Comments on: Ten Years After Leaving the Watch Tower

By: stephanie

stephanie — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:30:56 +0000

The devil is truly busy everyone knows that disfellowshipping is in the bible jehovah witnesses didn’t just make it up if you are divided from your family you chose that to go living it up in a world that the bible states is passing away then it want be worth it but have your fun it want last I was disfellowship for 13 years and found no true happiness I’m back now and I don’t mind rules they protect me and I can find them all in the bible what I should and should not do so its gods law not the witnesses law I have never had greater peace come back to jehovah before its too late you are not happy out there I know been there

By: K Gellent

K Gellent — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:35:44 +0000

If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness and would like to find out a lot more about the truth that they are a cult. You can call this number toll free and they will help you so much. They really care about you they and were once in the group at one time for years and years. I pray you get the answers that you are looking for. 1-800-WHY-1914

By: P

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:14:58 +0000

Hey Moxie,
I too used to be a jehovah witness and I left about 3 yrs. Ago. I am 25 yrs old now and was in the ‘truth’ for about 8 or 9 yrs. I can relate to you on so many levels, Moxie. It was my decision to leave, even though all of my family (from my mom’s side) are jehovah witnesses too, including my mom and brother. I also turned into a rebel and started partying hard and even using drugs right after getting disfellowshipped. I did it because I had never really had the chance to experience the ‘world’ and what was out there. It was like I was living in a bubble…a bubble of restriction and suffocation, that is! So I went through that stage and then I went through a stage of feeling lost and confused, not sure if I wanted to go back or not. So I attempted to go back a few times after some yrs had passed by but I felt absolutely nothing. I was bored to death at the meetings and I didn’t feel the love from the brothers and sisters. Instead you had to sit isolated in a little room in the back while everyone around you would ignore you, like you weren’t even there! How in the world could such an action be christian-like?! Instead of making the ’sinner’ or the the ‘lost sheep’ wanna come back to the congregation, they are driving them away by acting in such a discriminating manner towards them. So I decided then and there that it just wasn’t for me and I decided not to go back and that was my final decision. My mother till this day, is mad at me for not wanting to go back to that cult she calls a religion. A religion that divides family, like it did to mine. A religion in which you feel like you can’t breathe and I felt like I had to be walking on eggshells constantly while I was around the brothers and sisters. I felt like I just couldn’t be myself…no matter how hard I tried. So I really don’t understand why my mother would want me to go back, even if it feels forced and I have no desire whatsoever to go back. She wants me to lie to God and make believe to everyone else that I’m repentive and actually want to be there? Makes no sense if you ask me. I remember one time when I was preaching with these 2 sisters (I’ll never forget this) and we stopped at a restaurant to get something to eat and as we were leaving the place one of the sisters sneezed. So being that I hadn’t been long enough in the ‘truth’, I wasn’t aware that jehovah witnesses find offense and aren’t allowed to say the words ‘God bless you’. So I very courteously said, bless you to her and they both stay quite and just look at me. One of them goes, ‘you know we don’t say that, right?’ I felt so confused and kinda thrown off at the fact that they got offended over those 3 simple words. 3 simple words that’re only to wish good upon someone. For some reason that incident always stayed engraved in my head. I wasn’t completely raised in the ‘truth’ my entire childhood so I had tendencies here and there to do and say things that I had done/said prior to becoming a JW. I can really say though, that I couldn’t be any happier to have realized it when I did that that was just not the religion for me and to have left at the time I did. Yes at first it was very hard and I understand people thatre going through it. And till this day it’s still a little hard sometimes due to the fact that my mom and brother are still JW’s. I respect their choice just like I would expect them to respect mine, which hasn’t been the case at all. My mother seems to think that I don’t have a relationship with God anymore, just because I’m not a JW now. And that I will pay the price somewhere in the future. When she would tell me that yrs ago I would panic and that’s one of the reasons I tried to go back (that and because I felt lonely at the time). But now, in the present, I do not panic at all because I know my own personal relationship with God and you can’t buy into the JW’s absurd beliefs that if you’re not one of them anymore and you don’t attend their meetings, that you’ve automatically lost your place with God and that His holy spirit isn’t with you anymore. That is not true. They try to make you feel so guilty…to the point where you think there’s no where else out there to reach out to God (ie. Other churches) and so you think that if you don’t go back to them, that you have no hope of resurrection and that God doesn’t love you anymore. Be strong and know that you will get through this rough patch and that God hasn’t abbandoned you. The JW’s aren’t the only people on this earth that love and worship God and Jesus. Seek out help, research, and do what feels right to you and only you…don’t try to please everyone else, otherwise you’ll never be authentically happy in life!

