Sense of Mortality, Existential Angst and Leaving the Borg

by Frazzled UBM 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Frazzled UBM

  Firstly apologies if I am stating the bleeding obvious or covering something that has already been covered or just showing my ignorance as someone who wasnever a JW - I am new here and relatively new in my exposure to the WBTS organisation and its dogma.

  The thing that has occurred to me is that born-in JWs and middle-age JWs must avoid the teenage existential angst of really getting a sense of their own mortaility and the middle age crisis of realizing that their best years are behind and they on the long downhill slide, because they expect to live forever.

  I always wondered why teenage JWs are goody two-shoes while they are believers and often go off the rails, even as 20 or 30 something adults, when they wake up and I figure that, apart from the fact that they are no longer being told what is right and wrong and all of a sudden have to work it out for themselves, this may related to the expectation that you will not physically die. Is it the delayed sense of mortality/existential crisis that causes this? For born-ins who don't wake up until their 40s or later is it a double whammy mortality smack in the face?

  Probably worse for those who become atheists or agnostics but wondering whetehr even those who embrace another form of Christianity are affected.

  I always get the impression my wife has never really grown up and I wonder whether not having to go through the teenage existential angst which is a part of the right of passge from childhood to adulthood is responsible for that.

  I am interested in hearing about your personal expereinces in this regard - does this accord to what you went through?
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  adamah

  It's more likely the result of having been raised from birth in an authoritarian environment, where thinking of the right course is actively discouraged.

  You see the same behavior of overcompensating (going off the deep end) when someone has been confined to institutions their entire lives are finally released: they haven't learned to make decisions, only to follow orders, so their own internal moral sense is atropied from long-term neglect and lack of use. It happens to Amish youth when they're allowed to head to the big city in an experience called rumspringa, where they're only destined to return to the Amish community when they realize it's not so easy to get along in the World and they're fishes out of water (primarily because their social development has been retarded and suppressed, thus setting them up for failure in the "real World").

  That's exactly why the JW practice of shunning, door-to-door service, meeting attendence, etc is damaging in the long-run: people are being conditioned to follow orders (and are ordered to punish others, increasing in their domain as they raise in the ranks). That's the damaging effect of being a cog in authoritarian institutions like JWs, where the goal is to socially isolate from the World.

  Adamah
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  *lost*

  How about ' Learned Helplessness'
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  Frazzled UBM

  So no delayed mortality/existential angst smack in the face on leaving the borg?
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  Truth seeker 674

  Frazzeled, I was a born in and raised and I was disfellowshipped in 1985 after admitting that I believed in evolution. I started asking some serious questions to the wrong people. Anyway the reading of scientific literature which, I used to have to hide from my parents,BTW, cemented my sense of mortality. I have been asking questions my whole life, at least for me science provides many of the answers. I could not imagine what it must be like for a born in JW in thier 40's or 50's or later in life comming to terms with thier own mortality. Thats why I cut the older born in JWs some slack. Life is tough and some people just can't face it.
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  adamah

  So no delayed mortality/existential angst smack in the face on leaving the borg?

  No, there likely IS. All of that bubbles to the surface when the authoritarian restraints are taken off, even delayed grief over the loss of relatives they were TOLD (and WANTED to believe) they'd see again after the resurrection, when it dawns on them that it was all a lie, etc. There's TONS of that kind of stuff to deal with, after "their eyes have been opened" (like Adam and Eve). The onset of such awareness is very different, where it's going to hit some all at once like a ton of bricks, and others more slowly and diffused (YMMV).

  Adam
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  Frazzled UBM

  Adamah - I understand the point about going from very tight strict boundaries to having work them out from scratch and not being able to cope.

  *lost* - I liked Learned Helplessness - it is a good description fro my wife - I doubt she could survive daily life without me to provide for her and problem solve for her and hse is totally incapable of disciplining my son in any meaningful way - he was controlling her form age 2 and hasn't stopped. She is good at looking after the house and cooking meals though - so there is some compensations.

  Thanks Truth seeker - wonderful that you had a love of Science in the face of WBTS attempts to crush your critical thinking and you were prepared to face up to your own mortality in the interests of searching for your own truth rather that one imposed on you. I get the impression that facing mortality is one of the many many things my wife is afraid of.
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  Phizzy

  I was born-in , and left when I was nearly 60, so it did come as a shock to me when I was talking to a sweet XJW lady, I cannot remember exactly what I had said, but her reply "But, Phizzy, we ALL have to die", smacked me between the eyes.

  From then on I had to face my own mortality, and the fact that the time I could look forward to was to be measured in weeks, rather than months or years.

  If you are sixty, it is only 520 weeks until you hit the "three score years and ten".

  I had to adjust my viewpoint on a vast number of things when I left, so this was just one of them, but maybe one of the harder ones.

  It strikes me now though that having a realistic view makes one appreciate each moment more, and makes us determined to "seize the day ".

  No bad thing.

  I am now a non-theist who sees no acceptable evidence for an Afterlife, but that does not make me unhappy on a daily basis, a trifle sad that I will not be here to see my grand children grow in to adulthood, in all probability, and that I probably won't be here to see the final demise of the WT/JW SuperScam.
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  BU2B

  Good points. I really think this is what prevents many such as my wife from waking up.. They are so set on the new world and never dying that they will blindly put up with anything to get that shiny carrot on a stick. Cult leaders know that if they have a good enough looking carrot, many will follow and do what they must, weather that be shunning, no lifesaving medical treatment, door to door, endless treadmill of works, to get the carrot.

  I stopped having the desire to live in the WT Idea of a paradise; thats why I woke up. Most actually believe a promise just as ludicrous as the ones held out to the heavans gate people.. That they will never grow old, get sick, and die. Amazing when you think about it. They play off of a natural fear of death and say, "you never have to die if you just follow our commands".
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  tornapart

  Well, I'm a middle-aged born in and it's taken me 2 years to come to some feeling of being somewhat settled. Although I still have moments of anger and frustration. What frustrates me more than anything is my family's and friend's inability to see anything wrong with it all as well. I've had to come to terms with the fact that they just can't see it and I have to accept it. I still want relationships with them so I carry on to keep them happy. However, I carry on in my own way and if they don't like it then it's just too bad. If I have to accept them then they have to accept me too.