What dissidents (generally) want

I don’t care that much whether Jehovah’s Witnesses discover the truth about “the truth.” What really matters to me is that they genuinely respect me as someone who no longer believes what they believe. And I think that’s a common feeling among most dissidents.

The only reason we want people to wake up is because it might lead them to stop disrespecting us by constantly trying to preach to us, insisting that we’re wrong and will be destroyed, ostracizing us, grieving because we left, and so on. If the organization didn’t encourage its members to treat those who choose to leave the way they do, there would be no reason for them to constantly warn people not to read any “apostate” material.

What truly affects us is the way leaving the cult punishes us by taking away the people we love. It places us in the role of the villain, the one who is wrong, the one who is condemned. It’s so real that most people who come here are surprised to discover that the dissident community is not “evil, dangerous, or hostile,” as they had imagined based on the organization’s portrayal.

Trying to wake up those who are still inside can be disrespectful and is usually a waste of energy. The door only opens from the inside. Most of us simply want to be respected, the very respect they so often claim to stand for, but which, in practice, doesn’t match the way they treat those who have come to realize that they no longer have any reason to believe.