r/exjw

First and foremost, go bags, as a concept, are a long-standing practice in disaster preparedness. You will not find a government sponsored plan that does not include them. Of course, important documents don't include bibles, rather they mean things like your ID cards, cash, anything that can verify your identity and get you up and running somewhere else if needed.

Regardless, I noticed that JWs only really started speaking about go bags and general disaster preparedness after Hurricane Katrina. The very first mention that I found was in 2006, approximately one year after that event.

Obviously this was not the first natural disaster, or war, that occurred on the Earth. However, it was a big event in the US. I do recall the branch singing its own praises at the time with claims like JWs being the first there and supposedly providing relief for non witnesses as well.

Since then, however, they've tried to link go bags with respect for Jehovah, and credit themselves with all disaster preparedness plans in existence, even though their ideas are all copied from the government or other public interest groups.

I can't help but wonder then, if this really boils down to money for the branch. After all, if there was a real concern for pimis, they would provide a go bag for all publishers. They would also likely build kingdom halls in such a way that they can be used as shelters depending on the emergency. But they don't do any of that.

However, it does not escape my notice that the more readily pimis leave (instead of ignoring government warnings and suggestions) the more the branch saves. After all, they won't have to waste resources pretending to help people.

No offense to Teletubbies! You can get great Teletubbies outfits on Aliexpress.com, if interested!

I saw a cart recently that was setup right next to another vendor selling tickets with a similar table/cart. The vendor was selling tickets that people wanted. Inspired me to make this post.

Apparently, Jehovah's Witnesses don't realize they look like weird religious fanatics when they stand like statues at carts.

When I was still PIMI, my PIMI wife and I never did carts. Had no interest in doing carts and if asked would tell people no thanks. We do not want to do the carts!

Today, Jehovah's Witnesses standing at carts feels like nothing more than a loyalty test to see who is willing to worship The Governing Body and do LITERALLY ANYTHING they come up with as an idea. No matter how outrageous, ridiculous or downright demeaning it might be.

Hey everyone. Update to my previous post because honestly I dont know what it is Im even doing right now and I genuinely feel horrible at the moment; Apologies in advance for the 3 AM sleep deprived rant

Original post for context:
https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1tdk73t/terrified_about_reconnecting_with_a_childhood/

I finally got a response back from that childhood friend I talked about there. Ill attach her response below.

I dont even know how to explain how I feel right now. part of me is just happy she answered at all, but at the same time I feel really sick with anxiety and fear and sadness. Ive been completely isolated ever since leaving. Like genuinely almost completely alone. No support system, no friends or family anymore, nobody from my old life, nothing. It’s been months and months of just trying to survive mentally while also bouncing around from place to place feeling like Id rather just not exist anymore. And now, right when I started to believe that just maybe things could change, I already see it crumbling right in front of me

she suggested maybe talking to my mother first or meeting with her around my mom/at my house or something. But my mom and I have literally not spoken in over half a year now, basically since I left/got kicked out. I also don’t really have a house anymore. I’ve been couchsurfing, shelter hopping, and doing whatever it takes trying to get into transitional housing, trying to survive in this horrible life that I live

And what makes this worse is I didn’t tell my old friend this directly, but part of the reason I asked her to keep my being in town low-profile was specifically because I did NOT want my mother or her husband finding out I’m here. But now I’m scared she may have already told my mother about me being back and that maybe thats why she brought her up. And now I just feel trapped and cornered because contacting my mother is most likely not happening for reasons I don’t really want to dump publicly right now.

I genuinely don’t know what to do. I feel like if I say the wrong thing or handle this wrong Im going to lose the only real chance at actually connectinf with someone I’ve had since leaving. I know that probably sounds pathetic...I feel completely emotionally overwhelmed by this whole thing.

