My Ex-Jehovah's Witness Story (ex-pioneer, ministerial servant, bethelite and elder)

welcome to the Armageddon in retrospect podcast today's episode will be a video version of my story I have done an audio only version on the podcast if you had The Misfortune of listening to that you can skip this video please I will be regurgitating a lot of the same points a lot of the same jokes and I don't want to subject you to that torture twice I'm doing a video version for YouTube because the Watchtower magazine sadly will not be printing my life story in the Watchtower magazine here I am let's get started let's jump right into the time machine and go back to the time of my grandparents I was a third generation Jehovah's Witness by the dictionary definition of a generation by the Jehovah's Witness definition of a generation I was a first generation Jehovah's Witness because my life overlapped with the life of my grandparents ah it my grandparents converted the religion uh in for all effective purposes raised my parents and their siblings in the religion on my father's side he was the only one out of three that stuck with it on my mother's side all three stuck with it the religion zooming in a little bit on my family in particular my father was an elder the whole time I was growing up he is currently an elder as far as I know I put it that way because that has come and gone for him throughout the years whole time I was growing up along with my siblings he was an elder Our Lives therefore were very active and engaged with the religion what did that mean if you were never Jehovah's Witness I will go through this briefly try to three meetings a week at the time we had a Tuesday night a Thursday night and Sunday morning each uh one was an hour the other two were a couple of hours usually we would try to get to the Kingdom Hall early we would especially on Thursday nights leave late because my father would have all these things to do is now there are these back room meetings on top of that we had usually a family study night it was called where oh my father would just torture us how else to describe it is it my negativity bias I really would have rather had bamboo shoot stuck under my fingernails and lit on fire than do family study we get lined up on the couch myself my siblings there would be a watchtower publication and it would be a question and answer format like the Jehovah's Witness meetings are at times where you read a paragraph there's a corresponding question and then you give a comment and then you move on to the next paragraph usually to send it into some form of chaos with myself and my siblings acting up and needing to be spanked or punished us into our room whatever it might have been it just was not a fun time that was another evening on top of the congregation meetings Saturday mornings we rarely missed the preaching work that the Jehovah's Witnesses do the house the housework knocking on doors boy happy memories of that as a child what else a child certainly does not want to stay in their pajamas and watch cartoons and eat cereal no I wanted to after a week of school be woken up told to put on a suit and tie a little clip on tie with a little metal bar that would stab you in the jugular go to the table eat my bowl of grape nuts just so I can get my mouth good and cut up and raw before I had to go out and talk to people we would do what was called the daily text if we were never Jehovah's Witness it was a they had a scripture for each day of the year with the watchtowers interpretation that scripture in print we'd read that together comment on it and then off to the Kingdom Hall to get into what they call Car groups to go preaching whether you're Jehovah's Witness or not you know what that means just going door to door essentially peddling magazines and Publications that was very regular my household sometimes we'd even do that Sunday after the meeting if my parents were for some reason were feeling especially guilty that was our level of activity as far as the rule enforcement in the household and I'm not saying any of this to knock my parents my parents left their own devices let's say are extremely kind generous people who really were trying to do their best to give us a good childhood I feel that being said it was a strict household in the Jehovah's Witness sense of the word I would as an aside say that my parents running both uh both of them running their own businesses sometimes just seemed very tired with all the Jehovah's Witness activity their their business which was hard work trying to to raise a family times they were just a bit Lacks with the rules we as kids would pick up on that and try to slide things under the Jehovah's Witness rule radar if we could and get away with it minor things the big rules were always enforced no matter what but the rules perhaps regarding music an objectionable piece of clothing let's say uh maybe who we are hanging out with in the Kingdom Hall whether or not they were considered good Association or not those types of things so they'd be a bit lacks and then what would happen typically is my father as now there would be a sign to give a talk on the topic maybe on music as an example or he would hear a talk by a circuit overseer or an assembly or a convention and then they would clamp back down on the rules I would say that was pretty much how things went for my whole child my whole time at home that's just to build up you know an overview of what things were like for me growing up there definitely was not a sense of autonomy of being able to choose anything for yourself I understand that of course parents need to guide their children do what they think is best for their children and give them even some discipline but there just weren't options to put it lightly at home if you were at home the meetings were obligatory the preaching work was obligatory you had to do everything the rules all of that to be a part of the family which brings up one of the major events that stands out for my childhood and that was when I was nine years old my sister who was 17 was kicked out of the household for breaking some minor trouble's Witness rules they'd be maybe described as family Rules from my parents side of things but really it was an overreaction caused by the Jehovah's Witness belief system they kicked my sister out of the household she was subsequently down the road disfellowshipped as well and I was very close to my sister she's a very caring maternal person so she would babysit me a lot and take care of me and we were like buddies we were buddies that was extremely difficult for me as a child and I want to mention a couple of things that happened it's a very obviously nine years old I couldn't fully grasp everything understand it deeply uh I just was very sad I lost my sister and it seemed like I was losing her forever and on top of that my parents were poisoning the well with me but so to speak they were telling me things like she's shunning you by her decisions if she really loved you she wouldn't have chose this course in life this path she loved you she would come back to Jehovah those types of things and those things really sunk in for me as a kid as a footnote I have definitely reconnected my sister she's an amazing person we have an amazing relationship again if you want to know more about that go to the audio only podcast listen to an episode I recorded with her about that whole story and how we reconnected that's out there that was happening it was a big event for me not just in the sense of losing my sister I would say it also caused me to Lose Myself in a way if I can explain I feel like