What has hurt you the most for being a JW?

by MsMcDucket 41 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Maryjane

  - raising my child as a JW for the first 8 years of his life. Since I faded we've been catching up all the things he's missed.

  - not going back to college/aspiring for a career because we were "deep in the time of the end"

  - having a sucky social life (they tell you to dump your friends when you join up, when you do join and you're new, no one really wants to get too close to you [hence the desire to get baptized], even as a regular member of the congregation if you're a little too "fun" you get little love, when you leave they dump you and you're left with no one and have to build a social life from scratch

  - broken family (and hugs to the woman alienated from her daughters...this religion can't be from God)

  - missed opportunities for marriage (I mean, I've still "got it" but again with rebuilding the social life comes learning how to date again)
• 

  MungoBaobab

  Gopher hit it right on the head when he mentioned the paranoia of wondering which of the kids at school would grow up to be the U.N. corporal to storm my house searching for contraban Watchtower literature and murder my family. And even as I outgrew this fear, realizing my peers weren't totalitarian timebombs, two scriptures ruined my life. Two scriptures:

  "Friendship with the world is emnity with God"

  and, of course,

  "Bad association spoils useful habits"

  They were always lurking in the back of my mind. As soon as I started to have a good time. As soon as I discovered the true meaning of the word "fun," my cult programming told me I was alienating God because I dared share a sense of comraderie with a non-Jehovah's Witness. I'll never forget, at age 17, my mohter forbidding me to apply for an afterschool retail job because it would be difficult not to fraternize with "those people" after hours. I guess she figured the people there might want to befriend her son, the dumb rotten bastards.
• 

  ferret

  The loss of parents and three daughters.
• 

  RichieRich

  Going to bed every night knowing that my mother is asleep in the next room, and would perfectly willing to never speak to me again, and believe she was completey justified in doing so.

  That, and that she has always viewed my love for her as manifested in Jehovah's service. And when I stop serving Jehovah, she'll think I stopped loving her.

  Oh yeah, and I had NO FREAKING childhood!

  What need is there for a 12 yearold to collect cuff links and tie tacks?
• 

  atypical

  Yep, I agree with Slugga and the others who didn't get to have a regular childhood and adolescent. I resent that every day.
• 

  Poztate

  Sorry, I kinda rambled off point, but this was my first post and I got carried away!

  Thanks to whomever designed this site, it is truly needed.

  This is a good place to get carried away and unload on people who know and care what you are talking about. Welcome to the board.
• 

  lighthouse1956

  I graduated High School in 1974,and naturaly my parents did not see a point in collage., now I'm a commission based sales rep and probably too late to change..

  I regret that I didn't get closer to non-jw friends, there were none my age at kh.
• 

  serendipity

  Hi lighthouse, welcome to the forum!
• 

  GoingGoingGone

  Welcome still angry and lighthouse1956

  I wish I hadn't grown up as a JW.

  I wish I could have gone to college and followed my dreams instead of knocking on doors (which I hated) for 90 hours a month, and supporting myself by cleaning houses (which I also hated).

  I wish I could have been friends with the great kids that I knew in high school, instead of being told that they were bad association.

  I wish I could have gone to the prom with the guy who asked me, instead of feeling like an idiot by telling him that I wasn't allowed to date.

  I wish I could have saluted the flag, instead of feeling like a loser and standing there with my arms at my sides.

  I wish I could have made friends with my workmates and my neighbors, many of whom are wonderful people, instead of turning down every invitation I received.

  I wish I hadn't raised my kids in this religion, thus depriving them of many of the same things I was deprived of. I hope I can make up for it, and that they forgive me.

  GGG
• 

  bonnzo

  no f*cking education!! im a slave for life in a job i hate!