I think the feelings are hurt when it's their loved ones that are shunning them....kids, parents, fleshly brothers and sisters. Who wouldn't be hurt??
Why Do Some Ex-JWs Get Their Feelings Hurt So Badly By Shunning?
by RottenRiley 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Lynnie
And how about the family members that are baptized but just able to leave with
absolutely no consequences (my cousin) and she isn't shunned to this day. She
told me I could leave the JW at any time, she did. Well I left and then had elders stalking me 2 years
later looking for anything they could find to DF me. Of course they got their evidence since
they showed up to my communal house unannounced while a big party was going on.
I hate the double standard and the picking and choosing of who gets shunned or not
depending on how rich you are in the congo. It's a nasty practice and it's not out of LOVE like they say at
all!! So I get to watch her be included in every wedding and every other event JW but not me! I dont' see any
difference in what she did compared to what I did, I wanted out and moved away from home. She married a non
believer and no reproof no nothing. I was sanctioned very harshly and will never understand why. The only
explanation I can come up with that my cousin's family has much money more than mine so they didn't
want to miss out on any possibly donations from my cousin's JW mother. nice!!!
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jgnat
Not an ex-JW here, but a compassionate "Unbelieving Mate". Why does it hurt? Because we are social creatures, that's why. A person's entire social safety net is swept out from under them in one fell swoop. You think it is easy for the shunner? Not at all! It scars their soul to turn away from former friends. Have you seen the artwork in the magazines of heartbroken parents, full of pathos, saying goodbye to their child for the last time? The WTS KNOWS it hurts, and it hurts bad. They twist it into the exiting JW's fault, but that doesn't make it any less painful!
I try and help ease the pain by encouraging the exiting Witness to join new groups and make new friends. It's very hard for most people to live completely without.
Try ripping off a bandaid and say it doesn't hurt. Knowing it will doesn't lessen the pain much.
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Bungi Bill
"Unless it's your family, then it is your problem..."
Nothing like hitting the proverbial nail fair on its head!
Bill
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LongHairGal
Rotten Riley:
You state: "Why are you so mad at the Watchtower and Watchtower followers when you knew this was going to happen to you? You were a elder-elder's wife or regular piousneer and your surprised at the uncompassionate and unloving conduct being/not being demonstrated to you, why?"
Speaking strictly for myself, being single and thankfully having no family or business connections there, I couldn't give a shit what the religion thought about me. It was easy for me to "fade" thirteen years ago.
But everybody else doesn't have the same luxury. Aside from me getting the "cold shoulder" when I am in local stores, that's about it. For the few JW friendships that ended: This is fine because I would rather have them appear to reject me.
I am not hurt and I accept that these "friendships" died a natural death long ago. Time to turn over a new leaf for a New Year! They will simply be more names whited out of my phone book. I view it the same as cutting down on my Christmas card list and Facebook "friends" that don't communicate. No loss. I cut off blood relatives who don't want to be bothered. Why would I care about JW strangers?
However, other people on the forum who DO have family and/or business connections there cannot do what I did. There is a steep price to pay. They have to play a game (for as long as they can stomach it). They have to have a plan and an exit strategy, much the same as a person who is planning on quitting a job. In some instances, they can't really leave the religion at all.
This is the ugly reality of this unfortunate cult. Too bad this reality is hidden from the general public!
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RottenRiley
Hi, my mother is battling pancreatic cancer and my sister who is the COBE's wife has not given a ounce of comfort to my Mom. What kind of being is so hateful she has forgot all Mum and Dad did for her?
I remained silent after castigating a poster on this website to avoid a person I thought was going to implode, I was correct with my assessment. The Organization inflicted too much pain on this Ex-JW and now he has really gone off the deep end trying to make sense of a compassionless, heartless and ghoulish type of entity. The pain and suffering he is Struggling to battle has made it so brothers and sisters are bragging how they run from him and hide from him if they see him anywhere. His efforts to combat the Organization have done nothing but fuel the ignorance and build up more lies about ex-JWs (They are not Apostates, the Watchtower is the Apostates who deny Jesus Christ and are nothing like the First Century Christians who did not shun worldy people but helped break the Roman Empire with unconditional love and generous spirts with every asset they had.)
How does the Watchtower reconcile this?
