oompa, that's the point, once you set foot into a kingdumb hell again, you'll be approached and "love"-bombed by all the loving friends... they might even want to lure you into a biblestudy, who knows.
i did attend for my wife and mom for a long time, but at some point you just can't stand the bull anymore. i soon caught myself nervously staring at the clock watching the seconds pass before even the first hour was over. i think it's bad for your health to go to the meetings.
my wife was diehard JW too and still believes most of the nonsense. however, she can't stand the gossip anymore. and when you get a JW away from the meetings for a while, they become pretty reasonable. i can even talk with her about evolution now and how interesting this is.
For those of you who don't go to meetings anymore...
by exwitless 62 Replies latest jw experiences
-
Superfine Apostate
-
solidergirl
I knew I wasnt going back to a meeting again when I rode with my brother to the sunday meeting. He had to leave early cause he had to go to work so he asked me to ask one of the sisters for a ride home. I'm not saying they would of said no I just didn't want to sit through the watchtower or talk to the elders afterwards for MY life decisions. So I rode back home with him or course he was mad at me and he's not even a diehard witness and that was in October 2007 I just cant do it anymore.
-
Tara
No, I did not know it was my last meeting. My mom was in the hospital, sick with leukemia. I had been visiting her everday afterwork, meeting nights after meetings. Then the doctor said she had a week at most left. That week was like a blur, trying to work, take care of 4 kids, visit my mom. I was at the hospital every spare minute I had. I did not attend any meetings that week. One of the loving sisters told me I shouldn't be at the hospital, I should be at the meetings. After my mom's funeral I sat down and wrote a DA letter, drove to the KH and left it wedged in the doorway. I just gave up. I had always felt I wasn't good enough no matter what I did. Not enough service, misssing meetings for work, abusive, non-believing husband who almost strangled me when he found out I was taking my kids to an elder's house down the street for the bookstudy. I DAd still believing all of it, hook, line, and sinker, and knowing I was walking away from Jehovah and had doomed my kids and me to everlasting destruction. I just could not do anymore than I was doing and basically just gave up and didn't want to try anymore. What was the point? Fast forward 10 years to last winter when I heard about Crisis of Conscience and read it...Poof! No more fear, no more guilt. I just wish I had known about that book a lot sooner.
-
primitivegenius
several times over the years i had been in situations where i wouldnt attend meetings. one time i moved to another area for a job that was pitched to me to be a great job... but the brother i was working for was actually wanting me to do slave labor..........why am i shocked? i had 1 day a week off and every other sunday. so am i gonna waste my time going to meetings.... hell no. i was working 16 and 18 hour days so i quit going to this other hall for 6 months or so............ and i got the feeling............ this is what its like to leave that religion.... no friends, no work mates to become friends with because i was basicly my own boss. kinda realized that cutting off all association with anyone not witnesses...... was the reason i felt this way. i still belived it was the truth even tho i had major doubts off and on.
so quit the job moved back to my home area and started attending again. did that for several years and then i got a damn good job that was an hour away from home. so i had to miss work then and eventually i moved to where my job was........ thing is, this cong i moved to was well within my circuit and i had built halls with half the people who went there and the other half i had been on a bethel trip with so i was well known and i thought liked. got two words said to me the first couple of meetings. so i was like damn............. so i went to meetings a few more times around my work schedule.......... and just a few people saying anything to me at all. so i was like.............damn whats the use with this. so i quit.....
now a friend of mine had informed me about the un and the rest of the blatant bull the society had pulled on everyone........ and i checked it out. but i was still on the fence....... i was like pray and wait on jehovah....... yeah thats what you should do............. with the odd pop and sizzle of the programing failing. so i would work my butt off and then on sunday go back to my home cong for meetings..... then i started doing double time on sundays to get outta that.............. and this time i had friends from work. i finally quit...... dont remember when my last meeting was........ dont need to.
my parents were up my ass to start going back and i had mentioned the un scandal and such before to them and it was like water off a ducks back. so i just left things as they were.
moved out of state...... got married to a fine apostachick and happy as only those who arent subjected to constant mind control can be
-
WTWizard
My last meeting was the Crapmorial of 2005. I knew that it would likely be the last meeting ever, since it was taking ever less and less for me to find excuses to blow them off. Of course, it didn't take long for Jehovah Himself to provide me the excuse--so I bought a shredder and shredded every single piece of litter-ature in the apartment and also stopped going out in field circus. I was still going out once a month until June 30, 2005 just to keep Brother Hounder confused and not able to hound me into going back full time.
