Say friend, my brother Dan went through just the same things you mention send him a line he would be glad to tell you how he has had to rethink his thinking and how he did it. In a way you have to go "In through the Out door". [email protected]
My heart is ripped out !!
by Puternut 69 Replies latest jw friends
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Sentinel
(((Puternut)))
You aren't alone. You can find so much here on this site. Take your time and go back and read many of the posts and you will see where some here began with the same heartache as you, and gradually over time, have been able to live in the reality of the situation...to find peace, joy and love.
It will not happen overnight, but you will be able to begin building a new foundation. You will be fine. As someone said, it is like grieving over the loss of a loved one. This is how significant the JW life is. The process to cleanse ourselves of the long time affects is a task.
Believe me when I tell you, that no matter how much you are hurting right now, it is still so much better to know the truth and not be misled any longer. Take care of yourself!
/<
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AnnOMaly
Hello Puternut.
I've been there too - still there but much better than I was, although the insecure and anger feelings still creep in sometimes - and I remember the 'heart ripped out feeling' because it wasn't so long ago I felt it acutely (especially when I allowed myself to consider the possibility of there being no God).
There's been tons of good advice - I agree with Joyzabel's. Allow time and allow yourself to work through your feelings and constructing a new worldview. You might think your life is purposeless, but this time is valuable for healthy transistion. If you want to read the Bible, use another translation - it helps to avoid the triggered mental responses you get from reading over-familiar renderings and you can let the Bible speak for itself. Perhaps you've done that already.
I am becoming a stronger Christian through it all. I even walked into my local church for the first time the other day - it wasn't for a service, but it was nonetheless a big step for me. It helps me to remember that all religious systems have 'truth and error' in them in varying degrees and that it's OK to have uncertainties because that way we are open to learn.
As Charles Davis said in Question Of Conscience "Man's relation to the truth - at least in this world - is that of unwearying pursuit, not of final possession."
Easy does it.
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shotgun
Blind zebra..I've never heard Jehovah described that way, may I use that if ever given a chance to say another public prayer.
Our Father is very funny and very witty and the Master of Irony.
Steve Martin would call him..One wild and crazy guy.
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donkey
Take your religious arguing and rantings and shove them up your ass. This thread is a call for emotional support not an opportunity to bible bash each other. Believers make me sick!!
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Sassy
puternut, I am so glad you found this site. I think you are going to find it as theraputic as it has for the rest of us. The one thing about being here is that even though we all come from different backgrounds and lots in life, we all have something in common. We can relate in ways that people in our lives outside the JW box (who have never been there at all) can not. It helps us save our sanity but even more so, as we find more information about the WTS, it helps us find closure to something that had a strong hold in our lives and so do so without guilt.
I'm sorry to hear about all this past year has been for you. I've had a year of hell myself. The bright side is we can find out way and find ourselves move toward a more positive life. I've appreciated your posts and find you very intuitive. This may have been a dark year for you but I am quite sure that the clouds will now beging to disapate..........Hang in there..
and as for dear friends you have lost, we can understand that one too.. I lost three of my closest friends this past year.....but I am rebuilding.. you will too...........and please include us as your friends.. just because we are on the internet, doesn't mean we do not care..
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orangefatcat
Dearest Puternut:
I have just read every post in this thread. I am delighted that for the most part everyone feels the pain of you plight. How ever it is sad when a person genuinely asks for support and help and then some ofe's decide to make some kind of personal crusade. We don't need negativity, we have need of love and understanding. There are always at least some who feel a little higher than mighty. Ignore their inuendo, they have nothing better to do with their lives. I call them shit disturbers. S0 now that I have had my little say, lets get back to the matter at hand.
I was in the organization for 38yrs. and left it and my ex husband in December 1999 and was disfellowshipped in January 8th, 2000. It makes me chuckle because it only took them a few minutes for the elders to destroy my image and life and they made the 38 years I was a person who loved God into a complete non existing person and Christian. I am 52 yrs old and was a fourth generation witness. The reasons I left the organization are irrelevant now. I don't think about it anymore. Because I have so much to do in life I don't have time to waste. I want to be everything I can possibly be. Do things I have never done before. I can celebrate my birthday, the day in which God allowed me to be born its a wonderful celebration. Christmas is my most favourite time of the year. I can now with all the freedom I have enjoy each and every holiday.
The battle to survive after the WatchTower had a lots of ups and downs or as someone put it hills and valleys. I thought that was a good way to describe our recovery from the clasp of the WTS and the Governing Body. In fact I use to have the deepest love and respect for several of the Governing Body. I knew some personally. I had become distraught and completey disallusioned after learaning that they have allowed cover-ups in the organization to continue. In fact with all of my friends I had always had deep respect and feeling s for them. Now of course those associations had to come to a complete end as now I was disfellowshipped. I know that several have left the oraganzition like me and some have even told me that they want to leave but are afraid of the reprecussions. I hope they soon come to realize what we all have come to learn. That the WBTS is a cult and excellent brain washers.
