During your time as JWs were there times that you were in need for some help from the JW brotherhood but felt let down because no one cared to help you? Did you feel resentful and began to suspect that this org is heartless and hypocritical?
No help from the JW brotherhood?
by greendawn 13 Replies latest jw friends
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LuckyNun
Just about every day I was there. It's funny, because my mom makes all kinds of excuses for why the brothers never help out her and my dad. back in the day, she used to complain a lot about it, then after I told her it was one of the reasons I left, she changed her tune. Now it's okay for people to ignore her.
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lola28
Well I never really needed anything, but what got me was when I found JWD and began to miss meetings not one elder called me, I could have been dead and no one from my hall would have known. Funny I was the one that called brothers and sisters when they missed the meetings, guess no one could spare five minutes and do the same for me.
lola
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greendawn
Yet there are no excuses, if they don't have love for each other they are not in the truth. They can say: oh but we don't harm one another, but that is only half of their duty.
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serendipity
Hi Greendawn,
In the rural congregation I grew up in, people did help each other, even thought they had very little.
When I first moved away from home, the next congregation I attended was very cold. All I wanted were some friends. It took over a year to make a few friends, mainly as a result of meeting one very outgoing sister who returned to that cong. Then I got pregant and decided not to marry my bf. I naively thought the cong would help me by providing emotional support. They df'd me instead. I thought that my JW family would offer their help and emotional support. What a joke. They never asked if I needed anything for the baby. They never asked about my finances. NOTHING. They didn't care about me. They didn't care about my child. That was a very disillusioning time period.
A few years later, when I lost my job, the situation was repeated. I was in a different cong. Though people knew I was unemployed, no one offered any help. Neither did my JW family. They didn't care about me. They didn't care about my child. I was too proud and independent to accept help, but I wanted people to offer. I was shocked at the lack of concern for my innocent child.
I now know not to count on the cong. or my family for any type of support. At least I found out before I encountered a life threatening situation.
I never blamed the org though, because the WT publications encouraged JWs to help each other. I just thought the individuals involved in my case were very unloving.
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slugga
My congregation was well known as having a problem with love. Nearly every time the CO visited he would comment on it and we'd have loads of local needs talks on it, talks about how it was easy to love someone you liked, how that was no big thing to do that and how we should learn to love those we didn't like. But nothing changed. They were still a group of cold fish.
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greendawn
Hi Serendipity that was a very interesting story, it's good that at least some JW congos are helpful to their members. The congo I was in and the neighbouring ones were very cold indeed.
In my view the WTS is hypocritical (paying lip service) when they say the dubs must help each other, they don't give the good example to begin with so the R&F simply copy them. They are a heartless, pitiless, and humourless lot and so are the R&F. -
Calliope
okay, just a quick post (this is getting to be addictive) and then i must go walk the dog (god i wish i had a yard).
but last year, my other half da-ed himself.
i have since allowed myself to question things to the point of finding valid answers elsewhere than from the secret society, and as a result have not been to a meeting in 2 months or so.
1 year since hubby da-ed himself and 2 months since i've been to a meeting. so who's called? not the elders. not my friends.
in fact... my friends started some pretty vicious "gossip" that finally got back to me so they had to be put back in their place. that might be why they haven't called. but the elders have no excuse. not that i want them to call. noooooooo.
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Ingenuous
I never got a call, a card, a vist during the years I was struggling with depression and anxiety and would miss meetings, though I struggled to get to the ones I could. When I purposely stopped going, my folks "sicced" the elders on me and they thought the elders (actually, elder) who called was so loving to reach out to me in my "time of need".
A friend of mine knows a sister who was struggling financially to take care of medical bills. A brother suggested that, since the congregation had a few thousand just sitting in the bank, they might be able to help her. After the brothers talk, she gets a call from one of them saying she won't get a dime of the congregation's money. When she told him she'd be driven to using a local church's soup kitchen, he told her to by all means do so. That was the last straw for my friend and that's when he quit going to meetings.
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TallTexan
Serendipity,
Sad story, but unfortuantely all too common. You realize now that they have conditional 'love', and most of the time not even that.
They didn't care about me. They didn't care about my child.
Single mothers are the pariah of the congregation. You don't get invited into the 'cliques' because you don't have a mate. You can't help with the congregation duties (cuz you're a woman) and usually can't contribute much financially, so you're basically expendable.
I about want to when I think about all the lies we were told concerning the 'love' in the congregation.....