by evita 24 Replies latest jw friends
Hi Evita - hope you feel better over time and are able to resolve your feelings of grief.
I have always found this board to be stimulating and in a way it has also been a support to me over the past few years. Often I do not feel like posting and go through silent periods as well.
Hope you stick around and make a few friends here.
Welcome Evita, please accept my sympathies for your loss. I think you will find those here very supportive and understanding of what you are going through. Please stay awhile and get to know everyone.
Evita, welcome & sympathies for the loss of your mother.
Hi Evita, condolences to you and the family. This place and it's great folks on here makeup a great support system.
Welcome, evita. This is my year for grief, too, mixed with some unexpected joy. I will be losing my beloved stepmom soon, a wonderful woman. She, too, is dying from cancer. My natural mother on the other hand, is harder to love. I could so relate to your little eulogy, so honest, so real:
I loved my mom. She was smart, beautiful, talented, sensitive, and loving. She was also a religious fanatic, judgmental, self-righteous, self-hating, depressed, and extremely jealous. I am devastated by her death. I am mourning not only my lost relationship with her, but my lost years as a JW, and all the years I have spent recovering from it all.
Many of my family members have a mental illness of one sort or another. I once toyed with depression myself. These days, I celebrate all real feelings. What you feel for your mom is a clean grief. You are allowed to embrace that pain for a time, to fully grieve all that was lost, all that could have been. I wonder what your life would have been like if your mom hadn't been so enamoured with that dastardly religion?
Evita it really is too bad that things had to be the way that they were. But in the world of strict jw's, it sounds like you had a good relationship with your mother, as good as you can. You can't beat yourself up for the times when you didn't get along with her. People in a cult are very hard to reason with and it seems like they constantly go back and forth on what their instincts tell them and what the organization tells them. Pat yourself on the back for trying to have some resemblance of a relationship with her.
Just a word of advice- Some of my worst years have been spent regreting things that I didn't do or didn't have. Only you can decide to set yourself free from the past to live your life now in the present. Love
Hi Evita,
Your story reminds me of someone I know of, but likely you are not that person. Anyway, many of us share your feelings on this, because we have walked difficults roads. It is especially hard on those who were raised JWs, and then find themselves on the outside looking in at relatives who shun them, or even partially shun them. You are fortunate in that your Mm chose not to shun you entirely. But, even such fortune does not heal the internal pain of what we have lost.
The healing can be faster for some, and very slow for others. One therapist told me that from the descriptions he has heard over the years, that leaving the JWs is like getting a divorce. People do eventually move on, but they never really totally heal from the tragedy. But, I believe that we can come very close to healing if we take some helpful measures. Based on your description, it sounds like your siblings are not really in the JWs anymore ... so, you have them to be part of your life. You never mentioned yuor father. Was/is he a JW? Is he still alive? Do you have any close friends or any other relatives still in the organization? Once I hear the rest of your story, I will expand on some things I have learned ... and I will deal with the above questions.
I was in the JWs altogether for 27 years (25 years as a baptized JW). I got my family and a couple of friends out of the organization ... and I rebuilt a new life with my non-JW family and old non-JW friends ... and I have made new friends. But, it has been a long road ... 13 years since I walked away in April of 1992, and almost 10 years since I was forcibly DA'd by the Watchtower legal department.
Being on this forum and some select others has been most helpful ... other forums are made up of ex-JWs who have gone to the dogs, so I avoid them simply because the rhetoric is far to vitriolic and toxic. There are many good folks here who can give wise and caring help ... so, I hope you will draw upon them. You can start off using the PM service on this site, and have some great one-on-one dialogue. I will look for your continuing story. You can either PM me on this baord to let me know when you post it, or e-mail me at [email protected].
I have been in several congregations on the west coast, so if you are from that area, then maybe we can compare notes if you like.
All the best ... take care, it does get better over time.
Jim Whitney
hang in there... you're headed in the right direction!
Soory
u/d
Welcome, Evita! I am so sorry to hear about your mom, and I do know how hard certain family relationships suffer when we "fade" or "leave". You will find a wonderful support group here, as you seem to already know. I have been visiting this site for over 4 years and it has helped me in my transition (believer >>>>> unbeliever) immensely. Take care and feel free to talk about how you REALLY feel anytime. There are always some people here who understand and can help.
Warmly,
Trudy
welcome evita I am deeply sorry for your loss
I am mourning not only my lost relationship with her, but my lost years as a JW, and all the years I have spent recovering from it all.
I know how that feels, even though my mother is still alive, but I often mourn for all those years lost to the WT doctrine overruling our relationship.
