by MsGrowingGirl20 41 Replies latest jw friends
Sorry I haven't closely followed your story, Do you have to rely on your parents or any other JW's for support?
If you can just lessen your involvement, STAY IN SCHOOL finish your degree and start your real life!
I know you may think 'easier said than done' but its really a lot easier than jumping thru the JW hoops.
From everything I've seen, leavingwt always provides very honest, straightforward, logical information about the realities of situations like these.
I would only add that the elders can only act on what they've seen or heard from you on the matter. By not meeting with them, it may raise flags for them. If you do decide to meet with them, bear in mind that any previously unshared feeling or viewpoints you share with them provides them with that many more jumping off points to dig deeper.
Some choose to avoid meeting with them, and they're left alone for a time. Others will meet with them, let the elders "say their piece" but share little about how they feel or what they think...essentially seeking give the elders nothing but "dead ends". Like leavingwt, I'm certainly not advocating any course of action, simply relating what others have chosen to do.
Ah, HA HA HA HA HA!!!
Troubled Mind; Jim_TX, you two are TERRIBLE!!! In a totally good way, of course...
Everyone's given you great advice about how to say "no". But I have a couple of questions to ask...
[Sorry - I either haven't read your original entry-post or don't remember the details... ]
Do you have any family "in"? Would you be upset if they stopped talking to you?
[I have family still "in", but they were terrible to me as a child. Not having to talk to them was one of the BEST side-effects of disassociating myself!! ]
And do you WANT to disassociate yourself at this point in time???
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If you still have family "in", that you would want to talk to, I'd suggest a subtle, effective "fade". Use the "search" function on this site to look up "fade", "successful fade", and so on, for more tips.
If you wouldn't be upset if your family or friends still "in", stopped talking to you, then I'd say that you might want to consider disassociating yourself - not NOW, but down the road sometime.
Best of results to you, MsGrowingGirl20!!
I'm with the ones who say to tell them what they want to hear, don't tell them what they don't want to hear
Answer up at meetings for a while. Pick questions that are the domain of the truly braindead cult members and give answers that make you sound like just that. You should try to give everyone the impression that you are a trooo believer.
Next week, drop the pioneering. Say you will start again, soon.
In future, make yourself unavailable for 'shepherding' or whatever guise they use to talk to you.
Chris
You do have the right to ask why they want to meet with you.
Just do it in a surprised “oh is something wrong” concerned manner.
If the elder asks why you want to know why say, “you know how I always want to help, but I’m really busy right now and am exhausted, so if someone else could step in just this one time you’d really appreciate it”.
I’ve used this one and, if done correctly, works extremely well because it shows your “deep concern, willingness and appreciation” while throwing the ball back it their court in a nice killing ‘em with Christian love way.
I think some are answering without a full understanding. It appears you are a regular pioneer short on hours but going to college, not commenting nor really kissing any elders' asses. It not just wanting to meet with a pretty sister and ask her to be w better JW. Am I getting that right?
It's their playing field, their rules, their bat and ball for pioneers. Advice to aimply resign from pioneering and say "No thank you" to meeting are good advice.
If you need pioneering to keep some monetary support from family to contnue college, then do the "rough periods" thing and say you are going to make it up, you are doing better. Then turn in 85 hours this month and 120 hours every month until you are caught up. Don't do the hours, just turn them in. Say you did letter-writing and telephoning and some odd-hours, then comment once per WT study with a short nothing.
Oh One thing I wish I had known when I was a struggling pioneer...Lie!
Lie about your hours to satisfy the elders. If they ask tell them youve turned the college campus into your own territory and have been having a ton of upbuiding convo's with the students and professors.
You never know they may want to use your experience on an assembly part ;-)
Whatever you decide, DO NOT STOP GOING TO COLLEGE. I hate to use the word "regret", but I regret not having gone to college twenty-something years ago. Sure, I'm going now, but I burnt through much of my adult life in JW fantasyworld. You owe yourself much more than that.
MsGrowingGirl, I went back and read your "story".
It appears that you have no family "in", though your mother was 'associated' for a time - but without being baptised.
So, except for your JW "friends", especially that bible-study conductor - if I understood that correctly - you have no binding chains to keep you "in" - except, of course, for any feelings of "obligation" that you may still have.
Please consider leaving the organization. If not now, then sometime in the near future.
I think that you would find a greater 'peace of mind', being free from the rules, obligations and needs for conformity that exist within the Watchtower Corporation.
Zid
GIRL20 ......don't fret.....but please, please, please lie your ass off...
They have seen a change in you. Either way I think they want to get to bottom of it and want to see if you're sinning, or need encouragement, or school, etc. it may be the marking thing.....
Just say you're having a stomach issues and you may have an ulcer. I'm sure it will come around to college and a series of those questions. Say you're going to school for a better job and nothing more, you have to support yourself and help your family and you have to do what you have to do. If they ask you these questions..(1) Do you consider yourself to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses? (2) Do you believe that Watchtower is God's Organization? LIE BABY GIRL, don't think it will come out well if you don't. Say NOTHING ABOUT YOUR DOUBTS and leave it at that, you have enough on your plate without them bugging you about that, you can DA yourself later when you're ready, on your terms. I personally think DAing yourself is better then getting DF'd. It will do you well in the future.
I've been there, they will try to muscle you into what they want to hear.....don't do it..........just stick your story.......not feeling well (ulcer) and you're still going to college.....they wiil probley theaten you with marking...then again maybe not........just stay cool and stick to your story.....
