We Didn't Do Those As Jehovah's Witnesses (Ethan and Tyler)

From the time they were born, Ethan and Tyler were forbidden from participating in many activities that most of us take for granted. In this episode, we discuss a very long (yet somehow incomplete) list of things that Jehovah's Witnesses don't do. These include seemingly trivial things such as toasting beverages (not permitted), to life-enriching decisions such as going to college (no way), to sanctified practices like saluting the flag and worshiping Jesus (nope). 

Tyler and Ethan are the hosts of the Finding Paradise podcast.  Stream it wherever you listen.

Visit ko-fi.com/ocho  for exclusive content as a supporter of this podcast!

Transcript

[chimes]

Ocho:

In this episode, we have some adult discussions about sex, and drugs, and there are some swear words.  So if that’s not for you, I recommend you skip it.  And if it is for you:

[chimes]

Welcome to the “I Don’t Do That Podcast,” where we get into all the things that we’re not into.

[theme music plays] “na na na na na yeah nah I don’t do that, no I don’t do that.  You know it’s alright; you can ask, but I don’t do that, no I don’t do that.  I don’t do that.  I don’t do that.

Ocho:

Episode Eight

 Tyler:

I enjoy learning things about other people that have different views from me, even if it's things that I don't like or disagree with. 

Ethan:

I feel I'm a better human now. More accepting of a lot of things and genuinely happy.

Ocho:

Episode Nine is “We didn’t do those” as Jehovah’s Witnesses.  We are talking with Ethan and Tyler today who are former Jehovah’s Witnesses aka exjws.  They host the Finding Paradise podcast which is excellent.  You can find that wherever you stream.  I highly recommend it.  You can also catch an interview with me.  Both of them live in Minnesota, USA.  Tyler is 40 years old, and is a practicing therapist at a mental health agency, and Ethan is in his mid-30s and works construction.  He also grows some delicious microgreens.  He’s going to show me his setup, so I can hopefully grow some healthy stuff indoors.  Man, I love vegetables.  Don’t you?  They’re awesome.  All of them.  Both men identify as white and as exJWs.  Today, we will discuss the following activities from which they were forbidden from participating as Jehovah’s Wintesses:

Nothing on this list was allowed:

Holidays

College

Extracurriculars

prom

scouts

Beards

Tattoos

Salute Flag

Holiday Candy

Military Service

Vote

smoke

attend AA

give/get blood

donating to charities

ymca

toast beverages

cursing

disagree w/JW

wishing others luck

worshipping Jesus as God

AND talking with friends and family who have been disfellowshipped.

I realize this is an incomplete list.  Still, we have a lot to get through.  First, though, Ethan, Tyler, thanks for being here

Ethan:

Thanks for having us. 

 Ocho:

Yeah. Yeah. I have been listening to your podcast and I enjoyed it a lot. I'm not done, but I plan on listening to the whole thing. Um, and if we're still recording stuff, I'll listen to stuff in the future too, so…

Tyler:

appreciate it. Right on. 

Ocho:

So it's extensive, the, the podcast Finding Paradise. And there's a lot of stuff I'd like to ask you about, but I don't really have time in one day, so I thought it'd be fun for this show to focus on things that, uh, Jehovah's Witnesses don't do. Your podcast is about getting free from the Jehovah's Witnesses, and then at the end I'd like to talk a bit about what it takes to leave the organization, if we can do that. . 

Tyler:

Awesome. Sounds like a good discussion. 

Ocho:

All right, , so I got a list. I figure we can just, talk about them and if you wanted to add anything, we can talk about that too. There's things I knew about when we started, when I started listening to the podcast, cuz I've had some exposure. I suppose I have met some JWS before, like probably some went to school with me Yeah. And stuff like that, but, but, socially not really. And it seems like that's sort of forbidden. Am I right?

Tyler:

Yeah. That's by design. Yeah.  Yeah. That you wouldn't have known them like in a social setting. 

Ocho:

So, did you have friends that were not JW you weren't allowed to? Did that ever affect yo,ur life or how did you encounter that? 

Ethan:
 Yeah, I mean, you could have friends in school, but that was it.  There was maybe once or twice I was allowed to go play music with a couple school friends, but. Other than that, no. A good example: Growing up, one of my best friends, even to this day was my neighbor.  Mitchell. And he could come over to my house every now and then. As long as my parents were home.  We literally were next door neighbors, but I could not go into his house.  Like it was very frowned upon, because it was mainly because my parents couldn't see what we're doing. Not that we were doing anything bad anyways, listening to D-12 and stuff, I suppose , they wouldn't have liked that.

Ocho: 

Purple Pills. 

Tyler:

Yellow, purple pills, right? Yep. Yep. I mean, you were always told that those are your acquaintances, those aren't your friends. And so that was kind of growing up. I always had, you know, acquaintances and, but you know, yeah, I've had, you had those friends and some of those that I have actually even kept up with 20 years later. I went to Texas to visit a friend of mine from high school back in August.  So, yeah, it's, you were definitely kind of kept separate from that cuz I never hung out with any of those people, like in high school all that much. Yeah. 

Ocho: And like you say, it's by design. Can you explain that a little bit? 

Tyler:

Well, like Ethan was saying that you don't, your parents can't see what you're doing within someone else's, you know, you're someone else's home and it's a very controlling environment and you're expected to tow the line in every single aspect of your life.  You are a witness 24 7. And so you have to keep that up at all times. And if you're not being supervised, you might be doing something wrong. 

Ethan:

Right. And they're worried about, like, if you're hanging out with somebody that's not a witness that has an open mind about other things or blah, blah, blah, they might teach you things that they don't want you to know, the organization doesn't want you to know.  You might grow. 

Tyler:

First Corinthians 15:33, bad association spoils useful Habits. Yeah. Wow. It's like, to this day, like I will never forget that 

Ethan:

He who has dealings with the stupid one will fair badly. I mean, yeah. Yeah. 

Tyler:

So, yeah, we both know our Bible.

Ocho:

Was it like this with everyone? Were parents more, uh, permissive?  Would you say you were on the, got the stricter end or the more permissive end or… 

Ethan:  
My dad was strict, but there's families that were way more strict. My parents were good parents. I will say that I love my parents.

Ocho:

Great. 

Ethan:

Yeah. You know, we don't talk, but I still love them. 

Ocho:

I see. 

Ethan:
They're in it, but growing up, they were, I don't know, fairly understanding. I got caught looking at porn one time and I thought I was in it, like I was gonna get in a lot of trouble. Yeah, no, I got in more trouble just from getting kicked outta school the second time.

Yeah. But I mean, porn was bad. Bad. You know, you don't do that. But my dad was actually sympathetic. Sure, sure. Probably cuz he looked at it too. 

Tyler:

Yeah. Well that's the same thing, like, my parents were cool. Like I, I love my parents and I don't have any, you know, I've always thought people do the best that they can with the information that they have and I think they did the best they could. And I love my parents. I don't have any complaints. It doesn't mean that they didn't make mistakes and that, I don't think maybe they were misguided in the way that they raised us as kids, but that's not on them. I think as parents they were great.

I wouldn't say mine were like, especially strict. But they were, uh, kind of middle of the road, and there were certain things that they may be a little bit more strict on than others, but I think they were kind of middle of the road.

Ethan:

Was your dad an Elder? I can't remember. 

Tyler:  Yeah, he was off and on. Off and on, yeah. Yeah. 

Ocho:

And, and so it, it goes both ways too, from what I understand, so you could be influenced by them, but, but from what I understand, there's also some secrets that you're not really supposed to let out. Is that the case?  This is more just something I read online, so that doesn't really speak to something I heard from you. 

