I just re-read my post and my spelling sucks. Sorry about that....
Anxiety attacks and Door to Door Activity...what have you observed?
by Momma-Tossed-Me 17 Replies latest jw experiences
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Broken Promises
For many many years as a kid and young adult, I suffered from migraines after going out DTD. The headaches would begin after the first hour and intensify from there. I used to complain about the headaches but nothing would help. And not going out DTD wasn't an option.
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Bubblegum Apotheosis
It's unnatural to walk to a strangers house (kids were told by their parents, stay away from strangers) without some weird idea coming into your head. Some territories are worked once a month, but we must remember "We are not working the territory to death, we are working it to life!" a great saying coined by men who don't lift once inch, to help the overburdened and stressed sheep.
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Heartofaboy
I hated DtD work as a child & HATED IT EVEN MORE as an adult!
As Sunday afternoon drew closer my stress levels shot up, I had to be careful not to be short with family members & other JW's.
I didn't know what I was going to say to the householders as I didn't really believe the WT message any more.
Why would I want someone to join the borg, an entity I had started to detest for its unchristlike pride & arrogance?
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WTWizard
And they blame poor Satan, urging them to do even more of what causes the original problem.
Most people shouldn't even be going door to door thumping religion at all. For some, they will improve with time. However, most will stagnate or become even worse off if they continue. For those who stagnate and never improve, they are wasting their time trying to go door to door. People with a natural disinclination to go door to door pushing beliefs on strangers are actually making themselves sick. Yet, the hounders (and the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger) think the situation will improve if they do more.
I would like to see anyone that insists that people with this condition do more field circus have to work a Ouija board for the amount of time that such people are out in field circus because "it will make them feel better". I bet the same idiots that insist that more field circus will make experienced people that are uncomfortable in field circus feel better will be uncomfortable in the presence of the demons. They are programmed to fear them, so they will feel the same anxiety with the Ouija board as the "publisher" does doing field circus.
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uk_ex_jw
I always found the door-to-door ministry extremely hard and often confrontational. I would also suffer some of the effects that the OP described.
I always preferred giving tracts to people in the City Centre as I could approach who I wanted. Obviously, knocking someone's door is a step into the unknown and you do not know who is behind it - that is what causes the anxiety.
One older Brother who was moving out of the area, gave me his magazine route - that become the basis of my ministry and in the end that is all I used to do before I faded.
I remember an Elder placing about four of us on a carpark to preach to Saturday shoppers who were leaving/returning to their cars.
Imagine, it was a small car park (parking lot in the US) with cars coming in and out, people everywhere, no room to move. It was clear straight away that people didn't appreciate being stopped and preached to whilst carrying heavy bags, and people in cars were waiting for spaces to appear. Our Elder decided to leave us on there and dissapear on a few return visits instead of seeing it through.
Eventually, I just sat down on the wall and started wondering what I was doing here and how crap my life was. It was following this awful experience that I started fading.
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Momma-Tossed-Me
I have observed these symptoms a lot in CO's wives.
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Disillusioned Lost-Lamb
I find the less witless things I do the better my mental health gets.
For years I couldn't figure out what was causing my eating disorder and why I was so anxious/depressed, now I know.