I was under a lot of stress trying to maintain my household and my parents, even though they did not ask me to do that. I wanted to please everyone and make everyone happy, and I ended up overwhelmed with it all and I had a mental breakdown.
Over the next several months, our meeting attendance dropped off dramatically because I was still so very anxious much of the time and our field service was completely gone. We hadn't done that in 2-3 years anyway, because we got sick of being assigned a road to work by ourselves. A family of 5, sent to work a street or 2 alone, with no other adult wanting to work with us, nobody to help with the kids. We got sick of dragging all 3 kids to every door. It's unreasonable. And what person would like to answer their door to 5 people preaching the bible to them?? That's nutty.
We consider the Memorial of 2011 to be our last meeting as a family. I did go one more time when it was announced that my dad was disfellowshipped (no longer considered a JW). We moved out of my parents house in July 2011 and have been to no meetings in our new city.
How we go to this point took a very long time. I'd been questioning since Thing 2 was born (2001) and then in 2005 we'd begun fading, though not consciously. We kept trying to "do better spiritually" over the years, but it was just too much to deal with. Too much guilt! We were constantly told to "do more" for Jehovah and that we had to preach God's word in order to earn Jehovah's mercy and earn salvation through Jesus, despite the fact that it's taught by EVERY Christian religion that Jesus death was a GIFT for ALL mankind.
Sometime in 2007 or 2008 my brother & his family left and I found out that my aunt & her family left. She didn't say anything for a long time because she knows what a scene it would have been (from my mother) if she spoke up and came out about it.
Because my family left ahead of me, it was further evidence to me that we would also leave. I've spoken with all of them about things we disliked before any of us left. I feel like they paved the way for me to leave.
Some of the changes that bothered me or made me wonder were:
1) Change in blood doctrine (can not take whole blood but allowed to take fractions, despite long held teaching that we were to ABSTAIN from blood)
2) Study edition of the Watchtower (What are they trying to hide form the public?)
3) Reduced number of Awake magazines (are they failing as a company?)
4) No more bookstudy (taught for years that this would be the only connection we'd have w/ other congregants during Armageddon, only meeting I made some weeks)
5) Institution of Family Worship Night (families encouraged to have a family study night already, so now we have 2?? I seriously doubted most families would even bother with this)
6) New Song Book (not a big deal, you would think, but the songs are monotonous and they drone on. Very hypnotic melodies now. Not lively.)
The last 5 changes happened within a 2 year period and I was suspicious of so many changes in such quick succession.
Currently, only my mother & my in laws (3 people) are still in. My mother is aware of our change of beliefs, I suspect the in laws are, as well, but it's not spoken of. Occasionally The Husband & his sibling discuss various things on a very superficial level and it appears that his sib might be on a similar path to us.
So we made it out as a family. Others we know have not been so lucky. We celebrated holidays this year even though it was hard on us both. I wanted to do it, though, so we'd rip off the bandaid, so to speak, and be done with it.
February is our first Valentine's Day. I'm going to buy some for Thing 2 to share with her class and I'm looking forward to it. I don't know what The Husband & I will do for the holiday.
I feel sort of bad for The Roomie.... he has nobody! His first Valentine's Day and he's all aloooone! *sob* :p Anyone out there want to be his girlfriend? He'll probably laugh at me when he reads this. LOL
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