Thriving ExJW

While he’s proofing, do you mind telling us, how you got the different colours of the dough? Different dough? Food colouring?

He’s not filled with Jelly becuase 

1. I’m renting and don’t want to lose my damage deposit becuase there’s smuckers on the ceiling.

SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN ANTICIPATED.

Latter Day Saints:

Its how everybody pushed you forwards to doing everything you can, to go from door to door to talk to stangers about a high control cult you didn’t fully believed in yourself yet. How they made you go to these meetings three times a week where they burned the thoughts into your brain that this is the only right thing and everything “worldly” was bad and evil.

How they frown upon you and the elders talk to you for accidentaly singing a christmas song you heard or for not paying attention at the meetings. How they completely screwed up your definition of right and wrong on the basis of a manipulated believe.

This and so much more before you’re even a teenager. Before you even understand the word brainwashing, it had happened to you.

And then, when you are lucky enough to stumble upon something that made you question this whole thing, its your fault. Its Satans fault. Its the fault of this world. And as ridiculous as it sounds, it scares you to your core.

And when it finally happens and you decide to leave, the only truly own choice you ever had in this cult, you are blamed for making the wrong choice. Because questioning “god” is wrong. It makes you the evil one.

And once you’re out, you should feel happy but you’re not. You are scared. You are angry. You are hurt and confused. Because now you have to try to live the live that has been taken from you for the last 20 years.

Because I was scared, of Armageddon, of dying, of being judged for being 15 and not baptized yet.

Well then it was my fault for not having the right reasons to get baptized.

It’s never their fault. It’s never the orgs fault, it’s always yours. You decide to leave god, and all your loved ones.

From this topic in /r/exjw

Very true!

A lot of people choose to stay and act like a jw even if they don’t believe anymore because they know that if they leave they’ll loose their families and friends still in.

About the Governing Body reaction I’m:

i come go the meeting with the word HERETIC written on my face like prince wearing this:

FACT: Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe bad people go to hell

FACT: Jehovah’s Witnesses are not against equal rights (religious rights, race rights, gay rights). You’ll never see JWs protesting since we are politically neutral.

FACT: Jehovah’s Witnesses accept numerous blood alternatives (i.e. thinners, volume expanders, cell salvage)

FACT: Jehovah’s Witnesses are not forced to become members with baptism (such as child baptism). They have to make that decision for themselves only.

FACT: Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t just shun people.

FACT: Jehovah’s Witnesses do not want to force their beliefs on others. (If you don’t want to hear their message…don’t answer the door. It’s that simple.)

FACT: jehovah’s witnesses believe that their all-loving/all-powerful god will slaughter all those that don’t serve him.

FACT: jehovah’s witnesses think members of all other religions are serving the devil, and that gays are an abomination and have brainwashed themselves.

FACT:  a 12 year old girl died because of refusing a blood transfusion, and the watchtower was proud for it.

FACT: jehovah’s witnesses believe that if you are not baptized when armageddon comes, you will not be saved.

FACT: if you openly disagree with the jw teachings or act contrary to them, you are kicked out of the religion cult, and completely cut off from everyone, including friends and family.

FACT: jehovah’s witnesses are instructed not to have close relationships with people they are not trying to convert.

FACT: the australian government investigated the witnesses after 1006 incidents of child sexual abuse went unreported to the authorities

FACT: bears eat beets

jws literally just put out a book about the end of the world so don’t try to sugarcoat what they are.

“ During the war of Armageddon, Jehovah will execute people, not in a cold, clinical manner, but in a “great rage.” (Read Ezekiel 38:18.) He will direct the explosive force of his anger, not against one army or one nation, but against countless individuals living across the globe. On that day, those slain by Jehovah “will be from one end of the earth clear to the other end of the earth.”

I was born and raised in the organization. I learned to minimize any cult-y JW policies by saying the stuff in that blog post like “JWs don’t just shun people” and “JWs are not against blood alternatives” and “JWs believe in equal rights.” If you’ve got time to kill, please check out the “How Would You Answer?” articles on the JW online library, because they basically teach JWs how to respond to non-JWs with language that preserves JW beliefs but also protects the image of the org in the public eye. All the things I said in the “JW Facts” post sounded nice and weren’t *technically* wrong, but it wasn’t really honest either. I thought I was being a good JW by using this PR-language on social media, and it is effective at pacifying people that have no prior experience with the organization. But anyone that has been associated with the org can see it’s full of hot air.

When you grow up in a certain culture you accept your circumstances as normal. JW life was my normal. I knew nothing else. So when people told me I was in a cult I thought - I’m normal! I’m reasonable. I have love towards others. These people just don’t have the facts about JWs. I’ll fix that by making a blog post full of nice-sounding-PR-speak to set the record straight. 

It took some time, but I now realize that bending the facts and using careful wording to give off the appearance of a more welcoming, open organization isn’t benefitting anyone. People deserve to know about the organization for what it really is - not a whitewashed image. There shouldn’t be a need to spin the facts or have a separate way of speaking for public and internal dialogue. Here are the facts: JWs practice disfellowshipping which is shunning and family are not an exception, JWs have a hardline no-blood stance 100% of the time, LGBT is 100% wrong and there is no support system for them, and JWs regularly pressure very young, impressionable people to get baptized (which is like a contract with the JW org you can never ever get out of…fun).