by wannaexit 70 Replies latest jw friends
Homegirl I'm with ya.
By the time I woke up, three years ago. I had 22 years of full time service under my belt, 6.5 of which were Bethel years.
I don't think occasional sadness about mis-spent decades is abnormal. We must just make sure that our golden years aren't spent watching wheel of fortune and hanging out at bingo parlors.
Like getting told you have a week to live and no, you get no time off work.....right?
Quote: " 'Hey, you bastards, I'm still here!'
Papillon made it to freedom. And for the remaining years of his life he lived a free man. This, the infamous penal system in French Guiana......did not survive him. " Endquote ( From a dialogue transcript of the film 'Papillion' )
Henri Charrière, the author of 'Papillon' might have been a touch liberal with the truth ( pun intended ) but the overall story is true enough and after his escape, he did prosper.
Been out for over 20 years though spent the first couple of years feeling sorry for myself. There were a lot of people I was genuinely fond of and I know a few missed me.
With 'Witness Thinking' firmly entrenched you start out tending to believe everyone is out to get you. You tend to believe that further study will turn you in to a one of Satan's acolytes.
Sorry but no matter what, you are going to need other people and if you sacrificed a career then you will likely be enrolling somewhere. Now the good news: 'Worldly' friends love you because they want to love you. They will be there behind you when needed. That includes kicking your ass if they think you are feeling sorry for yourself.
The rules are simple : Just do the same for them. Yes there are people 'on the take' but the JW-org was never short of them either.
And you wont be catching cold by dancing naked around some moonlit rock in the wilderness. In my years of study since, the closest I got was ogling some of the women on campus.
Papillion didn't hang about. He got as far away from those prison gates as he could. I didn't lose my youth to a religous-sect: I did all that because I believed it was right. I did lose a couple of years because I was hanging around the prison feeling sorry for myself after realising I was wrong.
We didn't lose a life, we lost the millstone around our necks.
Don't know what to do next? Confused? Apprehensive? So was I. I still am and its just great!
The adventure has started don't you know?
GREENGIRL: Life is interesting. And it is very short. It is about the journey. Make the most of it. It could always have been better. It could always have been worse.
Nicely stated!
If this conversation had started up in a bar, we'd all be shitfaced by now -- but at least we'd have a smile.
Carpe diem!
Doc
((((((WANNAEXIT)))))))
I can certainly empathize with you and you have every right to feel that way. 20 years is a long time.
One thing that helps me is to contemplate the lives of others, not JW's, but others around me. The perspective we have on life is unlike so many around us. It came at a great cost as it did for you, but many struggle their entire life without getting anywhere near our perspective.
this comes only from a tragic event, for many exJW's that event isn't a car accident or beating cancer, but losing our identity and starting our lives over.
You could have done all of those things your cousins did and be miserable, these feelings you have are not entirely unique to former JW's, people of all religions (or not) of all walks of life look back with regret about life decisions and lost time.
Does everything happen for a reason? your life as a JW doesn't have to be all negative, you were still you, you were growing into the person you are today.
Hi wannaexit.
As some others have said, it's ok how you feel about the past.
Don't allow yourself to become swallowed up by feelings - nobody can change the past so don't worry about it too much.
Keep doing what you're doing - living life as best you can now and for the future.
I think I'll get off my soap-box now.
All the best
LUHE
I just read this and thought it was an interesting way to look at things. As so many have said we would not be who we are now if we had not gone through the JW expreance. Maybe it did make us stronger, I hope.
Every experience in your life is being orchestrated to teach you something you need to know to move forward. ~Brian Tracy
LITS
WANNAEXIT: I still feel an overwhelming sadness when I reflect on the wasted years.
I don't remember being SAD as much as I recall being MAD -- I mean really F***ING PISSED OFF!
It's taken at least 3 years for that emotion to ease and is still not completely gone.
Doc
my biological clock is ticking away and while my peers are looking forward to retirement, I am only beginning. I still feel an overwhelming sadness when I reflect on the wasted years.
The best years where I could have explored and developed my talents and creativity were spent in slavery to the watchtower. While my catholic cousins were getting degrees in school and climing the latter of success, I was trudging from door to door. Twenty years of pioneering. Twenty years I will never get back.
