I understand how difficult it can be to leave the JW religion. Some even feel that they need therapy to deal with it. How many here have seen a therapist as a result of the JW's? If you have, or are currently seeing a therapist, has it helped?
Therapy
by MrFreeze 19 Replies latest jw experiences
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Nice_Dream
I have, but she didn't know too much about witnesses, so it didn't help that much. But I keep meaning to see another one who understands controlling religion a bit better. Sometimes I feel like I've opened Pandora's box or something, and I have a difficult time realizing this life may very well be all there is...and I've wasted so much of it. I guess I just need help moving forward by myself, as my husband isn't in or out of the religion.
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JuanMiguel
I had just a brief amount of therapy--three sessions--while still inside the Jehovah's Witnesses. It helped me make that step outside and not look back. That was in 1997.
It also helped me realize that there were specific reasons as to why I didn't fit in while I was there, why I was leaving, and it helped me to understand how to use these realizations in practical ways to help with the exit process.
I came to understand that I was showing signs of something called "extreme emotional compartmentalization." While to a degree all persons have to compartmentalize certain facets of life in various ways as called for in certain situations (i.e., taking up a "survival mode" to get through a race or tragedy), these usually ease back into their proper places once the situation has passed.
But for some persons this need to compartmentalize things to extremes is necessary to live ("needing to know why bad things happen to good people," "exactly what happens at death," "understand complex mysteries others can't answer," etc.). The religion of Jehovah's Witnesses appeals to people like this because it is a radical form of subscribing to a philosophy or religion--one that appeases the ego instead of encouraging a spiritual or non-carnal side for living. Because some people need to believe they cannot be in the wrong religion or cannot deal with having anything but the best philosophy or outlook, they adopt or enter systems that reinforce this need by "filling" it--when most of these things can't be filled anyway.
That is why many of us are ex-JWs. While we may have had some compartmentalization tendencies or even have dripped with it, eventually these settled back down to normal. Some people, like me, didn't have them to begin with, and when they began to try to settle in--as therapy showed--a conflict of conscience started.
According to the theory, the religion of JWs is not based on a certain doctrine whatsoever. It once was, in the time of its beginnings, but it eventually became centralized around the idea of being the "one true faith" through which God speaks.
While some JWs may challenge other faiths or philosophies with claiming the same thing, these other types generally do not offer answers to all life's problems as the JWs do. The great religions embrace mystery, unknowing, contemplative states that go beyond human reasoning, etc. That's why they practice meditative prayer, chant, etc. And they often embrace the idea that though their faith or philosophy is true, it has a universal quality of saving or including others outside of it to the benefit of even those who do not practice it.
Mystery and the mystical are not allowed in compartmentalization, as they do not produce definitive answers. This explains in part why the religion of the JW is devoid of them. Religious texts or the words of authorities become "proof texts" for "debating" with non-believers/non-practicers. These texts become all-answer books for the adherents.
But interpretation of these texts or comments is secondary to keeping the illusion of "knowing it all" intact. If a doctrine is proven wrong, this does not matter. Nothing outside the group enables those who need to compartmentalize into 'good' and 'evil' in the satisfying way that their current group does for them. Thus nothing outside that does not enable them in the same manner can never be accepted as "true." Their enabling factor or group thus remains "The Truth," even when incorrect about things it teaches, and a powerful denial of anything that can shatter this "reality" develops.
This is why we are met with an unresponsive indifference when we preach doctrine to many JWs, regardless of the proof offered. For most of these, it's not about doctrine. Those can change. It's about feeding a need to have the truth or be right all the time, and having a connection to their enabler or enabling factor--in this case the religion of the Watchtower.
That's also why some of these people leave the JWs but still act the same way when they find something new--another group or a new philosophy--and they begin the process all over again. Often--not 100% of the time however--it is the type of person, not the religion. It's that need to have answers to help them put things into "acceptable" and "unacceptable," to have no gray areas, to be right all the time. This type of person can even adopt atheism after leaving the JWs, but their characteristic of having "the only right answer" once again remains.
And you can also turn into this type of person if you stay too long, if you become dependent on the approval of the group for self-esteem and/or identity. This was beginning to happen to me, but I was innately too "proud" to let this happen, you might say. This caused a chain reaction of "not wanting to play ball" anymore with the group. It no longer mattered what they did. I could no longer identify with them, and there had been so many changes in doctrines that they were no longer the religion that appealed to me and I had agreed to join in the first place. Most of my cherished beliefs had been disposed of as easily as they disposed of apostates and "worldly ones."
Essentially the religion they had offered to me they suddenly took away and nullified. It was all over, and I was feeling the after-effects, like a dog that had been chasing a car for a long time. Then suddenly the car stopped and I was out of my dream state and left wondering: How did I get this far away from home?
Not everyone's story, but it can be helpful when you are not aware of what is happening to the mind and how self-worth and the way we view ourselves can be warped if we become dependent on an organization that depends on us loosing our claim to ourselves... So speaking to a therapist or just getting a "mental checkup" (and yes, they do exist) can be helpful.
...and what really stuck with me was that how in those last years my belonging to the JW wasn't even about doctrine anymore. I was beginning to defend this group regardless of what bill of goods it had to push today, even if I had never even seen or tested the product as I had at the start. Incredible!
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Violia
I really enjoyed reading what you wrote . I am glad you were able to see the need to see a therapist. The problem with so many of us born-ins is we never can really think this clearly until they hurt us or take everything away from us. I know for me it was that way. I could not make a move until they had so throughly rejected me that I had no where else to turn . Even then, I was still willing to suffer personal indigintes b/c it was "the truth". It took about 2 years of therapy before I was able to begin think on my own- to ask myslelf how I felt -not what jws believed. What an amazing day that was.
