"We can have complete trust in Bible prophecy - God's word never fails, remember, it will always be true. The fact that JWs get on with each other worldwide is proof we are Gods people. You want to see your loved ones in paradise. And you don't want to die at Armagedon now when it's so soon do you? Now is the time to stay faithful"

BEEP BEEP BEEP

MIND PROGRAMMING SESSION COMPLETE

BEEP BEEP BEEP

"How grateful we are for the Governing Body"

BEEP BEEP

This mind program has been playing on repeat since 1870s for 155 years.

Yall have got to check out the show Unanswered Oddities!! It makes fun of cults and I think this community would get a kick of one of the main characters Tiggy! It’s an adult swim cartoon but its hilarious and I found myself relating to Tiggy 🤣 he’s like an alien version of an apostate or Exjw lol

An article recently written and researched by u/Larchington is an in-depth analysis of the 1914 ‘Gentile Times' announcement, highlighting its lack of contemporaneous evidence and later doctrinal reconstruction.

Below is a screenshot of the article, but I recommend reading it all from the link:

https://avoidjw.org/news/russell-1914-gentile-times-history-watchtower-doctrine/?preview_id=59130&preview_nonce=345c18e956&preview=true

To debunk this tall tale, Larchwood used publications from Watchtower, including one reference from 'Faith on the March' by Jehovah's Witness A.H. Macmillian.

Watching the video about the girl who said other churches only incorporated a few verses into the sermon but the JW church was all about the Bible and then sitting through a watchtower study that last longer than the talk THAT ONLY INCORPORATED A FEW VERSES FROM THE BIBLE was laughable to say the least.

I was born a jw, considered from young age an 'exemplary' sister, I was the youngest baptized person in my country when I did, but I honestly never ate up what they said, ever since I was young I was like "Why are they saying one thing but behaving like other?" and "why they say they love everyone but totally hate some people", but I did it because it was everything I knew. At 17 I was kidnapped and abused (By a jw, can't get any worse lol) so when I could escape I tried to completely unlink myself from them, that was my last straw, but I never ocurred to me that some things I'm going through right now can be because of religious trauma, has any of you guys gone through it too? I'd like to know more about it to understand myself a little more

For context, my husband and I have been PIMO for about a year now. The only thing stopping us from publicly leaving the organization is the fact that we live next door to my in-laws who are ultra PIMIs, they give us a really good deal on rent and my husband and I are currently busy working hard on our education so this is where we’re living for the time being. We are planning to move away some time later this year tho, which is super exciting and long overdue!

Now when it comes to the Memorial, neither one of us wants to attend, obviously, but we definitely feel the pressure from our relatives. For the past month or so, my husband’s parents have been persistently asking us what our plans are for the day of the Memorial (we are in different congregations). They definitely know something’s up with us because we stopped going to the meetings in person about 6 months ago and they noticed. They think we’re still joining on zoom but we’re certainly not lol.

Anyways, they wanted to make it a ‘family occasion’ this year and go to the Memorial all together with our congregation. When I heard that’s what they had in mind I instantly knew I wasn’t willing to do that, so we told them that we were thinking about going to the Memorial in Spanish this year (my mother tongue) which happens to be a language that they don’t understand, all in the hopes that they don’t follow us and we can actually not attend the Memorial this year.

We’re in this weird limbo at the moment where we don’t know for sure if they’ll try to join us last minute but I think chances are they won’t, they’re highly social individuals and they LOVE the association that comes with being part of this cult club, so I don’t think they’ll want to miss out on that lol.

Personally, I have absolutely ZERO respect left for this organization, I am well aware of how deceitful, manipulative and damaging this cult is and I don’t want to support it in any way, on top of that I don’t believe in the Bible anymore and I doubt Jesus ever existed. For me, there’s no reason why we should attend the Memorial but my husband’s worried his family will somehow find out we didn’t attend and that that will give away where we truly stand (which could lead to a series of events that ultimately ends up with us getting kicked out of our apartment or even worse for my husband, his entire family shunning us).

