You know when you are in a deep sleep and something happens that may put you on a different level of sleeping, not as deep. Kind of like when you are starting to regain conscienceness but are still asleep. You are not awake, but you will be in a few minutes. You know that part in the matrix where neo starts to wake up. Its that level of conscienceness before he realized he was in a cocoon with a big tube down his throat. I think that there is a scientific term for it. Anyway, I would consider myself awake right now, but I look back at the first moment that caused me to begin waking up.
It was in 2006. Now just a little background, I had my fair share of brutal experiences with elders and other witnesses. At that time, I believed that those people were ignorant, I did not realize it was a by product of the system. At this time I was really beginning to notice how basic the information we were going over at the meetings and start to think about how long its been this way. So I was starving for some "spiritual food". I mean, I think at the book study we were going over a new brochure that had 3 sentences per paragraph, with letter like in 1st grade books with very basic language. It had just come out, I forget the name of it. Anyway, it was brutal. Literally a paragraph would be like this: "WAR, DEATH, ILLNESS, CAUSES SUFFERING. WHAT HOPE IS THERE FOR THE FUTURE?" Thats it. And then there would be a question. I have no problem if there is material written for people with no education. Thats fine, those people count just as much and equally as me. However the material at the meetings was almost all basic.
Anyway back on track. So its 2006 and I found out what the name of the convention was going to be. "Deliverance At Hand". That struck me. That was one of the more dramatic themes in quite a few years. I thought to myself, wow, Deliverance at Hand, what could that mean? It means deliverance at hand! lol. Wow, this is got to be the one where things change and we get some real food. So the first thing I noticed and this could have been going on for a time, but at the service meeting they went over the KM article about the convention. Usually I zoned out since it was the same stuff over and over. But this time, I noticed alot of the way the people in the hall were commenting. They were going overboard with suggestions by the society. One comment in particular struck me, "if we go to any other convention, other than the one we are assigned, we are showing a lack of respect for Jehovah." Of course that struck me because we used to break up the convention days because of back problems, etc. I just was not able to do 3 straight days in a row. I mean, all the rules already in place, and now this one?
So I decide, ok, since this is likely going to be a good convention, I'll go all 3 days in a row. So I get there Friday and because I knew I was doing 3 days in a row, I studied the program. For the first time I noticed that the lunch breaks had been lengthened to almost 90 mins, which meant we would be getting out of there after 5pm, and with the length of closing prayers, even longer. And thats if you are not cleaning, etc. This struck me because it seemed as though they were getting away from this and making the days shorter. Now they are longer? (This could have happened years earlier but this is the first I noticed. Anyway, then I thought, 90 minutes for lunch? That is insane.
Then I started to notice the attendants. They had a brother stationed at every single corridor entrance, and when you would start going up the steps they would say "Hold on to the rail please". And if you didnt, they would get more forceful. I am an adult, I think I can tell if I need the rail or not. At the convention we went to, the top level always has plenty of seats. The place doesnt ever fill. So when we get up there, this year there were brothers telling people where to sit, even though there were plenty of seats. So I am just noticing this overall air.
so the program goes on and there is this demonstration, it may have been Saturday, Im not sure. It was this young brother talking to an elder. The elder basicly said to him that while its nice that you are at ALL the meetings, out in field service EVERY saturday AND sunday, made sure to handle all assignments, and commented at all the meetings. He basically tells this young brother that this was not enough because he worked full time and that he should work part time and pioneer, as well as stop watching tv at night. I thought, wow, he is doing all these things and that is not enough? Here we have an example of a young brother who is doing GREAT in the truth, staying out of trouble, and it was not enough. Wow.
So then the last day comes, and the whole convention was about dress and grooming, entertainment, pioneering, not going to school, etc. Needless to say the spiritual food I so desperately craved was not there. so then i thought, well, wait until the last 2 talks, they are usually the good ones. the 2nd to last talk focused on dress and grooming, and the last talk was a snoozer. I was stunned. I remembered some of the best talks I ever heard were at the end of convention days.
