by Julia Orwell 55 Replies latest jw friends
Julia:
You can edit your posts out after you have posted them. There is an "edit" button on the right side of every post. I would recommend editing it if you can... minimize chances right?
Oh and... =( Sorry for what you are going through. It is MADDENING to try and help people we love, just to see them bite us back because of stupid mind control!
ILTTATT
Some people can suffer terribly, yet still fail to learn real compassion.
Let the dead bury themselves. She will die one day like everybody else - only she thought it will never happen.
Save your love for those that deserve it, not the users at the Kingdumb Hell.
HB
I would just send her an e-mail letting her know that you have to move on from the WT organization for your own personal reasons based on your own research and analysis of the facts relating to the big picture. Moreover, I would also tell her that you still love her as a friend and always will. This is important, because your beef is really with her cult personality, which has been constructed by a steady process of indoctrination, and not with her own personality of her real self.
LOL - So sorry. I wonder what she would say if you asked her who the faithful and discreet slave is?
How about staying as close to the truth as possible as in, "I would love to spend time with you and you are welcome for coffee at any time. But I am done studying. If you are interested in sharing girlfriend to girlfriend, heart to heart, I am here."
Oh Julia! I really feel for you. You must feel kind of exposed emotionally by her response, huh? Your letter clearly shows the high regard with which you held your friend. Your saw her as being different - you did not want to un-friend her. She still matters so much to you. And that's the rub, isn't it? If she had treated you as badly as the other JWs, it might be enough just to un-friend her. But at a certain level, she matters to you and you feel for all she has been through in her JW-life. Yet, she doesn't respond to the underlying message in your letter that her friendship means so much to you. It's a sad case of unrequited friendship.
One of the risks of reaching out to others in the organization we consider to be 'friends' is they won't reply as friends but they self-protectively put on the 'witness' hat. They may well be really nice and caring people at one level, but at another, the switch is off. It's even harder for you now that you tried reaching out to her. I guess you could say "at least" she did not completely ignore your letter and "at least" she was still prepared to try to reach out to you with her beliefs. It just wasn't what you were expecting, though, right?
It's probably a bit too late now, but it may have been wisely self-protective of you to have had a Plan B, so that when you got the 'witness' hat reply, you'd be clearer about what you need to now do to look after yourself. I shouldn't imagine you are too keen to send off another letter just yet until you weigh up the pros and cons.
Julia Orwell:
Being as you have been on their radar for the past several months and have had visits, etc., it is a safe bet to say that the average person in your hall knows you are pretty much out of the door of JW la-la land.
So, naturally, this friend of yours had to send you this long-winded speech. In it she is imagining she is showing you "love", but all it is is a printed info-mercial for the religion. Never mind how "sweet" anybody used to be. Once a person is indoctrinated into the JW religion, all their "sweetness" goes out the window and in comes the "loyalty" to the organization. That's enough to kill any love that ever existed.
I am not surprised she unfriended you on Facebook. If I were you, I would not bother responding to her and would just get on with my life. It would be a waste of time communicating with her, unless, of course, you intend to make your way back into the JW religion.
What about accepting her offer of a study. You can raise tactful questions that may get her to think.
What about accepting her offer of a study. You can raise tactful questions that may get her to think.
Why put yourself in this kind of tiresome, no-win situation? I have yet to hear of anyone, anywhere who has ever accepted an offer of a Bible Study with a witness and acheived a helpful outcome. It will end with frustration and pain on both sides - and an increased level of "evidence" against you and motivation to shun you.
What we may agree is a "tactful" question will be perceived by the JW as a sly and devious question.
Hi Steve, I think you've hit the nail on the head again. You seem to know this woman, or her type at least, very well.
When friendship becomes distilled into a loyalty to an org or not, it cannot really be a true friendship, no matter how sincere we both are in our values. Last time we spoke, we spoke as friends with her authentic self: family, work, pets, laughs etc. But now I've triggered the cult response, the cult personality is the only version I'll ever see again no doubt.
Of course I tried engaging her authentic self with my letter, but I didn't get through. If I can't get through to her, I have little hope of getting through to the others who I now see I was right to unfriend.