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:12:08 +0000

Thank you for this blog. I have an Auntie who is a JW. She is a single mom with two sons. She came by ‘the truth’ when the boys were pretty young and was therefore able to get them into the society. However, it turned out real nasty when the eldest son was disfellowshiped. He became ‘walking dead’ and we the extended family were shocked at the way the mom treated him. Reading through various comments I now see what this young man has been going through. I shall let him know about the blog so that he can share his experience and learn from others that the ‘walking dead’ are really alive.

By: katie

katie — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:48:44 +0000

my parents are very active jehovah witnesses(over 30 years).please give it a chance..it is the truth-there is scriptures in the bible that state everyone of their beliefs….do some research(those in doubt)…look up christmas in the encyclopedia-PAGAN!! every holiday is pagan in some way…jehovah makes this clear in the scriptures as well…think about it-what word is in santa???SATAN!!! please,just do research on all holidays-including birthdays…you have to have some kind of faith and hope…look at adam and eve,it is all there for us to understand.jehovah is giving us this opportunity to live in an everlasting paradise with nothing but happiness…it is going to be wonderful to see my brother again!!!

By: katie

katie — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:47:16 +0000

my parents are very active jehovah witnesses.please give it a chance..it is the truth-there is scriptures in the bible that state everyone of their beliefs….do some research(those in doubt)…look up christmas in the encyclopedia-PAGAN!! every holiday is pagan in some way…jehovah makes this clear in the scriptures as well…think about it-what word is in santa???SATAN!!! please,just do research on all holidays-including birthdays…you have to have some kind of faith and hope…look at adam and eve,it is all there for us to understand.jehovah is giving ue this opportunity to leave in an everlasting paradise with nothing but happiness…it is going to be wonderful to see my brother again!!!

By: melanie

melanie — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:35:53 +0000

After leaving something you have called ‘the truth’ and that is the basis for your whole belief system and values and relationships with yourself and others, there is a great sense of loss and pain to feel so alone and isolated in a world you have been taught is terrible and controlled by a devil. This pain is confusing and hard to look at, so it must be denied and pushed away from. Many people will get involved in drugs and alcohol and hard partying to push that pain away. They think that this is what the whole world is like, since that is what they were restricted from and how the society’s magazines depict normal “worldy” behavior. They feel unsatisfied and are without any deep or meaningful friendships in their life away from the direction and association of the organization, and then conclude and life as a jehovah’s witness WAS better, it simply must be ‘the truth’ because their experience of life without it has supported their conditioning.
When something has been taught repeatedly, especially from a young age, and there has never been any outside opinion that is critical of the beliefs allowed to have voice, there is such a strong bias towards the familiarity of the belief taught. It becomes the foundation for ones thought patterns. It is could be described as a loop, that plays over in the mind, ignoring and pushing away any doubts (because this is what you have been taught to do).
Even now, I experience these confusing loops, these opinions and voices that are very strong and influential that were instilled in my mind from 20 years of association with the ‘watchtower society’. These ‘loops’ of beliefs and “right” ways of thinking are very easily triggered (mainly from taught fears), and override my real bodily sense of reality and my own thoughts and feelings. When this happens it is very confusing and the ingrained beliefs begin to repeat these familiar thought patterns. In the society they call this conditioned brain loop a ’spiritual conscience’. The job of a ’spiritual conscience’ is to repeat what they have taught you in your head at all times, so that you ‘behave’ and do not question things.
I feel so sad to read about those who are confused, and are on the brink of being reeled in by promises of protection and a hope for an ideal future. What the Watchtower promises is a future that appeals to our basic human needs for community and harmony and our fear of death. But it is a manmade religion, just as it accuses other faiths to be. It has a written history, its birth and its progression make obvious that its womb was earthly and human, not god inspired. Read the old publications. Read secular literature. If it was truth it should hold up to any inquisition.
In my experience it did not live up to its own standards, and instead was the source for many destructive patterns of behavior and fears that persist for years after leaving the organization. When I compare my life now with what it was then, I feel amazed at the quality of relationships and friendships I have now. Never have I had such deep and caring friends, who have no requirements of me other than to be myself, not as self-imposed watchdogs to see if I make any societal slip ups. There is such honesty in my interactions, now that I can feel and think freely. I finally feel like I am really living, a truly alive human being. Not without challenges from the residual effects of 20 years of very strong religious conditioning, but with time and a real desire to understand, I am living the truth of of what it means to be me, a human being alive in this world of today. (Of course, the world today is another topic of societal conditioning and has its own brand of craziness).
Whew, that was pretty long. Its what came up after reading through all of these comments. I wonder if anyone read all the way…
Thanks moxie, for stimulating discussion with your post.

