Posts by Phaedra

14

"I no longer want to be 'Bloodguilty'"

by stuckinarut2 in

i have been thinking of a simple one liner to use when challenged as to why i dont seem to be an "active / good" witness.... "i no longer wish to be considered as 'bloodguilty' thanks" and leave it at that.. if said in a dignified, (not in a smart arse way), then i think this may make people see that my desicion is a sound one based on logic and not emotion..... thoughts?.

Phaedra

I was just thinking about the term "bloodguilty" earlier this week, and had one of those epiphany things that made me realize, "well, no wonder I could never get away from GUILT as a JW!"

I mean, the words are as plain as day: BLOOD GUILTY.

Don't go out in service and knock on doors = you can be bloodguilty.

First of all, why is it even MY responsibility to "save" other humans (when a perfectly good God could do so much more than stumble through a 1-minute presentation to sell place the latest issues of WT and Awake!.

And then I'm in trouble if I don't go recruit? That's putting a lot of responsbility on a child and instilling fear that knows no ends. Catastrophic illustrations of buildings falling on unbelievers who don't become JWs. "If you don't preach, you're responsible."

Stupid cult.

Phae

103

That does it ! I'm leaving ! ! !

by Billy the Ex-Bethelite in

jw
friends

leaving the university with my degree!.

exams are finished and it's just a matter of days before i walk.. i was certainly stressed about doing this.

i'm older than my classmates and armageddon was sooooo close!

Phaedra

Way to go, Billy!

Phae

26

how long before you felt refreshed and new?

by losingit in

waking up from jw-land is an extremely exhausting process.

about 3 years ago, i attended a month-long institute for grad school students.

during this time, i was surrounded by people from all over the united states and had active, deep conversations with so many about personal topics, such as religion and divorce.

Phaedra

just wonder-- did you feel this tired after leaving jws? How long did it take before you felt refreshed and new? ...

I want to feel stable, secure, and safe. When will that feeling come?

Hi losingit,

Sounds like you are dealing with an enormous amount of stuff that is overwhelming you. When I'm overwhelmed and depressed, staying in bed is the most comfortable and secure place in the world for me.

For the longest time after I withdrew from the JWs I thought life should/would/could work out in a linear here to ---> there fashion.

Instead it has gone in non-linear cycles, spiraling ups and downs, and all around like a big loopy doodle. All with the range of every possible emotional state, empty and full feeling you can imagine. There's good moments and not-so-good ones. Me thinks the promised land full of milk and honey is an illusion.

I've come to accept that life for me is like a big rodeo ride, where it bucks and kicks and sometimes throws you off. Every day we wake up and have to meet life not only where it is, but where we are, and that's always in a dynamic, growing, changing state.

We've been programmed at the KH with happily-ever-after-stories that don't translate into the real world. We do have some control over how thin we spread ourselves and the ability to pull back and accept help and heal when needed. Listen to your body right now...what does it need?

I love swimming and sun too. See if you can find moments to enjoy. That's really all life is made up of. Moments in the now.

Phae

9

JW's: replacing the real world with their fake version, one brick at a time

by Terry in

freud said:.

"if it were really a matter of indifference what we belive, then we might just as well build our bridges of cardboard as of stone, or inject a tenth of a gram of morphine into a patient instead of a hundredth, or take teargas as a narcotic instead of ether; but the intellectual anarchists themselves would strongly repudiate any such practical applications of their theory.".

intellectual honesty requires a match between the real world, the practical world where things either work or do not work at all.....and the state of mind inside your head.. if there is any mismatch at all the blurred line fuzzes out into failure to recognize what is real and what isn't.. jehovah's witnesses replace the real world with an artificially constructed one.

Phaedra

Interesting questions and food for thought there, Terry.

The one thing I do appreciate about the dynamics of living is that whatever happened to us in the past does not set us in stone with the inability to change, grow, and resolve towards new directions.

Phae

31

Beware of Mediums

by Splash in

from 1920 wt publication "talking with the dead":.

p. 116 materializations.

"these materializations occur by a power which the demons posess of being able to draw out of the mediums body connected streams of the cells of which her body is composed, and then changing the form of these living cells into any desired appearance.

Phaedra

Beware of Mediums

...yeah, the sizing from different clothing manufacturers doesn't always equal the labeled size you think you're getting on that new t-shirt Mediums can go either way...

Phlae

127

OK..Seriously..Has GOD ever answered your prayers????

by DATA-DOG in

look...i am not an atheist.

even so, i have never had one prayer answered my entire life.

the only thing that would even come close was learning ttatt.

Phaedra

Re: OK..Seriously..Has GOD ever answered your prayers????

I have no idea. But I'm leaning to "probably not."

Phae

35

What do you do when your job makes you wanna puke your face off?

by Julia Orwell in

jw
friends

i'm talking like makes you physically sick and emotionally frazzled just thinking about it.

i'm talking like you hate it to the point you'd rather go without than work at it just for the money.

you'd live on cheap korean packet noodles for the next year instead of exchanging your labor for this job's money.. well, this is how i feel about teaching and tutoring.

Phaedra

Re: What do you do when your job makes you wanna puke your face off?

Take care of self.
Purge.
Leave job & find another.

Not necessarily in that order.

Life is too short to put up with job-puking BS for too long.

Phae

13

Putting on the NEW "New Personality"

by stuckinarut2 in

we have often heard about the need to "put on the 'new personality'" as a jw.... but i have realised something in these last few years of awakening to the ttatt...i dont like what i had become as a 'good' jw!.

i realised that being a 'good' jw made me very:.

critical of my fellow man,.

Phaedra

Stuck,

Great reflection. As a raised-in, I never knew what my "original personality" was (or did it even really develop?), and so when I left the JWs in my late-20s I was very confused about where they ended and I began. How do you know who you ARE when you don't know anything else except what you've been programmed with during your formative years in the JW world?

Along with some of the things you've mentioned, I suspect some of the unwanted traits that I've been afflicted with (and ernestly working through and healing from) have been greatly influenced/caused by growing up in the JW culture: