Did being a JW affect you socially?

Mahtaw

I feel like I'm awkard in social situations. I hate going up and talking to people I don't know. I have trouble making friends. I feel like being a jw had something to do with it. Anyone else have a similar experience?

ILoveTTATT

The experience with Jehovah's Witnesses does make some people who are naturally introverts into extroverts... This is not natural for most people. Also, you don't make "instant friends" in the real world... it takes a lot of time for people to buid up sufficient trust, but once that is there, trust me, it will grow and these friends will love you for who you are, not for how many hours you preached or how many books you placed, etc...

Mahtaw

IM not fresh out of the witnesses. I had trouble making friends while I was a witness, they had their judgemental cliques, and I didn't fit in there. Now I feel like everyone is judging me for everything, the clothes I wear, the way I talk, the way I do things. I think its something the dubs instilled.

Xanthippe

Mahtaw I've been out 25years and I've struggled with socializing and making friends. I have 2 or 3 really good friends and I get on with my work colleagues now very well although that has taken a long time. I think in JWs they really are judging you constantly so we bring that with us when we leave and are over-sensitive. I have found that people are often just thoughtless in the things they say and do but not as judgemental as they seem. If something really bad happens to you most of those irritating people will be there for you on your side, that's been my experience. Keep trying, it will work out, when we leave we just look at the world through mud-coloured spectacles.

LoisLane looking for Superman

Mahraw>>>>>YES IT DID. I wanted to grow up and be a slut, sleep with all the guys I liked.

Do you have any idea how difficult my life has been socially as a JW?

I never slept with anyone, except the jerk I married, and that was after we were married. No breaking god's laws for me. So as a die hard JW, I have been screwed but not in a great, wonderful fun way.

Being a JW makes us drones and takes away our spotaneity and joy of life. If you are 20 years old, you will never be a teenager again. If you are 40, you will never be 30 ever again.

The WT doctrines are lies. There is no paradise earth, petting panda's and eternal youth. Just lies.

Can you imagine the character Meryl Streep played in Mama Mia, being told since infancy not to be yourself but instead be a WT drone and obey, obey, obey.

What hurts for me is I am unable to break away from these morality restrictions. I am free but I am unable to move on.

Just Lois

Sammy Jenkis

I think being a JW made me extremely uncomfortable around women, which is super bad. Strangers were always easy to approach because of excessive field service but whenever I want(ed) to speak with someone I was attracted to I would freeze up.

Definitely has something to do with the countless talks about the "dangers" of the opposite sex. Deprogramming engage.

Mahtaw

That's true.. I'm in my twenties, kinda wish at times I could relive my school years as a normal person.

joe134cd

Yup pretty much all of the above comments sum me up.

lost

lois - lol, love your honesty

Yes it affected my life.

Secluding oneself socially.

Being the 'good girl' making sacrifices, missing out on opportunities, giving up college, giving up 'life'.

Staying in marriage and putting up with stuff i never would of. Staying with husband when I should of left.

Cost me financially, cost me and my kids mentally and emotionally, for staying with this man.

All because of being a good jw. Wait on je-hovah, pray, forgive etc.

Christ, how I wish I could go back in time.

Julia Orwell

I wasn't raised a JW and was a bit of a misfit, until JWs came along and fitted me in pretty well. So no, being a JW around JWs actually gave me a very active social life. It was hard for me to socialise with non-JWs outside of family though; I socialised with some people at work, but not outside of work. But even now I don't: but being a JW throughout my 20s had a lot of benefits which culminated in me being introduced by a JW to my then-JW husband.

Did being a JW affect you socially?

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