around that time it solidified a couple of things for me and one was a people pleaser type mentality which I know of course is not unique to Jehovah's Witnesses I just think it adds an extra layer as well as almost a fear-based uh decision-making process the fear of being kicked out of the house the fear of losing my family a fear of losing my friends in the congregation all of that those two things in my little Noggin began to take form even though I wouldn't have been able to fully wrap words around them being young but it definitely started to influence how I would go about the rest of my life and it was put before us quite frequently by my parents that if we ever uh followed in that course or that path or decided this is what we wanted to do that we would receive exactly the same treatment that my sister had received so there was this constant low-level threat uh in the household that definitely had an influence on me that being said I soon thereafter age 11 decided to get baptized because it seemed like that was the right thing again to make my parents my family the congregation happy and to keep myself on the right trajectory so to speak even though I was 11 again did not fully grasp the implications of I don't want to use the word decision um of that action I'll put it because it wasn't fully my own decision at that age there was a lot of social pressure and congregational pressure uh constantly to get baptized I thought it was the right thing to do of course you get the Pats on the back the congratulations the good jobs they give you a little tie tack with the date of your baptism whatever the it is I baptized at age 11 the signed that lifelong contract as we know that's when you become subject to the shunning policy when you're baptized and that sticks with you throughout life so if your job was witnessing well you got baptized for the wrong reasons well you that's what I would say I was 11 and I thought I was doing it for the right reasons there you go if you want to say my baptism was invalid I agree with you it was do you think they would annul my baptism the organization no they wouldn't so it doesn't matter okay let's just throw that out there moving along baptized at age 11 I'm gonna try to kind of speed through this a little bit I initially kept going on that path of just trying to appear to be a good little Jehovah's Witness I thought I would try to do more and be a good example I guess some examples so young but really live up to the image that my family was supposed to have with an elder father I when I was in public I think I was still in public school around that time on the verge of being taken out and homeschooled but during my summer vacation I remember I would call my grandfather who was an elder and a Pioneer himself a side note he would later be disfellowshipped for apostasy that's right that's another ball of wax that's a whole separate episode on its own which hopefully I'll talk about sometime soon but at the time he was an elder and a Pioneer I would call him up ask him to pick me up to take me out preaching midweek because my parents would be working those were the things I was doing just being with him some of the other pioneers and the congregation I why did I do it because I really enjoy crippling social anxiety and violent diarrhea that's why out there preaching I would just be at the Kingdom Hall after the meeting for field service in the morning in the bathroom and just clenching the bottom of my penny loafers holding on for dear life just but I thought it was the right thing to do I really did I really did I I again it was just seemed like the right thing that I was trying to help people and be a good little Jehovah's Witness uh really so much of my life is just being this caricature of what the joke the organization expects of you rather than who I actually wanted to be on the inside okay as I moved into my mid teens to late teens that's when things shifted for me a little bit I think that happens a lot uh on all every level of society but especially within the Jehovah's Witnesses where you reach this point where you're feeling like you want a little Independence you want some part in the decision-making process which again was not an option in my household uh I started to acknowledge with myself that this wasn't what I wanted to be doing that I didn't want to be preaching I didn't want to be at the meetings I found them boring all these things if you side note if you watch JW Broadcasting they'll have this these scenarios they'll set up in their the video propaganda where there's a teenage kid and his father says uh coaxial room are you gonna get ready for the meeting and the kid goes to I don't want to get ready for some I don't want to go to the meeting it's boring and the father's all mild tempered and I understand son cyst on X I mean this is what they're trying to model to Jehovah's Witnesses I maybe there's some Jehovah's Witnesses out there like that that was not my household let me just make that clear even if that's what they were trying to tell my father to be like that was not the reaction it was you better get dressed or and get to the media or else that was more of the reaction I would have had if I expressed Independence even as a teenager what I did do is I just started doing the bare minimum to not receive too much criticism from my parents or trouble with them some of the other Jehovah's Witnesses I feel like started to view me as a little bit on the edge uh and that wasn't just me there was a bunch of my my peers that were about the same age in a congregation I was withdrawing a little bit again at this point I was homeschooled but I started working and I had jobs I you know I had a little bit of a double life when I say double life uh I had some friends that went in fully on the sex drugs and rock and roll as uh Jehovah's Witnesses they had that going on in the background mine was more like masturbation a little bit of alcohol and rap for the most part those those were my double life Tendencies that's about as far as I went I say I did just enough to feel really guilty and still die a virgin those are my late teen years I had some questions I had some doubts but I was constantly stuffing them down I really still believed in the doctrine I thought it was the truth overall I thought the problem was with me that I didn't want to do it uh I just went through a bout of depression I I had even because I'd looked at some porn and stuff like that I'd gotten suicidal uh it was I had a lot of guilt and shame that was really built into me from the religion but I was still uh at least pulling away a little bit at the time I got to the age of 18 my parents uh moved away to a new area I stayed in the area that I had grown up in and got an apartment with a roommate a Jehovah's Witness roommate I would say he was bought the same level spiritually let's say as I was we were rooming together I was working uh and I need to at this point talk about the just an experience I had I was the preface that I was looking at these Jehovah's Witness friends I had some of them had gotten in actually some pretty serious trouble with the law because of drugs and other things I some of them are actually spending time in prison and you had this narrative right when you are a Jehovah's Witness you'll always hear these Jehovah's Witnesses tell you that if it wasn't for the truth as they refer to it I'd be dead or in prison right I'm sure if you're Joe's witness you heard that so many times I thought I had started to see evidence of that because these friends of mine had really gone off the rails and I'm not blaming