What is the toll of rejection to JW's?

sleepy

Growing up as a witness you face rejection at every corner.

You go to school aged 5 and soon you are invited to a bithday party.You run home excited, but your parents say you cant go , a tell you to say you are a Jehovahs witness.After that you friends are never the same , they treat you as someone different.Some won't even be your friends anymore.You go through school having to miss holidays , religious services etc, and you can tell the teachers think you're odd.If your lucky enought to be quite a well balanced personality it may not effect you that much.Or does it?

Do the scars of rejection dig deeper than you think?

As we go older the ministry comes to the fore.Time after time you are rejected.(People used to say its not you thats being rejected, but gods message.But since you are a carrier of that message and a witness is what you are, of course they are rejecting you)Some times people are abusive often just apathetic.

You grow up being rejected at every coner.Does this now shape how you act with other people?

Often with psycological matters we don't notice what is happening to us especially if we know no different.I believed this rejection hadn't effected me much , but then i thought about the way I deal with situations.

I feel the ingrained rejection may have taught me to view other people as judgers of me and has maybe caused me to be too passive in dealing with people.I alow too many things to slip by without doinging anything to promote myself or take charge of the situation.

Have I learnt to think that my message will be rejected?Or that I should keep quite in case people find out things about me they don't like or don't agree with?Did the constant reject cause me to be ashamed of myself in case I was ridiculed for what I believe?

Whatever, I will unlearn what I have learnt, if that has been the case.

Obviously these things will effect different people in different ways.

How about you?

finnrot

Hi Sleepy. Yep, that's me. I've been out for almost 30 years now, but I still have trouble relating to "normal people". By that I mean, people who learned interpersonal skills as children. When you're the kid who runs from the classroom when another kid brings a ouija board to class or sits alone while EVERYBODY else is singing X-Mas carols, it makes other kids look at you differently, and I don't mean in a good way. People who raise their kids in this cult should be flogged.

I get a kick out of people who are raised non witnesses, and then get depressed or just turn stupid and then let themselves and their family sucked into the Borg. When you ask them if they think it's fair that they grew up getting to celebrate holidays and their own birthdays, invariability they will tell you that their kids don't want to celebrate holidays or birthdays. I asked one fool how he knows that his kids feel that way, and he told me that his kids would tell him if it bothered them not to celebrate holidays.

I grew up a witness, and I can tell you that I ached to celebrate X-Mas, just like the normal kids on my block. And I sure didn't take any particular joy in hiding in the darkness of my house on Halloween, listening to all the little buggers outside screaming with joy and counting their booty.

I'm dying to hang out with a roomful of other recovering ex-jw's, how about somebody putting together a northern cali apostofest. Preferably near silicon valley.

-fin

SpiceItUp

I remember when I was growing up I wold save my money and buy myself a few things over winter-break just so I would have something new that I could pass off as a X-mas present.

Today I am am incredibly paranoid about everyone around me. Since I was used to being talked about behind my back when younger I constantly have that little nagging voice in the back of my head today for every occasion.

"They aren't talking to me---what did I do" "Why" "Are they talking about me"

Yes the root runs very deep and its very hard to overcome---its why I became a big drinker in social situations--it was easier to relate to 'normal' people when I when lessened my inhibitions and forgot the paranioa that I live with. I have since then gone out 'sober' and I ended up crying on the way home because I was at a severe loss of how to interact. Its very scary.

rejection is MY biggest fear---probably because of how I was raised.

Spice

Mary

I find that my experiences when I was young definitely set me on a path for rejection as an adult. I hated having to stand outside the classroom for opening exercises, I never felt "proud", I felt like a total asshole day after day, year after year. Belonging to a religion that didn't allow me to participate in birthdays, Christmas, Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving or Easter Hunts, combined with my being chubby was a fertile ground for teasing, humiliation and rejection from my peers. I have very few good memories of school, let me tell you.

As an adult, people tend to accept you as who you are, and are not nearly as judgemental as when I was in school. But although I have many friends, a decent job and am going to get my degree, those feelings of worthlessness and rejection that I felt from Grade 1 right through to Grade 12, have never really left me, which is probably the main reason why I've never married - I can't comprehend why anyone would want to be married to me.

Yup, we're the happiest people on earth..............

Crystal

Hi Mary,
when i read your post it sounded just like when i was kid. I was just thinking how much it really has affected how i am today. I have a great job, wonderful boyfriend,and nice things.My boyfreind tells me he loves me every day, yet I have a hard time believing it at times, I think sometimes that i am unworthy of his love.I worry that my boss will some day fire me, even tho he gives me no indication that he will.I feel like I don't deserve the nice things i have and that one day I will lose everything.
I often wonder what I would be like today if i never was a JW.
Hmmmm....

Crystal

Hey finnrot,
I live in Central Cali. Would love to go to a Apostafest,Lets get this Party started!!!

finnrot

That was me too Mary. And I'll be happy to marry you.

Hey Crystal, LDH mentioned something to me about a central cali Apostafest. I'll give her a call and find out more.

Email me and we'll talk about it.

-fin

Shutterbug

I am 65 years old and can still feel the sting of rejection and other kids talking behind my back. High school was the most miserable four years of my life, even more miserable than the military which I fled to when I graduated. Prior to 1975 I came back and put my son thru the same misery I went thru. I will regret that until the day I die.

What is the toll of rejection to JW's?

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