Did any of you know the TATT before you left?

by marriedtoajw 23 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  irondork

  I was totally indoctrinated. Even for the 15 years I spent disfellowshipped and the 5 years I spent working my way back in, I KNEW it was the truth. Within months of my reinstatement I started regretting my decision but I still believed it was God's organization... just gone astray like the ancient nation of Israel. I was convinced Jehovah would eventually adjust them and bring them back in line, but I wasn't sticking around for the abuse while I waited. I DA'd and then started doing some research.

  As much as I still thought it was God's organization, gone off track, I experienced enough in that hall to realize that some of the things in the literature and what I was hearing from the platform did not always represent what I KNEW to be the truth of the matter. So if they were wrong about a few things, I decided to question some more things.

  Research. Vomit. Headache. FREEDOM!
• 

  trebor

  I found some TATT without 'outside' aid. In doing some research concerning blood (fractions) within the Watchtower Library CD-ROM, I came across their previous stance on organ transplants and it being cannibalistic. Then I came across their stance on rape and how a woman was guilty of fornication and not even worthy of everlasting life if she did not cry out while being raped. None of that took me outside the Society's very own literature - They damned themselves.

  All bets were off at that point. I knew there was no way - no way - that would be something 'God's chosen' organization would ever back.

  The NGO UN stance, standing by and supporting Jimmy Swaggart in the courts, Johannes Greber backing and referencing, false prophesying among nearly endless amounts of other facts just put the icing on an already baked cake.
• 

  talesin

  Research. Vomit. Headache. FREEDOM!

  irondork .. well put.
• 

  Broken Promises

  Yes, that's why I left. I couldn't be a hypocrite and teach doctrines I no longer believed in.
• 

  ShirleyW

  Although I was born into it, even as a kid things never seemed quite right to me.
• 

  maninthemiddle

  I knew something wasn't right, thats what made me start looking behind the curtian, I wanted to leave, I guess I was looking for a reason to leave, but I didn't make the decision to never go back until I learned the TATT.
• 

  whathappened

  I would occasionally lurch in my seat when they changed their "viewpoint" so easily about things they were previously adamant about. I had been through some rough times with the way I was treated by the so called shepherds in our congregation but was wiling to stay in dispite these concerns.

  One day, while on a five hour plane trip with my sister (grandma jones), she told me all about what she learned about ttatt and I was stunned. I still wanted to worship Jehovah and knew there was no place else to go. I went to the meetings but it was never the same again. After a couple of weeks I just quit cold turkey.

  I was a divorced 57 year old woman who was never super active. No one really seemed to notice and I have been pretty much left alone and hope it stays that way. I am glad I am free.
• 

  nuthouse escapee

  I knew I didn't agree on several issues but didn't learn TTATT until I'd been out 6 years. Learning the real truth about the org. stopped me from ever going back. Leslie
• 

  eazy

  I always felt uncomfortable at meetings, and like others have posted in this thread it just didn't feel right.

  I think this feeling was compounded by my childhood in general. A tyrannical father that was prone to fits of rage with severe punishments for my sister and I, as well as an emotionally distant mother hiding behind the submissive wife excuse.

  All of a sudden though, periodically throughout the week you'd have to put on uncomfortable clothes, go sit in uncomfortable seats, be bored to tears while the same old tired doctrines were rehashed, all the while painting a smile on my face and acting like everything was hunky-dory. This was a mandate of course of course from the iron fist ruler dad. To not appear happy and sociable would have serious consequences.

  I never was baptised and just passively faded in my teens. I never felt close to ANYONE at the hall, and the concept of having a personal relationship with Jehovah was (and is) lost on me.

  By chance a few months ago I decided to do a google search on witnesses and was blown away with the amount of info. It was weird, still after all these years, at first, I felt like it was "wrong" to research the org for myself. I quickly dispatched those feelings however and have gone full steam ahead in researching everything I can get my hands on.

  It has amazed me how many memories are flooding back that apparantly I've buried deep down, while reading everyone's thoughts and experiences.

  I'm just so happy a place like this exists. I can't thank everyone here enough. This really is the start of a journey I never knew I needed to take until now.
• 

  ZeusRocks

  Not at all. That came about 2 years later.