My EX JW Story (former Bethelite, Regular Pioneer, Ministerial Servant, Foreign Language)

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[Music] hello my name is Jordan and as you can probably tell from the title of this video this is going to be my ex JW ex Joe is witness story just to give you a brief introduction to this video I don't want to make this channel into a xjw channel specifically here on YouTube I have other plans for it but I do think it's very important that as many of us as possible put our experiences out there so that we can show each other that what we went through is not not only is it not normal but it's also not uncommon that a lot of us do have shared experiences and so to make this video I dressed up in my nice button-down shirt I shaved my face did my hair up I wanted to make it seem as legitimate as possible and share my experience here with you guys on YouTube well they actually w community here on YouTube so yeah like I say and I grew up as one of Joe's witnesses from earliest memories that I have in fact both of my parents were witnesses are currently currently still are witnesses as well as both sets of my grandparents as well as great-grandparents on both sides of my my mother and my father's side so I was actually a fourth generation Joe's witness and so what that meant for me growing up is that there was this idea of what your typical JW family should look like you know the dad's an elder mom used to be a pioneer and now they're raising a family together and pretty much the entirety of my family all my extended family is all witnesses and so growing up my entire life that's pretty much all I knew is what life was like inside of the religion but other than that my childhood was pretty typical for most JW childhoods of course I went to public school I did really well in public school I'd come home and play video games do my homework I had a couple of friends that I was allowed to hang out with on days off from school or on weekends of course Saturday morning field service Sunday Sunday meeting we had Thursday night meaning and Monday night book study for most of my life growing up and so that was the routine that was the schedule doing those typical things that the job as witnesses do but other than that really there wasn't anything too special about my childhood like I mentioned I went to school and a lot of witness kids are they're known for doing well in school our parents do teach us that it's important to have a good education and to do well in school and personally I just I really enjoyed school I love learning I still love learning to this day and I admire as I could and I was even a little competitive with some of the other students about how how good I would do in school and math reading writing science all of the subjects I just thoroughly enjoyed and but I what I do remember even from a young age was my parents always talking about Jehovah and of course go to meetings and having to sit through the boring meetings and I hated going to meetings and I hated going to Saturday morning service and I hated going to Thursday night meeting my dad was an elder for my entire childhood so we wouldn't get home from Thursday night meeting until 10 o'clock sometimes even later and you know you have to go to bed and get up for school the next day and it was just like being a witness was there it was definitely part of my childhood growing up but it was never drilled into me as like a way of life or how the witnesses say it they say it's you know make Jehovah real to you or or sound the truth down in your heart that they would say it wasn't like that for me growing up I just I always remember thinking about the witness routine is just being just being that like something that you do is just yet another part of life and so it was kind of confusing for me a lot of times because I knew I wasn't allowed to do certain things at school and I knew I was supposed to like believe in Jehovah and the Bible and live by the certain moral code but it wasn't something that I I saw as being a way of life it was just like this facility thing that was there in my life and but I even so my mom spent a lot of time from the age of like six years old until 1516 years old where every day we would do a Bible reading project we would study the watchtower in the wakes and the books and even past books that had come out before I was even born and just so much study projects that I learned all the rules and all these Bible verses and I learned all this the theology and the doctrine of the witnesses and again my dad was an elder so he'd always talk about the organizational procedures behind a lot of that stuff sharing things that were going on at an organizational level and so the witness way of life was definitely there in my life but it was just never really sounded down into me as being like the way of life and so by the time I got to be in middle school right about seventh grade is when my life and this theology I was being taught kind of started to being at odds with each other because I started you know growing up like kids do they start to learn to think on their own they start to be exposed to new ideas and things that are not only different to their beliefs but even at times at odds with their beliefs and I started finding that I didn't agree with a lot of the things that I had been taught about about the witnesses like like I mentioned about how my schoolmates and my teachers were always super respectful of my beliefs and yet we were being taught that anybody who was in or for Jove it was a bad person not good Association and some of the nicest people to this day that I've ever known and never met were some of my schoolmates and former teachers and I think what the mental gymnastics of that did just kind of drove me into this really weird like I don't even have words to describe what it was like depression anxiety whatever doesn't quite cover it because I just started hating life and everything around me every little thing just started ticking me off I was I was getting upset and angry if somebody said something that I thought was stupid or somebody that the meaning would say something make a comment that was just like how stupid of a thing to say I started having arguments with my teachers I started not doing as well in school because I just I felt like it was all beneath me and I just I remember developing this complex like I felt like I was just superior to everybody around me and so seventh grade was really kind of a turning point for me in my life because before that I was just going along with everything but starting to realize that I didn't necessarily agree with what I was being taught the way that my parents handled discipline discipline and teaching us the way they wanted us to be was that it wasn't just that you know you made a mistake and we need to learn from this and move on it was always drilled into me that I was a miserable failure of a person I remember sitting and having hour-long arguments hours long arguments with my father especially about how I had committed this grievance in the past and I committed this grievance in the past and I committed this grievance in the past and here I was doing again being a rebellious and disloyal child and Jehovah would destroy me if I if I didn't step in mind and just constantly drilled into me that I was a failure of a person because because I had messed up and the discipline was not there it always felt like punishment and so what what that did for me was it taught me to just kind of like shut down like don't even be a person if I never did anything I could never make a mistake and so I would just try my hardest at school and work hard to succeed at that and try my best to avoid incurring the wrath of my especially my father sometimes even my mother and yeah that was that was kind of middle school and then it really went downhill starting in high school because I started getting heavily involved into online games then I started playing World of Warcraft and anybody who's ever played World of Warcraft especially when the couple years after Claunch knows that you easily lose your life to that game when you're kind of having those feelings about your life doesn't have much meaning or you know having that sense of achievement when you play a game like World of Warcraft you kind of lose your life to it and I did I got sucked into it really bad and both my freshman and sophomore year high school I just that was my entire existence was coming home from school and playing world Warcraft for 810 hours you know from 4 o'clock in the afternoon when I got home from school until 2 3 4 o'clock in the morning sometimes and then getting a tiny bit of sleep getting up going to school and like my natural inclination towards education kind of carried me through those first two years of high school but I didn't try it all I really didn't try at all I kind of hated being there I didn't like the students I felt like I was superior to everybody around me while at the same time feeling like I was a miserable human being and it was just this weird like my thought sound kind of jumbled up and convoluted because that's really how I felt at the time I felt like on one side of my personality like I was somebody superior to everybody else around me and then from this other side of my personality I felt like I was a miserable human being and all I wanted to do was go home and play video games and lose myself in that world the world of warcraft and just constantly feeling this negative pressure from every angle and not being able to handle it because my response to learning and growing and becoming a better person my response or my my conditioned response to discipline and was just there was punishment that I was a bad person being punished for something rather than needing to learn and grow from those opportunities and so when I look back in my life my childhood I like I remember specific things about it and I can't really complain too much about what my childhood was like but it was just this dark mess of not getting the proper direction I needed to become a healthy and functioning adult pretty much so this kind of relates to what this channel will actually be about about you know learning those life lessons later in life that I felt like I could have learned in my adolescence but I get to the point in my life where I was 16 and I had got my license and a little bit more freedom but I was still playing online games and I was still kind of like throwing myself into that and not paying much attention at school when it all came crashing down on me my dad had found out that my brother and I had been secretly using the Internet and our rooms stealing Wi-Fi to play online games and he completely took the computers out of her rooms and we weren't allowed to play games for a long time anymore and I had if we did play games it had to be in the public family room and we were allowed to use the internet unless it was in the public computer and it kind of just forced me into taking stock of where my life had become and it kind of forced me into deciding what I really wanted to do in life and so having that that pit that that sinking hole of online games being taken away from me I was like you know I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to my education I'm gonna put myself back into a position where I would can succeed at something that I knew I was good at and I did I picked it up my second half of my sophomore year in high school and I did well enough to qualify for Running Start which running start here and when central Washington was getting to do classes of the local Community College starting your junior of high school the idea being that you can graduate high school and finish with your associate's degree at the same time and that first year of college really woke me up and that's kind of where I feel like my life actually really started because even though I learned a lot of things as a child I was granted I wasn't granted in a certain enough level of autonomy to feel like my life was really my own until though until that moment where I started college and I learned critical thinking and I learned about economics and I learned about politics and I learned about like how the world around me functions and starting to see that there was such a bigger world outside of the JW circle that I've been raised in because really all to me JW or the entire world was was here's your JW theology and you go to meetings when you're supposed to you're supposed to go out and service and sometimes you spend time with the other people in the congregation but really most of JW life is you know kind of sitting at home and and waiting for Armageddon to show up and I'm gonna get into that into my other videos