Did it ever become unbearable to attend another Kingdom Hall meeting?

by RULES & REGULATIONS 30 Replies latest jw experiences

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  RULES & REGULATIONS

  

  It's becoming unbearable for me to attend another meeting. I dread coming to the weekly Sunday Public Talk and Watchtower Study. The talks are ''repeats'' of a ''repeat.'' The Watchtower Study is just ''parroted answers.''

  I no longer sing and comment at the meeting. I bring a New Yorker magazine and put it under the Watchtower magazine to read, so I can pass the boredom. The articles are Bible based, but at the end of every article, it's always about taking directions from the Governing Body Organization.

  I walk in one minute before the start of the meeting and leave minutes after the meeting ends. For sure, I leave when they make field service arrangements. Haven't been in field service in years.

  I can no longer tolerate the meetings physically and mentally. I'm not true to myself. I make up my mind to leave and become in their words, ''inactive."

  It will hurt my whole family ( mom, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends) if I stop attending. Who knows how they will react and treat me?

  Now, after years of not attending meetings, the elders gave up trying to get me back to the meetings, and my family somehow have left me alone, and haven't bothered asking me any questions to when I'll come back.

  I'm finally at peace with myself!
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  TonusOH

  I went through a very long period where it was difficult to motivate myself to go. I wanted to be a good JW and keep serving, but it was a drag. I did notice that, once I got to the meeting or to field service, it wasn't so bad. But especially on work nights it just got to where I missed more meetings than I attended, and it went down from there. Eventually I only went to the memorial, where I was warmly greeted and got all kinds of encouragement. But after three or four years of that I stopped altogether.

  It was so hard to keep doing it even when I thought I wanted to do it. If I'd been convinced that it wasn't the truth at that time, I can't imagine I would have been able to do it, not even a single time. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, I had decided that I did not want to have anything to do with it, I guess. By the time I finally accepted it, it came as a huge relief, even though it must have been 7 or 8 years since I had gone to any meeting at all.
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  enoughisenough

  I was planning a slow fade and to go on zoom at top of meeting with camera on and chime back in somewhere in the middle and turn camera on at breakout rooms. in the meantime, turn down the sound and do whatever around the house. It wasn't a game I could keep up for long. I don't know how people are PIMO for years! desperate needs I guess. Good for any who have woken up and walked away.
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  slimboyfat

  Did anyone ever find the meetings bearable even when they did believe in it? Going for a toilet break, watching people, counting roof tiles, even answering up and giving talks were all coping strategies for getting through the time. If you liked the people, and were sociable, then conversations before and after meetings saved it from being a complete waste of time. But you hardly ever learned anything new or got any kind of practical information for your life, let alone, heaven forbid, have an inspirational or ‘spiritual’ experience of any sort.

  I think that people who have always been JWs just think meetings are inevitably boring, and this is the way it’s meant to be. Many of them do genuinely seem to mean it when they praise the quality of ‘instruction’ and ‘spiritual food’ at the meetings. Most of them simply have no idea how varied, informative, challenging, practical, meaningful, and even ‘spiritual’ a religious service can be.

  I imagine it was better in Russell’s day. There was probably more open discussion and more place for a spiritual and devotional dimension to practice (genuine group prayers, for example). Jehovah’s Witnesses have really got themselves into a rut and it’s hard to see how they get themselves out of it.
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  Hellothere

  I just can't go to meetings and see most there depressed. I can't even watch GB or other bethel people on videos from home. They look so depressed and totally without life force. It just depressed me too.
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  LongHairGal

  RULES & REGULATIONS:

  Right before I started my ‘Fade’ I was afraid my facial expressions at what I was hearing from the podium would be noticed.

  I had no family there (thankfully) and there was no excuse for me to still be sitting there wasting my time and making myself nauseous. Very soon thereafter I stopped going.
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  peacefulpete

  Yep. Unbearable is a good word for it.
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  Foolednomore

  How can anyone in their right mind sit and listen to the same old stuff over on over again ? It's just stupid! I got fed up of the waste of my life and time. I stopped going.
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  Beth Sarim

  ''It's becoming unbearable for me to attend another meeting. I dread coming to the weekly Sunday Public Talk and Watchtower Study. The talks are ''repeats'' of a ''repeat.'' The Watchtower Study is just ''parroted answers.''

  I no longer sing and comment at the meeting. I bring a New Yorker magazine and put it under the Watchtower magazine to read, so I can pass the boredom. The articles are Bible based, but at the end of every article, it's always about taking directions from the Governing Body Organization.

  I walk in one minute before the start of the meeting and leave minutes after the meeting ends. For sure, I leave when they make field service arrangements. Haven't been in field service in years.

  I can no longer tolerate the meetings physically and mentally. I'm not true to myself. I make up my mind to leave and become in their words, ''inactive."

  It will hurt my whole family ( mom, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends) if I stop attending. Who knows how they will react and treat me?

  Now, after years of not attending meetings, the elders gave up trying to get me back to the meetings, and my family somehow have left me alone, and haven't bothered asking me any questions to when I'll come back.

  I'm finally at peace with myself!''

  This reiterates how most of us feel about the meetings, Blahhhh.

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  enoughisenough

  of course, you weren't considered very spiritual if you hadn't studied for the meetings, but I rarely ever did. And if I did so at all, it was quickly marking something in case someone looked over my shoulder they could see underlining. It was just too boring! If I studied it, I already knew what was going on, so what would have been the point of being there? I would sit up close to the front and take notes for years just to try to stay focused. I had some turmoil in my life and I would forget to do my school assignments and show up and have to rush into some sort of performance. So, the last two halls I moved into, I didn't bother to sign up for the school. It wasn't I was shy about it, it was just a stress i didn't need. Even more glad now that I didn't bother. I tried to keep comments simple ( as really instructed), but I noticed some loved the sound of their own voice and wanted people to know how spiritual minded they were and would go on and on and bring in outside material into a comment.