I don't want to lose her. Please help me. What do I do?

https://people.com/woman-75-dies-after-fighting-tim-hortons-employee-drive-thru-order-issue-11979464

TLDR:
Mother of 4, 76 yo, JW, died after a physical altercation with an employee at a Tim Hortons in Indiana on May 13, according to police
Her cause of death remains pending
Her family has disputed the police's account of the incident

Might be long sorry.

I recently went back to my home country for a 1 week vacation and almost all my extremely pimi family is there, and several things made me angry, sad, etc.

1. my mom lives being "good friends" with a decent man long distance that clearly is into her, and wont commit to try to be w the man because "shes waiting on Jehovah's new system".

2. All the fake "omg tell your son we love him", like really? Then why have non of you bothered to even text me in 10 years?! The worse one was my oldest jw "friend" dared to message my mother asking "how was i" and well if he hadn't blocked me from me telling him ONE sentence (naively) that I no longer believed, he could text me himself.

3. my aunt took a brother to the meeting in her car, these are grown elderly people, and my family was lecturing her how it was wrong of her to be alone in the car with a male. This one is just sad but kinda funny cuz like wtf 😂, how did we all believe in this crap 😭.

4. it made me sad, that one or my cousins has gone pomi living the "double life" but I cant tell him anything cuz he still believes 😞.

5. I got into a fight w my mother because she and my aunt are so damn fanatic, when they go to meetings they put their phones on airplane mode to not get any notifications to "not get distracted", theyre 73 years old (theyre twins), this has already caused trouble, one day they forgot to turn if off and no one knew where they were for hours and we were all worried. Another time I had to submit a cellphone lost claim because my mom misplaced her phone while it was still in airplane mode. Like HOW in 2026 can someone still think the information given in meetings is valuable at all, they literally have been regurgitating the same nonsense for over a century and my mom got baptized in 1976!

6. the constant almost incessant jehooba talking like we'd be doing normal things and the classic "but they cant escape jehovah" or the "jehovah loves you very much, remember that, he still cares for you" would always come out on ANY conversation. I have made it clear to my mom to not talk anything jw w me but she literally cannot help herself.

Im glad I Iive very far away from all of that, im never going on vacation over there, it was a very emotionally draining week, almost not a vacation really.

My JW friend gives me a lot of mixed signals and I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it

I neeeeeed advice because I honestly don’t know if I’m overthinking this or if something is really there.

I have a very close friend who became a Jehovah’s Witness around 3 years ago. Before becoming a JW, she told me that she liked women too, so I’m assuming she may be bisexual or at least had attraction to women in the past.

The reason I’m confused is because she acts very affectionate with me, but it feels more intense than a normal friendship sometimes.

She touches me a lot for little reasons
hugs me often
tells me “I love you”
calls me beautiful, sexy, sensual, etc.
gets much more affectionate and emotionally open when we’re alone
but around other people she becomes more shy and reserved

She’s also opened up to me about very personal things, like wanting to leave her house and even saying she’d want to live with me someday.

Last night we were both writing romantic poems for fun. I wrote mine first, about a fantasy lover. After reading mine, she wrote one called “Amarte en silencio” (Loving you in silence) and later compared our poems by saying mine was about a fantasy lover and hers was about “secret love.”

What really stood out to me is that her poem literally had lines like:

“Quizás solo sea una amiga…”
(“Maybe I’m only a friend…”)

and it was about hidden love and secret feelings.

I honestly don’t know if this is:
1 just creative writing
2 very affectionate friendship 3 or if she may have feelings she doesn’t know how to express because of being a JW

I know JW beliefs can make same-sex feelings and relationships very complicated, so I’m trying not to assume or pressure her.

For ex-JWs or people who have been in similar situations… does this sound familiar? Am I reading too much into this?!

Edit : I’m a jw pimo

This Saturday my husband and I are taking the dogs to the beach

Sunday we'll sleep in, go to the gym, and have a few drinks over a romantic lunch.

You know what we won't be doing?