that describe the purpose of this channel but I think most people who have a witness background can understand that lifestyle that a lot of witnesses have where they put their life on hold and they don't really live a life because Armageddon's come in any day no and God's gonna fix all the problems in the world so yeah college first year college loved it did great doing really well my classes learning a ton of stuff like one of my favorite time classes of all time was an introduction to economics class economics econ 101 is like one of my favorite classes I've ever taken and just being exposed to new ideas and starting to to mature and develop into a fully functioning human being was was a great experience and lo and behold 2008 the recession hits and like I could have definitely finished running start but looking into the future past that because I knew I wanted to do more education I wanted to go to university with two parents who didn't support that idea and no athletic scholarship I wasn't a good enough student to get any sort of scholastic call scholarship I was like yeah I probably have no chance of going on to further education it was also the same year my brother got really really sick you know he's in the hospital for a couple weeks wasn't anything too major but he let it go for so long that it potentially could have been fatal and you know the chance of my brother dying was was there so he combining those two situations in life and I had one of those Oh moments where you're like really sitting down and thinking okay so what's really important to me in life what do I really want to do and an elder in the congregation saw that and he decided to jump in with his advice right at the perfect time to encourage me to think maybe he put in drove her first in life that's that's what I should do and so I did my brother got well got out of the hospital and almost overnight I made the decision I was going to drop out of I wasn't going to finish my associates degree I was just gonna finish high school get my high school diploma and I signed up to regular pioneer in September of 2009 and that first year of regular pioneer and talk about a life like a life lesson because I had never really got out of service before without my one of my parents and I had never really spent much time with people in the congregation other than like one or two friends that I would go to their house and their their parents and my friends and my peer group like that was my entire exposure to witness people and all of a sudden it was like oh there's like regular people in the congregation and I don't like some of them and I I have to put up with these people because you know they're my brothers and sisters and we got service four five six seven eight hours a day and listening to some of their wacky ideas was not easy to do that first year of pioneering but I learned a lot about just about myself really doing that that first year pioneering like one of the first things I learned was even though I had studied so much of that JW theology it had all been putting facts in my head and what they witnesses call it hadn't sunk down into my heart or I hadn't put it into my heart I I realized I needed to study all that information all over again because I could spit out facts but it didn't mean anything to me and so I started a really serious diet diet Bible study program studying the Bible I started a really serious [Music] study schedule doing the Bible teach book God's love book reading all the magazine's I read every magazine from like the year 2004 until when I woke up in 2018 17 2017 like I'd read every issue washer awakened and spending time with elders in the congregation and they were grooming me to take on for the responsibility talking about me being a ministerial servant I had some responsibilities in the congregation those kind of continue to grow as I kept proving myself as a pioneer finished my first year pioneering what to pioneer school and pioneer school was like the first time that I really felt like okay this was witnessing is kind of cool you know because I met other people who had similar goals who had similar experience therefore you know they spent the first year pioneering there were some other teenagers that were my age age bracket some older ones it was a good two weeks away from home because it was still two weeks at a time when I went to pioneer school and like now I finally felt like I'm an adult I'm a person I mean something in this organization and that's one of the few things that I really did like about being a witness was their emphasis on education you know they wanted you to to become a better pioneer so you go to pioneer school and they add pioneer sessions and they had pioneer talks with the circuit overseer and they had all this helping you to like be a better pioneer which I enjoyed that for sure and throughout all of this like I'm starting to plan my theocratic theocratic career and Bethel had always been ever-present in my my goals because my and uncle my entire life growing up had been in Bethel and they always spoke you know highly of their experience being the Bethel I also knew that I want to be a ministerial servant and I want to be an elder and a circuit overseer was really eventually where I wanted to wind up one day was being a circuit Rovers here so I get home from Pioneer school talking to my dad and my dad's like yeah you know the brothers were talking and we decided we don't want to recommend you to mr. surrett I think what it's like yeah you're they think you should be old enough to be married before you could be a ministerial servants and like it's 18 old enough to be married and I'm just like I worked my butt off this first year pioneering like be you know becoming more patient and and helping people and spending time in the ministry and like dragging people out of the ministry because there was no zeal in that congregation for people to actually go out preaching and I was I was like helping with territories and sound and and literature and magazines and all this stuff and they're like what you know like I have this clear desire to do more for jehovah and you're gonna hold me back and so i my like screw it I'm gonna go to Spanish I'll get privileges over in Spanish I'm sure and I had taken a couple years of Spanish education in high school and so I had a decent enough of a foundation that I actually was able to just jump right in Spanish so November of 2010 that was 18 at the time I changed to a Spanish congregation it was in the same exact Kingdom all they met in the same Kingdom all just on different timeframes for Spanish and quickly started you know making a name for myself because in Spanish congregations at least the one that I was in that I've ever been involved in if you're somewhat capable and you're a brother you get used a lot because they don't have a lot of brothers in any any of the Spanish corrugations that I've ever been involved in and so I started new mics immediately sound I was pioneering so you know pioneer privilege is carrying over I was advancing fast enough with the language that I could do Bible readings like three my third meeting attending a Spanish congregation I did a Bible reading and everyone was like wow this is great and started doing the talks even pretty quickly and then June of 2011 rolled around and we had a circuit over she was visit and I got appointed minister on sermon and right about the same time they decided to split the Spanish congregation into two because they had progressed they had close to 200 meeting attendance on Sundays and enough elders to make to take to card and turn it into three Spanish carnations and what ended up happening was I was one of three turned into two ministerial servants for about two years and I just I was given meaning parts every week service meaning parts I would do announcements and then the part after announcements Bible highlights reading for the the Bible study reading for watchtower even started giving public talks I gave five public talks it when my first two or three years of being a ministerial servant on the platform all the time and then the the Pioneer ranks twiddled from like nine when the carnation for a split all the way down to just me I was the only pioneer for about two years when you're one year and so like obviously white guy learn Spanish in a vastly it was Mexican Hispanic Spanish congregation and I stood out and a lot of people knew me and I was very well-known well-known in the circuit as being kind of like this superstar kind of a person and so I was 21 had been a ministerial servant for a little over two years pioneering for coming up on four years at the time No just past four years yes I'm like that and we had this visit from the circuit office here and I was the only pioneer at the time so he and I got to spend a little bit of time together that week and I were out service one day and he he looks at me he goes hey Jordan like you you ever think about you know going to Bethel or anything or gonna serve the needs greater and I said yeah I thought about it and he just he turns to me and he says you know if you have the circumstances and the ability to do more for Jehovah and you're not like even if you're pioneering and you're in a foreign language and your ministerial servant he's like you can still do more for Java than you're not giving your best because you could you could do more for Java and so that really just like it kind of it hurt but at the same time I was like you know what he's right I could do more for Java at the time I was pioneering and I was in Spanish so I was in what you could call foreign language I still I also had a really good job and I was making pretty good money I was kind of starting to be interested in this one sister you know like dating and marriage and stuff and kind of going that route of like the the easy pioneer married way of life where you kind of just settle down in your hometown and and never really progressed beyond that so like I was feeling comfortable about maybe just pursuing that you know and not and not going into vessel service or missionary service or anything like that and I took stock of my life I was like you know what I always even when I was younger yes I have this goal of going to bethe whole and and I didn't really know what it meant and then I started pioneering with this idea of eventually becoming like a serger overseer and I thought you know yeah I probably should try to do something my mom says to me she's like you know you always talked about Bethel why don't you apply to Bethel and I was like haha sure why not Bethel oh good to go to Bethel and and I actually I remember I put in my Bethel application specifically because I was convinced that they wouldn't call me to go to Bethel survey Bethel and at the time I think we knew they were eventually gonna moon out of Brooklyn but I they definitely hadn't started working on Warwick yet so like I thought I'd go to Wallkill and if they were to called me to Bethel I probably would end up going like Wallkill and helping to you know some physical job working in the bindery or something like that helped me make the magazines and stuff but like I said I was convinced that there was no way they were actually gonna call me to go to Bethel and so my dad gave me a temporary at the time they were doing temporary and regular Beth Lakai shion's and I just put in the temp application and sure enough a little while later I got the call to go to Brooklyn Bethel in July of 2014 July in August to help him with the move out of 117 Adams Street like the first major sell-off of property in Brooklyn in preparation to go to Warwick was where it all started you know that though that was the original built factory buildings well that was not the original original buildings but he read the proclaimers book I don't I don't want to give a watchtower history so yeah I was convinced I wasn't gonna get to go to Bethel in here was I actually got a sign minh to go for two months and that two months was it was some of the hardest two months of my life but also some of the best two months of my life because it was hot summer in Brooklyn I had never experienced anything like humidity like a New York summer like in here where I'm from in Central Washington our summers were 90s with dry heat and yeah you know it was hot outside but it wasn't unbearable but New York summer July of 2014 yeah I met a lot of really cool guys I made some really cool friendships friendships I would probably still have to this day if I hadn't made known that I was leaving the organization we worked hard but I played hard I had quite a bit of money saved up from my good job and and like we'd go out to the New York City on the weekends and I party down in Manhattan and we went to