How does Shunning feel?

DaveNwisconsin

Just curious as I had never really been a true Jehovah Witness. I would think that you make friends and suddenly you don't exist. I would think a board like this is a true Godsend. Just curious if you feel joy, sadness, relief. I think it would upset me to run into someone I knew at a store just to have them pretend we had never met. How sad............what do you think?

IP_SEC

Well, to me its just kinda weird for a person you've known all your life to turn around and run like you got the plague.

That's about it, weird.

Balsam

It is like seeing someone you know well, a close friend, or family member. But they are no longer themself, but someone else who does not know you. A little like people you once loved having amnesia and no longer knowing who you are.

I realized that I never really knew them and they never loved me as I loved them. So I simply close them off from my mind and have made new family and friends. The memory of them is forgotten.

avishai

Yeah, it feels like shit at first.

But, after awhile it's funny. See, they feel "POWERFUL" from shunning you.

But try sneaking up behind one of them and quietly whispering "Boo!!" and see how they run. Who REALLY has the power?

MerryMagdalene

Confusing.

Do you love me or don't you? If you do love me, why are you hurting me? and why are you hurting yourselves? Why do you think I would want to come back to a group of people who will only accept me and show me love if the boss-men tell them it's ok? And what kind of love will that be? Do you really think your definition of love is more godly than Christ's?

~Merry

AlmostAtheist

If you'd've asked me yesterday, I'd've given you a very different answer. Until yesterday, I'd only ever avoided those that would shun me. I would drop off the kids and wife at the JW in-law's, then scoot away. I'd meet their eyes, but nothing more. It wasn't really "shunning", more of a quiet, cold agreement not to cross paths.

Today I was literally shunned. Today I spoke to a person that intentionally ignored me, physically avoided even giving the appearance of having heard me. It was completely different than what I was expecting.

It's taken me most of the day to even get enough of a handle on it to start to pull it apart and analyze it. There is a certain level of amusement, honestly. Here I am believing that there is no god at all, and here this guy is believing his "loving" god wants him to utterly ignore another of his creatures. What an absurd thing to believe! But it is also terribly degrading. You know how it feels when you're talking and someone cuts you off? Like they're saying, "Yes, yes, I'm sure you think that's important. But I'm going to interrupt you because what I have to say is much more so." It's degrading like that, but to a whole other level.

It also makes me angry. And despite all my "they're just remote controlled robots" posts, I'm angry at the individual, not just the organization. The org, after all, made an anonymous, impersonal rule. It's the individual that has to actually forgo his humanity and follow it. Part of the anger, too, is due to the fact that there is an unspoken "I'm better than you" aspect to shunning, which is angering all the more so in that the very act of shunning shows he is NOT better than me. And the fact that I can see it shows that, in truth, I am better than him. And yet there he stands. Frustrating to the extreme.

And I'm partly disappointed in myself for letting it happen. And partly confused as to what to do now.

When a Christian asks, "What would Jesus do?", I have to believe this isn't it.

Dave

Narkissos

Bad. Even when you know it is going to happen it is always a shock.

DaveNwisconsin

thanks for the notes, it must be interesting to see how people turn there backs on the very people that they used to call friends, so sad for them.............

joelbear

i loved my friends and family that are jehovah's witnesses. i knew a lot of witnesses in south georgia and north florida because i had pioneered, been to bethel and had been on assemblies several times, plus i always volunteered at assemblies so i got to know a lot of people, plus that's kinda the way south georgia is, everybody is related by blood or marriage.

Chris, Julie, Robyn, Lisa, Janice, Calvin, Dale, Pam, Connie, Bobby. we were once family. i haven't spoken to them in almost 20 years now. does that leave a hole in your heart? yes.

Cheri, Eddie, John, Kim, Eric, Jill. we were once family. i haven't spoken to them in almost 20 years now.

how does being shunned feel? kind of like hell. my mind can't accept it. its probably the one most prevalent factor in my almost daily thoughts of suicide.

my parents don't shun me. none of my family shuns me although access to my oldest niece is limited due to her husband who is no longer a witness but is still homophobic.

IronClaw

2 words explain it all. Conditional love.

How does Shunning feel?

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