My heart is ripped out !! (page 2)

Winston Smith :>D

Puternut,

I feel for you.

I recall the feeling myself.

I felt like someone who I adored like parents gave me a swift kick to the balls and stabbed me in the back all in one fail swoop.

My mind was spinning and I couldn't function for a couple of weeks.

I joined the board 10 months ago. I DA'd myself in Dec 03.

It's weird for me to now read about the stage of grief that you are going through. The denial and anger, it's all-consuming

I was there, but kinda forgot what it was like until I just reread some of my first posts here to the board.

I am kinda floating in-between the 'bargaining and depression' stages myself, partly due to my marriage.

This board is invaluable for me. I think that you will find it helpful as well.

Good luck in your journey out of this mess.

Many years may have been given to the WTS, but I look at it this way:

1. I finally did Awaken! to the fact that I was in a cult and escaped while i still have life in me

2. I conscieously try to be very non-judgemental & understanding of people's beliefs after being SOOOO judgemental as a JW. I may have never been like that if not for escaping from the WTS cult

3. I do have a broad understanding of the Bible and feel i now have a larger appreciation for the two greatest commands in the Bible; "Love your neighbor as yourself" and to "Love God with your whole heart soul and mind"

4. I follow my conscience now and try to treat ALL PEOPLE with love and know that ONLY god can judge

5. I can make mistakes and it's ok. I feel that God is as loving as a good parent would be. if i make mistakes, i don't have to get 'x' amount of hours in, or answer so many times, or aux pio to prove i am a good person. I'm imperfect and i'm doing the best i can. if God really is a God of love, he'll forgive me for my mistakes. He'll understand that I can be stumbled. if he isn't as loving of a god as i would think a good parent would be, then i don't really care what god thinks and he can just bugger off. i have no interest in serving a God that isn't at least as understanding as a well intentioned imperfect human parent would be.

Best wishes,

Paul [Winston.]

jst2laws

Wow, Dude Puternut

You are getting such good advise here. Some of the greatist people you will ever meet are offering their insights.

Well, except for that Joyzabel. Gaaawwwd, you can tell by her name she has got to be trouble. I wonder what it would like to be HER husband.

~~Ahab~~

Jst2laws

PS to Peternut, Just want you to know we recover and really enjoy ourselves, as you will too.

MegaDude

ROFL @ Steve

Funchback

lk

Puternut

I can barely type, since I have a face full of tears. I feel so lost. I still feel I need to belong to something. I was so active and I am absolutely doing nothing about my faith. I am actually mad at God. Is there one? Do I now just fend for my self as far as a belief is concerned?

Thank you all so much for the replies. Please keep them coming. I need all the help and support. It's good to know there are many out there, who have gone through the same thing. I find this the only board where I can be understood and be heard.

I love you all,

fearnotruth22

mOVE FOWARD and dont allow your past to hinder your future. Forget about your past

acsot

I still feel I need to belong to something. I was so active and I am absolutely doing nothing about my faith. I am actually mad at God. Is there one? Do I now just fend for my self as far as a belief is concerned?

Stop! If you can't stop, slow down! That was said with a smile . When I first disconnected from the Borg the initial feeling was relief - pure, exhilarating relief - no more guilt, no more feeling that I could never measure up (and this after learning two foreign languages to serve where the need was great, special pioneering, moving to pioneer), relief at not having to sit through mind-numbingly boring meetings, etc. Only after did I start to feel angry. Then I felt adrift. What you're feeling is normal, it's another stage. What helped me was reading somewhere that after living such an intense religious experience, it is difficult for ex-JWs to suddenly put on the brakes as it were and stop all the "busy-ness" we were involved in as JWs.

And that's all we, and you, did as JWs, really. We thought we were exercising faith. We thought we were worshipping God. But we weren't. A publishing company was keeping us busy, so busy that we didn't have time to think for ourselves or even determine how to worship a deity, if in fact there is a deity or deities. We weren't doing anything about our faith as JWs. We were just running around like crazy. Our intentions may have been good, but it had nothing to do with worship.

What you are doing now has more to do with your faith and belief system than all the meetings and service and Watchtower reading you did as a JW. As Ray Franz mentions, we had a borrowed faith, dictated to us by a bunch of old men in Brooklyn. It is as far away from true faith as you can get.

So once again, be easy on yourself. Take it slowly. Do not, I repeat, do not, jump into something else for a long time. I would even suggest not to read the Bible for a couple of months. And don't go near the New World Translation. You actually have to learn who you are, religiously speaking. Maybe in the depths of your soul you were meant to be Buddhist rather than Christian. Or Taoist. Or Methodist or Baptist. Doesn't matter. Just take the time to look about, spend time in nature, read other types of literature, grab a book of different philosophical beliefs, read up on Native American creation stories. Read up on science, I mean real science with a genuine bibliography and quotes which are not taken out of context, not the Watchtower version found in their Creation books. Then make up your own mind! That way you'll be building up your own faith, not some corporation's idea of faith.

Take it slowly, take time to feel your emotions, painful as they may be. Only by going through them will you come out the other side. And there is an other side, a light at the end of the tunnel.

Gretchen956

I am actually mad at God. Is there one? Do I now just fend for my self as far as a belief is concerned?

Once this stops being frightening it will be exhilerating. You can examine any and all belief systems and find those things that speaks to you. You can have a personal relationship directly with your higher power without someone else's rigid rules regarding what that god might or might not want you to do or believe.

Some do become athiests or agnostics, but not all by a long shot. Some turn to other spirituality entirely. And some turn to other forms of christianity, if you have a strong belief in the Bible you can always learn the truth behind many of the translation changes that went into the NWT. Having done that you will find things slowly that are absolute untruths in other areas (doctrine/dogma) that you learned for all of those years.

Keep an open mind and an open heart. You can only believe you lost your god if you believe (s)he was the sole province of the JW religion. You will find that is not the case. After you begin to see how there were some flaws in the teachings, you when you come up against one that is hard to see around, you can say, well they were wrong once, perhaps I should research it before I jump to conclusions.

If you have not read Crisis of Conscience, do so at once, you will be amazed. I believe it could be very good therapy for you right now.

Best of luck to you, you'll get through this and the other side (outside) is absolutely fascinating.

Gretchen

dustyb

i do suggest a break (i couldn't take one when i started reading). so far i've been questioning this damn place for 5 months...because i started having doubts 5 months ago, and since i found out alot of information, the first 3 1/2 months was filled with reading and reading and reading and reading and reading (you get my point). take a break, go have a beer and watch some sports or something, try to get your mind off of it. hell, go find a good looking girl at a bar and tell her that you don't want to have sex with her, you just want to have a good time that nite. good times good times.

jst2laws

Puternut,

I have sent you a Private Message.

Go to the top of this page, just below "Welcome Puternut" click on "inbox (1 new message)".

Jst2laws

My heart is ripped out !!

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