by Ravyn 48 Replies latest jw friends
Euph:
With all due respect to Craig, I wouldn't call it pathological.
Hey, it certainly wouldn't be the first time I was wrong! I'm just putting out my own thoughts here...I need honest feedback just like everybody else.
Craig
edit to add: There are several professional therapists/psychologists that post here. I'm going to p/m them now and ask them to review my comments.
But to publicly express those feelings as threats of "If I had a gun (or a vial of anthrax), I'd kill you where you stand" or "I wish every one of you (fill in the blank) were mass-exterminated" goes beyond the emotion, and crosses over into pathology
Craig as a way of honest feedback (though you make some very good points), if a person cannot express these feelings publically in a support group then how can they begin to heal of them? Surpression is self destructive.
Verbal expression can sometimes be alarming but its just expression at an internal injury. The expression doesnt define the abilities of the character of the person stating them. For instance, if I said I am going to blow up the WT for the wrong that its done to me. That doesnt mean I am capable of doing it. I could say it but wouldnt dream of doing it. Its sort of hyperbole.
To publically practice these things would be the real problem.
just my 2penneth (and probably concieved in error) .
I'm going off line now ( I was only allowing myself 1 hour on line but have been here 21/2 - I am soOo disciplined, ) but will get back later.
Brummie
Hey Craig,
not that I'm a professional here or a therapist, but using a diagnosis such as "pathological" makes it seem so black and white. I would describe how you feel but I wouldn't diagnos someone else's feelings.
just my 2 cents
j2bf
joy and brumm, you may very well be right, and I eagerly await the opinions of those more knowledgeable in such matters.
Again, I meant no personal offense; just my personal (and non-professional) opinion.
Craig
edit to add: "I eagerly await the opinions of those more knowledgeable in such matters" may sound dismissive of others' opinions. I didn't mean it to sound that way
Okay, just my devalued for inflation $.02...
I think there is valid psychological reasons to express rage and anger, even if those statements are violent. However, if you use a public forum to do so, or make such statements in a large crowd, or otherwise write them down where they can be viewed, there are legal ramifications. Threat-making is not generally something to be taken lightly, even if the vast majority of people KNOW one would never carry out those threats.
The expression of rage, however, (minus the threats) can be healing. And a public forum dealing with a specific target of that rage can be a very appropriate place to vent. Maybe some caution in HOW we say things is in order. "I have so much rage, I wouldn't be sorry if they were dead." is a much different statement than "I just want to go shoot them all with rifles, and burn the bodies." Rage IS irrational, even if there is good reason to have it. So irrational statements are to be expected.
Okay, shutting up now.
My rage goes out to the " leaders ",not the " followers" .
This organization has finally got me so far that I genuinely hate Jehovah.
Any honest person who sees the tactics of the WT and then the thought they reflect Jehovah's Spirit?
Yuck
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/53831/1.ashx
This was a thread by LadyLee, and I thought it would be good to bring it into the discussion.
Here's an apropos excerpt:
Love, ScullyAnger is, in fact, a heathy reaction to some situations. One person told me that anger is a blanket that covers our pain. It prevents us from feeling how much we have been hurt.
Anger is a valuable emotional response - as valuable as happiness or grief. It may not be pleasant, but it is essential. How often has anger moved you to make needed changes in your life or helped you to confront someone or something?
Anger may seem bad, but it can be an opening to peace and calm. When the body gets injured it feels pain. The pain is a warning that part of the body needs attention. In the same way, anger can draw attention to problems that need attention. If you don't find a healthy way to express the anger, it can turn inward, making you physically sick or cause you to lash out and do something you might regret later.
We live in a society that does not understand anger, and certainly does not know how to process it. Think about that for a moment. Do we teach our children how to express their anger in a healthy way? Or do we teach them to stuff their anger rather to experience it find ways to use it to help them change things?
Hey Peeps!
I really don't have a problem with anyone(eg: Craig or Pork Chop or In_Between_Days) NOT feeling violent--- that is the whole point I was trying to make.....
WHATEVER you FEEL is ok. As long as it is not acted out in a way that harms anyone. I was objecting to the accusation that I was the only one who felt like this and was therefore some kind of monster. This was made even after I explained that I don't always feel this way! that was unfair and I considered it mean and an insult. It hurt my feelings even more. What I was trying to get acrossed was that when you start telling people how they SHOULD feel you get right back into the JW trap. You just have no clue how much I go outof my way in real offline life to be kind and giving---that is one of my biggest problems! I give so much that I give myself away and let others take advantage!
And I hope I have not hurt anyone elses' feelings with my comments about children, especially Prisca.
But I have a different view of life in general than most, and I know this. Maybe it comes from 3 NDEs and living with a chronic disease since I was 2 that has caused me to face death so many times I can't count anymore. But I don't think death is the end of it all. I just don't. And for me there are some people who are living today who in my opinion would be better off if they just cut their loses and accepted failure this time around. That does not mean I would ever actively participate in their starting over(death and reincarnation are REAL options to me)--but I do not have the same fear or sense of permanence when I consider such issues as abortion or murder or euthanasia as most people. For instance my mother.
