😪

Ask to be put on the Do Not Call list. If you think it’s necessary, ask to watch them get out the territory card and write it down, but realistically, Witnesses in my experience are pretty good about this and the only time it won’t be honored is if someone forgets to check your address or if it’s been like 10+ years

Tell them you are an apostate. They are not allowed to speak to apostates at all, ever, but especially in regards to their beliefs. They aren’t supposed to go to places/events where they know apostates will be

Argue with them. Jehovah’s Witnesses are instructed to end the conversation and leave if it becomes clear that someone wants to debate rather than just passively learn and accept that they were wrong before. This might get you put on the DNC list without even asking

DO NOT answer the door naked. You wouldn’t think this needs said, but intentionally flashing people is sexual harassment, and Jehovah’s Witnesses frequently preach with children— both as a training thing and because people are more likely to be receptive. They say every JW who’s preached long-term has gotten a naked householder at least once. Do not do this

DO NOT unleash your dogs in the yard. First off, your dogs aren’t as mean as you think they are lol. Second off, almost every JW has been dealing with giant jumpy dogs— again— since they were children. Letting loose your dogs will get their dress clothes muddy, possibly tear them, and maybe scare some children/a few adults who will simply pass the door to someone else. It will also make every other dog in the neighborhood start barking. This isn’t helping you or anyone else

Being a born-in jw is so freakin hard man . Like honestly. I wasn’t “encouraged” to be around my “worldly “ family . I wasn’t “encouraged to be around my “associates “ at school . I wasn’t “encouraged “ to be around those unbaptized jw . So what the hell happens when you don’t want to be around it or if you “fade /Drift” away . You are shamed and guilted into going back . And you finally Stand your ground and what happens... alll the ppl you ever shamed /shunned . They don’t want to talk to you ... you don’t know how to Relate to anyone It’s happening to you now . And you don’t have friends or family to talk to cause you were never interested until now . And it’s a real shame cause there are ppl in your family that die . And you don’t feel that connection like you want to and .. and it just fucking sucks . Then you truely feel alone .

___________________

Yeah that's a total mood. Worldly family gatherings were wack man, I maybe met my worldly family once a year at most, and few of them to say the least. In the two years I've been out I've learned of a ton of aunts and cousins I didnt know lived in the same state as me, let alone around the corner.

It's weird. Trying to talk to people out of the religion when the only thing you've known is this bubble of isolation. Culture is a big deal, learning the culture around you so you can interact and integrate into normal society.

That's tough, I dealt with my first family death recently, I wasnt prepared for it.

They shame and guilt you and it's never the same, they treat you differently and tbere is a bias for who could ever leave the love of god. They talk about missing sheep but hypocrites like among them like many religions before.

If you Google, “Are Jehovah’s Witnesses a cult?” you will likely come across this article published by Jehovah’s Witnesses on their website, jw.org. This article is meant to disprove claims that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a cult using two common ideas the average person has about what cults are and how they function. The problem with this is, the reasoning used by this organization against the idea that they are a cult can easily be disproved by their own website.

The first being the claim that although most would consider cults a “new or unorthodox religion” Jehovah’s Witnesses are actually a modern incarnation of the Christian congregation in the first century, which is outlined by most of the New Testament. This is simply not true.

A simple quote from their website, from an article entitled “Who Was the Founder of Jehovah’s Witnesses?”:

“The modern-day organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses began at the end of the 19th century.”

Their second point in disproving that they are a cult is to make the claim that they have no human leader on earth and by proxy, follow only the direction of Christ. This can also be easily combated by the fact that while Jehovah’s Witnesses do claim to try and follow the ideas of Jesus as laid out in the New Testament, their true allegiance is to their Governing Body. As described by their website, the Governing Body is “a small group of mature Christians who provide direction for Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide.” 

In other words, the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses is a small group of men who control the organization and give out doctrinal direction to it’s over 8 million members. The Governing Body has complete and total control over most aspects of Jehovah’s Witnesses lives, from what they can wear, who they can become friends with, who they can marry, where they can live, and so on. Additionally, the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses abuses it’s power to the point of expecting full devotion and obedience from individual Jehovah’s Witnesses, even if what they are directing them to do does not seem “practical from a human standpoint”.

