by minimus 36 Replies latest jw friends
My parents got in when I was about 12 or 13 - (studied, but joined for sure when I was 14)...
And I can honestly tell you that I was so ashamed of it that I absolutely avoided telling anybody else in high school what church we were going to.
For a long time after I walked out, I was also ashamed to admit to anybody that I had ever been in it.
Now I view it as a big lesson in life, and a chance to help other people involved in control cults get themselves free and clear.
Now, I have no issue telling "worldly" people I was a JW. They can NEVER believe it. I'm so kewl, you know.
The difference between a fool and an idiot.
A fool believes a lie once, maybe twice. An idiot stays married to a lie or bad idea no matter what.
(this and other definitions can be found in the new abridged version of the "Alltimejeff Dicktionary")
Actually, "idiot" used to be a proper medical term complete with an IQ range in French psychology. It was considered to be the very lowest amoung such nomenclature as the cretin, the mongoloid, and the imbecile.
ahhh
Not ashamed, but regretful. I look at it like being in a relationship with an abusive man.....you get out and know better next time.
I was born in raised in also. I felt really foolish and angry at myself for staying as long as I did for several years after I left. I know it's not a total waste on some level, but it feels like a total waste. Somehow I didn't think I could make it if I left the "troof," at least that's what they tell you.
I realize I didn't have the cajones to leave earlier, and have had to work hard at accepting responsibility for it and move forward. It's taken awhile, but I think I've moved into a different phase. I actually like telling people about the cult now and emphasizing the shunning and loss of virtually 99% of everything and everyone you knew, including family and lifelong friends. I want them to know this special feature of JW's and hope they ask the next one they see about it.
I was born in,and it took me 58 years to finally walk away, I had woken up in stages before that.
I never swallowed the whole thing, I questioned a lot, and rejected a lot from an early age.
I was always ashamed to admit I was a Witness, I told as few people as posssible, I was always aware of how wacky it all seeemed to normal people.
I have only recently felt able to tell people of my past.
The Poet Phillip Larkin put it well ,and Mods I quote HIS words, "They fuck you up. your Parents ......."
Love
Wobble
I always felt foolish when I was a witless. It embarrassed me in those ackward situations where friends and coworkers discovered I was a witness.
Now that I am out, I am very open discussing my past. Most co-workers and friends know I grew up a witness. I have many many stories that can keep people entertained for hours. I make use of these stories, sometimes for sympathy, and sometimes just for laughs.
If it makes anybody feel any better about things - did you know that the great and famous mathematician Kurt Godel was so totally crazy that he believed there were "poison gasses" coming from his refrigerator? He was pretty much a psycho dependent on his older girlfriend Adele- an Austrian ex-exotic dancer. She practically had to spoon feed him (tasting everything herself first to prove it had not been poisoned).
When she died, his friend Albert Einstein took over the job of watch keeper. When Einstein died, Godel actually starved himself to death within a few weeks because he refused to eat.
Some pretty smart people can get deluded into some very dumb things...we are not alone in this.
