Where were you when you decided to quit being a JW?

by Steve Lowry 40 Replies latest jw friends

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  Steve Lowry

  For me, it was at the Hall. It was an evening meeting. I felt a kind of mental surge within me brewing and I got and went to the men?s room. I stood there looking at myself in the mirror. While I didn?t actually speak, I stood there looking at my reflection while telling myself that this (JW life) wasn?t right for me. I don?t belong here. I splashed some cool water on my face and made the determination that I was going to walk out and never come back. I walked back over to where I had been sitting and told my then JW wife that I was going home and for her to catch a ride with her mom. I walked out the door and never walked back in again. Damn, but that was a great feeling.

  The best thing about being in a cult, is the day you make the decision to leave it!

  Steve
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  seattleniceguy

  I did not so much decide to quit being a JW as realize that it was the only option. I was lying on my living room floor when the whole immensity of the situation came crashing down around me. But it was not a choice. There was no choice. Continue being in something I knew was false? That was an impossibility. The road ahead of me did not appear to be easy - indeed, it seemed almost impassable - but it was the only road.

  SNG
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  dustyb

  SNG, its the narrow road =D

  i'm kinda in sng's mindframe. at first when i went back i had every intention on getting "dipped" and living as a happy dub w/ my future wife for the rest of our lives. it was gradual, but kinda like a ton of bricks dropped on my nuts and i really didn't know what to do. can't live a lie and i can't let anyone who i know live it either. i've set free one person already and it doesn't feel better to know that i helped that person make a decision to live life how he wants, and not some old wrinkly fart from the GB....

  so it was pretty much not wanting to live a lie...
• 

  DanTheMan

  A little over 2 years ago I walked out of a KH after one of the most painfully boring and lifeless Sunday meetings I had ever attended.

  I pretty much knew that that was it.
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  Lady Lee

  I was standing on a bridge looking down at the rushing subway cars and thinking of jumping over.

  And I realized I didn't want to be dead. I just wanted the life I had to die.
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  lv4fer

  Mine was sort of a slow process. It took me almost a year to say that's it I'm never going back. The only reason it took me that long was because of my kids, I knew they would loose all their friends and I didn't want to adversely effect them. When I finally convinced my husband by showing him scriptures and he made up his mind he went and told his mom and she went to the elders and well................there was no choice but to leave then. It was very hard for my kids because they didn't have and friends other than other JW's and they were both in high school. It has been two years and we are doing OK> we just moved to Las Vegas from California and that decision was partly made to try and start a new life away from all the JW's that we once knew. It really bothered my husband when his friends since childhood shunned him so we moved away from all of them.
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  Mulan

  Mine was also kind of a slow process of back and forth, but I had gone to Atlanta for a seminar, and had a huge sleep debt. On the flight home I couldn't stop thinking about the whole crisis I was in. Somewhere between Atlanta and Seattle, I knew I had to quit and would quit. That was it for me.

  We both began a slow fade that lasted two years.
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  Odrade

  Two parts to that answer. The first stage was knowing I didn't want to ever go to a meeting again. One night my husband and I were driving to the hall, we pulled out on the main road and I started having a panic attack. My husband asked me "Do you just want to go to a restaurant instead?" And I immediately became calm again. That was the last meeting we ever went to. BUT, I still was basically a believer in JWism.

  About 6 months later, we were at Saturday Market (large outdoor crafters market in Downtown Portland) we were walking around and my husband started telling me things he had learned about past misdeeds of the Org. I immediately knew that I HAD to see for myself, and if it were true, I could leave psychologically also and never look back.

  It's funny you asked that question Steve, because I've always felt if was a slow process, and in fact it was, but there were a couple of very specific moments that crystallized the leaving for me. Thanks for the introspective.

  O
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  Sargon

  For me too it was a slow process. I had no major epiphany, it was just a slow realization that this wasn't how I wanted to spend my life. I just f-f-faded away.
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  logansrun

  I had been thinking seriously about a number of disturbing things about the JWs for a about two months when it hit me as I was perusing the science section at Barnes & Noble:

  THERE IS A DAMN GOOD CHANCE IT'S NOT THE TRUTH.

  It took me another 17 months to finally decide to leave. I was sitting in my living room meditating when I said to myself:

  "Self, you're killing yourself in this religion and simply can't go on. The first opportunity you get you need to leave with peace of mind."

  I left the next month.

  Bradley