by AK - Jeff 4 Replies latest jw friends
Did you ever feel like that after leaving the witness cult? I mean, wifey and I spent our whole lives as witnesses. W have no formal education beyond HS, no real marketable skills of a professional nature, no real friends outside the organization, never developed many hobbies, on and on.
I can see why some go back to the organization - or never leave even when armed with the facts. It can be a cold lonely world when one does not fit in and is just few years from retirement.
Jeff
That's one reason why I wouldnt encourage my parents to leave the bOrg (as if they would listen ). For my mother (she's 61), it's all she has ever known and my dad (he's 64) will never leave unless my mother does. They dont have many friends inside the bOrg and they have none outside of it. If they left, then what? More bugging of me and my siblings because they have nothing better to do? No way!
Josie
My Mom was an 'inactive lifetime witness' - believed but never did much with it. I found out the 'truth about the truth' a few months before she died - but I could not bring myself to 'burst her bubble' - she thought she had passed a 'legacy' on to her kids and I saw no reason to give her fitful issues to struggle with in her last months of life. We knew she was dying and there was no point.
My Father on the other hand never became a witless - and we have had many conversations about what I have discovered. He is thrilled I am out after watching me waste my best years in the slavecamp.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
I've felt different much of my life, but I can't attribute it to being a JW. We moved around a lot as a kid, so I never fit in, even before we became JWs. When we first became JWs, I was very zealous and walked the straight and narrow. So much so, that the JW kids thought I was a square. There were no other young fanatics like me in the cong. so I didn't fit in with my JW peers. Then, I realized as a teen I didn't want to be judgmental and self-righteous and fanatic like my JW family, so I became an outsider even around them.
As I entered college, still a JW, I wasn't into partying and drinking and drugs, so I was an outsider there. When I started my first professional corporate job, I realized I didn't want to climb the corporate ladder, because of the questionable ethics and lack of integrity I saw among the bigwigs, and especially they're disregard for the peons. So my lack of ambition made me an outsider. Currently at work, there are other unambitious ones like me, but they're at different stages in their lives. So I don't feel I fit in.
I certainly don't fit in my JW congregation, being the only 40ish single parent and "professional career woman" who's definitely on the bottom rung of the social ladder, due to being marked and being inactive.
I don't know if it's my thinking or deeply entrenched patterns of keeping a distance, but I know that I'M the one who will have to change. Once my daughter gets a bit older, I'm going to join a book club and will also volunteer for a charity to get out and about, getting hobbies and making some friends. I may also get brave enough to meet up with some of the ex-JWs in this area. I'm still hopeful that I'll overcome whatever restrictive habits I have, round off my square peg and find a round hole to call home.
Did you ever feel like that after leaving the witness cult?
Yes, and I wasn't even raised in it. I gave up all my "worldly" friends when I joined the cult, but never found new ones when I was a JW. I just didn't fit in. Problem is, now that I'm out of the cult I don't seem to fit in anywhere else either.
If it wasn't for my bird, computer, and TV I'd probably go mental. (and please don't say I already have)
W