You know I truly with all of my being believed that the Society was God's instrument on this earth, just like you and like all of us. We put our faith in their hands that they were teaching us the truth from the Word of God. That there was no hypocrisy.!! They, I thought stood for clean worship. I believed it all. all lock stock and barrel. I was once a happy JW. but then as time went by I began to have questions and doubts and I needed the answers but they didn't give the answers, they brushed it under the rug as it were. I saw class distinction is the cong. and gossip which is rampant in some or most congregations. I was privay to many personal things with the elders as my ex husband could not keep his mouth shut. He wasn't an elder but was always in the ministry with the elders and he came to know things in the hall that should have remained personal . But my ex had this uncanny ability to sit and not make a peep and listen to them talk among themselves. He would come home and tell me personal details about cong. members, nd committee things. I was appauled. My journey out of the organization is rather lengthy and I have only touched on a few things.
So Puter Nut I know your pain and how upset and distraught you feel. I felt it too. You believed it with all your being and heart and then to have a slap in the face, well that is very hard to deal with.
Like everyone else we have all fought to survive. Some of the dear friends in this forum have had terrible and unspeakable things happen to them. And they are healing some of them faster than others but we are all healing. When you have been punched in the gut you wrench with pain and its painful for several days, but then you start feeling a little better and getting stronger in a short period of time. Well you to have been kicked in the gut as it were and your suffering the after effects but you know with time you will get bettter. You will heal.
When you read some of the literature that was mentioned especially Crisis of Conscience. excellent book. You will feel a little better, I know too if you lose family on account of all of this, it is terribly sad. And it can be lonely. But believe me that sadness passes with time and you can only hope that they eventually see what the Society is all about.
Every major city has what they call " Meet Ups for Ex Jehovah's witnesses." These are had about once a month and at these get togethers its an opportunity to have a good night of good food and drinks and making new friends and learning how they have handled their battles out of the org. YOu can do and talk about anything you want to . And most of all its pure fun. At the first one I went to some of the friends on this forum came to the one in Toronto then the friends I met for the US all the way from Rhode Island. How fantasitc it was , we all had a great time.
We have so many thousands on this forum all at some stage of recovery. Like us all, you will get to that point. In the meantime, take some R and R for yourself. Be GOOD to yourself. Have some fun, go to Hockey game or play darts go to Legions, they have some remarkable people there and they offer leauges for different sports. Its great. Go to a movie, Laugh. Cry, and let your hear down as they say. Be yourself be what you are and how you are. You are a good person and as you thought with all of your heart you were working for the best of the organziation and the congregation, and God. Well now its your turn in life to view it from the right angle.
God is very forgiving. He really is your friend. But you will come to know about the true God not the Jehovah's witnesses God. They misrepresent the integrity and truefullness of God. You know even taking a walk be it in the rain or snow or sunshine you can still honour our Supreme Creator and his creations. Go camping, or canoeing down a river and watching fish jump up out of the water at an early hour. This is beauty at its highest peak. Your oneness with God and you and no one else telling you at long elders meeting and assemblies that this is what God wants you to do. God wants you to be you and not anything other than that.
The only thing God asks of us is our Love and worship and as his Son Jesus said to love our neighbours as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them done unto you. Very simple non complex requirements of God. Beautiful I say.
My thoughts and meditation will be of you tonight. Please have peace in your heart and don't punish yourself for what you thought or did before its all over now, now its is uphill all the way and over that hill is all the happiness you can possibly have and imagine.
Sending you my deepest and sincerest love
I remain truthfullly yours.
Orangefatcat.
aka, Terry. -
darkuncle29
PuterNut
I am not very good at profound statements, but just wanted you to know that I am in your corner rooting for ya. I know you love them, but what your family has done to you is just trashy.
I am getting a vehicle of my own soon, and maybe can come visit. I'm in Moses Lake.
Peace
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mouthy
Puternut((((((HUG))) I think you need all of ((((HUGS) you can get . I understand you completly Donkey??????? Me too>>> ( walks away crying)
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Amazing
HI Puternut,
Like others above and you, I spent 27 years in association ... and was forcibly Disassociated by the Watchtower Legal Dept. Served as Elder, MS, BS Conductor, Secretary, and similar things ...
One thing about the war equipment investment ... the 5,000,000 shares in Rand Cam (formerly Sky Technologies) was a gift to the Society by the founder of Sky technologies. He sold his company to Regi Industries (Canada) which owned Rand Cam ... the stock is a low value, penny stock (worth lesss than a dollar a share) ... but still represented about $3 million to the Watchtower. I do not know of any dividend on those shares ... so, the Society did not go out and make the investment ... BUT ... they did not turn it down. The man, presumably a JW, who donated the shares holds the proxy vote on the Society's behalf.
The UN scandal was far worse ... and thre is more ...
I will bring my earlier post back to the top regarding the Watchtower making a cooperative union with the Mormons and Scientologists to form a political lobby in Russia ... and AlanF and others noted that the Society has done that elsewhere as well ... look for my post in the "Active Topic" section ... and I will coem back to edit this post to add the link. It is a similar shocker ... and there is much more.
Here is the link: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/56712/1.ashx And I also brought it bact to the top a minute ago.
This all adds up to confirmation ... please allow yourself to work through the grief and pain ... but undersdtand that you will come out ahead and feel better in the long run. If you ever need to talk, feel free to call me at 847-952-0909 during the week at my work number. I am located in the Chicago area, Central Time Zone.
Jim Whitney
