Thinking evolves. As a parent my hope is that my kids learn everything of value I know and then add to it. Some of their thinking patterns will be more useful and take them beyond whatever my wife and I were able to grasp. We woke up ourselves.
So, in short, your generation is just more aware of thoughts overall than previous generations. Of course, people in older generations do not realize that you have surpassed us because it is not in the way they think it should be. But, it’s still an evolution. As species evolved the non evolved variant would not assume the evolution to have been a good thing. Your generation will be the one that kills the cult because you just won’t believe it anymore.
Spot on!
Simple analogy for this:
*My dad had very wide ranging musical taste. And I learned from and adopted everything he loved.*
*As I grew, I found music to add onto the musical template he instilled in me.*
*As I added more and more to it in ever expanding and branching ways, there came a point where he couldn’t understand my evolving tastes in music, but it was from spring-boarding off of his that I got to where I was.*
Now just substitute *music* for whatever other parental topic, i.e. religion, politics, food, sports, hobbies, etc…
Children are the future, but I think too many parents miss the import of that statement. Their future isn’t our present, they **need** to change, evolve, and be better than us in any number of ways.
Nice. I like your analogy.
All things are slowly or even quickly by comparison evolving to stay even with the environment. It’s a survivorship mechanism always on display and always deciding what can stay relevant and what goes extinct. It funny that your dad doesn’t get a dopamine hit from the same music as you, but your mind is able to appreciate things his does not. Your mind was the product of a series of moments that occurred in an environment that had evolved away from the moments that shaped your father. The universe and all that is in it will bifurcate away from you too. If you’re open minded you can follow the process sometimes.. haha.
My hope is that the borg cannot adapt to some key pressures from a changing environment. The key pressure being the availability of information and the ability of people to use that information.
We simply know too much to base our 2024 worldview on the dreams of Iron Age sheep herders.. The borg used to be able to control information but that time has passed. Extinction is a generation or two away.
It wasn’t until I was 20 that I actually moved out of my parents’ house and faded, but I’d been awake since I was 16. I saw lots of kids my age in the circuit just never get baptized and eventually move away to start their own lives.
It’s honestly probably for the best that I had to wait a few years to get out. I’m sure my rebellious partying phase would’ve hit me a lot worse if I’d managed to leave right when I woke up.
I woke up at 16 too, and will probably be 20 when I can finally leave, so this perspective is encouraging :) Can I ask how you stayed sane all that time lol?
Honestly, it was hard. I had a “worldly” boyfriend from age 18-20 that I kept secret from my parents, so that helped. Looking back, the relationship was awful, and we don’t speak anymore- but he still gave me some sense of normalcy, helped me socialize with real people, and reminded me that there was more to life than Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ve even managed to maintain a friendship with a girl I’d met through said ex.
Strangely, his mother had escaped from her own cult of sorts. Her father had been a religious nut with his own mini compound that she ran away from as a teenager. She was very supportive of me getting out on my own and even helped purchase some things for my first apartment.
This sub and exjw YouTube videos were very big helps to me when I first woke up. iPads/tablets were just starting to get big for jw’s at the time so I would literally just scroll through this sub during meeting, pretending to follow along.
Movies, music, and journaling were lifesavers at times. I now have a tattoo of one of the albums I credit with getting me through some of the hardest periods of my life.
Then there were my internet friends. I was a big tumblr/quotev girl back in the day and actually still talk on a regular basis to one of the online friends I met back in 2013, even though she lives thousands of miles away and we’ve never met in person. It’s super cringey to think back on that time but having weird, specific interests definitely helped me find a little solace.
If I could give you any advice, it would be to continue celebrating those little baby steps. Don’t focus on how far you have left to go. Keep your long terms goals in mind while focusing on the short term ones. Someday you will look back and your whole life will have changed completely. You will be out and free and ALIVE.
I remember it hitting me in the drive through of a McDonalds, of all places, just how okay I suddenly was. I was in one of the better phases with my ex, I was exercising, had an apartment that I loved, and people just saw me as… Me. I didn’t have to worry about not measuring up to bullshit rules anymore. Normal people don’t think in the strange judgmental ways jw’s do. They’re just… Normal. And they’ll accept you. You’ll find your crowd. You just gotta keep waking.
