"Trying to believe the unbelievable and trying to be 'good' by following bad ideas and living up to bad standards hurt much much more, and it was constant."
Words of iron.
willyloman
JoinedPosts by willyloman
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47
Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses is a Negative, Depressing Thing To Do, but....
by AllTimeJeff inover the years since i left jehovahs witnesses, one of the more fascinating things to observe, and really to me, the most important, is what to do after you leave.. to be sure, no one leaves because of a positive experience.
and therein lies the issues with leaving.
basically, people leave in three general ways: 1. they, like myself, resign or leave due to a disagreement.
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Hmm this could be tricky - I am going to a JW wedding.
by The Scotsman inyes a close family member of mine is getting married next weekend and me and mrs scotsman have been invited.. to set the scene - i have not been to a meeting in 2 years, 2 months and for mrs scotsman it is just under 2 years - so we have not seen any of our ex jw associates since then - but they will all be at the wedding!!!!.
we are not dad or dfd so they will be able to talk to us if they feel the urge.. the good thing is we are not the only ex jws/non jws going, so this will help.. the worry i have is what some of these jws might try.
for many of them, the last time they seen me i was an elder flying the wt flag - now i am out the truth dead at armageddon!.
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willyloman
We went to one just two months after our last meeting. Didn't get any flack, but most people didn't know we were "gone" as we had changed congos and just never went.
It was facinating to sit there and view the interactions through the lens of a disbeliever. What we saw and heard there confirmed our decision to exit was the right one.
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47
Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses is a Negative, Depressing Thing To Do, but....
by AllTimeJeff inover the years since i left jehovahs witnesses, one of the more fascinating things to observe, and really to me, the most important, is what to do after you leave.. to be sure, no one leaves because of a positive experience.
and therein lies the issues with leaving.
basically, people leave in three general ways: 1. they, like myself, resign or leave due to a disagreement.
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willyloman
Brilliant, Jeff. It's easy to see why you left; you're a deep thinker.
As someone who "faded" it's my opinion that there are more than the "three options" you mention. I faded as opposed to the DA route for some of the reasons you state, i.e., retaining at least arms-length relations with family and friends. It didn't take long for me to realize those relationships had been entirely conditional. Still, I opted not to send them a letter because it seemed to me that was playing by their rules. I didn't need anyone's permission to come in to the JW club; I certainly didn't need their permission to exit. So, for me, the fade was the ultimate FU.
My point is not to reopen the "fade vs. DA" debate, but to point out that the various exit strategies tend to blend together at the edges and get fuzzy. I think your essay nails the processes most of us have gone through in our search for a soul-satisfying life.
Here is what helped me more than anything (except reading C of C, the absolutely essential antidote to dub-think):
It was the realization that, by exercising my conscience and leaving, I now occupied the moral high ground. That the WTS did not, in fact, represent any moral ground whatsoever, but was a man-made organization severely flawed and crippled by its desire to protect its reputation (and hide its history). And that the dub life was testimony only to the desire of a handful of lonely people to belong to something at all costs - NOT to Christian living or godly principles or relationship maintenance with Jehovah or God, or The Universe.
Once I realized the Truth of that, it was easier to leave dubdom behind. And I have. So for me the "fade" was something I did until I had enough clarity to not give a %$ what they did; their actions would not have any power over me unless I let them.
Life's about 99% attitude, after all.
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I just put a bullet in the head of....
by AK - Jeff in....my final jw relationship.. i did it.
i killed the relationship.. my cousin rick and i had been inseparable as jw's.
rick is five years my junior, and in many ways i tried to look out for him like a little brother when we were younger.. i have wrestled with an on again/ off again attempt to stay in touch with rick since i left jw's.
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willyloman
One of life's most liberating discoveries is that you do NOT have to make room in your life for toxic relationships, like the one you described. You can (and should) just let 'em go. The payoff for doing so is bigger than we can imagine at first, but as time goes by we realize that our life began anew the minute we understood this.
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What year Did you Stop Attending Meetings - How Long were you a JW ?
by flipper ini'm trying to compare some statistics and figures on this to share later in the thread to see if more long-time witnesses are exiting- or are newer witnesses exiting after a shorter period of time.
and - are more people exiting in the last 10 to 15 years than before.
so your answers would be helpful in looking into this .