Standing around by a cart trying to convince people they'll die a fiery death unless they cover their knees with a skirt.

I’m not a JW but was raised in a household for a long time til I pulled the UBP plug last year to no longer be associated with them. I’ve never seen the appeal of someone working their way up through the JW hamster wheel ranks. I don’t know what it is but it looks so lame, boils my blood and cringe being a JW especially worse in those privileges of service they be raving about, it just simply irks me. The preprogrammed drilled in lingo of how the speakers talk during on/off stage, regular witnesses etc is all the same not matter what hall it is. It seems everyone is a carbon copy with no wiggle room to express their personality freely without fear of being judged or being counseled by the elder police force. When I feel angry hearing or thinking about those privileges of service I say to myself like I don’t wanna do that sh%t 💩 or I am not doing that MF💩, F$@K that 💩 Hell no I’ll never be a damn MS, being bethelite is a dumbA$$ boring privilege, Elder roles is for losers and stuck up bookworms F%$K all of that horse sh%t 💩 . Ok I feel better now getting this off my chest on this subreddit. What you think?

Jehovah's Witnesses has become a toxic name associated with false prophecies, child abuse, dumb rules and etc,etc,etc.

Jehovah's Witnesses is a world wide toxic brand thanks to the internet.

The days GB could say everything is apostata lies is long gone and the personal experience of this religion at the internet is sinking them hard.

What they are trying to do is a hard rebrand where they want to keep all their assets but get rid of the infamous name that Jehovah's Witnesses has become

I was a JW convention attendant for a few years around 2012–2016. We had specific locations where we had to be, and we were assigned to specific seats/spots.

There was a major contradiction with the “no seat saving” thing. The public was told attendants could not save seats before 8am and had to wait just like everyone else. But in reality, we were already inside, literally standing right next to the seats while the public was still outside the doors. We had to hold our bags and weren't allowed to put them on the seats.

So even if the seats weren’t “officially” reserved, there was basically zero chance the public was getting those seats first anyway. We could have just sat down at 8:00:01am while everyone else was still entering.

I remember my mom complaining about this back in the 90s because attendants always seemed to end up in her favorite seating spot despite her being told attendants weren't allowed to save seats just like the public until 8am. She was pissed about it because she thought they were ‘full of it.’ She bursts through the door and can see for a couple hundred feet ahead and see attendants relaxing at her preferred seats.

This could be viewed as a minor thing, but I think it shows the low level of deceit that exists in the Org.

For some reason, I was thinking back to my teenage years, the last few years when I was still a sincere Jehovah’s Witness. I had a friend who was way more sincere than I was. He dreamed of going to Bethel, was completely immersed in the organization, and today he’s a very respected elder in his circuit.

We were the same age, and we often went out in field service together. But... without any elder knowing, without any publication recommending it, and without it ever feeling wrong to us, we would sometimes swap hours on our field service reports.

If he had a slow month, he’d report some of my field service time and "pay me back" by giving me some of his hours the following month.

When I auxiliary pioneered and didn’t make my hours, he actually lent me some of his hours, and I gradually paid them back over time on future reports.

Did anyone else do this? To us, it never felt dishonest.

Honestly, I counted my time starting from the moment I put my field service clothes on, and stopped counting when I took them off back at home. So that included the drive there, the return trip, the actual conversation at the doors, the coffee break, basically everything.

How did you guys count your time?

Looking back on it now, I’m honestly amazed... what nonsense. So much meaningless bureaucracy. So much wasted time. Or maybe not wasted, because I actually do have some good memories from field service, and since I walked so much, I was skinnier back then than I am now.

Still... so many illusions.

Asking on behalf a POMO friend who received unusually friendly communication from a PIMI family member. Don't really care about details, just to confirm or deny my suspicions

So i have to be there lol. Ooooof. My dad talked to me to make sure i was going. Here's just some of the things he said.