like Dallas barbecue every Friday night and we went and got Bulldogs and big will play the wings and stuff and it was a great great two months and and towards the end of it I started thinking you know what maybe Bethel really would kind of be for me maybe I should try to try to apply for Bethel long-term and I did I put my best my permanent Bethel application in and had to go home after my temp assignment but then I was called back for a year assignment April 2014 April 4th 2014 got the call to go to Bethel for a year and I remember thinking at that time that it was like here was this huge answer to my prayers because I had been working my butt off pioneering one of very few sterile servants in the Spanish congregation that had stagnated and had actually been shrinking ever since they had split for a couple years prior to that I was working so hard and I felt like I was given my absolute best and I felt like I was trying to be humble and follow the direction of the elders and I felt like I was doing everything being doing everything I could to be used by Jehovah and I just I get I got so much crap from the elders the elders were just constantly riding me about not doing enough not doing my assignments good enough at one point I was on the operating committee I was to help him with maintenance I was buying all the supplies for the Keene mall I was doing all the weekly maintenance for the kingdom all like the mowing of the lawn and and cleaning of the outside of the exterior and I was the territory servant I was helping with magazines and literature I was the sound servant I was given multiple parts on the meetings every week I was the only pioneer for a year one of two pioneers for two years I was doing so much and I was working myself to death and I just always constantly felt like I wasn't good enough and I wasn't doing enough and I was getting berated by the elders for my not doing enough for whatever and so getting that call to go to Bethel was monumental for me it made me feel like I was for the first time in my life I felt like I wasn't a failure for the first time in my life I felt like Joe was blessing me like Java loved me and that he called me to go to Bethel because I was not a failure and and there's so much more to that story for that to really make sense but I gettin the invite to go to Bethel was was monumental for me it felt like for the first time of my life as I was it felt like for the first time in my life I was a really human being like I mattered and so I I went to Bethel with that same hard-working attitude like I would take any assignment they give me and I would work at my apps through the hardest at any assignment they would give me and I got assigned to work in their department called Building Services which is in charge of cleaning they do all the cleaning in Bethel and you know the very first thing you hear about Bethel is how clean it is and I was we my department that I worked in was in charge of that and you know we started off learning how to clean the bathrooms and have clean lobbies and how to do all this other stuff and and I did learn I learned a lot especially about cleaning like you don't think about cleaning as being scientific but there's so much chemistry behind it we'd also learned how to do like doorman duties that was assigned to our department and 2014 was that year international convention year you know hundred years of Kingdom rule then we had all those international conventions and thousands of people coming through Bethel gotten getting to do tours for them getting help do lunches for all the guests that were coming from all over the world all these Joe's witnesses confirm in the world and it was that first year was a whirlwind experience but it was an incredible experience really was like I regret having given three years of my life full-time to the watchtower but I don't regret that experience in Bethel because it was really quite quite a unique and amazing experience to be part of that I mean I was there in Brooklyn Heights in 2014-2015 most of 2016 you know right on the water view in Manhattan from my bedroom at somebody else's expense and all I had to do was work which I love I'm a workaholic so trading my time to do work to get to live place was worth it to me at the time for sure also I was assigned a congregation in West Manhattan one hundred four hundred Street and Central Park West like right across the street from the carnation the Kimo I attended with Central Park and the friends in that congregation were incredible they were some of the nicest and most genuine and loving people I've ever met they welcomed me into their homes they welcomed me into their families we'd spend weekends we'd go to the park we would play games they'd have amazing food we played dominoes Parcheesi you know going to like state parks and weekend getaways and stuff with the Friends of the congregation was it was incredible yeah like like I think the little most legit happiest I've ever been in my life was that first year at Bethel in 2014 or at least from a happiest I've ever was as a witness with that first year and then the next year my second year of Bethel service I was asked to work night crew which night security involved doing security rounds so my cleaning work but mostly it was just like being there being ready in case of any sort of emergency might happen learning how to be the desk man which is when you think about having an 18 to 20 some year olds in charge of running Bethel overnight and world headquarters in Brooklyn nonetheless like the responsibilities they put on us was quite impressive when you think about it multi-million dollar buildings and thousands of lives were in our hands every night to make sure that these people were safe and I got to work the 107 desk o nights for a couple months and that desk was the switchboard overnight and so I would take calls from people who were calling in about hospital liaison issues I remember this one time this guy called in about a sister who had given birth and she was having a blood issue and the doctor - trying to force blood on her and so they wanted to speak to the brother on call about the blood issue this other time some of urgency call came in a branch had been raided in another country by immigration and they were all being detained and they were like how do we handle this and there was just like a lot of like heavy responsibility that they had that I had a pardon and then I got off nights 2016 and I got told hand-picked to be sent up to Warwick I was picked to be staffing the permanent staff of Warwick in building services and so like everything was going like I was I was you know starting to get into rhythm what of it but you know one assignment to the next to the next the next I was working out because I kind of tend to lose interest in things I get bored with things rather quickly and so getting to do a lot of different stuff that Bethel it was really good for me because I just felt like I was always doing something new even nights was you know learning new stuff all the time and then going to Warwick April May of 2016 I started doing I did the bus ride from like four months where you have to get up at 4 o'clock and catch the bus up to Warwick and we would spend 6 7 hours cleaning up Warwick and back to the bus to Brooklyn you know cuz I still living in Brooklyn from a lot of the time and that summer was really cool because the friends were you know like oh we're gonna miss you we loved having you in our congregation and and they were treating me so nicely and yeah I was it was it was a good experience it really was I could make many videos about what my time at Bethel was like but here comes the part of the story where we take a turn where life starts going crazy so what I haven't mentioned in any of this was that part of my teenage years I was struggling really bad with my mental health I now know it you know it's like depression whether it was chemical or just environmental or who knows what um you know just really really struggling with my mental and emotional health and when I was in fact when I was 15 I have this experience I have this vivid memory of this one night where I had thought to commit suicide and I had a plan and I was I was gonna go through with it but when he actually came to going through with it I couldn't do it and I couldn't bring myself to do it but one of the things that I had gotten into is a vice to cope with stress of life and what I was going through was pornography habit I think even as early as like maybe 11 or 12 years old maybe maybe a littler than that but probably right around 13 I would have to say I was looking for ROM of a Game Boy Advance game then I wanted to play on my dad's computer and there was like this picture of a naked woman and the rest is history you know I I think most men at some point of their life have dabbled in [Music] nude images of women on the Internet and I especially in my teenagers like was pretty a pretty heavy user of Internet pornography which I'm not proud of even though I'm smiling I'm just really really embarrassed to be talking about it so like it became a vice where when you use anything to cope it's it's like it's the alternative is something really bad or it's the vice that you're giving yourself to you know alcoholics often get star on the path something goes bad in their life and they want to drink to cope with it and then little by little by little you lose control of it and that's kind of how my experience with pornography was was it was like that feel-good rush of endorphins and for a moment I didn't realize how much I hated myself and how much I wanted to kill myself and yeah you know I there's not much to say about it because I think pretty much it's a common enough of experience for somebody to know what that's like where you get sucked into that kind of a world but when I was 17 and I started making the truth my own I didn't see the need to talk to elders about the habit of pornography that I had and that I had when I was a a younger teenager and I was like you know I'm just gonna quit Coulter hundred percent and I'm gonna stop using pornography jehovah hates it and you know masturbation is bad and i did that first year when i was pioneering somehow i went from kind of semi-regularly looking at pornography to just not ever for that first year and little by little it would kind of creep back into my life maybe two or three or four months would go by wouldn't look at anything on the internet like that and then I'd have like a depressive episode and for some reason my depressive episodes always coincided with me just like going back to looking at a little bit of porn because that was what I used to cope with my depression depressive episodes when I was a teenager I don't know I'm not a mental health specialist but I can't I kind of like I have a very strong feeling that those two things are interconnected and it's also why I feel very strongly that watchtowers rules about pornography disqualifying you from privileges Plus eventually even getting this fellowship that's like they just they don't understand how the human brain works and how human sexuality works and sexual repression is a very big problem amongst the witnesses obviously it's one of the many issues I have with them so anyways the the the takeaway from this is for before I started pioneering I had used pornography quite heavily and then scattered throughout my entire time of pioneering I would every now and again have really relapse with pornography and then when even when I went to Bethel like my first six months the Beth was like I cannot look important like no important cannot happen and then and happy you know your relapse into it too and then other than pornography I had cut out violent videos video games I didn't play video games at all anymore I had cut out a lot of violent movies spiritism music like I was one of those uber dub kind of people where you just are like I'm gonna be so super spiritual and all I did was read the Bible and all I did was study and spend time with the friends like that's all I did was [Music] witness activities I would go out preaching in the evening after I got off work at Bethel I would go to the Brooklyn Bridge and talk to people in the Brooklyn Bridge and hand out tracts and I would drive up or take the train out to my territory and go out preaching midweek with my congregation Saturdays I get up and start at 7 o'clock in the morning in preach until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and then Sunday after meeting I would you know preach or before meeting like I was so involved in all the witness stuff but the one area in my life that I'd go back to was this deeply entrenched pornography habit that I had have that I developed when I was a young 