Howdoo everyone... from Muddy... (despite user name, I am female.)
A bit of BACKGROUND:
- was converted into the cult when I was 23 at a really vulnerable time of my life --dealing with lots of incredible challenges and changes, so guess I was ripe for the picking.
and yes, did they get me good... for the next 25 years or so!!
I started waking up in my late 40's, but I've only been out (faded) for about 5 years now, and continue to have insights...
It really is like peeling back layers of an onion, as you discover more and more the damaging ways they get to your psyche and twist everything to their dark side.
(Yes,it's a mind-boggling thing -- to think that one time what was black is white, and what was white is black, and the grey areas barely exist or become so muddied.... yet life is all about the 'greys', isn't it...? HA)
Anyway, don't mind my aside.
I'm a little bonkers with this revelation today, because it's another heart-rending doozy for me to realize again(!) yet another one of the depths and subtleties of the ways this cult can muck up your viewpoint & perspectives and ultimately your most precious relationships.
(I spoke once of the way their viewpoint muddied up the way I perceived and treated my own dear, sweet, wonderful, hard-working husband, in this post: https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/284634/female-perspective-about-wts-marital-relationship-control
And it was so painful to me at the time that I couldn't even respond properly to thank everybody for their great replies, though I read them over and over and over again... thank you all)
And now today, I realized that I've STILL been unconsciously subjecting myself to their programming:
- namely, that it was THEY who turned me into a "better person"
- that before I met them, my life was a: purposeless, unorganized, undisciplined, undriven (except by 'selfish pursuits', or ego, materialism, and what-have-you) MESS.
- and that it was THEY (or Jehovah) who "picked me up out of the mud"... washed me off, cleaned me up, and stood me (erect!) on my feet to represent Jehovah, head raised, all cleaned up and ready & waiting for salvation.
So you see, I was *not* a born-in. I was not brought or dragged or born unwillingly into this cult.
I was a bloody CONVERT (hook, line, and sinker!) and they "taught" me that my whole life, up until my becoming a JW, was nothing but a mess -- "refuse"- GARBAGE!!! -- including all those terrible "worldly" people, which eventually included even all my dear "worldly" family who had helped me immensely during that dark time of my life...
It is THIS MINDSET that I need to be rid of, to let go, to become free from -- because it is POISONOUS!!! -- and I have been letting it cloud so many other aspects of my life even into another precious relationship, that with our only daughter, whose life is also presently in great flux and change....
And I've been fretting about our daughter and her situation in all the wrong ways, thinking that "she's not getting it together, her life is such a mess, why can't she make better decisions, she's being so stupid like me, like the 'way I used to be' (meaning before the JWs 'hammered some sense into me! or 'cleaned up my life' -- as for me, the JW cult was like a 'boot camp' to get my life "together", to bring it peace, order, blah blah blah -- goose-stepping, friggin', cult, army-like and unthinking, unemotional, ugh!!)
YET THAT IS WHERE THE LIE RESIDES -- in thinking that the JWs were responsible for making me a "better" person -- that "before them, my life was a mess" --
1). -- yet WHO KNOWS what might have happened in our lives to influence our path as well, to direct or guide our journey.... and maybe I was an okay person then, going through all that hard shit (sorry for my swears, occasionally nothing fits except an appropriate adult word!) - and somehow managing to come through it with the fine support of my family and friends - and yes, making some poor choices, but yes, also making some good choices too.
2). -- and maybe my life wasn't such a "mess" as they describe, but it was just LIFE HAPPENING -- LIFE which is MESSY and has PROBLEMS and some of them HIT YOU ALL AT ONCE and we deal with it! - with help from our family and friends and whatever support people and systems that are there to help us!!
...
I've got to stop judging and controlling aspects of OTHER PEOPLE'S lives -- they are FREE people -- just I now am -- people are able to obtain and use/ignore advice, opinions, guidance, from anywhere or anyone they choose -- and god knows my daughter knows my opinion on certain things -- yet she, and everybody else, are pretty free to make their own choices and live their own lives and make their own decisions. I can say my input, say my say, speak my mind, be mom, be grandma (so delightful!) - but then BACK OFF - and *not judge* - not condemn -
I've got to learn (still!!! at my age, good grief) about LOVE and ACCEPTANCE and not judging and being overly critical...
I've really got to do some soul-searching here, as this has colored and affected my life and relationships (with everyone and everything!!) for a long time.... it's going to take a bit for this to sink in and process, and figure out where and how to go from here....