them for that they they weren't given life skills and they'd made some mistakes let me put it that way but it was kind of a scared straight for me so there was this occasion I remember where because I lived by the Canadian border I went with a work mate uh to go to a nightclub so I was I must have just turned 19 at this point um and so I could drink in Canada so and he was I think he was the same age so we were up there drinking we were at this nightclub I felt really uncomfortable really with the whole situation I just I had a few drinks and then when we tried to cross back in the United States being miners who had just had drinks we got kind of detained at the border and stopped and it was we were there for a while they ended up just letting us go but it wasn't a good it wasn't like a good experience let's put it that way and I don't think I talked about this on the audio only version but this I've just been thinking about things I think that for me was kind of a moment where I thought oh I'm on a bad trajectory I'm not listening to Jehovah I'm not doing what's right and now I'm on the verge of getting myself in some serious trouble maybe even legal trouble I'm making mistakes I'm doing stupid things I need to get my life right with Jehovah that will take care of the shame I'm feeling now take care of the guilt I'm feeling that will keep me out of trouble at that point uh my parents after they moved away had been telling me if everyone they knew I was on the edge but they always told me if you want to get get going with Jehovah they call it Jehovah the organization of course is what they mean you can move back in with us we'll help you we'll support you so after that experience it wasn't much longer things had not gone well with my roommate and he was leaving the apartment and I said you know what I'll take the opportunity to do an about face to do some penance uh get my life right with Jehovah that will keep me on a safe path keep me out of trouble and no doubt as I start to maybe if I destroy myself into it and clear the air uh my heart and mind will follow that I'll actually start to love this Jehovah person and feel for him and have a relationship with him and do things that please him let's put it that way moved into that congregation new congregation with my parents okay bam get there I would say it was that was a huge shift for me because the other congregation I had grown up in people were almost viewing me a little bit as uh he's on his way out it's just a matter of time not too much the others weren't bugging me too much people weren't really trying to encourage me I just was there going to the motions and people pretty much we're just letting me be this new congregation I got there I talked uh to the elders there and told them I want to get things right and do things boy they had a fresh set of eyes on me they'd basically threw all my history away and said all right forward and boy did things escalate quickly mostly because I had a penis if you have a penis you're a male things escalate quickly in the organization if you tell them that you are willing to offer yourself as free labor more or less that's what happened I they they encouraged me to get busy at the Kingdom Hall to offer myself to pass microphones to hand out literature busy at the Kingdom Hall start preaching they encourage me to start preaching because I hadn't found a job yet in the area later I would actually one of the elders would even give me some employment uh but yeah that's what I did so I started going out in service I said I'm gonna put in an auxiliary Pioneer application which uh if you've never been a Jehovah's Witness since you're just making a promise to preach at the time it was 50 hours a month with that which I think it still is 50 hours a month I signed up for that continuously so I was gonna do 50 hours of the month every month until further notice one of the others told me hey why you're putting in all this work why not just be a regular Pioneer and experience the benefits of that there's Pioneer School as it's known which is self-explanatory uh even if you've never been a Jehovah's Witness when you become a regular Pioneer they have a special school that you go to that is the same crap you've been hearing over and over again your whole life just intensified like boiled down and shoved down your throat okay uh yeah become a regular Pioneer experience these benefits there's going to be a Pioneer seminar coming up which was a special meeting they would have before one of the uh assemblies they would have a Friday afternoon program for pioneers so I said yeah yeah why not I have the schedule I have the availability I hate hate preaching why not do this if I do it enough maybe I'll learn to love it that was really my thought of course again people are praising you and you're getting a lot of uh reinforcement within the congregation and within my family I was doing that and slowly started to I would say just get molded into a this image of uh Nixon Paris young Jehovah's Witness the way I dressed my music I have stories around all this I don't want to go into it right here because this video will just be too long but these Elders were really changing things about me before I was even ready to change them that just by strong counsel they were very direct they weren't mean per se but they were very direct with me on the things I needed to change let me give one example I um was a snowboarder my car had snowboarding stickers all over it that's just I was a teenager snowboarder that's what I did what what the you know Special Blend was a brand it just had like a SB on the car and uh forum and these other snowboard companies I just all kind of on the back window of the car maybe some on the back bumper well I showed up to preach one day uh they make card groups and send you out and can we use your cars yeah yeah we can I don't mind driving uh so I walk out and I had an elder in my car group with me I guess he never really paid attention to my car but he's he I was again I was fairly new to the congregations that's your car I said yeah and he said that is not going to represent Jehovah in the ministry with those stickers on it that is unacceptable not only do I not want you using that car out in the ministry I don't even want that car parked in the Kingdom Hall parking lot with those stickers on it I feel like I should have it towed that's what he told me I was a holy they said next time I see that car in the parking lot please no stickers and I thought all right well that's this is what Jehovah threw an elder is telling me to do it I went home took all the stickers off the car of course next meeting oh you know I I Disappeared to be this humble person he was telling me what a good job and it was good that I had done that that's just an example of the types of things that were I was doing but not necessarily out of let's say the goodness of my heart I was just being almost crowbarred a little bit shoehorned into some decisions okay regular pioneering I at this point had a friend who said hey uh I'm gonna apply to Bethel I said okay cool he said why don't you apply to Bethel I said well uh yeah I just kind of just getting going here but he explained to me that Bethel has temporary applications and that you could just go for a week or two weeks or a month and check it out and I said you know do anything for a month uh yeah so I went I asked the elders for temporary application filled it out uh sent it in and I got a letter back saying that I could go to Bethel for a month I could go to Watchtower Farms Wallkill for a month yay I was excited of course everyone