For those raised as JWs...

by Country Girl 31 Replies latest jw experiences

  • Country Girl
    Country Girl

    I am not trying to blame anyone, I am trying to take possession of my own memories and feelings, and trying to own up to my OWN part in it all. It's hard to do that when you don't have all your memories. But when you are a child, and this stuff happens, you can't STOP it. It just happens. But you still have all the feelings, and memories, associated with it. Some of them good.. some of them bad. But I think it's pretty bad that I can't remember many good things, and only the bad things that are coming up in my memories. Does that make me bad? No/yes/Kinda. It just happened. And how, anyways, could I be held responsible for bad things my parents did?

    I am not trying to judge anyone. Lots of people besides JWs have this problem. How do you link yourself with the past and LIVE with it?

    Country Girl

  • outoftheorg
    outoftheorg

    Country Girl, I am sorry if I offended you.

    No where in my post was I refering to you or anyone else.

    I was just printing my feelings and memories as I recall them.

    Every thing you read there is ME and some memories of MY life.

    I seldom judge anyone personally. I am not advocating or preaching on this thread.

    Now there might be some others------Nah.

    Be happy girl, I care about your feelings.

    How do you deal with it and live with the past?

    Well for me when I told my ex wife that I felt it was time to put the past in the past and leave it there. That forgivness by me for her and for me by her was long overdue.

    Then in words they will never hear "since they are dead" forgive my parents and my siblings for how they treated me.

    Then and maybe most important, I forgave myself for my past mistakes. Even though I don't feel that I did much to ask forgivness for. There is something about this forgiving ourselves thing that releases a load of help in our mental emotional struggles.

    None of this has to be in a religious sense, I did it in a psychological approach.

    Outoftheorg

  • franklin J
    franklin J

    I recall as a JW child being very unhappy at school; being kept isolated; being the oddball kid; not many kids in the congregation to befriend. Being alone . A very unhappy childhood.

    Things changed when I became a teenager. I was kept in very "theocratic" company and being a very zealous pioneer as I became an older teenger. The dice spun once again in my early 20s I decided that I wanted to go to college to study Architectre.

    Life changed for the better when I left the jWs and has been improving ever since.

  • undercover
    undercover

    Someone mentioned to try to remember something from each grade of school.

    I can't remember any of my teachers names up until High School. I can't remember their faces. I remember a few friends names, but not many. I remember bits and pieces of school, mostly stuff out of the ordinary, like cutting class, getting in trouble, a couple of fights I got in to, race riots, and a few people who died while I was still in school. I do remember one bus driver's name. He was cool as hell. The others from all other years, no way I could remember that.

    I remember being ridiculed from time to time for being different. I remember trying to fly under the radar as much as possible so as not to bring attention to myself. I remember being self-conscience about how I looked...I was so uncool looking, LOL.

    I remember some classrooms, not many, certainly not all. I remember the principle from High School but not the other schools.

    I remember being 4 and 5 as much as I do being 8 or 10. But I remember being 17 and older much more than either of the previous.

    To me that's all normal. You forget the dull, mundane things and remember exciting things and out of the ordinary things, good or bad. I hear a song on the radio from when I was 6, I get instant nostalgic feelings for being that young. I hear a song from when I was 21 or so, I get instant nostalgic feelings for being young and free(as free as a JW can get anyway). At the same time, I remember being different and being called the "jesus freak" and hoping to make it through another day without being picked on, but that has faded into my memory enough to not worry about it, though not completely forgotten.

    I think that's all pretty normal. I guess I survived okay despite being so different as a JW kid.

  • jeanniebeanz
    jeanniebeanz

    Hi, CG.

    For me, it was not a matter of being able to remember my childhood, but more one of looking at my experiences through a new filter.

    For example, until recently, I thought my parents were right for allowing my 3rd grade teacher to call me communist and other things which were hurtful and then stick me in a cardboard box for the entire first period for weeks on end because I would not salute the flag.

    I was upset at the time, but learned to bury those feelings since the congregation seemed to back my parents inaction, and I came to believe that I was not being loyal to Jehovah for feeling that those things should not have happened to me.

    Now, I look back and remember those things and am occasionally enraged by what my parents allowed in the name of the Witnesses. For me, it is a matter of a new perspective, and having to re-work my way through things on an emotional level. It can really hurt at times, especially when I cannot ask them questions since my disfellowshipping 11 years ago.

    Do you experience these same feelings?

    Jean

  • CinemaBlend
    CinemaBlend

    One of my worst memories is being caught by my teacher playing some sort of shoot-em-up game with the other kids on the playground in third grade. We'd picked up sticks and were pretending they were guns and shooting back and forth at each other.

    When we came in from recess, my teacher, right in front of everyone said loudly "I saw you playing guns outside. Isn't that supposed to be against your religion? If I told your mother about this you'd be in big trouble. You know she wouldn't allow you to play like that. "

    God that was humiliating.

    Come to think of it, I never really felt like I fit in again at school again after that. It was just 9 grades of beatings, loneliness, and humiliation.

  • limbo
    limbo

    I have whole blocks of my life that are gone. Born & Raised JW. I was abused by my JW stepfather. It seems that when I tried to erase things/people/places/events that hurt me, I also erased all the rest of the memories from the same time period. I feel like my life was cut up into different pieces/chapters...not one coherent life. Sometimes when I run into a face that seems familiar, I have a hard time placing that person...almost like it was another lifetime. (and i'm not THAT old!) Thanks for posting this...it's not easy to think about not only losing your childhood/life...but, also your memories.

  • dh
    dh

    i remember it all, to much to be honest.

  • Country Girl
    Country Girl
    Country Girl, I am sorry if I offended you.

    No where in my post was I refering to you or anyone else.

    You did not offend me. No way, Out. Everyone has their own experience, I guess. I was particularly wondering if anyone had lost periods of time in their memories like I have. I have BIG CHUNKS of my memory GONE. It's horrible! It's almost like I can't relate to ya'll because my whole memory as a Witness is gone, but there are just pieces, like glass on a floor, left, and I can't find where they go. I have only ONE memory, and that is how bad it felt to be there. sigh.

    CG

  • Country Girl
    Country Girl
    Now, I look back and remember those things and am occasionally enraged by what my parents allowed in the name of the Witnesses. For me, it is a matter of a new perspective, and having to re-work my way through things on an emotional level. It can really hurt at times, especially when I cannot ask them questions since my disfellowshipping 11 years ago.

    Do you experience these same feelings?

    Jean

    You bet I do, and I wish I could make it all go away. The things I *do* remember, I wish I didn't. The things I SHOULD remember, I don't.

    Jean.. just keep thinking positively that everything's going to work out okay. That's what I try to do, even though I get down sometimes. Okay?

    CG

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