I knew that it would be the last time I did field circus. After I came back in, I promptly shredded the last of my litter-ature. During the ensuing months, I reconfigured my closet to a worldly person's (by putting the suits on the walls where they would be more difficult to reach quickly and throwing away damaged or worn pieces). I bought a 8-ball later in 2005. And, when the Crapmorial came around for 2006, not only I didn't go but I went out and bought a Ouija board. That was when I knew that Jehovah had been definitively fired for not properly caring for all of my needs and preventing Satan from providing where He flat out refused.
To this date, I am still On Strike. Christmas decorations, apostate blogs, Crisis of Conscience, rap music, porn on my computer (that I put there on purpose)--obviously I am not going back to another wastefest.
-
justhuman
glad I left
-
mentalclearness
Yes I knew it would be my last meeting. I had an epiphany of sorts. I was attending the meeting during the circuit overseers visit with my three lovely squirmy young children. We had managed to get there on time. No small feat if you know what I mean. Of course I wasn't able to feed them before so during the song we slipped out to eat a snack and come back. Well, anyways came back to the meeting for the last talk from the CO. It was about being humble. How we should accept Jah's guidance. Not be independant and be like evil Eve....Meanwhile some sister in front of me kept on looking back at me because the kids were making noise. Geez, one was 2 YRS OLD...we were in the back...well, after hearing 10 minutes into this wonderful be humble, be submissive..if you feel tired..read the bible and pray talk....Something just clicked!!! I just thought to myself..this is ridiculous. It's such a scam..Here we are being told over and over to be slaves..Just be humble..I am nothing...I guess it was the last straw, because even before this arrogant prick of a CO could finish his talk, I got up with my three children and left...I'm sure he was shocked at such disrespectfulness...I mean those CO's think they should be worshipped...and I knew I would never go back...I didn't know anything about the scandals. I had never gone into an apostate site. I just allowed myself to really listen without my JW ears and I knew there was no truth in this....
-
R.F.
The last memorial we attended I over heard one of the loving elder's wives saying "Oh, look at all the submarines here tonight. They pop up once a year for the memorial and think they going to make it into paradise. Why do they bother." So I thought yeah, why do I bother? This is a load of BS anyway. My hubby and I decided that we were no longer going to be submarines!
Ahh...don't you just feel the love just flowing endlessly from that statement?
An elder made a statement of the same sort at the last Memorial. There were so many that I thought were visitors but he said that most of them were once active in this congregation, even before I was born. He said that it's funny how so many come out of the woodwork once a year as if they will get into the new system by attending this one meeting.
I must also make a correction in my first post in this thread. I went to one meeting a couple months after I stopped completely. I knew for a fact that would be my last one. To further push that fact, it was a night that a couple of elders got me to the back room to interrogate me as to a personal choice I had made. It was of a non-judicial nature and it really was none of their business, but i'll just say that now my family's trust in the local BOE has been shaken now because of it.
R.F.
-
zack
Last meeting was in April of 2007. I quit cold turkey. I resigned the office of overseer, went to the Memorial and then the Special Talk. The special Talk was it-- the last one.
That last Memorial felt so creepy. Everyone was so happy about NOT going to heaven (whether or not you're a believer, JW's profess to be Christians, and yet deny the basic
tenet of being a "Christian"); there was much emphasis on NOT PARTAKING, and OBEDIENCE to the FDS. It occurred to me that the reason why I had never felt God's Spirit was either
because the was no such thing, or if there was, the JW's must be anti-Christ. Even at the yearly commemoration of his death, Christ was peculiarly inconspicuos, unappreciated,
misunderstood, abandoned, and disrespected.
I promised my wife I'd go the Special Talk. I did.
I will NEVER GO BACK.
-
LayingLow
I didn't intend for mine to be my last. But after repeatedly being called in for questioning (Expressed Doubts), I just grew tired of it(the questionings-with the response that there was no scriptural proof for those several questions I was asking) and didn't go back.