was just falling over themselves for me my other friend was also being accepted to Bethel so we were these two young Golden Boy rock stars at this point right just you guys are the best uh yeah so that happened shortly thereafter saw a regular Pioneer now I'm gonna be a temporary bethalite until either after it was a circuit overseer's visit which if you've never been jealous witness the circuit overseer is just a district manager for the Watchtower franchise he visits this group of congregations encouraging them he spends a week with each congregation he gives talks he gives people counsel they didn't ask for prizes nose and everyone's business uh eats their food and then leaves great most of them are good guys I don't mean to put them down as people but that's pretty much the arrangement he was there visiting I think it was the first he would give uh you know we'd have the meetings Tuesday Thursday Sunday during his visit and then preaching all during the week uh Tuesday night my first night really meeting the circuit overseer I'd maybe met him at the assembly briefly but we really didn't have a rapport or a friendship or anything like that after the meeting he pretty much as far as I could tell b-lined it to me uh let me see if I can Channel my inner circuit overs here here brother Fair the brother right when you have if you have an older deals with this refer to his brother or sister that probably means there's some counsel or there's at least there's some objective to this conversation already because why wouldn't he just say hey Bo I'm a younger guy so that's my name but brother fair oh another Fair uh I got wind that you got accepted to go to Bethel for temp work that's really great that's very commendable oh thanks yeah yeah I'm gonna go to Temporary have you have you thought about putting in a permanent battle application oh oh no I said I I want to go to Bethel to temp work to see if I like it first and then suddenly as if this was an unacceptable answer his demeanor changed his face got very serious and even the tone of his voice brother Fair all right because I always crack up a little bit with the story brother Fair do you know what Bethel means Bethel means the house of God if you as a servant of Jehovah don't like the house of God you have a serious attitude problem and brother so and so and I we can take you in the back room right now and help you with that no that won't be necessary he reaches in this briefcase pulls out a piece of paper hands it to me I look at it it's a Bethel application permanent bevel application he says fill this out and hand it in to me before I leave at the end of the week that way when you're out of Bethel doing temp work Bethel could see if they like you hey God damn it I did it I did it I thought it was too soon I was unsure of it all I was just trying to get we're talking about her just a few months but people you know the elders are saying this is what happens you put yourself in Jehovah's hands and it doesn't need much time he could just mold you so quickly and look at you now putting in the Bethel application I I filled it out I figured hey Jehovah sees everything right and His holy spirit's running this ship I'm gonna be lying on most of these questions so surely he won't let me into his house right music no granted I had stopped doing some of the stuff but it was really recent and they asked historically on this application I just that's all you know no rap music no porn no no never all these things right I filled it out I put it in at the same circuit overseer visit uh I also was appointed a ministerial servant never been a Jehovah's Witness it's like a deacon you handle the elders paperwork and shuffling things that they don't want to do organizing and doing it literature inventory at the time I think I was assigned to that or the magazines or being in charge of the sound those types of things making the territory map cards for the preaching work all that stuff just kind of the low level congregation stuff that needs to get done accounts balancing the checkbook for the congregation all of those things I started giving parts and talks all that stuff and then the time came for me to go to temp work it was July it was hot as balls I went to Wallkill to work on the replacement of a Printery roof at least that's how I started out I ended up doing a few different assignments while I was there but mostly on that what was my impression of Bethel when I was doing temp work I didn't like some of the people other people I thought were great a lot of fun uh I was actually surprised at the more fun people I met I felt like there was like this different level I've never been a very serious person I don't know if you can pick up on that there was just a level of fun and and being jokesters that I wasn't necessarily expecting to find at Bethel I thought was going to be a much more serious place and don't get me wrong that existed and I didn't like that aspect of it but I was kind of at the same time just In fairness I was taken aback by the amount of fun that could be had too uh but there was just some stuff where I was like man this is a little not not my style just not my style I think it was getting dressed up all the time morning worship and then getting dressed up and you're constantly just being constantly bombarded with Jehovah's Witnesses and Jehovah's Witness propaganda all the time of course there's times as I already mentioned a friendship camaraderie all that stuff great but there was definitely parts of it where I felt unsure however that being said my last week of doing temp work I came back to the room that they had given me to stay in I look on the counter and there is an envelope with my name on it it's a piece of internal mail Eternal Bethel mail it was a letter tell me congratulations you've been accepted to be a permanent bethelite so in my mind no going back now right this is I guess what God wants uh you know you have a month go home pack your up sell your motorcycle anything that is dead weight now it's considered a mountain of rubbish or a pile of rubbish or whatever the scripture says and get back here so I uh that's not what the letter said this is just ideas that were being told being floating around the organization people around me at that time the letter just said report back at this day you've been accepted congratulations I love Jehovah I don't know whatever the letter said uh yeah so that's what I did reported back to wall kill September 6 2001 right before 9 11. as the believing job was witness I and this I don't say this to at all downplay the tragedy of 9 11 but this is kind of the sick thing that goes through your head I was in my housekeeper training the 911 happened we got wind of it we turned the TV on to see the news I thought I had that sense that maybe I had hit the Armageddon Lottery that I had gotten to Bethel the house of God just in time before the Great Tribulation and Armageddon was coming that's and there was a low level thought of that all around Bethel actually that this could be a this could be the event that sets off everything right so I definitely had that mentality in the beginning that quickly faded into the background but that was going through my head so September 2001 I get to wall kill I was assigned to work in the kitchen and that's why I worked I was there for six years my overall impression of Bethel is not much different than what I've explained with the temp work I had a lot of fun I really did I made some really good friends I I thought it was as close you could come to a Jehovah's Witness college dorm experience where it was just a lot