How did you do it? (page 3)

GeneM

Lol guess what I just found in my google docs! The letter. What do you guys think?

After much deliberation, I have decided to disassociate myself from
the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. I do not take this step
lightly and I fully understand the ramifications, I am going to be
shunned.

I love the brothers and sisters. While I find the concept of shunning
archaic, I hold no animosity to those forced to do it, as they have
been made to believe that it is the way they can show they still love
me.

My reasons for disassociation are many. First is the fact that the
natural world shows irrefutable evidence that life as we see it came
about through evolution by natural selection. This fact is not
disputed by any credible scientist. Even those who are featured in
interviews in the recent publications. Real evidence for a global
flood is completely non-existent and in fact the evidence proves
otherwise. The rape, murder and genocide that the God of the Bible
condones is unconscionable and the justifications given are absurd.
The list goes on and on.

I have no desire to destroy the organization or anyone's faith. I
researched these things initially to straighten my faith. You are
going to label me a fool for being so gullible. While you may not
understand this, I now see you same way. That being said, please
remove my name from all lists of membership and discard any medical
directives you have on file.

mamamo

I was starting to fade and realized I couldn't be a hypocrite like I had seen so many others. So I quit, DA'd myself. I was 25 and raised in. 21 years later, my mother still hasn't accepted the fact.

sizemik

What do you guys think? . . . GeneM

My opinion is that it is one of the best DA letters I've seen.

No doctrinal arguments . . . no scriptures cited (which is a waste of time IMO) . . . no accusations . . . just a nice neat summary of how you feel and why, and what you realistically expect. I especially liked this line . . .

You are going to label me a fool for being so gullible. While you may not understand this, I now see you same way.

Nicely put . . . fine letter.

GeneM

The walk out is rare. I was kind of sticking my thumb in the eye of a couple elders who tried to debate me back in and failed miserably. At one point I could tell that he knew I was making waaaaay too much sense and he was like "what about me? Ive been doing this for 50 years, I didn't go to college, I haven't saved anything for retirement. if your right, what does that mean for me?" I'll never know if he was trying to guilt me back of if he actually dropped his guard.

lilbluekitty

I sort of faded/stopped going. I had been pulling disappearing acts for a few months with more and more time in between each time I was there until I just stopped going. The first few times I stopped going I got a lot of phone calls, now I've been gone 4 months and the last phone call I got was about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I'm not sure if they'll keep calling or not but if anyone leaves magazines in my door I'm going to post a sign on the door that says something like "Save a tree, don't leave JW magazines" lol. Either that or No Tresspassing.

I think once I've been gone 6 months they may call a lot since I'll officially be inactive but maybe they'll just forget me. Dunno. Don't care as long as they don't harass me like they were before.

factfinder

GeneM- that is a good letter since you wanted to dissasociate yourself. Everyone needs to do what is best for them.

I have no desire to burn any bridges.

rebel8

I've always wondered what proportion leave in the different ways...

I too would be interested in knowing that. I'm afraid there's no way to really know. My bet is most exes never discuss it on forums, you know, talking to 'apostates' and all.

Me, I became a dub forcibly during childhood. I had enough taste of normalcy before that to have hope I could return to that. Otherwise I literally would have killed myself because I would not have known life could be anything else besides horrible, sad, misogynistic and abusive.

I had the cognitive dissonance whereby I believed it and didn't believe it. I always doubted their fairy tales and found lots of misquotes in their literature while researching in my school library. That stupid Revelation book in the late 80s was eye opening.

I finally realized if they were right, I sure as heck would not want to live forever in a petting zoo, spending eternity farming with those evil, hateful people.

I attempted to leave immediately when I was of legal age. Unfortunately my dub mother confiscated all my money so I would have been living on the street if I left (financial abuse). That went on for a while until I was able to hide some of my earnings from my part time job (which I was secretly working full time, working while claiming I was with my dub friends).

I stopped going to meetings & was told I had to leave the house if I refused to meet w/the elders. I met w/them & told them I had not sinned, I just didn't want to go to meetings or in fs anymore. They interrogated, I kept repeating the facts. I said I would never come back and I never did.

Afterward they were all freaked out that I hadn't turned in my pioneer ID card. AS IF I would go around showing that ID card and representing myself as a current jw pioneer. ROFL

Literally escaped during an abusive episode, in winter, with just my car and clothes I was wearing. Went to a worldly person's house & she let me stay there. Worked my a$$ off to get money for an apartment. Worked my a$$ off to put myself through college. Life is 9 8301784307890435940574398573489098432075489074892075493 better now!

Think About It

Rebel8.....that is an awesome experience!

Think About It

jookbeard

I had to be careful, fading was the easy part, but i made the mistake of voicing my concerns about the truth about the truth to friends and family and found myself in a JC quicker then I expected on a non biblical charge of apostasy, this caused huge turmoil to my wife and folks as my Dub sister was to be married the following year, eventually after a long 3 sessions in the JC and "appeal" JC I was found "not guilty", attended my sis' wedding then the whole fade began, there was another twist to the story but I was well out by then and cared little about my JW life.

cantleave

Fantastic DA letter.

I started to fade but was eventually DF's for "Apostasy", in that I said I didn't want to worship the GB.

Now I too am a happy atheist.

How did you do it?

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