Been lurking for over a year now, "bout time I posted my story.
In 1985 I was your regular 19 yo just digging life & looking forwared to what the future had in store. This was also when I met my first serious girlfriend. Things were looking up. I was forging a career in professional theatre, which was becoming VERY lucrative after 2 years of struggling. I am not an actor. My roll was as a technician/stagehand. Girlfriend's mother happened to be a DF'd witness & on a few occasions I found myself looking through the various mags she had lying around. I really enjoyed the Awake magazines & flipping through the various books but never really considered them as anything more than pleasant bathroom reading at best. I was still living with my mom & the girlfriend was basically living with us. As things go with youngsters, girlfriend & myself eventually split in late 1988. The first day after the split I came home after work at about 23:00 after working my show which at the time was a production of Don Giovanni (SP?). Pro theatre, as you may guess is a pretty liberal devil may care lifestyle & as such my plan (for that night anyway) was to curl up with a bag of jane & some beers & digest the new King Crimson & Yes albums that I bought earlier. I was having a grand old time with the house all to myself (Mom was at her sister's in Montreal) when I had to get up & flip the record (& roll up another) when I saw it. Just laying there: REVELATION: It's Grand Climax at Hand!!!!!!!!! Turns out Girlfriend left it there on purpose. In my reverie I decided to READ IT. My mind was blown completely (insert drug addled joke here). I totally lost track of time. Next thing I know birds are chirping & the sun is coming up. I had about 50 or so pages left in the whole book. It made a huge impression needless to say, & I decided then that these people MUST have the truth!!!
In spite of this I never really comitted to studies or even felt compelled to join as I wasn't yet through with my Bohemian, hedonistic lifestyle. in 1993 I moved to Toronto from Ottawa in order to work more. Simply put Ottawa has ONE major theatre whereas TO has more than a dozen. As a freelancer it was a no -brainer. You want to work? Go where the most work is. I was really high-rollin' now, earning huge wages & enjoying all the fringe benefits that come with such a lifestyle.
Fast forward to 2000. This is when I signed on to what would become my last show ever. Lion King. This is where I met "Jimbo" (not real name) who was an actor in the chorus. During a rehearsal some of us were backstage practising costume & scene changes when one of the other actors asked Jimbo "Hey you goin to church this Sunday??" Jimbo said "Nahh I'm going to the Kingdom hall". I simply looked at him & said "oh you're one of Jehovah's Witnesses??" He said "yeah". Now I don't really remember how or why but I was wangled into a study.
Turns out Jimbo was DF'd & was seeking to regain admittance to the kingdom & I guess I was somehow his ticket. I was strong armed into attending a meeting (what harm could it do??) Needless to say once the elders realized an exile was conducting a study they immediately took it over eventually allowing Jimbo to attend as they wanted him to get his ticket back. Of course this is when the pressure to succumb was turned up to EXTREME. Of course I was quite into it. I had been slowly burning out from the theatre life & was looking for a change & so with the influence of the Borg I made the most disasterous mistake of my life. I quit theatre. Quit as in giving up my 2 theatre union cards that I had worked so hard to get. Why should I keep paying $1500.00 a year in union dues when the end was right around the blah, bkah blah..... you all know where this is going. It's not unusual for theatre types to burn out & change careers. Happens all the time but the unwritten code of theatre is to never EVER give up your union cards. EVER! Go work at McDick's or sweep floors if you like but keep your cards for future use should you ever need work. I broke that code. One night after my study, Jimbo & elder What's his Face? really started breaking my back about still smoking & not comitting enough after 6 months of study. Now in certain situations I am the wrong guy to push around. 9 times out of 10 I will simply walk away & leave you hanging with nothing to push against. I walked away. Now stuck in a dead end call-centre job with no way back in to theatre I tried to resume my old lifestyle. Disaster!!! My theatre gig put me in the $50-$65K earning bracket and here I was making $11.50/hr fielding calls for $ony corp. Not gonna happen.
In August of 2003 I fell deathly ill. I suffered a perforated bowel accompanied with a major appendix explosion. I nearly died but the good Dr. Cohen at Mt Sainai hospital patched me up & saved my life. The recovery took 3 months & by that time I was basically done with Toronto. A good buddy of mine suggested I move to Saint John New Brunswick & start over. Ive been here since then.
In April of 2010 I happened to read a book called The True Story of the Bilderberg Group. A truly fascinating socio political eye opener. I immediately noticed startling parallels between this book & my ol favorite Revelation book. Like a fool I immediately got back into the Borg mindframe thinking "holy crap I better get my shiz together, they were right all along!!" Like a dawg returning to his own rancid puke I hightailed it the the local KH & jumped in full on. I was really going to own it this time. One day I was logged into my favorite alternate news site partaking in a heated discussion about the Federal Reserve. Clearly one of the other posters was a dub & putting forth dub propaganda. As you can guess he was getting flamed pretty bad & I decided I was going to help him out a bit. I don't remember the details but domehow Rutherford entered into the conversation & I had occassion to do a google search in order to get some back up. One of the hits I recieved linked to this site. Jehovahs-witness.net seemed like it had a good ring to it so I came here thinking I could find some juicy ammo to help out the poor schlepp getting grilled on the other site. Hoo boy was I wrong. I was instantly outraged when I read all the posts here from these misguided ungrateful apostates besmirching the good name on the net & I created an account right then & there in order to set Y'all strait. (go ahead & laugh. In hindsight I find it quite humorous myself).
The real blessing though comes with the sign up process here. I was unable to post until my coordinates were verified which for some reason took more than a week. As you may have gathered by now I am an insatiable reader. I started reading post after post after post. I'd say in all it probably took about 3 or 4 hours before the scales finally fell of my eyes. By this time I had the Watchtower CDRom installed & I looked up key items that were posted here & realised I'd been had. AGAIN!! Study was terminated the next day. I have not looked back since.
I owe all of you on this board a great thanks. So many well written and intelligent posts exposing the WTS for what they really are as well as links to other great sites. I can now TRULY feel saved with regards to this horrible organization. My story is really quite mild & I feel I got off easy when compared to to some of the truly heartbreaking testimonials that I have read here. Hellz, all I lost really was a really cool career & lifestyle. My life has taken a relatively minor setback compared to what some of you have lost. My heart really goes out to those of you whose lives were truly and perhaps irrevocably devasted. Don't know why I waited so long to post though. I guess now was just the right time.
OK. Just got back from proofreading. Guess I've maintained the tradition of posting a freaking novel for a first post. Sorry to bore everyone. I'll end it here & let you rest your eyes from my rant. Thanks for listening (readz) & I hope to participate in future discussions on this most excellent and life-saving site. Cheers!!