Dilemma DA or Stay

[Dilemma44]

I've searched and read posts on disaffiliation and depledging for awhile on this website, but now I reach a juncture where I must soon choose to either stay in my organization or DA.

Right now my mind is completely torn as to whether or not I should stay or go. As many of you have probably been through what I'm going through I thought I might ask you guys and gals for your opinion on this matter. So here goes...

I rushed this fraternity for 3 quarters. First quarter I was just a silly incoming freshman wanting to get drunk and go to parties. Second quarter was just because I had nothing better to do. I had never ever thought I would just an org because I, like many other people out there had skewed perceptions garnered from TV Shows and Movies as to what a fraternity really was. (I know now that organizations are different from what is portrayed in Media.) Third quarter, I finally decided to just give it a try. Afterall "You can quit at anytime" was the pledge they gave me.

So I went to the interview, received a bid and the next week I was at my first meeting. When I was rushing, the brothers had told me that "We are a non hazing fraternity" Same with all the other rushes I had attended. I knew this was BS, I knew there was going to be some sort of hazing in this organization, but I could not fathom what they were going to do or what was to come. How could I?

As a pledge, every event was shrouded in mystery until it actually happened. Because when you are in the midst of a ritual, quitting never crosses your mind. Only finishing.

With this kind of mentality, the rituals were able to gradually become more and more ludicrous with more and more "challenges" Aka hazing. When any pledge tried to quit the brothers gave them a hard time about it using "But you've already put so much time into it" as a justification of why they should stay. So I stayed until the end. I passed I week and crossed. But I was yet to be initiated.

The initiation process was always shrouded in mystery, but now I realize it involves taking wood. To me, it was only a reminder of all the lies my brothers had told me before I became one of them. I literally asked one of them if I was going to get paddled. They stared me in the eye and said no.

So my question to you guys is this. Should I stay in this organization or should I DA? if I DA theres no way I can ever join another org on my campus, but if I stay, will I be able to respect myself in the morning? Everything that has been done has been against my morals but I thought: "I'm just pledging everyone goes through it. It's tradition. It builds brotherhood." there were a million reasons why I stuck through it, and to this day I still feel like the hazing and rituals during pledging taught me much about strength through adversity.

It's just that I don't think I can really respect myself if i am expected to lie to the pledges, which is basically what they are asking me to do. I also cannot expect myself to accept getting wood from someone because of some antiquidated notion of tradition. If it had been a punishment for doing something wrong then maybe. But just because "everyone before you has done it." doesn't seem to cut it with me.

The actual process of getting wood doesnt worry me because compared to pledging, this is nothing. However, it's my morals that get in the way. Granted that the brotherhood my fraternity shares is very much strong and alive, that is about the only thing I agree with in the organization. The hazing, the lies, and everything else is something I cannot accept. So at this point my dilemma lies in the fact that by giving up this fraternity, I will be closing myself to an entire social group which I have gotten to know well. I feel as if I am turning my back on the brothers that gave me a bid in the first place. I stand to lose much by DA(Brothers,Social Status,Chance to ever be in another Org) but how can I stay in the organization knowing that I disagree with so many of the things going on within it? What should I do?