Since I've opened up to my parents more about how I really feel and think, I feel that it has become somewhat easier in some areas yet harder in others. Now that I've totally said that I do not believe in their religion and their pressuring me to be a part of it, they have been somewhat afraid to make me too angry at them. I have stayed out late a few times with friends (not that they know I was with friends) and have come home to nervous grins and standoffish gestures.
After a few "discussions" that my parents arranged they have proven themselves to be quite the stubborn bunch. After my first announcement to them about my stance on things, at first they seemed to understand by their usual silence towards me, however, now my parents seem to make up their own reality on how I feel. My dad sporatically comes to me to be fatherly and says JW rhetoric towards me as usual but now he's starting to use phrases such as, "I know you understand that this is the right way and I know you will make the RIGHT choice and come back to your family and Jehovah."
My parents still take me to the meeting like nothing as happened. If I squirm too much they nudge me slightly and give me a shrewd stare and purposely uses a whisper/audible voice so other people around where I'm sitting can hear, mostlikely, to make myself feel embarrassed. Their stubbornness ends up having me lie to myself and everybody at the congregation I go to by praying, singing, and keeping an overall silent and closed-minded demeanor that tears at my conscience every time.
Because of their inability to tear themselves away from their preconcived thoughts, things are going back to how they were before I told them how everything was. My soon to come exodus, I feel, will become harder on them if they believe that I love the truth and the organization which it seems that they are forcing themselves to believe. I would try to talk to them again, and try to reason with them, but when discussing things along these lines they are without reason. Hard Headed comes to mind.
Do anybody have any suggestions or experiences to share so I and others can learn better ways to get the fact that you don't believe through their heads? Or at least ease the pain that they will have when you leave? Thanks a ton folks.
Hard Headed.
by Daunt 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
Daunt
-
tetrapod.sapien
hey man,
i think you are doing great for what a tough situation you find yourself in.
my advice: they're in denial, but you're still young. you'll get your exit, just be patient with your age. i know it must feel like you're an adult in a 17 year old kid's body. and i think that your mind is well beyond your biological age. so i agree, it sucks. but you're still going to have to finish school, and get a job that will allow you to step out of the situation with two feet on the ground. so you will probably have to live by their rules for a while more yet. but don't worry. when you're out and stable, it'll have been worth it.
:)
TS
-
AlmostAtheist
Totally with Tetra. Everybody lives under their parents' rules when at home, and nobody likes it. The best thing you can do for yourself is keep things even keel while you're still there. You're fortunate in that your current belief system (do you have one?) doesn't seem to outright conflict with JW's. So while you may hate the meetings ("may?" Ha!) they aren't making you feel like you are cheating on your "real" god.
Small comfort, I'm sure. :-(
Hang in there.
Dave
-
Crumpet
Daunt - I am wowed - mega impressed about your dignified response and the way you have approached your parents.
Now that I've totally said that I do not believe in their religion and their pressuring me to be a part of it, they have been somewhat afraid to make me too angry at them
Your parents don't know any other way to go about this than the way they have been taught. My parents would address me the same way. Repeating that you know something is true or right is the way of anyone who wishes to control you. You may even find it occurs in future relationships. My advice is that in your heart, after you gouge out the guilt trips from it. is that you know what is right. How hard it must be to know your parents are so wrong at 17 - I didn;t know until I was 29, it was very hard to admit that to myself.
Be true to yourself as you already you are. You really are an impressive human being.
-
Daunt
Thanks everybody for your comments. When I wrote this I was somewhat, pissed off at their recent actions, but I understand that I just have to bear with it. Grind my teeth and smile I suppose. I will keep you guys updated on what's going on, thanks so much guys.
-
Crumpet
do keep us with your news daunt. pm me anytime. and don't grind your teeth down!
hugs xxx
-
Carmel
I'm likewise impressed with your approach. You may want to write down a few of the difficult questions that Dubs can't answer and when your parents bring up the "we know you know it's right" just ask them to answer one of these questions. Tell them it has been bothering you that there is no answer for how the "faithful and descreet slave" became a group of people or a class. Ask them to show you in the bible without resorting to the witchtower. Have some fun sewing seeds!
good luck
carmel
-
Gretchen956
Wow do I ever remember those days. I used to count the days until I could be free. Best of luck to you, sounds like you have a good attitude.
Sherry
-
mormon 4 life
wow thats sad well im mormon and dont no how you feel but just be true to yourself bro and the time will cum......all the love............
-
Hellrider
Daunt:
Do anybody have any suggestions or experiences to share so I and others can learn better ways to get the fact that you don't believe through their heads? Or at least ease the pain that they will have when you leave?
Why do you feel you have to get it thru their heads that you don`t believe? The thing is, your parents are brainwashed. When I was leaving, at the age you are now, I was visiting my grandma, as I used to do once a week. She knew that I was not interested in the "truth" anymore, and she had been quiet about it a long time. And because she had been acting like normal, I still visited her, because she had always been good to me (unlike my parents), I was her "favorite", as a kid. Then we sat there eating dinner, and she started with the whole guilt trip on me: "What do you think your father will think, when we enter into the new world" (my father had died a couple of years earlier, and "the new world" is the expression we have in Norway, for paradise")..."and you`re not there"? And so she continued, saying it pretty much straight to my face, that Jehovah would not spare me in Armageddon, especially since I "knew the Truth", and had left it (which is bogus anyway, what was God gonna do, kill me twice? We both knew that God would kill all non-JWs in Armageddon, no matter if they were ex-JWs or not). So I knew right there and then, nope, she`s never gonna understand. I never visited her again, until she was hospitalised three years later, and then she died. The point is: Usually, a parents love for their children, is bigger than this religion of theirs, but it takes time for them. They have been completely programmed into believing that if you are not a JW, you will die in Armageddon, and then they will have lost you forever. Of course they`re wrong, it`s never going to happen, but they firmly believe this. So when you have left, the sorrow will be theirs, and they will have this sorrow until the day they die, or the day the realise the truth about "the Truth" (which in most cases, is never). But eventually they will start to think that "well well, we will loose him in Armageddon, but he is our son, and we love him", and then they will want to have contact with you again My advice to you is: Stick to what you believe in, hold on, but realise that this is hard for them too (even though YOU are right, and THEY are wrong - their whole religion is total BS, and I`m impressed that you know this now allready at 17. I think there was a part of me, my heart, that still believed in it, until I was in my mid-twenties. I rejected the religion with my mind, but the heart was slow to follow). But hold on, try to smoothen things out, if you have to go to meetings twice a week, do so, sit there in silence, lip-sync to the songs (ha ha), and eventually you will "leave the nest", and move away from home. And then it will be a whole different ballgame, dude! I think "mormon4life" said it best:
be true to yourself bro and the time will cum
ha ha!