"Real Friends" - the Greatest Watchto...

by metatron 15 Replies latest jw friends

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  LDH

  Itsjustme is dead on the money when she/he says:

  - most JWs in their late teens and 20s who have been raised in the organization do not have any of their childhood friends left

  I'm 32 and I have NO childhood friends. None of my worldly friends can relate to my life before I left JWdom, so I just don't bring it up. Unless I'm here. My hope is that by posting someone out there (lurker) will see themselves in me and start building a new life with real friends.

  I could call on any of my friends today, and they'd be there for me.

  Last week I left my purse at home and went out, I was late to pick up daughter from school. I called my girlfriend on my cell and said, "I need your Chevron gas card, I'm on empty and I might not make it home!"

  Not only did she give it to me, I've had it for like a week and a half and she's never asked for it back. She said, Just keep it in your car for emergencies--it'll be a backup to your backup.

  Lisa
  Glad to have real friends class.
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  ItsJustMe

  I'm a she.
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  ashitaka

  All of this is so sad...it's such a shame. I know and am experiencing all of what you guys are feeling. I feel like I have no past.
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  Satanus

  I must be still working through the 'real friends' issue. If someone mentions the idea of being my friend, i feel urged to tell him to take a long hike off a short cliff. Thirty years of thinking i had or was a real friend! Venting..
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  its_my_life2001ca

  Amen to all previous comments. The hardest part I have found since leaving the org. is the emotional vacuum that I find myself in.Having spent the greatest part of my life in the 'truth', I can kiss those 'friends' goodbye, never furthered school connections because that was discouraged and my family was worldly so they weren't good association either. Like many of you, I had numerous acquaintances but very few friends, the kind you could pour your heart out to without everything you said going cross country. You were discouraged from activities outside the congregation so that was another outlet cut off. I do cleaning so the only people I get to meet are my boss and the occasional policeman when the alarm goes off. Thank heavens for my husband, who id df'd because our situation has brought us closer to gether. He is very gregarious and people are drawn to him, so he is having an easier time of it.I am much shyer and even though I pioneered for many years, it was very difficult but I did it for Jehovah. It's taking alot out of me to get the nerve to put myself out there again, because when you're indoctrinated into believing that everyone not in the 'truth' is evil, you put up an invisible barrier. Mentally it takes time to cross it. It has helped reading many of the posts here because when you know you're not a unique case, you don't feel such a freak.
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  nelly136

  your daughter said definately summed it up metatron,

  outn your questions were spot on too

  from the other side of the coin how many jw friends would risk their congregational standing to pick you up if you were deemed spiritually weak (marked), ..... can probably wipe out the vast majority of them in one hit,

  as a jw friends are expendable, people like outn are the minority when it comes to friends in the org, theres not that many that would actively risk their standing for another, the ones that are prepared to stick out their necks and be a real friend are often ones that have a short jw shelf life left,
  nelly