So, are Jehovah’s Witnesses a cult?

Regardless of whether you believe they are or are not a cult, the fact that their argument for why they are not is so flimsy and easily combated should a reason for concern.

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/are-jehovahs-witnesses-a-cult/#?insight[search_id]=d0d2fbfe-c5d0-411a-ac6d-fecb13c0e261&insight[search_result_index]=0

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/founder/

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/governing-body/

Having to remind yourself that, according to most people, the term “worldly” is actually considered a good thing, rather than a pejorative. 

Jo laughed so hard she ended up choking on her root beerfloat, some of the drink sloshing out of the glass onto her shirt. “Diana! I’mstill in my service clothes, you can’t saythings like that! Don’t make me laugh!”

“How can I resist when it’s so easy though?” she grinned.“Here, let me help.” She tore a paper towel off the roll on her counter andused it to dab at the spot on her friend’s blouse. Jo’s breath hitched at thesudden proximity, at the way her friend was holding her, at the way she couldsmell Diana’s shampoo, the clean, soft scent of her.

Diana met her eyes curiously, face open and trusting andthen suddenly understanding, suddenly filled with a desire that matched hersexactly, eyes going dark with an obvious intent.

And then suddenly they were kissing, lips moving againsteach other, soft and loving and finally.Finally, after so many years of waiting, of dancing around each other, ofpretending this wasn’t everything they ever wanted. Of pretending that ‘bestfriends’ was good enough. That they could be content with that, that thesituation wasn’t intolerable, that every cell of their beings didn’t scream atthe distance they were forced to keep.

Their kiss was like finding water in the desert. It was foodto one who had been so long denied. It was everything.

It was inevitable.

Jo threaded her hands into Diana’s hair like she had alwayswanted to and cupped the other woman’s head, pulling her closer. Diana obliged,deepening the kiss, responding with growing hunger. Her hands roamed over Jo’slean body and the gentle slowness they had started with was melting intodesperate passion, into a need that had been too long ignored.

Jo’s tongue teased at her mouth and Diana gasped,snapping back to reality. She stepped back, breaking off all contact. “We can’tdo this,” she said, still breathless. “It’s a sin.”

Jo held her gaze steadily, eyes searing. “I don’t care.”

“No. No, we can’t do this. Jehovah is watching! We’ll getdisfellowshipped!”

“I don’t care,” Jo repeated.

“What do you mean, you don’t care? We could loseeverything!”

“We’re going to anyway, Diana!” she said. “You can’t be gayand be a Witness, it’s not allowed. We’re going to get kicked out no matterwhat. We’re going to get shunned no matter what. It’s just a matter of time.”

“No it’s not. Nobody has to know—“

“Diana,” she said. “I can’t go on living this way. I can’tkeep pretending to be something that I’m not.”

“You make it sound like we’re lying,” she said. “It’s not asin to avoid stumbling anyone. As long as we keep this to ourselves and don’tact on anything, we can still get into Paradise. We just—we just to try to—“

“Change?”

“Ignore it,” she said. “Everyone has sinful desires. We havea choice whether we act on them or not.”

“Ignoring a problem and covering it up doesn’t make it goaway. Pretending I’m straight doesn’t make me any less of a… doesn’t make meany less gay,” she said. “I can’t do this anymore. I’ve read all theliterature. I’ve prayed for months, for years.I’ve talked to the elders about it! I just—I can’t.”

A pit of cold dread settled in Diana’s stomach. “What do youmean?”

Jo took a breath. “I love you.”

Silence hung in the air for a long, painful moment.

“And if the god of love hates me for loving you, then Ican’t serve him anymore.”

“Jehovah doesn’t hate you,” she said.

“No, of course not. He just hates that fundamental aspect ofwho I am and doesn’t want me to find love in my life,” she said dryly.

“We can change. 1 Corinthians 6:11 says ‘that is what someof you were. But you have been washedclean—‘”

“I know what the verse says,” she snapped. “I don’t need tobe fixed, Diana, and neither do you.I’ve tried everything they said to try for years, and nothing’s worked. Itcan’t be done. I still love you, and I’m not going to stop loving you.” Hervoice dropped to something much quieter, more fragile. “And I think you love metoo.”