Disappointed I walk out at the end. While I am walking to my car in the garage, the first jolt in my deep sleep happens to me. As I mentioned before I noticed the brothers were very on top of everyone, telling them what to do in the most minor things. So, there is a group waiting to cross the street. Its not a big street, its a one way city street that is empty, that is rarely traveled. There are no cars for a mile. So as the group crosses, I was about 10 feet away from them. They were in the crosswalk. So I step onto the street, again, about 10-15 feet away from the crosswalk. While I am halfway across, I hear a man screaming "BROTHER! BROTHER!" I wasent even paying attention. Then finally I look up, and this attendant is yelling at me! He was sitting with a group of attandants near the garage entrance which is where we were all going. So I look up, with the biggest "WTF" face I have ever made, and he yells, across the street "BROTHER! USE THE CROSS WALK! YOU MUST USE THE CROSS WALK FOR YOUR SAFETY!" So im half way across the street, and so I beginning to walk towards the cross walk and he screams "NO! NO! GO BACK TO THE SIDE WALK AND THEN CROSS IN THE CROSS WALK!" This dude, in front of about 100 people not only yells at me to use the cross walk, on a deserted street with no car in site, he also wants me to turn around, go back and start over.
At this moment I had 2 choices, mock him, tell him to screw himself, which would have made me look like Satan, or take it up the you know what and do what he said. So like a good little brother, I submitting to "theocratic direction" and let him verbally rape me. lol.
From this moment on, I knew something was wrong. It may not seem like a big deal, but it was a turning point. Then when I get in the car, i talk with another sister, tell her the story, and then she tells me a story that she went out in the corridor during the session because she had a coughing fit, and a attendant went up to her and told her to sit down. When she explained she is having a coughing fit and is just waiting it out, he tells her she must go to the nurse, she cannot stand in the corridor.
This experience was the first jolt that eventually led up to me waking up from the matrix.
anyone have any of their own?
what as your first jolt that started your wake up process?
by yourmomma 23 Replies latest jw friends
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yourmomma
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Satans little helper
We used to play badminton on a sunday night with a group of witnesses, it must have been about 1987 and I was 15 and really starting to think for myself. I was chatting to an older sister about bits and pieces and she mentioned something about microwave ovens, saying that she would not buy one herself because the organisation had not sanctioned them in the litereature.
That was a tipping point for me, it really shocked me that someone could hand over responsibility for decisions so basic as the purchase of a kitchen appliance to a group of religious fundamentalists who had no scientific training. If these people are prepared to hand over responsibility for simple decisions then what sort of mindless morons are being developed? Mindless people believe anything, so how much of the rest of it is bullshit?
Then they made a big deal about beards, so where is the scriptural ban on beards? -
Carmel
....my baptism.... carmel
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oompa
This is too funny, people are getting awakened by crosswalk violations, and JW approved kitchen appliances! The things that can make you start thinking. For me it was just a bunch of unprovable and unbelievable prophetic interpretations, esp in the Climax book.....
but final wake up was studying why we put the name Jehovah in the NWT 237, when there is no manuscript support for it....I bought into appendix 1-d's explanation, that this might could be ok when quoting fromt the Hebrew Scriptures. Then the bomb hit....the entire book of Rev has no Hebrew scripture quotes, but the GB felt like sticking the name Jehovah in there anyway, and in about 75 other places as wel!!!...........thats right, the final wake up was realizing WE REALLY HAVE OUR OWN (altered) BIBLE!!!!!!!........oompa
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wha happened?
The generation change started it all
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wildfell
My very first jolt that started to wake me up happened when I realised that there is a culture of fear in the organisation. Not fear OF the elders. But fear BY the elders. Of bethel.
An incident occured whereby I got to see first hand that bethel must be obeyed, and with tembling. I realised that there is a definate power base. That those who are supposed to serve us, who lived off our donated funds (in a very nice style, I must add), rule over us. They were not kindly old spiritual men at all. They were dominating, power hungry hypocrites who liked to flex their muscle. What bethel wants, bethel gets. NOW! I got a jolt realising that there is a very definate hierarchy in the 'truth' even though it was always denied in the watchtower. And that there would be reprisals against anyone, even elders, who did not obey totally and immediately.
Whatever happened to "you all are brothers"?? Whatever happened to love being the identifying mark of true Christians??
I saw elders literally with fear in their eyes over a letter from bethel. The letter was making demands over something that I thought was of a relatively minor nature, but the elders were afraid and stressed over it. I remember saying in amazement to the elders "you're frightened, you're really frightened!!". They just looked at me and didn't deny it.
I used to wonder why there was no love in the congregations. I had to conclude that that is because there is no love higher up, either.
