Theft of Reminiscing

by rebel8 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  rebel8

  So I'm now at the developmental stage of adulthood when my peers and I are beginning to reminisce about our childhoods. If you've ever taken developmental psychology, you know the importance of reminiscing.
  
  Yesterday I went to an event about something retro and participants were really nostalgic and just really enjoying themselves.

  All I could think of was, "Yeah, I wasn't allowed to do that and I don't know what any of you are talking about." I started to feel that stomach flip sensation when you are on a roller coaster, that I always feel when I have a bad cult memory coming on.

  I recognize this to be Defcon 3, which will be followed by anger (Defcon 2) and possibly nuclear meltdown (Defcon 1). So Defcon 3 means take immediate steps to get away from this situation and chillax or you're going to embarrass yourself.
  
  I went off on my own for a while, giving an excuse of not being into that subject, and met up with them later. This I've found to be the least embarrassing/painful way for me to deal with these situations.
  
  As I was on my own, it occurred to me the Society did not just steal those normal childhood experiences from me, but also the reminiscing and relating to people in my age group today.
  
  So jws and anyone still exposing your children to the organization..please, please think about what you're doing to your kids. :(
• 

  carla

  "the Society did not just steal those normal childhood experiences from me, but also the reminiscing and relating to people in my age group today."-- I try to explain this to folks who try to excuse jw's as some simple odd quirky church down the road who don't do holidays, and so ok, they don't have 4th of July and so on. The impact of not having shared experiences with the rest of society WILL take it's toll at some point in life if not continuously.

  Though we worldlies do not share every birthday with the entire world we all KNOW what having a birthday means. Aside from the cake and presents it is family, games, a certain feel that a jw just cannot understand and is difficult to articulate. It is family, no outside sources (wt) to look over our shoulder making sure we are 'holy' enough or don't break any written or unwritten rules. Same can be said for all the other holidays we share as a society as a whole. The Christian may celebrate Christmas both as a religious and a secular holiday and can understand the 'feeling' a Jewish person feels when celebrating Hanukah.

  What do jw's have? The so called 'memorial'? It does not seem very special to me nor do I read loving rememberances of the 'holiday' on the boards by ex jw's. The dc's? again, same crap different year. No special-ness involved other than to look like you are 'special' (in a deragatory way in my mind) to worldly people who actually do not even notice jw's even when they are dressed up. Often people think they are on the way to a wedding or some church thing, no big deal. Memo to jw's- we don't notice you, you are as invisible as the rest of us.

  To all who struggle with what to do with the kids when one spouse leaves, I say protect them at all costs from this life changing cult. The

  negative effects will last them a life time. And yes, I know of which I speak, I went through hell and back again to keep my own kids out of this cult and would do it again in a heartbeat. My kids have thanked me, yours will too one day.
• 

  rebel8

  Hi carla

  I didn't realize you split up. How are you doing?!

  You are right. Your kids are going to thank you, if they don't already. I used to fantasize about my parents splitting up and being "forced" to live with the UBM, having to participate in holidays/school activities, have normal friends and not attend meetings. I fantasized about it a LOT.

  When I told the UBM that later in life, he was SHOCKED. I towed the dub party line as I was commanded to do (and subjected to corporal punishment and verbal abuse if I came close to not pretending I loved dubbery). I was rightly terrified to say anything but, "I love being a jw and want to go to Bethel."
• 

  gypsygirl

  Hello Rebel8,

  I can feel your pain. I was raised as JW by my mother and molested by my step father at the same time throughout my childhood. Talk about losing a childhood! Yikes! Sadly I grew up and raised my 4 children as JWs and now, years later, as adults and all of us now x-JWs , it breaks my heart to hear my kids talk about all of the things they missed out on growing up. Of course I didn't see it then, and the past is the past, but I cannot help but feel their pain even today. I am at peace with my own lost childhood, but I now live with the pain of seeing the effects this religion has had on my kids. They are all adults with issues, and one of them even went through a period of time when she blamed me and the religion I crammed down her throat for everything that was wrong in her life. She actually called me abusive, and now in retrospect, I see what she meant. One time not long ago, she was involved in a conversation with her mother-in-law and was describing how she and her brothers never had Christmas, birthdays and other holidays and how she now cherishes the event and celebrates with a vengeance, and she began to cry. I was sitting there and I also began to tear up, and all I could say is "I'm sorry. I didn't know any better." She wasn't trying to make me feel bad, but you can see she still has some "stuff" to deal with. But she has come to terms with some of it and has apologized and told me that she realizes I was only doing what I knew how to do at the time.

