by mankkeli 20 Replies latest jw friends
I am wondering if it is possible to completely forget our JW experience after a long time, and live life as if we have never been one. No memories, no bitterness, no meeting up with ex-members, nothing connected to the JWs in our feelings.
Is this ever possible, could it ever happen, and how long possibly.
Electrodes may help
taking strong drugs or heavy drinking might be beneficial to accomplish this.
The JW experience made me who I am today. Just because some of the links on the chain of my life are rusty doesn't mean that removing them wouldn't break the chain entirely. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger if we let it, imo.
-Sab
Children that were abused, women or men that were raped, never completely forget that experience. It may fade to some degree. Having been a jw and an abused child, I can say it fades, but you never forget.
I don't think it is possible. If you were a witness for more than 3 minutes, the experience affected you. It got assimilated somewhere in your psyche or personality. I 100% DO believe you can get over the experience and not let it affect you negatively, even if negative things happened to you.
I wish..
Those of us who were raised in the WBT$/JW Cult,are screwed..
.................;-)...OUTLAW
The physical connections slowly fade and eventually dissappear. Any XJW friends that remain are friends for reasons other than being XJW. The emotional responses (anger, resentment, betrayal etc) also fade to non-existent.
But the memory? . . . no, never. Who can destroy a memory?
Like an unhappy childhood or marriage, dont you think the pain becomes less keen?
Eventually you can look back without anger or pain. Rather like the spouse who accepts the other is a cheat, and over the years there "will be a little less hurt and a little less love " ("Valley of the Dolls" - Jacqueline Suzanne)
How can you leave forty years ago and then blame somebody else for your current problems?
Unless you were physically maimed most can get over these kind of things, unless there is already another underlying problem.
And do we lose a part of ourselves by amputating the past, denying where we came from?
I ask this all the time, every time I make a new friend, but dont share my past on this one thing.. Not just because I am sick of rehearsing why I am no longer, but I dont want to be viewed as an EX screwball.
I am not EX anything. I am my own person now, and choose what to share.
HB
I think it would depend upon several things related to the experience, dear mankkeli (peace to you!), including, but not necessarily limited to:
1. The nature (good or bad)
2. The length (bible study for a few months vs. an full-fledged baptized publisher for a number of years)
3. The time of onset of that experience/indoctrination (as an infant/child vs. an adult)
4. Family/friends' experiences (particularly if they are still in... had a bad time of it when they were... were elders/Bethelites, etc.)
5. Where you are with your life now (what you are/are not doing NOW)
All of these, and perhaps some other factors, can dictate what you will remember, if anything... and to what extent. But you CAN choose how much you will LET any of these effect you... including your memories AND your future. You see all bad, if you choose... as well as choose to let doing so effect you and your life negatively. You can choose to see all bad... and, yet, choose NOT to let it have a negative effect. You can choose to see all GOOD, too, if you so wish.
Or... you can be truly realistic and ALLOW yourself to see BOTH.. the bad AND the good (and there is some of both, although not necessarily in equal proportions)... and then CHOOSE what effect you're going to let EITHER have.
If you've truly left the WTBTS... then your life is yours. And you can do whatever you wish with it. Even give it to another. If, though, your life is still NOT yours... to do with as YOU wish... then you have not truly left. Not TRULY. Sure, your body may have left, but some part of you... some part of your HEART... still remains with them... and so, in their control. Thus, some part, if not all, of your BODY still remains with them, too. Because that is how they still dictate TO you... what you can and cannot do.
Again, peace to you!
A slave of Christ,
SA