Diana looked up at her sharply, too shocked to respond for amoment. Then she found her voice, shaky and unsteady, but with an edge ofdetermination.

“Get out of my house.”

They made the announcement that Thursday night.

“Josefina Vasquez is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Diana had told the elders everything. Two judicial committeehearings had immediately been called. Diana plead repentance and was publiclyreproved. Shamed, as Jo had put it. She was publicly shamed.

Jo had walked into the hearing with her head held high andproudly disassociated herself. Her hands had trembled. She had clasped thembehind her back so the elders wouldn’t see.

Now she sat in the very back, deserted, last row. She wasstill as a statue, her face carved out of stone. She was untouched. Immovable,unassailable.

She saw her mother shaking slightly, a few rows up. Herfather took her hands in his tenderly. Jo could see him whispering something toher.

Diana was on the other side of the Hall, the picture ofconstrained fury. A tear snuck out of her eye, and she swiped it away angrily.

The elder called for the song to begin, and everyone stoodup. Except Jo. Off-key, overly-quiet singing drifted through the air. It wassuffocating.

They had just started the second verse when Jo stood up andwalked out.

She was never coming back. Not for anything. She lovedDiana, but she had to love herself, too.

Diana came home from the meeting to an empty, darkapartment. At twenty-three, she lived on her own now. It was a recent change.She’d had to stop pioneering due to work, and so her father had stopped supportingher. She was an adult, after all. She had always known what the arrangementwould be: either she regular pioneered after high school, or she would bepaying her father rent.

She had thought that if she was going to be paying renteither way, she may as well get some privacy and a place of her own. Now,though, her whole world was ending, she had never felt so alone in her life,and all she wanted was for her dad to hug her and tell her everything would bealright.

She wanted hot cocoa and her cat that had died three yearsago and to see her disfellowshipped mom again. She wanted her parents, laughingand telling jokes in the kitchen while Mom made dinner. She wanted Jo stayingover for the night, whispering in her ear and making her laugh until shewheezed; that giddy, ecstatic feeling in her chest that she got when thingswere so sweetly perfect with her best friend. Warmth that would bloom in herchest and stay there for hours afterwards, sometimes days, making Diana lay inbed at night with a smile on her face, replaying their conversations andpretending she wasn’t blushing. She wanted to be sixteen again. She wanted togo back to when she hadn’t realized what it all meant. She wanted to go back towhen she was blissfully love-drunk and ignorant, before the longing had turned bittersweetand painful.

Her best friend. Her love. She had admitted it years ago.She was in love with Josefina Vasquez. Hopelessly, irreversibly. And there wasn’ta single thing she could do about it.

Now she would never see her again.

She wondered what Jo would do, now. She had no friendsoutside the congregation. Her family had cut her off even before theannouncement was made. She had no support system, absolutely no one to turn to.

Knowing Jo, though, the woman would probably say she didn’tneed one and try to power through on her own. She would only ask for help afterabsolutely exhausting every other option. Hopefully she wouldn’t swallow herpride too late.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that at all.

No. No. Diana wasn’t gonna think like that. She was going tothink positive. Jo would—If anyone could have ever been called nontraditional,then it was Jo.

She thought of the way her friend’s eyes sparkled when shewas passionate about something, the way her hands never stopped moving and sheseemed to speak with her whole body. She thought about Jo bubbling over inexcitement, infodumping on her special interests. She thought about the pang oflonging and sadness in her voice whenever college was brought up, the way shewould taper off and become quiet afterwards and break Diana’s heart.

Maybe she would go, now. Major in molecular chemistry likeshe had always wanted to. Diana had listened to her talk aboutoxidation-reduction reactions enough that she felt she could teach a course onit. Once, she had spoken for an hour and a half about the absolutely fascinating differences between transfat and cis fat molecules. Diana had interrupted every now and then to make acrappy pun.

It made her heart ache to see Jo so happy, so passionateabout something. She had been beautiful then. The most beautiful person Dianahad ever seen.

