Why does guilt often remain so long with those who've left the JWs?

And He Ran

I would be interested in getting people's input in why so many JWs - including me from time to time, though less so now - seem to be burdened by guilt after they've left, even after they've successfully faded and aren't being hassled by family or elders. Is it a residual leftover of the indoctrination over the years? I welcome your comments.

Mickey mouse

Maybe because you haven't addressed the problems resulting from the mind control you were under? It's so effective you didn't even realise it was happening.

Mickey.

garybuss

The guilt might not be guilt, it might be a floating episode. Many former Witnesses like me, had post-exit syndrome symptoms, often marked by post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Have you invested in any exit counseling? Done a written inventory? Have you listed your assumptions and given them weight and value in writing? Have you learned to identify principles at work, list those principles and test those principles on the reality scale? Can the principles be equally applied?

I made a study of the English language because my understanding of definitions and concepts associated with many words was based on error and bad premises. I studied the difference between subjective and objective, implicit and explicit, and the difference between illusion and delusion. I made a study of opposites and paradoxes.

Then I read and read. I read much of Charles Russell's work. I seriously studied some works. I read both sides of the purge of 1917. I bought much of Paul Johnson's work and read much of it. I read much of Rutherford's work and I have acquired a very nice library of that era. I made an exhaustive study of the 40's and 50's work of the team of Knorr and Franz. I listed their assumptions and made weeks long studies on individual assumptions. I made a word by word study of both versions of the Let God Be True book. I studied the appointment, the closed door, and the phony neutrality advertisement.

I studied the core beliefs and found out there weren't any, there were just core dis-beliefs. I studies all the Witness stand alone dogma and again, there wasn't any. All Witness rhetoric took a counter-believing group. I studied ethics and I studied the business of religion. I have non-Witness views of "legal" and "ethical".

I studied William Miller and the White family and the Second Advent Christian groups. No exit study is complete without this. I met with current Bible Students and studied their version of the Rutherford theft of the corporation owned assets. I met in person with some, and talked on the telephone with other former Witnesses like Jerry Bergman, Randy Watters, and Ed Gruss. The Christian apologist groups of former Witnesses were and are a big help to me.

It's hard to fix a sick brain with a sick brain. I found post exit counseling including practices and principles used by high control groups helped me a lot. I was raised a Witness. I didn't have an established non-group personality to return to, so I enjoyed a long period of recovery. It was more like new construction than remodeling. I had the privilege of developing a rational personality over many years. I didn't accomplish one phase alone. I had help all the way.

I'm still a work in progress and I'm constantly looking for a sage or a mystic who will sit with me and talk to me.

Casper

I have no family that are witnesses, so I have no guilt from that aspect of it.

When I feel those twinges of guilt, now and then I think, what if... I was wrong and I have doomed myself and my children by leaving Jehovah.

Also, my husband, a die hard witness, passed away and if it is all true, he would be very disappointed in me after the resurrection. He would have trusted me to do all I could to help his daughter make it to the New System...

I know, crazy thinking... but that is where my guilt comes from... Just every once in awhile tho....

Cas

Why does guilt often remain so long with those who've left the JWs?

And He Ran

Mickey mouse

garybuss

Casper

Octarine Prince

GetOverIt

crazyblondeb

BizzyBee

stillajwexelder

veen

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