What do you mean boring? At my old hall we threw out the Theo-Ministry school and had Karokee Thursdays. Sat morns we would break into foursoms and have a weekly golf invitational(for Jehovah) instead of service. In the mid-ninetees the sound dept got a turn-table and used to mix their own kingdom-melodies. I used to mope around the house when it wasnt a "meeting night". The Org has so much to offer kids. Why they leave is beyond me. What I really miss are the WT sponsered canoe trips for ALL the kids at the hall if a kid was too poor it didnt matter cause the WT paid for them to have a good time. What memories!
Let's have some honest answers
by chappy 46 Replies latest jw friends
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WildHorses
Judith, what you said about knowing God would forget but the jw's wouldn't. I always felt that way too. I was more affraid of how the witnesses would react. I guess that's because I always knew deep down that God knew my heart and the jw's didn't nor ever would.
God is love...........The jw's instill fear.
I used to have thoughts that maybe they were right, but the more I learn about their past history. I know they are wrong wrong wrong. The time I was dissfellowshiped they didn't have all the facts just what I told them. I was ashamed and could not face them and they df'd me in my absence. Funny, the whole time I knew God had forgiven me. Iwill never in my life let mere men have that kind of control over my life again.
"I don't want someone in my life I can live with, I want someone in my life I can't live without."
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Introspection
OK all you ex's, be honest. Do you ever have that little voice pop in your head and say "What if - just what IF they're right?"
It happens to me on occasion and I've been totally out for years. Intellectually, I know that they're dead wrong. Apparently it's psychological; years of brainwashing has done it's damage. Can any of you long timers honestly say that the damage is totally and completely reversed?Well, yes, except it's not my voice, it's the voice of people from this board which pops up as I read a message like this one.
In your second question, do you mean long timers who were in for a long time, or long timers who have been out for a long time? Whatever conclusion you draw from the replies, keep in mind that someone who is completely over it may very well be absent from a board like this one.
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OUTLAW
Introspection,some of us have been out more than two decades and longer in some cases...OUTLAW
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Introspection
I see that Outlaw, which is why I asked.. There's certainly a big difference between being in for a few years and being out for decades as opposed to being in for decades and being out for only a little while.
Of course, it sounds to me like the real question here is do you ever get over it, is it possible? I suppose generally speaking it does make sense to think the longer you were in, and especially if you were raised in the religion, the longer the process will be. So, even if I say I am completely over it and you choose to believe me, my guess is it means little to someone who was in for a longer period of time. Of course, I guess there's always someone who's been in longer than you.. Lets say that person is completely over it, and you believe them or believe that is the case. But even then, it seems to me we can always say that's an unusual case or something.
So my thought is, maybe a question we can ask is what can we do to get over it, undo the damage etc.? Of course there's never any guarantees, and nobody would claim a quick fix as if there's a weekend workshop for it or something. But my concern is over the potential view that it's always going to be there. Sure it may be harder the longer you've been in, and it may take more time. But is there any reason to believe in it as an absolute, enduring thing? Whatever the case, I think that the experiences of others is only of relative importance. It seems to me that on a personal level, it would have to start by allowing the possibility that it can be completely overcome. If we have a sort of open attitude that anything can happen, it includes both the possibility that we can completely overcome it and that the witnesses are right, but the possibility of the latter could be on the same scale as the possibility of seeing pigs fly tomorrow morning. We've all spent a lot of time trying to make pigs fly, so why not give the possibility of completely recovery (if the word is warranted in the particular case) a chance?
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GentlyFeral
What the jaydubs did for me:
Made me judgemental, unforgiving, unimaginative, and prudish. Precisely the qualities you WON'T see in a Christlike, compassionate human being. If I'm going to survive the alleged Armageddon, I can't AFFORD to be a JW again.
(I've been out for six years.)
GentlyFeral
"There were cockroaches of course,
but very clean cockroaches."
-- Julia Vinograd