"Remember the little bit of shame you'll feel today when they announce you and understand that it'll be ten times worse if you actually do something stupid that gets you removed."

"Just wait until after I die to do stupid things. You dont want to be the reason why i die sooner because of stress you caused."

Mind you, this is JUST an announcement saying I'm not a regular pioneer anymore.

Sighhhhhhh. Wish me luckkkkk!

EDIT: If i didnt like or reply to your comment it's cuz reddit is choosing to not show certain comments. Idk why????

The internet and artificial intelligence will be the downfall of this cult. The first thing anyone in the younger generation wants to do is fact check you. They google what you’re saying to see if it’s true. So anyone with a brain who is interested in the Jehovahs Witnesses will do one simple google search about them. Immediately they’ll see a recommended search asking if JWs are a cult. That will surely lead them away from joining the religion. I’m sure that’s happening now and it’ll only continue to happen in the future. The only people getting baptized are born ins or people without much access or knowledge of the internet. Such as older ones. But im almost certain the cult will die off within the next generation what do we think?

My mom is a pioneer, the best pioneer I have ever known. Really, she is the kind of pioneer sister that takes seriously that "labor" and puts all of her effort for trying to "reach the hours"

(Disclaimer: I've started reading the Bible on my own and it is amazing to realize that those requirements are hilarious, fool, and incredibly unnecessary for the christian life. Jesus never taught something like recording every hour spent in preaching and constant monitoring from the headquarters. It is annoying to see the pressure made by men in others. Those requirements are everything less biblical).

So my mom had an accident some months ago that led her with a decrease in her hours. I mean, naturally she wasn't able to preach (c'mon, I didn't even need to explain that) because she was physically unable.

Well, in a few moments we'll have the Circuit visit. Do you know what did Elders say to my mom? "Sister, when the CO comes we will have to talk to you".

Really? Literally they have my mom there spending every morning from monday til friday, recording an almost perfect score (50 hours I think), having several "biblical courses" (that book of "enjoy life forever" is everything but less a biblical course) and trying to do all that because "Jehovah God wants that for her".

And now... they will probably tell her that she is not doing enough and that unless she does more she will be rejected from his "pioneering"? Or they will probably give her "encouraging words" for her labor but aiming finally to "do more"?

For real?

The words of Jesus in Matthew 23:4 still have compliance in our days because of these "religious organizations".

-They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them

Last night I had an awful dream where my little brother died. He’s 29 now but he was only 13 when I was kicked out of home after being DF’d and he’s never spoken to me since. I’ve been feeling sad and rattled about this dream all day. People whose family aren’t shunning them can call up their sibling if they have a dream about them dying, tell them about it… “Just making sure you’re not dead! Great, you’re ok. How’s your day going anyway?” It feels different, too, compared to the experience of someone who dreams something (awful or pleasant) about a loved one who has actually died. People are more familiar with grieving when it’s about death. This weird limbo of having living, breathing family members out there who won’t take a call or reply to a text from me… “I had a terrible dream and wanted to just hear from you that you’re ok.” 💔

Is anyone else having this kind of ambiguous grief (as it’s apparently called) show up in their lives?

Hii, i'm not an english native speaker, but i do need to try to talk to someone right now. I'm not a JW, my girlfriend is, we broke up a few days ago because the religion and her family made her feel that she was betraying them for being with me. I don't know what to do man... i want to help her, i love her with all my heart, so i thought, who can give a better advice tan the ones who experiment this religion? What can i do? I really want to help her.

When I was in the process of waking up fearfully going on the outside I saw a cut clip from one of the broadcasts of Morris saying how he was telling a story of how he was annoyed by this one woman who wouldn’t stop talking in a conversation with a couple, saying “she wouldn’t shut up” the audience laughs and then he tries to soften the notion by mentioning how a lot of anointed ones are women. And I was just thinking “what was the point of telling this story exactly?” I just know their wives are passive and unthinking. It’s sad.