i am curious , especially since we have so many new ones here, as to how many actually left the organization because of this board or others similar to it.
i certainly would hope that we are making a dent in the jw organization by what we do here......,
I've been out for about three years now after twenty years in the borg. It was Freeminds initially that got me thinking. I had often felt uneasy about certain issues especially the fact that the WBTS kept on changing things over the years then in '95 or was it '96 when they discovered "new light" on 1914 I really started to check them out seriously using info from freeminds then I bought Crisis of Concsience and that was it. Then I discovered this board and I've never looked back!
La-Bella
i talked to my mom on the phone the other day she is a jw, she knows full well what i think of the jw garbage, and i have tried to make her see it, but it's not use, so i don't go on about it much, aside from the occasional comment to see what the reaction will, in good humour of course... anyway, the other day i was struggling to think of topics we could talk about (typical son/mother relationship) so in my usual amused way i asked what she thought about the new view the society had on blood parts... i was expecting something but i didn't know what.... anyway, my mom calmly as if nothing was amiss, told me that it hasn't changed really, and that 'it doesn't matter anyway, because blood was always a conscience matter' now i love my mom, but this blew me away, i know of, and she knows people who have died because of blood, and she would still probably do it, but more to the point, haven't people been df'd for having blood transfusions?
good grief, if blood is a conscience matter and always was, why the hell so many people die and whose conscience lets their kid die?.
pffffffffff
The blood issue is just one of many that make me feel sad and angry not just with the borg but with those individuals who willingly go along with its ridiculous ideas. These people have minds of their own and can surely see the hypocracy - they never fail to miss it with regard to other religions - but choose of their own free will not to use their own common sense. That in its self is bad enough, but then they go door to door searching for new victims to join them in their self imposed life of brainwashed subservience to a corporate publishing company.
Sorry if this sounds rather bitter, but I just find it so hard being treated like some kind of evil apostate marked for death at Armageddon by people who just have to know better. Everytime the borg changes its mind about something they just pretend it doesn't matter - what kind of people are they - what's more to the point I suppose is why on earth did I take so long to get out myself? However, I have to say in my own mitigation I never accepted channges without question and even asked questions that embarrassed them at WT studies. So they were as glad to see the back of me as I was to go in the end. I guess in many ways they won as I wasted so many precious years of my life!
Sorry about this just having a bad day, La-bella
at what stage of recovery are you?
are you angry?
are you depressed?
I think this is a very interesting question, but I'm not sure how to answer it. Having left the org three years ago I feel that I am well on the way to recovery, however, I am human and inevitably there are times when I look back at life and feel that I wasted more than twenty precious years of my life.
I first became involved with the JWs when I was 35 I'm now 59 I was probably arounf 55 when I finally stopped fooling myself about the org, although to be fair I had felt pretty sceptical about all the inaccuracies, false prophecies etc. that JWs are supposed to take in their stride for many a long year.
The thing that makes me feel really sad from time to time is remembering the real lack of genuine love and genuine friendship within the org. I was a "sister in a divided home" I'm sure many of you will know how far down the pecking order that put me. I have to say I keep asking myself why I didn't see through it all much sooner. I gave up all my friends on the"outside" when I became a Witness, only to have them replaced by people who merely patronised me; patted me on the head when I did well in the ministry but otherwise ignored me.
I think the thing that bothers me most is that even though in my heart of hearts I knew this couldn't be Gods organization I didn't get out sooner - when I would have been young enough to make something of my life - my life that God gave to me and that I foolishly handed over to an organization who for all their weasle words actually don't care tuppence about real people.
I suppose sometimes I feel angry, but mostly when I think about being a witness at all, which these days is not that often I just feel sad and very very stupid!!!!!!!
lots of love to my virtual friends La-bella
c'mon now, there has to be something... the green carpet or the hard seats?
barn dances?
large social gatherings?
I'm absolutely thrilled and delighted to say I don't miss any of it - and when I get ignored in the street by my so called former friends I no longer turn a hair. I'm just about returning to emotional sanity and stability three years down the line from disasociating myself. My only regret it it took me twenty years or more to come to my senses.
Love to all la-bella
the watchtower, june 15, 2004 issue, pages 14-24:.
" for the benefit of current readers, the answer is reprinted on pages 29-31 of this magazine.
19 near its conclusion, the reprinted answer on pages 29-31 says: "does the fact that opinions and conscientious decisions may differ mean that the issue is inconsequential?
One of the questions I asked of elders cos etc was "if we are not allowed to give blood then what right do we have to accept any of the products derived from other peoples donations" The most definitive reply I ever had was we don't need to repay what people give "in kind" You can't have it both ways if blood is supposed to be "poured out onto the ground then it can't be used to create blood fractions can it? I made the point that for someone who had a child born with lukaemia that requred one blood transfusion that child would have to die, but a haemephilic child could use the product of gallons of blood during its life time and this would be okay. Where's the justice in that?
This is the kind of hypocrascy that made me realise after more than twenty years I couldn't support this organization any longer.
Love to all la- bella
being raised a jw, i honestly did not know what a great big world we live in.
all the places i never went to see, things i wanted to do,,,, because i figured , i will just do that when the new world gets here.
there was always going to be forever to do all the things that make life interesting.. i settled for the here and now as a good jw, meetings, field service, studying the same material over and over in the wt publications, and that was my life.
