My Story

by zagor 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  zagor

  My story
  
  
  
  
  Do you find that your thinking capacity has stalled after becoming a JW?
  
  

  Probably a stupid question but let me elaborate.

  I was born in a Catholic family but soon after my mom becomes a JW so we suddenly had divided home as they call it. Good thing about it was that she never forced me to comply with doctrine so I grew up as a kid who was in love with books and I mean all sorts of books. I remember reading books from psychology when I was in my fourth grade something not even my teachers did. I was also in love with the science. Used to read every encyclopedia I could lay my hands on. And I've read just about every classic by the age of 15.

  When I started thinking about what my mom and uncle told me about JW teaching I was intrigued and wanted to apply the same principles of investigative research I did with other things. The funny thing for me was while I was reading publications by myself I felt I was always pondering deeper and discovering something new.
  
  I went to university and because my dad was against me studying with witnesses I thought oh great here is my opportunity I’ll go to study bible and finish my university at the same time. Yeah, I hear some of you already say – you wish - but that’s another story.

  But back to the subject.

  Once I’ve started going to meetings and particularly after getting baptize I felt like my mind started spiraling inward until it stalled completely. I just felt not only dull but that something was burning in my head something I can’t explain even today. I remember reading a paragraph and having to go back a number of times to understand what I’ve just read, or to remember it for that matter. (What a fall for a kid who was in love with books. I mean for me I wasn’t even reading before I felt opening a page and as my eyes were going over the text I would see a movie in my head)
  
  However, something happened to me, which puzzles me to this day. Whether, someone put something in my food, (which is not far fetched really – I started feeling strange after a dinner prepared by witnesses one evening after my first meeting, I was a bible student at the time.)
  
  Good thing was that all that time something was screaming inside of me to continue to read, to research, to study wider than what WTBS required. (Though I would be “encouraged”, regularly, to stop doing it)
  
  It took long, long time for me to recover through reading literature that had nothing to do with WTBS. I remember as I started reading I felt like all my neurons in my head would start burning – literally - and my was head about to burst into pieces. . It took quite a long time for that sensation to stop.
  
  I don’t know why I’m even writing this because I've never heard of anyone else having the same problem. (Though I remember two of my friends once spoke of mental and spiritual ceiling they felt and thought it would probably be lifted after Armageddon. Curiously thought both of them were at the same dinner as I was years back)

  Did any of you experience something similar? I would be extremely grateful to know. I wanted to post this first time I’ve become a member of this forum but was afraid everyone would think I was a nuts.

  By the way I’m fine now, don’t have same problem, but would just like to get to the bottom of it.
• 

  damselfly

  Once I’ve started going to meetings and particularly after getting baptize I felt like my mind started spiraling inward until it stalled completely. I just felt not only dull but that something was burning in my head something I can’t explain even today. I remember reading a paragraph and having to go back a number of times to understand what I’ve just read, or to remember it for that matter. (What a fall for a kid who was in love with books. I mean for me I wasn’t even reading before I felt opening a page and as my eyes were going over the text I would see a movie in my head)

  Erm... not the burning bits, but yes to the others. I loved books as a child as well and would sit and read for hours anything I could get my hands on. The older I got and the more I was expected to prepare for the meetings, the more I lost my ability to comprend what I was reading. I could read the same sentence 20 times in a row and not be able to repeat it. I would find myself sitting and just staring at the page, my eyes not even moving over it. I would give up and randomly underline parts of the paragraph. At first it was just the JW publications and then it spread to other books as well.

  It's slowly getting better, but I still need to read little parts of my textbooks at a time, stop and try to make sense of what is on the page.

  Dams
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  TopHat

  That is what we call being "Burned Out" To much learning coming in all at once. Then nothing more to learn on the said subject.
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  Goldminer

  I've also had the problem of reading some wts material and then not remembering what I just read.Especially the Awake,just so boring.And the WT main article,no matter what it was,always had the same ending;the kingdom was going to fix it all.Grab a bound volume and check it out.Eventually I just stopped reading them.

  I do a lot of reading now and I find it's good for the mind to read,but reading only wts material can really crush your desire for reading.It's just too repetitive and you know that what you're reading today could be all changed within a few years.I guess that's where the old saying "...if you don't read all your magazines you'll fall behind..." comes from.

  Goldminer
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  Tigerman

  zagor . . .you're just a " regular " guy ; and it's a good thing. Don't worry one bit about the WT questions that you had as a kid. The important thing is that you had an inquisitive mind and you followed up on it . . .never give up.
• 

  jgnat

  Not a JW here, but a fellow bibliophile. I also am a stickler for good writing. The Watchtower writing is very, very bad. Ideas are introduced and repeated at a hypnotically slow rate. Now that I understand the pattern of writing, I can skip over most of it to the salient points. Another trick I use to prevent from reading the drivel more than once is to read the question first, scan, then underline.

  I remember reading a paragraph and having to go back a number of times to understand what I’ve just read, or to remember it for that matter. (What a fall for a kid who was in love with books.)

  I can relate to this feeling. It's your intelligent brain going, "Yeah, yeah, I got it already." I can barely keep attention for public talks any more, the formula is so predictable.

  • Mildly interesting anecdote.
  • Christendom's churches bla bla
  • The proper bible instruction is.. bla bla
  • Outrageously unfounded accusation bla bla
  • We can conclude then bla bla bla.

  I counteract the hypnotic state by bringing along a blank notebook and pen to the meetings. That way my mind has the freedom to create in the vaccum.
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  jgnat

  P.S. My daughter claims she lost brain cells the year she stayed at home with her infant daughter. She blamed it on the lack of stimulating adult conversation. Her sentences were getting shorter and simpler. As soon as she started working part-time the symptoms faded.
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  MsMcDucket

  This very same thing happened to me too! I was an avid reader and after becoming a witness I started hating to read. It seemed like reading was just too much work. When I'd pick up any other magazine or book (other than JW literature), I'd get guilt feelings. It seemed like I should be reading the Watchtower or Awake or whatever. So, I stopped reading for recreation. I only read what was necessary, and I barely did that.

  Amazing!
• 

  ChrisVance

  Wow, I read those _____ magazines without realizing what I had just read also. However, I still read for pleasure. I loved Time, US News, and Newsweek. I also read the classics and many other novels. Maybe that's why I stayed a dub until I was 42.
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  alamb

  I know the burning in your brain you speak of. I had a constant ache for something I couldn't describe. I had a friend who was a dean at my school who took me aside and walked me through psychology and philosophy to whom I will be ever grateful. He recognized and told me that part of me was dying and I needed to break away. I wish he was here today. He showed me a little bit of what's out here. Thank you Mr. Isbell where-ever you are. I'm out and my brain is exploding at regular intervals!