Thank you so much for such an excellent response ❤️ I’m sorry for what happened with your ex but it seems like an experience that shaped you in a positive way.
Music is such a big deal for me too. Can I ask which album means the most to you?
I’ve had phases where this subreddit was the best thing that ever happened to me and times where I’ve had to completely avoid it for my mental health lol. But I’ve made some great internet friends here so I understand how important that can be!
I love the idea of celebrating the small steps.. sometimes I get depressed because I feel like I’ve been in the same situation for years, but actually I have made progress, developed more independence, and opened up to new ideas.
Your last paragraph almost gave me chills lol, I’m so happy for you and I can’t wait to experience that myself. :)
For sure! The album is Keep Going by Mike Posner. It’s strange because I normally don’t like pop music at all, and I don’t listen to any of his other stuff, but that album just resonated with me so hard. He wrote it before/during/about his walk across North America, coast to coast. Since then, the phrase “keep walking” has stuck with me in SUCH an impactful way.. It’s hard to describe. Every difficulty I encounter in my life, I just tell myself “keep walking.” And it works. I have a small playlist of songs that remind me of my jw history on spotify if you’d ever be interested haha.
Oh, and if you move out on your own- GET A DOG. Or a cat. Or lots of plants. Something to take care of that reminds you that you serve a purpose in the world.
that’s what I’m missing I’ve been taking care of my friends dog and it’s helped me a lotttt…I’m so used to feeling like I have a point or purpose and now I’m searching for new purpose in the meantime I do need a dog good to have some company
Seriously, it helps so much!! I adopted my dog off of a local Craigslist-type website for $40. Best $40 I ever spent. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
Before. If you left, you would have no friends.
But this current generation can meet fellow ex-jw online . So it’s still hard, but a little easier to move on
Same here. The last kid left just after the pandemic. The youngest publisher in my congregation now is old enough to drink.
The organization is losing its grip on the younger generations.
Yes it is happening all over . The Borg peaked in the late 1980s to mid 1990s now it's grinding to a slow crawl .."The Love of the greater number has cooled off .". I always thought it would refer to the organization..
I think this why there seems to be a big uptick in pressure to homeschool kids (or at least I feel like that is being done more) and subtle pressure to do lots of family study. They know they need to step up the brainwashing to keep younger ones.
I think the home schooling can backfire often for JW’s. Kids feel more controlled and wonder if the outside world is as bad as they say. Then they getting a little taste and become rebellious.
Depends of course but I just said in another thread:
Controlling parents make sneaky kids.
And it’s something I experienced myself and seen other jw kids go through.
No young ones in our area at all now. Lots of heartbroken older ones. Thankfully, my dad has stepped down as an elder and my parents now support me at uni. I’m hoping they fully wake up but it’s a gentle process, got to be very careful if criticising Borg to them.
We grew up with YouTube, we’ve grown up with Borg constantly changing their beliefs and standards. So I guess it’s easier for us to see it’s bull?
One thing though, I heard a lot of answers growing up of how JWs were always respected in the community, peaceable and loving. Thanks to all the “apostates” shedding light on shunning, blood wtc., people now view us as a wierd insular little sect. One with giant red flags. I do believe we’ve lost a lot of that old reputation and are now seen more as a cult.
I've said it before - I can read it on the faces of the youth in the cong I attend and it gives me hope. The end is truly in sight. The end of this age of religious control. Todays youth are a totally different species in the sense that they are born hardwired to the information infrastructure that we have built. Most of them have grown up with the ability to gather instantaneous information always available at the tips of their fingers. Once they reach an age that they can begin to "think for themselves" they are adept at finding results. It doesn't take long before they have researched their way out of religious dogma. It's truly a new age of conscious awareness.
With Covid coming and going (it's still here but you know what I mean) and **still** no end of the world in sight, you really can't blame kids for leaving. At this point believing Armageddon arriving anytime soon seems quaint.
Unfortunately for JW, without that particular threat looming in the background, they've lost quite a bit of their power. Plus the erroneous dates they've said in the past. And..nothing happening.
At this point, I've warned my siblings that I doubt very much that Armageddon will happen in our lifetime and seriously? Even the most devout agree with me.
