Dear JW Bot,
There is a solution that you can try. I'll add it after I empathize with you for a few moments. So please press on and read:
I can empathize with you because in one form or another I have had different kinds of fears and anxieties since early childhood. I had nightmares of tornadoes which began when I was five or six after going through hurricane Hilda. I had those nightmares until I was in my late teens. They terrified me and I was convinced one day I would die in a tornado.
I was not raised a JW. I went to the Episcopal Church. I didn't ever believe the idea of going to heaven. It was just something that was not logical to me. I feared instead that I would die and be very dead but very conscious that I was dead. I feared I would be caught, aware and helpless, inside my coffin in my grave.
I feared the Russians were going to bomb us with nuclear weapons and I fell asleep worrying about it every single night.
When I was ten, a house down my street burned in the middle of the night. We watched from our yard. A girl from my class who was spending the night there, she also lived across the street from the house, was trapped inside. Her mother screamed so loud for her little girl that you could hear her clear across our small village. I went to Ann's funeral because she was also in my girl scout troup. I had terrible nightmares every night about our house burning down. I would see our burned house and dead burnt bodies everywhere. I was terrified because my bedroom was next to the kitchen and afterall that was where most house fires started. I didn't stop having those nightmares until they tore that house down and built another. We used to pass it everyday on the way to school and sometimes climb up and look through the window at the white spot on the carpet where her body lay.
After I became a JW most of those fears and nightmares stopped. However, once I had children I had a new one to replace them. I feared losing my children to death or to persecution. This fear often caused nightmares and lost sleep and terrible anxiety about the kids even leaving my sight.
When I was pregnant with my son, my friend asked for my daughter to spend the night with her. She was four at the time. I could see her bedroom door from my bed and I lay there agonizing: this is what it would be like if she were dead.
Then is when I decided I couldn't take this irrational fear anymore. So I prayed: HARD, something I was rarely able to do even as a JW. I asked for some wisdom and some relief and a solution. Now, I don't believe in the WT Jehovah, but someone out there had pity on me and the answer came to me. I think it will help you, too if you will really ponder it and customize it to fit your fears. It is this:
Heather, you can worry that your kids might die, everyday and night, and they still might live to be elderly. Then your worrying was for nothing and you wasted a lot of time being in unecessary pain. You can worry, every single day and night, and one of your kids or both of your kids still does die. Your worrying did not prevent their deaths: so, you wasted all that time worrying and in pain for nothing. Sooooooooo...take the necessary, reasonable safety precautions any good, balanced parent would take and STOP worrying. Worrying has no power over the inevitable, whether the inevitable be good or bad.
It was so simple yet it was so effective. It worked. I try to apply this to anything I am worried about and most of the time it does help.
We saw The Pianist last year when it was re released after being Oscar nominated. We enjoyed it very much.
Please think about what I said because I think it can help anyone if they apply the same principles to their situations. Also, when you are gripped by fear tell yourself: This too shall pass. This fear shall pass.
You ever need a shoulder from someone who understands? I've got two, okay?
Big warm hugs! As many as you need. I give good ones, just ask my kids and grandkids.
Love, Heather