Ethan:

You mean, like things you just don't talk about with worldly people? Quote unquote. Yeah. I mean, like, we weren't very, very vocal about Disfellowshipping. It would reflect badly on the organization.

Ocho:

If people knew what Disfellowshipping was like.  If the, worldly people or the people outside the organization knew about that, it would reflect badly. 

Tyler:

Yeah. Yeah. I remember we had like instructions on our teaching and how we were supposed to, you know, work on, you know, bringing people in.  And some of the things that were always mentioned is, you know, you don't give everybody all the information. You can't tell everybody everything that we do right out front. Because you know that's just too much for people. And it, that's how it was always painted as. Yeah, well it's just too much. It's not that “Oh, well that's fucked. And you shouldn't be doing that,” which is the normal response. Yeah. It's, “oh, well, that's just too much.”

Ocho:

So it's more like, a “they can't handle the truth” kind of thing.  

Tyler:

So yeah, I guess I wouldn't say there's necessarily things that you're told you shouldn't talk about with outsiders, but it's more of a “how much should you talk to people at a time” kind of thing. Yeah, I don't know that there's necessarily secrets. Most of the secrets that you wouldn't talk about are ones that, that most, you know, rank and file witnesses are not aware of. 

Ocho:

I see. Is there anything that you wanna say now or that you feel like you can say now that you didn't feel like you could say before?

Ethan:

That I felt like I couldn't say while I was in? That it's a cult. Yeah. And even that, that's that's a big one. That took a while. Cause I mean, first you gotta admit everything you knew was false and your life was, to a certain extent, a waste. I mean, not completely, but… and then you gotta accept the fact that you were in a cult and you have family members that are still in a cult.  And that's hard too, but…

Ocho: so when you say “everything you know is false,”some of what I understand is, there's a mythology behind it that isn't accurate. Like, Tyler, I've heard you talk about that dates and, and things like that.  What is it that's false?

Tyler:

Well, on that end, I mean, the, the quick and dirty of that is I, I've always been kind of the scientific mind and I always liked numbers and math and things like that. And so for me, what kind of came down to is I had to prove…there’s a mathematic formula based on a set of scriptures that essentially leads from the destruction of Jerusalem and 607 BCE by the Babylonian armies, counting forward 2,520 years to 1914.  And 1914 then is supposed to be… it's a date that according to witnesses, Satan and the demons were kicked out of heaven in a Holy War down to the vicinity of the earth. And now they're here. And that's why…

Ocho:

and there's a reason that it's 2,500 whatever years?

Tyler:

It's based on this formula of math that they came up with through the book of Daniel, which connects to the book of Revelation, supposedly, and all this and that. And there's a…

Ocho:

So it’s like a Bible code.

Tyler:

Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Ocho: 

I didn't know that. I mean, I heard you guys talk about it, but I didn't, I didn't know the specifics of it, 

Tyler:

But the problem with that is, If you look at it objectively, if you're looking at their literature, 6 07 BCE is when Nebuchadnezzar II destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.

But that's wrong. That's not when it happened. If you actually look at history, it was 587, 586ish bce, so there's a 20 year gap there where they're completely wrong. So I'm like, “oh, well if that's 20 years late, then. 1934 then should be the date,” but they hinge everything on this 1914 date.  And everything about their theology completely collapses if you take 1914 outta the equation . So you can'ttell them, “Hey, 607 is wrong. Otherwise, the entire house of cards comes down. 

Ocho:

It sounds like they're banking on something that's really specific. You know, it's almost tragic on their end that it's that specific and that it's able to be disproven.

Tyler:

Right? Yeah. It's funny, there's a series of articles that they actually published back in 2010, 2011. And the title of the articles was, “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?” And at the beginning of those articles, there's an asterisk that says “all of the experts quoted in this do not agree with our belief that it happened in 607.”

Tyler:

And so when I started waking up from it, I was like, “wait, hold on. So you're literally right at the beginning of that article saying that we're gonna cherry pick shit out of what these experts are saying to support what we want. Even though they're not going to agree with us, we're gonna take a bit of what they said that makes it look like they do.”

Ocho:

Yeah, I see that. That sounds problematic, right? If you're saying, “Hey, this is literally true, then. The, yeah, it's, it's very, it is very problematic to make someone believe that when you can see that it's not.

Tyler:

And they, they argue it. But the Neo Babylonian period is one of the most well documented. Eras in, in ancient history. 

Ethan:

Yeah. Don't they have like sales receipts that are still, I mean there are, there “on this day.” I mean yeah. If you can do that, you can figure out when it fell well. 

Tyler:

Right. Cuz they have hundreds of thousands of documents. Right. cuneiform style and different things.

Ocho:

That was one of the reasons people started writing stuff down. Was for sales. Yeah. 

Tyler:

And it would document, “this person sold it to this person on this date and the moon and the stars were in this position.” Like it had everything. To where you could chart, and there's no gaps in that timeline, even though that's what they assert as their “Oh, well, you know. That's not good dating back then.” No. It's pretty much rock solid. Yeah. 

Ocho:

So, there's that part, tthere's the very factual part, right? So what, what was the other truth that you woke up from?

Ethan:

That all people that weren't Jehovah's Witnesses were evil and just had sex with each other all the time and did all the drugs.

Ocho:

So just a huge drug-filled orgy out here. 

Ethan:

Hell yeah. Yeah.  I was pretty disappointed, honestly, that it doesn’t seem to be that way. [laughs]

Ocho:

[laughs] I'm disappointed.  I missed out on a lot.

Tyler:

[laughs] There's a distinct lack of drugs of sex going on right now. 

Ethan:

Just like a very brutal view of people that are not, were not Witnesses and they're all gonna die. 

Ocho:

And that's true. I mean, I agree with that part. 

Ethan:

Or all be killed by Jesus and all this stuff. 

Ocho:

Yeah. So Jesus is gonna come back and kill everyone who's not Jehovah's witness. So you're talking about paradise. I heard about that, but I don't know anything about that either. So what's gonna happen to Jehovah's Witnesses then if you're good? 

Ethan:

So there's a specific number that is supposed to go to heaven and reign with Jesus. 144,000 

Tyler:

And they're coming back with Jesus to kill you. That 144,000 are also coming out to kill you. It's Jesus and those guys. 

Ocho:

So it's Jesus and the army of good people. Okay. 

Ethan:

They're gonna murder ya. Us. They're gonna murder us. 

Ocho:

They're murdering us, but then 

Tyler:

Us first, probably. Probably, yeah. 

Ocho:

Yeah. I'm gonna get in between. I’m gonna protect, I'm gonna shield you guys.

Tyler:

Perfect. Appreciate it.

Ethan:

Hold your little sign there, “big man in charge.” 

Tyler:

“Look, Ocho thinks I'm awesome. So you fuck off Kenny Rogers Jesus…”

Ethan:

but, okay, so that's, the small flock or whatever the, well, yeah. 

Tyler:

That's the anointed. 

Ethan:

The anointed, yeah. Then there was the great crowd, which we're like, us when we were witnesses.  We weren't anointed, we weren't going to heaven. But those people would, live in paradise. On a paradise earth where you can fucking pet tigers and lions eat hay, and you live forever. 

Tyler:

You’d have a pet Panda and shit. It's amazing. 

Ethan:

But you all wear button ups, you know, that are tucked into your dress pants. 

Tyler:

You all look like you're from a docker's commercial.

Ethan:

Yeah. We still have guitars and all that. 

Ocho:

Lions eat hay, I'm stuck on that . 

Ethan:

Well, I mean, yeah. Nothing kills anything and you know, like 

Ocho: There's no danger. So you're safe. 

Tyler:

Yeah. You're a peace in harmony with the animals 

Ocho:

but there’s a dress code?

Tyler:

Apparently yeah, I looks like it from all the pictures. 

Ocho:

Okay. 

Tyler:

You might have like a super dope house like on the side of a mountain.

Ocho:

How specific is this vision of paradise then too? This is a thing, when I talk about my spirituality, I usually ask questions like, if people say, “do you believe in God?” I'm like, “what do you mean? Who is that?” So like, I…

Tyler:

Which one? 

Ocho:

So, so like, tell me what it is you're asking me and I'll answer, you know what I mean? And maybe we'll get to some of that after this, I hope, on your show.

Tyler:

The picture of the picture of Paradise, I mean you talk about that damn near every publication that they have, you'd probably see a picture of their artist’s depiction of what paradise is. And it would always be a little bit different, but it's always gonna have that same theme. It's always bright and sunny. There's always nice animals, you know, wild animals running around with the people. And even growing up, like we were told, like at various times, “well just picture yourself there. Like, imagine yourself in the paradise.” 

Ethan:

“If you can picture yourself there, you're probably gonna be there.”  Yeah, because that's in the Bible. Yeah. 

Tyler

“That's how that works. Mm-hmm.  just manifested. It'll be fine.”

Ocho:

Yeah. And you, you're saying “that's in the Bible, like it's sarcastic.” Is that not in the Bible? I don't know. 

Tyler:

Not that I know of. 

Ethan:

It doesn't say, if you can picture yourself in paradise, then you'll be there.

Tyler:

I've never seen that passage. But then everybody, I mean, well, a lot of people I knew, had their own ideas on what paradise would be like. Like I had an uncle that if you said there was gonna be vehicles in paradise, he would flip shit.

Ocho:

I remember you saying that on your show.

Ethan:  Yeah. He would freak out and then start telling you why there's not gonna be vehicles for good half hour.

Ocho:

There's no scooters or dirt bikes or 

Ethan:

Absolutely not. 

Ocho:

Certainly. No trucks or tractors. 

Ethan:

No. None of that. 

Ocho:

No, 

Tyler:

Which is funny because it was always painted as this United Brotherhood and you know, everything was so united, but so many people had their own thoughts and their own… they all kind of fell within a prescribed set of rules, but then there was some gray areas that people just kind of filled in the blanks with their own fantasies. 

Ethan:

I would ask my dad, well, are we gonna continue to reproduce? And he's like, “oh yeah, absolutely. Okay, then what happens when we're all living forever? Do you just stop growing up at a certain age? And then what happens when we feel the whole earth?

“Well, uh, I'm sure Jehovah will take care of it. Who knows? He could create new planets for us to live on”

Tyler:

The one that I always saw is that they would, it would just magically stop the reproductive power. Like magic, your reproductive powers would just stop. Like once the earth reaches capacity is another idea that I heard.

“Okay, so like all of a sudden I'm shooting blanks just because like, we reach fire code, like what's going on?

Ocho:

[laughs] Fire code. It seems to me like they haven't thought of everything. 

Tyler:

Right. And, and uh, it's almost as though they're filling shit in as they go. 

Ocho:

Yeah. And, and that kids are maybe could be consulted about what questions to answer in their future publications .

Ethan:

Mm-hmm. . 

Ocho: I just want to take a second in the middle to talk to our listeners.  Thank you for listening to this podcast.  I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback about the production, and the concept, and the content.  If you’re a financial contributor, I want to thank you especially.  Even if you’re just giving a few dollars a month, it really does help keep the lights on around here.  And to anyone interested in making a contribution, you can do that at idontdothatpodcast.com/give.  That’s idontdothatpodcast.com/give.  Back to the show.

Ocho: So I wanna get back to this list. 

Ethan:

Yeah. Get it back on track. Yeah. You've got a good list here, man. 

Ocho:

Did you want to speak to anything on there? You both have beards and tattoos, which are not allowed. Piercings, 

Ethan:

They have loosened up on tattoos from what I've heard.  And beards to a certain extent, but it's very locational. Yeah. So it depends on the people that are running that congregation 

Ocho: 

And so not every congregation is, as , we were talking about with families, some are more strict than others, and so is with congregations as well. 

And that makes sense. Unless you're really touting the fact that you are espousing something that's literal and absolutely correct, and you really shouldn't have much variance. 

Tyler:

Right. That, that kind of takes away the gray area. 

I thought.

Ethan:

You're right. That was pretty big deal for me, I mentioned it on our podcast, but when I got disfellowshipped The person that I, the reason I got disfellowshiped, I was fooling around with a girl. She didn't get disfellowshiped. Her trial was completely different than mine, and it was just because we're in different congregations. 

Ocho:

So quickly, disfellowshipping, if you get caught doing something you're not supposed to do, like 

Tyler:

most of the things on this list… 

Ocho:

Most things on this list, the one that you mentioned, like, so you're, you're being intimate with this girl in some way and you get caught and you're not supposed to be doing that.  So Disfellowshipping, there's a, there's a trial within the church, you're saying, or? 

Ethan:

Yeah. So you have what's called elders meetings. And I think I, it's like a minimum of two. So it's two elders that sit with you. 

Tyler:

It's an investigation. 

Ethan:

It's a straight up investigation. They ask you extremely inappropriate things.

Like especially when it when it comes to fornication and stuff, things they don't need to know. I remember one time they were asking me like, “have you committed adultery?” I said, ya, yeah. “What was her name?” Like, it wasn’t a witness. You don't need to know that. “Yes, we do. What was her name?” And I'm like, geez, I didn't tell 'em.  But it was just like, anyways, so you have, 

Tyler:

They'll ask you how many times you finished. Oh, oh yeah. Like, did you, did you have an orgasm? How many times? Like Yeah, it's, yeah. 

Ethan:

And I mean, we're we're men and we were in these positions.  I can only imagine how horribly awkward and terrible it must have been for females to be in that position cuz elders are always men.

Tyler: Yeah. There's no exceptions for having like a female representative or something with you. 

Ocho:

Yeah. If there's a man asking you and that man has power over you. Yeah, that does sound horrible. 

Ethan:

Yes. So yeah, you have two elders meetings and if they deem it necessary, it goes to a judicial committee meeting.

Ocho:

And these elders, they're church leaders? 

Ethan:

Uh, yeah, pretty much. 

Ocho:

I mean, are they appointed?  From what I understand, they're, they're not elected or anything like that? No. It's just they're appointed by other elders 

Ethan:

and they have to send a letter off to the organ—or to the branch. And then they review the information and send back a letter of, “yes, no,”

Tyler:

Not anymore.

Ethan:

They changed it? 

Tyler:

They changed it. Now it's the circuit overseer makes the decision, and if the circuit overseer says it's cool, then he just goes, “Hey, I'm appointing this.” And tthey still send it to Bethel. They go, “okay, yep. Great.” Sign it. As long as the co signs off on it, they don't care.  

Ethan:

Okay.  So then, yeah, when you get to a judicial committee meeting.  They bring in a third elder. You sit there, plead your case, they make you leave the room for a while, while, they deliberate. Then you come back in, they tell you, “well, here's what we're gonna do with you.” So the first time I got publicly reproved, I just lost my privileges.  I couldn't do soundboard. Whatever  

Ocho:

You were running sound at at events. Uh, church. 

Ethan:

At church. 

Tyler:

Microphones, starting the music and, and yeah. Stuff like that.

Ocho:

Still doing that part of it. We're doing that right now. 