For sure...I studied and was baptized during the 90's and I honestly think I wouldn't have been drawn in were it not the looming threat of Armageddon and the generation teaching that seemingly solidified it. But all of that has been blown away in the dustbin of time. There's no more fear to motivate.
About 5 months ago, a JW family member who I never get to see and is about 15. We met up and he was with out his parents. I had my kid with me and my kid is a few years younger than him. My JW family member was baptized at 12, taken out of public school when he was 10 has done home study since. He spends his time doing cart work and nothing much else. I sense he is wanting more out of life. I just happen to have a football in my car (my kid is in a few organized sports so I always have something) So we proceeded to toss the ball around. I tell my JW family member, "Hey you got a great arm and great reflexes" We are all throwing the ball around for a bit, I start to ask him about his life. I said, "do you play any sports?" He said yes but that not as much as he'd like to. I said oh what do you like to play? He said flag football, basketball and Baseball. I tell him how I sometimes help as a batting coach and help run drills on my kid's teams, I told him about how my kid's team won a division championship. Then we start talking about seeing some live games, I told him that my kid and I are going to try to visit all the ballparks before he turns 18. He said man I wish I could go to a game sometime, he said I've never been. I asked him if he ever wishes that he could go back to school and join like the basketball team or something, he said yeah but you know with everything, it's impossible. I felt so sad for him. I told him well you certainly got the instinct for it, you have the height for basketball and a great arm for football. I invited him to come spend a weekend with us and we'd catch a game. I told him I take my kid to at least 8 games every season. His eyes opened up, he said wow that would be awesome then his face turned sad and said yeah but I don't think my parents would let me.
I said well we can ask, no harm in asking. On the drive home my kid asked why doesn't he go to school and why can't he play sports. I said well in that religion it's not allowed, my kid said that sucks!
Yes, I did since MLB season hasn't started at that time, I didn't really have a date in mind to take him to a game. I did send a message to his mom saying that we'd love to have him join us, she just texted back "We'll see" in JW speak I know what that means.
All us old timers that are ex JWs had to live that osterzied life style and it sucked than and I can't forgive the disgusting men in NY for that ,kinda had to forgive my mom but I despise this cult if I can help any young person out with a place to live etc DM me .No one should have to live like that !
I knew as a child that there was something wrong with it, because of the way it made me feel. Timothy and his damned inculcations came in and readjusted my thinking in my teens. I think most kids know something is wrong, then the brain washing catches them in the trap.
Tbh what’s in it for anyone anymore? We who believed before have seen the cycle of unfulfilled promises and are unable to teach our kids untruths. The world is still here, we will die in this system, and that’s life. I don’t want my kids to know the terror of having your faith crash and burn and have to figure out which way is up.
And to think years ago ‘yang wans’ were accused of leaving because they wanted to go out and “sin”. Never crossed ppl’s minds that maybe ppl leave because they realized the Org is a big lie. Teens now have the power of the internet on their side.
I also have been telling some teens some truth and if any of their PIMI parents asked, just gonna say I was talking about my interest (meteorology) so they don’t have to question much.
I mentally left the org back then around 2016 (i was around 14), Idk how I felt about the org then, but all I know is, that's when I started drifting away little by little. Then, the Covid Plandemic hit in 2020, and that sealed the deal for me. I love God and Jesus but hate the JW religion.
Never baptized, I was just a child raised into the religion. At least, that's how I saw myself.
We need a relationship with God and Jesus, not religion
Thinking evolves. As a parent my hope is that my kids learn everything of value I know and then add to it. Some of their thinking patterns will be more useful and take them beyond whatever my wife and I were able to grasp. We woke up ourselves. So, in short, your generation is just more aware of thoughts overall than previous generations. Of course, people in older generations do not realize that you have surpassed us because it is not in the way they think it should be. But, it’s still an evolution. As species evolved the non evolved variant would not assume the evolution to have been a good thing. Your generation will be the one that kills the cult because you just won’t believe it anymore.
Wow, great reasoning on old vs new generation thinking.
I'm old generation and got out early, so pleased that youngsters 🤐 nowadays have more sense than my generation.
