Great post thanks
For those still trapped in the cult, be careful with your sanity
by TastingFreedom 18 Replies latest jw friends
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easyreader1970
I'm still trapped as I don't want my immediate family (wife, two sons, daughter, mother) ripped to pieces. When I was 22 I tried to leave. I wrote my parents a letter. I was guilted into returning by my crying mother, whom I love dearly. She didn't convince me that any of it was true, just that I couldn't stomach living without my mother.
Nearly 20 years later with a wife and kids, I want even less for those relationships to be destroyed. I am already sick to my stomach with stress, anger, frustration, and often depression. The thought of being separated, even on a limited basis, from my kids is also stressful. I hate my life because either option is a disgusting one.
And I know that the GB says that it's wrong for a wife to divorce a husband, but I guarantee that she has no qualms about a "separation" because of "spiritual endangerment", which the GB supports wholeheartedly. And for those people who say I could file for custody, I have no chance of that given that I have no support system outside of family members (hers and mine) in the Watchtower.
So I sit here. In pain, even now. I have constant stomach/intestinal trouble and I have been having it for the past eight years. Only now it has gotten worse. I've been to the doctor several times, but the best guess they can come up with is IBS. I knew what it was; I just wanted some medication for it. But their drugs don't work.
I have to go to the meeting tonight and I am dreading it.
I salute you who have been brave enough to accept your losses and escape. I am not quite able to accept mine.
Torment and agony is what the future has in store for me.
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GrandmaJones
Great post, and great comments. I don't want to change the topic of this thread, but I wish that easy reader would start his own. Perhaps others have ideas to help. I am worried for you EasyReader.
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troubled mind
This is a wonderful post ,THANK YOU for putting into words how I think many of us felt . I know my experience was very much the same as you wrote . One day I just felt if I didn't DO something quick to relieve the pressure that I was going to explode . It was not an easy choice and it has taken me five yrs to re-build a sense of SELF , but it is SO worth the time and effort .
I enjoy my life now ....I don't have the ever looming dread hanging over me i use to feel . On Saturday mornings I awaken with a smile knowing I can spend this day any way I want . No longer am I forced into spending the morning driving around the country side with a car group of whiners/gossipers trying to find someone at home to talk to us .
The stress and anxiety in my face is now gone replaced with a smile . It just feels so good to be really happy after all these years ...
I hope lurkers will read this thread and find the courage to take the first step out for their freedom ,leave the fear behind . Start today .
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TastingFreedom
@Hopscotch: Thanks for adding more insight, great points. As an elder I saw this many times. The more desperate you get knowing that something is wrong, the more you think it has to do with you. The more uncomfortable you get (or spiritually sick), the more you try to do for Jehovah by serving as a pioneer, elder, MS, etc... Then you go to the Kingdom hall and you see all the happy faces, and you wonder:"what is wrong with me?". Of course, you don't think it's fake, you think everybody else is truly happy; unless you're an elder, then you know what happens behind the curtains, it's only a f açade, or a front for everybody, but you know how miserable and hypocritical they are.
I thought your comments also go a long way to explain the number of cases of depression, nervous breakdowns, alcoholism, paranoia disorders etc that seem to be rampant within the congregations of JWs. I have personally witnessed many cases of mental health breakdowns in the congregations I was in for the last 10/15 years or so as a JW - including some in my own JW family.
And what I feel adds even more to these mental health problems is constantly being told that JWs are the 'happiest people on earth' and that they are in a 'spiritual paradise'. So when someone does start to feel depressed their cult training leads them to believe that it is they who have a problem and that maybe they are not doing enough. So this guilt and the stress caused by trying to do more only adds to this downward spiral into fullblown depression/breakdown/alcoholism.
The people that are trapped will develop double personality disorders, the cult identity and the real identity, but will have trouble reconciling the two identities. They may start having a secret life as a way to cope with the anxiety, basically not being true to themselves, but this affects their self-steem and sense of integrity about themselves.
The people that manage to get out of the Jehovah's Witnesses or get DF'ed reached the breaking point of sanity, whether they realize it or not. They could no longer continue with the lie, or got fed up with it, and could no longer cope with something that felt unnatural and unhealthy. It may get to the point, where active members will subconsciously sin to get kicked out on purpose, as way of self-survival mechanism because of the constant suffering and misery experienced.
Many still trapped inside could develop obsessive compulsive disorders as a way to cope with the constant stress.
That's why I say, the sooner you get out, the better you are. You cut your losses short and move on, rather than keep losing with no hope in store.
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Broken Promises
Fantastic post/s
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TastingFreedom
btt
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letsslatejws
Im free in so much that Ive become quite a good fader with my hubby ... We have managed to go no meetings in over a year now, but still have the JW's frequenting our door to encourage us back :( I want this to stop, but then to say so, we know this will set the wheels in motion of questions & it will get back to the rest of the JW family. Yet I say to myself I dont care what the family think anymore (but clearly I do)....
Difficult choices.... I just want to live the rest of our life doing as we please, (nothing crazy just normal) but how can we do that when we have the JW's frequenting our door so as to breath down our necks !
Answers on a postcard please :z
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TastingFreedom
letsslatejws, I suggest you ignore their calls and you simply stop opening the door. They will eventually get tired, and hopefully get the message that you want nothing to do with them. Good luck!