ruse

by teejay 14 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  RubyTuesday

  Thats what it was just a "fantasy". We were all apparently seeking the truth when we joined this group. We did find the "truth". Maybe not in the way we thought we would.

  When I was in the org. I never felt any closeness or love from other members. I envisioned God to be mean and as a child I felt he never wanted me to have fun(birthday parties, christmas ect ect.)

  I find this real "truth" to be liberating. God really does love me and he exposed the corruption in this religion because he does love us. This is a really wonderful way to weed out the corrupt.We all have "free will".The ones that stay with the org. do so because they chose to, not because they dont know any better.

  The thought of ever walking into another KH makes me sick to my stomach!
• 

  EXJWBrit

  Sometimes I am glad I was a JW - after all, many people go through life caring only about soaps or money or a new car etc.Sometimes I am glad I was a JW - after all, many people go through life caring only about soaps or money or a new car etc

  Too bloody right! Now I know my priorities are friends, fulfilling my potentila andachieving things without the need for materialism. Bollocks to 'em Teejay. Rebuild and prosper!
• 

  outoftheorg

  Its me again Teejay.

  You know, I thought a lot about what you have said. I suppose because you feel somewhat the same as I did and do. I read a book "A road less traveled" forgot the authors name but he is a well known psychologist or psychiatrist. If I remember correctly the first line of the first paragraph is, Life is difficult- period. He tells us that we should not expect anything different. The wbts in ways led us to expect happiness and joy if only we would follow their demands. They foster the "live happily ever after" type of thinking. They promised not only a world of happiness, but a NEW world of pure happiness and it was to come very soon. Now who wouldn't want that? So you and I and others who grew up in this mind set end up with brains/personality hard wired to that kind of thought and personality. So it is easy to understand that one would be sad, have a feeling of loss and sadness when we have to face and accept a very different actual world and admit to ourselves that our beliefs and expectations were wrong. Gary Busselman pointed out that most victims of a cult came into the cult from a normal well based healthy family and when they left the cult they had to strip away the vernier personality laid over the healthy one by the cult and restore their personality. Well those of us who grew up from childhood in this cult do not have this healthy personality to go back to and rely on. So for a while I think our personality is a meld of the cult personality and the new one we are constructing from scratch so to speak. It has been a while now since I left the cult and in my mind activly destroyed any lingering beliefs or thoughts from the cult that I no longer accepted. It is only now that I feel I am beginning to be a truly different person/personality. One of the things I am still working on is the black and white view of people and situations. The all or nothing type of thought. I am now accepting that people that are not too good in my eyes are also not too bad. That even the person that I might have totally rejected as bad when in the cult does show some very kind and loveable traits but just has some problems. Who of us do not have some problems. I think that this will be a long journey for me but not a bad one or one I can not tolerate. I think if I try I might even enjoy it and get some satisfaction from it. Didn't mean to carry on so long, got started and couldn't stop. Hang in there Teejay, it sure has been tood talking with you.
• 

  Carmel

  Great post teejay!

  I suffered from the same simpleminded delusion that the world was all a bunch of crap. Leaving the JUU's took me to places with mindsets that I never conceived of as a little dubbie. Now I see the glass half full and filling rather than a toilet that is about to flush. As to the JW mindset that humans can't find a solution to humanities problems, unlike most of the humanists and atheists on the board here, I agree with that conclusion. I just don't see divine intervention in the way most JUU's, and for that matter most Christians do. I see it as a do-it-yourself-kit with certain laws and principles adumbrated to humanity and if it follows them things get better, if not, well consider communism as an example. We are working our way toward individual and collective ways of surviving without totally annialating ourselves and will make it, I'm convinced. The difference between me and the huminists is that I see external input, they see this all as a happy accident.

  I hope you find happiness in your new found freedoms and your awareness of the crap that cults can unload on their victims.

  carm
• 

  teejay

  Thanks for your thoughts, Outoftheorg. It does seem we have like minds.

  I remember the book "A Road Less Traveled." Scott Peck also wrote "People of the Lie," a book that helped me very much as I was on my way "out." He is a very fine author, humanitarian, helper. He has very keen insights inot the human condition. I like the quote of his that you shared here: "Life is difficult- period." Short, but oh how we could talk for HOURS about just those few words!

  You said:

  Gary Busselman pointed out that most victims of a cult came into the cult from a normal well based healthy family and when they left the cult they had to strip away the vernier personality laid over the healthy one by the cult and restore their personality. Well those of us who grew up from childhood in this cult do not have this healthy personality to go back to and rely on. So for a while I think our personality is a meld of the cult personality and the new one we are constructing from scratch...

  You know, *THAT* is a profound statement, a thought that had NEVER occurred to me. Folks like me and you have to figure out -- often alone -- what a "normal" personality is, and it takes time. Sometimes years (if we *ever* figure it out at all).

  I don't know about your situation, but most of us raised in the truth have parents who are still hard-core Be-LEEE-Vers. Sad to say, they have invested so much time, heart and soul into the religion that they have no choice but to stick with it now at this stage of their lives. So, expecting help from them in our journey to normalcy is a cry in the dark. If anything, they are hoping, praying, persuading us to return to their realm of stark abnormalcy, otherwise known (to them) as The Truth(tm). My god! No way in hell I'm doing *that*! Gotta be a true pioneer and find my own way through the wilderness.

  You said:

  One of the things I am still working on is the black and white view of people and situations. The all or nothing type of thought. I am now accepting that people that are not too good in my eyes are also not too bad. That even the person that I might have totally rejected as bad when in the cult does show some very kind and loveable traits but just has some problems. Who of us do not have some problems.

  On JW.com, I've mentioned this before. HBO has a show called Taxicab Confessions. Ever seen it? Real people, caught being real. I guess it's sorta like a (sometimes) R rated version of Candid Camera.

  Imo, it is excellent TV since it shows "us" as we really are. I used to cringe at some of the things they talked about, but now... I just see it as people -- usually on their own -- who are trying to find their way. Like me.

  Sure, sometimes they (and people in my own family) say and do things I wouldn't do, but then so do *I*. I say/do things *they* wouldn't say or do. I realized a while ago that I don't hold any of the high moral ground (who does?) or that everyone needs to see life from my point of view. Without meaning to, the JWs taught me the fallacy of that way of thinking.

  Point is... people are people, and since getting rid of those cheap, dime-store glasses my mother gave me when I was five, I've found that there are good and decent people all around me. It takes hard and honest work, but the end result is very rewarding. It frees you up from so much of the bullshit we lived under for soooo long.

  Good talking to *you*, Out. My email is open. Whenever.