Card of Encouragement From Long-time JW Reeks of Despair

by Seeker4 38 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Balsam

  I can remember before I left 4 years ago feeling totally burned out. I had spent 5 years caring for my elderly parents and they had passed away. The end had not come though my parents were of the 1914 group (born in 1907 + 1912) and I felt discouraged and exhausted. I had lost my 15 year old son to death and just wanted to be dead too to stop the pain. Then I knew I had to leave, that the end was not coming and when I did it was like opening the door to pure sun shine. No more negative talk to listen to about this old world. No more depressing topics to mull over.

  That is when the depression began to end when I got out. I was numb for probably 6 months, but the sun was shining on me and gradually I came to life. Now at 55 I look forward to each day, and have a positive attitude about the future.

  There is a JW lady who doesn't know me but brings me literature sometimes. She is always mouning and growning over how this world is so bad and how she hates it and awaits the end to come. I just smile and tell her wow what a depressing way to look at life, that I'm glad I don't feel that way.

  At the KH when I used to go everyone was so depressed, so unhappy. Over worked, too many meetings too many JW demands on them. Everyone eyes were dead and depressed, just like mine used to be. I am so thankful to be out of it all.

  Balsam
• 

  willyloman

  The attitude that this life is a throw away still lingers with me.

  Really well put and, yes, it's a struggle for a lot of us. I like seeker's attitude, though: I can't wait to see what the last third of my life (quarter?) brings!
• 

  daniel-p

  Goodness, that is the story of my upbringing. My mother is filled with despair and the rhetoric that goes along with it. "It's this wicked system!" "Satan!" "This WICKED SYSTEM of things must end soon." "Jehovah couldn't possibly let it go on like this much longer."
  
  I just want to say, well, you know what? That's the exact same thing the 1st Centruy Christians thought too... and they just died. It ended for them - because they died. And it will end for us too when we die.
• 

  Emma

  I feel younger and more energetic and alive than I didn 15 years ago "in the org." There is a real purpose to life. I appreciate everything so much more now, just the opposite of what you're told is the case. Yes, Nina, sunrises and sunsets are so much more meaningful and breath-taking now.

  I feel sad for my mom and sisters who are plodding on, waiting for the New System. My moms whole life is gone; her youth given to a dream - not just her youth but her middle and old age. I used to grieve that my youth was wasted, but now just appreciate and enjoy the life there is so much more.

  Emma
• 

  Gretchen956

  And the sad part about it is that this is why the cult is so dangerous. They go out looking for people who are desperate, afraid, lonely, burned out, anxious, etc. And they feed them this false hope that they can be rescued. Thats one of the big lures! They then go to the KH for the first time where they are love bombed (as mentioned in another thread). Poor suckers don't stand much of a chance.

  Yes the WTS has a lot to answer for, one way or another.

  Very sad.

  Sherry
• 

  Carmel

  If you had to look forward to five hours of meetings a week of the same old drivel, house to house magazine peddling on the weekends and washing toilets, windows and other menial crap, you'd look old and plodding too!

  carm
• 

  forsharry

  "You can either get busy living, or get busy dying." - Shawshenk Redemption

  That quote stuck with me after I saw that movie...because that was the choice I was stuck with while being subjected to the "TRUTH." We were living to die...and deep down inside, dying to live. However, do I feel sorry for this woman who willingly made that choice? Nope. Somewhere in ourselves, we all reached that crossroads...whether we were 12 or 112. Do we choose to continue to believe, even though we're miserable (insert reason here ie. cause it's a lie, cause i'm miserable, etc. etc. etc.) or to we get out and try to free that dying songbird that has been shut away in our little cage for so long that it doesn't even remember how to sing?

  It is incredibly sad that someone would choose the latter...to simply endure till death...as another poster said, To Live for GOD'S sake. Oh yeah, this is what our loving God wants for us...to live in misery. What a waste of the very short existence we were granted.

  I mean how many of us would sit up at night and wish for death? I know I did when I was a dub. Why? Because at 19 I was tired...tired of the pioneering and the constant, incessent meetings and Dubspeak. Tired of all of it. I couldn't imagine going on until my 50s existing that way. I was 19 and wishing for death...and thinking that in death I would gain the salvation of resurrection. Why? Cause the dead had it easy. All they had to do was die, cause death covers our sins, right? So it was die...or c-o-n-t-i-n-u-e on till what? Armaggedon? Oh yeah, I was REALLY looking forward to that. All of my non-believing family, friends from school...and generally majority of nice, good people were going to be destroyed...oh I really wanted front row seats for that.

  Forsharry of the "Rambling and rambling and rambling" Class
• 

  DanTheMan

  I remember looking at the photographic representations of (supposed) everyday congregation life that appear in the pubs and wondering if the persons responsible for the publications had any clue whatsoever. The reality of the congregations vs. what the white-hairs in Brooklyn imagine it is like are night and day.
• 

  Apostate Kate

  The woe and misery on the earth is the glue that makes the Society tick. Without the pain, misery, death, depression, killing, wars, they got nothing. There can be no bright spot, no positive thinking, no goodness or life in anything but them. That is usually the first aspect to indoctrination we faced. Life sucks and then you die, unless you are a JW you may make it through Armageddon. JW neurosis at it's finest.
• 

  Wasanelder Once

  Yes Daniel, but remember... they all went to heaven by 1918!!! Lucky for them.

  Yeah, right.

  W.Once