of hanging out a lot of playing sports a lot of drinking uh parties and dancing almost witness parties obviously it's not like they're the most fun in the world but it is you know something so that was like the Bethel experience I do want to point out that it was also just Bethel felt extremely invasive very invasive just very controlling even more so than the average Jehovah's Witness life there was a lot of politics you're thinking right now if your next Jehovah's Witness I've heard this from many extrovers witnesses so I won't get offended but people will tell me wall kills not even real Bethel fine I get it it's a watchtower Farms it's not what you know Brooklyn at the time was HQ that was real Bethel and Washington Farms was just this pile of cow out in the country great you'll say welcome I'm not real Bethel oh and you worked in the kitchen so you don't know about like you just were cooking food that's also true that's also true yet the amazing thing to me is with both of those things being true the amount of politics I saw within my department was mind-blowing mind blowing along with so many other stories I don't have time to tell I'd like to get into those more at some point some of the stories I have but we had struggles for oversight within my department we had people jocking for positions and trying to get into offices and putting other people down throwing other people under the bus we had a period of they set up No Lie one of the assistant overseers took it upon himself to take on a couple of Witnesses as some type of private task force for anybody that was critical said anything critical about the oversight because it was a real show and it's hard to go 44 hours a week working in a show and to not say anything he had informants set up to report to him anybody that criticized oversight so he could follow up on it and then somehow find a way to punish them and put them down I again I can't go into detail with all this but it just was amazing to see these things I not amazing in a good way but just absolutely mind-blowing to me I knew there was imperfect people in the organization but wow the the stuff I saw some of it was recognized and picked up on later on by higher up oversight some of it was corrected a lot of it wasn't uh so there was a lot of that in the experience um yeah just bad run-ins with home overseers and other overseers uh so there was a lot of it's kind of a love hate relationship I have with my memories of Bethel I think that's we probably all feel that way for X Jehovah's Witnesses there was probably some stuff we really enjoyed and loved and other things we hated usually for me I felt like the negative usually came around to outweighing the positive right I so um let's sum this up so how's that wall kill for those six years towards the end of that I was having a lot of problems with all the stuff I was talking about before a lot of an occasion where I actually almost got in a fist fight with someone in oversight so I thought it was time to exit stage left not to mention the Bethel demon attack that happened in my room at Bethel if you want to hear more about that the audio quality is very poor but I think it's the second or third episode of the podcast is about demon stories uh give that a listen I tell the full story there maybe I'll redo it again with better audio quality someday I just I have to get out of here that's I have to get out of here I had met someone started dating her uh she would become my now ex-wife and it seemed like a good time just to leave so I could get engaged and get married that's what I did moved into the congregation she was in got married started pioneering that was pretty much the next how many years several years several years maybe a few years to be more accurate okay so to start a pioneering in the congregation I was a ministerial stir event and shortly after getting married I was appointed as an elder that's right the tender age of 26. feel free and ex-johals Witnesses listen here a couple things here if you are a humorless ex Jehovah's Witness you can off you don't that's it that's the truth some do extrahost Witnesses are so humorless let's have a sense of humor about it I'm not downplaying anybody's pain or trauma or how much you hate the elders okay I get it I get it I get it I would end up getting screwed over by the elders myself and being on the other side of the table so to speak with them I get it but just come on I just have some humor I have some humor that's all just because some people just get angry yeah because I was an elder at 26 and Eldar 26 you're a piece of you don't know anything at 26. I know you're right that's why it's hilarious because let me just say this within the organization what is life experience and they don't care about actual life experience Watchtower knowledge equals life experience within the organization just like if you're a single Elder you can think you're qualified to counsel a married couple on marriage because you think that just knowing the scriptures in the Watchtower Publications qualifies you it fills the gap of that life experience I understand that all that is wrong but that's the mentality so of course 26 your wise beyond your years if you know the Watchtower Publications and I had I had been pretty studious and and doing a lot as a ministerial servants so in their minds I was ready at at 26 years old okay but feel free to on me just do it with Good Humor that's all I ask that's all I ask you can on me all you want my ego's been dead in a long time so it's just you can kick it while it's down as much as you want I guess I just won't feel it that much okay Elder at 26. what was it like being an elder oh I've said this before but it was maybe you saw my Lloyd Evans interview the ex-elder tell all I I got in this a little bit so it's a bit repetitive I apologize I just I again repeating theme I thought it was the right thing to do I thought it was a way to help people that's why I accepted it but I was shocked that's one word uh when I when they you first become an elder and you get filled in on what is going on in the congregation that you have been unaware of that's that first those first couple of meetings where they fill you in like holy and that's where you find out where uh you know who are the possible sexual predators a child molesters in the congregation uh again I and I got in this with Lloyd of course I'd struggle with my memory my guilt over uh what I could have done more at that time also what I can do what I can prove now uh so I just want to make that clear uh it's obviously not a laughing matter for me that this happens in Jehovah's Witness congregations that these people go unreported to the authorities so let's just make that clear but in any case I just my mind like melted I the because I understand that people do stuff and people get kicked out and there's a certain level of imperfection in the congregation but I had no idea really just all of the skeletons in the closet that just really I didn't care about the people anymore but it just destroyed any image I had of us being this happy clappy clean organization uh that image was destroyed in my mind at that point that being said it's not like I left right away that didn't happen I tried to stay on and just think about what can I do to help people I had about six judicial committees I think my first years in dollars that was a lot it was a lot and those again those are something I feel immense uh I'm trying to work through all these you you know feelings that are in my head from from that time frame in my life not proud of any of this so it was just a lot more