11 12 13 years old and what's so monumental about that is how obviously we know the rules about pornography now like if you look at it at all you're disqualified from privileges for the most part and depending on what kind and how long you can even be disfellowship for pornography use and so the entire time that I was making the truth my own as pioneering and being miss Gerald sermon and went to Bethel I was on countless meeting parts countless like dozen assembly parts I was a main supporting character in a Drama I was my pictures in an awake and this entire time I should have been disfellowshipped according to the rolls of pornography and anyways the the mental hurdle that overcoming that is like on my Bethel application I flat-out lied because one of that question they ask you is have you view pornography in the last year or so bla bla bla but the way I reasoned about it in my head was that I'd got involved with it before I made the truth my own my parents didn't help me to make the truth my own and I was gonna get over both drove his help and Here I was as pioneering so Joe is blessing me because I'm pioneering drove up wanted me to fight here so I'm pioneering I'd get appointed ministerial servant Oh Java wants me to be a minister Oscar Mohini blessing me got to go to Bethel for two months Oh Joe is blessing me got to mean the bath over two months I was on an assembly part Jai was blessing going to Bethel for a year Joe is blessing two year extension over his blessing it's like in your mind you're able to rationalize it because you're told that the only reason you have privileges is because Jehovah is blessing you the only reason you get to do anything in Jehovah service is because Joe was blessing you right but then this entire time I was still struggling with my mental health and my emotional health and even at Bethel I would have these days where I was I just all I wanted to do was just kill myself I was like I were living in ninety sands for my first four or five months of Bethel on the 11th floor and I like I remember one day opening the window and seeing like a does this window open wide enough for me to be able to throw myself out of this window and what kept coming back to it was like this jove allowed me to JoVE he's like he's blessing me because i have all these privileges but i felt like i was a miserable worthless human being and I felt like Javed didn't love me and the one thing that I couldn't get over my mind is like I have this one time this one area that I still struggle with in pornography addiction and I get out of the depressive episode and I would stop having an issue of pornography for a couple months and I go back into doing a lot of good stuff for Joe but not everything's going great but finally it all culminated in October of 2016 and I was actually I was even at home visiting my parents in Washington and I had the ability to watch morning worship remotely because I was a I was commuting back and forth from Warwick to Brooklyn so they gave me access to watch morning worship remotely and I still had and so I was like I said to my mom hey you wanna watch morning worship with me today eat while I was on vacation visiting my parents and al her l was given the morning worship and he's talking about your conscience and about how you know sometimes we might think Joe is blessing us but he's not and our conscience is still bug us and he's like the only way dov'è created us he knows us so well and the Bible it says that you have to go talk to the elders and they'll grease you was with the healing oil of God's Word and like the only way for you to have a clean conscience before Jehovah is to confess your sins to the elders and in that instant my heart sank and even sitting on the living-room couch with my mother watching morning worship in my on vacation I just started bawling and breaking down because I knew in that moment that the jig was up like I had spent close to eight years in full-time service neither's pioneering her Bethel and I loved baffle I was so I just everything about being in Bethel was just great but I knew that I had been struggling with my emotional mental and emotional health and I knew that my relationship with Jehovah wasn't very great because I felt so unworthy to pray to him and I felt like I was such a miserable failure at times I like this is it this is the key to unlocking all my problems like it's time for me to confess that I've had this this issue with pornography for so long and so I went back to Bethel I was like trying to act like everything was normal I went back to Bethel and I was even the day I got back the next day I was even gonna be interviewed for a video I was gonna come out one of the young people asked videos and so I went to this interview and I was just borderline tears the entire time because I knew I needed to go and confess the elders about my pornography habit and so I went to talk to the head honcho of my department James Taylor and in addition to the pornography thing I had also one night had been alone with a girl nothing happened really we like me made out a little bit and so I kind of led with that I was like so here's this one thing that I did that I never told the elders about and it was like it's in the past and then I kind of snuck in there and oh yeah and I've also in the past I've had a pornography issue and he's like oh so is this a past thing or as a current thing and like I try not to be honest but I was so distraught in that moment that I was like oh oh yeah it was in the past like I used to have this issue and then I just kind of got over it on my own again you make all the mental hurdles when you're witness to make things work out okay nice chicken clock and and so he's like okay well let me you know let me check up on and see if we need to do anything about this and I'll go back to you and so I went back to work still distraught like feeling a little bit better but not entirely better and I had to work nights to cover that night and I was it was like 11 o'clock at night and I was working the war Warwick gate because they had somebody sitting at the gate until a certain time of night and I get an email from mr. Taylor he's like hey where I'm gonna meet with you and the seller elder tomorrow we need to discuss more about this Pradhan rafi thing and so we're talking about it and I just I spilled all my guts the next day I told him about when I was a teenager and getting involved with it and how like I never really thought the truth was for me until I got to be 17 and then when I started pioneering like that first year pioneering like I was able to like cut out pornography and I stopped there and they're like well you know thank you for telling us about that you should have come clean but thank you for now coming clean about it and we just want to make sure that this is in the past like you've left it behind you and again like I was so distraught I had been a week and a half just like constantly on the verge of tears for a weekend a straight and I just I couldn't bring myself to be like well it's not exactly in the past and so I was like yeah that was kind of it and they're like so do you think you keep serving to Bethel and I was like I'd love to I love Bethel I love Java and what I'm doing here and they said do you think you keep serving ministerial servant and I said I'd maybe there's some sort of discipline I should have maybe not being a servant for a while as that and they're like take the weekend think about it you know praying and come back to us on Monday and that weekend was the worst weekend of my life I I didn't sleep Friday night Saturday night Sunday night I couldn't sleep because my conscience was just tormenting me because I had omitted this whole thing about you know the pornography habit or addiction was not in the past it wasn't like all the time but it definitely wasn't behind me at that at that point and I was laying on my floor and just just sobbing it's like my roommates like what's going on Jordan I'm like I just like something something was going on in my life and and I would just walk around Warwick middle the night 1 o'clock 2 o'clock because I just I I I was just tormenting myself because I knew that when I came clean I knew I was gonna be getting kicked out of Bethel I just I knew it so Monday morning I went back into James Taylor's office and he was really nice and he was like happy to see me and he's like so what you what did you decide what do you come up with and I was like well brother Taylor I said actually I got more I need to tell you and he's like okay well let me get the other holder back with us I'll talk so that afternoon get back together and I spilled the entire thing I told him it's like well you know yeah I didn't lie I did that first year of pioneering I was able to come you know stop using porn for that first year but then little by little it's kind of kept come up to my life you know like two or three months ago by no issues and then I have a relapse and I beat myself up over it and then you know four or five six months would go by and they started asking questions about you know what kind of pornography how many times did I masturbate well wolf and I like it was like I knew it was time to be just completely honest about all of it like did happen in Bethel yes how did it happen to Bethel well you know 4G LTE connection for the wind and yeah they're like okay well well uh well prepare this report send it off the branch committee and they're had they had the final that's it and the final say on it and I just I knew I knew it was done I was waiting for any moment for them to be like because Bethel there's three ways to leave Bethel there's honorable discharge where you're like you get married and you don't get to stay married at Bethel or you just want to go back to pioneering or family needs you or some like that there's dishonorable discharge where you get told you have to leave but they give you like 30 days to figure stuff out and then there's the you have to leave Bethel now way to leave Bethel where to Bethel office guys take you to your room and you can pack what you can carry and they take you to the train station and the airport and they send you on your way and they ship you your stuff to you whatever address you tell them you want to have a shift to you and I was like that that last way that's what's gonna happen to me they're gonna just tell you where we're taking you out now you got to leave now which that didn't happen but about a month later after I'd confessed everything I get a text message like Jordan we're gonna meet in my office you mean the other one more time tomorrow morning let you know what kind of happened I was like well okay I got a meeting for snow duty can we meet this time instead and he's like don't worry about that meeting about snow duty I was like okay I'm going home get kicked out of Bethel so sure enough they sit down handshakes let's pray first thing let's break okay so the very first thing he says is Jehovah help Jordan to see this decision that's coming from you and I was like yeah I knew it and I just started crying right away I started crying any pray he says it's prayer you know like you know we want to love you and we always want to be honest and we accept discipline and he finishes his prayer and he's like well Jordan so we got the decision back and the brothers feel that because the amount of time but you haven't been honest about this that they think you need to leave Bethel and go home and take care of this and like I said I was crying I'm just sobbing at that point and he's like do you agree and I'm like yeah he's like so typically 30 days you know get your affairs in order whatever we needed to go home I couldn't even think at that moment they said another prayer to end and I walked back to my room sobbing with a couple housekeepers trying to trying to stop me and ask me what's going on I was friends with a lot of the housekeeper's and I just like I just I can't talk about this right now and I called my mom from my room at Bethel and I kind of started collecting myself a little bit but then the second I heard her voice I just started sobbing again and I just could not I was just like inconsolable because like I said Bethel to me was it was proof that jehovah loved me like getting to go to Bethel was I was not the horrible person that I felt like I was for so long and that all the work I did for joven mattered and that he loved me and I got to go to Bethel and it was just gone every eight years of my life that I had worked for that and my teenage years where I I knew this was the truth and didn't really do much about it and my my youth where I I was so miserable thinking about Java this Joe over that and not really believing in it and having to sit in the