when you have been involved with a non christian cult that is as as high control as the jws are then it can be a big shock to a persons mind
Spiritual "Protection" - a Menace on Psychological Development
by Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho 56 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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pepperheart
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Finkelstein
Since the JWS is a fear mongering apocalyptic cult that pushes and motivates people to do what it wants out its followers through and exploitation, one can expect to feel apprehensive and a bit unstable upon leaving it.
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stuckinarut2
Bumped for those who missed seeing this great post the first time around...
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Unstuck
Wake Me - I’m speechless. Being fortunate to know you as I do and know your challenges - WOW! My respect and admiration grows continually. You’ve managed to somehow articulate so comprehensively what waking up is all about and how it feels. Thank you for putting the words in order when often we can’t do that to describe how our worlds have turned upside down and how we struggle to make it turn right despite needlessly fractured and all too often permanently destroyed familial relationships.
I’ve known and appreciated for a long time the depth of your intelligence and your considerable scope of human understanding but this post has redefined my appreciation. You are a truly precious, amazing and to-be-treasured individual. Stuck and I count ourselves privileged to be your friends.
Love always
Unstuck
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Vidiot
Essentially, the WTS is preventing their members from finding out things they need to know...
...I'd never had it put that way to me before, but in retrospect, it's very true.
Well done.
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FedUpJW
Jehovah’s Witnesses have been groomed to possess inherently lazy thinking abilities.
So very true! I saw first hand evidence of that over on another site where the Dubbies spout off mindless drivel about everything they are told with never a thought about it. And anyone that expresses a different thought is pretty well dog-piled on. Even a very cautiously worded comment about being "confused" by the pretzel logic of the overlapping generation get private P.M.s galore. "Brother, you must not think so much! The governing body has it right. We just need to wait on Jehovha!"
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
@Diogenesister: "I think this often happens with JW kids who break free without knowing ttatt, Whose parents learnt to 'parent' from Watchtower ...they are the kids I find in rehab😞"
That was 100% me the first time I escaped the cult at age 21. I had no clue that it was all false. They say knowledge equals power? Well, I had zero knowledge. And what followed was bad decision after bad decision after bad decision. I went down the route I'd been shown to take for all those who even dared to leave. And after a few stops between rehab and hell, I was gently steered back in the direction of the organization. Looking back, I can see how clearly it was all mapped out for me.
@eyeuse2badub: "The trauma of unearthing ttatt really sent me reeling. The pain of having my belief system shattered actually caused me to check my self into a mental health facility for 3 weeks. And then another year or so to fully recover."
That sounds like PTSD to me... And how did it occur? Watchtower's black and white system for us to interpret the world:
Organization = completely trustworthy. Outside world = satanic cesspool.
So when your credulous eyes were opened to the fact that your one and only source of truth was corrupt and that the outside world may hold shreds of honesty to explain this corruption... your whole world turned upside down. I'm so glad to see you've recovered nicely. Yeah, you're jaded and cynical - but at least there's more room for shades of grey there than the previous disposition you'd been raised to hold.
This forum has documented the growth of so many. From my first post, to my current one. To @pale.emperor's first post to his latest ones as he delves into the secret society of JWT undercover. All of us - we're taking incredible strides to catch up to our ages intellectually, emotionally and psychologically. Getting "older" has never felt better.
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stuckinarut2
Beautifully said once again @Wake me! 👍
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mentalclarity
They really do set you up so that you can only function within the JW bubble. I didn't have any criteria for choosing friends for example. All I knew was "bad associations spoil useful habits" which basically meant JW=good, non jws=bad. So when I left at 19 and found myself in a pretty rough crowd, I thought that was normal. In fact, I just thought that was how all non-jws were and after a while I went running back to the "bubble".
It's really more like Stockholm syndrome with us born-ins.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
@mentalclarity YES. The fact that there are so many cookie-cutter experiences of those who left and had their lives unravel in the most depraved ways possible shows that something in our shared upbringing went radically wrong.
It's interesting that you even mention Stockholm syndrome when you consider the countless medical journals that have covered the correlation between it and PTSD. Since PTSD occurs when we experience something so malevolent that we cannot account for it with our existing system of interpreting the world, we go into trauma. I don't believe it's a coincidence that the German word for "dream" is "träumen". This is the kind of daydream a victim of Stockholm syndrome lapses into. The romanticized version of events where the villain becomes the hero is precisely the victim's mind of piecing together the unknown whilst using their current knowledge system: (WT = savior, outside world = roaring lion seeking to devour me).