When did a lightbulb first go off in your head that something didn't seem right???

cognac

I was about 4 or 5 years old. They must of been talking about prejudice in the meeting or something. That's when I first learned about it. I kept asking my Dad about it because I didn't understand it. Anyways, my mom said that people used to have everything divided. Like different schools, bathrooms, etc - for white and black.

I asked my mom, did witness separate everything out like that? She said that they did. I wasn't to happy about this. I thought the organization did everything right so surely they would know not to separate things out by a persons skin color... That just didn't sit well with me at all... I was disappointed...

jeanniebeanz

I was also pretty young... my first doubts came up after listening to a member of the 'anointed' (and a CO at that) in a car group one morning picking out his 'after armageddon' house while 'witnessing' in a wealthy section of Redwook Valley. This was promptly followed by his jokes about having to kick the rotting corpse of it's former occupants out of the way before taking ownership of the property. As we drove away, I remember seeing the kids playing in the yard and the image of the children, only my age, laying rotting with their parents in the yard horrified me. I stared at him for the rest of the morning like he was the devil himself and never trusted another CO again.

I must have been about 10 or so...

J

OnTheWayOut

I was exposed to JW stuff as a child, but didn't become one until young adulthood.
I didn't examine things tight enough until I was fully assimilated and stumbled on the 1995 change in "generation."

Even though the light went on, I stayed on. If I had not left a few years before already, I would have walked out when they changed "generation" again in 2008. If I hadn't pre-studied before the meeting when it happened (c'mon, we all skipped studying sometimes), I would have literally said "WTF is this?" and walked out. I am sure of it.

jookbeard

mine was that salvation could only come for Dubs at the big A, and that God would destroy billions, how anyone can believe such unscriptural bollox makes me wonder

kitten whiskers

I don't remember the first time...but I remember so many!

Once while a teenager, I was pioneering and talking to a sick, former elder. The car groups always stopped to visit him and take a break as he was housebound. I remember in doing the weekly bible reading it mentioned a goat being let loose in the woods for the sins of Azazel. (spelling?) I wondered who/what this Azazel was. I researched it in what publications I could and was having a hard time finding the answer. (This was pre-computer access for myself!). The elder wanted to know why I had to find the answer. What did it matter? He really tried to make feel bad/foolish for searching. I knew how wrong that was. If I needed an answer, I needed an answer and would find it.

I remember thinking during public talks how misused a scripture was when they were trying to "prove a point". The bookstudies discussing "anti-types" threw me. There was no concrete evidence for these assumptions and statements.

The fact that it was said that others didn't know their bibles, and then I would find a Baptist and have an hour arguing match showed me that wasn't true.

There are just so many. You are fortunate to remember that point from such a young age! You were quite the thinker! Good for you Cognac!

bluecanary

I was raised in and didn't question anything until it all came crashing down on me at age 25. Though I was bothered by the change in teachings of the generation and anointed (I seemed to be the only person who put 2+2 together on that at the time) I still didn't question that it was all directed by God at that time.

WTWizard

I decided that, since the opposite sex was so unreceptive toward me that my presence in the organization was going to result in living forever with nothing but other just plain men, I was going to have to do whatever it took to prevent the whole opposite sex from being destroyed on my account.

And, since obviously fornication was out of the question and I had to make sure I was going to get destroyed instead of the whole opposite sex, I looked at apostate sites on purpose. And that's when I realized that the whole organization was a crock of lies.

undercover

My lightbulb was burned out...

There was no one thing. It took years of confusion and doubt to finally push through my thick skull and cause a flicker of "What the?" to surface.

Two things stand out that happened about the same time.

First was the "generation" change. In fact, I didn't even catch it, I heard two pioneers talking about it, which caused me to go back and read it and then I had an "ah-ha' moment.

Second was a particularly evil CO who helped me realize, through his damning talks of our sluggishness as inferior JWs, that there was nothing I could ever do to be good enough, so I just quit.

cognac

You were quite the thinker!

Yeah, I also thought Jehovah and Mary were married because Jehovah was Jesus Dad and Mary was his Mom, lol...

lepermessiah

For me, that light went on at such a young age. I felt so different and conflicted. How could I have such deep love for my "worldly" family members and then go out preaching to other "worldly" people that they were going to be wiped out at Armaggedon??

As the organization says, "the light keeps getting brighter and brighter"!!!

So, when the lights burned as bright as the sun, and my brain was on fire with anger and doubts, I needed to preserve my sanity and started to understand that my doubts and anger were totally well-founded!! The more you learn about the organization, the easier it is to move away from it!

When did a lightbulb first go off in your head that something didn't seem right???

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