My mother was the child of rape, born in 1928. She was taken from her mother and raised by her great aunt. Her mother married within a year and had 5 more children. She lived down the road from her, but never went home with her. Her earliest memory of her mother is of her coming to visit and embroidering and sending my mother in the house for some red thread. My mother tells of how excited she was to do this because she had just learned her colors and she was so proud to be able to show her mother the new knowledge. When she found the red and came back out with it, her mother was gone. It was trick- her mother sent her back in the house so she would not see her leave because my mother always threw a tantrum and carried on when she could not go with her. My mom was 3 yrs old. My mother started working in a factory when she was 16. She was engaged twice and they did not work out. When she was 25 she met a 17 year old punk who fell in love with her and became obsessed. She finally accepted his proposal because she thought it was the best she could do, all her friends were married with children by then. What she didn't know was that his obsession was the tell-tale beginnings of schizophrenia. After 9 yrs of trying to have a child unsuccessfully, she found out she had premalignant ovarian cysts.
She had 1 and 3/4 of the other ovaries removed. Miraculously in 6 weeks she got pregnant with me. By this time my schizo father had found religion and he decided to obsess out about that. His mother was a JW and he became SUPER-JW. He was in and out of mental hospitals, working night shift, and she was having a hard pregnancy. After I was born, she had post-partum depression. They moved next door to his mother so someone could take care of the baby. She treated me the same way her mother treated her--she didn't know any differently. 5 years later my sister was born very sick. She had spinal-meningitis and was mentally and physically affected. At age 2 I started having seizures and my health battles began. All this with a schizo husband who was a religious fanatic and lived a double life cheating on her. Her life was hell for the next 35 years. Then after their 35th anniversary(she stayed with him because JWs told her to) he left her for a younger woman and in order to stay in good standing claimed that she was a lesbian and that he 'caught' her having sex with her best friend of 50 yrs(non-JW). This ruined her reputation to such an extent that the only friend she had, after 50 yrs of friendship, rarely sees her now and all her nonJW family invite my father and his wife to the reunions and not my mother! He did not have to destroy her--but he did. My mother now lives with my disabled sister and her two teen age boys in a hopeless situation in a house falling down around her ears, in constant chaos and violence,--she is 75 yrs. old. She still treats me like she was treated. She won't let me help her, I have not seen her in 4 yrs now and she has never seen any of the homes I lived in, nor does she call me--I have to call her about once every couple of weeks.
Now you can give me all the platitudes you want, but life is not a greeting card. My mother's life sucks. She did not accomplish anything that could not have been accomplished in some other way with less grief and sadness. I would have been born no matter if it had been to her or someone else. I truly believe that. And I have prayed for my mother to die since I was 4 years old, because of all her pain and misery and the pain and misery she could not help but pass on. I see death as a release, relief, ooportunity to try again. So when I say things like 'let them all die'-including children- I am not talking about the end of existence. I am only talking about the end of this existence. It is out of my pain and suffering and empathy I say these things. I feel that some are better off dead, this time around. And for the people who tell me I SHOULD NOT make such judgements---hogwash. Everytime you step on a bug you make a "judgement". You cannot go thru life and not make judgements, you would have no value system or opinion or standards at all. The 'don't judge' crowd in my judgement, are just cop outs who refuse to see reality. I don't believe in the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule(or the Law of Three or the Wiccan Rede for that matter) I believe I do have the "right" to judge by virtue of the fact that I am alive and carry the Divine spark(however that translates to you---'in god's image' maybe?) and anyone who needs to have there code dictated and enforced by someone else is passing the proverbial buck of personal responsibilty.
so I hope that explains somethings, I am not asking for anyone's approval, nor am I condemning(people get condemning and judging mix up all the time BTW) anyone elses' opinions(safe word for 'judgements'). it is just me.
Ravyn
Since no one has said they WOULD kill JWs only they have the feelings I think this leans towards being a healthy recognition of feelings and not desired actions. It might not be too smart to post it openly but many have posted a second time saying they are feelings.
Anger is important. Living in anger is not healthy but Rayvn and others have said these are momentary feelings not common feelings.
The reality is that I doubt Rayvn or any of the others would be pleased if they were standing over the bodies of individual JWs and their children. They would be horrified. And I suspect would actually jump in to protect people.
Most of us have friends and family who are in. We know that once people leave they revert to being human instead of borg-drones. We want them free not dead.
Finding healthy ways to use the energy from all that anger though reficuses us into positive actions. Sometimes therapy can help. I've had the experience where just being allowed to talk about the feelings helps release them so that I can move on.
Hatered is a horrible feeling and wish it will not lead you to some type of illigal crime.
