Hi Dave,
Okay, I see we have some work to do here. I appreciate your comments. I did not think that a post about the anniversary of my entrance into the JWs would cause any consternation. We had some fun long ago, but the Society burned it out of us.
Now, I need to address some of your comments, and help you see that maybe you need to take another look at this - perhaps make a paradigm shift:
Only those of us who were raised in it, as a kid, especially during the pre-1975 stupidity will completely understand my point of view.
I can understand your comment, but I disagree. I was raised a Roman Catholic in a time when we were treated very badly and like weirdos in the neighborhood. When President Kennedy (a Catholic) ran for office, my friends chided me and threatened to beat the shit out of me if a damn Catholic took over the country. I was ridiculed for not eating meat on Friday, and praying to Mary. Once I got a tooth knoced out of my head because I was Catholic. I had to wear a uniform to Catholic school, dreading my friends would see me, and chide me. They did see me, and they made fun of me. It was not much better when I shifted to public school. I was told by friends parents that I was going to hell because I worshipped the Pope, etc. etc. etc. I had no choice in being a Catholic. I did not like being a Catholic all the time. I did not like the ridicule and at times being beat up or losing my front tooth. I did not like avoiding things other kids got to do, all simply because I was Catholic.
So, no, I do not have a history of being poked at for not saluting the flag as a kid, but I understand being poked fun at and being ridiculed for my religion. And I got ridiculed for not saluting the flag when I did become a JW. So, to me, the basis of your argument is weak. I started associating with the JWs at age 17 (1968). I quickly adopted their beliefs, and as a result, the same Baptists that used to make fun of my Catholicism, now made fun of my being a JW. To me, it was something I just lived with, and today, I live with being made fun of for being a Christian. Yes, I was older, but still a kid at age 17. And, being raised Catholic, I understood this nonsense from early years.
I know I could have avoided a good majority of the mistakes I have made and I could have had at least a little happiness in my life. As it is now, I am content with who I am and my personal level of existence, but, I can honestly say I have never been truly happy. I am now fine with that and have put that feeling of existence into perspective. I’ve read all the books and listened to all the experts on what it takes to be happy and I see that it has variables upon variables based on things like perspective, attitude, insecurity, mental health and on and on ...
I relate to the same exact thing as an ex-Catholic and an ex-JW. But, my happiness comes from being me, and being secure in my own skin. I did not learn that as a Catholic, or as a JW. I learned it by living life with the freedom I have after I exited the JWs.
You came into the cult as a young adult. You did not have your very impressionable years totally messed up with the unnatural effects of being raised as “no part of this world” Something as simple as being set apart as strange and unusual by not saluting the flag while your classmate stare at you as come kind of communist space invader begins some life long psychological glitches.
Try being raised a Catholic and go to Catholic school, with those damn uniforms for the world to see, and know what you are. You cannot hide like a JW in normal clothing. No, they see you coming, and you are judged before you mouth gets to open.
You are different, you don’t belong, and you live your young life in a fish bowl for all to observe how really strange you are. To add to that weirdness, you dress up in suites and Sunday morning church outfits and then go knocking on people’s doors to try and sell them religious propaganda. You just hope your classmates or neighbors do not see you.
As Catholics, in the 1950s and 1960s, we went door-to-door selling chocolate and statues of Mary to our neighbors. I did that work. talk about feeling shitty, and yes, I got doors slammed in my face as a Catholic ... Yet, I was only selling chocolate for Jesus!! And what did they find so bad about Mary? So, no, I did not sell Awakes!, but statues of Mary were not much better!
You have any resemblance of personal identity stripped from your mind and you become nothing more than a walking talking advertising billboard for the watchtower company. You have the words “love” and “understanding” re-defined for you and you become the robotic little close minded cult bigot the watchtower has custom designed you to be. We did this because we trusted and honestly loved our parents and wanted to please them. To them, to please them, was to please the cult. The cult came before anything else.
Ditto for Catholics in the 1950s and 1960s. Try going to Catholic school, and all you have is religion all day long. You start the day with Catechism, and Nuns constantly remind you that you have to be different and better than the world. At least JW kids got to attend normal school. I trusted and accepted this situation that made me different from my friends and kids around me. If you had been a Catholic as a kid, you would have been just as scewed up as you think you are now.
