by Funchback 65 Replies latest jw experiences
Yes, I remember quite well. I sat at the edge of the chair looking backwards, afraid someone would see me (there was no one in our office but me.)
My heart was pounding and subconsciously thinking that I would be struck somehow.
The first site I was on was JWRB. What an eye opener that was!
That was 2 years ago. A lot has happened since then. Most important the watchtower has lost its hold on me and they will never have it again.
wanna
This is an interesting topic; the similarilty of experiences is very telling.
Basically, it sounds like we were all acting as if buying drugs or some other felonious activity.
I was basically "inactive" and had resigned myself to a lifetime of being a depressed "goat" when I finally started searching circa 1995 (pre-Google); so I had less trepedation.
But... from that I found out about Crisis of Conscience and Apocalypse Delayed, and I immediately bought each.... now THAT was a nerve wracking experience!
I hid them inside the interior side panels of my van, so that they wouldn't be found by my (now ex-) wife. When my boss asked to see them (in response to a conversation we were having about my (suddenly former-) religion) we went out to the van and I proceeded to pop open the interior panel to get them... at which point he (correctly) observed that I was hiding those books "Just like illegal drugs". It was at this point that I realized that I still had a long, LONG way to go.
~Quotes, of the "Clean and Sober and Free of Watchtower Addiction" class
Not to hijack the thread, but a related question would be: What makes us (successful escapees) different from those that stay in? Why is it that we ignored the counsel to "Ignore the Man Behind The Curtain, and also any Web Sites that deal with the curtain man"????
Yup, no Google back then... it might have been Yahoo! or Hotbot in '95.
It was overwhelming at first... but the start of something that would begin to transform my life after being raised in the *organization* and knowing nothing else. I experienced the same thing as many others here... fear, anxiousness, but major curiosity.
I think Freeminds was one of the first sites I actually visited and began reading. The stuff about Ray Franz got me hooked on finding out the "other side" of things that were only spoken about by those in the know in hushed tones.
I stayed away from sites with an obvious hateful tone.
alias
Basically, it sounds like we were all acting as if buying drugs or some other felonious activity.
Now that you put it that way.....in hindsight it does seem as if we were crack addicts looking over our shoulder afraid to get "caught" just as analogous to crack addicts (JWs) doing all they can to hold on to their last rock (the WT).
after i left my ex and was accused of doing all sorts of things on the web ( i talked to a few ladies and played music trivia with them so i was a lesbian ya know)...after i got the web in my home after leaving i said F*** it if i'm gonna do the time i'm gonna do the crime..web searched porn sites lookin for naked men , saw females inside out and didnt even know i had some of those parts and found the only naked men were on gay sites. so lost interest in that within 5 min.. so thinking hard about how else i could sin online i typed in jehovahs witnesses on msn search.
went to the official site first.. boring as heck... but read the news there.. so then i typed in jw news.. and got the mutha load. didnt feel guilty i felt VINDICATED .. screw feeling unloved unworthy and useless.. screw being invisible... i AM NOT ALONE!!!
and ya know if I am totally wrong and JW's are the true religion and if Jesus isnt who i think he is from the bible.. i dont care. JW's failed me i didnt fail them.
I didn't even think of typing JWs into a search engine all those years I was on the internet. All I wanted to do was get the hell out and block out that horrible part of my life, which I did for many years. I originally came across Freeminds from a different website. Someone had mentioned dating a JW, and someone told them not to and gave a few links to Freeminds. I had no trembling or guilt because I was already out for 6 years and sinning heavily. I was stuck on Freeminds for a good 3 or 4 days, deprogramming myself.
In 2002 I actually thought of coming back to the "troof", thinking it had to have changed for the better.So I googled...........
And when I got the lowdown of what really has been going on in the Borg since 1975.. It stopped me dead in my tracks, and came to the conclusion that I was better off out in the REAL WORLDwith the REAL GOD, not the Watchtower "version"..........Rocky220[from the Borg-free class]
I was very fortunate, in that I was dating a fabulous "worldly" man at the time (3 years ago). We had discussed my faith at some length, and I admitted to him that I did not buy into all of its teachings. He encouraged me to do research on some stuff that I'd been dwelling on.
So, there we sat, late one night, in his house. It was, in a way, like losing one's virginity: some hesitation on my part, some gentle coaxing from him, music on, shades pulled...and I typed in "Jehovah's Witnesses 1975" on the search engine. To continue with the analogy, I was so scared and awkward the first time, but then it got to be fun, and now I'm really good at it! I like that better than equating my apostacy with drug use; seems healthier, somehow.
Wow. For those of us who have never been JWs, man, just reading your reactions is really strange.
M.J. of the "I have never yielded by mind to another" class.
