Looking for some insight on why some people here do this

by free2beme 33 Replies latest jw friends

  • jwfacts
    jwfacts

    I spent 10 years feeling it was wrong, but I was not able to leave until I spent the last 12 months piece by piece deconstructing every belief and thought process i had to know that I truly had been conned. I am now attempting to build up what my beliefs are piece by piece from a new foundation.

    I also feel that i want to help other JWs and the only way i can provide them with relevant information is to keep up to date. This is a hinderance to me moving on, but whilst many of my family and friends remain I want to be always armed and ready to provide the right information at the right time.

    I know that as the years go on this will become less relevant, until hopefully it is all just a distant memory.

  • Virgochik
    Virgochik

    I like to keep up with every bit of the latest crap they are putting out at the meetings and in the publications, because I've got elderly parents still in. I worry about them, what they're being talked into, whether they're being conned out of their money, how they're being treated. Every bit of information helps me.

    I was born and raised in the Troof, and yes, once in a while they yank my chain with "the end is coming just any second, now" trumpeting, and I find I still have some anxiety to deprogram. Blondie's analyses especially help me, for both of my purposes.

  • mamochan13
    mamochan13

    Great question. Thank you for asking it. I've wondered the same about myself. For a long time I avoided sites like these. I wasn't ready to question theory. The behaviour part had already freed me.

    But when I left, and when I was df'd, I lost my spirituality. I lost everything within me that I thought I believed in. I lost my relationship with god. I haven't yet been able to try and find it again. I've simply put that part of me aside. So for me, it helps to take apart the JW teachings, as lady Lee says, to deprogram myself and clear my mind. To reinforce that what I was brought up to believe was wrong. It's a protection, I guess, in a way. My children don't have the depth of knowledge I have, and I fear for them when they are pressured by my mother. So anything I can learn to add to the reprogramming helps. I'm to blame, of course. I taught them all this stuff in the first place.

    I do understand why some feel they have to keep going to meetings...it's very hard to make that final, complete break. This is a high power high control cult. Incredibly powerful.

    I always used to say that I would leave the "truth" for many reasons - but apostasy would never be one of them. I loved the bible, I loved what I believed. I researched everything, I read everything. When the elders told me the Organization book said one thing, I knew they were lying, because I had read it in great detail along with the references. I was like Blondie.

    So it helps to have people like Blondie point out the inconsistencies. And it helps me to read them for myself. I need to know what is in that latest magazine to protect myself and my children.

    Gee...just saying that, I realize how vulnerable I feel sometimes.

  • OpenFireGlass
    OpenFireGlass
    For others, what do you think about these actions?

    I appriciate the info they provide, so that when I have to talk to my mom, I at least can understand what angle she coming from...

    I almost never comment in those threads but I do benefit from reading them, and seeing other peoples input. Usually when I read blondie's watchtower review, I read through most of the comments first, and then I have to go back and give it a better skim....

  • penny2
    penny2

    I don't go to meetings but I browse through the publications so I'm prepared for the comments I get from family.

  • free2beme
    free2beme

    I think that if I were to attend a meeting, I would display an attitude that would show me to be a fake, in that I would seem happy and free. Which is less uptight and less scared. Not to mention the pentagram I would be wearing?

  • under_believer
    under_believer

    I hope that this thread I just wrote may be helpful in expressing why some, at least, continue to attend. Shameless plug, but it's pertinent.

  • aniron
    aniron

    It alright to say you left the JW's and have never looked at a book or magazine or gone to a meeting etc.

    This is fine if you only have yourself to think about.

    I have known many who no longer believe what the WT teaches, a couple of them Elders. Yet attend all meetings, assemblies, conventions.

    Why are they still JW's then? As already stated by others, its the fear of losing family if you leave. Many who are JW's usually have family members who are also. Unless its just you or with husband/wife and no other family member. Then leaving is difficult. I know from my old congregation that there were generations of families who were JW's. From Grandparents down to grandchildren, brothers, sister, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews etc. If that person left they would lose all contact with those people.

    I myself stopped attending meetings after having spent 2-3 years researching the WT. Then a year later I DA'd. This led to me having to leave the family home (my wife is a JW fanatic). Consequently I have not seen or spoken to my JW wife or two JW children in the last 4 years.

    So should I have just kept quiet about what I knew about the WT. Carried on living a "happy JW family life" I was a Min Servant at the time, I might now be an Elder. If I had forseen what would drastically happened between my family and myself. I could well have been tempted to keep quiet and carry on pretending to be the good little JW they thought I was.

    For many its not a simple question of "I have found out the WT is teaching a load of lies etc. So I'm leaving"

  • Highlander
    Highlander

    I know from my old congregation that there were generations of families who were JW's. From Grandparents down to grandchildren, brothers, sister, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews etc. If that person left they would lose all contact with those people.

    Indeed. With a few exceptions, most jw's come from a long family history of j-dubs. It's obvious that most newly baptized are merely children of established j-dubs so it's

    pretty easy to see that family circumstances are what keeps most of us physically in this cult(though many have checked out mentally)

  • Sunnygal41
    Sunnygal41

    it's therapeutic and empowering for some, and helps you unprocess the lies that were told to you in the first place. looking at the information that was fed to us and being able to see the fallacies, without blinded eyes.

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