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Parallel Verses New International Version
"Honor your father and mother"--which is the first commandment with a promise--
New Living Translation
"Honor your father and mother." This is the first commandment with a promise:
English Standard Version
“Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise),
New American Standard Bible
HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise),
King James Bible
Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;)
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise,
International Standard Version
"Honor your father and mother�" (This is a very important commandment with a promise.)How does a Mother avoid her grandkids? How can a child walk past the parents who Jehovah told Moses and all the other Prophets throughout the Bible. How can a father and mother destroy the very foundation of Christianty and think that by placing some liter-a-trash, they are balancing their scales of injustice. I am sorry my post came off as harsh, I feel for everyone here. I read Cedars Blog and could not believe how his father is treating him (I can believe, it's hard to accept this because I read as much First Cent literature writtings and everything JWs teach is against the early Church, that's why they believe it's apostate.). The BORG Sucks!
There is a brother me and Struggle know who has five kids and brags he has not talked with them for twenty years, he does not know any of his grandbabbies and is praised by all the Cult as being strong, I call that Fucked Up!
We both know a brother and sister who, the wife killed herself through drinking because the man she married was a sociopath, no emotions, it was a marriage made in hell. This sister sat in her room locked in for six days and the elders refused to call in the EMT or police to put her in ASH or some other mental hospital, once she was broken and realized it was all a lie, she killed herself or died of a broken heart. Her death hurt Struggle just as much as me, we both shook our heads at how inept the elders handled her, she refused to come out of her room and the husband who has less emotion than DEXTER was happy afterwards, he told me he felt he was free from the bondage their one month marriage weighed him down with.
We both had to listen to a asshole who told us his daughter accussed him of rape-and child abuse but he was cleared by the Elders as "safe and sane" for everyone to be around. I feel bad for Struggle because I thought they were a real Bromance until Struggle figured out how screwed up Villham was and how Villham was a mooch who lived off his professional wife. Now Villham is the first to bash Struggle in Field Circus even thought Struggle was so good to him. Why be a kind person like Struggle if the end result in the Organization is going to create a giant hole in your heart no amount of new girlfriends or angry texts will fill? This religion kills humanity!
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DeWandelaar
I think he is a troll :P
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Legacy
Hi,
I didn't read all the comments but what I think is that, it's ok, when you are doing the shunning but when it comes to bite you in the behind...you say, How could they. Most folks project, yet when it comes their time...a different story...Most while in say, well, DF'ing is scriptural & it keeps the org. clean...NOT...but when it happens to them...oh, much different story. But isn't that all kinds of people...tell folks to correct their children but when it comes to their children, nobody better not say nothing to them...I think many of the shunned or DF'd witness were hard core JW's ...they shunned, they gossiped, they judged. So to think it could & would happen to them...NOT...as my Mom says about the witnesses, they very highly of themselves. I'm a witness, I love the message...don't agree with Df'ing or shunning...now being spoken to if a member may be going astray, that's ok, but just talk to them & don't berate them...maybe they just need to talk to someone....When they talk about Df'ing, I shut up..why because it can happen to me...I hope not but one never knows do one? If they do, well, that's life, but no org. can keep me away from God or Jesus, their line is open anytime...So for me to be on board about DF'ing & shunning is just projecting....it's as if I like people to be punished...that's not for me...
So, I think many get their feelings hurt is because they use to be the ones shunning...at one time.
Legacy
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Band on the Run
Because exJWs are human. Knowing something as an abstract, intellectual matter is one thing. We are social animals. Our brains respond with biological reactions when those dear to us reject us. It is biological, not just an abstract notion. I was born-in. My family chose to look the other way. They did not report us. I know what fear of losing them did to my psyche. In fact, I was utterly shocked when we were not shunned. Knowing about it gives you an opportunity to brace yourself. Animals react with grief to losing family members. These are the people who raised us. I don't know modern psychoanalytic theory but Sigmund Freud, Jung, etc. explained reactions.
Ask the children of dope fiends who abandon their children if it doesn't hurt. Some pathology would exist if it did not hurt. I attended a KH that was probably atypical. I am just grateful not to see those people anymore. It hurt when I visited my uncle on his deathbed. Some Witness brother was hanging out for dead meat in the hospital. He saw my uncle was in the ER. I could see how pained my uncle was that I was around. How could he explain me? He was very ill but he decided not to introduce me. I refused to be an elephant in the room so I introduced myself as his niece. It hurt!
It strikes most people as a serious moral wrong. Cults hurt. Sometimes when I read posts I believe members here tend to gloss over their journey. My memories aren't accurate. I can trick myself into forgetting years of anxiety. There are a lot of high school students in rural PA that I encourage to leave the area and move to NY, Paris, or London. I did it. You can do it. As I walk away, I suddenly recall I did not wake up at 6 am one morning and by 10 am I was firmly a seasoned NYer. I called the students back and told them I forgot the most important part. It was a process that took years. There were many failures.
Former JWs were JWs. We were isolated from normal people and experiences. It was a blessed transition but not an easy one.