Our born in love for our parents, siblings, neighbors, friends, life, happiness or anything else that normal human beings take for granted was simply a foreign concept to us. We did not loose who we were, because we were never given the chance to figure that out in the first place. We lost who we could have been, who we should have been.
Maybe in your home, or in homes like yours. In my Catholic home we had an indifferent alcoholic mother while our father molested us, and otherwise drove us crazy with anger, screaming, alcoholism, and shear stupidity. Then, we turn around, go to church, and pretend we are happy little Catholics. We had to work through all that mental and emotional shit to try and be better than that. Then, in my JW home, I raised my children differently. It shows, and we are close, and we have the same love and close bonds we would have had were we to have been Baptists or anthing else. So, I fail to see how much harder a JW kid had it over what I, and others like me had to deal with.
Now that we are out, we again loose what we were never allowed to have in the first place. Parent’s who actually understood the true meaning of happiness and love. Those who forced us to do things that made others reject us, in turn reject us. We were raised to be no part of the world and reject it’s evil influences. Then, when we realize it is not the totally evil place as the watchtower said it was, those who taught us to reject it reject us.
I went through this leaving the Catholic Church, being rejected and shunned by family and friends and doing things I was raised not to do. Then, upon leaving the JWs, facing total rejection once again, and having to start all over again.
No offence Jim, you know I like and respect you, but, not coming from the perspective of an adult that never really experienced a JW childhood, it might be a little hard for you to understand how some of us do not see how any time spent as a JW “rocked”.
Dave, I am not offended. I could not be offended, precisely because I have finally learned to live in my own skin. But, you need to get off your soapbox, and realize that you and others raised as JW kids are not the only ones who went through shit in your youth. In addition to being Catholic, I was also a minority in my school. I was among a few whites who were beat up by Mexicans ... because of something we could not do anything about ... our skin color. Then, I was beat up by blacks, because I was white. Then, my Catholic Grandmothere tried to teach us racism, while my mother tried to end racism. It was all soooo confusing and screwed with our little psychies ... but we survived somehow.
Your ability to try and understand some good in the cult is admirable, just try to understand how some of us that were raised in it as kids can not fully embrace your perspective.
In my post above, I was not trying to understand or find any good in the JW organization. I was remembering a time when JWs were a little bit of fun ... as testified to by many other posts to this thread. Intellectual honesty demands as much. JWs had their faults, and these got worse with time. But to tell me that I don't understand this stuff as a kid is not correct. Yes, some of the mechanisms were different, but the results were and are the same.
Staying in with the thought of getting your family out is very understandable. I can understand why some do, and I can also understand why some just get the hell out and try to get their loved ones out by working from the outside. It’s all about individual perspective, which the watchtower has never allowed any of its followers to exercise or recognize. That in it’s self makes either process just as hard as the other.
Agreed! That is why I do not judge what decisions others feel that they must make. I give my experiences in the hopes that some will find it useful, either as a positive method, or as a warning of what not to do. Either way, if it helps, it has achieved its objective.
I appreciate your post, and I appreciate where you are coming from. And yes, to some extent we all have our experiences and influences that make our individual road not completely and perfectly understood by other people. Women have issues than men do not understand and likewise men have issues that women cannot comprehend fully. Any person can identify with some situation that others will not perfectly comprehend. But, we can explain enough, given that we all have shit to walk through, that our common intelligence can grasp the essentials, and most of the non-essentials. we are far more alike than we may believe.
As for happiness - it is something we finally learn to choose, and live with, and learn to accept. We finally realize that happiness is not a constant state of being, but something we have to learn to build and maintain. We can learn to see the glass is half full instead or half empty - perspective is a choice. Happiness is a chosen state of mind. We do not find happiness, we creat happiness. We do not find the meaning to life, we make our own meaning. But, that lesson is not eluding JW kids any more than it does Catholics, Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, or Muslims. Every person has to learn these lessons, and overcome the piles of shit they grew up in. Again, that is why I can no longer judge others, myself included.
Thanks again for sharing your perspective. I greatly appreciate you, and love your posts.
Jim W.