library while the kids had birthday cake all of 25 years of my life had led up to this moment where my number one goal in life was to give everything I had to Jehovah was taken from me because those brothers didn't care enough to ask me what was really going on like the reason I had gone to get help was that I wanted to kill myself and yeah I broke the rules and I would had been hiding a pornography addiction for a decade but they didn't care to like this is a good person Jordan is a good person and he's given so much of his life to Jehovah into this organization but can we work with him can we you know help him can we do something good for this guy all they just kicked me to the curb like I didn't even matter and I remember even in that moment of despair when I started sobbing during that prayer that I couldn't help but think wait a second help Jordan see this decision come from Jehovah to leave Bethel to get kicked out a bath law wasn't the decision to go to Bethel in the first place from Java or the decision to be a pioneer or demand a certain ministerial servant or to be interviewed on countless assemblies or to be in a drama to be in the awake my picture is in the awake and you're trying to tell me that Jehovah is making the decision for me to go home right now when he can see how sincere I am and how much I love him [Music] like this bear like I can't even put the words and then I spent that day in my room just sobbing I couldn't I was supposed to work night shift that week and I could not I couldn't sleep I worked all night the night before I got off work at 8 o'clock to go meet these two elders at 8:30 to get told I was getting kicked out of Bethel turnaround couldn't sleep again that day it had been it been months since I'd had a proper night's sleep and then I had to go to work again that night for the rest and then work nights for the rest of that week and by the time that next nightshift rolled around I'd finally started to calm down enough to think because I have a really strong emotional reaction to a lot of stuff is my first reaction but I also have the ability to okay what's the next step and so the next step was okay I'm gonna go home like this is it I unlocked the ability to figure out my mental and emotional health this is why I hate myself this is why I want to kill myself is because I've been hiding this thing like look at all the stuff I did and that was when I should have been disfellowshipped this entire time or at least not a Bethel this entire time like what look what I can do if I actually have jobs blessing you know and started planning for a trip home I was gonna do a road trip home stop along the way and see some friends and planned it got everything ready to go and I left on this trip this trip God dang it and I was like so here's this like Bethel was my proof the Joe will love me and I got kicked out so okay Joe vows to love me you know right he's gonna help me get home safely right drive south from New York tennis to North Carolina and I was gonna go to Georgia defeat and visit a friend and right outside North Carolina my car breaks down stranded the middle of nowhere thousands of miles from anyone that I even knew except for my friend I visited in North Carolina and this mechanic happened to see me with my broken-down car and stole every last ounce of money I had to fix my car I was like oh yeah Jehovah you really love me huh okay so I continued on my trip went to Georgia had a good time in Georgia Oklahoma had a good time with my friends in Oklahoma and it's like at this point I was flat broke I still had to go all the way back home to Washington from Oklahoma I was gonna go across Arizona California up to Oregon back home to Washington and I was like I'm just gonna go beeline it to home Washington I looked up from Tulsa Oklahoma to Wat where I live in Washington it was like 23 hours of driving and as I was gonna do it straight like one 24-hour marathon a drive at home in the snow it was December December like 18 right week before Christmas and the first day I covered a good amount of miles I got from Oklahoma to just right outside of Montana like maybe even in Montana it might have been and I don't remember where I was exactly I know stops in the motel 6 because the road was doing this and I'm like I should probably stop for the night and then the next day was like 10 hours left to get back home and so I was like I can do this I got this you know couple stops long way for gas but once I hit i-90 like I 90 through Montana straight home pretty much so everything was going okay and then Big Timber Montana and I get stranded in a blizzard and when I say stranded I mean surrounded because the wind 70 mile 80 mile an hour winds were kicking up snow Tufts that were so bad you couldn't see right in front of your car and I stopped to get gas I was like is there any way I can just get through this little bit of wind make it home tonight I got back on the freeway and I was like no there's not it's not possible I got to get off this freeway and the second I made the decision to get off the freeway I hit some debris that was on the road like that one card veered off and got a really bad accident and part of the car had been stuck on the road I hit a little bit of the debris that next thing I hear is of dragging noise and I get out and I look and my gas tank had been falling off the car to the ground and I was like I don't know I my mind I was like I'm gonna get my Jack and I'm gonna Jack my car up and put my gas tank back on my hands are frozen because they're like 80 mile an hour winds in this blizzard state patrolman had to practically drag me from my car into his car and he left me in a nearby hotel and all I had on me was my car my phone my car chart my phone phone charger and that was it I didn't even have my wallet on me and so I spent the next three days holed up in this blizzard with my freeway with every last possession I everything I owned was sitting in this car on the side of the freeway with its gas tank dropped on it like everything and there was a couple of nights strangers that actually took me in they bought me a meal and bought me some beers let me sleep on the floor of their motel room the visibility got good enough that I was able to get my own hope my gets my car to get my wallet and change of clothes and got my own hotel room two days maybe's only two days and then the mechanic was like yeah it's gonna cost you like $1,000 and we need like four or five days for you to bum for the parts to come in and we can fix your car he's like I recommend you just actually take this other car that I got it's like three thousand four thousand dollars I'm not gonna give me any money for this Honda because it's it's junk like God dang it and so my dad my superhero dad decided to drive all night overnight 10 hours come pick me up pick me up in my car and then we drove back to one and I got home that's like okay finally I'm home and I was I was holding it together pretty good for that trip until I hit that blizzard in Montana and I just completely lost it like I was like oh yeah Joe who loves me here he is punishing me now and I like almost died here in Big Timber Montana and yeah that was a that was a fun experience so anyways I'm finally home whoo you know I can start rebuilding my life I called it my job that I had before I went to Tibet all and they were ecstatic to have me back and started like almost right away and I had this car that was gonna be great for this job and my friends and family were happy to see me again and yeah I had been three years that I'd been in Bethel almost three years but you know I'm gonna come back home and rebuild and within a year I'm gonna get my privileges back hopefully and I'm gonna go back to Bethel and everything was going okay but on my trip home from Bethel I got into another situation where I was alone with a girl and again nothing happened really just kind of made out a little bit and I was like well I gotta be you know I gotta be honest about stuff like like here I just gave up Bethel due to dishonesty so it's time that I'm just like brutally honest about all this stuff because you know they're witnesses are told that they have to confess all there since the elders so they all just want to meet with me to let me know what you know what was like my what I could expect because when you get kicked out of Bethel like that the elders write a report and they send it to the elders the body of elders where you're going to go and only two elders are supposed to be picked and only those two get to read this report that Bethel wrote about you and so the body of elders I went back to the Spanish congregation where I had first moved to Spanish when I way back when I was 18 I went back to that congregation and they picked the two worst elders that could have picked two men that I had no respect for and these two men sent me down and they're like Jordan it's great to have you back but like you're like pretty much spiritually dead at this point and we want to help you regain jehovah's love and maybe you can have privileges again but it's gonna be like a long time before you have privileges again and i'm like wait a second like i'm not spiritually dead like yeah maybe I'm not proud of lying about this pornography thing for so long and getting kicked out of Bethel but like I've studied my butt off I know way more about all the Watchtower theology than either of you two men and I look at what I've done like eight years of serving Jehovah like my relationship with him is and they told me six months I could have my probe his back you know it was just and so I decided that moment I'm like this is not the congregation where I'm gonna be able to recuperate spiritually so the only option that was left to me was this other congregation that's like 12 miles away in this other town it's not terribly far away and it's practically considered part of this area so I moved to this other congregation and kind of a similar it's in the English and so I was like I'm an English now I can 100% pay attention to meetings I can great give great comments I can do extemporaneous parts even though I was pretty much fluent with Spanish at this point I was like I'm gonna like throw myself back into 100% recuperating right it'd be great but the same thing like you know you can comment and that's pretty much the only people you can have for now and I had gone from like doing so much multiple meaning parts every week moult public talks like when I was in New York City I gave like 50 public talks for two and a half years I was in New York City throughout carnations up and down in Manhattan and I went from doing all this stuff to nothing and I finally started to think and I finally started to be like you know what I don't agree with this and I don't agree with this and I don't agree with this and then I started to study the Bible separate from the watchtower theology and it was like wait a second a lot of this stuff is not adding up like one example I can think of is the count in second Samuel where David in his men were hungry and they decided to go eat the loaves that were reserved for the priests and it says if this one guy was high priest at the time but then in the New Testament it says the seven guy was high priest at the time that's like well you know maybe there's an easy explanation for this but I found a lot of like other things that were just not you know discrepancies in the Bible and then some other things like Christians the 144 144,000 go to heaven it's like well if you read the Bible separate from Watchtower theology they very much give this idea that all Christians are gonna go to heaven but at the time I was like you know I whatever I'm not I'm not a the governing body or the guys who know everything about the Bible I'm just gonna work hard to get back into privileges and pioneer and I'm like I'm gonna move to Warwick and and commute because maybe I won't get to be a bet but I could definitely commute you know once I get my privileges back and so start making plans to do that I left that really good job and they were sad to see me go and I was like I'm gonna work with this brother doing carpet cleaning for a little while just to get some money saved up but here's the thing I was still struggling with getting over pornography at the time like I would come home from eating and watch a little bit of porn before I go to bed that night and so the six months went by where I you know the brothers told me a Bethel that after six months I could pioneer again if everything was going okay in the body of I was proved it so I put in my auxiliary planning application and they're like there's a good chance for a charge of a pioneer but it's again brutal conquest for the truth I was like you know what brothers actually