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MrFreeze
Thank you Juan. Your comment means a lot and has certainly given me some things to think about.
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brotherdan
I guess I just need help moving forward by myself, as my husband isn't in or out of the religion.
I wish more people knew about your situation, Nice Dream. You are such a sweet person, and you have a lot to deal with. But I think you keep it inside too much. Just spill it out. It helps...
This site is my therapy sometimes. I've been to other therapy for this, but yeah, it's hard to find a therapist that understands...
(Saying therapist reminds me of this SNL clip)
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Liv2Share
I've been out of the JW's for 16 years now. I was born and raised in the "truth" and was disfellowshipped when I was 22. When I left it wasn't because I didn't believe it, but because I was so unhappy I simply had to change something in my life. Basically I was committing spiritual suicide instead of a physical one. When I left I closed the door on my JW upbringing and rarely spoke or thought of it. I started drinking and partying w/ "worldly" people which made it easy to make friends. For years this wasn't out of control for me and I outwardly had a really good life. Inside though, I always felt something was wrong with me and had suffered with depression for as long as I could remember. I just figured I was born with a chemical imbalance or something and I would be this way for the rest of my life.
Off and on over the years I'd seen therapists and felt I had basically gotten as far as I could possibly go in healing myself and working on my depression. Two and a half years ago I decided to quit drinking and started seeing a new therapist. Besides the normal talk therapy I was accustomed to, she also offered EMDR therapy. (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) It's hard to explain, but it alternatively stimulates the left & right side of the brain. One side of our brains is thinking and the other is feeling. Initially the therapist had me make a list of about 10 things that I considered extremely painful times in my life and we've worked on them one by one. The therapist asks me to rate on a scale of 1-10 how upset this makes me feel. Then she asks me to think about this thing while the alternating stimulation is occurring. She stops it after a short time and has me briefly share what I was thinking. After perhaps 3-10 of these mini sessions she'll ask me again to rate from 1-10 how upset I feel. Typically it had decreased by 3-4! Each of these therapy sessions feels comparable to about 4 talk therapy session. It's that powerfully.
At the beginning my therapist said that with this therapy I should get to a point where I won't even need to see her again. I'd never heard that before! A year ago we both thought that I was basically done with this therapy when stuff about being raised as a JW came to forefront. I was very surprised by this because I didn't think I had a problem with it and that overall I'd had a good childhood. Certainly plenty of my friends have had worse. But basically I had never deprogrammed what I'd been indoctrinated with from infancy on. I'd never examined my core beliefs and even determined what I wanted for myself from life. As a JW, for me at least, I was just existing until God brought something better. I didn't need to plan for a career, retirement, and even having a family wasn't an ideal JW thing to do. I was told I would never graduate high school. In school I was miserable, I isolated myself from everyone, expecting every one I knew (besides JWs) to be destroyed at any moment. I was teased constantly by the kids and that was considered acceptable to me because thats what happens to Jehovahs faithful servants. Also having been disfellowshipped I have nearly no contact with the people who served as my family until I was 22. This is not normal and I now realize I was very traumatized by this. I had accepted it as part of my decision to move on. For many years I didn't ever think about anything religious or spiritual, but deep in the back of my mind was this thought that at any moment I might be zapped by god. As I got older I realized that the prophecies of the JW's weren't coming true and I relaxed somewhat. The EMDR helped me to first of all realize that these things were upsetting to me and that these religious beliefs had caused my depression since childhood. I was able to overcome the fearful programing to not look at "apostate" information which I didn't even realize I had. When I finally started looking at what others were saying it quickly freed me from those lingering doubts and fears. It's so incredible!!!
I finally am clear and free inside my own mind & heart! All of this from this EMDR therapy. I had to do a lot of work along the way, but whats so cool about it is that my therapist didn't have to know anything about JWs to help me! To me, theres nothing weeby jeeby about this type of therapy because all of the understanding and clarity on this JW stuff was generated within my own mind, I found my own way free of this stuff! Sorry to have gone on and on but I honestly feel I will never sink back into another deep depression again. I know realistically life has its ups and downs and I'll have to deal with that, but I feel ready to face life and live it and feel I will have a quality of life like I've never known before. I would love to help other people to gain what I have gained!
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OnTheWayOut
How many here have seen a therapist as a result of the JW's?
I think for me, the question would be "How many did not see a therapist as a result of the JW's, and finally got to a therapist?"
I needed a therapist 20+ years ago and didn't go, because I had Jehovah and Jehovah gave me a higher purpose. Besides, the end was so close. Any deep-seated problems I had would be corrected in the new system. I finally went about 3 years ago- still going.
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MrFreeze
OTWO, is it helping? I'm just curious because I've been feeling kind of depressed lately. It seems to be all combining, not just leaving the JW's a few months ago but other things going on in my life and things that have happened in the past. With my health insurance I'm supposed to get several free therapy sessions and I thought about going but I'm wondering if it's really worth it. Is it really depression I'm facing or is it something that will pass with a little time? If I see from what all of your responses are, I can decide whether or not it's even worth it to go through with it or to just wait it out.
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AudeSapere
JuanMiguel wrote: I had just a brief amount of therapy--three sessions--
You got ALOT of insight in those 3 sessions. Extremely insightful. Thanks for sharing~!!
btw - Welcome to JWN. I just found a few of your posts today and really enjoyed your thoughtful comments.
-Aude.