Tyler:

This is where I learned these skills.  

Ethan:

Or they might not do anything, or you get disfellowshiped.  That was my second go is I got diffed, we call it. 

Ocho:

And so getting diffed, does that mean people can't talk to you then? 

Ethan:

Yeah. So they give you, until the following. Tuesday or whatever. 

Tyler:

Yeah. You get seven days to appeal if you want. 

Ethan:

And then you can still talk to people. You don't get to comment anymore.  You don't have any privileges anymore, immediately. But basically they give you some time to say your goodbyes, to everybody 

Ocho:

What would commenting be?

Ethan:

Well, you don't like those pamphlets they hand out on Saturday mornings, one of them's a Watchtower?  They study those every Sunday. And you can raise your hand and comment on the questions.

Tyler:

So there's a conductor. He'll go through the paragraphs, he'll ask questions, and then you've got people sitting out in the, 

Ocho:

You can't really talk to the group. Okay. 

Tyler:

Yeah, you can basically sit in the back row and you can, you can just kind of observe. 

Ocho:

Yeah, you can be around, but you can't really talk.

Okay. 

Ethan:

Yeah. But then after they announce it, then all contact is done. 

Tyler:

You're still allowed to sit in the back row then. But. Now definitely no one can talk to you. So like for that week or so, while they're waiting for the announcement, you know, people could still come up and talk to you and stuff.  And honestly most people wouldn't know unless you would say something to them that, “yeah, hey, I'm being disfellowshiped” or, uh,” I'm being reproved here next week” or whatever. And so you still have that community, I guess. But once that announcement is made that if it's not reapproved and you are disfellowshiped, then everything cuts off.

Ocho:

So what is everything, I mean, your family are Jehovah's Witnesses, right? Like your people that you live with. I mean, are they talking to you?

Tyler:

Immediate family is still okay. You're not allowed to have spiritual conversation. Like you can't talk about the Bible and meetings and things like that with them.

But your immediate, you know, in-home family, you are still allowed to communicate with 

Ethan:

Within reason. 

Tyler:

Right.  Yeah. Like they won't take you out to do things because what if they run into other witnesses? Now they can't talk to them. But yeah, everyone outside of that, like my brother that I don't live with….Well, I guess I've never been disfellowshipped when I was still at home, but like, if I was still living under my parents' roof, you know, I could still talk to them and my siblings there, but my brother outside, nope. Would not be able to talk to him anymore. And certainly every friend that you've had that's still within the church or the org like that, you can't talk with them anymore. 

Ocho:

And those are your friends. Am I right? Cuz you're not really allowed to have other friends, you weren't allowed to have the outside friends. So, I mean, this probably goes without saying, but like, this is very lonely. Am I right? Very and alienating.

Ethan:

it's meant to be that way. It it's meant to make you feel like nothing. Like you have nothing. You have nothing without this organization. And those people won't talk to you because if they do, they could face the same repercussions. You know, I mean, they could get disfellowshipped themselves if you talk to disfellowship people…

Tyler:

Well. And it's, it's a mechanism that even, you know, mental health professionals recognize as a, basically a form of psychological torture. It's brutal, this level of shunning. And, I've actually worked on it a little bit and you know, kind of gathering some statistics and I've written some papers on it and early numbers estimates somewhere like 50 to 60% of people end up suicidal when they're in that state.

And Yeah. I mean, I can attest to that. Like, we're batting a thousand here, so like…[Tyler and Ethan laugh] Yeah. Like we've been there. 

Ocho:

Well I’m glad you made it. 

Tyler:

I appreciate that. Somebody described it one time as imagine waking up one morning and 500 to a thousand of your closest friends and family died overnight.

But they're still alive, but they're not, is just kind of the way it is like this. 

Ocho:

Like you're a ghost. Or they're ghosts. 

Tyler:

It's kinda like a sixth sense kind of deal. You're the, you're Bruce Willis in Sixth Senses at that point. 

Ethan:

Well, it sounds fucked up, but I've thought this before. It almost would be easier to deal with if they were dead.

Tyler:

Yeah. 

Ethan:

Because then it's not by their choice, you know? It's not like they're just not talking to you anymore. They can't. But they're choosing not to. It's almost worse.  

Ocho:

Is that indefinite or how long is that Disfellowshipping, is that like…

Ethan:

Ao that's another thing. I mean, like I, I tried to get back in.  So you wait usually a minimum of six months, and then you write a letter of reinstatement, and then they have a meeting with you, and they kind of go over like, “well, you've been missing some meetings, we noticed you haven't been studying, and blah, blah, blah. So we''re not gonna reinstate you today.”

And that's pretty much what happened to me. I mean, I was still making all the meetings though. I was doing pretty good. In their terms. But, then, yeah, I mean, you can get back in 

Ocho:

Uh-huh, but six months?

Tyler:

I would say the shortest I’ve ever heard of anyone being reinstated is six months. Typically a year is kind of like, six months to a year is about when you could first start looking at it.

And again, if, and it's, if they don't agree that you are towing the line properly, then they go, “Yeah. You know, why don't you do this, this, this, and this differently, and then come see us again in six months.” 

Ocho:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I told you, I wasn't gonna ask you to explain what is going on with them, but how do they, what do they expect will happen? Like, if a human being can't communicate with anybody in their tribe, and really anybody, uh, for six months, at least…I don't understand.  I’m sorry. 

Ethan:

I think they had a higher return rate back, kind of like in the nineties, stuff like that. When communication amongst all the other people was a little harder. But nowadays, I mean, you got exJW Reddit, you got podcasts up the wazoo, you got YouTube channels, all of ex Jehovah's Witnesses. So now I don't know what they're doing or what they expect. 

Tyler:

The internet is not in their favor,  

Ethan:

No.  Most people just don't go back. Cause we have a community now. You know, I mean, you don't have to look too far to find…

Tyler:

Yeah, yeah. People that left 20 years ago, they didn't have the support systems that we have now, and that, and that we've even, to certain a certain extent, have helped to try to create ourselves and try to help out other people in the area. 

Ocho:

I’ve noticed that. Yeah. 

Tyler:

Like it's, it's a different ballgame now. And that's one thing that you know, if there are any witnesses out there that are listening or questioning or anything, like, just know that there are actually people outside that are pretty cool and that still actually do care about you.

Ocho:

Yeah. What are some resources for them? 

Tyler

Reddit. The exjw subreddit is huge. So that subreddit started in 2008, I believe, and I watched it go… I joined it in 2018 and it was at like I wanna say 30,000 members. So that first 10 years or so, it grew like it up to like 30,000. And then within like two years, uh, shortly after that, and then Covid hit, and it just blew up. And last I saw it was at like 78,000-something. Like it had doubled or almost tripled in size again from that in like two to three years. So like the exjw subreddit is huge. Take it with a grain of salt, because I've said too, when you get that many pissed off, disillusioned people in one space, you're gonna see some toxic behavior and you're gonna see some really pissed off people.

So you kind of gotta be a little bit judicious there as well, but with the understanding that these are people that are hurting, too. And so give people some space. There's a lot of great, Twitter feeds that are wonderful, that have a lot of support.  Facebook, YouTube, like Ethan mentioned, a ton of channels on youtube.

Ocho:

So it seems if people search for exjw, on sort of whatever their socially into on the internet, any platform on the internet, or even on a search engine or whatever they're gonna get. 

Tyler:

Yeah. And in therapy. 

Ocho:

And therapy,  

Tyler:

And find therapy. That's that's a huge one.  If it's available to you, if it's something you can take advantage of, that's the first place actually that I would recommend someone to. 