than anything else uh not to make myself a victim as an elder but I just had the distinct feeling of drowning in assignments I had left Bethel and I still had that very much that people pleaser always say yes to Jehovah mentality therefore whenever I was asked to take on an assignment I said yes yes yes yes so I had so many assignments uh it just it felt like I was on this treadmill and the harder I ran the more inclined the more speed was put on the treadmill I just could not keep up I can't go through all of the assignments I had right now but let me just try to give a quick preview so I have a service overseer okay that's in of itself not a huge deal I was a service overseer I was a cleaning overseer not just for my congregation but for the whole circuit for the assemblies I was the parking overseer for the district now Regional conventions I of course did my public talks my talks a lot of talks in the the congregation level a lot of public talks I gave convention talks I gave assembly talks I gave talks at the pioneer seminar I gave talks at the Kingdom Ministry School for the elders and the ministerial servants I had all those assignments I was on the operations committee I did the operations committee accounts I was a book study overs here for a distant group I was also the Watchtower Study conductor for that distant group are you getting a clear picture I I had one of those big Elder briefcases the hard side ones with the flaps that open up on the tops the size of a coffee table and every week I had another three-ring binder going in there of all the I couldn't get done I just had all the to get done I just could never get caught up and I would just spend my evenings trying to email people or not that I didn't have a life at all but just it ate up so much my mental energy and my time I just oh I was eating me live on the inside a lot a lot on top of that I'll talk about some other things that were really bothering me but that was my feeling about being an elder so I was in that congregation about two years my ex and I had been preaching in a distant territory as I mentioned there was this group that I was doing the book study in Watchtower for a CEO came around and asked my ex and I to move to that area to start a Spanish group hopefully with the objective of it becoming a Spanish congregation so we moved we took on that we said yes of course I said yes uh uh and at the same time had been applying to Gilead even to go to Gilead School just we were this young couple that was just like on this trajectory like a shooting star or you know in the circuit there was a bunch of them there were sub-circuit overseers and going to schools and doing all the stuff building projects oh that's another responsibility I had I was a RBC Personnel coordinator from the Departments for the Kingdom Hall building the list goes on like I said I can't even think all of them right now I think I did uh I was drinking one night with the extraville's witness uh friend who was also an ex-elder and he was laughing his ass off and he heard how many assignments I had and I think that we got up to he can correct me from around I think we got up to 14 or 16 different titles I had in the organization just you know this overseer and that overseer and this coordinator is of course it's all but it was just so much yeah it also applying for Gilly and all this stuff anyways back to what I've seen we got asked moved to a group yes uh so we moved into an area very interesting it was seven Publishers for the uh Spanish group getting started so very slim start I was the only Elder in the beginning so it was my job to essentially not only recruit people in the ministry the door-to-door ministry we already had a bunch of people we were studying watched our Publications with trying to convert on top of that was to recruit help so to speak the pioneers ministerial servants Elders who could come help the group so I was essentially doing all of the assignments I had before is shifted a little bit uh because I was now a group overseer a language group overseer which meant I was pretty much doing all the functions of a congregation by myself so to speak but I was a part of a bigger English Elder body who was hosting us that uh was an interesting experience because I was somewhat on my own especially again in the beginning uh but part of this bigger larger Elder body uh yeah so that was it preaching recruiting people I I had a ton of things to get done I was trying to get speakers to come give public talks I was conduct uh again I don't repeat myself here conducting all the meetings I started a school a small Theocratic Ministry School that we would do on occasion that would even should become more regular as we've got more people all those things and God damn it if that group isn't a congregation now as far as I know anyways unless it got dissolved since then but yeah I had the uh Misfortune of actually converting some people they joined a religion joined the group couldn't get them out on my way out I guess I did too good of a job unfortunately when I indoctrinated them uh so I'm not proud of that but that did happen so now let's get to more of the interesting bit of the story I took a whole hour to get here let's talk about I you know you have to establish your street cred as a Jehovah's Witness so these are all the things I did okay so when I talk I'm talking from experience okay a little bit no that's not why I just wanted to give my my story here why I am no longer a Jehovah's Witness let's get into that first and foremost as I kept taking on more responsibility doing more and more and more and this is full transparency here I began I just had mounting guilt I had mounting guilt because I knew I was still watching porn and masturbating right okay if you've never been jobs witness you might be like okay and but if your job was witness you know that a big deal so that was just building up in my conscience I kept feeling more and more and more like a hypocrite two-faced so at some point I actually again had I say again I'd done this in my teen years I wrote essentially a suicide letter because I was planning to just end my life because I thought I could never go through the shame and disgrace of coming clean about this that's how serious it got kind of crazy to think about but this happens in religion yeah so I had all that going on thankfully I decided in a way even though it wasn't easy I did decide just to come clean about it rather than in my life so I went to the elders I confessed I then went to a Judicial committee because if you've never been to Joe's witness know this you you can watch pornography I'm not saying they obviously don't approve of any pornography but if you watch pornography of a man one man and one woman having sex they will not kick you out of religion for that you won't have any special privileges or they won't use you for anything special if you confess to that but they won't have what's called a Judicial committee where they have a Judicial committees where they meet with you and have the the the chance exists that you're completely kicked out of religion disfellowship as they call it enshund if you watch that type of just really plain vanilla porn they won't do a traditional you'll be counseled and they won't they won't look at it it's definitely frowned upon don't get me wrong just to be clear however who knows of a man who's been on a pornographic website who hasn't at least daffled in uh some lesbian or even gay sex whatever it is a porn right and once you do that the rule book says that that's abhorrent pornography and that makes you subject to this