For me at 18 or 20 years old, I didn't have the maturity or the tools to even identify all of the forms of manipulation or abuse, let alone set boundaries. My deprived education and my life inside the hermetically sealed Watch Tower Society only let me see and reply to an established pattern of injury and recovery.
At about age 30 I started to look outside of the box but I still couldn't see that many of my friends and most of my relatives living inside of the culture were directly contributing to my living challenges.
I quit my night bakery job in 1974 at age 30 and I reasoned that if Armageddon came in 1975 then that would be my death sentence and I'd accept that as unchangeable by me. Inversely, I reasoned that if Armageddon didn't come in 1975, I'd chart a new life course. It didn't, and I did.
Unfortunately, I'd packed the kit of bad living tools that I had acquired during my time with the Witnesses from age 7 until age 30, and I tried to live using those flawed tools. I didn't even realize my living tools were flawed. At about age 46, I started to look within.
My personal recovery was largely accomplished by facing every single fear I had on the planet and after every confrontation, there was a boundary established and a principle written down. Piece by piece, I got a new tool kit.
The one and two liners I throw out are from my living took kit. The top tool is : "All my bad deals start and end on the same day." and Number two is: "My best deals in life are the bad deals I got out of.".
Confronting my fears and my delusions has been hard. It's not for a person who favors pain avoidance or is lazy. It was hard work, and it hurts. Early on I didn't know I was supposed to grieve. Now after a loss, I take time to grieve. I give myself a minimum of three days and a maximum unvisited period of grief of three years. There's no loss like the loss of a favorite delusion. Like my son says, sacred cows make the best burger.
