You are exactly right...the feeling you get is that of seeing someone who has abused you after some time has passed.
MTM
Believe it or not, another brief elder encounter yesterday...
by sd-7 29 Replies latest jw friends
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RayPublisher
SD-7 you are in my thoughts and prayers today! You know TTATT. God loves you and we love you.
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sd-7
Thanks for the well wishes, everyone. I guess my consistently fatal flaw is the large gap between my intellectual knowledge of facts and my ability to keep my emotions in check and behave based on facts and not emotions. The fact is, the 'good cop' approach is probably a soft spot of mine simply because my general assumption is that none of them care about sd-7 personally (they don't, they can't, I know it, they know it, I know that they know it, they may know that I know it).
When they last did their 'sheep-beating call', last year showing up at my home unexpectedly (my wife let them in, I think), I remember telling them that the judicial committee itself really soured me on the whole thing. It was a rather disturbing side of the organization that I'd never experienced personally before. Their only response to this was to accept it 'as loving discipline from Jehovah'. In the past couple of years, I've thus far failed to see how this is loving discipline from above. If anything, it's been a blessing. As Bob Dylan once said, "I've got nothing, Ma, to live up to." No longer having to double check to see if I remembered to shave or turn in my time or having to stand up nearly the entire meeting to pass the mikes. No more throwing out movies or music in guilt. Not having to deal with those people and their circus of a life.
There was a point in time I knew I was going to leave, I just didn't know how or why exactly. I had hoped it would be bloodless. I'm sorry my wife got caught up in this. I shouldn't have wanted her so much, as everybody but me seemed to have figured out well in advance. We might've been better as a JW couple, but not like this.
I've noticed she's going out in the recruitment work more often now; it seems they've managed to 'reactivate' her. I think maybe that's why this whole thing isn't coincidence. They have to counter my very existence, as someone who stood up and challenged them directly. Whether it's conscious or not, there's a message to that, an honesty apart from it all. I don't know.
I just hate it too much to return, no matter what happened. It would be very dangerous if I ever did, more than I care to consider.
But really. What, maybe hundreds, thousands of people on this site, worldwide? Even with my photo and first name on a thread two years ago, it's unlikely I'll be found out, at least by her. Could be someone else might see, a lurker or something. Though why it would be relevant now, I can't imagine.
But I don't think either of us is planning to leave the marriage. sd-7 has operated under her nose for over 2 years now. There's no reason to think that won't continue. And if I am found out, well, so be it. Beats having an affair or something. There are worse things I could be than sd-7.
Well, I've been thinking that it's an exercise in futility trying to take on a powerful corporation like this. Better to just let it be, try to keep myself together and not end up putting any hopes in anything beyond my own limited freedom.
I'm just a little down today, I guess. Maybe because 'The Avengers' is out and I can't really afford to buy it? Ha! Nah. I'm just worried. But she seems happy, so...why worry? ... Because it's rarely that simple (after all, the emotional low returns when she realizes her husband isn't sharing her 'joy' and will be totally annihilated at the Big A--and what if he lets the kids watch that fairy cartoon or that birthday episode??? They could die too!!). Because one elder talking to me is strange, but two separate elders talking to me is highly unusual. Because when the flames still burn inside, the slightest spark could change everything in an instant in some way I never expected. Because I see myself in my son's face, and I know what that face is like when they destroy its self-esteem.
I'll be fine. Probably just a bit more sleep is needed.
--sd-7
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00DAD
sd-7: I guess my consistently fatal flaw is the large gap between my intellectual knowledge of facts and my ability to keep my emotions in check and behave based on facts and not emotions.
Welcome to humanity. Embrace it.
00DAD
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elderelite
And sd, there in lies the flaw for you and i and others like us... We trade small concessions in the way of religion for a few moments of imaginary peace. They will never be satisfied. From personal experiance i can tell you that even if you were an elder it wouldnt be enough. Its never enough because its flawed from the start. We arnt accepted for who we are.
In the end, make those small conessions because they are right and proper and buy you anplace in your kids life. But dont expect anything in return. She thinks you'll be back and will always, deep down, think you are just one step away.
