I am using this as my very own personal therapy session to express some of what has been swimming around in my head~
It may not take much shape, I'll be letting it flow...
There is nothing like feeling understood and accepted and loved for who you are. But that's a difficult thing to really feel when there is little or no history with a person. The religion still holds captive those who once resembled intimate friends.
I have since found a rare kindred spirit, a friend, but even that relationship has its definite challenges. There are a few close friends that have embraced me through it all, I have let them in.
There are quite a few friends that I care about, respect, love. Then there are acquaintances that I am friendly with but have no desire to really get to know.
But as much as I need to feel close to others and be a friend to them also, the only one who will ever truly understand the courage and strength it took to walk away from the religion and make it this far..is myself. We never know what is around the bend, whose hand we may hold. The only one you truly walk the journey the whole way through with is..yourself.
It feels like I will always be alone with the pieces of me that the religion has somehow altered. So I find myself coming to this forum, if only to ease that aloneness some. If only to relate to others in that way.
I feel like an intelligent person. I ponder and wonder. Observe and analyze. Question and take on different perspectives. Usually feel that I can comprehend abstract ideas and grasp what I am taking in. But in the JW culture I was born into, so much was hypothetical to me. So much of life was presented as too dangerous to experience, so not much of it did I actually touch myself. So I find that even though I can visualize, imagine, empathize with others, people can do the same with me, but cannot really relate to my lack of life experiences.
It seems many take for granted that at 35, raising two little ones, having lived in Las Vegas (aka 'Sin City') for most of my life, that surely I must have done this or that. It's so ironic. But many seem to sense something different about me also. And I'm fine withe that. There are many things I'm very glad to never have experienced. But it has also left me open and vulnerable.
I've been trying not to over-compensate for this by completely closing myself off, locking up my heart and throwing away the key. There has been pain, as I explore and figure out what I really want.. who I want in my life, what I enjoy, now that the whole world has been opened up to me. Lot's of soul-searching. Realizing how not-smart the WTBTS was all those years. Realizing that I can trust myself when 'left to my own devices'.
I like who I have become. I know i have been shaped by my past with the reliigon and other influences. But i choose every day the way I want to walk.
Sometimes it has to be quiet for a person to hear their own voice. So in the aloneness there has been healing.
It is a sadness that there is so much fear. But I keep going where I feel drawn and it is away from so much fear and towards living.
Sometimes I am like a bird flying into glass windows. Going into things I cannot see. Free and soaring.. and at times, crashing. And then having to let the wing heal. And it does heal.
There have been plenty of times that I've had a little faith in someone, and they showed me the most sincere kindness
There have been times that my intuition has told me I look like easy prey.
It's OK. I have found a peace with my being different. And I know I have as much a right as anyone to live and breathe.
I send out a hug and my love to anyone reading this, because I know there is a good chance that you also have had a huge part of your life stolen from you..and even with the best of intentions, we are left wounded.
How much do I owe you? Or is the first session free?
Thanks for listening.
Love,
Faerie