My theory about the behavior and obsession of some ex-JWs

by Simon 135 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  CunningMan

  Here is part of my story. I have wanted to leave the organization for about seven years. For many years before my decision (about 2002/2003), I did what most people raised in the religion do. I uncritically and unreflectively went along with the path given to me by my family. My parents are witnesses, my grandparents are witnesses, and all my relatives, save on aunt, are witnesses. I never disobeyed the rules and lived like many sheltered witness kids.

  I always had doubts about the society's teachings, especially concerning the anointed, and when my family moved to our current residence, I had access to the internet for the first time. I gradually came to the conclusion that I had to find out why these people doubt the organization. You know what many here have thought: if it is the truth, it should be able to withstand criticism. I read some sample chapters of Franz's Crisis of Conscience from the Commentary Press website. I read some online articles by Carl Olof Jonsson. Then I ordered myself a copy of Crisis of Conscience at a local bookstore, read it in two nights, and decided that I couldn't continue being a witness for the rest of my life. Later, I ordered a 1917 edition of The Finished Mystery which further confirmed my stance.

  Quickly after that, I decided that I should find people who either have been or are currently in my situation. First, I found this tiny yahoo forum and a MSN chatroom. Nothing much there, so I eventually found this place. I posted here for a while (using an older account than this one), a noticed several things.I felt the forum was so huge that my posts were swept off in a sea insubstantial posts. However the worst impression I got was that most of the prolific posters have left the organization years ago, but still remain here, still grieving their loss. Of course, many here will give the self-serving excuse that their helping other people, but really this forum has become an emotional crutch, a tool for the eternal task of validating their decision to leave. I realized that leaving the organization wasn't enough for me. I must become more than an ex-witness and gradually become just another worldly man with goals that make my life meaningful. That's why I'm getting close to getting my BA.

  So, my first time posting at JWD was short lived, especially since I became more interested in Thom's Chat, with it's sexy video-enabled chatroom. While there, I eventually got initiated into the sport of flame wars. In another recent thread, Dogpatch mentioned the joyful game of griefing posters. It pretty much explains some of the thrill of the flame war. Anyway, I also got involved with the now infamous JWO, having registered there at it's beginning, but never really posted there much until I got involved with the conflicts at Thom's. Eventually, Thom's was sunken, so JWO became my regular posting place. The rest is history.

  So my wild ways are not due to bitterness as much as the sport of trolling and flame wars.

  (Sorry for the JCannon-length post. I hope it was interesting.)
• 

  FreudianSlip

  Angry yes... but at whom or what and for what reason ? If your husband cheats on you ,your're angry so why

  not kick your dog in the head on the way out the door.? ...... hey you got a right to be angry !

  Caliber

  When the anger is SO profound and the pain so EXCRUTIATING.. it's not uncommon to lash out at every one and every thing. Pain, hurt, angry.. they aren't always reasonable. A potential counter-defense is empathy. A person feeling this way just needs someone to listen and understand. They won't find this at the KH.. maybe amongst fellow ex-jws?

  We don't all walk away feeling whole and complete. Some of us want to scream and punch and sob until we have no strength left.

  /flashback

  Wow.. memories... what were we talking about?
• 

  caliber

  When the anger is SO profound and the pain so EXCRUCIATING.. it's not uncommon to lash out at every one and every thing. Pain, hurt, angry.. they aren't always reasonable.

  You are being very honest and upfront.. I'm sure I haven't suffered as much as most on the site.. Please forgive me for my lack

  of understanding...I say this with all seriousness.. I sincerely wish you all the best !

  Caliber
• 

  beksbks

  I apologize in advance, as I did not read all the posts (making up for lost time here ). But I have to add another group to the ones that Simon and Gregor mentioned. Those that faded, that feel secure in the knowledge that the JW's are a cult, and have no doubt on that score. Never ousted, they feel no anger/frustration toward anyone other than fate. But because they were raised in, they are indeed handicapped. The simplest things that people "in the world", which they are now embracing, take for granted, are utterly foreign to them. It takes years of real work to just live in "this world" that we were supposed to be no part of. This kind of place is quite amazing, because there is (often) total understanding of all this daily accomplishment, without ever having to discuss it. An understanding that could never happen unless you've lived it.
• 

  journey-on

  Simon said:

  I'm trying to explain to myself why someone who apparently "left" the WTS 20+ years ago would still be on ex-JW forums and still so wrapped up in everything.

