Death, JWism, and negative side effects of doubting the watchtower.

by XQsThaiPoes 15 Replies latest watchtower medical

  • XQsThaiPoes
    XQsThaiPoes

    I am depressed. Well not in a traditional sense. I have aquired a necrophobia. Being a part of the "great crowd" I have never believed in an after life. Even if it existed it was like a billion dollars to me. Just because a billion dollars exist it does not help me personally, because I don't own a billion dollars.

    If you are alive you know you have a finite life span. You will die. I will die. As a taditional JW I did not care. My firm belief in St. Pascal (Google pascal's wager) over powered any meaningful pondering of my finite life span. The thing about it is the watchtower is more forgiving about the death than most religions including traditional chistianity. Before I get off track. My point is I am going to die one day. I believe when I died I will cease being concious. All my volatile memory what people generally call their "life" will be erased just like your memory in your pc when the power goes out. THe only form of memory that will survive is my dna. I have broken dna so passing it on is not something I want to do. The decision of not having kids probally has more to do with my fear of death than the watchtowers lack of credibility. So collectively I don't matter because nobody is going to remember me aside from a few name and address forms that will probally float in databases for a few decades after I die.

    So if basically I am going to be deleted one day and life sucks in general does it matter when I die? Not really.

    The only conclusion I can come to comes from the movie soylent green. Make some nices friends, have a nice meal, enjoy respectively the best day of my life and then commit sucide. Conversely I could just wait around until I die but usually youll die on a downer and traumatically.

    My thing is. Has being a JW spoiled my sense of life, and made me cynical? Also for the athiest out there how do you cope with religious people? I can do the JW thing. I like it. But I feel life in general is a waste. WIth no new order I feel like a person thats paralized with polio and dies shortly after the vacine was discovered. You have that "well it sucks this generation lucked out, and now will never live thought my hell, Damn them!" feeling.

    Am I insane? There are like 2 billion people at least that in there heart have a positive image of and afterlife or a negative ones at least. Also at least 5 billion people will have children so at least some of them hangs around until it is too watered down in the anals of time. How do you warm the heart of the Nihilist, or at least quell the cynicism of a rational JW that knows in all likely hood the calvary won't come, And if they do most likely you are probaly too dead to notice? I think psychologist call this suvivors guilt. I have the inverted version I think. Maybe we can call it casualty spite. The day I die some one will be born. That is Irony. I hate Irony.

  • jeanniebeanz
    jeanniebeanz

    Really wish there was something I could say to help you past this funk.

    It was only after I got the boot from the org that I ever really contemplated my own mortality. It was a shock. I found myself acting like a teenager and doing some really stupid things to prove that I didn't fear death. Learned to swordfight, dive, hunt, drive a racecar, fistfight (you should see my nose), really dumb stuff. As a jw, growing up you never hear anything that makes it possible for you to think of yourself *ceasing to exist*.

    I started to force myself to face it. I read the obituarys. Visited cemeteries. Read books about 'the great nothingness'. It all helped to a certain extent. One thing that helped was to think about was, why am I wasting so much of the now understood limited time that I was conscious worrying about something I could not prevent in any case? If this was all there was to life, it in itself is glorious that out of the millions of possibilities that mom and dad could have produced, *I* exist! I know who I am. I am the only one in all of human history to be *me*. There has never been another me, and would never be another one. I am unique, special, and worthy of a full life. I am worthy of being loved and having friends.

    Finally, giving myself permission to be happy in spite of my short lifespan, my many hangups (both physical and mental), and my shortcomings, I am able to enjoy what I have each day, without fearing what comes next.

    In the end, if this life is all I ever have and there is nothing else, I am content to have lived.

    Jean

  • XQsThaiPoes
    XQsThaiPoes

    Why did you mention all the stuff I wana do now but physically or monetarily can't.

    My problem is I feel cheated. I always knew I would cease to exist. THat did not bother me much. WHat bothers me is I will cease with out recompense. I want recompense. I want my pound of flesh. I am in a crappy body that has alawys been sick. I had a few months of "normal" healthy feeling teen life and I didn't fall in love, have sex, drive a race car etc. I feel that I will have at best 40 or 50 more years of decline. Not even wealth will make it better unless I get demigod like wealth that controls the fate of hundreds of millions. At best I'll marry a woman 1/3 my age and be finacialy secure. Probally divorce. In traditional JWism you at least get 1000 year of good S* to F* around as an uberman! Kill people you hate or love them or whatever you decide.

    In real life you are a roll of the dice. I mean that ovum had the bare minimum of QC. Imagine if I have a horrific accident. THen my serious but less than terminal illness will be thrust on me plus being maimed. And no recompense! Maybe because I am not doing much loving to my family or others the lonely cynical side is all I see. Hope is the first step on the path to disappointment. JWs gave me hope. Now I am disappointed. I can take drugs to feel better but that does not solve the problem. The problem (not being vindicated) still remains. THerefore I am angry.

    Angry at humans period. I really want to end it now so I don't have to wait to die. I know that is illogical but at least it is control. PC psycho people will say "if you want direction and control blah blah" No! I only want one thing justice. THe only less than supernatual thing I can do since I can't grant immortality is to instill suffering. But that is evil. It is Just but sadistic. Therefore I remain un avenged! For eternity! It is worse that damnation to the most vile shpere of hell!. Nobody will avenge my death. No body. THe whole world needs to pay for it! If I kill myself I avenge my own death period. Hence the reason I don't own a gun yet realy want one. So I could choose. Make them pay or avenge my self.

