How did you feel when you found out Jehovah's Witnesses were a cult?

by The wanderer 45 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  solo

  I did not find out that JWs are a cult, I left the religion thinking it was the truth, the reason I left was that firstly I could not live up to their standards and secondly I was not prepared to spend any more time miserable. I reasoned that I would rather have a few years of happiness before I was destroyed at armageddon. As silly as this sounds it sums up how low and miserable I was.

  It took about 10 years for me to realise that they do not have the truth. Some time after that I came to my own conclusion that they are a cult.

  I did not do any research I just made my own mind up after years of thinking the whole thing over myself. One of the things that made my mind up was the fact that the nonsense I was taught as a JW remained in my head - nothing will rid me of it. Many times I react automatically thinking that their teachings are fact before I suddenly jolt into reality.

  When we were out on the field service years ago when my older brother, then about 8 presented the magazines to a female householder, when he finished she looked at him and said "have you been brain washed?" We laughed about it afterwards and said how silly she was but I never forgot that and always at the back of my mind wondered if she was right. He was not saying what he thought be spouting what had been instilled into him.

  When I found this web site I felt totally justified and vindicated. It was a total shock to find out about the history of the religion and the changes in beliefs throughout the years.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  When I discovered they are a cult, while I had a sense of disappointment in myself, it was quickly replaced with a great sense of relief. I was duped, but so were brilliant people. I was brainwashed, but it's not permanent. I can get on with my life.

  Oh, yeah, and GO BEARS.
• 

  Dogpatch

  Thanks Wanderer
• 

  Dogpatch

  Thanks Wanderer
• 

  daystar

  1. I remain out of the semantic argument over what constitutes a "cult". It's pointless. The WBTS is at very least a corrupt, high control religious sect with very damaging dogmatic apocalyptic beliefs. If it's not technically a "cult" in some person's opinion, that does not lessen the degree to which it is a thoroughly screwed up sect that destroys lives. That being said, my initial reaction to discovering the generation change was utter disbelief. It seemed as if this would be a new religion if that was changed. I was shocked, but I'd been out for four years, so I just filed that piece of info away.
  2. See above.
  3. I didn't need to do much. The generation change was enough. Later, the UN/NGO scandal solidified it. After, all the info in the news, silentlambs, here, etc.
• 

  Genesis

  Betrayed ! As if everything I knew was an illusion ! When I was in the borg I had thoughts like "And if it was all wrong ? not it could not, it must not" ! It was, I grew up in a destructive cult, as simple as that.
• 

  Finally-Free

  How did you feel when you found out Jehovah's Witnesses were a cult?

  I felt stupid for allowing myself to get sucked into it. It wasn't until after I was baptized that I learned that their recruitment methods were deceptive and their retention methods abusive.

  W
• 

  AK - Jeff

  Like someone had reached into my intestines and pulled my inside out. Life could never be the same again.

  Jeff
• 

  Hondo

  Any cult books I've read, including Steve Hassan's, rank Jehovah Witnesses as one of the top five religious cults in the world. They can be identified with the top ten criteria that classifiy a group as a cult. I've seen their destructive nature first hand with the loss of my wife of 20 years to them a few years ago. I saw her for the first time in a couple years about a month ago. It was sad. We were at the airport seeing my daughter (not a JW) off to Japan. My son was there plus other friends of my daughter. There was a strange woman with my wife who no one had ever seen before (by her dress a JW we all suspected). Although we were all together, and my ex's eyes and mine made contact on many occasions, she did not even talk to me, other than a very brief hello/goodby when we were all departing the airport. I'm not a JW, but it seemed I was being shunned by her. During the whole time at the airport (at least an hour and a half) she seemed like a little girl lost at a state fair or something similar, always looking around and very fidgity. The strange woman was always within a few feet of her. I even saw my ex apparently getting her ass chewed out by this woman too (yelling at my ex and wagging her finger) after my ex's currory hi to me as we were all leaving. I could/can't help but feel sorry for my ex-wife. From a very good marriage/family to her being totally controlled by the WTBTS. I don't know if this is an exagerated cased, but It was obvious she was under total control if this destructive cult.
• 

  Anitar

  Hondo: No, that's not an exaggeration, I know exactly what you mean. Many JW converts have that bossy person always hanging over them. My mom sounds exactly like your ex. She is glassey eyed, she has violent and emotional mood swings, she never seems to know where she is or what she's doing. It's so frightening to watch her mentally decaying before my eyes. Yesterday, she said she was disconnecting the internet because she saw me on this website and is terrified of being disfellowshipped if being "discovered." They have her body and soul, and there is no reaching her at all.

  As for that bossy person, they're the ones the convert calls when they're having family problems, like when we staged an intervention for my mom. They also do the dirty work of the watchtower, suppressing all the converts questions and giving them what to wear, how to talk, how to think, how to piss. They're the wolves in sheeps clothing.

  To all you ex-JWs who weren't born in the org, but instead converted as an adult, do you remember a specific person who was there from the beginning, who showed you the dozens of rules and groomed you to be the perfect witness? If so, did you ever secretly hate that person? I mean, they were nice in a leacherous way, the way a snake is nice right before he eats a hamster. Did you ever think, in between the time you converted without knowing the truth to the time you learned they are a cult, "what the hell have I gotten myself into?"

  I think that moment has to come right about the time when your sitting and dozing off from boredom in the kingdom hall with your hand me down suit and your cheap dollar store cologne, clutching your magazine for dear life, singing "Loyally Submitting to the Theocratic Order," after you've thrown out your wind chimes, and your beer mugs, and your flag, and your computer, and your education, and your Bible, and your cross, and your Christmas tree, and your Ouigi board, and your shotgun, and your push-up bra, and your miniskirt, and your right to privacy, and your freedom of speech, and your freedom of thought, and your friends, and your family, and your sanity.......

  Got the picture?

  Anitar