Yeah, honestly they've never done me any good. For as far back as I can remember, I had questions and doubts about the cult, but they were always explained away and passed over by my parents, without actually doing anything to satisfy me. meanwhile I'm being told that everyone that's not a witness is evil. That's a lot to bear for a 10yr old. You feel like something's wrong but the only choice presented to you is to put up a charade or to be thrown to the evil people in satan's system. Fast forward a few years and it turns out that I was stupendously lucky to have been born at just the right time to start college before the WT cracked down on the evils of higher education again. That's the best thing the WTS ever did for me - fail to convince my parents that I shouldn't go to college. All the while I'm being indoctrinated with phobias of the outside world, evil spirits, being eaten by birds after armageddon, and told that mindless obedience is the highest of virtues. What help did the "FDS" provide me in a "spiritual sense?" I always heard from the platform "don't we feel refreshed when we leave our meetings" and it made me feel guilty like there was something wrong with me that every meeting just left me feeling exhausted and every missed meeting was so refreshing.
And once I realized that there was no point in letting other people tell me how I should feel about myself, once I realized that all that really mattered was to be true to my conscience, that left me sitting through every meeting miserable wishing I were anywhere but there, listening to logical fallacies and emotional manipulation. I recognized that it was mostly one-sided indoctrination, but I still had the fear of armageddon so deeply implanted that I couldn't fully break free for years.
Now, I've more or less freed my mind from their control, and what 'good' has come from my involvment in the JW religion? Now I find myself married to a cult member who I deeply love, and forced, once again, to put up a chrade or face loss of family and peace. So tell me what "healthy spiritual teachings" did I miss in my experience? What good was there for me to take away from this? I find your premise completely flawed. The organization enslaves people and convinces them that it's helped them. There's nothing that the WTS has ever done for anyone that they wouldn't get from any church, but most churches do far more good for their community than the WTS does. Basically the only good that the WTS does is help fix peoples homes after disasters so that they can scam insurance companies. Most of the houses would get fixed regardless, so I'm not sure how much help that is.
As for coping, it's one day at a time. Maybe I kept this from my time as a JW, but I just have to keep looking forward to the "new world." One where my wife is awake and we're out of the cult. Focusing on that goal is the only thing that's kept me 'in' for the time being.
