i hope this doesnt come out sounding self righteous or anything like that. but i have to say it. forgive me if it sounds like an attempt to...i dont know..gain sympathy or something like that...its not.
i have been here a lot over the past couple of months since i found out the truth about the truth. i've used this place as sort of a support system. reading posts, chatting with people, asking questions ect. i feel like you are all are friends. even the ones who i have never spoken to or who dont even know i exist. i still consider them friends because to me the site as a whole is what helps me...even the fluff. i have made friends here and hope to make more. this site has been very helpful to me and i've come to rely on it to get me through this. i dont really have anyone in my real life that i can talk to or go through it with so i consider this board like a family.
i have been rejected and thrown away like trash several times in my life. by my father at a young age for reason i cant explain right now, by the organization and thus by jehovah, by my closests friends in the world.
each one of these were crushing blows to me emotionally. all led me down a path of self destructive suicidal thinking. they were VERY hard times for me. i felt i wasnt good enough or worthy of anyones love. especially after being rejected by what i believed was God. each time i fell head first into a bottomless pit of depression and self hate. i hated myself for being me..a worthless unlovable lousy excuse for a human. these feelings of worthlessness, deep self hatred, suicide plans and attempts, self mutilation, eventually medication and hospitalization are pretty much all i had known in my life.
those feelings dont just go away especially when you have to face the rejection and hatred every day.
i had to face it at home..i cant remember the last time i had a general conversation with the father here...i was probably around 12 or 13 when he started to cut me off. by the time i was 16 he stopped most acknowledgement of my existance. this was before i was baptized. and it was only a couple years later he learned to walk right by me in the hallway as if i was invisible..this was before i was df'd. i felt sick inside each day that he was around and not acknowledging me. a part of me hated me a little more each time he reinforced the fact that i was not worthy of existance.
then i had to face it at the hall. i didnt fit in and wasnt worthy of friendship by anyone there. the more depressed i was the less i socialized with them and the less i did the more they treated me like i didnt exist. the more i was treated like i didnt exist the more i felt i was unworthy of existance. this was mostly before i was df'd and of course continued after i was df'd and trying to get back in.
i faced it at school. being a dub i didnt have school friends as a kid. but as i got junior high and high school i wanted to fit in and was willing to live a double life. i figured i would do what other kids did in school and lie about it when i got home and pretend to be a good little witness. other witnesses were doing it on a regular basis. but the more depressed i was about the home and kh situation the more i was a loner in school. the more i was a loner the more they treated me like i was invisible. like i didnt exist. the more i felt unworthy of the air i breathed.
i felt it every day from the god i believed in. the more depressed i felt the more i prayed and begged god to help me. i prayed for happiness. for just one person that i could just let the gaurd down and talk to about my feelings honestly. the more i prayed without results the more i felt i was unworthy of such things. unworthy of existance. how dare i even attempt to come before god with a request!
one of the most crushing blows was when i was rejected as an adult by close 'wordly' friends. for reasons i cant explain right now i was cut off with no warning by people who i loved dearly and who i felt loved me which is something no one had ever done. the reasons for the shunning is complicated but it goes back to the borg. but anyway it took me a good year and a half before i was able to think of those people without pain. i truly felt unworthy of love because these were a couple of the nicest people in the world as far as i was concerned. if they rejected me then i was most definately not worthy of love or air.
so i had a child that i wanted to raise the best i could and the happiest i could. so after my release from hospitalizaion april of 00, with the exception of a few down periods, i learned to mask these feelings and keep them bottled so that on the surface i can be ok enough to take care of and love and raise my son. i took meds occasionally that gave me a superficial feeling of being ok. never happy or even positive but ok to the point that i could work again and care for my son. even though i didnt think of it often, in the back of my head i always figured one day if i could get myself together enough to move away and go back to the org in a new congregation and try again. but i didnt live my life that way. i wanted my son to have a few happy years in case of armageddon so i was secretly living like a non witness.
this is where i was in life on dec 24 01 when i was sitting here depressed about not having christmas with my son like i planned on because i couldnt afford to move out like i wanted and came across an xjw chat room (not this one).
i am telling ya'll this because it seems all the people here are in different stages of recovery..some are even fully recovered i guess. but i am for all intents and purposes just starting out this journey. even though i faded away from the org and was eventually df'd i was still a mental prisoner. i still believed it all until recently.
so i have a lot of work to do to undo the emotional damage that was done over all those years. that first day of realizing that there were xjws and that the society wasnt real was so freeing that i thought that all the pain and psychological damage would just go away. but it will take time to rid myself of the thoughts i used to have. i have finally made a therapy appointment because i realize its not going to be possible without help.
the reason i started writing this was to ask that you please not reject me here like others in my life have done. i know that i have said some things here that were taken as hurtful to different ones. but i really am not a hurtful person and i would never delibrately hurt anyone here. so if you are offended by something i said the way a couple of people earlier today and earlier tonight and earlier this month were, please know that i really didnt do or say whatever it was to be hurtful. i never would. if you are hurt by me please tell me so that i can apologize because i can assure you it wasnt my intention to hurt you. please dont handle it by yelling at me, running from the room angry, cursing me out or for gods sake please dont throw me away or decide i dont exist to you...a couple have done that here and that hurts more than you know! well actually maybe many of you do know.
i hate to even admit to being in such an emotionally fragil state because its kinda humiliating and makes me feel unintelligent and childish. but this is where i am and i am working hard.
so i am asking this anyway and i hope you understand. i only said the above about my upbringing to give you a little background as to why anger and rejection towards me are so emotionally damaging especially while swinging wildly on an emotional pendulum the way i have been lately. hopefully you understand and will help me by not being that way if i do something or say something you dont like. like i said you guys are all friends to me..i couldnt ask this of someone who wasnt a friend.
i am willing to do the same for anyone else in this situation. i dont believe there are very many bad people here so i know if i am hurt its not intentional and i will forgive and forget.
sorry this is so long
flower