judicial process where you you uh can get kicked out okay so I confess to the elders they set up a Judicial committee here I am kind of this young hot shot Elder I say that within the organization I had District overs here talking to me about being a sub circuit overseer I was giving convention talks like you know I was I had this pretty high profile in the organization giving talks sometimes in front of six seven thousand people at the conventions okay so I confess they have to do a Judicial committee they meet with me I was the elders I confessed to I went to them because they were my friends so I will say they were very kind with me they handled me very gently because I had I was obviously in an emotionally mentally frail State just because everything had been so hard for me not to mention the fact that I really sad sad destroyed my wife's image of me too like she's essentially in that moment lost uh my ex lost all her respect for me in an instant uh heard dreams went up in smoke because this man that's supposed she's supposed to go places in the organization with is now a loser right as as for lack of a better expression I had that on top of that you know that I had these others but I get in the judicial committee on and I'm just I'm devastated I'm already devastated and now I have to see if I'm gonna be completely kicked out of the organization so I just had so much going on the judicial committee was brutal I don't know how to put it I I was at the lowest point in my life as far as I knew at that point up to that point I and I was just getting these others were just taking kicks like it was like I was on the ground already and they were just kicking me in the head in the face and the stomach uh suddenly I don't feel like I was that tight I I don't I don't call anybody a good Elder like people ask me sometimes X jobs Witnesses were you a cool Elder I always I always say there's no such thing because even the Elder who's like hey let's get a beer let's talk about it you know and they're very nice and kind and and all that stuff but at the end of the day are they really cool out there because typically they're gonna enforce the rules no matter how nice they are to your face they're gonna enforce the rules so but I at least they're nice that's how I feel like I was a pretty nice Elder I try not to kick people who were down so to speak uh outside of just trying to enforce the Watchtower rules well some Elders are had to watch Star rules and they're have bully personalities that's what I was met with it really destroyed me it really did the the judicial committee on top of that of course I was it was just decided I'd be privately reproved which means they don't make any announcement to the congregation but they did have to announce the congregation I was no longer an elder and no longer a regular Pioneer so everybody of course at that point knows that Something's Happened on top of that no talk I was no longer giving talks I couldn't comment like everything I was doing so I just saw some high profile nothing like the the brakes were slammed at first my head went through the windshield so to speak I was it just was rough the the way I was treating the congregation changed an instant also that I wasn't person who could be counted on and I'm just talking about the general perception that the scene that people had to me all of a sudden from being this person they confided and talked to and counted on they just all that ended I got more like side eye glances and disappointing sad looks I which I really really hate uh yeah so that happened I thought I was like okay well you're always told the organization that discipline isn't it's not enjoyable it's not enjoyable so you just have to you know suck it up and and realize that that you had that coming you had that coming and just humble yourself and all this stuff so that's what I was trying to do I I just was again devastated but I thought okay here's my chance to have a clear conscience before God to have things correct before him and I can start working my way back I can keep busy interestingly even though I wasn't a Pioneer or an elder anymore they still let you preach right if you're just reproved I I just thought I'll just keep pretty much doing Pioneer hours this is what I did which is now looking back is insane but I was with my ex conducting five Bible studies uh and I forgot to mention in all this that Casey hadn't picked up and already I switched into I had switched to a Spanish Hall in Bethel so let me just say that so uh all this was happening in Spanish all right so a couple of things now happened that led me to where I am today one is suddenly sitting at the Kingdom Hall not having to do anything I had been busy from the time I was that 19 year old who decided they were going to try to get things right with Jehovah and then things escalated quickly I was busy at the Kingdom Hall my whole adulthood now into my early 30s but but all I could do now was sit and listen that's it that's all I could do sit and listen to what was being said some of it started to make me feel very uncomfortable I didn't disbelieve I still believed it was true but as I listened I had this growing discomfort within me things being said about what was going to happen at Armageddon things being said about this fellowshipping things being said about gay people I had this growing discomfort Within Me I just would kind of squirm in my seat and look around most jobs when this is just not along but this was Spanish it was a group there was a lot of interested people there I would almost look to them just to see what how an outsider the safety outside and The Outsider the visiting person was also squirming in their seat and I would see it sometimes I would see a so that was happening within me but again I was still doing the preaching I I still thought it was the truth as they say I still believed in it just this discomfort this word then one evening I was doing the Bible study with my ex with a couple and that day I had prepared well for the study there was a book uh we would use called the what does the bible really teach which is right right from the title is because the appendix there was an appendix in on 1914 I cannot go into the full on there's tons of videos out there and Jehovah's Witnesses in 1914. I'm not going to do a deep dive into that right now but essentially they say that Jesus was came back in 1914 and visibly and started ruling in heaven then there's these mathematic equations taken from random numbers and scriptures in the Bible slapped together to make it look like it's biblical okay so I I was going to be teaching this 1914 appendix so I had studied that while I prepared because it was something where I was like I never really felt comfortable teaching it I think it's because I think this is a case a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses even if they don't want to recognize it it's because you know deep down this kind of you you try to soothe Yourself by saying that's just complicated or it's a deep thought from the scriptures therefore I'm not comfortable but really it's just because it's but I'm on the study teaching 1914 the student is looking at me puzzled a little puzzled uh trying to break into pieces so he can get it but that's when it happened he had this slight look of skepticism or disbelief on his face I felt like I was trying to like Shore this up for him but suddenly I recognized that I didn't believe it the look of disbelief on his face I had this saw in my head I thought if a Jehovah's Witness came to my door and tried to teach me this there's no way I would buy into