  • GetBusyLiving
    GetBusyLiving

    I have felt this way a lot of times too.











  • The Grand Poobah
    The Grand Poobah

    About 2 years ago I was going through the same thing, the realization that if I died this very moment, I would not be remembered for anything, I would just be forgotten. I felt that there was no point in doing anything because it would have no effect in the end. I would die, I will cease to exist. Since I no longer exist everything I do will disappear from me. Those were my exact thoughts.

    What I found that did help was to find hope. I don't mean hope as in religion, but just simple goals, make good friends, find things and people that you care about. You seem to be emotionally "numb" I know i felt like that, depression to me, is a constant emotion that seems to be always there. I think i cured mine by just not caring anymore, and seek pleasure, enjoy life. Feel emotion, feel love, have fun.

    Poobah Pez

  • cyber-sista
    cyber-sista

    XQ...

    Just because the JWs do not hold the key to the grand scheme of things it doesn't mean that there isn't one. I still think there is some pretty amazing and interesting stuff going on out there and we are all a part of it whatever it is. Read the book "The Field--the request for the secret force of the universe" by McTaggart or see the movie "What the bleep do you know?"

    I still at times feel ripped off by the whole JW doctrine, but I guess it is live and learn on that one. I most definitely learned what I do not believe is true in this life. As far as what I believe now...I still believe in something...I think it is OK to believe and be awe inspired without having a bunch of judgemental doctrine attached to it. Yeh, but sometimes the funk sets in, so sorry you are dealing with that right now.

    Take care,

    cybs

  • jeanniebeanz
    jeanniebeanz

    Hi, XQ.

    I had no idea your hurts ran that deep! Are you talking to anyone about these feelings of needing some form of recompence? You mention that you take pain meds, have you at least talked to your doctor about these feelings? You sound so very bitter right now, and my heart goes out to you.

    Being stuck with a body that has always been sick must be a terrible load to bear. Please do speak to your doctor. There may be something he/she can do for you.

    It sucks to be given a false hope, only to have it taken away when you see through the teachings. There must be something that you enjoy doing in spite of your limitations right now that would bring you some form of comfort. Do you have a support network of any kind?

    Jean

  • rebel8
    rebel8

    XQ, You don't have to die. All that stuff about ex-JWs dying is a myth. (Even if it were true, how much sense would it make for you to go around suffering depression for the rest of your days?) It's common for people just leaving the JWs to go around thinking every bolt of lightning was God's retribution for them personally. That's the major reason so many people stick around the bOrg when they don't want to. They're afraid God will kill them. God killing non-compliant JWs is the essence of every doctrine. Think about it: What happens if you question in your heart what the elders tell you? What happens if you talk against the WTS or question them? What happens if you stop finding joy in field service? You get the picture....the answer to all of these is....God will put you to death! JWs are a high control group, and this is a common tactic among such groups. We have the one and only truth about the mysterious universe. Stick with the group, no matter what. Reward loyalty and punish even the hint of disloyalty. Punishment comes in the form of labeling you as "bad association", DFing, and ultimately, by J at Armageddon or sooner, when he'll be killing you. With that belief, there's nothing but depression ahead. So what's the answer for ex-JWs? Yeah, enjoy your life. In addition to that, start questioning your beliefs, starting with the one that says God is about to kill you. Go back and look at history--there have always been doomsday groups who claim divine retribution will happen any day now, yet it never does. Is it possible this JW belief is erroneous? Use your mind, your logic...think about it. Depression is suffering. Constantly believing death is at hand is suffering. Both are escapable.

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  • XQsThaiPoes
    XQsThaiPoes

    I see your point rebel but it is not really jws thats the problem. It is lack of faith period. Plus JWs have a wrist slap idea of mortality. It really means nothing if God kills you cuz he kills everyone. Imagine if I was a budhist instead of a JW. The guy in organge would say that I am sick because in some life i don't remember I kicked too much ass or commited suicide or something. So it is all my fault. As much as people complain about jws generally "accepted" religions are far harsher in the afterlife realm. Only reason people dislike JWs is we are dishonest intellectually, and have no qualms of allowing a person to suffer over nonsense that we don't really believe in anyway (I mean if we believed our crap we would not change it so often).

    We are a religion of cynics and skeptics blinded on false hope. Once the false hope is going you realize you don't really believe anything. You realize you could win the lotto before the new order has a chance of happening or remotely being true. Notice the very watchtower. Now they are turning their backs on armageddon while fanning end times the fire. THey have replaces the new order with a placebo "spiritual paradise" that actually is called living in america not "being a Jehovah's witness". THey claimed at assemblies that proverty is the number 1 reason people in developing lands leave JWs where here it is "media", and "immorality". Okay but how come the "spiritual paradise" evaporates once you leave the usa/eu?

    Oddly I like JWs so I am not really bothered by the faith. It is the larger picture that is depressing me. I am over the hill at 24. THe scary thing is it does not matter because in 100 years nobody will care. Anyone ever grieve over people that died and suffered in the 1880's? Like I told someone "Remember the few years before you were born? Being dead is like that."

  • gumby
    gumby

    Q......in all seriousness.....do you get more this way this time of the year? Life can really suck for many if your a moody bastard like me startin in about Nov and Dec. Your usually not this way.

    I'll give ya a big ol' Gunmy hug if your promise not to touch my nutsack.

    ...hang in there bro, the days will brighten......I promise

    Gumby

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