How Long Did It Take You to Realize It Wasn't "The Truth"?

by minimus 54 Replies latest jw friends

  • dinah
    dinah

    I wasted so much time believing their lies. It still makes me angry to this day. I was df'd when I was 18. That didn't stop me from believing it was the truth. Soo, I basically spend most of my adult life expecting to die, or feeling that I was dead already.

    Surprisingly, the bible was what did it for me too. My best friend and I decided to just read it together and compare notes. I still remember the phone conversation we had that night. We both saw it at the same time. No way were their teachings biblical. Two months later I read CoC and it just told me what I had already figured out.

    This was about 6 years ago.

  • av8orntexas
    av8orntexas

    Probably about five years.I was baptized Feb 2,1996 I always had these questions or doubts,but continually looking for that 'person' I could confide in who wouldn't 1.) turn me in to the elders. 2.) browbeat me with the bible,and give me the "your sprituality is weak,read your literature and pray more.." line. 3.) Determine I was 'bad association' and spread this to others.

    I flipped flopped over the years. Reaching out, doing everything. At one point for doing Magazine and Book room. Doing One before the meeting, and the latter after. In between I carried the microphones...some nights when 'younger' brothers did not show, I'd do aisle AND stage. It became. I began to see I was NEVER doing enough WHAT THE HELL ???? I Reached out because i really liked the Kool-aid, and was a true believer. But I began to see you had really kiss some a**

    Plus I was Regular Pioneering and trying to do the two-year college deal, I was beat. By year 5 I was in my current job for two years, and burned out. I get to the meeting early to speak to everyone,not jst to do it,but as an elder told me, get to know everyone, and damn it I knew all 120 or people in like an month and a half. I made the effort to get bto know them. When I came in only one broither really had anything to do with me, and I HATED feeling, so I really did try.

    Nonetheless by 2005, I was hanging by a string, and noticed most people in my age group, were flat out leaving, or just didn't give a damn who knew what they did. The actions of others in the organization, the 1914 bit,which I have been looking at VERY closey, since I was baptized in 1996, and started studying 'for real' in 1994/95. Even as far back as the King of the North Deal with the USSR. I ALWAYS wondered about these things. Not to mention ALL my friends who went to jail, strung out on drugs......that surprised me,because I thought we were all on the up and up.

  • snowbird
    snowbird

    Oops! You asked how long, didn't you?

    I was baptized in 1974 and by 1979, I knew something was terribly wrong.

    Sylvia

  • coffee_black
    coffee_black

    Born in. I was 38 when I started to research...but the first doubts were about 10 years before that. I officially daed when I was 41. Long painfull process for me.

    Coffee

  • oompa
    oompa

    raised in...doubts started at 19.....lasted till 44 and then only one split second....that is all it took.......when I confronted a big whig jw about WT adding the Divine NAME in Revelation and yet I could not find any Hebrew Scripture quotes or cross references for it use....and he finally told me they (barf) RESTORED it not only when quoting from the Hebrew scriptures but in many other places where it made sense....it ALL came unglued at the seams....how I did not barf at that moment is beyond me...but I did weep bitterly....I knew right that second...........oompa....ya just cant go changin the Bible dammit

  • Hope4Others
    Hope4Others

    Things started to discourage me about 93-97, but it was 2005 that I totally shut it down. I have

    not given thought to the true reasons for leaving. Perhaps I just really did not want to deal with it.

    But since being here on Jwd, it has forced me to really look at things now. I do know

    why I left after all.


    Cheers!

    Hope4others

  • 95stormfront
    95stormfront

    2.5 years.....

    I remember going to some gathering with my wife and being offered a BS by one of the elders. 12 months later, I was dipped in that bleachwater pool in what used to be the Reliant Arena. I remember being zealous, reaching out, reading for the book study for a short while, until one day when out in service we happen to stop by this house where we were invited in. After some small talk this guy skillfully questioned both me and my wife in such a way where, even today, the questions he was asking and the answers we gave...I now realize he was gently leading us to make our own conclusion that it was a farce.

    I remember going to an elder who was out in service with us and asking him would he like to come and talk to this guy as he "appeared" interested, but upon telling him the kind of questions he was asking he opted not to. I remember feeling, at that time, totally dejected by him, and the dirty look he gave me and my wife as we drove away at the end of the day seared into my consciousness forever.

    Watching the congregation cliques, elder wives ruling everything during renovations, constant pleas for money, me being handed off by my elder study to someone else to finish a book with as soon as he figured he couldn't count anymore "time" with me.

    I started pulling away from going to meetings because of what I was seeing......what I was feeling. One day, after a particularly destructive argument with my wife about it, she called them, and they promptly came over to browbeat me about meeting attendance and whether or not I was praying enough.

    They didn't know, at that tiime, that I'd already had enough and would never be going back.

  • llbh
    llbh

    About 12 years , initially it was a gradual process, then when i made my mind up i did a slow fade, to cause my still in JW famliy fewer problems. It worked, except the elders now seem to want to come after me, but i can deal with that.

    Regards David

  • jaguarbass
    jaguarbass

    It took me from 1952 till January 1 1976. I thank God he gave the wactower a timeframe so I could escape the tower.

    So it took me 24 years to see the light, then another 7 to get the chains off and crawl out of the tower. I didnt know or realize I started fading in 76, as Gore Hadnt invented the internet yet. But it appears I began fading January 1, 1976.

  • Robdar
    Robdar

    I dont recall how long it took me to realize that it wasn't the truth, but I do recall getting a whiff of bull muffins at about age 8.

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