  I've thought this same thing many times. I have concluded that most (not all) of these types NEED someone to blame for their failures in life. I know that that

  is not a "politically correct" thing to say and I will probably get lambasted for saying it, but I truly believe from my personal observation that this is the case

  much of the time. They can't hold on to a job....they can't advance their career...their relationships fall apart....they can't overcome their addictions.....they can't

  make and keep friends....etc. etc. etc. Many of their problems probably do stem from the trauma of abandonment when they suffered the pain of being disfellowshipped,

  but then many decide it's easier to start blaming something or somebody for the predicament they find themselves in rather than doing the necessary internal work to

  get past it. As their failures mount their blame game becomes more vicious and consuming and it carries over into all aspects of their life. They come on forums like

  this and find exactly what they don't need......people just like them playing the blame game and feeding their frenzy against everything JW related. It's okay to sympathize

  and offer words of advice and encouragment, but people that obsess and blame everything on their JW experience really need professional counselling to overcome their

  destructive behaviors. You don't get THAT on ex-JW discussion boards.
• 

  jamiebowers

  I don't have a lot of experience with exjw's, because I've only been on this board for a year and a half. So, I have no opinon about the differences between df'd, da'd and faders. However, I must say that I disagree with the shunning aspect of dfi'ing. If a person breaks the rules of the WTB&TS as a jw, then I have no problem with having so called privilages taken away. I can even agree with the marking aspect. But to be shunned by family is wrong.

  My experience as a jw proved to me that there are many people who should be df'd but aren't, because they will grovel before the elders. There are others who have been df'd under extremely trying circumstances that made "repentance" pretty much impossible.

  A while before I was df'd, I knew a young sister who was engaged to be married. She was a lovely girl, beautiful inside and out. She supported herself by working part time and regular pioneered. When her engagement was announced, another young brother who she used to date went to the elders and confessed to raping her about a year before. Guess who was df'd? She was, because she failed to report it to the elders, in effect, she didn't scream. He was privately reproved. It took a full year for her to be reinstated. Now think about the emotions that a young girl just out of high school went through after having her virginity taken by means of rape. She told me that she was ashamed and embarrassed and felt guilty that it happened in the first place (btw, he was driving her back to her car after field service when it happened). According to the elders, she should've called them first thing, but she went home and took a shower instead. Then she tried to forget that it ever happened, like most rape victims.

  In my case, I was married to a mentally ill, physically abusive jw husband who had twice been committed to mental institutions against his will. He was threatening to kill me. Doctors and judges took him seriously, as did I, but the elders felt differently. For almost seven years they accepted his groveling and repentance, although he never changed his ways and actually got worse. Yet they tried to bully me into staying married to this creep. When I refused they told me that if I was to ever remarry I would have to prove adultery on his part. So, basically, in order to remain a jw my choices were to disappear and remain single or wait around to see if he would choose to commit adultery or murder. I was in my early 20's and had already spent my entire marriage being choked, hit and kicked. He would drive into oncoming traffic to terrorize me and finally began threatening to kll me and then himself. I was so desperate to be out from under his control that I said I didn't want to be part of an organization that was so unreasonable. I offered to d'a myself, and the elders told me not to bother, because they would d'f me. And they did.

  I instantly had no friends, my family turned against me, and I was convinced that God didn't hear my prayers and that I would die at Armageddon. I knew there was something wrong with the organization, but I thought it was just a fluke in my case. It was 13 years later that I saw Bill Bowen on Dateline NBC. Later when I read the personal experiences of the battered lambs at silentlambs.org I knew that my case wasn't a fluke and that there were many women out there who had the same experience as I did.

