I'm not proud of the fact that it took me over 50 years to realized what the organization really was and to finally leave it. Not proud at all, I feel pretty stupid.
I started to realize that the organization was bull shit about four to five years before I actually made the brake.
I like so many others here, was hesitant and not ready to lose everything I had....to lose the only world I had ever known. My wife, friends and family and even my two children. In my heart I felt my children would make the brake too back then, but there was no guarantees for sure and it could have gone either way.
This is an old story that has been played out many times. Half the kids stay in the "Borg" while the other half leave and make their break to freedom.
When the brake came, when the spinning plates came crashing down I did lose all those things, a 27 marriage, all my "friends" and most my family. No regrets... It was the best move of my life.
However I didn't lose my children. They were adults at the time. Me leaving confirmed the doubts they too were having about the Watchtower Bible and Truck Society. So they too have left with no regrets. So happy ending right....not quite.
Last October my son confronted me. He was very angry about how his life had gone.
Like many here he wasn't angry about leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses. He was angry about having been one for 21 years. He was totally pissed off about all the things he had to give up being raised as a Jehovah's Witness, school sports, friends, dating, etc etc ...you know a normal life. I can't say I blame him, because I had lost the same things too.
However, I was surprised when he turned this rage towards me. Since he knew I hadn't agreed with their program many years before I left. Evidently by me not leaving years earlier I had screwed up his life.
I guess he is right. I should have stood up and called bull shit years before I did. I guess I caused just as much damage staying in as I did by leaving.
However if I had left years earlier he and his sister would have been in their earlier teens. Their JW mother would have got custody of them. In which case they still would have been raised as a JW anyway. I feel there would be a higher possiblity their staunch JW mother could have now fully brain wash them further.
Would they still would leave the organization years later....who knows.
Whats the point of all this... I don't know.
Maybe the point is that there is going to be damage anytime you are leaving an occult.
Pay the doctor now or pay the doctor later...but you will be paying the doctor!
There is no easy out.
New Boy