiven after 20 years of paying on them. I am no longer in debt over $5000. (The student loans were almost $100,000 because I could only pay minimum payments and the banks kept buying the loans and upping the interest rates) I never did go back for higher education... just certificates here and there that help me move forward.

I was hired at a medical manufacturing company in Quality Assurance and had permanent work and health insurance for a little over a year. It was a career field I had wanted to get into for a long time! My world view was content and so different from everything that I had experience previously that I was actually quite happy.

This year, 2024, I was laid off from that job. I don't even care. They gave a good severance package and so I took a vacation since I haven't had one in my adult life. After the vacation I got a new job, as a manager. It's a low-level manager position and doesn't pay well, but well enough to pay the bills and allow me to buy a car. I can work on certificates and education to get back into QA because I really loved that job in that career field. The current manager job will only give me more experience towards future goals.

What 2023 did for me was to give me a huge confidence boost. The work I did was challenging in the best way. I learned that I am very competent in a lot of areas. If I can get enough work, I might even be able to buy a house. That was never an option before now.

My outlook absolutely changed by having a good experience. And it is weird, but it turns out that you can make choices that have a good payout twenty years later. It turns out that I'm not good at making choices that give me instant gratification but that I am really good at making long term investment choices.

2024 isn't looking as good as 2023 but it i so much better than every year that came before. I am much more positive about my future. Now I only dream of DOOM! when I think it's funny... I have a dark sense of humor. Sometimes it hits me and I realize how profound it is to have grown up with a belief that doom is right around the corner and now to disbelieve that to the extent that I am making plans for my future... to live, to settle down and take root, to be a fully contributing member of a community in the worldly world. Life is good!

36

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

by jwundubbed in

i found out recently that michelangelo's painting of adam on the sistine chapel depicts him without a belly button.

i had never noticed this before and it makes sense that neither adam nor eve would have belly buttons, not having been born in the usual way.

then i realized all the first animals were created rather than born, according to the religious views of the origin of life.

jwundubbed

I just looked at that painting on Wikipedia and he certainly appears to have a navel.

I don't know what I don't know. The idea that the painting did not have a navel on Adam was on a Trivia TV show. It seems weird that they would get that wrong... but maybe there was more to the trivia that I didn't catch. Anyway the idea that Adam and Eve and all the animals were created rather than born, still makes me wonder why no one tries to use that as an argument for why the chicken came first... from A religious point of view.

I would be amazed at how many semantic jerks we have in this community, but as often as this group debates so many things about the tiniest details, it isn't actually surprising. And for those of you who feel that any religious point of view is moot to the argument because of Science!... I see your moot point and raise you the moot point of making a Science! answer in a Creation! conversation. Moot meet moo.

36

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

by jwundubbed in

i found out recently that michelangelo's painting of adam on the sistine chapel depicts him without a belly button.

i had never noticed this before and it makes sense that neither adam nor eve would have belly buttons, not having been born in the usual way.

then i realized all the first animals were created rather than born, according to the religious views of the origin of life.

jwundubbed

I found out recently that Michelangelo's painting of Adam on the Sistine Chapel depicts him without a belly button. I had never noticed this before and it makes sense that neither Adam nor Eve would have belly buttons, not having been born in the usual way.

Then I realized all the first animals were created rather than born, according to the religious views of the origin of life. So... the chicken definitely came before the egg. How come this isn't a widely accepted view of the question? I mean, lots of people who ask this question believe in God and are religious. I can't believe I never thought of it before. I get why scientists and atheists would still question which came first, but I would also expect them to acknowledge the religious point of view, if only to reject it. I've never heard anyone use a religious point of view to answer this philosophical question.

The chicken definitely came first!

23

Where Adam and Eve Vegan/Vegetarian?

by KerryKing in

jws seem to firmly believe that before the flood mankind eas vegan or at least vegetarian.. however, in gen 1:24,25 it says that god created livestock (domestic animals) and beasts of the eart (wild beasts).. why would adam and eve need livestock if they were vegan and naked?

wouldn't need wool or hide for clothing, nor meat for food.

possibly for dairy products only?

jwundubbed

Were Adam and Eve vegan/vegetarian?

No one can know what they chose to eat. But I would add to your documentation, the fact that humans have the teeth of omnivores. I think they ate meat. But who can possibly understand the nonsensical logic of the JWs?

Why would Adam and Eve need livestock if they were vegan and naked?

Obviously it was for sacrifice. You yourself cited that documentation. Duh. A coroner also knows all the best meat on any body... it doesn't mean he eats people. Any decent God would tell their believer what they want in their tributary sacrifices. A good writer can impart information without describing every single action. It's obvious that while the bible is literal it also leaves steps out. Telling us that they knew the best pieces of meat for sacrifice could be the writer's way of explaining that they had been told what they needed to know.

115

Vice President Kamala Harris…your thoughts??

by minimus in

jw
friends

good pick?

bad pick?

helpful to president biden?

jwundubbed

Let's be real. Harris is irrelevant standing next to Trump. The democrats need a vibrant candidate if they want to have a chance at winning. Even people that don't like Trump were impressed with how he handled being shot at. I'm not impressed with Harris even though she passes my initial bar for candidacy, but only just.

22

Radical shake up

by Mikejw in

imagine if all the governing body resigned and a new set of brothers came in and said we are very very sorry for all those who have been disfellowshipped and disassociated over the years.

we know many mistakes have been made.

we are really genuinely sorry to all those who have been hurt and especially those who have died and been hurt by these mistakes.

jwundubbed

Imagine if all the governing body resigned and a new set of brothers came in

But not to worry we will still be discriminating against women. We're different people... still men and only men... so not really different, just different. You know?

Dude... if you can't conceive of gender equality long enough to set your hypothetical in place... nothing can change. When you can't suppose a difference of real value, then there isn't a capability of change because the problem is so systemic that you don't even realize you are part of the problem yourself.