by minimus 24 Replies latest jw friends
minimus:
It was only after leaving the JW religion and feeling like a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders, did I fully appreciate that something was very wrong with the religion...
Their load and yoke was certainly NOT Jesus's light and kindly one. It was more like a load of bricks. Unfortunately, this load of bricks was very sneakily added one brick at a time. Nobody would consciously pick up all of this at once.
It was like a breath of fresh air when I left that toxic religion.
well said, lhg.
I found not only all the copious and arbitrary (plain stupid!) rules to be confining and irritating, but just keeping up with all the required/“suggested” reading rather tortuous, especially since I was plagued by OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), most notably around the mid-1980s. I thus found myself compelled to read every single word of the Watchtower and Awake! magazines, including even the fine print of the photo captions! At one point, I was looking up scriptures in everything and looking up secondary articles referenced in footnotes. It was getting ridiculous, as I would underline so furiously in the Watchtower and Book Study materials that I would actually underline certain words and phrases repeatedly until the pen would almost go right through the paper! Living with that was not fun, let me tell you.
It seems that the whole culture surrounding the Watchtower Society is inevitably geared to promoting very compulsive-type behavior. Everything has a scrupulously methodical and unrelenting conservative formalism, which can readily be seen in those petty rules so well known by those still on the inside – you know, beards, birthdays, clinking glasses, using words like “luck” or “lucky,” etc. (My little fingers wouldn’t even be up to typing the rest of the full gamut of all that odd nitwittery. Let’s just say that it’s way beyond plenty.) The Watchtower Society is certainly not the place for anyone predisposed to compulsive behavior, anxiety, or low self-esteem!
My OCD got pretty bad around 1985-1987 when I went to community college (I was taking a program called “Electronic Data Processing,” including COBOL, which eventually qualified me for the wonderful world of unemployment. Much of that stuff from that time, as you know, is as obsolete as the abacus. That career didn’t really take off as such anyway – apparently you need something called “experience” in that field.) I didn’t know anything about OCD or how to manage it at the time. I was also in the beginnings of my alcoholism, which certainly didn’t help things in the long run. (I’ve since learned that alcohol, being a depressant, contributes to low serotonin levels in the old noodle. Surprise, surprise.)
I’ve since educated myself about OCD and got some professional help and medications, but I still have to work at modifying my behavior and not being so compulsive in my theocratic reading and studying. I’ve been practicing speed reading techniques for quite a while, which makes it a bit easier. I’m still physically stuck in my family’s Watchtower “religion,” as, believe it or not, I’m still currently living with my parents. (I’m 47 years old now. It’s sort of a long story.)
Anyway, the exhilarating freedom of knowing what I do now from this Web site (TTATT) has taken away much of the edge of my compulsion – as well as the underlying fear and guilt, which I suspect so much of us here have had to contend with. After coming to terms with my long-standing background (born-in in 1966) in that most cultish community of Jehovah’s Witnesses and being able to stick my head above the clouds, so to speak (or peak at that little old “man behind the curtain”), it’s like I can to a large extent just relax and breathe as a human being!
Thank God for this Web site, and much thanks for Minimus and those stimulating and provocative threads of his. When I scan the list of new threads here in the “Friends” section, the ones to which I’m most drawn to select for reading end up being those famous Minimus threads. They prompt us to say what we really feel about that funny cult we left behind (even if we can presently only leave it in our heart) – and thank God we have a place such as this to speak so freely!
I remember a couple of weeks ago when I missed my first meeting completely by choice and i couldn't stop smiling when i realised I have my weekends back to myself and the gb have no power over me anymore
I can see how it affects my parents. Dad is literally in zombie mode: his life mainly consists of working, eating and keeping up with the wts standards for an ms. WHILE my step mother under the excuse of pioneering doesn't go to work, has time to play on his galaxy s (!), watches tv all the time and complains about the lack of money.
I literally have no non-jw relatives and I probably will never get out.
We didn't have internet until recently when there was a talk at the meeting about how we should keep up with technology and use the new jw.org site.
Man, the rules and regs wore me down.
I never was a "poster child" of a publisher--I couldn't be. I had seven children and lived without many modern conveniences.
The rigid requirements wore and tore either my time or my mind. As many have said many times before--you can never do enough. I had been a late in life recruit--so I was doubly conflicted as it became apparent that Jesus never expected the busy work the WT over-seers expected.
It would take pages to itemize the crippling effect the rules and regs had on my non-witness husband and our children--because I brought this crap into the home.
The worst thing I ever did for myself and my family was get into this religion--and the best thing was getting out.
Maeve
In retrospect, I find that I quit taking notes at district conventions, assemblies, etc. but began taking notes in the elders meetings of the "rules and regulations. I remember in the elders meetings about making recommendations that one brother would not be recommended because in a "certain" situation not enough time that passed. But then another brother who had family members who were elders/or elder friends (get the idea) was recommended as elder/Mservant despite having the identical "certain" situation but a lessor amount of time.
When I was just a puppy "elder" I was naive, but after taking notes at the elders meetings of the rules and regulations and reviewing them over months and years, even sometimes reviewing my notes in the elders meetings and bringing my notes up that as a body "we" passed over one brother but were willing to recommend another, I suddenly became unpopular. As if the other elders recognized that I didn't agree/understand with their way of having a "spiritual" discussion about someones spiritual qualifications and at the same time showing an unfairness.
I'm just happy that I'm out and that my wife is with me, although a bit behind. Our life is free of the soap opera's so prevalent in the "Chistian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses". A life without congregational drama, at last. (Sung to the "Life without end at last" song)
Affected... If a person is in WT long enough and deep enough, the experience with WT rules & regs can affect the cognition of that person for the remainder of life, causing an effect of two 'persons' within one mind, such as those that claim to have left WT, yet continue returning to JW related material like as this website. Some may physically leave, but can't internally leave because they are deeply affected, long-term.
The Rules and Regs were looked upon by me and most of my contempories as things to be ignored in the main. We did things our way.
For example, one very "Society man" type Elder joined our Congo and tried to insist that all Bros wore a suit on the Platform for talks, he was promptly told by the rest of the BOE that "we will have none of that nonsense here".
The subtle attitudes that permeate your very soul if you are in long enough used to give me trouble, such as the view I had of "worldly" people.
All that is gone now, the only reason I am still here on JWN is that I may be able to help someone, and I like to be up to speed with new developments in the WT so as to be able to slip subversive things in when talking to JW's.
I know with some XJW's it is a case of "You can take the boy out of the religion, but not the religion out of the boy", but that ain't the case with me.
I am proud to be 100% "worldly".
Sahs , thank you for your comment and I thank you and others for sharing your reasons for ever having been in this cult. It is soooo good to be mentally out of the JWs. I believe that many who still go to meetings have checked out. A long time ago!
