An elder in my hall finally called me after 7 months after me moving out on my own. He was inquiring about how I was doing and which hall I needed my publishers card sent too.(Of course I did not ansewr and he left a message) Up until now, my parents still think I go to meetings (although even my mom has been wondering why my publishers card has not been sent over) I keep stalling insisting I don't know why and that I am regular at meetings and service. Its been 7 months now and I know it will all blow up in my face soon. Although my folks go to a different congregation they share the same as hall with the elders in my congregation. Its amazing they haven't bumped into one another yet but when they do...I have a feeling all hell will break lose. WHAT DO I DO? Just come right out and tell my family I am not attending meetings anymore? Can I be D'F for that or do I just have to do something outright bad? Should I just be honest and hope for the best (I rather my folks simply think I am inactive; I mean at least I can then stop lying but what if they stop talking to me altogether?) PLEASE HELP!
HELP! I got a call from an elder today!
by stillAwitness 29 Replies latest jw experiences
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bikerchic
(((((stillA)))))
Tough spot I really feel for you.
I keep stalling insisting I don't know why and that I am regular at meetings and service. Its been 7 months now and I know it will all blow up in my face soon. Although my folks go to a different congregation they share the same as hall with the elders in my congregation. Its amazing they haven't bumped into one another yet but when they do...I have a feeling all hell will break lose.
Yeah the perceivable poo will hit the fan.....
WHAT DO I DO? Just come right out and tell my family I am not attending meetings anymore?
You know if it were me and I wanted to live my life in my own way and not a slave to either my parents or an organization I would fess up to the elders and my parents and get on with my life. Things will be hard for a while but in the end I honestly think you'll respect yourself so much more if you deal with it now and forthright and honestly. You'll be surprised in a few months after it all dies down how much personal growth you will have achieved and I really think you'll respect yourself more if you just do it.
I'm not judging you and I know everyone is different I do wish you all the luck in whatever you decide to do.
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blondie
Well, I think you need to move farther away where your parents don't know anyone in the area.
Seriously, if you told your parents you were going to the meetings....it was only a matter of time before they found out. I don't think you could have expected it to last too long since you live in the same area.
JWs love to talk and the world of JWdom is very small indeed. I have visited congregations halfway across the world and run into JWs that were related to or originally from the congregation I was. If they have family or friends, they keep in touch, and into everyone's business.
I would tell them that you wanted to go to the meetings but couldn't find the time with your schedule. You might have to admit you mislead them and face the temporary fireworks.
Blondie
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Highlander
JWs love to talk and the world of JWdom is very small indeed. I have visited congregations halfway across the world and run into JWs that were related to or originally from the congregation I was. If they have family or friends, they keep in touch, and into everyone's business.
You've got that right! There are many times I was visiting another state, or visiting another country and sure enough I would meet a j-dub that knew of or knew personally one of my
j-dub relatives(keep in mind I have at least 100 dub relatives)
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Wasanelder Once
The whole lying thing was a bad move, obviously. You are going to have to face the choice you must make. You can continue to pretend and suffer from continual exposures, or you can be honest to the level you feel safe to do so. I haven't gone because I have some important decisions to make and I need time. Or whatever the story is. The more honest it is the better. No one wants to lose their family. How do they treat others that have done similiar? Have they marked others who have become inactive and not spoken with them? Only you know how they've acted. Many suggest the depression card, but your family knows you and it probably would ring false with them. Just tell them the truth, you don't feel up to going right now. Perhaps in the near future but you just aren't up to it.
All the best, not easy I know.
W.Once
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darth frosty
It is hard to stay ahead of a lie but I think this may work. Tell the elder NEXT TIME he calls (dont call him) that you have been meaning to get the transfer done, but due to possible Job responsibilities, school, or living conditions (take your pick for your situation)you may not be able to attend the hall you say you were going to. Tell him that you did not want them to have to keep sending your card from hall to hall while you settle into your final place. Now they may be all like move back home or how dangerous it is out here ( you know the spiel) Tell them you have been factoring this into your decision and your considering all options.
