Thoughts about Depression and Anxiety

by flower 53 Replies latest jw experiences

  • mrs rocky2
    mrs rocky2

    Dearest Flower,
    It is so sad that we were never allowed to have feelings. Emotionally we were stunted. Whatever feelings we had were supposed to harmonize with WT direction. And since every moment of our lives was dedicated to the organization we never had the opportunity to develop interests outside of those prescribed by WT...and if your father was an elder or MS there was no time to have family recreation, other than service, assemblies, conventions. Makes it hard in a marriage relationship too when husband asks what do you want to do for a vacation.

    And yes, you are progressing into the next step of 'where do I go from here.' It's time to take chances. I started getting involved at the local high school, volunteered to help with the drama program. It was weird at first but I'm in my fifth year. It has branched out into other connections with people in the community...and it is absolutely WONDERFUL!

    Best Wishes!
    Mrs R

  • DevonMcBride
    DevonMcBride

    Flower,

    Reading your post reminded me of my JW friend. Unfortunately, he hasn't found his way out of the organization. I hope to be there for him when/if he does. He knows a lot of people, but I don't think he is close to any of them. It's seldom that he discusses his emotions with anyone and I would pretty much classify him as a loner.

    Devon

  • flower
    flower

    Thank you all for replying.

    When I wrote this I didnt think this was a matter of just getting out and making friends and doing things with myself. Everyone that leaves all their friends and family behind in the org has to do that. I know I have to too. I've been out with friends and coworkers since I left and had surface fun. But I think this, what I'm trying to describe, is about more than just that. Who is the person that was out with them? It wasnt me.

    Its not about having something to do or someone to do it with, its about being someone. Not anyone special but just a person. I am so much better than I was when my mind was filled with guilt and fear all the other stuff I was feeling as a jw and then a df'd jw. But better just means I dont think of ways to kill myself every day and make it look like an accident so my son will get the insurance.

    I am still nothing and no one inside. I feel like I could have been someone if I had been allowed a long time ago. I just wonder if its not too late. I move along each day planning and trying and forcing myself to do what has to be done to better myself. But I'm so dead. Just really an empty shell with very few pieces of personality.

    What I do feel inside I dont know if its real. I question every emotion, every thought and every opinion that I have. Is it real? Do I really think that? Where did that opinion come from? What should I feel and think? What is the right thing the acceptable thing? When someone asks me a question what do they want me to say? This is not being a person.

    Also...how can I make tough life choices by myself when I've never even been trusted to choose my own style of clothing or hairstyle? I cant is the answer! Its ridiculous to think that I can. A life is dependant on me for security and stability. I cant give that to him and I dont know that I ever will be able to. I will make decisions based on my immaturity in life and they will continue to be wrong and make life harder and harder for us just like is happening now. My son is the one that is going to end up paying for my lack of ability just like has already happened.

    I dont have years to work on turning myself into a person with life and brains and personality and decision making abilities and everything that others in the world seem to take for granted. My son needs a real person right now during these years when he is developing who 'he' is. Hes gonna be screwed up with me as a mom :(

    I guess I'm not so sure its possible at my age to start over from scratch and develop for myself all the things that make a newborn grow into an adult with a distict personality. Maybe it isnt exactly like that but thats how it feels.

    flower

  • SumnerSloan
    SumnerSloan

    Flower - I suspect you've expressed what all of us feel to some degree. Especially as we start phasing out as witnesses - you don't fit in there anymore, and you don't fit in the world either. If you're not giving 150% at the KH and in service, then you are marked as spiritually deficient. It is such a sad thing that witnesses, for the most part, tend toward such self-righteousness. If someone is what they would label as "weak", instead of reaching out to help that one as a loving brother or sister should do, they instead become fodder for gossip. So, you're no longer accepted, which ultimately just drives you further away! Yet, you don't fit in in the world either. It's a difficult place to be.

    It's also difficult to trust your judgment when you realize it was that judgment that lead you to sacrifice so much of your life and happiness to this religion!

    But it's all a matter of growth and it undoubtedly takes a lot of effort and time to get comfortable - with yourself and with your new life.

