ARE YOU STILL HAUNTED BY SELF-DOUBT POST-CULT?

nvrgnbk

Do you still find that you lack decisiveness and focus from time to time. Even though you are aware of your strengths and talents, are you sometimes paralyzed by the self-doubt that was taught to us in the Watchtower cult?

JWdaughter

I thought that this would have a different focus, but I think most of my self doubt is family/culture related-and I think that is the same reason that I bought into the lie and the reason that my mom's family was sucked into it. An inferiority complex which the WT takes advantage of and twists to its own advantage in its teachings of being the only TRUE religion, the only one that can possibly please Jehovah and the only one with truly moral and loving people. So it takes people who feel inferior and gives them a false sense of superiority.

As to what I thought that this would be-I thought it would be regarding those who still worry that they may have left the 'truth'. For years, even though I was sure I was well out of a mess, I still felt very compelled to argue vigorously against ANYTHING the WT taught, to prove it wrong. I needed to PROVE it wrong. Now, I recognize that many of the arguments were fruitless, as using the Bible as a basis for logical discourse is kind of laughable. One has to take the whole idea of faith, whatever faith they want, on FAITH, because logic and reason are absent from the scriptures. I would be as saved in any christian 'faith' as I was as a JW. They are all working from the same book-using personal interpretations of it based on their own ideas and agendas.

Hope I did not go so far OT as to make you mad:) But it relates to my 'self doubt' issues. Of which I still have plenty, but I am trying to cultivate positive and loving attitudes towards all-right now, especially myself. I think the expression is that you can't give a gift with an empty hand. I am trying to fill my hand.

drew sagan

Only when that guild and self-doubt is imposed by current cult members. When talking with current members it is obvious that their biggest tool is this guilt and that they will use it to its fullest potential. I have learned not even to entertain what they try to impose because it is not true and not from the heart. It is fake and must be avioded.

At first it really used to get to me, but now i'm past it.

nvrgnbk

Only when that guild and self-doubt is imposed by current cult members. When talking with current members it is obvious that their biggest tool is this guilt and that they will use it to its fullest potential. I have learned not even to entertain what they try to impose because it is not true and not from the heart. It is fake and must be avioded.

At first it really used to get to me, but now i'm past it.

Thanks for this drew! You've put into words what I've often experienced. One really must avoid such toxicity when it rears its ugly head.

Thanks also JWdaughter. It is a slightly different angle than I had in mind but valid and interesting just the same.

Nvrgnbk

ninja

hey Nvrgnbk...is your avatar richie as a baby?....he he

Brother Apostate

I think a little self doubt is in order at times.

Much like fear, it can bring out the best in us if we will only overcome it.

The more one overcomes self-doubt, the easier it becomes to do so.

Experience gives strength to those who overcome, and reinforces weakness to those who do not.

Much like tackling a big hill on a hike, run, or bicycle ride, once we have done it, we know it can be done again.

BA

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." - Henry Ford

Positive Thinking:

If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will;
It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you’re outclassed, you are;
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.

- WALTER D. WINTLE,

"The Man Who Thinks He Can."—Poems That Live Forever, comp. Hazel Felleman, p. 310 (1965).