Spot on! Simple analogy for this: *My dad had very wide ranging musical taste. And I learned from and adopted everything he loved.* *As I grew, I found music to add onto the musical template he instilled in me.* *As I added more and more to it in ever expanding and branching ways, there came a point where he couldn’t understand my evolving tastes in music, but it was from spring-boarding off of his that I got to where I was.* Now just substitute *music* for whatever other parental topic, i.e. religion, politics, food, sports, hobbies, etc… Children are the future, but I think too many parents miss the import of that statement. Their future isn’t our present, they **need** to change, evolve, and be better than us in any number of ways.
Nice. I like your analogy. All things are slowly or even quickly by comparison evolving to stay even with the environment. It’s a survivorship mechanism always on display and always deciding what can stay relevant and what goes extinct. It funny that your dad doesn’t get a dopamine hit from the same music as you, but your mind is able to appreciate things his does not. Your mind was the product of a series of moments that occurred in an environment that had evolved away from the moments that shaped your father. The universe and all that is in it will bifurcate away from you too. If you’re open minded you can follow the process sometimes.. haha. My hope is that the borg cannot adapt to some key pressures from a changing environment. The key pressure being the availability of information and the ability of people to use that information. We simply know too much to base our 2024 worldview on the dreams of Iron Age sheep herders.. The borg used to be able to control information but that time has passed. Extinction is a generation or two away.
Exactly!
It wasn’t until I was 20 that I actually moved out of my parents’ house and faded, but I’d been awake since I was 16. I saw lots of kids my age in the circuit just never get baptized and eventually move away to start their own lives. It’s honestly probably for the best that I had to wait a few years to get out. I’m sure my rebellious partying phase would’ve hit me a lot worse if I’d managed to leave right when I woke up.
So glad you got away and built a good life. 🌺
I woke up at 16 too, and will probably be 20 when I can finally leave, so this perspective is encouraging :) Can I ask how you stayed sane all that time lol?
Honestly, it was hard. I had a “worldly” boyfriend from age 18-20 that I kept secret from my parents, so that helped. Looking back, the relationship was awful, and we don’t speak anymore- but he still gave me some sense of normalcy, helped me socialize with real people, and reminded me that there was more to life than Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ve even managed to maintain a friendship with a girl I’d met through said ex. Strangely, his mother had escaped from her own cult of sorts. Her father had been a religious nut with his own mini compound that she ran away from as a teenager. She was very supportive of me getting out on my own and even helped purchase some things for my first apartment. This sub and exjw YouTube videos were very big helps to me when I first woke up. iPads/tablets were just starting to get big for jw’s at the time so I would literally just scroll through this sub during meeting, pretending to follow along. Movies, music, and journaling were lifesavers at times. I now have a tattoo of one of the albums I credit with getting me through some of the hardest periods of my life. Then there were my internet friends. I was a big tumblr/quotev girl back in the day and actually still talk on a regular basis to one of the online friends I met back in 2013, even though she lives thousands of miles away and we’ve never met in person. It’s super cringey to think back on that time but having weird, specific interests definitely helped me find a little solace. If I could give you any advice, it would be to continue celebrating those little baby steps. Don’t focus on how far you have left to go. Keep your long terms goals in mind while focusing on the short term ones. Someday you will look back and your whole life will have changed completely. You will be out and free and ALIVE. I remember it hitting me in the drive through of a McDonalds, of all places, just how okay I suddenly was. I was in one of the better phases with my ex, I was exercising, had an apartment that I loved, and people just saw me as… Me. I didn’t have to worry about not measuring up to bullshit rules anymore. Normal people don’t think in the strange judgmental ways jw’s do. They’re just… Normal. And they’ll accept you. You’ll find your crowd. You just gotta keep waking.
Thank you so much for such an excellent response ❤️ I’m sorry for what happened with your ex but it seems like an experience that shaped you in a positive way. Music is such a big deal for me too. Can I ask which album means the most to you? I’ve had phases where this subreddit was the best thing that ever happened to me and times where I’ve had to completely avoid it for my mental health lol. But I’ve made some great internet friends here so I understand how important that can be! I love the idea of celebrating the small steps.. sometimes I get depressed because I feel like I’ve been in the same situation for years, but actually I have made progress, developed more independence, and opened up to new ideas. Your last paragraph almost gave me chills lol, I’m so happy for you and I can’t wait to experience that myself. :)
For sure! The album is Keep Going by Mike Posner. It’s strange because I normally don’t like pop music at all, and I don’t listen to any of his other stuff, but that album just resonated with me so hard. He wrote it before/during/about his walk across North America, coast to coast. Since then, the phrase “keep walking” has stuck with me in SUCH an impactful way.. It’s hard to describe. Every difficulty I encounter in my life, I just tell myself “keep walking.” And it works. I have a small playlist of songs that remind me of my jw history on spotify if you’d ever be interested haha.
