Here's my story. I tried to shorten it as much as possible.
My family belonged to a Baptist Church and I was baptized in that church when I was 8 years old. I sincerely believed in Jesus and the Bible then and still do now. Anyway, my Mother decided to find another church and in 1967 an old friend of hers came to our door. A study was started with the entire family. The whole family got baptized at a circuit assembly in 1968. We got a lot of attention and applause during the baptism.
My father quit a few years later after getting baptized. He really hates the Witnesses. So my mother, my sister and I continued without him.
I took to the truth right away. My Baptist roots and the “Things Which Are Impossible for God to Lie”, book made sense to me. I felt this new religion knew everything about the Bible. I happily went to all the meetings and field service every weekend. During summer vacation from school I was a temporary pioneer. My goal in life was to be a regular pioneer. At 16, I wanted to quit high school because I truly believed the end was coming in 1975. I wanted to become a regular pioneer right away to warn people. I was convinced Armageddon would come before I turned 18 years old. But I graduated from high school anyway, and then became a regular pioneer.
Pioneering was great for a couple of years, but I was going to be 20 soon and I didn’t want to keep living at home. I also wanted to escape the daily fighting and tension between my parents. So my sister and I moved out and got our own apartment. The elders didn’t like that at all; it just wasn’t suggested for young sisters to do. They started telling us how we would fall out of the truth and get involved in worldly immorality. We respectfully told them they were wrong. We stood up for ourselves and we knew they couldn’t disfellowship us just for moving out of our parent’s house. We attended meetings and still kept up with field service on the weekends.
Soon all my friends in the congregations married each other (of course at very young ages). The Society doesn’t allow any goals except to Pioneer, go to Bethel or Missionary Service. If you’re a sister, you pioneer. If you’re a brother, you should be working toward becoming an elder or Bethelite. I found myself trying to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my life, since it didn’t look like the big “A” was going to come anytime soon. By the late 70’s, I was getting burnt-out on meetings and field service. I was sick of hearing that the end was coming to take care of everyone’s problems. I felt that Brooklyn was ignoring the needs of the people in the congregations. People were really discouraged and the Society didn’t care. We were to do what we were told by the Watchtower and be happy. I had no respect for Elders or Brooklyn but I just decided to keep plugging along, and started to do the bare minimum to keep up with being a Witness.
My sister and I were very close and continued to share an apartment together. But by the early 80’s, we had to do something about our low income and we knew the solution was more education. So we visited our nearest college campus and decided to get our bachelors degrees. If we were going to go for it, we were going to do it right. When the word got out at the Hall, the Elders would make comments whenever they saw us. We told them we weren’t looking for “careers” but couldn’t keep working for minimum wage. It wasn’t a disfellowshipping offense, we weren’t doing anything wrong. The Society just strongly advised against it. But we disagreed with what the Society said; we watched so many young couples and families in the congregations struggle financially. So my sister and I helped each other get through college on financial aid, student loans and part-time jobs. I remember an Elder telling me I should be putting this much effort into Jehovah’s Organization. Well, I’d been there, done that. I knew how to be a good Christian and didn’t need their warnings. I worked non-stop, completing my degree in 3 years instead of 4 years. I did this for financial reasons, not because I was afraid the end was coming.
Getting a college education is one of the best decisions I ever made. It was worth all the comments I took from Elders and congregation members. Some friends in the congregation understood, but others would snub us. I was still so unhappy with going to meetings and field service that I could hardly push myself to do it anymore. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to leave the Organization. I spent many miserable years going from being active to being inactive. My sister and I moved to two different states, and we tried a fresh start in a few congregations, but my heart wasn’t in it. It was all the same. I wanted to quit so many times but I had so much guilt about it. My mom and sister were still committed to remaining Witnesses.
Now for the good part, when I decided to quit. I was already inactive, went to Sunday morning meetings sometimes and to the Memorial every year. I knew something was wrong with the way the Society was running the Organization. They hadn’t cared about the congregation members for years. We were just supposed to follow the rules, or else. I really felt that I had been brainwashed. I was discouraged because all the “worldly” people I saw around me were happy worshipping God. My co-workers were happy with their religions. I wasn’t, but I was supposed to be. If I died at Armageddon, so what? I felt abandoned and condemned. I prayed all the time to get the motivation to be a good JW. But it never happened. Anyway, one night, I decided that I’d had enough. I wanted to change my life. Should I quit or should I stay? So I literally took a deep breath and sat down at the computer. I was surprised how scared I was to search the Internet; I was so programmed not to read anything against the Organization. I decided that I was looking for cold, hard facts, not any “Witness-bashing”. I found a few things that made an impact:
- The 1995 booklet from Timothy Campbell, on “Leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses”. It made so much sense and really addressed the concerns I had.
- I found the U.N. NGO information and I was totally shocked.
- I learned who really translated the “New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures”.
- Tax returns showed how wealthy the WTBS was, and yet they always cried poor. I started to realize how deceitful Brooklyn was.
One factual website led to another, then another. My research suggested that you needed two things to help with the decision. Read “Crisis of Conscience” and get a support system of people. I bought “CoC” and started reading it. The information was beyond enlightening. I grew up with the teachings of Knorr, Franz, Suiter and the others running the Organization, these men were like royalty for the Witnesses in the 60’s and 70’s. After finishing CoC, it became clear to me what was really going on. It was really about running the Organization as a business and keeping the operation going, not about the people who were serving. I already learned about Barbour and Russell when I was growing up and had seen many of the old publications in the Kingdom Hall library. I knew that what Raymond Franz wrote was accurate. After some anger and shock, I could feel a great relief, like a dark cloud was lifted from my shoulders. I realized I had been in a cult, and I felt like I needed to be deprogrammed from everything the Watchtower ever taught me.
For support, I told a couple friends at work that I was thinking of quitting being a JW. They gathered around me with so much support I couldn’t believe it. As the months passed, they said they saw a change in me, that I was a much happier person and much more relaxed. I was enjoying daily life more and I seemed more positive. I was afraid they would try to convert me to their religions, or start to do “Witness bashing” themselves, but they didn’t.
Today, my Mom is still very active. She auxiliary pioneers and has lots of friends at the Kingdom Hall that get her to the meetings and assemblies. She took my news about quitting okay, I think she expected it. She is still hoping I will come back. My sister is inactive but goes to some Sunday meetings and the Memorials. She admits that she’s unhappy. But she thinks the Society still has the correct doctrine and interpretation of the Bible. I have tried to show her the information I have found, but she doesn’t want to know and gets defensive. She doesn’t feel she is brainwashed. She said she respected my decision to quit, but she has invested too many years and says the churches aren’t any better. I want to see her get out from under the cloud. It will improve her life in ways she could never dream.
In closing, I never wrote a letter to Brooklyn nor told any brothers that I was quitting. They never owned me, so why would I have to answer to them? One day, I decided to visit this discussion board and I have been enjoying it for 4 years. I finally decided it was time to join.