What the WT took from me.. is it gone 4ever?

by LyinEyes 24 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  LyinEyes

  Very good idea, to start , when I am ready , reading the Bible starting with Jesus life. I am most fasinated with Him , and it would hold my attention more than the OT would. I guess that was the WT was,,,,,,, start at Gen, go thru the whole bible..... yak yak yak, read it thru and thru.

  This is what is so good about discussion boards,,,,,,,,these suggestions really can make all the difference.

  I try to have that mentality too Blondie, I had alot of stuff happen to me as a child, and my teen years too. I always am thankful , that at least I never went hungry. Maybe everything eles under the heavens happened , but I survived it , I can move on. I know dwelling in the past is only going to stunt your emotional growth. I have lived in the past for too long and I didnt even see how much of my life , years, were wasted .
• 

  Iwasyoungonce

  LyinEyes,

  I'm sorry they hurt you. I.M.O. Just be who you are. Sin bravly. And let "God" deal with it.

  (Impossible men make life so difficult.-Blind Fury)
• 

  nelly1

  you are so right utopian, i understand what everyone else is saying too, and like utopian i have not long stopped going to meetings but it was friends who are still in ho told me things,

  and then this board that helped me see what is really going on and helped me to make some sense of the craziness that was happening to me at the hands of my so called friends at my hall, and the elders who so mercilessly treated me with no semblance of a concience, heartless is a goodword.

  they are like robots, I think it all started ocuring to me when our PO"s daughter ran off with a DF lesbian, she was 22 the other was 40 and I already knew that that sister was having an affair with her roomate who was also a witness I am very perceptive, but i said to a sister the week before those too are lesbian she said noooooooooooooo they r not and that is slander I said u mark my words and watch, sure enough a week later that PO's daughter left the roomate lover DA herself and ran off with the 40 yr old.. from that day my blinders started coming off and that cong went down hill like a rolling snowball....

  the elders got cold and acted like robots whatever smidgen of kindness or love that was ever there dissapeared faster than a speeding bullet ( not that i ever experienced any love) from any of them...

  but my gutt which runs like a well oiled machine was screaming at me something is wrong this went on for 2 yrs even though i never did anything about it, the elders got worse the gossip got worse the meaness to me and others got worse, till in the end they turned up the heat on me just a humble single parent trying to do her best even though she was ignored

  dede I totally understand where you are coming from, and I think all here have gone or are going through what you are, I for one certainly am.. greif, dissolusionment, mistrust, horror, anger, hurt, confusion, fear, anxiety................the llist goes on and on, i do still beleive in god and what his word says but i beleive that he will save individuals not a group as a whole, he cant not after what is going on now in the society it is tooo corrupt, his word says he will uncover things done in the dark and he has.

  we need each other to comfort each other and that is what we do here, he knows our pain, and yes like one other person said we should be thankful we are not rumaging for food in a dump and starving, there is always someone worse off than you.....i always say when in a crisis" oh well it could be worse" then i feel better it really helps me..............but remember the creator knows what they did and i tell u i wouldnt want to be in their shoes after what they did to all of us, we were jesus sheep and you know what he said about stummbling one of us, and it aint nice....so u hang in there and take one day at a time dede, and the rest of u too

  huggssss love nelly
• 

  orangefatcat

  Hi Dede, I was nearly 13 years of age when our family became JW's at first it sounded okay to me and I was all for it of course I didn't know all the details I was just a kid. However up until that time I was alway religious. I would go every Sunday to church to Sunday School and the main Services. I believed in God and Christ with all of my heart. We belonged to the Church of England and were proud of it. However, the church was quite a distance from our home. My dad wouldn't drive me to church. So I attended the Baptist church at the end of our street. This made my grandma livid. Well so much for that now. After 38 yrs of being a JW I was found that going back to the Church of my youth difficult. Its because I know we were brainwashed in the organization to believe that all other religions were evil and belonged to an empire of false religions. When that is pounded into your head regularly all the days of your live its pretty difficult to shake . I remember the first time my father told me that Santa Claus was not real, I felt devasted. But I was able to get over it and go on. It shook me up real bad. Being told your changing your religion and this religion says you can't celebrate Christmas, what a terrible blow that was. How could you say that was wrong that everything that we learned in the church and at Sunday School was lies. But hey I got over it, after crying many tears. And I really and truly didn't grasp this. But eventually I got over it. So I know that eventually I will get over leaving the JW organization . Cuz I got over all the other things that happened earlier in my live. I now know that JW are liars. They took from me many years of happiness that I could have shared with my grandma and my aunt. What chance did I have as a young person to say to my father I don't want to be a JW. I want to stay with grandma in the Anglican Church.

  Yes the Watchtower took 38years from me and its not going to take any more years from me cause I won't let them, I am going to worship God the way I want to and if I want to go to a church okay I will and if not than I won't until I am ready. I know Dede you will be ready one day to say the WT didn't take it away from me forever. They the WT love to make its followers feel guilty and even if they should think of leaving the organization they should even have great guilt. Guilt that is what they want you to have and the more you have the more in line you will stay to the GB.

  Dede have yourselve a very Merry First Christmas.

  All my love, Orangefatcat
• 

  Shakita

  Dede, All your feelings are understandable. You spent your whole life as a JW, so you knew nothing else. Your entire identity is tied up with this religion. It is as if you have died to your former life and are now grieving over what you have lost. All the emotions of grief apply to your situation. When we leave the religion that taught us that we had the "truth", then we experience anger, grief, depression, anxiety, loneliness, etc. In time our grief lessens as we go on with our lives and choose another course. I have personally experienced all these emotions and I continue to wrestle with it. However, each passing day it becomes easier to handle.

  In my case, I still believe in God, Jesus, and the bible. I have begun to read the bible without WT interference and it has been very illuminating. I highly recommend Carl Olof Jonsson's two books, The Gentile Times Reconsidered and The Sign Of The Last Days When? Reading these books actually strengthened my faith in God and his word. Carl's clear, concise and to the point treatise blew me away. Also, I understand that you have Ray Franz's book, In Search Of Christian Freedom. I know how hard it is to get started reading especially since this book and his other book Crisis of Conscience put the final nail in the coffin to the Watchtower. It's like finally excepting that someone we love is terminally ill and there is nothing we can do to save them so we have no choice but to let them go. For me Dede, leaving the Watchtower behind doctrinally is not as hard as leaving behind friends whom I have known and loved for decades.

  I have also struggled with the possibility that one day I 'm going to lose my wife in death. Of course, I could always kick the bucket first. That thought has caused me a great deal of depression because for so many years the WT taught that we had the possibility of living with our spouses forever and that the time for eternal life without ever having to die was close at hand. In other words, Dede, we have had our hope shattered. I personally still believe that we will live eternally. I just can't say for certain whether that will be in heaven or on the earth. Reading the bible on my own has confirmed for me without unnecessary WT guilt that God loves us deeply and wants us to live forever. I guess what I'm trying to say is don't let the WT indoctrinations make you believe that leaving the Wt makes it impossible for you to develop a relationship with God, if that's what you want.

  My own wife for many years was ignored and ostracized by all the Wt flunkies. Yet, my wife outshined them all, and I have to say she is far better than me. She has certainly developed character traits that God and his Son should love and admire. Why would God destroy a good person just because they were not JW's? That would be monstrous. It seems to me that you are reflecting similar personality traits. Why would God and his Son not love you just because you're no longer a JW. I hope that you find what you're searching for. Just remember grieving takes time, but in time, healing will begin.

  Mr. Shakita