  Being that the only df'd people whose experiences I know personally are abused women, I believe that the df'ing arrangement is only a source to control the membership and not a way to keep the organization clean. Deciding who gets to be a ms or pioneer is one thing, but to have the power to have a person's family turn against them for any reason deemed necessary by the elders is a dangerous abuse of power.

  I've been out 20 years, but I didn't even start to heal until 13 years later. Now seven years into my recovery, I find reading and posting on JWD helps me in two ways. One, it keeps me informed as to what's going on in the organization for my mother's sake, and two, I want to be as helpful as I can to anyone who is trying to leave or has left the cult. Personally, it doesn't matter to me why a person was disfellowshipped, because we are all being abused in the same manner through shunning by our families. Criminals shouldn't even part of the equation, because they should be dealt with by police. But of course, the elders know better in those cases too, don't they?
• 

  shamus100

  Interesting posts - I agree that there is a huge generalization there, and there are definetly no hard and fast rules.

  I think a more interesting point to consider is why people get so pissed off, get banned from a stupid message board, then join other message boards to whine and bitch about things on the previous message board. I cannot imagine wasting my time, life, happiness on something so petty! It screams out that people need help. Obviously, they have no life, no friends, no nothing. Sad, really, and I don't mean that in a vindictive way. I'm sure the old timers here have seen a lot, because I know that I sure have! Screaming matches over politics, gay messiahs, among other complete nonsense.

  If anyone can understand these people, I would welcome comments.

  Oh, and about being a perfect ignorant asshole, we've all been there at some point. Check out my post on addiction and our trapled rights if you want to see me as an ignorant asshole.
• 

  Gerard

  Gerard,

  The kicked-outs I'm thinking of are those where there were good reasons to kick them out based on the rules in place.

  It seems to me that you are the ignorant one as you actually bolded the wrong section of the sentence and completely and utterly missed the point! Why you should do this evades me. Either you did not understand what was being said, or you chose not to understand, but the meaning is quite clear if you read the sentence with care.

  For your information, I have actually highlighted in red the point that Simon was making.

  HS

  Yes, Hillary, the WT rules set in place are absolutely perfect as they are, they are a pure and direct command from Jehovah and presented to us by his direct mediator, the WT. These rules to DF or not to, of course are implemented with heavenly perfection, without bias and we are all so gratefull for it.

  Therefore, according to Hillary's Tao, if the WT has done anything unpleasant to us, we deserve it. And don't you even think of criticizing the celestial rules on lovin' shunning.
• 

  hillary_step

  Gerard,

  Gerard: The kicked-outs I'm thinking of are those where there were good reasons to kick them out based on the rules in place.

  HS:It seems to me that you are the ignorant one as you actually bolded the wrong section of the sentence and completely and utterly missed the point! Why you should do this evades me. Either you did not understand what was being said, or you chose not to understand, but the meaning is quite clear if you read the sentence with care.

  Gerard replied:

  Yes, Hillary, the WT rules set in place are absolutely perfect as they are, they are a pure and direct command from Jehovah and presented to us by his direct mediator, the WT. These rules to DF or not to, of course are implemented with heavenly perfection, without bias and we are all so gratefull for it.

  I presume that the attempt in your latter statement at trying, without success I might add, to show that I agree with WTS 'rules' is to try and divert attention from the fact that you cannot read properly. You still have not seen to point.

  Let me put it in simple terms that you MIGHT understand. This is NOTHING to do with WTS, or any other bodies rules being fair, just, or moral, they are to do with their right to remove a person who breaks their rules, as upheld by numerous courts of Law. If you join a club and break the rules, expect the consequences. If you join a club with unfair rules and you break the rules, expect the consequences. If you belong to a club whose rules are unfair, unjust, and immoral and you break the rules, expect the consequences. This is not rocket science man!

  Do you get it now? I am amazed that some of you can find your mouths to brush your teeth.

  HS
• 

  quietlyleaving

  As JWs we prided ourselves on being able to go anywhere in the world and find meeting places and JWs who could be trusted like brothers and sisters. As an exjw, I'm coming to see, it is very important to dispel that myth. Just a few friends, maybe even 2 or 3 close friends is all that one needs.

  ql