by mamalove 43 Replies latest jw friends
It is just human nature to gossip. Vicious gossip and nasty backbiting can be found in any close knit social circle. However, I do think that as exJWs we suffer so much psychological and emotional damage that the verbal attacks just add to an already festering wound.
It's not pretty or very fun but it does get easier to take as time goes on.
I'm sorry that happened to you. I know how you feel.
'Wayyyy worse at the KH! After I left it was said that I went to Brazil with a man I met on the internet, that my youngest daughter had been living on the streets and had a child before she was 15, that I had abused my children in secret for years....blah blah.... At the time I was in shock that my "friends" would even listen to such things about me, then I discovered it didn't start with my friends, it started with my JW family!
Whether you believe in the Bible or not I ask you to consider the story of Job. He tried to tell people that he hadn't done what they thought he did and what good did it do him? Let it go. Roll your eyes and wonder what sane person could believe the slanderous things being said about you and what kind of person would make the things up, then get your thoughts back to whatever it is you're doing with your life now and don't let any of the idiocy slow you down or sidetrack you. That's all they want is to get you off course 'cause if you can make it without WT in your life they'll all be proven to be the "sheeple" they are. You've got gumption...you're trying to figure things out. And they have.....stories???
It took me years to stop hurting but now I'm past the pain. Where are they? Still gossiping about the same old stuff they were years ago!
I just want to second what BroDan said - I enjoy reading your posts, MamaLove, and I'm sure you're just as lovely in person.
If it makes you feel better, you could confront this "sister" (I would prefer to use another noun) and let her know that you won't put up with being slandered. But it's up to you.
Those who are your true friends know you're not a horrible person.
I was thinking more about this post and decided that it really is worse if you are a JW. If you aren't a JW, normal things in life don't cause you to gossip. Like if you went and saw an R rated movie, or went to a resturant for your birthday to get a free meal, or have a BF/GF that is not a JW, or sex before marriage, or swear, etc. There are so many little JW rules that you can break that give people more to gossip about that a non JW might not care about it.
NLW's wife
I feel really out of place around those who insist on spreading gossip. First, it's such a dirty feeling to hear about somebody else's private problems. If they wanted me to know, they could tell me! Second, in line with what Palmtree said, I can't help but wonder what the gossip will be saying about me when I'm not around. Yet they wonder why I refuse to "open up" to them!
People naturally gossip, and sometimes this turns to slander. It does happen even in the world, as people slander others to get an advantage for themselves. And gossip is about as normal as social interaction--not always harmful gossip, just idle talk about others.
However, the witlesses are so judgmental of each other that every little thing becomes a topic for gossip. You listen to one rap song, they are so self righteous that they blab it to the whole congregation and they look down on you for one rap song. You miss a boasting session, and pretty soon everyone assumes you are some sleaze ball. Beyond that, they need to cut everyone else down for the few "privileges(??)" the witlesses offer. Hence, they make things up. "This person doesn't qualify to clean the toilets because they have invested 15 ounces of silver instead of putting the money into the Worldwide Pedophile Defense Fund and trusting in Jehovah" becomes common. This is because everyone wants that [dis]honor of scrubbing the toilets, and will discredit others to get that [dis]honor.
I remember as a kid JW back in the 1950s riding in the back seat of my mother's car and going out in service. There were always a couple of other sisters, usually one was an "Elderette," although they didn't call them that in those days, that always had some fresh gossip to share. I think they just ignored me because they thought I was too young to know what they were talking about.
I remember when a young JW couple had just been married. On their way back right after their wedding in some distant city, the plane they were in crashed and both were killed. We all went to the funeral - it was so sad.
So I'm riding in the backseat and one of these sisters leans back over the front seat (they didn't have headrests in those days) and starts sharing with everyone that she heard that the young bride was "supposedly pregnant" when she got married. She wondered if this wasn't Jehovah's punishment for them having premarital sex. I just looked out the window with a dumb stare, but I was seething inside. How could she say such a thing about someone who just died?
On other occasions she'd share stories about JWs in nearby Kingdom Halls, why the Circuit Servant was replaced, and rumors that our KH piano player, a single man in his 30s was a HOMOSEXUAL!!! Not that he was practicing anything, but has anyone else noticed that he is 35 and doesn't have a girlfriend? That kind of crap. My mom just drove the car and never joined in, but I could tell that she was both fascinated and disgusted by what the other sisters were gossiping about.
JV
Gossip is very much accentuated in a small community - this from having grown up in a small and quite isolated place!
The JWs, being only a small - not to mention rather exclusive - minority, form what is in effect a small community.
As such, they are no more or no less prone to engage in gossip than members of any other small community.
Bill.
JWs are no different to anyone else when it comes to gossip
except for the fact that they portray themselves as being of the elite righteous of the earth.
its one thing for a person to be a gossip and another for a person to claim to be above it and still do it.
they are worse than a gossiper, as the above post says: they are hypocrites.
oz
there is no doubt about it , you will not find a worse bunch of people or group then Dubs for gossiping/slandering/bitching/gutter sniping then these people,the bubble they surround themselves of just immediate Dubs from a locality makes them this way,shocking people