After approximately three years away from dub-dom I am just beginning to get used to living a normal life, and to appreciating that this life is not a rehearsal. Unfortunately I was a Witness for twenty years, so as you can imagine I am not in my first flush... However, I am now doing my best to enjoy life. I am doing all those things that were frowned upon in "the Truth" because they took up time that should be spent knocking on doors, studying and attending meetings.
I try now to spend more time in contact with my extended family, siblings who live quite some distance away I now telephone on a regular basis. I have always been intersted in learning and so I have started a degree course in the humanities which takes up a great deal of my time, and which I enyoy enormously.
I suppose like many ex-witnesses I now feel a bit foolish about being deceived for so long, and where in the beginning I felt that the society was merely mistaken in its attitudes, things have happened in my life that have shown me that this is not really the case. I'm sure the society is well aware that much of what they teach is wrong, and those in control just want to stay in control. People like us are of no consequence whatsoever once we leave the fold - no matter how hard we have worked for them. Therefore all those feelings of guilt have gradually worn away and I am doing nice things for myself and for others - but not to "give a witness!!!"
la-bella
i was checking out the 98 awake 11/22 3-5 and noticed that if i search on "united nations" this article doesn't come up in the search results - i thought that was kind of weird so i searched for "eleanor roosevelt" (which is mentioned in this article) and the 98 awake article did come up.
seems kind of weird that this is the article that was submitted to the dpi and thats is not coming up in the search.
any comments??.
How strange exactly the same thing happened to me a few years ago when I was trying to do some research on "canablism" in relation to human body transplants. I thought at the time this was strange, but I manage to get the info I needed anyhow. Just another instane of th WTs control freekery I guess, but interesting eh!!
love to all la-bella
prisca's topic about personal responsibility vs blaming the jws (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/56286/824979/post.ashx#824979) got me to thinking..... where do you think you'd be if the jws and the wts had never been part of your life?how would your life be different from what it is now?what do you think you might have accomplished or done differently without the encumberances of the jws in your life?what kind of relationship would you have with your family?who would you be?.
there are no right or wrong answers, but think about those what-i-want-to-be-when-i-grow-up ideas you had as children and whether those dreams could have become a reality.. .
love, scully
Hi all,
This is such an interesting question. I have no real idea what I would be like today if I had never been a Witness, but I suspect that as an individual I would be pretty much the same sort of person that I am, after all the old genes do have some say in what we become.
However, I am sure that I would have had some kind of career today. Part of being a Witness was having the opportunity, or so one always believed, of showing love for ones fellow man soI guess I would have exploited that desire within myself to a more useful purpose, perhaps I would have become a teacher, nurse whatever.
Still no point in looking back is there its the future that counts. Now that I have left what was for me the sad and confusing world of the J.W. I see each day as a challenge and an opportunity to be happy - not feel guilty - not worry about being a "sister in a divided household" just get up in the morning and live. I haven't quite got round to putting myself first in life, but you never know I might even manage that one day. One last thought if I hadn't walked that particular road I wouldn't be speeking to all you lovely people today!!
hey guys, .
i just attended my first "worldly" funeral since i've been out of "the truth" tm.. anyways, i thought it was nicely done.
it gave honor to the deceased, it drew me closer to jesus and it evoked emotions within me.. i'm just contrasting this to the jw funerals which always seems like way to peddle products rather than honor the dead.. no thoughts in particular for me, but anyone have any similar thoughts???.
J.W. funerals are very formulaic in structure and designed to exploit the fact that they have a captive audience as it were. When I was a practicing witness I used to cringe at the unashamed way in which they took advantage of the berieved to preach their message, even though at that time it was my message also. I used to feel the same at the memorial. I have attended "worldly" funerals and weddings and by and large they have all tended to feel much more "genuine" than their witness equivalents. Isn't it strange how we hang on in there for so long even when we feel uncomfortable about what we are witnessing and taking part in
Love to all La -bella
i remembered something that was in my consiousness from back in the day.
i went to the door of a very nice home and was greeted by a nice person.
i presented the usual rehearsed salespitch and she said the oddest thing, "i tried jehovah's witness once, it just didn't work for me.
Anne, I think like everyone who has read your post I completely understand how you feel. I suppose what really matters is what made you leave in the first place. Were you a happy dub who just realised it wan't the truth, or were you like Maverick who like myself was obviously very unhappy with what he saw in an organisation he entered full of idealism. If you come into the latter catagory I am sure you will find something to take the place of your former activities. I have started on a Open University degree course and I do volunary work in the community.
My life is much more fulfilled now than it ever was when I was a witness, constantly trying to ignore all the incredible hypocracy stupidity, and backbiting that was part and parcel of my life in those days. I know that there are many nice honest individuals in the organisation, or at least I assume there are, but in all honest I never met many of them. Therfore I found that once I had made up my mind to go, even after twenty years, it was a huge relief. Even after three years I sometimes have moments of mysery wishing I hadn't wasted so much of my life, but I would never go back and my life is now full of the ordinary things it always should have been. Keep going be happy !!!