So, how are you guys dealing/coping with all the stress and everything that comes with this time of year? I know every PIMO has their own personal reasons as to why they will or will not attend this year, and nobody should be judged for it. We’ve all been already harshly judged by this organization and its minions in one way or another so let’s not do that here please :)

I’m currently at the meetings. I have the privilege to read the WT article. I’ve been PIMO for 4 months now. I was appointed as an elder in 2023. This week’s article’s paragraphs 11 and 12 show how wicked the old men in NY are! The emotional manipulation is insane! They capitalize on every single fear these poor people have to promote their joke of a new world by encouraging them to sacrifice everything they want, have or love. Fuck the governing body for all the pain they are inflicting on their followers!

I was just thinking about this.

Every time a video or drama depcits Mary, mother of Jesus, she is always a young woman. Late teens, at earliest, to 20-something. Yet we know, and I think even the org acknowledges elsewhere, that based on how things were done at the time that Mary would actually be between 13 and 15 at the time of being selected and giving birth to Jesus.

Yet, as stated, when Mary is part of the discussion her age is never mentioned and she's always depcited as being older. Now, of course, I can understand that reasoning. No one wants to have a 13 year old stand there saying she'll get pregnant.

And now that I think about it... to be fair, I have seen Mary be "aged up" in church art and Christian movies and stuff.

The thing is, I can't help but find it curious that the org, which so often pats itself on the back about accuracy and stuff on other things, is afraid to use teen Mary.

I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of Witnesses believe Mary was like 20 when she had Jesus.

(Due to limitations on Reddit, I couldn't share the video or any more pics in my main article)

Spot the difference:

Faith in Action, 2010 and Warwick Museum Tours: “A People for Jehovah’s Name”, 2019

Notice the line added?

Where did they get this line?

“According to a sister in attendance” -God’s Kingdom Rules, 2019

Hmmm. I guess we just have to take their word for it.

A picture of a room at the museum at Canada Bethel. A momentous moment!

For as momentous was Russell's announcement at breakfast in October 1914, it didn't even make it to the Annual Report of that year.

Here is my article if you missed it earlier:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1jsr4v0/russells_1914_gentile_times_breakfast_declaration/

Growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness was, frankly, traumatic. For years I didn’t realise just how much it had affected me — the fear, the guilt, the sense of never being good enough. The looming dread of Armageddon. The sense of isolation from “the world.” The conditional love. The crushing pressure to conform while pretending it was all joyful.

I was a good JW kid. Too good. Obedient, terrified, emotionally stunted. I took it all in and never questioned anything… until one day I couldn’t stop questioning. What followed was years of deconstruction, doubt, pain — you know the story.

These days, the only way I seem able to look back on my JW childhood without completely breaking down is to laugh at it. To parody it. To treat it like the bizarre, Orwellian theatre it really was. The melodramatic talks, the smug Watchtower illustrations, the endless, mind-numbing meetings with “encouraging” reminders of how utterly hopeless we were without Jehovah. It’s a goldmine for dark comedy — and thank god for that.

When I read posts here, I see echoes of my own life again and again. And it’s both heartbreaking and strangely comforting. So many of us were raised in what was essentially a psychological pressure cooker. It twisted our sense of identity, warped our families, and left us with trauma that still flickers in the background of our lives.

But here’s the thing: reading your stories has helped me feel less alone. I’m not some one-off case. The cult did a number on all of us — and somehow, we’re still here, piecing ourselves back together, one thread at a time. Sometimes with therapy. Sometimes with tears. Sometimes with rage. And sometimes with satire and sick jokes that only another ex-JW would get.

So if you’re one of those people who, like me, gets through it by making fun of the nonsense — I see you. I hear you. And I’m glad you’re here.

The caption under the pic says "What blessings in paradise do you look forward to most" The picture reminds me of an ad for Kohl's, or an ad for Wegovy. I can imagine the warning label "Paradise may cause cravings for meat due to vegetarianism, hard labor, endless rules and regulations, preaching, living in an undesirable location, and death if you don't follow the rules"

I grew up as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and while I’ve left, I still feel the need for some kind of community or group that shares values like kindness, support, and authenticity.

My mom was very deep into the religion—elders even had to tell her she didn’t need to cut me off. Thankfully, the elders at my old hall knew I was a good person, but it still left a mark.

