Waking up from a deep slumber is something that few people will ever enjoy doing. Sometimes, in the clutches of exhaustion, we can find a barely-suitable perch to lay upon and make it an effective bed. I've seen grown men lay supine on a hardwood floor with naught but an infant's punkin-seat for a pillow. I have myself slept in positions that my waking body found offensive, and it has been my observation that the offense became more bearable as I gave myself over to the sleep.
You have to pay the piper sometime, however, and disengaging from one of those improvised beds is a punishment. The pressure points that all went numb start to scream. Joints protest. Muscles cramp. Going back to sleep is an option that will mask the pain. I mean, it's how I got through summer vacations in Missouri, but that toll will still be waiting when you wake and there's no way around the ferryman.
When I began to stray away from Watchtower, I was also aware that my mother had used this above metaphor in reference to spiritual sleep. So I asked myself what I was experiencing that I once found painful (fleshly interests). What standards was I transgressing more easily as I gave myself over to the spiritual sleep?
Yeah, in those early days, I was concerned that I would one day wake up from my sleep and have to face the reality [and pain] of opening my eyes to the only truth I knew. And this would end up being my mental environment for almost 10 years. I lived in the constant fear that my debt for selfishness was going to be steep and payable on demand. I fully expected to meekly crawl back to the Kingdom Hall, tell the elders what I had done (which you'd find laughable), and beg them not to disfellowship me. Humility was the pain I feared most.
The prison of that thinking brought its own trials. Just for the sake of not being reminded of my error, I didn't talk to my parents as often as I should have. Unintentionally, that played right into the hands of my later realizations, making that transition easier. But we'll address that in a bit. I created distance from people that would force that conversation to occur. I replaced entire periods of my history with a void just so that there was nothing to discuss. I became a cherry-picker of my own story, sharing only the things that didn't include me being a Witness. It was a disservice to my person.
Now with all this in mind, it might sound like this would have led me to embracing Watchtower doctrine to set myself right. No, it's to illustrate the horrific reality of trying to wake up from a dream that is actually occurring within a nightmare.
If this sounds like I'm talking about the film Inception, I'm not...
Because Rick and Morty did it better...
So here I sat, in my mid-30's, mired in the expectation that I was going to tuck tail and go back to being a Witness. I didn't want to. I didn't care. But, for some reason, it felt like my only path forward. Then my real awakening began to happen. Now, I had no clue what was coming, but I knew that it was big. I wasn't aware of how painful it would be.
I've mentioned before that watching the HBO Documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief was pivotal. It was startling that I should recognize the organizational framework of the religion I was taught to be the truth, just in use with a different group and a different theology. The two religions were so glaringly similar that I felt those old pangs of distress twisting in my gut - just from watching the stories of the people who had left. This is what waking up would become for me.
As I researched the origins and foundations, dissected the beliefs, scrutinized the prophecies I became very raw indeed. You see, up until this time I had believed that I was asleep as a Witness, but I was becoming increasingly aware that I had actually been mentally asleep. With each fact that I uncovered, being a Witness was more obviously a delusion that blinded me from a greater reality. With every moment of increasing wakefulness, I was also faced with the agony of realizing that I was the victim of lies, collusion, and manipulation. Being asleep is what had allowed me to operate as a Witness at all.
For most of us, we know what follows. There is the chastising, shaming, badgering, and eventual shunning. All of it is more painful than anything else you could endure because it is a re-victimization. But that is the cost. You will not be hailed as a hero by your peers. You will not be consulted for wisdom or advice. No, for your newfound clarity, you will be excised.
History has examples from many disciplines. We know them by names like Galileo, Luther, or Gandhi. They are the people who, by their own awareness, determined that an insufficiency of intellectual industry had to be addressed. They proposed new ideas and philosophies. They challenged the accepted model to which their respective societies granted consensus. Knowingly, and with heads held high, they accepted that the dream they dreamed was a prison of falsehood. They then fought their battles in the best ways they knew how. While their contemporaries saw them as rebels and insurgents, history knows them as visionaries, and each one of them paid a high price for waking up.
Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses is a difficult and embattled process. Few things in life will be as difficult, if for no other reason than the opposition you must face. For my part, the most difficult ties I would have had to sever were ones that I had already allowed to atrophy. As I mentioned earlier, I had withdrawn from my family gradually, so when it came time to embrace that I was an apostate, the band-aid didn't need much ripping. Had I been closer, I'd have been unwilling to endure waking. For that reason, I have the utmost respect for those who did and still chose to leave.
At the end of the day, this hard-fought awareness is something that I now wear as a badge of honor. I have learned that the discomfort I feel with cognitive conflict means that I am actually just at odds with myself. Those are the times that I begin to closely examine what I "know". I can't be enticed anymore by the numbness of sleep.