    Have you ever tried journaling? They say it's very therapeutic - and self-revealing (kind of like a recent thread on prayer and just talking things out to yourself and how revealing it can be). Maybe just writing down your thoughts and feelings and experiences and desires/goals for awhile will help you get to know who you are.

    Yours was a very interesting and thought-provoking post - and it was very brave of you to share such honest feelings! Thanks. SS

  • animal
    animal

    Since I left my family at 15, I had the same problems. I dealt with them differently tho... I did it all. "No fear" would describe me as a teen, and I really shouldnt have lived thru it.

    To this day, 30 years later, I still try new things to see if I like them. I am more practical now (no more jumping my HD over seesaws), but I still like a challenge.

    I always refer to "kicking the rope" to my wife. Picture yourself standing in a rope circle, which is your life experiences. You cannot step over the rope. You can, however, kick it a little, whenever you want to. With each kick, you grow and learn.

    Kick the rope, flower.

    Animal

  • kheli
    kheli

    For the past 5+ years I was suffering from long-term depression and general anxiety disorder. Since I've left the org, I haven't had any bouts of anxiety or depression. It became clear to me that the org was really the cause of my depression. All of the demands that were placed on me, as well as the "artificial" friends that I had, forced me into a place emotionally that I couldn't handle.

    In the org, your best is NEVER enough. They always push you to do or be more. Eventually, you don't even remember what things truly brought you happiness. You're pumped up with promises of everlasting life (if you do certain things) and then you're let down with the realities that NO ONE knows who will get the "reward" or when. That glorious day just never seems to come.

    I missed (what I thought were) my true friends intensely. But one day I just accepted my life for what it truly is. I refuse to let myself sink back into that place of despair again. I will eventually make new, genuine friends without all of the pretenses of an organization.

    Once, you're out of the org, you really have to reinvent who your are. Everything now should be based on what YOU enjoy and love about life...not on what these other people think about you. No matter what you go on to do in your life, they are the ones who are truly missing out. Now is the time to open up to change and shed the JW mentality that you're still holding on to.

    Flower, I wish you peace of mind and more love than your heart can hold. There is more to you than you allow yourself to think.

    Kelley

  • staceman
    staceman

    Oh My God Flower!! I know EXACTLY how you feel!! I have said to my fiancee' almost word for word your feelings exactly!! This was very shocking to me this morning as I read your story. I wish I wasn't at work right now so I could really sit back and soak it in... but I will when I get home...! UGH!!
    I too feel like I never have had real TRUE friends. I have felt that my opinion really meant nothing so I don't have one. I too was asked once what some of my favorite things were, and I didn't know what to say! And when you said that too, I just couldn't believe it! It made me feel in a small way that I wasn't alone and hopefully when you read this you will feel the same way!!
    Your story rings true for me too! Sadly, I don't have any advice for you right now because I too am struggling with much the same feelings but maybe we can help each other out some. I posted my story a few days ago and some of the friends have suggested meeting with Adult Children Of Alcoholics which I am going to look into. Was one of your parents an alcoholic too?
    Please write to me and we'll talk more...
    Don't despair Flower! You are loved and your opinion does matter so start having one, ok??
    Talk to ya later....
    Love
    Staceman

  • one
    one

    tipical depression simptoms

    Part of the solution would be, exercise and nutrition. If you dont you would be running in circle.

    walk an hour every day

    watch your diet carefully, eat as healthy as you can.
    find out what adaptogens(SP?)are and buy them.

  • flower
    flower

    Thanks Stace I will write you.

    flower

  • seven006
    seven006

    Flower,

    After reading your last post I think I have a much better understanding of what you were trying to say. My first response to you was on the lighter side and without the level of understanding of what you were actually trying to say. I apologize for that. I see now how serious you are.

    First of all, you are someone. What you fail to understand is who that someone is from the perspective of being inside of your body and mind. Others see you from out sided of your own perspective as someone and from their perspective that someone is beneficial and purposeful. From others reality you are a good person, from your own you seem to see your self as a non entity. Understanding what you have just gone through that is very understandable.

