by PaulJ 33 Replies latest jw friends
i looked at it cos someone in the kh had said they had looked at it and stopped..
i had been reinstated for over a year and had just aux pioneered to see if i could get some feeling back..but nothing was working and when i found here i was amazed to find so many people had been through what i had..had suffered the same kind of treatment and had come to the same conclusions..it was such a relief to find i wasnt a freak...(although in fact the jury is still out on that last bit)
couldnt get off it for 48 hours
More like a bloody week katie...hehe.
Lucky- i know exactly what you mean!! I could imagine its almost like beinig told you're adopted! Everything you believed in just vanishing with each paragraph you read!
Although I was shell-shocked, I felt very refreshed by both the information and the people on here. The more i read the less guilty I felt.
When I found this site I had stumbled across it and was scared sh**less. I was still in, but with many doubts. I read a couple of posts while looking behind me to make sure no jws came up behind even though I was in my own home. I saw a link to freeminds.org and quickly checked it out. I was so scared by what I saw and didn't go to any exjw sites for some months, but what I had seen affected me bc I knew that most of what was being said was things I had been thinking for so long. Eventually I posted on the old H2O board and have been here since.
I found this site through freeminds....don't know how I got to find freeminds though. I was already in my questioning stage and was pretty much going through the JCs' and ja first post here was nearly 2 months ago - but it's been great to share my doubts, vents, rants with people who know where I've come from though they don't me personally. I mean others that haven't been in the borg just don't know or understand the amazement / shock / of coming out of the JW as they've never been subjected to something like it.
I've read some amazing posts here. Some have questioned beliefs, God, bible, you name it. But it's all done in a non judgemental manner and for that I'm grateful.
I'd been taking a little break from being a JW (a little 3 to 4-year break) when a friend of mine emailed me Terry's Story (thank you S and thank you Terry!). I'd avoided looking up anything JW related in all the time I'd been away from meetings and service...not sure why. After reading Terry's experiences with the "truth", I started researching all the ex-JW sites I could find and finally made it to this board.
I don't think I slept more than a couple hours a night for a full week trying to read and process everything I was finding. I was sick to my stomach that I'd spent 20 years in a cult and had forced my sons to grow up like that. Even though I wasn't the strictest dub in the world, they still missed out on a lot of fun kid stuff and my oldest (who was more of a people pleaser, like me) really got squashed flat. My youngest has a more willful personality and really pressed for what he wanted (mostly playing sports) so I didn't fight him too hard on that, especially after seeing how the Dub Way had screwed up his brother's life. I was so upset that I'd been such a fool....still am, but I'm learning to deal with the self-loathing.
I lurked here for about two weeks before joining in, trying to read everything and get reoriented in my thinking about Jehovah's Witnesses. This forum has been incredibly helpful in allowing me to work through a lot of issues.
I found this site through FreeMinds or WT Observor ... I don't remember which.
I had finally hit my head against the wall enough times. I knew there was enough wrong with the Society by the time I decided "Okay, I'm jumping in".
As I started reading through sites - FreeMinds, SilentLambs, AJWRB.ORG, and so forth ... I eventually ended up here.
I expected really really evil people still. I expected hate-filled diatribes by enraged apostates.
So when I read the more tongue-in-cheek sarcasm that I use - I was pleasantly surprised. I also was moved by all the people who have made great personal sacrifice to get out. People that have had their families abondon them because they decided to come forward sexual abuse by reputable elders/servants/brothers. People that lost loved ones for a ridiculous blood stance. THen simply others who recognized the falsehood for what it is and decided to make a stand - and lost their entire families.
Being a Jehovah's Witness is being in a cult - and for those of you JW's who read this and roll their eyes and laugh to themselves, I suggest you read what it ACTUALLY IS that identifies a cult - not what the Socety tells you a cult is:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/91207/1.ashx
Hope I did not hi-jack ...
-ithinkisee
I was recommended to it by Joannadandy, though the first time I read it I wasn't sure what to think.
Finally after lurking around it for a time and laughing so hard often I had tears in my eyes on the jokes made about it I joined and started to post yesterday.
For a good portion of my life I pretended to be a good witness because my family was in it, and I didn't want to lose that. Even before that, I had doubts though just never said anything about it. At 11, when baptized I guess I really knew what I wanted from my life. Since my disfellowshiping and reinstatement I've been kind of a rogue witness if there is such a thing. I don't buy the bs, but knew all the pain at having all my support almost taken for living as most people do.
I know continued access to here will help me as I make my last break from it. It continues to amaze me how blindly people do follow it. I was raised with nothing else, but for any organization to force a choice between it and family, that's not natural.
Glad I finally decided to post.
Believe it or not I was looking for info underwear. I was looking up a website for Joe Boxer and came across a link about Mormon underwear (garment). I though if there is a sight on Mormon undies why not J-dub undies.......not really but I though if there is something on the web about mormons I wonder what there is on JWs. I was shock at how much I found.
I hadn't been to the KH for about 7 years, and my good friend, MARY, told me about this site. She had been telling me of all the humourous stories, and the sad ones as well. So, it was inevitable, that once I got a computer, I'd come here.....and am I glad I did..
Delilah
