I would like to be able to resoundingly say 'no', but there are little niggling doubts in the back of my mind, at times, that my high control group (WCG, not JW) upbringing had such far-reaching effects that everything I do is simply a reaction to it, no matter how much I might wish/think/protest otherwise. I will occassionally analyze my life and actions, in an attempt to dispute this, and I'm not always happy with the conclusions. I am reminded of the MacBeth quote "...methinks the lady doth protest too much".
Smoking: This is at least one thing that I know for a fact I started doing in direct defiance of WCG teachings and general rebellion against them, and my parents. Still stuck with this one.
Alcohol/drugs: Something else I know for a fact that I started doing simply to defy WCG and parents, and out of curiousity as well, I suppose. Unlike with smoking, this one ran it's course, fun for a while, but not who I am today. The partying lifestyle is not for me.
Atheism: Were it not for becoming angry enough to investigate religion on my own, I may have never become atheist. 'Normal' Christianity is fairly mild, and I may have accepted it had I been raised that way. However, I consider it a winding road full of thought and effort that I followed to atheism, and I resent when someone implies that it was a direct path...a kneejerk reaction to cult or high control group participation. But is my self-perception valid, or wishful thinking?
Military: This one I'm not sure about...at the time I joined, I would have said I was doing it for college money, life experience, and because as a kid just turning too old to stay in the state juvenile system, I had no idea what else to do with my life, and had to do SOMETHING which would provide me with a place to live. In retrospect, I often wonder was this just yet another taboo to break, subconsciously.
My marriage: This is the one that can really keep me up at night. In the WCG, interracial relationships were forbidden, but I am now married to a black woman. I love her dearly, and it pains me to the quick to even think that our relationship might be based on some mental checklist of 'what taboo have I not broken yet?', but I do wonder just that, sometimes, a sort of self-torture, I guess you could say. I would LIKE to think that I am simply a more enlightened individual than some, with the ability to see beyond skin color to the person within...that I possess the traits of acceptance, reason, logic, fairness...etc etc. But what if it's all just self-delusion...what if, what if, what if...this is the mantra that can spiral down and down, unendingly.