this boy that was the most terrifying thought I ever had so in my Scramble to try to reassure him I recommended something to him that I had never done myself I told him I said just go into like there's historical events mentioned here in this appendix like the destruction of Jerusalem all you have to do is go into an encyclopedia or a history book and confirm that date 607 and that's a good starting point to reassure yourself I had never done that myself I only read that number in the Watchtower Publications if your next Jehovah's Witness you know where this is going already I went to a library I pulled out an encyclopedia I opened it up expecting 607 I'm like what the is this 587. I put that one away well that one's obviously wrong grab another one 587. I holy holy now In fairness to the Watchtower I should have at least had a vague knowledge that this was the case because they had printed around that time two articles that are very shitty articles but they at least acknowledge that most secular sources all secular sources no secular sources however you want to put it don't agree with them however I just that I read those articles but it never really registered with me but this time it did the next day I was supposed to go out preaching again I told my ex I have to just stay home and do some studying I didn't tell her what was going on but she was could tell something that happened on the study because I I turned red I was sweating I ended the study abruptly I did a prayer and got the out of there dying on the inside I was terrified of this this doubt I was having in my head that was really clear uh yeah so the next day I didn't tell her and boy I pull out all the watch to our Publications I was going through it and that teaching now was like a house of cards to me that that one card came out and the more I tried to like slide it back in by reading the Insight book and these other the Daniels prophecy book all these books the Publications it just I just made it just damaged it crumbled it more just crumbled it all came down I looked like the the guy from Beautiful Mind had pictures and strings and timelines up all around the room and but the whole thing just collapsed it collapsed yeah and I I was terrified because I knew that even though at this point I wasn't an elder or a Pioneer or any of that uh I had started gotten you know I started getting back like it mags they won't want me to like hand out magazines or do the sound and microphones of the Kingdom little things like that I could comment again talks in the school I just started getting stuff like that back and but I was just terrified at the implications for my life uh I there obviously was in the marriage I had a Jehovah's Witness landlord I was just locked in to Jehovah's Witness land I had nothing out side of that at all so it was terrifying finally I uh this is going way too long let me try to wrap this up I kept doing research uh uh and I started asking myself a question what else am I being lied to about that was really the question that started to because I really felt like I had been lied to about 1914 especially as I had done all the research and looked into the history of it what else am I being lied about at that point which is terrifying for a Jehovah's Witness I went on the internet boy once you do that let you go to Google you are as far as like if you want to remain a Jehovah's Witness unless you can do some amazing mental gymnastics you're you're I I always put it like this is my analogy it's like ordering that uh you know king-sized memory foam mattress and it comes in the Box the size of a soup can once you cut that box open the plastic that thing hits the air and it expands the size of your house you're not getting it back in the box it's not going back in that's I felt like with internet research once I went down that rabbit hole that was it just the whole thing unraveled you see the the child sexual abuse scandals the lies the flip-flops and Doctrine uh just all these practices the organization had and at the same time what was coming flooding back for me was uh the everything I had witnessed especially when I read crisis of conscience the book by Ray Franz it I knew it was true because I had witnessed exactly what he was talking about at Bethel even though I was at the Brooklyn or working in the you know teaching committee or right by the governing body or whatever it is you could see all these things I I knew it was true when I read it I just like holy holy so I did at that point as I started fading I just uh fading again just means you just go inactive you stop preaching you stop attending the meetings just start pulling away from religion at the same time uh people in religion notice that they started pulling away from me but I became inactive uh stop me and stop preaching I just couldn't do it anymore I couldn't do it anymore in good conscience I did for a very brief period try to start again with like my own version of what it could be to be a Jehovah's Witness in my head that was not received well it was it wasn't receivable that it might be another story for another day uh yeah I stuck with not officially resigning from the organization for a while trying to salvage my family and my marriage I failed on both fronts even though I was never uh officially kicked out for until I disassociated last year yeah so that's that's my story I just want to mention that since then life overall has been pretty good I don't I don't have a uh too many complaints other than just your natural problems that arise but the freedom to think for yourself to design a life you want the extent possible I know we can't accomplish everything we want to do but God damn it we can try right that's an option you don't usually have as one of Jehovah's Witnesses so yeah I'm disassociated I my family had already stopped speaking to me three hours three years before I disassociated my uh my parents and my brother thankfully as I mentioned before I got my sister back which is amazing so I do have a family I've heard my niece which has been beautiful having them in my life and a lot of other amazing people I guess if I could give kind of an ending message to this is just if uh I guess if you're in a position where you're thinking about leaving but you're not sure uh so I know sometimes it's circumstantial but if you can create circumstances where you can just leave and be free to be yourself do it it does there's always going to be consequences the organization doesn't let anybody get away free really as far as I know but the this is one of those cases where the positive far outweighs negative if you can uh try to really make the best out of life that's what I want to say I my heart goes out to everyone whose next job is witness or if you're a Jehovah's Witness who's thinking about leaving also my heart goes out to you it's a it's really a extremely challenging process so just putting that out there hope you enjoyed the the video My Story a little bit uh it went definitely a lot longer than I want to do so if you're still watching thanks uh and stay tuned for my next episode I uh have an Instagram if you want to follow me on there at Armageddon podcast or you can email me if you want to say hello Armageddon podcast gmail.com feel free to leave a YouTube comment I know we're told that not to read those but I try to read them I I don't I'll try to reply to some of them if I can so thanks

Channel: Armageddon in Retrospect

Views: 22,543

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Id: OikyqzJsl10

Length: 76min 26sec (4586 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 22 2023