  Carla: Kudos to you for SNAPPING out of it soon enough to protect your children from the impending phsycological damage.

  I guess my kids could still thank me for coming to my senses and participating fully in their lives today. There are still lots of family events and holidays ahead! But I sometimes feel like I have lots of time to make up for.
• 

  Dagney

  Oh my gosh! I'm experiencing the same thing but didn't identify it as you have.

  I listen to college tales and normal adventures of friends in their young adulthood, and I feel sad, angry, regretful...all damn over again. Again because I have for the most part worked through the emotional process of leaving the cult, worked hard at that. Now certain situations remind me of life where I wasn't allowed to choose...or think...which is the worse thing.

  Damn emotions.
• 

  144001

  Rebel8,

  Your post is right on. The WTBTS stole so much from those who were born in. Birthdays, holidays, etc., it was not about the material gifts; what we missed was the family get togethers, having a special day to see everyone again and have a good time. There's nothing special about getting to look at wine and crackers while listening to more of the same old boring lectures. I can not figure out what is special about the Memorial, other than the fact that I haven't attended a Memorial while sober since my early teenage years.

  The WTBTS goes to great lengths to try to extricate every bit of joy that they can from the lives of the children of the "great crowd" of suckers who are assisting this publishing empire in the exploitation of their children. The WTBTS also causes its members to substitute quality family time with unpaid WTBTS marketing activities and WTBTS brainwashing sessions aka "meetings." There is no time left to spend with your family after dealing with the obligations imposed on you by the WTBTS.

  The WTBTS eliminates everything that is happy about having a family. While I will always love my parents, I do not respect their choices in life. I think their decision to raise my siblings and me in a JW lifestyle was both foolish and selfish. I've forgiven them, but I will never forget that their stupid choices harmed my childhood and inflicted severe emotional trauma on my siblings and me.

  I echo Rebel8 sentiments re: warnings to parents. Parents, be forewarned, a decision to raise your kids as JWs will most definitely harm your kids, and they will one day resent the decision you made. If your kids respond to being raised as JWs as my siblings did, then you can also expect that your adult children will hate you and not want to have anything to do with you.
• 

  clarity

  I agree with the warning to parents about the huge damage to a child's

  sense of self & a sense of loss for them, by this cult.

  >

  Years ago, when I was still in, one of my sons said

  that I had ruined his life.

  >

  After my exit, we did make up but I will never forgive myself totally!

  clarity
• 

  rmt1

  "I towed the dub party line as I was commanded to do (and subjected to corporal punishment and verbal abuse if I came close to not pretending I loved dubbery). I was rightly terrified to say anything but, "I love being a jw and want to go to Bethel.""
  
  One day I was pioneering in a car group in Halifax PA cong, with another male pioneer in the back seat sitting behind his girlfriend/fiance. His father was a Halifax elder and his father's father was PO in West Virginia. This guy's girlfriend said something mouthy - not the kind of comment that might have defamed him in front of other males, just kind of… mouthy. The next thing I knew he had reached up and was clamping his hand - he worked construction - around her trapezius, she was sort of immobilized, and he was warning something to the effect, 'Don't you ever say that again.' I have no excuse for not reacting. I can say that as a matter of fact, I had never conceived of witnessing wife battery inside a car group, so I do have the defense of not actually believing what I was seeing.
  
  As for childhood memories...
  I'm sure many would object to drawing any parallels between the JW stance on truncating, amputating, nay, castrating an ordinary pre-adolescent suite of experiences and, say, female genital mutilation in the third world. But there you go. I just drew the parallel. There is no getting it back. You cannot hot-swap a new hard drive of memories. You can start building up your own set of experiences as fast as humanly possible, you can try to figure out who you are, what you want from life and how you can participate in the things you crave. Those are your options.
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  carla

  Hey Rebel,

  just to clarify, we are still together. Helps that we do not discuss anything jw. Kids are all grown up now and thankfully they will have nothing to do with jw-ism.
• 

  scotoma

  Quit lamenting the lost childhood. Being in my 60's I could give a sh*t about a lost past. I grew up a JW and I don't feel I missed any of that child hood stuff. You grow up anywhere and everywhere anyway.

  What bothers me is they stole my future. Or I should say I "allowed" them to steal my future.

  I wish I would have never learned the truth about the truth.

  I would have preferred closing my eyes at death thinking I would open them again to a better life.

  It's a shame that it was such a weak and unprovable premise "everlasting life in paradise". It didn't have the strength to survive a life time.