JWs--cult or am i just bitter?

by sinamongurl 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  sinamongurl

  After reading many experiences and comments on the board, I have begun to have questions. Questions that I really didnt know I until I read them. As a recently df'd person, I am still struggling with whether JWs are really a cult or is it just that Im bitter for being torn away from the only thing that I knew, where I had friends that I thought loved me. I remember calling my "friends" and telling that I would be df'd and saying goodbye to them. I got a wide array of reactions....from complete cut-off to hysterical crying. 1 friend still called me up to a year later. I still consider her to be my friend. Honestly, Im lost. I dont know how to feel yet. I am considering therapy, but I would need someone who understands the "life-after-jw" syndrome, because I dont know if I want or need to go back yet.

  Sinamon
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  Puternut

  Sinamon,

  Most of us here have experience in 'life-after-jw'. Once you are freshly out, it is a confusing time. Guilt, conscience, all that plays a role, because it is still in our minds.

  Hang around here for a while, ask all the questions you need answers to. And you will find your answers soon. You will find that unconditional love is something that is not found within the borg. And many of the teachings, are not from the bible, but man made. I was an elder, and knew many deep, ugly, hushed secrets.

  My head is clear now, and am finally the person who I am inside.

  Puternut
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  DanTheMan

  One thing that I never knew when I was a JW is that the shunning policy towards DA/DF persons has fluctuated over the years, though they have been hard line since 1981 when there was the big Bethel shakeup. If we were living in the mid to late 70's your friends would be talking to you without guilt or fear of punishment from the local theocratic police force.

  It makes me ill that your former friends have been so brainwashed into believing that speaking to you even on a friendly personal level would be such a grave sin for them. Do you want to be part of such a manipulative and controlling organization that causes so much negative and conflicting emotions among its present and former members, where a decision handed down by supposedly imperfect men(TM) can result in friends and family never speaking to each other again? This is beyond bizarre, it is just plain cruel.

  The shunning policy is numero uno reason why they FULLY deserve the cult label. You're not the problem.
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  Undaunted Danny

  http://dannyhaszard.com/media/last.mp3 'one day at time'. Danny's Sensible Suggestions
  for Managing Stress NEW

  Psychological and Recovery Issues

  related to Jehovah's Witnesses and other groups http://www.freeminds.org/psych/psych.htm

  Danny cares and shares,thinking of you.
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  Mulan

  If we were living in the mid to late 70's your friends would be talking to you without guilt or fear of punishment from the local theocratic police force.

  Dan, that really isn't true. Family maybe, but not your friends. I was a JW from 1950 (age4) to 1997, and when they started disfellowshipping about 1954 or 1955, it was always pretty hard line for others to talk to you. Maybe they wouldn't have been disfellowshipped for it, but it was a very clear "no no". It's been fairly recent for family members to also take the hard line, but it was always a possibility that family would cut you off.

  Sinamongurl, as for the cult issue, find the book "Combatting Cult Mind Control" by Steven Hassan, and you will be able to identify JW's quite quickly, as a cult.
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  Mulan

  I just found this online. There are lots of things like this.

  Marks of a Destructive Cult

  Mind Control (undue influence)	Manipulation by the use of coercive persuasion or behavior modification techniques without informed consent.
  Charismatic Leadership	Claiming divinity or special knowledge and demanding unquestioning obedience with power and privilege. Leadership may consist of one individual or a core of leaders.
  Deception	Recruiting and fundraising with hidden objectives and without full disclosure.
  Exclusivity	Secretiveness or vagueness by followers regarding activities or beliefs.
  Alienation	Separation from family, friends, society, a change in values and substitution of the cult as the "new family"; evidence of subtle or abrupt personality changes.
  Exploitation	Can be financial, physical, psychological; pressure to give money, to spend a great deal on courses (activities) or give excessively to special projects.
  Totalitarian World View	Also known as the "we/they" syndrome, effecting dependence, promoting goals of the group over the individual and approving unethical behavior while claiming goodness.
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  Gopher

  You're not bitter. You raise a question that deserves a thoughtful answer.

  "Cult" is a word that brings about strong emotions, both due to our feelings for having been involved with a harmful religion and also due to our feelings for family and/or friends who are still inside the Watchtower's boundaries.

  At first I struggled with the word "cult" to define Jehovah's Witnesses, and I settled for "High control religion". I think that definition is not very controversial. Then I started to accept that many of the Watchtower's practices were "Cultlike" or "cultish". Now I'm of the mind that if it walks and talks like a cult, than that's what it is.

  Elsewhere in this forum, links have been posted as to several identifying signs of a cult. (I see Mulan pasted in a such a list in the preceding post.) Some of them include insistence on devotion to a leader or group of leaders, the discouraging of questioning and reasoning by members, the belief that only the group has the truth, the belief that everyone outside the group is condemned, the use of special jargon and phrases that only the group can understand, the enforced shunning of former members, the domination of personal life including decisions about personal matters like entertainment and who to marry, etc. JW's walk and talk like a cult in every one of these ways.
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  DanTheMan

  Oops, my mistake, thanks for the correction Mulan. I was under the impression that the policy towards DF/DA persons was much softer in the 1970's than it is now.
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  garybuss

  
  
  Witness people are rude, selfish, and mean. They work as political/religious literature distributors for a conglomerate book publishing corporation with over 100 sub corporations. What's to understand?
  
  
  
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  Frannie Banannie

  Cinamongirl, this post will help you get a much better handle on what you're going thru....

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/16/73766/1.ashx

  I wish I'd had the info when I was df'd....

  Hugs,

  Frannie B