by purplesofa 27 Replies latest jw friends
OOO a multifacet question!!
Do you think you are responsible for you own recovery?
Yes! Without doubt.
How do we do that?
Learn the truth then fill our life with something productive that can take the place of JW "friends" and "family"
How have you done that?
Yes I believe so...
What warning signs are present when you go to a different plan?
Well, the first warning sign is usually a conscious decision.
Do you really think you can heal from the JW expericance?
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Sometimes a retreat from the pain of certain situations is a good thing to do, as long as you don't retreat too far into yourself.
For me, sleeping all day and putting off certain "triggering" commitments was actually a healthy thing to do.
During my last visit to the therapist, I was asked, "do you ever just decide not to make a decision?" regarding impulsive and ineffective approaches to things. I see the need for this now. The issues I'm facing at the moment need action, but I have time and therapy on my side, even though the meds may not be as effective as I'd hoped; at least I haven't harmed anyone this week.
When I am feeling more detached from the situation, I will face it head on, and effectively, not defectively.
It was good to wallow in it (self-pity, destructive fantasies, and anger) for a spell. I know that's hard to believe, but sometimes that's just part of moving on and letting go of crap.
I hope I'm not justifying being irresponsible, though. At this moment of stress in my life, I think I need to give myself a break.
I'm actually planning to go to work tomorrow and get on with life, something I wasn't sure I wanted to do a few hours ago.
BTW, when I was on my way to bed around 6 p.m (again, after sleeping til 3 p.m. today), I saw this poor, starving cat in the back yard.
I keep trying to save it, but it always runs away. When it started to run away, I shut the door and it came back. How odd.
It sometimes eats here, I hope, but I think the other cats are driving it away. It just wanders around the neighborhood, scavenging and looking ragged as can be.
I hope it finds a home and love and care, whether it deserves it or not.
Helping others (like volunteer work) might be a good part of recovery. My heart goes out to abandoned creatures. I wish I could rescue them all, and yet, sometimes I just want to abandon life altogether. It's so ironic.
today, i feel just like HH.
i am tired and broken. i am stuck.
i had moved on or so i thought. i want to dissasociate myself, but why give them the satisfaction.
i want to celebrate halloween. but, who wants to dress up alone?
i can't sleep at night. i sleep all day.
i don't have a religion.
i am in therapy and am supposed to think positive thoughts.
i cry in therapy. mostly because i am lonely. the nice lady can't understand. she was never a jw.
i was conditioned to be perfect. now nothing in my life including me is perfect. so, i am useless.
i don't clean my house anymore. no one sees it.
i don't call anyone. no one wants to talk to me.
i want to take responsibility for recovery. but, i'm too tired.
i have gained weight. i have gotten older. i'm sadder.
years have past since i went to a meeting. i can't get passed it. i can't move on because I don't know what to move on to.
every day without someone who loves me is two more days until i'm dead.
i am in slow motion and the world is spinning. the grass grows at warped speed. things rust.
i want to laugh again but life's sound is turned off.
Thank-you ALL for your responses. I want to re-read them as I think there is valuable information you have shared with us at JWd and I appreciate it.
willyloman.......Thanks for the site, I am interested in a few books he has written.
Magick,
I understand how you are feeling, I think. Thank-you for posting whats going on and plan to hear from me soon in pm.
purps
I am bumping this as I have gotten some pm's about how helpful the information has been to some.
purps
How have you done that?
I had to be sure so I studied and researched my a$$ off for almost two years, asked questions till I got at least some answers that verified that I had every right to walk away. Even asking questions they refused to answer really helped as I knew that was actually a powerful answer.
Do you really think you can heal from the JW expericance?
I think so. As long as you have enough time left in life that you can laugh at yourself, and find some others you can laugh with....we are going to be ok.....oompa....just the feeling of freenisisdom is sooooooo great!
Do you think you are responsible for you own recovery?
Yes, even though I don't feel I'm responsible for getting myself into this mess of a religion. I don't care what anyone says, when you're raised in the org how much of a choice do you really have? Out of all of my siblings only one of us went rogue but he ended up getting baptized when he was in 30's.
How do we do that?
You can't recover if you don't acknowledge there is a problem. After acknowledging the problem, you have to decide that you want to recover...because some people don't as they think it's simpler and easier to just pretend its the truth.
How have you done that?
