Is your life over? Are you totally screwed up? Are you able to move on? Are you incredibly angry?
How Have You Been Affected By Having Been A Jehovah's Witness?
by minimus 27 Replies latest jw friends
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tim hooper
Nope! I had grave doubts about witness teachings even as a kid JW. My doubts centered around the blood issue, the killing off of mankind at armageddon, the subjection of women and disfellowshipping. Now, half a century later, I see that those doubts were sufficient to ease my passage out of dubdom.
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label licker
Which of all those questions do you want answered first,Minimus?LOL
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minimus
All of them...I see some that are really pissed off because they were duped. I understand that. My view is, you can't do much about the past. You have to move on and learn from the past.
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Phizzy
I was only thinking to myself this morning about this very question.
I came to realise that, though I cannot wipe out the expereince of being one for all those years, or the memories, it is in all other respects as though I have never been a JW.
The attitudes, the fears, the suppression of the real me, all that is long gone. There is regret, regret that I have not done much with my life and my abilities, I could have been, in all those years, a force for good, instead I wasted them within that evil Mental Prison.
I have certainly moved on, I simply am not the person I was, not even the person who was an Ex-Witness once I had walked away.
I am now truly an ex-XJW.
Yes, I like to keep up to speed with the info. on them found on here, and I like to Post in the hope that it may help some on their own journey. But I no longer feel any emotional connection to JWism, my feelings to it are equal to the ones I have for Islamic State, I vigourously oppose all they stand for.
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quellycatface
I am more cynical but I was TOO trusting before. It's a fine line isn't it?
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Dutchdelight
I had a youth in which I wasn't allowed to do anything. Wordly friends were evil according to my parents and even a lot of jw youths were 'bad association'. So, being the youngest of three and my bro's marrying and moving out when i was 9/10, I remember always feeling lonely. I got dunked at 15 trying to be a good JW, but I got DF'd half a yr later for smoking cigarettes. I got kicked out of the house the same month when my parents caught me kissing a girl... my mother made choose between coming back home or staying with the girl, shouting at the girl she was a whore (omg embarassing). I remember the df session at my parents home... when i was df i just walked outside, tears rolling down my cheeks. Still somehow I felt free.
Being on your own at age 16, losing all friends and chances on university education (which I was allowed to aim for) and family is bit harsh... to cope with it I did get screwed up for like ten years, drinking, drugging etc, just to kill the pain I guess... although it was just for fun sometimes too. But it was me that chose this 'solution', so I have no one to blame for that but myself. I did have problems with trying building up a new life. I used to be ambitionless because whatever I could achieve there was always a voice in my head telling me that it was useless because soon the system would end bla, bla, bla. It really took me a while to get that out of my mind.
I'm not mad, although I used to be, as in the end it turned me into a freethinking, non-judgemental, empathic person with a suitcase full of life experience. But not before I tried being a JW again in my late 20's... being confronted with the dark side of jw's as an adult, their judicial system, conditional love and friendships and ttatt I can finally say I finally moved on... I have goals in life other than turning in hrs of fs or trying to get 'privileges'. I miss my family though, but it's not my choice to not be in touch and I don't have much influence on that. I have a nice girlfriend for some years and she always tells me it's ok that I 'borrow' her family, isn't that sweet?
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ItsMyLife
I'm screwed up socially, that's for sure. I have moved on as much as I can, but not as much as I would like, as my immediate family is still very much in, and I refuse to lose them. It does make me angry sometimes, but it's a pointless anger as I can do nothing about it.
I am a lot less scared about 'spooky' things, now I don't really believe in demons!
I regret not waking up to TTATT much earlier, but again, I can't change that.
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Thetis
My life is a series of peaks and valleys. Sometimes it's seems impossible to move on as almost every aspect of your life has been affected in a negative way.
On an intellectual level, I know that anger is detrimental to me only, but it's very difficult not to be angry. You have lost out on higher education, on employment opportunities, on friendships, and you know that your family's love is conditional and you thus live an unauthentic life.
You fear even frienships with ex-jw's as they may return to the organization, so this too can be conditional. You feel alienated from society. It's like learning how to live normally. Then you feel guilty feeling like this as so many people are worse off but no matter how small or big a knife is lodged in your back, it still hurts like hell. (this is what I tell myself to alleviate the guilt) lol
I do think I am mostly screwed up and it has taken a lot of hard work and therapy to be where I am today. It's difficult to wipe the slate clean and start again with what is considered normal.
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designs
Able to look at religious and political agendas and parse good policy and intent from bs.