Describe Your Feelings When You KNEW It Wasn't The "Truth" After All

by minimus 52 Replies latest jw friends

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  LearningToFly

  Anger, stupidity, regret, sadness.

  I was incredibly angry that I had wasted years of life after leaving feeling as though there was something terribly wrong with me, as I had been led to believe.

  Stupid, ooooh so stupid, I felt like a fool. One thing I hate so much is to be misled, and be foolish enough to believe.

  I quoted this to myself often: "Fool me once, shame on You; But fool me twice shame on Me" (kicked myself around for awhile with this one)

  Regret: Regret for the years I wasted emotionally suffering.

  Sadness: Sadness over loss.. just a human emotion.

  And finally more recently "relief" "justified" & "FREE"
• 

  LennyinBluemont

  Confusion:

  My deeply ingrained, WT-defined personality, developed over the course of decades - who I was - suddenly evaporated, as I realized who I was as a person was completed defined in being a JW. And being a JW, I now was horrified to realize, was a false reality. I no longer knew who I was, or why I was. Or what I believed. It truly shakes you to the core. It's like you can't think. You don't know where to begin. The whole outline of your life that was so neatly in place based upon thousands of WT articles was now gone. Who am I? How can so much of my life be gone and wasted? What do I do now? I must re-define who I am and what my life is about. My life is an empty slate. Pretty scary stuff, to face all alone.

  Disbelief:

  I have likened this "awakening" to realizing you have just been the victim of a con game. Following the confusion, there is disbelief, or denial. "How could someone I trusted so implicitly have lied to and deceived me for so long? How is that even possible?!!"

  Anger:

  "They knew what they were doing! The bastards!"

  Shame:

  "I can't believe I was so easily taken in. For decades of my life! I've thrown away the very stuff of life by my foolishness. How could I have been so stupid?"

  Sadness:

  Feeling horrible for all that has been lost forever. Realizing that in a moment I have gone from having many I truly regarded as friends - to no friends at all. It's as if all the people I loved in my life were on the same airplane - and it crashed, killing all of them. I know they will never even talk to me again.

  Erosion of Self-Confidence:

  "What does this all say about my ability to make good decisions and judgments in life?" "Can I still trust myself to use good sense, or will I soon get caught up again in another scam?"

  Re-Definition:

  "OK. I still have some life left. I must first define who I am, what is important to me in life, and establish purpose and meaning in some way. Religion? No f**king way!" "Must come to terms with my mortality. Must reach out to other people to begin to build a circle of trusted friends to replace the vast wasteland I have been left with."

  Move forward.
• 

  jaguarbass

  When it finally registered that you did not really have the "Truth" after all, what went thru your mind?

  When things "clicked", what was your emotional state and what did you about it?

  Back in 83, I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire I fell out of the troof and thought I found the truth of the bible.

  I found the bible to be just a big book of lies and contradictions and that there were no eyewitness accounts of the biblical jesus. Jesus is just a more recent version of the Sun God Ra.

  So my feelings are kind of empty. For me there is no truth. Just empty lies. Just exhistence caped off with death.

  But I have 3 days a week to myself that I dont have to go to the kingdumb Hall. That's something good.

  Life is so hectic and demanding, I cant immagine how someone would spend the time to be a witnoid today.
• 

  Quandry

  I really wanted to die.

  I thought death would be preferable to the feelings of utter betrayal after over thirty years of trying so hard to be everything I thought I must be in order to survive this system and be acceptable to God, never feeling that I measured up, only to realize that what is acceptable can change according to the whims of men in New York.

  They said in the Awake magazine for years on the inside cover that they wanted to build my confidence that those who were alive in 1914 would not pass off the scene until the big A. They did indeed build my confidence. Then shattered it in 1995 with their "new light."

  I think Lennyinbluemont described many of the feelings quited well.

  I feel like Rip Van Winkle, who slept for twenty years and when he awoke, was out of touch with the reality of the times.

  No money for retirement, no real vacations my entire adult life (went to the WTS facilities for vacations) Blech!!!

  No higher education, stuck in dead end job. And to use the word dead, it now seems I will be some day...

  Yes, I have no friends, but with friends like the WTS, who needs enemies?

  Don't know what to believe, hence my name, Quandry.................................................
• 

  loosie

  I felt betrayed and then pissed off.
• 

  IP_SEC

  Describe Your Feelings When You KNEW It Wasn't The "Truth" After All

  Well... I think mostly my butt just hurt from sitting at the computer too long.
• 

  exwitless

  AK Jeff- I particularly enjoyed your anaolgies of a long-put-off surgery, painful amputation, survivor of a malignant tumor. Very well written!

  When I first allowed myself to acknowledge my feelings about the JWs, I felt rather depressed, lost, guilty, etc. Which is how they want you to feel. It was really hard to admit to myself that the religion I so strongly defended to my family, coworkers, etc., was a sham. It was an assault to my being, as I considered myself a fairly intelligent and reasonable person; yet I was duped by the borg and gave up so much for it.

  After a short time, though, I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I started looking forward to things, to see things so clearly without the thick veil of dub-thinking in the way. Things have only continued to look more optimistic. We're now approaching our one year anniversary of DA'ing, and there's no looking back!
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  changeling

  Awe and relief.

  changeling
• 

  LoverOfTruth

  Relieved! The Truth about the "Truth" set me free.
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  minimus

  As was mentioned in a different thread, professional therapy might be in order for many here.