Pr_capone:
Awwww, Capone . . . dang, Im so sorry to hear about all the misery that the jws have caused in your life. I admire your courage to be firm in standing up to them, however. And Im glad your courage led to winning over your mom and brother. Sorry to hear you lost your girlfriend through this whole thing, though my heart goes out to you.
You wrote:
The more I looked into it, the more I saw that all their rules that are meant to help you are actually meant to trap you. The hypocracy, the rule bending, the lying everything was getting to me. To make matters worse, in this kh the meetings were more like business meetings that were occasionally interrupted by music more than they were religious services.
Good observation. Their rules and hypocracy are meant to trap us, to limit us, keep us in fear and keep us co-dependent on the organization. They will never encourage us to keep growing and developing ourselves in any other direction except the jw way. Furthering our education was discouraged. " You will be among ba-a-a-ad associates. Higher learning will take you out of the organization," was drilled into us. I felt guilty for letting - - - no, encouraging my kids to both go to college when they were finished highschool. Dang . . . they are still good l'il jws, too.
You wrote:
the elders start whispering nasty things in my mothers ears about how my girlfriend was only with me to try to convert me to catholosism, how she was going to ruin my life and my relationship with my family. For whatever reason my mom decided to go along with what the snakes were whispering in her ear. Our relationship crumbled from there. My brother was not allowed to visit me and they even turned him against me. I was disowned and not allowed to visit unless I was hungry and needed to eat. The verbal lashings that I took were miserable. I couldnt eat, sleep or concentrate. Things got so bad that one night I had a severe nosebleed that would not stop due to all the stress I was under.
This sounds like so many stories that have come out of the jw cult. Fear tactics used to scare you back into submission. They wouldn't want to lose your contributions now, would they? Nevertheless, this kind of blackmail via emotional familial pressure is very effective in scaring some back into submission. It really helps us when we understand the the jw motives, then we may choose a healthy path to follow. We would then act, rather than re-act. This helps us to have a sense of control over our life when our whole world is in transition.
You wrote:
my girl friend said she couldnt take the pressure of our relationship and decided to end it.
This is an especially sad part of your story, Capone . . . losing your girlfriend. This transition and turmoil in our life is hard for anyone who has not " been there" to understand and sympathize with us and thus support us. Especially if they are dealing with their own issues. Im so sorry.
You wrote:
Here recently though everything has made a turn for the better. My mom decided about a month ago that she was sick of being a puppet as well and has stopped attending meetings. My little brother is back in my life and I am no longer disowned. The relationship that my mother and I have will never be like what we had. Although I realize that she was being manipulated by this most hateful organization, I feel that blood should be thicker than anything else. I hope someday we work our way back to the relationship we had when I was younger
Actually, I hope you will work your way back to an even healthier relationship than the one you had in the jws. The co-dependency will be gone, the manipulation will be gone and the rigidity of the rule-following will be gone, and you will feel free to grow in any direction you choose! That is an awesome challenge!!
Grit said:
Big Hug to pr_capone! So sorry for the misery. I never experienced anything that drastic but I could relate to how hard you kept trying to "please" (try try try, more, more, more). Just reading that part I could again feel the exhaustion (emotional exhaustion) that I felt when a JW (I must do more, I must do more, I must do more...), never enough... like I said, exhausting.
JW whipping words. . . yes . . . emotional exhaustion . . . I constantly felt that I just "wasn't good enough.". . . I should do MORE.... MORE ..... MORE!!! If you went out in service you would feel better. That implies that I felt lousy as a jw. . . oh, wait . . . arent jws those perpetually happy people??? . . sorry . . . not me.
Glad things are better now. And I can't believe the JWs complained about hair that was TOO SHORT! Absurdity (on their part).
No surprise on that one. An elder told my son once that he shouldnt wear colored shirts to the meetings or out in service . . . only white ones!! Absurd!!!!
Im glad that you took a stand, Capone . . .I feel proud of you! . . . It is a difficult row to hoe, yet a rewarding one when you realize you are at last fre-e-e-e-e-e!! And you helped to free your family in the process!!! Wonderful!!!
And the girlfriend thing? When you are feeling grief over the loss of a relationship, it may not feel like you will ever heal or find someone new . I assure you . . . you will find someone out there even better than she was . . .It seems that there are life lessons to learn from each relationship. Let yourself feel all the feelings and you will heal. If you let yourself feel pain when it happens, you will also enjoy the beautiful feelings when they happen.
Just know, Capone . . . you have friends here on the forum! We are here for ya!!!!
Sis,
ESTEE
