Looking back, I realize that for years there were many reasons to doubt, but I didn't let myself. Finally, after talking to a Witness friend who had "discovered" that it wasn't the truth, I allowed myself to consciously doubt. Once that happened, it was only a matter of weeks before I found myself wondering how I ever could have believed it at all.
I stopped going to meetings immediately after that. Of course, it helped that I was living far away from my JW family when that happened, and that my then husband, who was also a JW, left the WT with me. Actually, he realized it was BS a few weeks before I fully accepted it.
How Long Were You Mentally Out Of The "Truth" Before You Left?
by minimus 39 Replies latest jw friends
-
Mrs. Fiorini
-
strawberry cake
As soon as the most recent generation change was published I was out, mentally...I knew that their doctrine was running out of time and I was waiting for their explanation..When it came, I knew they were fakes. I started researching, contemplated fading, couldn't stomach it, so instead,told my children, let the elders know, gave up all my studies and said goodbye( with the wonderful support and advice from this forum) In all,I was out and disassociated in about 6 months.
xxx SC -
no more kool aid
I was raised as a JW. Now that I look back the most clarity I had that doctrinal things didn't add up was when I was a child. I must have pushed the doubts away as an adult. About eight years ago my husband and I became fed up with the backstabbing behavior and hypocrisy that permeates the society. We still hung around and tried. Service became very difficult, how can I sell it to others? It really was the unloving, unchristian manner of 90 percent of the people that led me to question doctrine. Then one day in May 2008 I could not go to one more meeting, so I didn't. My husband went to a few more. He came home one Sunday and there was a level 3 sex offender at the meeting, that was his last one.
-
momzcrazy
Under 6 months. I had a quick awakening.
-
Farkel
:How Long Were You Mentally Out Of The "Truth" Before You Left?
I must be a freak. It took me less than 2 minutes to get mentally out before I left, even though I was born and raised in it and was in my mid 20's at the time. I was a pioneer, MS, 2nd Ministry School conductor and gave public talks as a traveling speaker. I was a well-respected (and also hated by some jealous elders) Watchtower "scholar" in my area.
A Circuit Overseer was pissed off I didn't wear a white tuxedo with tails and bow down and kiss his ring one time when my wife and I had the "privilege" of feeding his egotistical face at my OWN home and at my own expense. He told the PO, and the PO told me. It took the PO about 2 minutes to tell me this. I left still having all my "privileges" and never went back.
They probably still wonder why. The one time they came by after a month or so to tell me I was "deleted" from my positions, they asked me why. I told them I had many very good reasons, and would tell them why soon. Then I moved 100 miles away.
There were lots of things I questioned before , but I was still in the robot mode and pushed those doubts away in my mind. In just 2 minutes, all the doubts came gushing back into my consciousness like a dam breaking in half that had been holding back 2 million cubic acres of water.
I never had one serious doubt about my leaving. Not one. The passing of over thirty years of Watchtower history since then has only added mountains of more evidence that I did the right thing.
I tried to get the WTS to publish this poignant and uplifting "JW life story" in the Watchtower magazine, but for some strange reason they never got back to me about doing it.
Farkel -
Scarred for life
No, you're not a freak. You are honest with yourself.
I didn't hang around either afer I was mentally out. But I can say that my parents waffled back and forth for at least 6 years before a situation occurred that forced them out completely. I never understood what was happening with them or why they stayed in "part-time".
I've never had anyr regrets about leaving. I've never had any lingering thoughts that the JWs were right. I only suffer from the years of fear and rules and embarrassment and feeling like an outsider. There is no true love in this religion. And when you're raised without love it is difficult to lead a normal life.
-
Honesty
None of us are Mentally Out Of The "Truth"
-
Scarred for life
Honesty:
Maybe you're right. Thanks for the song. I've never thought about it in terms of the JWs. Very interesting and haunting.
-
Honesty
We left be we can never really check out.
Too many family members are still trapped in the cult to just let it all go and say to hell with them.
-
Scarred for life
I do have a lot of extended family still in the cult. I don't feel that I have any control over their choice to still be JWs. I don't feel exactly shunned by most of them. But it has definitely been a wedge between us. There is so many subjects you cannot talk about with them.
My parents are now both dead. Both had left the JWs before their deaths. My mother had not been one for many, many years.
My sister and I are both out but with long-term damage from our first 15 years of life.
To tell you the truth, I have spent all of my adult life living apart from any family, in another state. I have gone on with a totally non-JW lifestyle. I really have had the attitude of to hell with all those morons and their cult that they cling to. I have had very limited contact with anyone in my family that is still a JW.
My sister and I started talking about our unconventional upbringing during the last stages of my mother's illness. We had never, ever talked about it. We had just started our lives as best we could and tried to ignore the abusive teachings of our childhood. But that's when I came to realize how many scars there still were in both of us. And that's when I got online and found this board. I found out I was one of many all over the world that have suffered from this cult.