I'm still starting with pornography thing and so they assigned two elders to meet up with me and they were like Jordan we got to get this under control because if you don't you could become judicial where it's like uncleanness with greediness and then then you could be dissed fellowshipped and like I'm just like like what what is wrong like why am I having such an issue with this and I really badly want to start pioneering September of 2017 like if I could get back into pioneering September 2017 that may not only be one year out of full-time service but lo and behold October of 2017 I had gotten back into reddit when I was working nights at Bethel one of the guys there was like reddit his favorite social media read it like there's so much interesting stuff get involved with and I was like yeah you know I'm kind of struggling with getting back into hobbies and like refining out what my interests are because all I did with my time was study and preach and work on my responsibilities Carnation responsibilities so I had nothing when that was taken away from me I was still doing 17 hours a month even though I couldn't pioneer technically but I didn't there was nothing else for me so I was on reddit and I was reading through there the Explorer tab at the time would show reddit's you weren't following but like things that had rapidly gained traction in their perspective subreddits and I see xj w username X circuit overseer and he's like I used to be a circuit overseer ask me anything and they caught my attention and I was just like oh man and it was I couldn't pass it up so I pulled it up I started reading through his stuff and is like it sounds like you know he actually was a circuit overseer maybe started reading through all the stuff and I was like okay I got I got stopped reading this like this apostate you know I can't I can't read apostate stuff even though in the past I had read Barbara Anderson story for example even in my teenagers I had somehow stumble across Barbara Anderson's website and read her story about discovering them the pedophile pedophilia issue in the organization but I had like put all this doubts aside and whatnot but I just I kept coming back to it I'm like oh so interesting and I read through their subreddit and I find stories of people I'm like and this story sounds really similar to like my story or this experience is heartbreaking like but still like this has to be the truth right like maybe these people have legitimately bad experiences but job's organization still Joe's organization and reading the stuff is gonna make me better Christians can help me squash my doubts but the more I read the more I couldn't stop I just like this is good stuff and so I went back to that X circuit overseers ask me anything that he did and lo and behold somebody asked about pornography like well there's an issue of pornography right and he's like yeah yeah somebody posted the letter to the body of elders for most recent instructions to the body of elders about what to do with people who confess to pornography habits and that was the first time I had ever seen what gross pornography was considered and the that it was at this fellow offense and there at lists lesbian pornography and it's like any red-blooded male has ever looked at lesbian pornography so and I just had this sudden it was just like nine-day it's like wait a second the entire time that I was pioneering minister a servant Bethel interviewed on circuit assemblies in a drama a district convention I was my pictures in the awake I should have been disfellowshipped that entire time and he just went there's no such thing as theocratic appointment and those like my brain just went Watchtower Java they're not the same thing and I was like so I had this that first for about a week after that realization I was like if I go because now I'm on this relentless quest of honesty and truth if I go and tell the elders that I discovered that I wasn't fully disciplined because when I had my meeting at Bethel with those two elders about pornography they never asked me specifically if I looked at lesbian pornography they're like have you looked at gross pornography and I thought that meant like you know the really bad stuff I was like I'm gonna get this hell shit there's no way that I will not be the scholarship if I go and tell the elders this and I went back to that same like feeling of this bear for a little bit but then it was like wait a second there's job is not involved at all in deciding if your disfellowshipped or if you shouldn't if you shouldn't be the fellowship Joe's not at all deciding if you are gonna be a pioneer or if you're gonna be a minister sermon or even if you're gonna go to Bethel and they brag about that they bring about how they pray over every Bethel application and it's obvious that my Bethel application was prayed over and I still got to go even though should have been disfellowshipped according to their own rules the grata complaint was a farce it's not real Java doesn't decide those things so if Joe evidence had those things what else can I dig up about this and as everybody who's in this xjw position knows watchtowers and non-government organisation with the United Nations for about a decade Watchtower has a huge problem with hiding pedophiles and they're being fined multi millions of dollars of lawsuits against them right now like the one in Montana has just happened and there's so many things you start to uncover if you decide you want to still be a Christian how many teachings that they have that are not Christian like shunning and this oil shipping is not biblical it's not Christian all Christians go to heaven according to the Bible all these other things that you start realizing what this is a mess like messed up organization and then you start looking at the history Charles taze Russell the founder of Joe's witnesses there's a pyramid ologist the guy like based all of his stuff on teaching and demons and we look up to the sky as being the founding father of Joe as witnesses and then George judge Rutherford oh he's at an impending big big man you know took he he had been in JW and Joe V's witnesses gave us her name and then you come to find out this guy's a drunk and womanizer and power-hungry and rough Russell didn't even want him to like half power in the organization and he's fine angled his way into being president the second president of the corporation and then like nor was this power-hungry guy who they were like we needed a governing body but nor didn't want to give up his powers president he wanted to have all the power and then Fred Franz and all the crap that he wrote about and a lot of the doctrine that they still to this day believe in is based on stuff that Franz came up with and then 1975 and they try to hide the fact that $0.19 it was from watchtower to say that 1975 was gonna be the one arm again came and all these people got mad and left rightfully so because they were told if you don't believe 1975 is the end of the world you're not a good Christian and Joe I was gonna destroy Armageddon just so much stuff and it it's heartbreaking to make this realization that this organism that Jo's Witnesses do not have the truth and like you have this you have this moment where you're just like this can't be the truth it just can't be because you know so much stuff and then it really came to a head when I got a hold of crisis of conscience by room and friends and the sincerity of his writing and the stuff that he talked about that he experienced on his time on the governing body there's just no way there's just no way that Joe is witnesses have the truth there's just not something I remember like having a conversation with somebody wants where it's like even if the witness is like no no there is no even if there is no way that the witnesses have the truth but then you get to the point where you're like let's give it the crazy hypothetical even if Jehovah's Witnesses have the truth I don't want to be a part of their organization like if God is actually going to destroy seven and a half billion people because they don't want to follow this backwards cult I don't want to worship that God and I would rather just be destroyed and then you know at that moment you can never go back and it was like wow and my anxiety my depression my self-loathing all this stuff just evaporated it just went away and I was like I am a good person and look at all this stuff that I did and it wasn't Jehovah giving me the strength to do it because you know I should have been disfellowshipped that that was me that was me that sacrificed years of my life for people you know I I was the guy who would go to meaningful field service on the snowy day and shovel the tired damn parking lot and then nobody'd even show up for service anyway but on the off chance that somebody was gonna go out service I wanted them to have a shovel parking lot I was the guy that when I was working nights at Bethel I would go and help the guys who were cleaning showers that morning because I knew that that was a rough job and I was like I can help you out a little bit and I was the guy who went out of my way to do so many things for so many people because I've made me feel good because I was because I I'm a good person and the more and more I studied the more and more I was like I can't be a part of this I can't be a part of this organization because they put on a good face they talked in their broadcast videos about best life ever and jehovah loves people and over the organization is doing so much good and it's all a farce it's all shallow it doesn't mean anything they're not accomplishing any real good because this God's kingdom the big proclaim about coming in the near future I maybe I like my personal belief Society I don't really know but the witness is actively believe and teach the seven and a half billion people plus are going to be destroyed at Armageddon simply because they don't believe in the watchtowers teachings they're not dedicating about sideshows witnesses so they're gonna be destroyed and so now I'm at this point where people are talking to me like how can you lead you okay how can I be part of it I can't I can't be part of it anymore and so I went through that was the product the phase the process I went through I was like I don't believe in it anymore so maybe I can stay in it you know I'll be one of those guys that shows up to meetings once a month I'm gonna find like a sister who's not really into it either and you know we'll have our careers and go on vacations and live our lives but still maintain like the witness appearances oh that was the other thing too is I knew I need to go back to school because I dropped out of college running start so I could pioneer so I had to go back to school because I knew I needed an actual education in the career and then I would go to meaning and I was like I can't stomach this like my first meeting back after waking up to the truth about the truth it was a circuit officers visit Sunday of his visit and he gets up there and he's like some people don't have time to study the Bible and so they take time away from meetings and field service so they can study more about the Bible it's like no no no you're supposed to take time away you know work and hobbies and all this other stuff so you can do other and I'm just like this is such bullcrap this is bullcrap and I could and I actually audibly it's like this is bullshit and somebody overheard me and I'm just like oh my kid is dangerous and so it was like the next thing is like okay well I just I'm I'll go to the memorial and like assemblies I guess and the same thing I just couldn't stomach the stuff I was hearing anymore and the one time I went preaching one time after I woke up about the truth about the truth I would have karte witnessing a sign that I couldn't get out of and I had a really good morning because I'm not spreading watched our theology anymore I'm gonna talk to people and get to know some people and I did and the people were like man this is a great morning like I feel like I really had a good conversation with you and I'm like yeah because I'm not trying to force watched our theology down your throat yeah and just people were like why hey I'm Jordan like I went from 70 hours a month to preaching taking trying to take the lead with getting afternoon service keeping it going and early morning service and the last meeting before I woke up to the truth both the truth I had given a student talk and I'm an amazing speaker but I got great rave reviews about the student talk I given with my bevel training and I just disappeared overnight and so like the elders would every now and again contact me like what's going can we help ya what can we do for ya and people have we miss you even this one sister