My Journey out of the Jehovah's Witness cult

Before I get to my story about life growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, it's important to understand the basics about what Jehovah's Witnesses believe.  Jehovah's Witness believe in these key doctrines and practices:

1. There is no trinity, but only the father (Jehovah is the name they give him).
2. Jesus was the Archangel Michael in heaven and lived as a perfect and sinless man while on earth as Jesus Christ.
3. Nobody goes to heaven except the 144,000 chosen Jehovah's Witnesses.
4. All will be destroyed in the apocalypse, except faithful Jehovah's Witnesses.
5. The surviving Jehovah's Witnesses will live on a paradise earth for eternity and will be immortal.
6. Any Jehovah's Witness who breaks their rules, questions their theology, or leaves is "disfellowshipped" from the congregation and must be "shunned" by all Jehovah's Witnesses, including family and friends.
7. Reading the material of any ex-Jehovah's Witness is strictly forbidden.
8.  Jehovah's Witnesses worship in a church building called a "Kingdom Hall" and worship and bible studies are termed "meetings."  These "meetings" are held three times a week and attendance is very very strongly encouraged. 
9.  The organization's theology is decided by a group called the "governing body" of Jehovah's Witnesses.  These men are said to be spirit directed and they alone speak for Jehovah. This governing body is the head of the Watchtower Society, the producers of all Jehovah's Witness material.
10.  Any extra activities that involve associating with those who are not Jehovah's Witnesses must be limited.
11. Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate any Christian Holidays because they are considered to be pagan in origin. Also, JWs do not stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance or National Anthem.
12. A Jehovah's Witness must never have a blood transfusion, even when faced with death.
13. Demons can attack you if you choose to watch bad movies, listen to bad music, engage in any sort of pagan rituals, talk bad about Jehovah, or have bad thoughts about Jehovah or his organization (Watchtower Society).

There is much more to the Jehovah's Witness cult than this, but understanding these basic principles will help those who read my story to understand what is going on and just how hard it is to be a Jehovah's Witness.

My story:

I've been out of the Jehovah's Witness cult for over ten years now. I got out when both of my parents got divorced and, subsequently, disfellowshipped. All this happened when I was about 17 years old. Both of my parents just up and left the religion and I had no real time to detox. I grew up never thinking that I was good enough to serve Jehovah, so I never got baptized, but for all intents and purposes, I was a Jehovah's Witness nearly my entire childhood. After my parents were disfellowshipped it took some time for me to accept that the JWs were not correct about many things.

Like many Jehovah's Witness youth, I couldn't "hang out" with any of my friends at school, everything I listened to, read, or watched was strictly monitored. I could not play in any sports or join any after school activities. I couldn't go to any of the school dances or sporting events. I had to go to all of the meetings and study all of the materials before hand on top of all the homework I had to do. I lived in a state of near constant fear that Jehovah would destroy me on Judgement Day because I wasn't good enough. I worried almost every night that demons might try to harm me because I had "bad" thoughts about Jehovah and the Watchtower Society. I'm always amused at those who call all organized religion "cults," I would have given anything to have been raised in the "Methodist" or "Lutheran" cults that many of my school friends were raised in!! It amazes me just how many of us kids who were raised in this cult have the same story of our childhood.  Thankfully, none of the kids I grew up with and went to school with were not that bad to deal with.  That said, having to sit down during the Pledge of Allegiance and National Anthem was terribly embarrassing.  Also humiliating was the fact that when the other children sang Christmas songs in music class, I had to sit at a table, sometimes by myself, while the other kids sang these songs.  I could not participate in any holiday parties or any of the school plays.  It's still painful to this day to think of all the experiences that I missed that the average kid takes for granted.

After a few years of "detoxing" most of my JW beliefs and having realized that most of it was nonsense, I spent the next 2 years or so as a "hardcore" atheist. I was very angry at my childhood and what the Witness cult took away from me. I was angry at God and religion and never passed up the chance to point out how ridiculous the whole idea of "organized" religion and belief in God was to me at this time. However, I never really could "shake off" this idea of deity no matter how much atheist stuff I studied or no matter how angry I got. This was a dark period of my life, it was so hard to socialize with my fellow college age youth and the dating game was near impossible for a child raised in a cult where no dating and very little socializing with kids my age, of any kind, was allowed. Eventually, this angry atheism stuff started leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I realized that I was acting no different than the angry fundamentalist-type Christians acted. The only difference between me and them was that they had God and a Bible and I had none. The attitude and the self-righteousness was exactly the same, I felt like a total fool! The fact is, many many ex-Jehovah's Witnesses become atheists.

I spent the next few years as what I would call "deist" or nominally spiritual. I accepted that there was a God, but I wasn't going to do anything about it. Eventually, after starting a career in sales, I was able to repair my social skills that I never really got to develop as a child and met my future wife.

After my wife got pregnant with our son, my interest in religion and Christianity started to come back to me. After a childhood of getting brainwashed that "Christendom" is full of evil liars, who are only after my money and will condemn their followers to Jehovah's wrath, I found it very hard to shake off this propaganda. Eventually, I mustered up the courage to attend one of these "evil" churches that "Satan controlled" and found that almost all of the propaganda was totally false. It was so exciting exploring real Christianity for the first time and visiting the various different churches and learning about their beliefs. In my year of visiting churches and searching, I never once heard any pastor ask for money or asked those in the pews to give more. What I heard and saw was people who loved God and wanted to honor God by donating their time to charity and to helping out in the community. Of course, organized religion has their fair share of hypocrites, however, this can be said of almost any type of belief system, including atheism and everything in between.

Eventually, I decided to join a "high church" Anglican parish and I've been there for the past few years. It's about as far away from JW worship you can get. I must confess, that that is probably what attracted me to it!

In conclusion, I'm not trying to talk down to atheists or am I trying to convince anybody to come to Jesus. Basically, there are a ton of former and current JWs who have a very similar story to mine and if my story is helpful or inspires anybody in any way, then it's all good. It's so very hard to find any sort of spirituality after leaving the JW cult, the damage left to a person's faith is incredible. I wasted years being angry and bitter at the Watchtower Society, for someone who lost his whole childhood to the JWs, I feel like they took another several years of my young adulthood, but it doesn't have to be like that. Everybody is going to be angry after leaving the JW cult, but nobody has to spend years being angry. Whenever you are ready, remember that Jesus is there waiting for you.

Please feel free to add any comments or ask any questions.   My next post will focus on my journey into Anglicanism.