Based on my own experience it started seriously when I was 22 but it took another few years to really start getting out if it. so I'd say between 25 to 35 is when it hits you.
Around what age do most Witnesses leave the organization?
by RULES & REGULATIONS 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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oompa
so many are df'd when they are 16 or 17...and never make it back in....or do and are df'd again soon after...seen that a bunch...... two in my own family! DAMM GOD, why could that not have been me?!?! no I had to screw around and wait 45 freakin years to wake up!!!...............................oompa
so I say most are 16 to 19, but many also up to 22-23
here there is absolute ex-jw underground community....or rather a sub-culture.....it is huge!...and almost all were teens when booted or walked
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jaguarbass
I left in 83.
I was 31.
But there was no internet.
Book stores were small and information was hard to come by.
My ticket out was Armegeddon in 75 was less than spectacular.
I would say it never even happened.
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Mickey mouse
Early 30's for me.
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Gordy
I DA'd at the age of 50, seven years ago, after 30 years as a JW.
Since leaving the thing Ihave noticed is that many young JWs, I include those JW family members not baptised also, are leaving. Five in my own family. I have since heard that many other young ones have left also. Some over teachings etc of the WT. Others over what they see is the control being put on their lives. Those who have been DF'd usually unjustly and unfairly (eg. Young guy DF'd for smoking, but Elder only reproved for smoking).
The other trend I have noticed is that ones round the 30-50 age group, who I would have said 10 years ago would never leave the WT, they were loyal and strong for the "truth". But now they have either cut back on what they were doing, even ones who were Elders resigning, but attending just the odd meeting, just doing enough in field service, mainly because family are still in. These ones have either lost "faith" in the WT or have come to know that the WT is false.
Then there are those who on learning the real truth about WT history, doctrines, teachings etc, have totally left.
Of these I have noticed how many are of an older age group 60-70. Who have been JWs all their life, maybe even second or third generation of their family. This group have become disillusioned at the WT. I know of oneguy inhis 70's who now hates the WT after learning many things about them. He is angry that he has wasted his life serving them, and really not truly serving God. Lives which mayhave taken a different course if the WT had not controlled them so much.
The WT is beginning to reap what it sowed. It sowed lies and control and now they are paying for it. They are desperately trying to cling on to what they have left through stupidly imposing more control on what members it has left. Its main growth can now only come internally, or from developing countries of the third world. But in time even these will have access to more information.
What ever age people are leaving the WT the fact is that they are leaving.
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Witness 007
I was about 29 when I started to fade!....My brain became "Awake!"
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south african beef
Early 40's for me.
However, for many many years there was the constant battle of trying to do whats 'right' with doing what I considered to be normal activities, eg having fun!
Had many years in a difficult marriage where there was no love either way, but I was a ministerial servant and should be 'working' on the marriage problems - everything was my fault when things didn't go right depsite the fact that she would never go out in field service, would never answer at meetings, never study etc etc.
So glad I am out now, so are my children. I have a great relationship with them and it is fantastic to have a life in which I care deeply about others but can really enjoy myself without any feelings of guilt.
In other words - I FEEL ALIVE!!!
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JimmyPage
At 19 I was a ministerial servant and regular auxiliary pioneer. By 22 I was disillusioned with the whole generation of 1914 b.s. and was ready to get the hell out.
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garybuss
Good thread. Thanks for starting it.
I quit associating physically when I was 30. More than a few of the Witness people had become so offensive to me that they made even peripheral association something I didn't want to do. I was an unpaid volunteer and they were giving me crap and being mean to me any my family. That's a good way to loose this unpaid volunteer.
I seem to be hardwired on the skeptical side. By the time I was 21 there was little of the Witness mystic dogmatism that I accepted. I went along 9 more years as a social Witness. I had been raised by zealous believing Witness parents. The Witness culture was mostly all I knew. I was comfortable in the Witness culture until the Witness people made it uncomfortable.
I married a Witness woman, she died, and I married another Witness woman. By adolescence, for me, Witnessism was more of a habit than a belief. When it became more painful to stay than leave, I left.
I had been out for years before I went back in my mind and looked at Witnessism objectively and challenged my core beliefs. Core beliefs that were almost universally flawed. Of course this set me on a collision course with the believing Witnesses in my life. At the time, I wasn't aware of the severity of the impending collision or the predictability of the aftermath.
I'd handle many things differently if I had it to do over (with the benefit of my current knowledge and experience). The problem with that is . . . the rude Witness people were my motivations to do the work that put me where I am today. So, that which I would have skipped was a necessary component. That just leaves acceptance, and maybe someday . . . indifference, as the resting place. -
moomanchu
Around 37 for me.
Proverbs 13:12
12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.There's a lot heart sick dubeyas in there.