that I cannot stand whew even she would text me like hey you know are you doing okay we miss you like yeah you know playing it off like oh yeah you think happening and my social circle I was still hanging with friends from my Spanish congregation so they weren't quite as privy to the fact that I was never going to meetings anymore so from October through March I didn't really get much March April at March yeah March I didn't really get much flack from people about like not going to me like my parents would make they would like make faces when it was my meeting night and I wanna see wasn't going to meeting but I was also working doing janitorial for a brother and so I was like I would just take off for the nights because I was doing night janitorial for him anyway but they didn't like there was not really any backlash yet about me disappearing from meetings and service and then in March like it finally started to get the point where like my former best friend was like I hear from people that like you're very rarely at meetings like is everything okay and I was like oh yeah everything's fine you know when I was at school so I was using school and work as a combo to be like yeah he's busy and you know I don't have privileges anymore so it's it's hard for me to motivate myself to go to meetings and stuff and like yeah we'll just you know Joe who loves you and hang in there let me know if I can help and yeah I don't doubt their sincerity I think they they feel like they wanted to help me but their version of help is keeping you in a cult so but then it all came to a head when I was at lunch I went to lunch with a former friend who I've known in my entire life and we were in Spanish together for about three years I had become really close friends Hanna's like why for serving in some other country doing construction building Kingdom Hall's and like you know poverty areas and he like cut right through the bullcrap he's like bro I gotta let you know I'm worried about you like you used to be so into the basics of a spiritual team meeting attendance and service and and like you you just like what happened and at first I was like oh yeah you know this career and then I just had this moment where I was like what am i what am i fighting for like if he knew how I really felt about things and all this stuff that I learned and why I don't believe in being a witness anymore he would cut me off so like why am i pretending to the whole to maintain what am I trying to maintain what am i fighting for and I just I told him like he says you ever do you think it's still important like meeting attendance and I just thought I said no I don't think meetings are important and he's like taking it back he's like no and I said no mmm I don't go to meetings anymore because I don't believe any of what they teach at the meetings and he was like this Watchtower interface just and he was like full-on an elder who is one of his best friends tells him that he doesn't believe in me no witness anymore like this has to be John's organization and there's so much stuff going on that just proves this is God's one true organization and and we parted you know he's just 45 minutes of him just like chasta and like I'm done I'm not gonna sit here and let you just steamroll me in the to believe in the witness theology anymore because it's false it's it's I can prove with facts that this is not a false this is not the true religion and I just kind of sat there just like you know and he starts hey starts getting personal he's like level and character results I mean I'm just like I'm done I've so over anything to do with witness and we parted ways and he sends me a text like man like I'm heartbroken and I'm gonna try to nut you know if you're not gonna associate with people then I'm not gonna try to get you Austin from the congregation and sure enough it starts getting around to people and I just knew it was time it's like I just had to start taking a stand wrapping up my associates degree I had a decent job but I got a second job so that I knew I was gonna have to be moving out from my parents house and oh and I was also there's a sister that I had been talking to for a little while and she wanted to get together and and like figure out where we were at were we dating and whatnot no you know um we were like yeah we have feelings for each other and I just told her I was like you deserve to know that I don't believe in being a witness anymore in fact his briefs and he's starting to come up that it's coming out with people that I don't believe being a witness anymore she got to dump me on the spot and then a couple weeks later I get an email that the apartment I was looking at I got approved with a roommate and I was like and it was time and I was in my bedroom and I go out to the living room my parents are there my sister gets up and leaves the room and my dad turns the TV off and he's like he starts he starts and he's like hey how are you doing Jordan it's like I feel like I should give you a hug you know and when people have a breakup like that's a hard thing to go through and apparently my ex had gone to the elders just to let them know that like hey Jordan and I were kind of you know talking but it's over and he told me this and it had me worried and here's my dad like well I'm really worried because she told us that you know you don't he'd show him something really worried and I was just so done with all of it I just spilled the beans I was like yeah I don't believe the witnesses anymore and then my mom just started crying like instantly and same thing what you would expect from any witness parents being told by one of their children that they don't believe in being a witness anymore just this has to be the truth and and you got it it's about Jehovah and and and I I don't dislike my parents I don't hate my parents in fact waking up to the truth about the truth made me respect my parents a lot more than I had as witness because as a witness it's like how did you give up on life and you just raised those kids to also have given up on life but then you understand it's like life is hard and when you're being when you're in a cult and trying to raise Nicole that's really hard and was like finally I had I respected my parents I didn't hold it against them anymore that they hadn't trained as properly to be witnesses and the conversation my parents weren't exactly how you expect it was but I'm not at but the thing is I wasn't a little kid anymore that they could bully into you know you have to believe this is the truth no I don't believe it's truth anymore in fact not only do I not believe it's not the truth I know for a fact that this is not the truth and it's the way that conversation ended was my dad he's like well you know as long as you're not disfellowshipped you're welcome here to visit anytime but we're not gonna support you anymore you need to make other living arrangements and I was like actually I already have I already have other living arrangements and I moved out a couple days later I was starting starting my second job that I could support myself and and my first job one of the guys quit and so I was working full-time hours there plus another part-time job plus summer school getting ready to start my bachelor's program this fall and like just life was a whirlwind and I started telling all my friends like I told my former best friend and like hey just let you know man I don't believe in witness stuff anymore like it doesn't have to affect our friendship he wanted to meet for coffee and he's like yeah does affect her friend like he actually said our friendship happened because of being witnesses and if their job is not in your life and then our friendship doesn't mean anything and I was in that moment I was like I'm done witnesses have no more never again why touch witnesses be friends with him have friends with him be involved with it I told my other longtime friend and mentor and he just like begging me to call him if I bro you just like look I need to talk to you like just come back to Jehovah and I just told him I'm like if all you want to do is get me to come back to Jehovah then we had nothing to talk about and that was it it was done with him and then there's a couple of my Bethel buddies that I texted and they just blocked me on the spot through whatsapp and social media without even there's there's no asking like what's going on like why are you making this it just instantaneously shut off and then I I started to notice in my Instagram followers just like dropping just cuz I have like 600 followers on Instagram or just like 500 400 300 just like hundreds of witnesses on following me so it was just go it was it going around like wildfire and then come to find out that people were messaging my followers who had JW and their thing and like hey just so you know I we don't even know you but Jordans an apostate now like and then I post on Facebook I was just like it's just so it's just so it's 100% out there I don't believe in Watchtower anymore don't believe witnesses stuff anymore I'm pretty certain it's a cult and I just I got so much hate for it and again just like hundreds of people and following me on Facebook blocked and it's just in a like in a moment decades-long friendships everything I did for jehovah and his organization everything just evaporated and it didn't matter anymore and it's just like wow what is this what is this cult it's a cult it's all it is a couple men decided they wanted to take the Bible and invent their own religion and it's it's morphed into something that's incredible in terms of what they've been able to do with the fact that it's just another religion that's not based in anything true and the more I studied the more I start to think mom Christian Nana D yeah you know and then like I'm not really I don't really believe in Christianity anymore I believe there must be some sort of higher power but if there is a God he ain't Christian there's no way and if he is Christian and I don't want to worship Him because I disagree with him fundamental Eve you know but that's another video that's when I finally start my x JW channel will get into that kind of stuff this is just my story and so finally everything came to a final head as I work one night and I get a phone call and I it was the coordinator who was supposed to be mentoring me helping me get back on track I didn't answer it he left a message he's like Jordan I'm here with Terry Flanagan and which is another elder and we would like to set up a time to meet with you and call me back thanks bye The Moron doesn't properly hang up the phone and I overhear him telling the other elder it's like you have when you're setting up a judicial meeting you never want to leave any of that kind of stuff you don't say it should you just a meeting or on a message you don't text it I'm like so I knew I was additional meeting but he confirms it by not hanging up the phone and ironically enough that day I was like I want to start my own xjw channel on YouTube and add my voice to the movement because I feel like I have a lot of stuff to say about it and if I do they're gonna try to get me a judicial committee so maybe I should just write a letter maybe I should just associate and that very same day that I'm thinking maybe I should just disassociate here I get a phone call about a judicial Communion on my okay done typed up my mind disassociation letter I'll link it here so you can read it if you want to dropped it off at the coordinators house and never look back and like I've had experiences off and on with witnesses before it was officially announced but as soon as it was officially announced they just want a full long shunning my family my friends they're not friends Joey's Witnesses are not your friends it's all conditional that's not friendship it's not love just so you know I because I work at Costco selling cell phones and I see hundreds of witnesses a week and every single I know every witness in a 200-mile radius in this area and they see me and they turn around they walk the other direction as if that's gonna bring me back or you know they care more about their relationship of Jehovah their friend so anyways here I am I think it's time like I said that's it's finally time that I joined my voice the movement I think it's very important that as many of us as possible get our stories out there we're not alone and the xjw movement is growing fast so yeah anyways if you actually took the time to listen to this whole story thank you I eventually do plan on starting an xgw youtube channel where hopefully the content will be a little bit less informal and a little more structured and we can all move on inhale from our experience growing up in a cult so thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video