Ocho

Okay. Yeah. And that, that makes sense. And find a therapist who has experience with people who have been indoctrinated into cults. 

Tyler:

And they're few and far between. That is not a specialty that very many therapists have. I've fired therapists because they don't have that understanding. Yeah. Yeah. 

Ocho:

So yeah. Therapists, man, they gotta do it a lot. 

Tyler:

Well, and I am one is the thing, like, I mean, I am a therapist and I deal with these things, but still like, you know, we seek our own therapy.  That's kinda the cardinal rule. But I've had difficulty finding a therapist that understands what I'm going through in my personal life. 

Ocho:

Yeah. Are you taking clients or is there any…?

Tyler:

Yeah

Ocho:

Do people find you, do you wanna advertise that? 

Tyler:

I cannot. I'm through an agency. 

Ocho:

I gotcha. 

Tyler:

But yeah, we have our own referrals.

Ocho:

Yeah. I gotcha. 

Tyler:

I am looking to get my own, and I'm not doing any like exjw work or anything like that right now.  But I am looking to eventually, that is my goal. Like I am hoping to start my own practice helping exjws as much as possible. 

Ethan

So I have a que— So, candy?

Ocho:

You said something about candy on the podcast.

Someone was handing out candy and you wished that you could take some candy, but you couldn't. 

Ethan:

Oh, oh, it was probably, was probably birthday candy. Either a birthday or it was Christmas. There was one time in high school where Santa Claus came to it. It was high school, too… 

Tyler:

“Take some candy.” I remember this now.

Ethan:

And he's like, “You want some candy?” I'm like, “no.” He’s like, “take the candy.” And he threw candy at me. I was like, “who the fuck is this guy?” But whatever. Yeah, no, we could eat candy, but if it was tied to birthdays or holidays, then no. 

Tyler:

Then it had the demons in it. 

Ethan:

You're not supposed to. 

Ocho:

Okay.  So the, the context of the candy is important.

Ethan:

Yes. 

Ocho:

Not Halloween candy. 

Ethan:

No. 

Tyler:

But we would always go clean house, like at the, like Walmart and stuff, after Halloween and after Easter and stuff. When there was leftover candy. It didn't matter that it had like the Halloween on the bag. 

Ocho:

You as an organization would clean Walmart?

Tyler:

no.

Ocho:

Okay. I don't know what…[laughs]

Tyler:

[laughs]

No, no. As individuals, like we would go, like afterwards, you'd go buy like all the on sale candy after. 

Ocho:

Yeah, I've got it. 

Tyler:

And it didn't matter that it had Easter bunnies and like, you know, Jack o’ Lanterns… 

Ocho:

You'd go buy the clearance candy. 

Ethan:

Mom even bought me some costumes after Halloween.

Tyler:

What?

Ethan:

I got like wear wolf fangs and stuff like that, but it was okay cuz Halloween was done. 

Tyler:

Yeah. So you're not celebrating anymore. 

Ocho:

So you couldwear costumes, but you couldn't celebrate holidays.  And I saw you couldn't wear a uniform, like a military uniform or of like a scout uniform or something like that.  Is that something you encountered? These are just things I read on online, like…

Tyler:

Military and scouts were off limits. Because military is military.  We’re supposed to be politically and militarily neutral. Scouts, I believe scouts are run by religious organizations. 

Ocho:

So y'all were politically neutral?

Tyler

Yes. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You would never go to war. You don't vote, you don't run for office. You would not…

Ocho

You don't salute the flag. 

Ethan:

Don't salute the flag. Don't salute. Which got me a lot of punk cred.  

Tyler:

Yeah. Yeah. Don't stand for the national anthem. 

Ethan:

Oh no. You could stand 

Tyler:

Oh yeah, yeah. You could stand.  Don't put your hand over your heart. 

Ethan:

Don't take your hat off. Yeah. Most of them wouldn't stand, but you'd get hassled. By people behind you and stuff, if you didn't stand, at least.

Ocho:

This whole show is about, you do and you don't do whatever you don't do. And it's not about hassling anybody, but it's odd that it's for this reason, you know?

Yeah. It's, it's not the reason you hear about when people don’t stand or don't say the pledge or whatever. It's not the reason I would abstain from doing that, you know? 

Ethan:

Right, right. 

Ocho:

and like I said, I'm not gonna ask you to explain, but I still, I don't really understand that, like, not voting, not running for office or like… 

Tyler:

Well, yeah, cuz political office, is like we talked about, we're all gonna be destroyed by Jesus and the 144,000 at any moment. You never know, like it could be right now. And with that in mind, why would you worry about voting, or trying to invest in this system of things when the real answers are what's coming next? And so from the indoctrinated mind, it makes total sense. 

Ocho:

If you're gonna be destroyed any day, why would you invest in anything other than basic maintenance or something like? 

Ethan:

And they're all men. They're just men, so they're all imperfect. It doesn't matter.  Like they don't know what they're doing. Yeah. 

Ocho:

I’m not gonna have arguments with people that aren't here . It's more, it's more about you guys if you have experience with this. But I do have another question: So drinking is okay, but not smoking. 

Ethan:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Drinking to a certain extent.  You could be drunk, but as long as you don't show it, you're fine.

Tyler:

As long as you're not puking or falling over, basically, according to their rules, that's the line. Yeah. 

Ocho:

Do you have to be 21 then, or does it have to be legal? 

Ethan:

I have my first beer at like 15 from my parents.

Tyler:

Yeah. My parents would let me drink a beer or whatever at home and Yeah. 

Ocho:

The organization doesn't really frown on that. 

Tyler

It's about the only vice that they allow, and so people take advantage of it.

Ethan:

That and pills.

Tyler:

Yeah and pills.  But yeah, there's a lot of people that drink fairly heavily within the organization because that's the only vice outlet that they have, so 

Ocho:

Sure.  I mean, I've had it as a vice. It works for a lot of shit. 

Tyler:

Yeah. It's a coping mechanism. 

Ocho:

it's self-medicating and it does its job. 

Tyler:

It’s the only means of self-medicating that's allowed. 

Ethan:

Yep. I like that. You have the Y M C A on here. I don't think a lot of people know that.

Ocho:

Well, is is that because it's a religious-funded organization?  or is it? I don't know. 

Tyler:

It's run by the Catholic church. 

Ethan:

Oh, 

Ocho:

There's Y M C A and Y W C A, it stands for Young Men's Christian Organization or Association or something like that. Um, and Salvation Army is the same way.  So, the whole thing is like, what I was reading too is there's no supporting charities, like other religious charities. Do you have your own charities? I don't mean to say you; Do JWS have their own charities?

Ethan:

Donation boxes. 

Tyler:

They didn't call them charity, but you're expected to donate money 

Ocho: To the church…

Tyler:

Yeah. And I guess to, be fair, I guess they usually had like two or three boxes. So they had like a box for local contributions. They had a box for worldwide work,which was basically for printing, like printing books and bibles and magazines and stuff like that. And then sometimes they would have like a disaster relief fund, or if there was like a special project or something that they're working on, they would have a box for that.

So yeah, you're not supposed to donate to other charities, but they want you to donate to them. And they are, you know, because they're a church, they're a tax exempt organization, so they don't have to pay taxes on any of that. They make a lot of money on donations like that. And they'd always talk about how you don't, you know, “we don't tithe, we don't take 10% of your check and, you know, you're not expected to give a certain amount of money.”  But then within the last two years, they've started saying, “well, we're not asking you to give a certain amount of money, but we ran the numbers and $8 and 50 cents per person per month is about what it would cost to keep things afloat. So what do you guys think?” And of course everyone's gonna be like, “Uhhuh.”