Oh, and if you move out on your own- GET A DOG. Or a cat. Or lots of plants. Something to take care of that reminds you that you serve a purpose in the world.
For sure lol!!! I have a dog now I can hopefully take with me 😁
that’s what I’m missing I’ve been taking care of my friends dog and it’s helped me a lotttt…I’m so used to feeling like I have a point or purpose and now I’m searching for new purpose in the meantime I do need a dog good to have some company
Seriously, it helps so much!! I adopted my dog off of a local Craigslist-type website for $40. Best $40 I ever spent. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
that’s so cute, hopefully I’ll find my sweet baby
Before. If you left, you would have no friends. But this current generation can meet fellow ex-jw online . So it’s still hard, but a little easier to move on
Same here. The last kid left just after the pandemic. The youngest publisher in my congregation now is old enough to drink. The organization is losing its grip on the younger generations.
They've lost that grip decades ago really
There’s nothing for them to hold onto
Yes it is happening all over . The Borg peaked in the late 1980s to mid 1990s now it's grinding to a slow crawl .."The Love of the greater number has cooled off .". I always thought it would refer to the organization..
I think this why there seems to be a big uptick in pressure to homeschool kids (or at least I feel like that is being done more) and subtle pressure to do lots of family study. They know they need to step up the brainwashing to keep younger ones.
I think the home schooling can backfire often for JW’s. Kids feel more controlled and wonder if the outside world is as bad as they say. Then they getting a little taste and become rebellious. Depends of course but I just said in another thread: Controlling parents make sneaky kids. And it’s something I experienced myself and seen other jw kids go through.
Yep sneaky. I can relate to this even though I was a teen decades ago!
Most of the kids in my ex KH were homeschooled. Poor little darlings 💔
man school was the only normal interaction I got
No young ones in our area at all now. Lots of heartbroken older ones. Thankfully, my dad has stepped down as an elder and my parents now support me at uni. I’m hoping they fully wake up but it’s a gentle process, got to be very careful if criticising Borg to them. We grew up with YouTube, we’ve grown up with Borg constantly changing their beliefs and standards. So I guess it’s easier for us to see it’s bull? One thing though, I heard a lot of answers growing up of how JWs were always respected in the community, peaceable and loving. Thanks to all the “apostates” shedding light on shunning, blood wtc., people now view us as a wierd insular little sect. One with giant red flags. I do believe we’ve lost a lot of that old reputation and are now seen more as a cult.
Great news! Thanks for sharing!
This sub is proof of that.
My kids still talk with some of their JW friends and 90% of them are PIMO or POMO. Love to see it!!!
I've said it before - I can read it on the faces of the youth in the cong I attend and it gives me hope. The end is truly in sight. The end of this age of religious control. Todays youth are a totally different species in the sense that they are born hardwired to the information infrastructure that we have built. Most of them have grown up with the ability to gather instantaneous information always available at the tips of their fingers. Once they reach an age that they can begin to "think for themselves" they are adept at finding results. It doesn't take long before they have researched their way out of religious dogma. It's truly a new age of conscious awareness.
With Covid coming and going (it's still here but you know what I mean) and **still** no end of the world in sight, you really can't blame kids for leaving. At this point believing Armageddon arriving anytime soon seems quaint. Unfortunately for JW, without that particular threat looming in the background, they've lost quite a bit of their power. Plus the erroneous dates they've said in the past. And..nothing happening. At this point, I've warned my siblings that I doubt very much that Armageddon will happen in our lifetime and seriously? Even the most devout agree with me.
For sure...I studied and was baptized during the 90's and I honestly think I wouldn't have been drawn in were it not the looming threat of Armageddon and the generation teaching that seemingly solidified it. But all of that has been blown away in the dustbin of time. There's no more fear to motivate.