I dont know how your elders will respond whether lacksadasicle (butchered that word) or try top shepard you but this will buy you time while you work out thenext story. Smile.
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FuzzyPaul
Dear Still-A-Witness,
Hi. The issue you face is if your right to make a decision for yourself should be yours without undue influence or over-reaching. Yes, a family can change your life with their influence. If someone loves you, would they try to ruin your life in spite? Remember the arguments against their being an immortal soul - since many people seem to believe that the spirits of dead persons needing to be placated because if they became angry they would ruin our lives?
Why would a loved one who was good to us all their lives and loved us, who then dies, become vindictive if one did not leave a bowl of rice and milk out for them at an altar or give $ to the Ju-Ju priest?
Why?
If you actually answer to God YHVH and his Son Jesus then why worry? Yes, there will be noise, as I was told it would not be pleasant but it won't last long. Yes, God will ANSWER YOUR PRAYERS. Talking to God is prayer, but if God talks to you the WT says its SCHIZOPHRENIA. The Watchtower wants you to believe that at this time in HIstory he has left us with a pile of contradictory information which they publish. They want you to believe that GOD DOESN"T HAVE THE POWER TO REACH YOU ABOUT HIS WILL - PERSONALLY.
Did you think to ask HIM?
Perhaps you fall into one of the common groups of those who left the unholy Watchtower for good reason, hopefully you actually still want to live a good life and have found out how useless their hate-filled anti-religion actually is. Did they cloister you from "The World" and then warn you that you had to be careful of who you associated with in the Cong? Is it not really the case that by making your world so small that you could be controlled more easily. It is just another layer of control but it is the choke hold level of control. HUMANS ARE SOCIAL CREATURES. We need each other and I and millions of others are here for you.
Thank-You for trusting us, now trust that Jesus Christ has millions and millions of His - HIS PERSONALLY CHOSEN - followers at the ready where you are.
I had the worst time when I started to attend other Churches but as I and Others found out - you have so many unfound friends that you were warned were working for the Devil himself but are anything but. Did you ever Google research the Watchtowers origins?
TRUST THE LORD JESUS. I am just getting used to acting like a Christian and viewing others in my community as all being potential friends with Jesus bringing us together. What I mean is - would you expect to feel loved, encouraged, informed of what is in scripture when you attend your firsdt Baptist Sunday School and Service? I was. In the first four different churches I attended I found loving people. They are their because they love God. Perhaps the Mafia does go to Catholic Church for the Prestige and impratur of respectability but your neighbors are not likely to be 100% Mafia! Go to any church that appeals to you in the Yellow pages, listen to God direct you. He did me. I feel so much better and I have come home from CHURCH feeling so happy and relieved that I swear that if it were dark I might have been glowing! HAPPY!
It may be hard to concieve for you to go to a non-JW meeting. It was improbable in the extreme for me. 2years of age to 47 in the Kingdom hole. Some of them made me feel like I some sort of suspicious nefarious creep come skulking in. Before I wore a big fluffy beard. Now I look like a grubby street bum in good clothes however and I am treated like a friend and feel wonderful.
Did you say you wanted LOVE? Or freedom from the consequences of your personal choice? Did you want the benefits of making a great choice for yourself and the wonderful opportunity of getting loved and not being under threat of psycho-emotional deprivation? Or did you want to continue living under that heavy hand of the ALL-POWERFUL WATCHTOWER? The WT only has the power you give them. Mostly. They are implicated incriminal level conspiracy against those who get vocal as dissidents. I will chance it since I know this site might be monitored for those like me. I can call the police, radio & TV station, or mail a letter to the newspaper and that can sink them or get me nothing BUT they take that chance not me. I wrote all the major Kingdom Halls I ever attended and wrote my reasons for my disgust with the Watchtower.