Yeah. And they'll pass a resolution. 

Ethan:

We’ll just round it up to 10. 

Tyler:  

Yeah. Yeah. And so the congregation will pass a resolution. 

Ocho:

It's a small price to pay to not get smited by 144,000 ghosts . 

Tyler

Exactly. It's a pay to play situation. Like it really is. 

Ethan:

That was one thing I didn't do. I didn't donate. No. I donated maybe like three times in my whole life.

Tyler: 

I mean, I donated a few more than that, but not a lot. I, I got kids and I would occasionally give my kids like, “here's a dollar, go put it in the box.” And that kept up appearances, I guess maybe, I don't know. But yeah, no, you got other, I mean, stuff on here. You got like college on here; that's highly frowned upon. Like, you know, even when I was an adult, I remember I had a class in one of my…I had a class that was on Religions of the World, and I talked to an elder friend of mine, like, “can I take this class? Like, can I do that? Is that okay?” He's like, “well, yeah, that'd be okay. I mean, you're not being taught to like follow those religions. You're being taught about, you know, the facts of those religions.” I'm like, “okay, fine.” 

But yeah, college is highly frowned upon because you'll think for yourself, you actually have to back up what you're saying with facts and evidence.  You have to have your resources ,and you have to think critically and that's not something that they want. So yeah, college is definitely one that is highly frowned upon. And the other one is like giving and getting blood. That one there is uh, that one is like especially troubling. Because I mean, people die, like people quite literally. Ethan and I have a good friend who lost a close family member of theirs because of this rule. I've got a good friend in the metro…

Ocho:

Because they bled to death. 

Ethan:

Yeah, they refused all blood transfusions.  

I have a friend in the Metro. She was a dpa, durable power of attorney for her sister who was incapacitated and needed a blood transfusion to survive. And this friend of mine, she said, “no, well no, we can't do that.” And her sister died.  And that immediately is what woke her up and went, “oh, oh shit, I just killed my sister.”

And so, yeah, and again…

Ocho:

That has to be so hard cuz it's procedure.  So she has to really be standing in the way and saying, “no, you're not going to put blood into this person.” And they're going to argue with her. 

Tyler:

Yeah. While doctors are saying “they're gonna die.” 

Ethan:

And a lot of times elders are there to make sure they don't take blood, because that's the thing too.  I mean, you could take blood and if you do and you survive, you're diffed, you're kicked out, now you're ostracized. You know? So it's just like, 

Ocho:

That sounds really important to them. I don't get it, but it's, it sounds important. 

Tyler:

Well, they form these hospital liaison committees is what they're called. And they will send two elders to your bedside basically to make sure that the doctors know not to give you blood.

Ethan:

Yeah. I mean, we could delve into that at some other, that's pretty extensive. Oh yeah. Their thoughts on blood and stuff. It's ridiculous.

Ty;er:

But but it's another one of those ones where numbers are hard to like actually like nail down. But I mean, it's, it's thought to be, tens of thousands of people have died because of this.

Ocho:

Yeah.  And they would defend this position too, like Yeah. 

Tyler:

Because of one verse in the Bible that says to abstain from blood. 1800 years before it was ever used in a medical context. Okay. It was specifically a dietary restriction, but 

Ethan:

yeah. “Don't eat blood.” 

Tyler:

You know, it was talking about dietary and, “abstain from blood.”  “Don't eat blood.” Sure, fine. But if it means saving someone's life “Oh, abstain from blood.” And they used the example of “if a doctor told you to abstain from alcohol because it would kill you, would you pump it into your veins?”  Well, no, cause it would kill you, dumb ass. Obviously that's a horrible illustration. 

Ethan:

I think the thing that's even more disturbing is like sometimes, well, especially when they're kids, they'll make 'em into martyrs. I mean there's a kid that, what was it, 1993 or something, this kid died cuz he needed a blood transfusion, just young.

And they did this whole part on how “courageous” he was and how his parents, how great they were for letting their kid die. 

Tyler:

There's an entire 1984 Awake of like eight kids; they have their pictures and their story of everything, and it was, “they died for their faith.” was the name of the name of that magazine.

Yeah. Fucked. No, they were martyred . 

Ocho:

Yeah. It gets me thinking about cognitive dissonance cuz, you know, I studied psychology. I mean, if you insist that your child does not get blood and then they die as a result, it would be very difficult for you to later say, “oh, I made a mistake.” Because the stakes are so high at that point.

Tyler:

Oh yeah. 

Ocho:

So I mean, what I see psychologically happens there is that you become very married to this institution after that. 

Tyler:

Yeah. You double down. 

Ethan: 

Cause if you wake up, I mean, your life is all over, you know? Lloyd Evans, a big ex JW guy said that about that kid. He's like, “in this instance, I hope his parents never wake up.” Yeah. “I hope they never leave the witnesses. Cause if they do, yeah, it's, it would be the worst day of their lives.” 

But, well, yeah, there's some really serious stuff. 

Tyler:

Yeah. The other one that you have on here that I think is really cool is the, the “disagree with jw.” And that's a big one.

Because we've talked about, you know, the critical thinking and independent thinking skills, like, that's how we grow. Like, I enjoy learning things about other people that have different views from me, right? Like, I don't know a hell of a lot about you, but I would love to know more about your story and like get to know, even if it's things that I don't like, or disagree with, or I'm like, “oh, that sounds…”

Ocho:

Yeah, we're gonna talk about it.

Tyler:

Yeah, it's one of those things where like “different strokes for different folks” I think is beautiful. But in this context, there's specifically eight right now. It's, the number varies, but there's eight men that make up what's called the governing body. And those eight men, that governing body, is what makes all of the decisions for all the policy, what is and isn't a sin, and what is and  isn't right and wrong.

They're the ones that pass all of that down and you're not allowed to disagree with them or question any of that. And if you are, you're labeled an apostate like us. 

Ethan:

Hey, yo, whoop…

Ocho:

Cheers. We're not allowed to, do that either.

Ethan:

Clink. Yeah. You can't toast. 

Tyler:

These are cans. These don't sound very good. Well, we couldn't toast because it was, is it a luck thing? 

Tyler:

It's luck.  Like “good luck” and…

Ocho:  Yeah, this one surprised me too. And tell me if this is your experience: “not allowed to worship Jesus as God.”

Ethan:

Yeah.  No Trinity or nothing like that. It's, yeah, you have Jehovah, and then you have Jesus and then the Holy Spirit was different. Even…

Ocho:

Could you worship the Holy Spirit?

Ethan:

I don’t…no, no. That would be bad too. 

Tyler:

And there's, and there's specific things like rules about the Holy Spirit.  Like grieving the Holy Spirit. There are certain things that like you couldn't say or do.  Cuz for the most part, you know, anyone can be forgiven of their sins, but there are certain things that if you, you read through the Bible, that they consider unforgivable. And grieving the Holy Spirit would be so like…

Ethan:

Yeah. What does that even mean? 

Tyler:

Yeah, I think basically if I was say, Hey, hey, “fuck you, God,” I think that would be like, 

Ethan:

oh, when you say “grieving,” and I think like, “oh, I'm so sorry.” 

Tyler:

Like, I don't know, essentially things that would be considered like blasphemous or that would be speaking against God or the Holy Spirit.

Ocho:

That's kinda common in religion, right? But, tt seems as though praying to Jesus…

Tyler:

It's kind of universal. 

Ocho:

Yeah. It seems like people who believe that Jesus is the son of God, then they pray to Jesus. 

