Now THIS is scary...

LovesDubs

I found letters that I made copies of when I wrote to my family in the first 5 months of studying with the JWs. I am APPAULED at my thinking then! Check this out: October 1984 to my brother"

"Im still studying my bible, and still causing a division within the family. I am really a black sheep arent I? I have always been the one who was different now that I think about it. I guess I have always expected my family to just accept the things that I do unquestioningly and this time have gone a little too far. I am sorry that it is turning out that way. I am giving up a lot, myself, but as it says in Mark 10: 28-31 "Peter started to say to him Look! We left all things and have been following you" Jesus said, Truly I say to you men, no one has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not get a hundredfold now in this period of time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and chiuldren and fields, with persecutions, and in the coming system of things, everlasting life" The things that I have chosen to give up will be more than replaced in my life. And they have been. I have a mother and a father who take care of me as if I was their own, which I didnt ask for, it was a matter of them recognizing a need in me and taking it upon themselves to make sure I had somebody there when I needed help. I also have acquired 100 very close associates a dozen of which have been wonderful friends to me. I miss my family but apparenlty they are much better off without my stilted influence. I keep hoping that what I have chosen to do will be accepted but at least three of you keep hoping I will come to my senses. Dad actually said he misses me, as if I were no longer around. I feel like I died and was reincarnated in someone elses body and the world is having a hard time recognizing that the soul is the same soul even though the outside has changed its appearance.I am trying hard to be happy. I have had a rough life up to now in terms of finding out out who I am and where I am going. This has given me direction. I am able to help other people, I can be in a position to be myself without being judged and I am strengthening my faith. Boy, I just dont understand what is wrong with all of this, why it is so opposed by so many. Jesus said there were many things he needed to tell us yet but that we were not ready to understand them yet. In the meantime we just have to hang tight to our faith that he knows what he is doing down here. The kids in the congregation have adopted me, a single mother type with no kids. Its hard being a kid in the truth. They are very restricted as to their activities and they need all the attention they can get. God willing I will have my own one day."

I dont even recognize myself in that letter! When I read that...its like my mind could SEE there were red flags all around me, but I continued to do this giving up my family, my friends...not caring what anybody else said. Can you guys believe we all thought this way?? That I could be that influenced, that easily drawn away from my own flesh and blood...It scares me to death.

Amazing

HI Lovesdubs: This is an extremely excellent post ... I too have a couple of letters I wrote, not unlike yours, and it hardly seems like me who wrote them ... and your point about nseeing, but ignoring 'red flags' is outstanding ... actually inspries several sets of posts. Thanks.

Funchback

At least you got to count some field service time when you wrote that letter!

Sentinel

What an excellent post.

How grand it is, to be able to have gone far enough "outside", so that we could really "see" what was happening to us. What makes an individual get to that place? Well, I suppose it's different for each of us. Some of us are harshly disciplined and "thrown outside". Some of us simply are maturing as human beings, and "take a walk down the road, and look back". This gives us perspective.

Just like you, I was very serious about my life as a JDub. I think back to those days, and feel like I was holding onto a dream, a fairy tale. Dreams and fairy tales are wonderful, but they aren't reality.

When reality hits you, it makes you do something. It motivates you to take a good hard look at where you are at in life. It beckons "change". If being an individual and counted worthy as far as "self", with opinions and questions and doubts, means that you can't live by the JW concepts and rules anymore, then it's time for that change.

Thanks again for this post.

Sentinel/Karen

Scully

Loves Dubs:

The influence of the JWs during the indoctrination process is so subtle, isn't it?

I remember writing letters to schoolmates - I was 17 when I got baptized - advising them that this was what I needed to do to have a close relationship with God and serve Him properly, and that I was sorry if they weren't able to see how this was a "good thing", and my wish for them to someday see it for themselves.

I wrote letters like that to "worldly" relatives too.

When I think back on them, I'm mortified at my stupidity, and also for the callousness that must have come across to everyone I sent those letters to. It was almost like I was telling them "You're no longer good enough to be my friend, unless you become a JW too."

Yet at the time, we all thought we were doing "the right thing" by limiting our association with them. What we were really doing was isolating ourselves from "normal", due to the warping of our thought processes during the indoctrination period of becoming JWs. Cutting off our mental and emotional barometer that raise the red flags when things aren't quite right.

It's scary that cults like this have freedom of religion.

Love, Scully

LovesDubs

I almost threw these letters away...but I decided to keep them to remind myself, and my children how quickly this cult can divide you from everything you loved.

bluesapphire

LovesDubs, I loved your post. It reminded me of me and the things I said to my own family. Sadly though, I sucked my baby sister in and she's worse than I ever was. Just keep hoping is all I can do.

Dia

Can't help but notice how you quoted, quoted from the Bible as if you were the only one to ever read or understand the 'real meaning' of these scriptures and you could just spit them out left and right to get your points across. Very scripted.

In the 'background', I could even hear all the many things you were told to lead you to comment as you did.

Now I have a very hard question for you:

Could anything have gotten through to you then? Think hard. What would have broken through?

LovesDubs

"Could anything have gotten through to you then? Think hard. What would have broken through? "

Dia...nothing would have gotten through to me, if I was willing to give up my own family for this. My mind and my sense of reality were gone. Before the JWs I never quoted a scripture in my whole LIFE.

Now THIS is scary...

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