Were You More Depressed & Sick When You Were An Active Witness?

by minimus 24 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  minimus

  Has your life changed so much for the better that you even FEEL better since you left the "Truth"?
• 

  free2think

  I was chronically sick and still am, but i was also extremely depressed from about the age of 12/13, to the point of almost attempting suicide (mum stopped me) until i left last year. Since i left, i am so much happier. I never realised how unhappy being a dub was making me. So ok my health problems are still there and they won't change, but i can deal with them. I realised it was the added jw stuff that was making life unbearable. Even though i've now come to terms with the fact that due to my medical conditions life will be shorter for me and isnt likely to improve, i've never felt so positive about living.
• 

  GoddessRachel

  Yes, I was, most definitely. And while I still struggle with depression and sickness, most people I know do also, and I think it helps to understand it in a more reasonable and biological manner, rather than the BS I was fed as a JW: that I was spiritually weak and/or being targeted by Satan the Devil.
• 

  minimus

  It's bad enough feeling depressed and ill; no one needs to feel like they're never ever doing enough too.
• 

  144001

  I feigned sickness all the time to get out of going to meetings. Even when I was at the meetings, I used to claim I was sick and go upstairs at the hall to the room they did the second ministry school in, and curl up on the couch in there and nap while my parents received their programming.

  I was always depressed while preparing to go to the meetings and while I was sitting listening to the oral diarrhea that flowed from the podium like effluent from a ruptured sewage pipe. I hated the smells in the hall, as well as being forced to associate with a collection of pigeons.
• 

  Finally-Free

  My health was never very good, so I'm about the same now as when I was a JW.

  W
• 

  minimus

  144,001....you're pretty funny.
• 

  megaflower

  Almost every time it was a meeting night I felt under the weather. It would be a headache, backache, stomach upset. I felt great on on meeting nights. It was really bad for me during the conventions. I cannot remember the last time I stayed for the whole thing. I feel great since leaving the org, no headaches, backaches etc. The org truely makes people sick.
• 

  VoidEater

  It's bad enough feeling depressed and ill; no one needs to feel like they're never ever doing enough too.

  That's it, Minimus, yes.

  I still tend toward introverted depression, but it isn't chronic. I still have colitis, but not as much or as bad. No full blown migraines, though still sensitive to light (makes me nauseous).

  I missed a LOT of school from grade school through college. But now I'm rarely out at work.
• 

  Dagney

  I was frustrated and depressed towards the end, and it did affect my health. I did feel better and better after I left.

  But what really made me think as I read you question is what happened this last week. I still haven't recovered from it. I met with some JW friends for dinner. I cannot even begin to tell you how messed up their lives are, and their heads. And as I asked about people, it was the same stories. There is no self improvement, they are frustrated grumpy, unhappy, complainers. I felt bad quite a while after that evening. They have the power to change, but they do not. I know from now on if I have the urge to look back, I'm just going to remember that evening and that will fix me.