Tyler:

That is one thing that we did, like when we, when we did pray, you would pray through Jesus. So, you know every prayer…

Tyler and Ethan (together):

“In Jesus' name”

[all laugh]

Ocho:

Amen. 

Ethan:

Amen. 

Tyler:

Bless. 

Ocho:

Is there other stuff on here you wanted to talk about? I know there's things like we were talking about football. Prom is on here…

Ethan:

Yeah. Prom.  AA.  Yeah.

Ocho:

AA

Ethan:

Well AA, is pretty similar to the Y M C A or whatever, cuz it is, it's a,

Tyler: It's religious backed. 

Ethan:

Religious, yeah.  

Ocho:

It's, it's a spiritually focused thing. 

Tyler:

Especially like step seven. Step seven is giving yourself over to a higher power or something.

I think it's step seven, but yeah, and like the extracurriculars.  Like prom kind of falls under that I think, but yeah. Like you're not allowed to engage in extracurricular activities like sports and, 

Ethan:

It kind of comes back to, not having friends that aren't witnesses.  So it's unnecessary time spent with people that are not; they don't believe the same thing you believe in. Basically. 

Tyler:

They would tell you to go find other JW friends and go play basketball with them after school. Right. 

Ocho:

Well, did they have awesome programs for you to do that? Did they have a JW Prom? 

Tyler and Ethan:

No.

Ethan:

We did play a lot of sports though. We’d do a lot of pickup games. Yeah. Those are pretty fun. But it was never like highly organized or nothing organized. Yeah. 

Tyler:

There was never anything organized or never any like skills building, which…

Ethan:

My gnarliest concussion came from a J Dub pickup game. Yeah.  

Tyler:

That's the thing.  I've seen a bunch of them at like football games and stuff all the time. Yeah. Some of the shittiest behavior I've ever seen have been at like, sporting events…

Ethan:

so competitive. Yeah. And, and like brats. They're all just whiny brats.  I played football in Chaska, I think one time, with the J Dubs and it was so bad I never went back. 

Tyler:

Yeah. I played in Jordan one time, watched the dude literally try to, I watched him try to break this dude's ankle on purpose. 

Ocho:

Oh my. 

Ethan:

Yeah. Highly competitive. Like, yeah. 

Tyler:

And then he got stomped in the face and I laughed.  Because this guy, there was this guy who was a, he played college ball when he had been out for a little while and he had actually gotten drafted, I believe, and then injured his ankle.

He had like a few practices, I think with the Vikings, and then injured his ankle, ended up not playing, but he was still an amazing football player. And he was huge. And there was this guy that thought he was big and tough and this. And he's like, “I’m gonna break his ankle one of these times.” And he kept going after this guy, his name is Mike, and he did this guy dove for his… and I watched him like, crank at his ankle, grab it, like grab the front of his foot and his heel.

And, and the dude could feel like what he was doing immediately. And like he high stepped him, like yanked his foot and stomped backward, “bam.”  It was like stomped him in the head. 

Ocho

Got Ultimate Fighting going on all a sudden. 

Tyler:

Yeah, it was, I it was one of those like, I think the game wrapped up pretty quick after that cause people are like, “oh this is getting a little intense.” And I was like, I'm laughing at the guy laying on the ground now. 

Ethan:

Right. That dude is an ass. Yeah. Still is. Yep. 

Tyler:

Yeah, I, yeah, I still know that guy. But yeah. You know, the extracurriculars and things like that. But I was able to compete in mock trial and speech and things like that. Like I went to state competition for mock trial three hours away.

We took a bus. I was gone for the weekend. Like, that shouldn't have been allowed. 

Ocho:

Yeah. There's other places that it were, it wouldn't have been allowed. It was just with your congregation, they, they allowed it?. 

Tyler

Yeah. So, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. 

Ethan:

The pants is funny to me. Yeah.  

Ocho:

Like women aren't allowed to wear pants in, in the Kingdom Hall or something like that. 

Ethan:

Yeah.  When it's meeting time, no. 

Tyler:

If you're cleaning or something, yeah. 

Ethan:

You could wear pants, but there's a different thing that we weren't allowed to do and that was for men to wear pants that were too tight. Okay. That's highly frowned upon. Yeah. No tight pants. Yeah. There's one governing body member in specific that had a big issue with that and would, he's done multiple parts on pants being too tight and finding pleasure in your pants being too tight. Yeah. Like “things rub” and it's like, “man, you are creepy.  Wis going through your mind?” 

Tyler:

And his point is, “you know who likes your pants being tight? Like that is the homosexuals that design them.”

Ethan:

Oh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he said that!

Tyler:

oh,  From the stage, and that was an annual meeting or a branch visit. That was broadcasted to every JW on the planet. And I do know that that actually is one that woke a lot of people up. They were like, “what? ?” Cause he complained about women wearing yoga pants.  Mm-hmm. He said Spanks. No one's wearing Spanks, but 

Ocho:

Spanks are like girdles. Right. Okay. Yeah. I'm not entirely sure what they are. 

Tyler:

Yeah. Like you're on the right track. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, like he was referring to what we would just call yoga pants or leggings. 

Ocho:

Maybe he meant spandex. 

Ethan:

He was probably drunk. 

Tyler:

He's also been seen at like liquor stores buying copious amounts of alcohol. 

Ocho:

So there's this homophobic alcoholic talking to everyone. Mm-hmm.  

Tyler:

Vietnam veteran. He is actually, he was in the, 

Ocho:

I thought that wasn't allowed. 

Tyler:

Yeah. He converted later. He a 

Ocho:

What if you get drafted?  There's a lot of questions.

Tyler:

If you get drafted, you go to jail. 

Ethan:

Yep. I had, great uncles that were in jail. Yep. For World War II. They all went to jail, prison for two years, I think a piece. Mm-hmm. . 

Tyler:

Yeah. North Korea. That's one big thing that they use even as a recruiting thing, you know “how faithful they are” in North Korea because, or South Korea.

Ocho:

The Korean War? 

Tyler:

Well, no, like even currently, all males when they turn 18, are expected to do two years of military service. Like, it's just a compulsory service. And they don't do it. Like you can't do that. So it's either you do that or you spend two years in. 

[52:58]

[54:36]

Tyler:

And then I think the, the other big one is, and we've talked about it a little bit, is the talking with Disfellowshipped friends and family.

Again, that shunning piece is just, it's one of the most dangerous and harmful practices that they have. You know, I think that one can't be stressed enough. 

Ethan:

Oh one, unless I'm just missing it, which is very possible. But one I'm surprised you don't have on here is birthdays.

Ocho:

I did have holidays, but Yeah, I didn't say birthdays specifically.

Ethan: 

Birthdays. Yeah. No birthdays. 

Tyler:

Anniversaries are cool. You can celebrate a wedding anniversary. Yeah. And you can have a graduation party. And you can have a wedding reception. 

Ethan:

No drinking. 

Tyler:

Eh, you can. You could drink at your wedding reception.

Ethan:

Seemed like most of them were like, “no, no.”

Tyler:

As long as the, long as both were above 21, I think it was… 

Ocho:

I thought we were just talking about how everybody's drinking; that's the one thing you're allowed to do. 

Tyler:

For appearances. Yeah. I dunno. 

Ethan:

Yeah, it is just, yeah, none of it made sense.

Ocho:

So you can drink, but you can't like officially be drinking, being seen or something like that?

Tyler:

A lot of times, like you would, you wouldn't want to have drinking at a gathering like that cuz it might stumble somebody. Or there might be some there that have a drinking problem and you wouldn't want to cause a hardship for them.

