Was Drifting Away or Outrightly Leaving Easier Than You Thought?

by minimus 23 Replies latest jw friends

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  Blueblades

  For me it was very painful to drift away. What they did to my son, and the lying to us, turned me away. As I slowly drifted away I started to find out the truth about the truth. The slow drift and the fading away was quickened by my moving out of state away from headquarters. It pains me that the friends that I left behind do not know the reasons why my family has gone.

  Maybe someday I will visit the old neighborhood and see some of the local friends and explain what really happened and why.

  Blueblades
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  GentlyFeral

  What dedpoet said, only the doctrinal research I did before leaving was of a different nature: it was all about morals and ethics. In fact, it was about ethics in other religions. The question that finally shook me loose was: "What keeps unbelievers honest?" fortunately, I stumbled across one useful book: Peace and Justice in the Scriptures of the World's Religions, by John and Denise Carmody.

  My fear of being destroyed at Armageddon faded with time. For a long while, though, I was certain that we would destroy ourselves without gods or Satan's help. I'm no longer certain of that. We might just make it after all.

  I was a fader, long before I knew there was a name for the process. In fact, long before I made up my mind to leave, I was fading. It was a depressing process, because I didn't realize I was on my way out; all I knew was that it was the longest "spiritual slump" I had ever had, and it looked like I would never recover. Fortunately, I didn't actually care, so at least I wasn't worried about it.

  gentlyferal
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  Twitch

  Yea, it was relatively easy to walk away. Mind you, I left in my teens and had no family in other than the parents. I was already making friends on the outside by that point anyways. I had no doubts that it wasn't the life for me.

  Edited to add: I say it was easy now when of course it wasn't at the time. It's not easy to break away from your existence as defined by your upbringing. But I say relatively as I didn't have too many ties to cut when I left.
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  serendipity

  When I started fading, I was most afraid of the questions I would be asked and consequences for my answers.
  
  The elders came by a few times, and in the brief front-door conversations, just invited me back to meetings. I guess if you don't invite them in, they stay a shorter time and don't get around to asking questions. ;-)
  
  My JW family has also not asked questions but they attend different congs, so didn't know I've stopped attending meetings until just recently. That shows how little we speak of theocratic activities. Oddly, my inactive mother is the one who has encouraged me to go to meetings nearly every time I speak with her.
  
  My daughter asked once why we don't go to meetings anymore. I gave her my 'safe' answer, and that was that. She did say recently that she missed meetings because she likes the reminders to 'be a good person'. I offered to read the Bible (New Testament) with her, and she would get reminders that way. She hasn't brought it up again.