I’ve recently been in contact with a couple of ex-JW’s that I knew in my childhood.
What has surfaced is the amount of fear that we experienced as young children when we were involved with the witnesses. I accept that children often do develop irrational fears as part of growing up, but what I am talking about here is a deep-seated fear of being harmed.
Many young children that I grew up with in the witness religion were of an unusually nervous disposition. I recall how when I was first taken to meetings that I found the whole experience somewhat sinister and strange. My Father was an avid collector of old society books, and I found that the old Rutherford volumes particularly could unsettle me with their strange illustrations and weird writing.
Looking back now, I can see that these childish fears of being harmed, fear of demons and fear of being alone must have come from the imprinting that we kids received from the WTBTS. Constant repetition about this “Wicked old world” convinced us all that the world was a very dangerous place to be, a place where even Jehovah might kill us if we didn’t measure up. The fear of being alone - early awareness of DF'ing perhaps? - was common to most of us.
I’d be very interested to know if anyone else experienced excessive fear as a child, and whether they think that this was as a result of being brought up as a JW.
Englishman.