Five Year Journey

In January I marked my five year anniversary of my exit from the religion of my first 48 years.

Don't get me wrong. I was 100% Jehovah's Witness. I lived it. I loved every day of it. But over the course of more than 4 decades it is impossible not to know that there were problems with both the theology and the premise. Over the course of this bloglife, I will likely touch on many areas of my life that were/are affected by it's doctrines. 

When I left in 2004, I was bitter. It was far too early to write this account. When the body of elders here, after I had been gone from the religion bodily for almost three full years, elected to contact me, charge me with 'apostacy' and forced me to either face disfellowshipping [excommunication in Jw terms] or to legally resign from the religion I was bitter again. It would not likely have been a good time to write this account. In the course of this blog, I will possibly display some of that bitterness from time to time. Like gall that rises in the throat, it is quite impossible not to react at times to these painful memories. But these days, I am far less reactionary in my approach to the subject.

Why write it at all? The answer to that question is complex. But those who are reading, who have in-cult experience likely understand far better than those who don't have such experience. Forgetting one's experience in the bonds of a cult is similar to ever forgetting the high-school you attended, the early memories of childhood, or your past painful experience in a marriage that went stale in time. Much of what we are or what we become is forever dependent on what we were, how we lived, and the related decisions that we made in arriving here.

But I will not exclusively create this journal for the purpose of attack. That is not the purpose. I will speak the absolute truth in what I say, based both on my own experiences and on the facts as shown by history. I will attempt to be somewhat chronological in my approach here, but not exclusively. History after all, is a culmination of times, events, and their intertwined nature. So I may skip about in the timeline, but will try to resist losing the reader with wild meanderings of my mind and thoughts. 

I will refer throughout this blog to "Jw's" or to "the Organization", and those terms are interchangable with Jehovah's Witnesses as a people, and the Watchtower as the controlling corporation over them. The terms are forever connected. If you were 'One of Jehovah's Witnesses' or are one, you were also, or are, totally dependent on the Watchtower organization to direct and hold you. The terms are inseparable. 

Tomorrow: How it all got started for me.