m0nk3y:
I don’t know what your past was like, but it may help you understand how people feel and why they react the way they do by considering their diversity and the existing circumstances they live with.
In many cases, it is almost impossible to leave the issue of the Jehovah’s Witnesses behind because many of us still have family members that are captive. Many of them are close and act as a constant reminder of the Organization and its policies. It may be easy for some who have exited the Organization to leave those love ones behind as well, but you should be able to at least accept that it may be hard for others. Considering the close family ties that some individuals have, it may be impossible to abandon them and not be exposed daily to the issues concerning the Watchtower Society, particularly if the other close person is a spouse.
The same can be said for people we’ve come to know and considered as family. It’s not always easy to just drop all your feelings for someone simply because you can’t talk to them anymore. Instead of hating that person or even just not caring, we come to understand that they are simply misplaced. We hope that some day they come to their senses. In the mean time, if you think about them you’re going to think about what the Organization has done and what manipulative, deceiving liars they are. I hope that my sense of what injustice is never dilutes and renders me apathetic to the continuing and future pain the Jehovah’s Witnesses cause and will cause on untold others.
The fact that we can be angry (yes even bitter) about that doesn’t mean that many of us have not gone on with our lives. I for one am quite adjusted and appreciate my current life filled with good friends and a wonderful loving wife. I’m sure that similar circumstances apply to many people on this forum. For some, it’s an outlet, for others a pastime. For me, it’s cathartic. It’s a quasi-public vindication that I won a huge internal personal battle overcoming a great moral struggle. It has made me a better person.
Even so, and in spite of all the positive things I mentioned, I’d still like to take a shot at the Watchtower Society whenever I can. Groups like that should not be allowed to bring more pain into the world than there already is. I suppose that writing in this forum serves that purpose whenever people can help and give comfort to some that have recently broken away from the Organization.
The varying degrees of reaction from ex-Witnesses is not any different than those experienced by other people who have experience traumatic events. Some women who are raped never really recover. Others are able to go on and lead happy lives. That doesn’t mean they forget and maybe even start a cause to protect other women. Perhaps your experience with the Jehovah’s Witnesses was not as traumatic as it was for some others. My sure as hell was. That’s why the freedom from them is so much sweeter and my criticism of them some much more worthwhile.
Etude.