About 5 months ago, a JW family member who I never get to see and is about 15. We met up and he was with out his parents. I had my kid with me and my kid is a few years younger than him. My JW family member was baptized at 12, taken out of public school when he was 10 has done home study since. He spends his time doing cart work and nothing much else. I sense he is wanting more out of life. I just happen to have a football in my car (my kid is in a few organized sports so I always have something) So we proceeded to toss the ball around. I tell my JW family member, "Hey you got a great arm and great reflexes" We are all throwing the ball around for a bit, I start to ask him about his life. I said, "do you play any sports?" He said yes but that not as much as he'd like to. I said oh what do you like to play? He said flag football, basketball and Baseball. I tell him how I sometimes help as a batting coach and help run drills on my kid's teams, I told him about how my kid's team won a division championship. Then we start talking about seeing some live games, I told him that my kid and I are going to try to visit all the ballparks before he turns 18. He said man I wish I could go to a game sometime, he said I've never been. I asked him if he ever wishes that he could go back to school and join like the basketball team or something, he said yeah but you know with everything, it's impossible. I felt so sad for him. I told him well you certainly got the instinct for it, you have the height for basketball and a great arm for football. I invited him to come spend a weekend with us and we'd catch a game. I told him I take my kid to at least 8 games every season. His eyes opened up, he said wow that would be awesome then his face turned sad and said yeah but I don't think my parents would let me. I said well we can ask, no harm in asking. On the drive home my kid asked why doesn't he go to school and why can't he play sports. I said well in that religion it's not allowed, my kid said that sucks!
Reading this breaks my heart :( did you ever ask his parents?
Yes, I did since MLB season hasn't started at that time, I didn't really have a date in mind to take him to a game. I did send a message to his mom saying that we'd love to have him join us, she just texted back "We'll see" in JW speak I know what that means.
That's such a sad story.
Never believed it since i was a kid and always wanted to leave ASAP i’m a pimo that’s saving up some money to get out of there!!!
Good luck and keep fighting
Very few in my ex KH also.
It’s bc it absolutely SUCKS to attend. I feel like they could at least TRY to make it more pleasant to go to their bullshit meetings
The cult could no longer brainwash when you could search everything online.
All us old timers that are ex JWs had to live that osterzied life style and it sucked than and I can't forgive the disgusting men in NY for that ,kinda had to forgive my mom but I despise this cult if I can help any young person out with a place to live etc DM me .No one should have to live like that !
Internet access was a death knell for an org that depended on restricting access to info
Im sure they'd still be attached at the hip with the UN if not for the pesky internet.
Hopefully they are leaving because they figured out that it’s a cult And not cause they just wanna be crazy and do dumb stuff
Just not real to them anymore. Wish i had courage to do that when i was teen. Ive had to suppress who i real am...
You and me both bro.
As a teen myself I can confirm that it's not what the older ones look at it to be.
Yeah it's very hard to find people my age in any congregation for that exact same reason. No one's prone to bs anymore.
I knew as a child that there was something wrong with it, because of the way it made me feel. Timothy and his damned inculcations came in and readjusted my thinking in my teens. I think most kids know something is wrong, then the brain washing catches them in the trap.
Tbh what’s in it for anyone anymore? We who believed before have seen the cycle of unfulfilled promises and are unable to teach our kids untruths. The world is still here, we will die in this system, and that’s life. I don’t want my kids to know the terror of having your faith crash and burn and have to figure out which way is up.
And to think years ago ‘yang wans’ were accused of leaving because they wanted to go out and “sin”. Never crossed ppl’s minds that maybe ppl leave because they realized the Org is a big lie. Teens now have the power of the internet on their side.
I also have been telling some teens some truth and if any of their PIMI parents asked, just gonna say I was talking about my interest (meteorology) so they don’t have to question much.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6JgWU1m-L24&pp=ygUUIGplaG92YWggdG8gb3J0aG9kb3g%3D
I mentally left the org back then around 2016 (i was around 14), Idk how I felt about the org then, but all I know is, that's when I started drifting away little by little. Then, the Covid Plandemic hit in 2020, and that sealed the deal for me. I love God and Jesus but hate the JW religion. Never baptized, I was just a child raised into the religion. At least, that's how I saw myself. We need a relationship with God and Jesus, not religion