Does being a JW damage some children mentally? (page 2)

candidlynuts

i had great jw parents.. and i had a great childhood and grew up in a happy home.. but still.. i had nightmares about pictures of armageddon in the childrens books, i'd cry as a teen because i didnt get enough hours to be good enough to be included in witness kid parties (we lived waaaay out in the country and only went out on saturdays... EVERY saturday) , i always felt valuable to the family but felt like i was crap on the bottom of someones shoe in the congregation. then i got married young..... and thats a whole nuther damage story!

dh

yes, sometimes in ways we do not even realise until decades later. i'm a shadow of the person i should have been, but what the hell, who needs friends, christmas, celebration, or happiness anyway, and who needs to be told 'happy birthday'? it's not like it matters if you are allowed to participate in school events or are told that an education is wrong, jeez, and who would think it is bad to keep small kids up until late at night for religious meetings and study, and drag them out in the dead of winter to knock on doors... how about teaching kids to hate the world... that same world their parents brought them into... does it harm a childs natural development to deny them the natural relationships and innocent pleasures of children? does it effect the adult that the child became? i think so. we're all shadows of the people we should have been, but what the hell.

Preston

I have to go back to Hillary Step's amazing post about the "Ferryman". The greatest sin that the WBTS has ever commited has to be its going to great pains to rob people of their imaginations and their artistry, things which are most postent I believe when one is a child. I think the damage done as such a developmental stage ultimately sets someone up as a JW judging by the blandness and the lack of culture which permeates that atmosphere. Having no sense of uniqueness to oneself ultimately means being dead....

franklin J

yes, I believe there is some "social damage" that the early childhood conditioning of a JW child will leave some emotional scarring. And I use myself as an example.

Being raised a JW, I was one of those 5 year olds entering school who was taught that all my school mates would die at armageddon. Therefore, I was totally "isolated" and "insulated" from any wordly contacts. No school friends; no contact outside of the congregation. No social interaction with ANYONE other than other JWs and their children. With that kind of teaching, the child does not WANT to participate in anything which would be of benefit at school, such as learning or developiing lifelong freindships. I was taught that secular learning was useless and only what I learned at meetings was going to bring me eternal life. I had friends that were JWs; they proved later in life to not be friends at all.

This is a sick message to send to any child; and one that is potentially damaging to the childs future. I am lucky to have survived.

When I left the JWs in my early 20s, I had NO SOCIAL NETWORK to help me survive and spent several years in therapy to deprogram and rebuild my life. Some good wordly friends from college helped me through. I got on with my life as a "normal" person.

It is not easy but can be done. In hindsite; I have no regrets.....

Frank

MungoBaobab

What about all the talk about the Great Tribulation? I was told by my mother at the age of about six or seven that one day people would throw us all in jail or "drag us out into the street and shoot us." My mind would race ahead to the Great Tribulation, wondering if my non-JW father or other relatives would sell us out to the United Nations. I wondered if any of my fellow students (I was in 3rd or 4th grade, mind you) would end up as armed guards at prisons in the GT and psysically abuse me. On top of that, I always figured I'd die at Armageddon anyway, because I never felt good enough for Jehovah, even though I was a model child in terms of behavior even by JW standards.

What a sick, disgusting religion.

ThisGuy04

most definitely!!!

talk about the Great Tribulation? I was told by my mother at the age of about six or seven that one day people would throw us all in jail or "drag us out into the street and shoot us."

wow, it was so long ago and i've sure done my best to repress most it...i had actually forgotten allot of those thoughts and feelings...i was totally scared sh*tless of that too....at 5 yrs old....what's maybe even more f'd up, is being born and raised a dub, you actually think that the whole world coming crashing down and 99.9% of the planet being annihilated in your life time (at least before the generational "new light") is perfectly normal

really is pretty sick for a child to have to deal with all that...it's a wonder any of us are even anything close to well adjusted now

cyber-sista

Yes, there are a lot of phobias with JW kids and with the adults too. How the parents presented the "good news" to their children has a lot to do with their mental state. Some parents beat their children with "the truth." Others try to follow the Christian example of treating family members with love, though the Org can interfere big time on this concept too (as I most definitely learned). The Organization does not foster a climate for healthy mental, emotional or social deveopment. A child with an overactive imagination could really freak out when studying about the 7 headed 10 horned wild beast that comes up out of the sea.

garybuss

I think it damaged me. It's not healthy for me as a kid to be raised being constantly told god is going to kill me. That's how I was raised. My parents foolishly risked my health with their stupidity and religious superstitions. I was not given polio or small pox vaccine during a time both were called for. I was a forced Witness child. I was threatened with loss of my home if I didn't comply with my parents demands to attend Witness functions and stand on dirty street corners and raise nickles and dimes for the group leaders in New York City.

The Witness demands put on me by my parents was a big load to bear for a 7 year old in school. My parents prepared me for death when they should have been preparing me for life. I blame my parents for being mean and stupid. Witnessism was just their excuse for being mean and stupid.

candidlynuts

wow gary.. reading your post..reminds me of how many times t he speaker would say stuff like " isnt it great we know Jehovah and dont teach of a burning hell like the world does".. whats the difference in threatening a child with burnign hell and death at armegeddon? geeze

garybuss

whats the difference in threatening a child with burnign hell and death at armegeddon?

I guess both are terrible to me. Kids are to be protected, not threatened like my parents threatened me.

Does being a JW damage some children mentally?

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