I'm not sure if this is helping me

by ballistic 14 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Tatiana

  Ballistic, I agree with RedhorseWoman on this. I've known you for a while and I feel the same way as you sometimes. I was ready to totally leave the other board we frequented, but decided to read the posts one last time. That was when I found the new poster Kyle who was so depressed he wanted to kill himself. He even made a date for doing it, because he was having doubts and couldn't bear to be shunned by his family.
  
  I stayed on the board and begged and pleaded and finally got him to promise me a week. I got his email addy and started emailing him constantly. Just to show him that someone was out there who cared. I asked others to email him. They did. He now tells me he feels better and stronger and more able to handle what is to come. I have gotten emails each day telling me thanks for just being there to listen.

  My point is, maybe you are past the healing process, as I think I am. But as RedhorseWoman said, maybe you can help someone else get through it too. But I agree with Lisa too. We are so far from "normal" it's ridiculous. No matter how hard we try to be, you can't grow up or live for years in a cult and be a normal, everyday, happy-go-lucky person. It's always there. Lurking in the back of your mind. No matter how much you tell your friends about it, they will never understand unless they lived it.

  So, even though you may be "beyond" jws, you can help someone else on that long road.

  Did you check out the "find xjws" link? I could have sworn I saw some people from your part of the world.

  http://www.watchtowernews.org/findexjws.htm

  Love you, B

  April

  "Love never dies." Voivodul Vlad Draculea (from Bram Stoker's Dracula-1992)
• 

  MrMoe 2

  Ballistic - I for one am glad you came here. I have enjoyed many of your posts and consider you totally top notch. Perhaps the board is a type of therapy - and some of it you gotta just brush it off or be the duck and let ot R-O-L-L off ur back.

  I know sometimes that is sooo tough to do, but think of the people/lurkers you may have helped. You have such good posts. Maybe it was just one person - but I know you have helped. You helped me, and that was worth it, wasn't it?

  If you are thinking about leaving, don't, for me, OK? I will miss you. So many of my real "cyber friends" wanna leave - but if you all do that, you leave your real buds behind. I for one don't have a lot of "real freinds," I left them all behind. All of you - are really all the friends that some of us got to hang onto. You all are our therapy. OK hun? Does that make it any better, at all?
• 

  Tina

  Hi ballistic!
  Just my thoughts here.
  I think Nelly said it well!
  Getting angry actually is a breakthrough.
  You're getting past the denial,the apathy that many of us felt on our journey.
  Reaching down into our emotions can be frightening. Anger is one emotion we had to pretty well squash.We had to stuff it down,deny the feeling. Now in life(Post-borg) we're having to deal with it.
  Nothing wrong with righteous anger,at being misled,lied too,manipulated.
  It's better to talk about the feeling than run from it because it will rear its head in other, oftentimes unhealthy ways.
  I do understand that expressing oneself in such an open,unstructured venue such as this,isnt always for everyone. In the beginning I found it emotionally safer to deal with many feelings in a structured therapy group.
  Journal writing helps immensely too. We can write down feelings, identify the anger causing events. Then work out possible solutions for working thru it.
  For the sake of mental and physical health it's truly better to face this emotion honestly,learn that anger is ok,It's how we express it or deal with it thats important. I see this on the board, as I do in r/f-folks who deny that emotion. We truly can't 'move on' until we acknowledge and deal with this.
  I wish you the best in whatever you decide to do ballistic,Tina
  Just a few rambles here. luv,tina

  Carl Sagan on balancing openness to new ideas with skeptical scrutiny..."if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense-you cannot distinguish useful ideas from worthless ones."
• 

  Quester

  ballistic wrote:
  "I've really let it all out; I never used to mention my jw past
  to my friends and now I just can't seem to shut up about it...
  But, where do I go from here? I can't keep posting messages
  and reading posts, and getting wound up about how evil the
  "society" is, can I?"

  I think talking about what happened to us and having our
  feelings about it is a good thing. But it is something we
  move through, not get stuck in. I think it is a good sign
  that you are getting tired of bashing the society. It
  reveals you have done some healing and maybe you are
  ready to move on. Where do you go from here? Only
  you can answer that. What do you need? Quester
• 

  thinkers wife

  Ballistic,
  I think I know where you are coming from! And sometimes I feel the same way. When you least expect it, the anger comes from out of the blue.
  I think Nelly and RHW hit the nail on the head.
  Just one other thought. I believe leaving the org. is like death. There are certain phases we must go through in order to heal, anger is one of them. Can't skip them, because they will come back to haunt us later if we don't deal with them.
  TW