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sd-7
You speak wisdom, EE. I just made a list of all the stuff I'd have to do to get reinstated, just out of curiosity. When it got up to 16 items, I realized just how much hanging with you folks has corrupted me. Joke . But no way. The concessions wouldn't be worth it, really. Kids are experts at knowing something is up, man, and I know it would be all over my face. Besides, I fought too hard and ate too much crap these past few years to just throw it all away by going back. It would show them that their abuse and blackmail are not only effective, but justifiable. Somebody has to fight. Somebody has to take a stand.
The burden is heavy, but the paths leading back are all charred wasteland and old pains and a rage held just beneath the surface. And sorrow, most of all. Wondering what more they can take. Every moment I had to fix everything, I hesitated, for fear of becoming something I didn't like or couldn't respect. I suppose I was wrong.
Even though it's a struggle...well, this song comes to mind...I have to continue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDefNSe722k
--sd-7
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Chariklo
Hi, sd-7, I've been following your story with great interest. You probably know that I never did become a bona fide, 100% JW but was a mere fingernail away from it. I've emnpathised with your story, even so, because I can tell the pressure you're under, and I've been there in different situations and also all to recently from within the JW's, including some elders, especially the hung-up-on-poer ones, i.e. the bullies.
Because that is what they are. Now I'm about 9 months away from meetings and counting, and several months from any contact with them...they couldn't leave me alone to begin with. They tried love-bombing afresh, persuading, cajoling, even...this is true...threatening.
You wrote
I guess my consistently fatal flaw is the large gap between my intellectual knowledge of facts and my ability to keep my emotions in check and behave based on facts and not emotions.
Yup. That was me too.
They are in fact like gangsters playing good cop, bad cop in one great big protection racket. You say you made a list of all the things you'd have to do to get reinstated. Do you WANT to get reinstated? I know, of course you don't. What I mean is, the system of coercion and pressure is close to what in other spheres, eg a properly-run work environment, would be verging on the criminal.
I know you're remaining in their sights because of your concern for your children, and yet you have all a parent's rights, surely, and you'd get equal custody with your wife if it came to it, wouldn't you? Do you want to take the paths leading back? And if you don't, can you not just walk?
It's just that in my life, in which I have had many hard experiences, and helped many through their own, I've learned that a clean cut or break, while sharply painful, is the healthiest way to deal with a messy situation and the best way for it to heal. Messy festering situations don't heal well, and the popison spreads and lingers.
I do understand, from my 18 months on this forum, why it's difficult for people who find themselves where you are. I just think that it might actually be the way forward for you. Very hard, painful, but actually the best way for a healthy new beginning.
Might be worth at least thinking about?
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sd-7
I know you're remaining in their sights because of your concern for your children, and yet you have all a parent's rights, surely, and you'd get equal custody with your wife if it came to it, wouldn't you? Do you want to take the paths leading back? And if you don't, can you not just walk?
Well, I don't know how that sort of thing would play out. I'm not the biological father of my stepdaughter, and she told me once that if anything happened to her, she'd want her mom to take care of her daughter. Yet paradoxically she wants me to adopt said daughter, which serves no purpose if she wouldn't want me to take care of her in her stead were she to meet an untimely end or something. I know what that's all about, of course, but I won't go there in the context of this discussion. My son, on the other hand, is another matter.
Even so, I don't want to tear a kid away from one of his parents. One thing my dad taught me by example was never to quit. To be there like a rock for your kids. It was a 'divided' household for me growing up, too. He saw for himself it was a load o'crap, but that didn't stop him from doing his best to love us all, from being there. Granted, he was never a JW, so that's a different scenario. Still...the point is there.
The paths leading back are full of despair and hatred and the destruction of the person I am trying to rebuild. But I can't just walk. I'm not done yet. There is still more to do.
--sd-7
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ziddina
"Of course, the thought that immediately came to mind after I'd gotten in my car and gotten off the parking lot was...this is how abusers work. They want to keep you off-balance emotionally. ..." OP
Not to be too cynical, but...
Keep that in mind. If I recall your story correctly, you've been on that rollercoaster before.
Zid
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Fernando
Hey sd-7!
If you ever do want to "fight" them strategically, and without playing your hand openly, their Achilles heel is their false "good news".
Why are religionists so desperate to hide the "good news" according to Paul, Moses, Isaiah, and Psalms from their followers?
What is it in the full "good news" that they fear above all else?
That it ultimately sets their captives free?!
As in tens of thousands of jailbreaks similar to "Franzgate 1980"?