Info

Channel: Jordan Johnson

Views: 147,638

Rating: 4.713799 out of 5

Keywords: ex jw, exjw, xjw, x jw, apostate, apostasy, jw activism, disfellowshipped, disfellowshipping, disfelowshipped, disfellowshiped, disfelowship, disfellowship, ttatt, shunning, shuning, former jw, jw, jw.org, jwsurvey, john cedars, shunned, shuned, jehovah, jehovah witness, jehovah's witness, jehovah's witnesses, watchtower, cult, cults, #ttatt

Id: DqQNxPn4dmU

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 98min 24sec (5904 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 22 2018

Reddit Comments

Hey that’s me!

👍︎︎ 27 👤︎︎ u/kakonthewarrior 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

Just watched your video. Awesome stuff. I woke up as well to the realization that there is no theocratic appointment in this organization. Me and my family Ave been out for the last two months and it's great. What got my wife completely out was as well Franz book after that she knew for sure this could not be the truth.

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/Pimo24 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

I watched this video earlier today, loved it. Everyone should watch it. It same as most that finds out that the organization is not as loving as you think. They make you want to find out why God is so unfair. And come to realize God has nothing to do with it, and if he does he's not really a nice guy

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/paradox20000 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

What a great video. I can identify with a lot of what you say and feel.

My mom divorced my dad when I was in 9th grade, but she was reproved and we continued to be faithful. I was baptized and started running mics, however it was clear that the “friends” judged my parents (and even us kids). After some time, they all just kinda forgot about us.

I say this because if the Brothers had been loving, if the Elders had done the sheparding to help us through the tough patches, we would still probably be there. But their failing allowed us to fall away — and I’m so so grateful for it. I was bitter for a long time because they didn’t live up to their end of the bargain, but what a blessing that became.

All I can say is: Go be happy. Be successful. Find good friends and true friends. Living a happy life will work against their beliefs that the world is misery and evil. Remember how they used to tell you that being on your best behavior at assemblies was a witness to the world that could open the heart of a hotel worker or whomever? Well use that strategy. Show that you are a good person, that you can be happy in the world and you will perhaps be the catalyst to help someone else wake up.

Thank you for sharing!!

👍︎︎ 8 👤︎︎ u/crashman80 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

I really related to your story in the sense that when I completely freed myself from the religion, my depression was basically cured. I spent 37 years being depressed, angry, and bitter. The past couple of years I've felt happy, and free. I had faded but was still POMI for over a decade. I really envy the ex JW's who came to their realizations at a young age.

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/Elbiotcho 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

Great video , when I saw how long it was I almost didn’t start it but great story wish every young JW teenager would have to listen to this.

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/Aposta-fish 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

any chance you can make a vid about being at bethel. supposedly the place has its secrets that many of us rank and file never will see. example would be the over abundance of drinking.

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

another pioneer who I may have slipped into

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/shaggingthepioneers 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies

Yes I watched this yesterday and I'm subscribed!

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2018 🗫︎ replies