I don’t have much of a relationship with my extended family because my mom never really introduced me to them. And my dad wasn’t around. He made some efforts later on, but by then I was already pretty independent and doing well in life, and it didn’t feel like his motives were genuine.

Life is good overall—I’ve got a girlfriend and things are stable—but I miss having a solid group of friends. I’d love to connect with people who are laid-back, kind, and maybe open to some sort of spiritual or moral grounding without the controlling baggage.

Has anyone here found a community, church, group, or even a meetup that feels authentic and welcoming after leaving the JWs?

For PIMIs, it makes more sense to call their “beliefs” scripts—prewritten lines from a system they’re fully immersed in.

Forming opinions is an active, messy process—it’s you wrestling with information, experiences, and reasoning to land on something that feels true to you. It’s like building a house from scratch: you pick the materials, tweak the design, and it’s uniquely yours, even if it’s influenced by the world around you. There’s effort, doubt, and a bit of ownership in the outcome.

Running scripts, though, is more like reading lines off a page someone else wrote. You’re handed a ready-made conclusion—prepackaged, polished, and slipped into your head without much friction. It’s less about wrestling and more about reciting; you might not even notice the seams where it was stitched together. The script does the work, and you just play the part, often without questioning who wrote it or why.

The big difference is agency: opinions come from you navigating the chaos of thought, while scripts are someone else’s map you follow without drawing your own. One’s a creation; the other’s a replay.

Next time you wonder about someone’s PIMI “beliefs,” reframe it for yourself: it’s not their beliefs, it’s a script running that has hijacked the process. Therefore, your goal shouldn’t be to change their opinion—first, you have to stop the script that’s running.

I think this is the correct mental model—viewing PIMI “beliefs” as scripts lets you deal with them more effectively: Don’t try changing opinions, try to interrupt the script.

At the start of the year I started reading my bible with the hopes to become stronger in my faith. As I have read the scriptures, I have started to seriously doubt the teaching and interpretation of the JW doctrine. I have started researching and looking into things with an objective standpoint and started looking into individuals who would be considered “apostates”. Over the course of the last 3 to 4 months, I’ve deep dived into anything I can come across and have been shocked at the answers I have found. I only started accepting it here recently the past couple of weeks but still am having a very hard time trying to tackle these feelings I have. I do not want to be apart of this cult anymore. I want to know how to disassociated effectively and with such overwhelming backing that I can’t be scrutinized even though I know that is where this path is leading me. For years I’ve had an itch in the back of my mind that didn’t sit well with me, things that I didn’t fully agree and accept that the JW faith encourages but I ignored them. Only here recently have I found evidence to show that this is in fact not the truth. I have kept myself at arms length for several years due to an incident that occurred which resulted in a “shadow shunning” on me. I was allowed to answer, but very far and few between. I also noticed those who I considered brothers and sisters start associating with me less yet I still followed with the group for 7 years after. I don’t want to be a number among many who “serve” loyally and blindly to something they don’t even have full knowledge or context of. Please, if there is any advice or anyone who can help me get away fully, I need it. These last few weeks have been the hardest and most painful for me to endure that it’s causing me to have mental breakdowns. I don’t want guilt to be on my mind, but I cannot follow something or someone who is a hypocrite and claims to something they are not. I’m done with the lies, I’m done with the spiritual warfare and propaganda, and done with all of it. I have a wife and child who I was subconsciously trying to bring into it before I finally realized…

In casual conversations at gatherings when I was PIMI, sometimes other PIMIs would start talking about what they would’ve done with their lives if not JW. Become a pilot… walk the Camino de Santiago… sail across the pacific… have 4 kids… stuff like that.

Thinking back over the decades I was in, it feels like this came up pretty often among people my age (I’m 46). Was that just me? Maybe some of my friends are actually PIMO?

A couple of days ago, I read that there was a leaked video from the elders school but no link to it. I’ve been searching through so many posts and haven’t been able to find it and I’m not that tech savvy. Does anyone remember it and if so, can you post the link? Thanks so much.