    You say you do not know if what you are feeling inside is real or not, again, that is all based on perspective. What you seem to be trying to deal with is the verification of self and the separation of past and present thoughts. Right now you feel you have changed your beliefs on what life is about but you do not have a complete understanding of what that change should be. It is extremely difficult for a person to spend their entire life with one complete outlook on what life is all about and then in a few short months abandon those thoughts and try to quickly replace them with others.

    First of all saying you simply do not believe in what you once thought was the meaning of life does not mean you have changed who you are and what you do based on a reversal of theory. Your past theory about life will always stay with you whether you choose to recognize it as the thought that guides your life or not. You have not had enough time to completely reverse your theory on life in that the thoughts that you wish to replace your old ones with are not completely formulated in your mind.

    A person is made up with as much of what they don't know as what they do know. It is the inability to completely replace that of which you know and no longer want to accept, with that of which you do not know and hope to accept, in a short period of time. The unsettling thought about all of this is both sides are still based on theory. Religion and science seem to have a way of balancing themselves out. Religion wants to assure the future beyond death, and science wants to assure it until death as well as postpone it.

    This is the essence of life and what we as humans who have the ability to think deeper thoughts than the animals torture ourselves with on a daily basis. Or lust for knowledge drives us insane and causes us to do many stupid things because of not being able to know all and then neatly package it as absolute fact. Animals do not ponder on life after death or what others may think or if they have a purpose in life. The eat when they are hungry, sleep when they are tired and have sex when the timing is right. Except for the mystery of why lemmings jump over a cliff and a few beached whales animals do not contemplate nor attempt suicide. It is their ability to simply live and enjoy the simple pleasures in life that ensures their existence.

    We as humans cannot seem to simply enjoy life but rather spend a lot of our time trying to understand and explain it. Some spend so much time on this they end up having their minds filled with so much knowledge about life they have very little time to experience or enjoy it. If you try to accelerate what you want to replace your old thinking with and become frustrated because it is not happening fast enough you will simply burn out.

    You say you do not have time to do this at your age. Sweetheart, you are so wrong. You lie to yourself and think that your sons life would be better without your influence, again, you are so wrong. You are as much a part of your sons life and are as important to him as his legs, arms, heart, brain or anything else that keeps him alive. If he had a heart that had problems would you choose to cut it out so as not to theoretically cause him problems later? Of course not.

    You are an intelligent person with the ability to make mistakes as well as not make them. If you could reverse your thoughts and see "what you 'do not' make mistakes in" as oppose to concentrating on the mistake you have made you would see how valuable you are. You care for, and you love your son, those are the two most basic and important things a human can do for their children or any other human for that fact. What you think and why you think it is not important to him now, you being there and hugging him and loving him is. You seem to not give that thought the level of importance it deserves.

    Your love for your son is not a mistake but probably one of the greatest things you will ever think about or do in your life. Since your son is a part of you why do you not love yourself as you do him? Why do you ignore loving yourself and robbing him of that love? Because you are confused? Because you have made mistakes? That is no reason at all and you are bright enough to understand that. Whether you want to accept it is the main problem you seem to have, not your past or future mistakes.

    Who you are and how you feel about yourself and life will continue to change. Change is the one absolute in life. Religion, science, philosophy and theory will for ever be changing. Trying to wrestle it down and find an absolute answer to any of it is futile and unimportant to the basic needs of happiness in life.

    Look at your son, touch his face, then think, is your touch more important than your thought of touching to him? Is the reason you love him more important that the fact that you do to him? He is your life and you are his. If you take that away or think of taking that away then you will truly be only what you think, as opposed to what you are. You are not who you think you are but more of who you do not think you are, just as you are as much of what you do not know as what you do know.Your mind is only apart of you and it will always be in a constant state of change. If you can understand that and accept that you will see you are no different from anybody else. You are somebody, you are a person, you are important and you do matter.

    Take the time it takes to replace the old with the new. DO NOT think you cannot. It is an absolute fact that what ever you end up eventually accepting to believe will still be just that, a belief. If you die, a very important part of your son dies also. You cannot take that from him. You would end up cheating him of the most important person in his life. All this, simply because you have not given yourself enough time to fill in the blanks and become comfortable in your thoughts. You are better than that, you are smarter than that. That alone proves that you are a person.

    Take care and big hug

    Dave

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