Is youth a time for anger and cults?

by gubberningbody 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  gubberningbody

  I'm 26 years older than I was when I got started as a JW. I was a hurt and angry young man who wanted a world that was a better place, a place where it was ok to be ok and not the same. I think maybe my anger and hurt helped to blind me from how angry and hurt everyone in the world really is and was and will be and perhaps this is one more reason the idea of a paradise following swiftly on the deaths of billions was not so much a trouble for my self-absorbed mind.

  I wanted to believe and I convinced myself.
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  poor places

  I kind of know what you mean. Armageddon is definitely easier to accept when your'e a kid. That's when all the bad people dying makes sense, because when you're young you believe that it's possible to label people as good and bad. In my case, I've found it hard to tell the difference between good and bad when talking about people. There's usually bad circumstances behind the "bad people" and vice versa.
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  cantleave

  Anyone feeling discontented, vulnerable, or possessing low self esteem is cult fodder.
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  LittleSister

  The sad thing is that youth should be a golden time that you look back on with a smile and a wicked glint in your eye.

  You were not angry because you were young, but because of what may have been happening in your life at that time. Angry is not the exclusive right of youth nor is vulnerability to cult indoctrination it can happen at any age. Otherwise the cong's would be full of young people instead of the elderly and grey haired.
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  gubberningbody

  I never remember being carefree as a child. My first memories were when I was 3-4 and I would wake up my parents because of my dream realization. I was trying to explain to them that everyone was dying. "Mommy, daddy! Everyone is dying. I'm dying you're dying, Mary's dying. Everyone's acting like it's all ok but it isn't!" is what was I was trying to say, but my dad would get out of bed and walk me up and down the street in my pj's outside the house until I calmed down, and then he'd send me back to bed. The next night it would happen again . I remember taking a knife from the kitchen and placing it at the point of where my heart was and thinking how easy it would be to die, just one shove in would be all it took. I took all the knives and hid them up above the refrigerator because I was afraid I'd kill myself while I was sleepwalking. My parents got tired of worrying about my wandering and would lock me in my room at night.

  Time seemed to go really fast and death seemed to be running at me fast like a runaway freight train.

  This singular problem of mortality has been the one thought that has been in my head as the underlying mantra my whole life.

  I thought I'd found the answer and I was wrong. Right now the panicky feeling is gone, but I'm sure it will return again.
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  LittleSister

  Sweety you need professional help!!!

  All of us realise at some point that we are mortal and will die, but your reaction from an early age seem extreme and only through therapy will you get to the bottom of why you feel the way you do.

  Just because what you believed has proved to be wrong doesn't mean you’re back to square one it just means there is more to learn and different possible answers to explore.

  Don't become so afraid of death that you become frightened to live.
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  VoidEater

  Yes.