You Can Overcome WT Phobias! (page 2)

mindmelda

Thanks for that. I struggled for years with all of these, and still have some anxiety issues occasionally.

Stuff I've learned in 7 years of being away from WT brainwashing:

1. It's normal and healthy to doubt..all people indulge in it freely and it's healthy. It's like diet soda, don't feel guilty.

2. Leaving the organization isn't as hard as leaving family still in it behind...it's just a bunch of old suits running a corporation. Imagine them in their underwear (if you have a strong stomach), if it helps. And they're the bastards for breaking up your family, not you for leaving something causing you pain and unhappiness.

3. Success feels great! The goals that I was taught were evil and unrewarding compared to peddling WT literature are the most fulfilling things I've ever done, in my case, writing what was always in my imagination. Thousands read my stories online and love them..now if I could only make money at it! But, I'm doing what I love.

4. "Worldly" people have helped me when I was down, given me money without demanding repayment, given me succor, love, encouragement, healing, advice, love, and everything I was told I would only get from Witnesses. Except I never got that from Witnesses most of the time, and none of it without strings attached. Everything I got from the Witnesses was held hostage by their requirements of complete belief and servitude.

5. I live in libraries now. I'm learning everything I was forbidden to learn as a Witness. I've been an astrologer for 7 years, for instance, have gotten quite good at it. And guess what, even if that's not your thing or you think it's crap, I love it and no lightening has struck me from heaven.

6. The devil is the biggest joke ever. If he does exist, well...I'm not scared of him at all. He can't be any worse than Jehovah, I think he's killed far fewer people and he's a lot more fun. Jehovah is the austere and scary god of a Bronze Age people trying to survive in harsh conditions...of course he's a big dickhead. He's like the Chuck Norris of gods...rough, tough and takes no shit off anyone, and if they get in his face, he kicks their ass into eternal ass kicking

7. I have more friends now than I ever did as a Witness and I don't have to constantly censor myself. What a relief!

8. I'd be proud to be an apostate if I could get them to DF me, but I'd have to go back to meetings for that, and NO WAY! LOL Seriously, apostates are the bravest people I know. The got OUT OF LIVING HELL! Give them a round of applause.

9. God schmod. If there is a God, he'd better love me the way I am...he made me this way. Too many conditions on Witness "salvation" if one can call it that. It's just emotional arm twisting and never feeling good enough. I can get that from my mother, don't need God.

10. Armageddon? I'm more afraid of the Zombie Apocalypse! I'm stocking up on shotguns, beer and chips, plenty of boards and nails and some baseball bats.

11. I love other religions now, unless they are being douchebags about it. I love being able to walk into a church or a synagogue or a mosque or a Wiccan coven and feeling completely comfortable. I'm very ecumenical, I think all people who are spiritual are great.

I have a lot of spiritual friends from all walks, atheists, agnostics, Catholics, shamens, Wiccans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Muslim, animists, astrologers, Buddhists, Ba'hai, Jewish.

I want to know it all..there's wisdom everywhere of the spiritual sort, and what I found is we're all wanting the same things, and trying to find the same things, want to know the same answers to the same questions.

I'd rather look together than waste time fighting about it.

Lozhasleft

Excellent info LWT.

Loz x

ambersun

Excellent topic. Even after 20 years I still have occasions when I find myself faced with irrational fears caused by all the mind control sessions I used to attend. This site has helped a lot!!

Crisis of Conscience

Thanks for highlighting these points LWT. They give me a lot to think about.
I'm glad to say that with some of these things I've made some progress....and have cut way back on the JW fear factor.

CoC

Lunatic Faith

Fear of close friendships

A sad feature of JW relationships is the encouragement by the leadership to spy on one's brothers, and if anything is unbecoming in their lives, they are to be confronted or turned in to the elders, or both (usually it is simultaneous). There is a "pecking order" in the organization, with the Governing Body on top, followed by Bethel workers and Circuit and District overseers, then the local elders, then the pioneers and ministerial servants, and the "publishers" on the bottom (women being least favored). Since confidences cannot officially be kept, and personal struggles admitted only at great risk of being chastised or "counseled," Witnesses cannot confide in their own, but ironically turn to non-Witnesses for confidences.

This was the one that started the fade on my hubby and I. We got so tired of trying to be friends with ones in the congregation and meeting constant barriers. Everyone at the Kingdom Hall, who had any privileges, were all so two-dimensional. They seemed literally afraid of revealing too much about themselves. The only ones we found to be genuine were the ones on the outside-looking-in. You know, the weak publishers who weren't viewed as superior christians. When I think how JW's are actually undermining their own organization with this pseudo-socialist/deep throat informant culture it makes me glad I'm not there anymore trying to scratch the surface of plastic people.

troubled mind

Lunatic Faith ,I have to say I love your posts . I think your observations are spot on .

Lunatic Faith

Thank you Troubled mind. And I owe it all to the 30+ years training in the theocratic ministry school

Ding

JWs are taught to believe that all doubt of the organization comes from the devil.

But God can also be the author of doubt.

If you never doubt what you have been taught, how can you fulfill your responsibility to "make sure of all things; hold fast to that which is fine" (1 Thess. 5:21)?

Weren't the Bereans more noble than those in Thessalonica (Acts 17:11) because they checked out everything Paul ("God's organization") said rather than meekly accepting it as "new light" without questioning and investigating it?

flipper

LEAVING WT- Excellent thread ! Thanks for posting. Bump this baby to the top ! BTTT, Peace out, Mr. Flipper

ClubSandwich

A very good post on the problems exJWs have after leaving. I am writing a sequel to my first book, Growing Up in Mama's Club, where I identify Seventeen Ghosts that may haunt a person after leaving the WT. I use ghosts as a metaphor for dysfunctional behavior patterns, residue from time spent in a highly-controlled religious group. I found the correlation to your phobias very interesting.

You Can Overcome WT Phobias!

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