Is It A Good Thing To Ignore Our JW Past??

by minimus 21 Replies latest jw friends

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  minimus

  Yeah---------Keeping quiet about it is not the answer. I don't worry what those in the organization have to say. Blank them!
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  Sassy

  It all depends on how deep we were in, how many years we lost and how many scars we have from what we lost.

  and sometimes it depends on when we are strong enough to deal with it. We are all different and so each of us needs to heal in different ways.
• 

  Insomniac

  For me, it's therapeutic to talk about it. I was in a lot of pain for a while there, and it only hurt worse when I kept it all inside me. Seems that when I talk about the borg, they become smaller, less scary. Like being alone late at night, hearing a knife-wielding madman at my window-I turn on the light to see, and it's only a little twig, scraping the glass. When we shine a bright light on that which we fear the most, it tends to shrivel into nothing at all.

  So yeah, I talk about it, yell about it, make silly jokes about it. For this chica, it's the best therapy available.
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  Puternut

  I don't think it's a good thing to ignore our past. How else would you have gained the experienced within the borg? And we can all admit, it wasn't ALL bad. But in the end many made a choice, based upon their JW past...... In short, it was a learning curve to move on to the next stage in your life.

  Puternut
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  willyloman

  The answer is different for each of us. Some folks get through the process by taking charge of their own recovery and being philosophic about their past -- it made them what they are today, they learned some valuable lessons, etc. Others are immobilized and need a professional guide to help them move forward. Either way, I don't think you can ignore it. If you were an alcoholic or drug addict for 10, 20 or 30 years and then got clean, it's not likely you could forget those years. But you'd sure learn from the experience.

  I hear a lot of regret on this board but as an older guy my take is this: Once you are truly free, the time you have left is so much more abundantly filled with meaning and substance that it makes up for many years of futility and emptiness. As Wayne Dyer says, "The more you change the way you look at things, the more the things you look at change."
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  minimus

  This "therapy" is a lot cheaper than the other.
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  AuSet

  I think its dangerous to ignore it...you can't just leave your garbage sitting around, it doesn't go away. You need to make an active effort to clean it up and deal with it.

  From personal experience, my brother, who was raised in the truth, left when he was 15 and unbaptized. Didn't deal with any of his experiences growing up as a JW. Went back on sept. 12 01 after being scared out of his mind thinking armagedon had arrived at last. He now attends all meetings and even brought the rest of his nonjw family in with him
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  Corvin

  Minumus, as usual you have started a cool thread.

  No, no, no, heavens no! We should never forget where we have come from lest we find ourselves there again.

  Corvin
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  gitasatsangha

  For all practical purposes, the past does not exist. You can't get back there, and your perception of it cannot be objective. One can only accept it, and move on. Forgetting what happened, would be useless, because in a way that is "wishing it away", which will not happen and will only bring suffering.

  But we can take what we've learned from it, and use it to some benefit. We xJWs are probably more mindful of some things because of our experiences. For instance, we might be more mindful of holidays, and perhaps appreciate them more. We probably don't take interpersonal relationships for granted. When you aren't guaranteed friends, it's a whole new ballgame! It's a new world, and we naturally use what we know to get along in it. We probably all tend to value our freedom to make our own decisions very highly. A person who is deprived of air, choking for even a few seconds, wants nothing else. I know from experience.

  I was so bitter after I left, for awhile. It tainted everything I laid my thoughts to. I felt like I had had years stolen from me. I was mad that I had not been able to try out for sports, or go to college, or go to a prom, or any of those things that I felt should have been an option. I was very angry at myself for many of the things that I had done to others as a JW. It seemed like my memories were a wall of mocking derision which I sometimes perversely reviled in getting lost in, or else wanted to dismiss entirely. But I was speaking with someone once who was able to see it from the outside, whose opinion really mattered to me. She helped me to look at it from the outside. If I had not had those experiences, then I would not be who I am at the present moment. We are made up of causes and conditions, but those conditions rise and fall constantly. We're not the same persons we were then, but then again we will not really be the same person years from now, that we are today. Our bodies will change, new cells will grow, old cells will die, and we will have many more experiences and thoughts.

  And the present moment is all you have. The past is deader then Elvis. The future is always out of grasp. We have no fundamental control over either, just what we have now. If there is any purpose in life, then it really has to be to get to a point where you do not suffer. The past can easilly make you suffer. If it is a pleasing memory, it can make you long for what may no longer be obtainable. If it is an unpleasing memory, then it can make you bitter, and upset, because you have no control over what has already occured.

  In the old musical "Guys And Dolls", Nathan Detroit is always obsessed about things other then the present moment. In his case, it's usually worrying about the future. Sky Masterson bet's him that he doesn't even know what color necktie he is wearing and Nathan doesn't remember when his eyes are closed. I think we tend to go through life like that. "Oh this happened to me. Oh that happened to me. One day I'll have a BIG House. I wonder if we'll have flying cars one day.." And obsessed with the unobtainable we never really see the present moment. Well that's just me, anyway.
• 

  run dont walk

  (I'm not talking about carrying the same anger or hurt for 25 years).

  well, i've been carrying it for 15 years or longer, I guess as long as all my family is in and they continue to bother me with their crap, I will never ignore it.

  I have moved on and gotten over it so to speak, but its always there.