I strongly feel that I have the right to remain silent and answer NO QUESTIONS. I do not answer for anything for any reason to the Watchtower. And they don't answer to me. My letter never said I am resigning .... Should I live my life by their rules and on their playing field with their slang and twisted thoughts clouding up my otherwise clear thoughts? Do you want to be independent using the WT's rules to decide if your belief system is OK? Or that you are a good person in reality. Thought control IS PERVASIVE in those who leave the WT. I still feel the oddest feelings of guilt for making the BEST CHANGE IN MY LIFE.
You must answer to your own conscience and that means that if you go to the Assembly of God for Church and You really don't agree with the trinity then You don't have to or say that you do. The same rules must apply or you will go from being ruled by one dictator to being ruled by another authoritarian pig. You can see this I hope. Follow this through and ask if I had NO FEAR - WHAT WOULD I DO? FOR MY GOOD.
Love and the best to you, Jesus sees you as his and his alone and he will help you. Ask the Father (YHVH) as Jesus did.
Paul
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stillAwitness
This is all good advice. It seems everyone has the same thought in mind: Confess and I suppose you are all right. Now do I wait till it all blows up in my face that way I will have no choice to confess or find some sort of power and strength deep inside this fragile little girl in me and just come right out. Confessing to your parents you are not going to the meetings...sheesh! Its like trying to tell your family you are gay or something! Oh, the things us ex-dubs have to go through!
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FuzzyPaul
I must add. Be honest. If you don't want to say don't. Lies are a hole that someone else puts you in because of their psycho-emotional pressure for you to answer to them when you don't want to answer to them any more and when you wish to hide what you feel. Why lie and put yourself in a hole?
And why let yourself be put in a hole by someone else for you to then have to dig yourself out of? ANd why jump into the hole the WT digs and points to for you to jump into. Get real. They are not what they say they are and never have been. Think hard about all those ideas you had of: "What does this gobblydy-gook mean? This isn't Biblical. What are they telling me to do - hate someone I don't know and know nothing about because they are said to differ?" And others. Those were my quandries among others.
Be honest. What is it you really want? You can't solve a problem until you can define it. The problem you present is how you are going to answer for what you really are! And how you feel best living! Wow, tough choice. Be happy or fall in line OR ELSE.
Umm but define it yourself. I have my own cliches to live with.
Do you have anyone you can confide in that doesn't take 15 minutes to write 2 minutes of spoken ideas? Actually, most of the Pastors have been very neutral about my Watchtower background. Some know the dark truths of them but only told me what they knew when I told them what I knew. No pressure. The only resistance I got was when I, when I got pushy with an idea. Otherwise they made me feel that I was a friend and on my own merits. ALL the mental health counselors I have ever met or read from about the Watchtower tell of their heavy handed-ness and the horrible toll of suffering they impart to their followers. Is that really anything like Christianity? Yes, it took mental health counseling for me to get out of some ruts. Ruts they put me into!
Be honest. Would it make you happy to run scared, in circles, in the hole they dig and point to and demand you jump into? Who do you REALLY need to answer to? You do answer to yourself - you know that don't you? That is what a conscience is and yours is screaming to live.
Again, Love to you and goodnight.
Paul
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theinfamousone
uh oh... someone threw the shit towards the fan and didnt expect it to hit... well i guess there are three options... tell mom, dont tell mom, or start going to meetings and live a good and immoral christian life... i think if u man up and face the consequences; you'll be ok... if your parents are gonna flip out, then its time to tell them youve made a decision and you deserve for that to be respected... but if you go out the chicken way, which is totally ok.... RUN!!! ha ha
sorry you're stuck in that situation... things will look up soon, trust me... now im kinda wondering why they dont call me??!!!?!!! oh prolly cuz they know i dont care if the diff me...ha ha
the infamous one