Anyone else feel sorry for the older ones?
I’ve been POMO for about three years now — physically and mentally out. I was raised in it, so I know it from the inside.
What strikes me most since leaving is watching people like my parents — lifelong Witnesses who have spent every waking moment either thinking about the Organisation or doing something for it. Their entire existence revolves around it. And here’s the brutal reality: even if they woke up tomorrow and realised it was a cult, it would likely be too late to do anything about it. Their friends are in it. Their family is in it. In some cases their job is tied to it. Leaving means losing everything, all at once, with nothing waiting on the other side.
That’s exactly why I consider myself fortunate to have left the moment I was old enough at 18. I had very little to lose compared to someone who has given five decades of their life to an organisation built on control.
But it raises a question I genuinely don’t have an answer to — what do you do when you’re 50, 60, maybe older, and the realisation hits that your entire life has been built on a lie? The connections are gone, the years are gone. What’s left?