Ethan:

That was the excuse used for most stuff. “You don't wanna stumble your brother.” Tattoos? “You can't have tattoos.” “Why?” “You don't wanna stumble your brother.” “Why can't I have a beard?” “You don't wanna stumble your brother.” You know, it's like “why?” If me having a beard or a tattoo stumbles them and they leave the religion, that sounds like their problem.

Tyler:

Sounded like their faith was a little weak. 

Ethan:

Yeah. Not mine. And I used that argument and it didn't go over too well. 

Ocho:

It doesn't sound like you can argue, like arguments don't go over well at all. Did any arguments work? 

Ethan:

Yeah, I talked about it on our podcast:  Tattoos. They gave me an elder to study with or whatever, after I got publicly approved and I asked him about tattoos and he's like, “well, you know, here, here's a scripture. It says, you shall not make markings upon your body for a deceased one” or something like that. Sure. I’m like, “okay, fair enough.  But what about the scripture right before it says that ‘you shall not shave the extremity of your beard?’” He's like, “yeah.” I said, “and what are we not allowed to have?” He said, “beards. I'm gonna have to do a little more looking into this and get back to you.” So this is a guy that's in charge of taking families away from people, creating huge life decisions for other people, and he just got stumped by some punk 21-year-old on tattoos. So then he comes back, he says, “yeah, you're right. You can have tattoos. Just don't flaunt it” basically. So then I got big one on my rib . 

Ocho:

Good for you, man. You actually got through. That's amazing. Yeah. So maybe, yeah, maybe if we can just, uh, catch up with where you're at now, now that the thing that you don't do is be a Jehovah's Witness.

Tyler: 

There's a lot of things wrapped up that we didn't do, but that's kinda the gist of it. Yeah. We don't do, and 

Ocho:

Now you can do all those things. Yeah. 

Ethan:

Yeah. I mean, I still don't do some of these things, but the majority of them.

Tyler:

By choice. Yeah. 

Ethan: 

Or just don't need to, you know, 

Tyler:

Ultimately I just kind of do what…you're able to kind of chart your own path and when you discover that you don't have to listen to eight guys in New York that really have no right to tell you what to do, and if…

You know, if someone believes something fantastic. If you're not harming another person, great. But if this doesn't work for you and this isn't what you wanna be involved with, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to walk away from that and build a life for yourself outside of that. And so that's what I've, you know, that's kind of what I've tried to do.

And, you know, like Ethan mentioned, there is a community on the outside of that and so I was very fortunate to find some great people on my way out. And so that was a huge support. Being able to find that support system is massive.  Therapy, again, can't recommend that enough.

And, you know, again, kind of the cliche, but “finding your tribe.” Like find who you click with. Get in where you fit in. 

Ethan:

One thing I think we should mention too is when you do get it. And you do have that realization of “I can do or not do whatever I want to or not want to do.” Like there's an illustration of, you know, you take a spring and you just keep compressing it and compressing it and then once you let that thing go, it's just gonna fly, man.

So it can be kind of dangerous. I mean, I've known a lot of witnesses that just dive into drugs or whatever it is cuz you're so ready to soak it all up. But I mean, you gotta be careful.  You gotta care that stuff. I think we've done okay. We've had like, times, but…

Tyler:

Yeah, within reason, I mean, sure. Go ahead. Like, yeah, go ahead. Have sex. Try or do whatever, you know, like, do your thing, experiment. You can have fun. You don't have to be afraid of your own shadow. Like, that's kind of the long and short of it. You can…

Ethan:

You don't have to feel guilty about doing things, you know, most things anyways…

Tyler:

[laughs] Yeah. You still wanna feel guilty if you're doing shitty things, but just don't do shitty things.

Ethan:

Yeah. Yeah. Right. It's kind of where it is. 

Ethan:

Have consensual sex. 

Tyler:

Have consensual sex, 

Ethan:

random people.  

Ocho:

[laughs]

Yeah.  If they want to have sex with you. Yeah. Do that. Yeah. 

Tyler:

And if you wanna try drugs, be safe. 

Ethan:

Swear. Swear your little ass off. You know, do it.  Do whatever you wanna do.

[54:48]

Ethan:

Go give blood. Don't give blood. Don't if you don't want to, don't give it. 

Tyler:

But yeah, I think it's, it's a very freeing feeling when you get past that initial trauma and that, “oh God,” when you kind of settle into your life. And I had a conversation with somebody the other day, like, I'm a much better person than I was.

Like, I am a more kind, generous person. I never gave money to a homeless person sitting on the side of the road. But like, I keep a couple dollars in my cup holder now so I can help people out or… 

Ethan:

I still don't do that. I'll give 'em french fries or a burger or something. . If I, if I had food, I would, but like, I got cash.

Ethan:

Unless they're busking, then I'll give 'em some money. 

Tyler:

If you're playing some music or something, I'll throw a couple… But you know, like I try to be more generous and things like that and not, because I'm like, “oh, I'm building towards heaven” and “I’m, you know, I'm a good person” because it makes me feel better to help another human being.  And so I think that's something that if you can, when you get past that initial shock, if you're on the outside and you find yourself in a position where you can be that support to other people, I think that's something that is important to help those around you and to be a support to them.  You know, do what you can to help build your 

Ocho:

Yeah, try it, it feels good on its own. Like, it, it seems to me, part of that might be like, you're not rule checking. You're not like, “should I do this? Should I do that?” And then part of, part of our nature, I would say, as human beings is to to be a group.  And, and that involves supporting each other. 

Tyler:

Like we, even my roommates are talking about getting a bunch of people and renting a bigger house and all of us just living together because again, like we like that community and, and hey, that makes rent cheaper.  

Ocho:

Yeah. So it's practical things too, right?

Yeah. And Ethan, I saw you, I saw you nodding your head when you said he's, you're a better person now than you were before. Would you say that too, or? 

Ethan:

Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Cause I'm happier. Yeah. I love myself more now. I get to do the things I want to. You know, within reason and I don't know, you become less judgmental.

That's one thing is you're extremely judgmental and you don't even know it as a witness cuz it's just the way you're brought up. And I still have slip ups. I think we all do, but I just, I'm a, I feel I'm a better human now. More accepting of a lot of things and genuinely happy. 

Ocho:

Well, cheers again. I mean, it's wonderful to have you guys here and thank thanks so much for talking.

Tyler:

Yeah, no, thank you for having us, it's amazing. I appreciate, uh, it's been fun, you know, listening to your podcast about other things that people don't do.  I appreciate you having us on. 

Ethan:

I was pretty pumped. I was gonna come on here and talk about how I don't rake my yard, cuz I'm pretty passionate about not raking my yard.

Let's do another one. You know what, let's do it again. Like another time we'll talk about not raking your yard. Yeah. I might wanna talk to you about it before you leave too, cuz like, uh, I haven't been just cuz I haven't had time. But if I have a reason to not…

Ethan:

Don't do it. Don’t.  Just mulch him up with the lawnmower. It's good for your grass. 

Ocho:

So, just mow it once

Ethan:

Yeah. Little critters live in all the leaves for the winter. Provides food for the birds cuz there's all these critters and stuff, you know.

Ocho:

My name is Ocho.  I’m your host, chief engineer and producer. I also composed and performed the theme song.  If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on this show, apply today at ochotunes.com/guest. Also, kindly check out idontdothatpodcast.com/give to find the benefits of making a financial contribution to this show.  Thanks for Braden Saulsbury for the background music for this episode.  Thanks to our sponsor, Prime Time Web, to our guests, Tyler and Ethan, their podcast Finding Paradise, and thanks to you for all you do and all you don’t do.  I’ll talk to you again if I’m lucky.