For about the past year, I've had very little dealings with anything knowingly religious. I haven't read the bible and I haven't prayed (not even when I travel by plane). I gave myself time to grieve and to just be with myself. Unfortunately, that turned into depression and weight gain. My house was a mess for several months and I very rarely answered my phone. But I'm starting to regroup and get my act together. I volunteer for various charities and events to make sure that I'm out doing something every weekend. Last weekend I went to a benefit gala and this weekend I'll be helping to paint homes for the elderly. I'm shopping again but this time guilt-free. I'm back at the gym and have started putting local races back on my calendar, all guilt-free. Basically, I'm doing what I enjoy. My dad has never been a witness so as a kid I did get to enjoy enough non-jw activities to have a basis to start from now. I really like that I am connecting with people without an alterior motive. It was awkard at first but I'm getting better. Casual acquaintances say I seem more cheerful...that might have something to do with the fact that I no longer live to meet the exceptions of the FDS and the local congregation. I did a JW purge - literature, clothes, etc. Read several books. Also, I no longer lie about going to the meetings and giving the assumption to my family that I'm still a super-dub. One last thing would be to attend a few sessions with a therapist but I think that's more for affirmation than anything else.
What warning signs are present when you go to a different plan?
Laying in the bed all day. Unexpected and uncontrollable crying out of disbelief that this is my life. Couple of empty boxes that were once filled with brownies or cookies. Weight gain. Wondering if I should go back to the "lie" and just be a worldly-witness that everyone accepts as a worldy-witness (we all know a few of them).
Do you really think you can heal from the JW experience?
Yes, but I know for me it will take a couple of years to fully experience my pain and let it go. I think by this time next year I will be able to speak about the JW's without wanting to breakdown and cry or completely slander the religion. I've made a conscious decision to move on with my life. I reinforce that decision by listening to audio books and seminars that encourage doing what's best for you and designing your life instead of following someone's plan. It interesting because I even feel different talking with my family or when I see a JW. I feel like I've been freed from the body-snatchers...its difficult to explain but maybe someone can relate. Magik, If you want to do Halloween, don't worry if you don't have anyone to dress up with or go out with. Go alone. I was stuck in a rut for several months because I felt pathetic doing things or going places by myself. But that's how you meet people. Someone will invite you join their group. So put on your costume and hit a party for an hour and then leave but make sure you get at least one dance in...even if its by yourself.
Do you think you are responsible for you own recovery?
Nobody else can do it for me. I can choose to deal with the long-term effects or continue to have the same issues torment me for years to come.
How do we do that?
When I have an reaction to somenting that is out of proportion to the presnet situation I know I need to stop and ask "why?" Then I ask myself some questions.
- Are there other times when I have felt this way?
- How did I handle it then?
- Is it possible I did not deal with all of it?
How have you done that?
An example:
A few years ago when I was working I had a client who was very angry at her mother. She really needed to deal with the anger and what was causing such a strong reaction. I discovered that I had very few things to help her. I was struggling to find things she might find helpful.
I did a bit of internal checking to see what was going on in me that stopped me from being being more successful in helping her.
What I found was that I hadn't really dealt with my own "mother" issues. Not only was this creating a barrier in my work with her but it was causing problems in other parts of my life - with my children and with women who were in a position of authority to me.
Spotting the problems and the patterns that repeat themselves in various ways in my life requires me to take a closer look at what is happening and why does it repeat itself is important in breaking the cycle of what keeps happening
What warning signs are present when you go to a different plan?
Patterns of behavior that keep repeating is a good start. Sometimes it is a similar emotional reaction that is out of proportion to the present situation. But I can't do anything until I can identify what is stopping me from dealing with the problem. Sometimes there are various aspects of a problem that need to be dealt with. The various aspects are like layers. One old problem may have many layers and I need to deal with each one as it arises.
Do you really think you can heal from the JW experience
That depends on what you mean by "heal"?
If you mean the issue will totally disappear I don't think that will happen. An old recovery book of mine is titled "Strong at the Broken Places". I believe that as we deal with the various issues in a healing way that we can learn to be stronger and healthier in our reactions to what is happening in our lives.
The JW experience brings out a wide range of issues for me:
- my mother's abusive parenting skills that told her that "beating" her kids was right
- my mother's arranging my marriage so that I wouldn't have sex before I married
- the whole sexual abuse issue as it related to the WTS and the recommendations of an PO to send her abused children away instead of getting rid of the abuser (my step-father) in the home and not reporting him to the police
- my aunt's suicide due to the sexual abuse by her JW father, and her 3 baptized brothers and then my step-father
- most recently the suicide by my sister who could not deal with the abuse in her childhood and beleived she would never be a good witness so she would be a good "bad girl" which drove her to addiction.
- the WTS' shunning practice which gives her permission to shut all of her kids out of her life because they don't want to enlist in the WTS as JWs.
- my JW-x-elder-x-husband who emotionally, sexually and spiritually abused me with the various rules he got from the Bible
Each one of those situations brought out different reactions and like the layers of an onion I had to peel back each layer and see how it was still affecting me in my present life.
As I deal with each one of those issues I become stronger. I'm not "stuck" in anger or fear or a sense of being not as good as other people or that I somehow deserved what I got.
Dealing with each issue makes me stronger and hopefully wiser