Damn… I know… I know… I’m in the same boat. Seems like we’re about the same age. I lost 30 years as a 24hr/day, 7day/week fully-in JW with many responsibilities (pioneer/elder) who worked menial jobs and was broke the whole time. I was not fully in as a child; had an unbelieving father. However, even then I mostly believed it, so it affected my outlook all throughout high school. While everybody else was planning for the future, I was thinking “what’s the use?”
while my peers are looking forward to retirement, I am only beginning.
I feel the same way. I recently met up with an old friend from elementary school. He’s only a few months older than I am, and he’s already retired. He makes twice as much in retirement as I do working full-time. I feel like a teenager just starting out financially. This friend of mine gets up every day and does whatever he wants. I get up and immediately have to get on conference calls, start tracking my every move in a log book, etc. I have zero retirement prospects. Some posters have made comments like “just make the best of life now.” While I appreciate the attempts to be positive, the problem is time. I don’t have much time left. I love life. I love to travel. I love to read and learn and explore and contemplate. I love adventure. But I’m a slave to a menial job. My two one-week vacations per year are spent working on cars, doing home repairs, etc. JWdom stole my life. It is cruel, heartless, cold, uncaring.
Some years ago, my dad made a big investment in a private water-treatment facility. He made the investment through a young broker who flew out to investigate the company. Supposedly it was soon to be taken over by a government (city? state?) and investors were to make a lot of money. My dad ended up losing all of his big investment. About twenty years later, this broker looked my dad up (my dad had moved) and came to visit. I saw the two of them sitting out in the broker’s car talking. The broker profusely apologized with literal tears. The fact that info coming from him had so profoundly affected my dad’s life in a negative way had been bothering this guy for years.
Is the JW leadership bothered by the fact that JWdom has so damaged our lives? I lost far, far more money because of JWdom than my dad did because of this broker’s mistake. And, at least my dad didn’t lose time; I lost three or four decades (and my future was robbed, too). Will JWdom ever apologize to us and others like us? We all know the answer to that. To the contrary, JWdom still wants us to bow before it and give our last drops of blood (and money) for it – answering to its petty rules, swallowing its nonsensical doctrine, going through its mind-numbing routines, etc.
For the last few decades, I have lived for the future – never in the present. For that reason, now that I’ve left JWdom and am starting to live in the present, it feels as though I entered a time warp and went from 25 to 55 in the blink of an eye. I see friends from high school with grandchildren and it feels so weird. I’m thinking “What happened? You have grandchildren???” When I try to explain my feelings to them, I can tell they don’t understand. I guess that’s because they’ve all had lives – they’ve lived in the present, so time has passed normally to them.
So here I am – feeling like I’m just starting out in life, yet without much time left. At least it feels good to be free. No more rushing to mind-numbing, corny meetings. No more drudgery of field service. I haven’t cut my hair in about five months and I’ve got about 1/4” growth on my face. It feels good to not have to answer to the grooming police. I can now explore my tree-hugging, hippie side if I want to. Yes, the freedom does feel good. I kind of feel like some of the folks who leave the Amish and wear a pear of blue jeans for the first time. It feels so daring, so freeing to them, yet to everybody else around them, it's nothing; those folks have ten pairs of jeans and have been wearing them for decades. So I feel daring having longer hair and some growth on my face, however, to most people, that's nothing.
I really do envy my retired friend and all my other peers from school; they are all financially well-off and have really lived life. I would love to somehow get enough money to buy and restore and old VW van and live out the rest of my life traveling around the country and living in the van. There is so much to see and do. But thanks to JWdom, I’ll probably never get to do that.
Magmum- my heart goes out to you
To all that responded to this tread a warm thank you . I have read everyone's comments very very carefully. Thank you for helping me adjust my thinking to live in the moment and appreciate what I have instead of what I lost.
I love this community and how it rallies to be of help and encouragement when needed.
Regards to all
Wanna
Wannaexit, I hear you as well. I was glad to leave in my 20's, but I wish I have not grew up in it. I earned my B.S. when I was 30, my professional degree when I was 38. I am one year from my M.S. People were climbing in the ladder of the corporate opportunities, while I was working at evening on the degree. Life is gone and there is nothing much to do. Some nations waited for 40 years in communist or other dictatorial rules and they could never get their years back. Life is not fair, but come issues is hard to control. It is like to be locked as a prisoner innocent of crime and released to the society with appology that you were convicted wrongly.