Then, I became 'critical of jehovahs organisation', like they are always warning against. The rose coloured glasses had been smashed.
So, when I saw a television interview over pedophiles being protected by the org a few years later . . . . That was, I suppose, my second jolt . . . . . which made me wonder - they have lied to us about having policies that protected pedophiles, what else have they been lying to us about . . . . and eventually a few years later . . . . I am on jwd and I am free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hortensia
no jolt. Just severe depression, to the point of giving up. Once I gave up and no longer attended meetings, I started to feel better. As I got distance, I got more perspective and could see that all religions, not just the JWs, are about control and money and fear. And I started to realize the preponderance of evidence is in favor of evolution, not creation. And I woke up one day and said, you know what, I just don't believe the bible. Never did, as far as I can see. I was serving an organization, not god. There's no evidence there is a god, in fact. Wow - I was an unconscious atheist all that time and didn't know it!
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WTWizard
Staying in the witless organization was, for me, like trying to sleep when there is a party with a stereo blasting next door (where they can't make up their mind what to play, but they can make up their mind at what volume to play it).
It started soon after baptism. After I got baptized, field circus seemed to totally lack any life. And, in September, they waited only 3 days into the month to start hounding me to get out in field circus. That was the first track blasted from next door.
Not long after, they stressed doing whatever it took to get me to stay out as long as possible. It would be normal for me to plan to go in at noon so I could prepare to work that evening, only to have to stay out until 2 or later just because the person working with me refused to take me back home or they arranged a series of calls that lasted all day. There was absolutely no joy in serving Jehovah.
There was one family that made it at least somewhat worth staying in for. But, once the hounders saw that, the "party" got in high gear and the "volume" on the stereo hit full blast. They started custom making rules to keep me from enjoying those I was drawn to. Eventually, they drove the family to another congregation and gave them a reproof on false grounds (and slandered the father by telling others off the platform that he was disfellowshipped when he was not). They told me that all those rules to keep me away from them were therefore for my own good. I don't know how anyone could "sleep" through that.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the April 1, 1995 Puketower study article came out blaming Satan for personal rejection. Then they made sure all the sisters at the next a$$emblies (as in, from then on) would reject me while the "brothers" would surround me. They then applied that Puketower lesson, and told me to just meet men. That was the final blow--it was like having those speakers blow up extremely noisily. By now, there is no way I am going to stay "asleep in the tower" any more.
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IsaacJS2
First, I'll copy a comment I made elsewhere:
Like a lot of Witnesses in my congregation, I blamed the local tyrants for the arrogance and the attitude. Then I started hearing it from podium, and began to wonder if they were adding this stuff or if it was coming from the Society. Soon, I started seeing it in the freakin' Watchtower magazines! That's when the balance began to tip the other way for me.
Quote over.
From there, my zeal began to weaken. I realized that I was looking for more adversity to strive against in the hope that I would feel as good for having struggled as I used to. Yet I never got that "Jehovah must be so proud of me" feeling back. Then I started wondering why I felt so miserable all the time instead of feeling happy as I did before I started going to meetings. Took me a while to accept the fact that I didn't really believe in the WTS any more, but I knew the Society was part of the problem. Finally, I admitted that the organization and it's people were pure poison for me. I had to get outta there or I would crack.
At the time, I thought Jehovah would fix things (or at least clear out the arrogance and the crap) and then I would return. But that never happened.
IsaacJ
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XOCO
Well i'm still young i guess you can say that my first jolt is when i was 18 and gettin' ready to graduate (college-bound). i went to an elder after the meeting if he can give a recommendation for a scholarship that i wanted to apply for he looked at the form and told me to go back to the hall and we will discuss... i got the old ask 4 jah to give u all things necessary 2 survive...the end is drawing near...the ELDER himself lied in my face and told me he/and his wife does not have a college edu and are doing well w/o it...too much worldly association... not doing enough work 4 jah etc, etc. I wanted to tell him how dare u say these things 2 me i was hoping he would congratulate me on my higher edu stuff b/c in the 2005 WT it had approved to some degree to get something beyond HS. the Elder never said Congrats XOCO...and i invited him and his wife to my HS graduation ceremony... they never came... they never cared... as the second jots is by JWD and by reading and participating... I'm glad that i stumbled upon this site
XOCO