My Original Identity? (page 2)

Yadira Angelini

Cassi, you are still in the procces of getting healed. I'm glad! Good! love always,

Yadira

Imbue

Usually I am able to assist a person in making a dramatic recovery to his original identity.

-Steven Hassan

I thought you were remarking about this and how you may not have the opportunity to find your identity. I believe you can just as anyone else.

I remember going through an angry stage myself about my lost identity. It is very similar, as I see it and many have struggled with these feeling. Including individuals that are incest survivors.

Adult children of alcoholics ask the same questions and have anger concerning these same issues? They go through an anger stage asking what might have been if only. What they need to do as part of their recovery is accept the past because they cannot change it and accept their families because they cannot change other people. You can only change yourself just for today.

It's only natural that you would grieve the person you might have been. So grieve in order to heal because it is a part of the process.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The only good elite are dead elite!!"-Naeblis
(Ok! He borrowed it)

Cassiline

Yes, Imbue I was, but I guess I was trying to say has the WTBTS stripped me of the identity I was supposed to have? What could I have been if not raised in the truth?

Perhaps I did not make myself clear enough.

C

When the pain of being where we are, becomes greater than our fear of letting go...we will risk and heal and grow.

Cowboy

Who wants to go back?

(((((Cassi)))))

Always,
Cowboy

"You've got to stand for something,
or you'll fall for anything"
Aaron Tippin

Thirdson

Cassi,

I know where you are coming from. Those of us raised as JWs don't have an original identity. We are stunted by being raised in the microscopic world of Watchtowerdom with all its limitations.

Don't be too upset with one person's statement that doesn't apply to us. We still have a chance to make an impact, to do some good, to become the people we want to be. Its our choice now because we are free. Don't let the cage limit your view. You are outside now and the world outside is rather large and sometimes rather scary. Welcome to the real world and real freedom make the most of it.

Thirdson

Introspection

To me, the question of identity is more important than the answer. Thing is, people tend to try to "find" an answer rather than work on the question, kind of like "studying" a WTS publication, underlining the right thing. Life isn't like that. However, I would point out that if you search for your identity in the past it is also a type of finding. You can come across something that you accept as the answer, but I doubt that's the real answer. Most people (including "normal" ones) do this in some way, but usually it is just a story they make up to some extent, it is just their self image rather than their true self.

Frankly, any question of identity is really just a big joke from the absolute perspective. People change through time, and even if you go back to genetics as the standard of who you were supposed to be, we know that's not an absolute determinant of "who" you are either. To me the possibilities are much vaster than that, not as something that is nice to believe in but as a fact of life.

I think a question of self inquiry like this one can be very powerful. Instead of focusing on the insecurity and trying to find a way out of that, it can open the way to real transformation, or rather realizing just who you really are. It reminds me of a zen koan which says "What was the appearance of your original face before your parents were born?" It depends on just how far you want to take this inquiry. I'm no longer so interested in stories about self image or self esteem, those are just opinions, even if it is my own. Even if I don't know, atleast I'm not fooling myself by believing in something that feels nice. Self deception is not something that's only found in cults.

Valis

I think that getting back to one's supposed identity is a ludicrous notion. "I am what I am" as the noted philosopher Popeye said.

Cass I think most great people suffer trial and tribulation. That's what shapes their person. Apply heavy doses to your psyche and call me in the morning. *L*

Sincerely,

District Overbeer

144thousand_and_one

(((Cassiline,)))

I was also born and raised in the JW cult. But my perspective differs greatly from most of the other similarly situated individuals who have posted on this thread to this point. I NEVER bought what the JWs sold; I was an unwilling participant from day one, subjected to physical and emotional abuse as a result of my defiance. Sure, I feigned cooperation and belief in order to minimize the abuse, but my heart was never part of that cult. At the age of 14, I rejected it all and stopped attending meetings/field service, and paid the price for it. It just got to the point where listening to the endless streams of verbal effluent that spewed from the mouths of idiots at the podium was far worse than anything my parents could dish out.

Therefore, I have neither a "pre-dub" nor a "post-dub" identity. I'm just a guy who survived a horrible childhood disease known as Jehovah's Witnesses.

In some respects, I owe much of my success in life to the Jehovahs Witnesses. I used the extreme anger and negative energy they created in me to motivate me to excel academically, professionally, and physically. However, the WTS shouldn't be expecting a "thank you" card from me. Although most of that negative energy has since been consumed and used in a mostly positive manner, I still have some residual effects that surface on occasion and cause unhappiness.

Personally, asking myself "what might have been" serves only to exacerbate that residual negative energy, so I avoid asking that question and instead focus my energy on my future.

Cassiline

((((((( Intro )))))))

Your way with words and insights never cease to amaze me. Thank you so very much for your thoughts.

((((((( 144 ))))))

I am happy that you were able to refocus that negative energy and continue to make a place for yourself in today's society. Perhaps one day I will stop questioning and move ahead in life.

(((((( Valis )))))))
Took one too many "doses" and forgot to call you.

(((((( Cowboy ))))))
Just because.

C

When the pain of being where we are, becomes greater than our fear of letting go...we will risk and heal and grow.

Introspection

Cassi, I just came across this and thought you might enjoy it:

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting ?
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

My Original Identity?

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