by Zordino 31 Replies latest jw friends
I was so hard core that I would prepare for the weekly bible reading assignment (the 4 or so chapters) by taking the large Index and look up all of the references for each of the verses. More than one brother asked to use my notes so he could substitute for the review part they used to have on the School.
I'd do the same research for each of the cited scriptures in the WT study.
And yet look - I'm here now!
Maybe all that studying will help the family that WTWizard mentioned see TTATT.
How do these Hard Core JW's Function?
Dysfunctionally.
Doc
Look at it this way. It is a way of functioning. Waking up to the poverty and desperation of their situation would be devastating. It is kinder and easier to dive in to the lie.
I was interested in a study of 9-11 survivors and the ways they coped with their grief. Not everyone took advantage of counsellors. Some stayed comfortable in their denial. (He is away on a business trip and will be back soon). The latest thinking is that people will find a way to cope, even if it is unorthodox, and it might be even more damaging to insist that they "process" their grief in a conventional way.
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The research confirms that most disaster survivors do not need to see a mental health professional, and there is very little evidence for the usefulness of any kind of therapeutic intervention in the first month. The growing consensus is that in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, survivors need practical, logistical help to meet their basic needs, whether communicating with loved ones or transportation or money. The goal of this type of approach, known as Psychological First Aid, is to stabilize survivors and connect them with additional resources as a way to reduce stress and encourage adaptive functioning. The time for therapy is later on, and only after an accurate assessment.
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In the end, the largest lesson for the mental health field is that when disaster strikes, practitioners should not get in the way of natural coping. Instead of trying to provide services to the entire population, they should, after a month or so, target the people who might need it most and then tailor their approaches, taking individual and cultural differences into account.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2092130,00.html#ixzz2Id5ZW5mc In case I wasn't clear, I find a family like this to be a walking disaster. Even so, they have found a way to cope.
Yes, I like those thoughts on counseling, and I agree.
For some Witnesses I've known, I think it would be an unkindness to try to force them out of their belief system. Perhaps they would start working more and thus be more comfortable materially, but they would also be missing the hope for the future that they always relied on. That's hard to cope with, especially for those expecting to see lost siblings or children in the resurrection.
And really, we know better than to equate the niceness of someone's stuff with happiness, right? You might see a sad, shabby house, but for them it's home. How can a casual observer say whether (a) they are happy or (b) they would be happier as an ex-Witness?
Anyway, since the Witness teachings don't hold up to objective scrutiny, the best way to be a committed Witness is to self-brainwash by studying as much as possible, stay busy in field service, etc. It helps to crowd out doubts.
For some Witnesses I've known, I think it would be an unkindness to try to force them out of their belief system.
But what about their family members who have to watch as a good woman fritters away her biological clock to pioneer?
What about the family member who has to watch as his loved one throws away his family relationships, a good job in a tough economy, to "serve where the need is greater"?
What about all the lost human potential that's come from their discouragement of higher education?
"But what about their family members who have to watch as a good woman fritters away her biological clock to pioneer?
"What about the family member who has to watch as his loved one throws away his family relationships, a good job in a tough economy, to "serve where the need is greater"?
"What about all the lost human potential that's come from their discouragement of higher education?"
It's hard to watch family members who burn their potential and their lives serving an organization that really doesn't appreciate them and would quickly ast them aside if necessary.
However...we must tread carefully with them. By speaking up when they aren't ready, it will tend to push them deeper into the comfort of their belief system. Only when people are really ready and give us a clear signal about that, then we can gently help them to see life outside the constraints and chains of the manmade organization can be okay and even can be very good.
How do they function? Prescription meds paid for by people like me who have real jobs and health insurance....
JWs become so heavily invested in JWism and all it entails that over time it becomes ever more difficult and frightening to even try to conceive of a life outside the Wretchtower walls. Put yourself in the shoes of a random JW that you know and imagine being that person and leaving the bOrg and creating a new, post-JW life for yourself. For me, that mental exercise drives home why so many JWs muddle through, year after year, decade after decade - JW culture has evolved in such a way that to leave it is a trauma that few inside are capable of going through. The prescribed, group-mind existence becomes so written into the mental circuitry of JWs that an independent, autonomous existence and it's accompanying lack of certainties and absolutes is simply unfathomable to your average dub.
So if you're one of the millions for whom leaving that sh!t is a mental and emotional impossibility, then you have just a couple of narrow choices. You can muddle along, putting in a few FS hours a month, work a normal job where for the most part you avoid discussing JWism (because deep inside, you KNOW it's weird but it works for you), and suffer from a guilt-stricken conscience for not doing enough and resign yourself to the fact that you "probably won't make it" (how many times have you heard that phrase come out of the mouths of JWs you know?)...OR.... you can keep the guilt at bay by giving yourself completely over to it and becoming as close to a "model" JW as you possibly can.
I'm curious as to what causes many people like this to be so devoted to it. What is the phsycology behind what makes them tick?
What you saw were addicts. You don't call alcoholics devoted, you call them addicts.
-Sab
Many are like what is said about the Obama liberal supporters. Conservatives say people want Obama to provide for them and save them from their troubles.
Many JWs want the kingdom to come and provide and save them, rather than their fixing things themselves. That is why they say man can't rule themselves. It is just a lazy copout. My wife is like that is so many ways. I have to bite my tongue or we would fight so much over this.
People like the original poster described drive me crazy. The ones who volunteer for demonstrations and such. A big show.
I never underline my books or magazines. Messes them up. I don't care what people think about me. My wife told me that a brother that does sound and magazines asked her why I don't reach out more for priviliges. I wanted to say 'carrying a microphone and giving out magazines, is a privilige?' Really? Really?
