I believe that loneliness, when we embrace it, brings the gift of a sense of self.
Shunning doesn't seem to be about loneliness to me, although I can appreciate that can be one of the emotions it evokes. (I can be surrounded by people and feel lonely.) Shunning seems to me to be about SHAME. It's a political thing, a war thing, an emotionally manipulative thing, a control measure. Employed by very fearful, angry, and sometimes arrogant, and often ignorant people.
As far as I can currently see, every group does it to someone for whatever reasons they find hip or trendy at the time. Even we as individuals "draw lines" and "set boundaries", do we not? So I guess I view being shunned by the JWs as THEIR weakness, not mine, and as a measure that protects me from THEIR abuses, not them from mine, since I was not abusive to them, I was honest with them, and since I felt mainly relief upon the demise of my relationship with them. Kind of backfired in my case, I guess.
That said, I find the level of shunning to the degree that the JWs do it to be quite "up there", abusively/manipulatively speaking. It angers me that they have no qualms justifying their interference with not only my life, but my family's life. It angers me that they PRESUME to speak for GAWD!? I'm also angry that some in my family rationalize hiding behind laws, rather than having a heart. Their modes of so-called "spiritual warfare" do seem bloodthirsty and primitive, at best, to me. I mean, I've been out for nearly ten years. A life sentence is mine all because some elder had a fit of self-righteous anger in the face of my honesty. It seems a pretty steep sentence. I do not think they comprehend the meaning of the word spirit. It's a crying shame. And yes, it's abusive.
Personally, if I were a Guy on the Fly in the Sky, busily salivating for millennia at the thought of wreaking vengeance on a Day of Judgment, I'd be a mite pissed that these jokers are prematurely usurping my position. And I'd certainly off them first, for their presumptuousness in thinking that they speak for me. Then again, maybe not. Sadistic as I would have to be to let things carry on as they do and allowing people as much pain and misery as they suffer, perhaps I would just be pleased. Nah, I think I'd prefer my lab rats to be in good health when I began. What fun is it to kill a person who's half-dead already?
Anyway, to me, alone is a circumstantial state of being. Not an emotion. The emotion of Loneliness, which brings the gift of a sense of self, can occur at any time or place, regardless of outside influences. The loneliest I ever felt, in my 20s, was when I was married and surrounded by a congregation of JWs that I believed in. But I didn't know myself that well back then. Not as a human sharing my nature with an entire species, or as an individual. I am lonely whenever I find myself surrounded by "right" fighters.
I rarely feel lonely when I'm alone. But I do feel pain when I am shamed. The pain doesn't always have the desired result of those attempting to manipulate me in that inhumane way. It is pain nevertheless. And they do succeed in their sadistic methods, in causing me pain, and losing my respect as managers of anything related to human nature.
But I enjoyed the quote about connection to community, etc, and the acknowledgement that our relationship with our emotions such as loneliness and desire (for connection for instance) can be impacted by such significant life transitions as an exit from JWism by way of shunning. I would add that shunning is a pretty severe response I myself have employed when I've reached my wits end, with someone like a stalker for instance. (Quite effectively too.) Do I expect stalkers to come running back and say, oh, by the way, your shunning taught me a lesson? No. So I'm not really clear on why the JWs expect their shunning to inflict the severest pain they can, to have such a response. It must work some of the time. But on me it just helped me see that they don't give a rat's ass about me and that I'm better off alone than with them. I can't imagine shunning my own child. Anyone that does it, is either a sociopath or an emotional masochist.
Group dynamics. Can't live with them, can't live without 'em. Same with intimacy. Same with intimacy.