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willyloman
Interesting stats, flipper. It appears the shelf life of a dub is about 10 years; after that, thinking sets in.
Also, I note 1 person left in 1973 but 11 bailed out in 2009. Does that fulfill the "little one has become a thousand" scripture? I guess it does if we say so.
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Elder called last night and they are stopping by tonite for a 'visit'.......
by troubled mind insurprised me that he actually followed up on his word and called .
it will be strange after four yrs.
to have them in our house .my husband was not happy to hear it will be two brothers coming over, because he really does not want to feel we are being counseled .
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willyloman
You did well in keeping them off their game. Years ago a CO visited and suggested that sisters with parts in the school should not rehearse so much but the one w the assignment should study the material and then let the "householder" surprise her with questions. He said it would be more realistic that way. So for some weeks, sisters approached their talks in the school this way. But it didn't last, because some of the "householders" countered with pretty good arguments and it became clear that unless the dialog was prepared in advance and rehearsed, it was all just too unpredictable and that the HH might "win" the debate. The school overseer made some comments and later spoke privately to sisters who had talks coming up and that ended the experiment.
It proves a point: Dubs can't handle the truth! (I mean the truth about The Truth). When you throw them a curve they are confused and have to go off script they find it hard to recover. So they do what your elder did in the experience you just related - offer up some nervous laughter and just try to get through it without embarrassing themselves.
It's a good strategy. Nice work.
For everyone else, here's the deal: They are dumber than you think (I know, I was one). And they have far less holy spirit operating on them than you were told (in fact, none).
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Elder called last night and they are stopping by tonite for a 'visit'.......
by troubled mind insurprised me that he actually followed up on his word and called .
it will be strange after four yrs.
to have them in our house .my husband was not happy to hear it will be two brothers coming over, because he really does not want to feel we are being counseled .
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willyloman
A comment on yknot's suggestion:
Actually, now would be the time for us to seek our publisher cards from this congregation so that we may transfer them when have regained our spiritual strenght
Be aware that it doesn't work that way; the elders have specific instructions not to release the cards to the publisher; their procedure is for your current secretary to obtain name and address of the secretary of the new congo to which you move and mail the cards (along with a letter of "introduction") to him. They won't surrender your cards to you; they are what ties you to the organization.
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Field service-how did you avoid it?
by sawthe light ini hated field service and would avoid it as much as possible.i tried to work on my own if i could and would just drive some where and lisern to music or pretend i had return visits and just go home.what did you do to get out of the misery service?.
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willyloman
i did the only thing i could think of,,,,i lied
Peaches, you didn't lie. You used theocratic strategy, defined by the WTS as not telling the truth to people who had no right to know!
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What Actually Helped You Leave The Organization?
by minimus inafter seeing some threads about how some think that being direct (like danny hazzard) is the best way to get people out of "the truth" or being very subtle is most effective----i was wondering what exactly made you leave the organization??.
were you more impressed by websites that were informational?
what really got you thinking to leave the religion and its mindset?.
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willyloman
most people need time to make the transition to actually get out. It's not easy, especially when you have friends and family deeply entrenched
I credit this forum and the folks who post their experiences for making me realize people leave all the time for reasons of conscience and that there really is life after the WT!
I'd been struggling with doubts for several years but leaving seemed like a mountain to climb. Reading others' experiences here, I got the courage to talk to my family about whether we would ever leave "the truth" and discovered that my wife had been asking herself the same question but - like me - was reluctant to bring it up. Once the conversation was out in the open, we talked about nothing else. We bought and read Crisis of Conscience, which really lifted the veil and broke the final link in the chain. That's when we began planning our exit - another idea I got from one of the posters here - and before you know it, we were working the steps in our new "plan." Things just clicked and fell into place and pretty soon we were out.
The freedom was liberating. It's been an incredible journey.
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138
What year Did you Stop Attending Meetings - How Long were you a JW ?
by flipper ini'm trying to compare some statistics and figures on this to share later in the thread to see if more long-time witnesses are exiting- or are newer witnesses exiting after a shorter period of time.
and - are more people exiting in the last 10 to 15 years than before.
so your answers would be helpful in looking into this .
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willyloman
Nice thread. Apparently, the light is getting brighter!
Baptized '76, made carefully planned exit in '03. Was an active dub for 28 years.
My wife would like to turn in her time, too: Baptized '74, left when I did, dub for almost 30 years.