She knew she would never meet someone as extraordinary asher ever again. Josefina Vasquez had blown into her life at the age of fourteenwith all the force of a whirlwind, and Diana hadn’t caught her breath since.

Days passed. Weeks passed. Months passed.

Diana was doing street witnessing one day and saw Jo walk byacross the street, hand in hand with some blonde girl who looked way too boringfor her and probably had no clue how impossibly lucky she was.

Sister McMullin didn’t notice and kept talking about thefulfillment of prophecies or something. Diana barely registered it, noddingalong when it seemed appropriate. There was a droning hum in her ears. She feltlike screaming, throwing things and tearing her own hair out.

She had been preparing for the end of the world her entirelife but suddenly she wasn’t ready. It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

There was a young man at the Hall. His name was David. Hewas a ministerial servant, working on becoming an elder, and he loved football.

He ended up in the same car group as Diana for servicealmost every time she went out. She knew for a fact it wasn’t a coincidence. Hisfather was in charge of making the groups, after all.

Diana had started pioneering again. She had quit her job andtaken a lower-paying one with less hours. She had thrown herself headlong intoher faith without a second thought and wasn’t looking back.

She wasn’t going to think about it.

David talked to her incessantly, seeming to never notice howuninterested she was. There was nothing wrong with David. He thought he wasdoing her a favor by spending time with her, like his mere presence was a giftfrom God himself, but still. Every other Witness boy was pretty much worse.

There was nothing wrong with David, except for the fact thathe wasn’t Jo.

When he asked her out, she said yes anyway.

It had been one year, three months, and nine days sinceDiana had last seen Jo.

She stood in front of the mirrors in the Kingdom Hall bathrooms.Her dress was beautiful. The veil was gorgeous. Her dark curls were styledimmaculately, her makeup done by a professional. Her eyes were dead andlifeless.

Her mother hadn’t been invited to the wedding, of course.She was standing alone in the bathroom, the only figure the mirror showed.

She was going to walk out that door and go into the adjacentroom and then another room and take her father’s arm. He was going to walk herdown the aisle and give her away to David. Brother Fonseca would talk about loveand fidelity and a threefold cord, and Diana would swear her subservience to aman she couldn’t care less about.

It was over. It really was over. This was her life, and thiswas all she would ever get.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she blinked them back downquickly. She steeled herself, turning her face into a mask of indifference.

She could do this.

She took a deep breath and walked out the door.

“—To love and to cherish and to deeply respect?” BrotherFonseca asked.

“I—” Diana started. Her eyes darted around the Hall, wideand panicked. Her hands were sweating on the bouquet.

“Diana?” Brother Fonseca prompted gently.

“No,” she breathed out. “No. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’msorry.”

She tossed the bouquet down right on the platform and walkedstraight off the center of the stage, the entire Hall murmuring and Davidlooking stricken, but not surprised.

Her face burned and she broke into a half-jog. She pushedpast the doors and ran into her car, swearing for the first time in her lifewhen she couldn’t get the key in, hands shaking too much. She tried again withthe same result. She slammed her arms into the steering wheel and shouted.

She took a deep, unsteady breath. She saw her dad burst outof the Hall, coming towards her rapidly. An eerie sense of calm descended onher.

She picked up the key and turned the car on. She didn’t lookat her dad as she drove away.

She showed up outside Jo’s door twenty-three minutes later.

At least, it had been Jo’s door a year ago. What if shemoved? What if she moved in with the horrible blonde girl? What if it was alltoo late and Diana had missed her chance, had blown it with the best thing thathad ever happened to her?

She was frozen on the doorstep, unable to even knock. Comeon. She did this every day, literally. Just knock on the door, ask for a fewminutes to talk, to explain, she could—

The door opened without her touching it.

Jo stood there in her pajamas, long hair messy from sleep.Her eyes widened.

“Jo,” Diana breathed, voice broken. “Jo, I’m so sorry. I-Imessed up. I don’t know—”

Jo shushed her and pulled her in gently for the best, mosttender kiss of Diana’s life. She felt everything, all at once; euphoric reliefand joy and the soul-crushing weight of the past wasted year. One of them madesome horrible, choked sound. Diana thought it was her.

Jo pulled back and took both of her hands. She led her inside.

me: and go where?