Imagine this: You jump through many hoops to become a member of an “elite” (e.g., 1%) club. You all dress similarly and do the same type of activities. This club controls all aspects of your life. You have to account to the club's leadership what you spend your time doing for the club each month. That is to say, you have to pay your dues. In addition to each person’s living expenses, they have to pay the club $3,000 USD per month. How do regular blue-collar workers do that? Primarily, these are the people without an advanced education. Perhaps they’re window washers. Each R&F member resorts to nefarious methods to support their secretive organization.

This description is not of a whimsical club; it’s how Hells Angels work worldwide. They are not a “motorcycle club” [MC] in the sense of people having a common interest; they are a gang.

Do you grasp the common thuggery and control mindset among the Hells Angels and Watchtower organizations? The GB are nothing more than thugs posing in ill-fitting suits to derive pleasure from their lofty position of imagined God-given power. In this sense, the term “Hells Angels” better describes the Watchtower syndicate rather than a motorcycle gang.

This post is a spinoff from u/sheenless post on “Random Branch Announcement."

I have so many bad memories in this building. I went to this hall from 1978-1984 and from 1999-2002 when we had a quick build (which then burned down in 2007). My father and grand mother were baptized attending this congregation in 1960.

I watched the special talk for my family over Zoom, and it was just a 30 minute advertisement for Bible studies!

The really sad part is they made the congregation pay extra to have a speaker come down from New York to give it, and he was in no way better than the local speakers; They're doing the same thing with the memorial too, as bad as everyone is struggling financially they shouldn't be pressuring everyone to pay for Bethel speakers, I know most of the people in my local congregation can't afford extra right now.

I haven’t heard from an old friend that I had when I was in the religion in over a year and late last night she texted me to invite me to the memorial and special talk. The last time I spoke to her, I let her know that I was done with the Jehovah’s Witness organization. When she reached out to me last night, I knew that it wasn’t genuine, but was simply what she was doing for the memorial campaign. Nevertheless, the interaction was respectful and short.

I'm a 22F, college student and kinda PiMo, (I say kinda because I only go to meetings to keep the peace and my family from asking questions) who has had doubts in the organization for a while. It started when I had a bad case of depression that led to suicidal thoughts. Back then I believed whole heartedly in Jehovah and that he would help me and prayed for the depression to go away. However, it didn't and only got worse to the point of me wanting to kill myself. At the time everytime we went to the meetings the speaker would always talk about how "witnesses were a happy people and coming to the kingdom hall would refresh everyone" and hearing those experiences from everyone made me feel broken. I wasn't happy nor did coming to the Kingdom Hall make me feel better. There was also messaging at the time about how our bodies weren't our own nor were our lives our own and how we all belong to Jehovah, so that kinda messed me up even more. I even went as far as reading the publications on depression that WT had which didn't help much, as many of you may know they didn't really promote seeking professional help. Time skip, I had a breakdown at the KH and had to tell my family why I felt the way I did. I left out the part about the religion because I knew they wouldn't understand. Ever since them I've been MO and looking at some of the teachings and policies critically. Doing this made me realize JW religion had too much control over things that should be personal, like the men w/o beards rule, women wearing pants to the meetings, and who you associate with. It made me not want to be a part of the religion even more. I thought my mom was a safe space because she wasn't as gungho about the religion like my grandmother was and every word out of her mouth wasn't about Jehovah. I told her about how I don't want to go to the meetings anymore nor do I want my study. It kind of became a big deal in my family, but I can see the change in how they treat me now, especially my mom and grandma. My mom just also did a major flip on me and it hurt my feelings how fast she could change especially when it came to her only child. It's been hard because both of my uncles thrive in the kingdom hall and I'm constantly compared to other girls in my age range in my KH and how they serve Jehovah. Honestly, I felt being a witness was suffocating and I couldn't be my true self there and want desperately to get out. I feel alone because I can never fully explain why I don't want to be a part of the religion without it switching to the whole "you can go out there [the world] if you want to and see what happens to you" speel. No one understands and I feel they'll never understand because what I went through isn't reality or something natural that people go through for them but Satan trying to take you away from Jehovah. I'm currently trying to seek therapy because I feel it's the only way I can get these feelings out without feeling like my head is going to explode. Does anyone have any advice on how to cope or deal with this until I'm able to get into therapy and get out on my own?

T