By: byron

byron — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:39:14 +0000

hey listen dont keep going with the world, its not worth even though i had to find the hard way first. i relize what a waste of time, years,lungs and body damage and strife i went through, its not worth it. you know alot of people say… what i did in the past made me the person i am today. dont think like that because thats what cowards use for excuses for there mess ups. even though if i never left the truth, i would not of met my wife where she was not a jehovahs witness, shes knows the truth now and not beacuse of me or anyone she looked into it herself, and now were looking toward babtisim. both of us. but i still regret the years i wasted, i dont regret meeting her, but because we were in the world our relationship was bad. it wasnt all fun and games we were both through alot, but because off jehovah, and the help of my parents we made it. and now we are happly married. these ex witnesses that say there happier without the truth, deep down inside you know there not happy weather thay say it or not , they wouldnt be swearing and saying nagative thing about the witnesses if they were happy. dont let anything get you down just listen to what you know and belive and keep positive things in your head and in your heart. dont waste anymore time letting these people and this world pull you further away from god. your 19 years old now, dont blow it, this world has nothing to offer, look at the news, drive down the road, look in books, talk to people, go to work… and you will relize that this world is full of hate where no one cares about no one. and the people that say were all goats, thats wrong were sheep and there goats eating grass from satan and his worshipers, dont be fooled by the world. all witnesses have there problems and mistakes but we dont follow the worlds mistakes and if we do, we know theres thing we can do to fix it, like keep going to the mettings for god only and yourself not for others, if you know of a witness or even an elder that maby drinks to much or curses or even lies, the best thing to do is confront him or her about it and say how you feel about it, not to keep it in and burst and leave the truth beacuse you think thats what jehovahs witnesses are like. some are and jehovah is the one who will judge them so after you confront them about this, most likely they will really thank you for it, and hopefully change. but if not dont stop going to the mettings and stop doing whats rite. pray to god every night to help you and he will. i know im only 22 years old, but i have seen alot of bad things in the world and honestly i havent seen ONE good thing yet. so go to all the metting. talk to ones that are really trying. and hey? who would you rather look up, to a witness thats not perfect making a mistake but is still trying to please god. or? someone else that is not perfect but does not care for jehovah anymore and isnt trying. were all imperfect but its the ones at the kingdom hall giving it all they got. not the world. its to bad how many people leave the truth because of stupid things like there talking about, i see some people at the kingdom hall that are probly not leaving up to jehovahs comandements, but at least they are there, trying, and like i said before go for jehovah and yourself and let jehovah take care of the rest. i hope you all can relize the world is ending soon, dont give up, keep trying.

By: Efrain

Efrain — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:33:21 +0000

I too was raised Jehova’s witness.. i left it when i was 14.. im 19 now.. and i still have trouble.. My family is loving and doesnt shun me, since i live with them. But they constantly attempt to inch me back towards it. They seem soooo faithfully devout, sometimes i wonder if they are right.. but.. i just dont know. This world IS terrible.. and i really dont want to be a part of it.. but i just dont know what to do.. When i left.. i didnt do it because i found evidence that disproved their beliefs, but because i wanted to live a little… Can anybody helped someone being torn apart inside?

By: byron

byron — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:08:18 +0000

hey and remember dont do anything for anyone when it comes to got you dont need to impress anyone.
just do it for yourself and only yourself and for the only true god jehovah, so if you have negative thoughts becuse someone in your congergation. remember there not perfect and if there doing wrong then jehovah sees it and they will pay in the end so dont let it get you down. go to the meetings for yopurself anf god and talk to upbuilding ones and you will feel so much better and remember if your doing whats rite, jehovah knows and you will be honred wiht ever lasting life. i hope people that read this will stiffen there upper lip. shunn nthe wolrd and those of it and do whats rite in jehovahs mind and if your confused on which religion is rite, take your time and think about it and see which religon is the truth its not rocket science!! just READ