Sorry to hear you're housebound. Just FYI, these are audio only. If you want some audio recommendations though I listen to find of interesting podcasts every day while I work. I can PM you a list sometime if you'd benefit.
dubstepped
JoinedPosts by dubstepped
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9
What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?
by dubstepped inthis is the title of the latest episode of a podcast called "this is actually happening".
i love the podcast and imagine my surprise when this title came up.
imagine the surprise when i realized this was about jehovah's witnesses.
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9
What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?
by dubstepped inthis is the title of the latest episode of a podcast called "this is actually happening".
i love the podcast and imagine my surprise when this title came up.
imagine the surprise when i realized this was about jehovah's witnesses.
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dubstepped
I'm just subscribed on my podcast player of choice (Podcast Republic) from my Android phone. Looking at the SoundCloud link, I think you can click on the logo for the show to go to a main page with all of their shows starting with the most recent. I think this was the first episode involving JWs, but there are lots of fascinating stories there. -
9
What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?
by dubstepped inthis is the title of the latest episode of a podcast called "this is actually happening".
i love the podcast and imagine my surprise when this title came up.
imagine the surprise when i realized this was about jehovah's witnesses.
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dubstepped
Oh yeah, I think most people become depressed at a minimum when living inauthentic lives as JWs. Almost everyone I knew had some sort of mental disorder or weird pain issues because the human person isn't designed to stuff everything inward and live to meet impossible standards set forth my others. Everyone breaks in some way. I tried to pummel my body and lead it as a slave and ended up depressed, suicidal, with major anxiety issues. The "truth" almost killed me. It truly destroys lives. Those still in are miserable just under the surface. -
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What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?
by dubstepped inthis is the title of the latest episode of a podcast called "this is actually happening".
i love the podcast and imagine my surprise when this title came up.
imagine the surprise when i realized this was about jehovah's witnesses.
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dubstepped
Yeah, but her dad couldn't have fixed her mom anyway, or the JW life. Those were the two biggest contributors to the problems. I think JWs both attract and create mental illness. The daughters had a measure of the created type. I went through different but similar circumstances and came out of childhood with some myself. I'm curious as to when the mom came into the religion. Regardless, JWs are the mentally diseased ones. -
9
What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?
by dubstepped inthis is the title of the latest episode of a podcast called "this is actually happening".
i love the podcast and imagine my surprise when this title came up.
imagine the surprise when i realized this was about jehovah's witnesses.
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-
dubstepped
This is the title of the latest episode of a podcast called "This Is Actually Happening". I love the podcast and imagine my surprise when this title came up. Imagine the surprise when I realized this was about Jehovah's Witnesses. I encourage you to find and listen to it. Maybe it will bring back memories of mental illness and dysfunctional family like it did for me. I would re-title the episode " Jehovah's Happy People " personally, but they didn't ask me. -
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What's the point?
by punkofnice ini mean, i don't want to be miserable or anything, but what's the bloody point of it all?.
since i left the watchtower cult, i have come to realise that god cannot possibly exist...and if a god exists...god is indifferent to humankind as the least.. in 100 years time i'll be gone.
kaput.
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dubstepped
I don't have answers, only a personal story, one that kind of mirrors the cruise story above.
My JW upbringing led to me turning away lots of scholarships to pioneer. I went on to work crap jobs and no matter what I did I ended up back in the cleaning industry. I could earn more money than the other skills I had to work with. No matter how many times I got out of cleaning, I ended back up there. My wife and I started our own business (self-employed) and although I'm really good at cleaning my mind craved more. I was always looking for something else to get into so that once again I could get out of cleaning. Over time I grew to hate it. I was depressed and suicidal at points, not that I can blame it all on cleaning. The lack of fulfillment there was just one piece of the puzzle that was my life that I hated and wanted to leave.
One day I had a perspective shift. Instead of fighting it, instead of trying to get out of cleaning yet again, I decided that maybe Jehovah (this was back in the dub days) was trying to tell me something because I always ended up in cleaning again. So I stopped trying to control everything, surrendered, and took a look at what I did with fresh eyes.
I don't just clean houses. I get to help families maintain their sanity. I get to work with my wife and don't have to work long hours and not see her. I get to talk to really nice, interesting people. I get to listen to podcasts and books and learn all day about anything I want. I get to talk to people about their problems and offer guidance and help, or just a listening ear, which is sometimes all people need. I get to talk to people about what's going on in my life as well and get that same listening ear, or sometimes a helpful word. Every morning on the way to work we start our day in the car by listing our "happy's", things that we're grateful for or looking forward to that day.
So here I am doing the exact same work that I was doing for all of those years that I yearned to escape. I saw no point to it. It was just something to do. But cleaning gave me so much, including a group of supportive friends, not just clients, but true friends that my wife and I relied on during the most difficult time in our life while leaving the Witnesses behind and DA'ing. That thing that I wanted to run away from became my lifeline and I can never appreciate that enough.
Sometimes a simple perspective change can make a world of difference. I don't know what the future will hold. For my whole life I thought I could control it by simply doing enough or being enough as a JW but I was miserable. Now I freely admit that I don't know what the future holds but that's not all I have to look forward to anymore. It was the JWs that had me always forward thinking and now I live in the present and I'm sure to find things to appreciate. I take a camera with me every day to force me to look for small things like a cool cloud formation, the sun reflecting off of something, a flower, a dog, some kids playing (ok, I don't take a pic of that so that people don't find me creepy but I can still appreciate it), and just so many little things that make life beautiful.
Find connection in the present, and the future will hold whatever it will hold. You can't control it. Joy or happiness are feelings in the present. Find that and you won't worry so much about the future. Admittedly, I have some persistent unwanted thoughts about the future myself, but when I start going down that path I bring myself back to the present, and in the end when my time comes instead of feeling awful that life is ending, I want to be able to look back at all of the cool things I got to do, the time I shared with my wife, and the friends that I made. I want to appreciate what I can have an influence on and forget what I can't. I hope the same for you.
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14
Life After Disassociation (or really leaving by any means)
by dubstepped ini just wanted to take a minute to encourage any that are leaving that the world outside isn't as scary as it was made out to be.
my wife and i officially da'd at the beginning of last september.
i've battled social anxiety, depression, etc.
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dubstepped
Ya know Doc, I too thought the same about people. In the town where we live things like what high school you went to are a huge deal, more than even what college you went to. People have their social circles set up. I was never in any groups or anything. It was just my wife, me, and often my parents hanging out on weekends before we DA'd. We really had nobody when we were "in". Love bombing happened when we would go to a new congregation, and I knew all kinds of people and was fairly well known throughout the area. But those "automatic friendships" were never anything more than acquaintances. My wife and I would go out to eat or do something alone and stumble upon large groups of Witnesses out doing things, things that we were never invited to. Maybe your situation is different and your friendships had more depth than merely seeing each other at meetings or out in service. Ours never were anything really. Any momentum was always short lived.
I really think there is something about leaving the dubs officially and altogether that make some difference. I don't know why but we were never able to make any kind of friends outside of the organization while still in. Maybe we had dub-funk on us and other people could smell it. Maybe it was us self-sabotaging because we knew as Witnesses we shouldn't really have friends outside. I don't know, but once we were vulnerable and let people know what we were going through, once we got out, we suddenly had things open up for us.
Again, our clients became our friends to start. After years of turning down offers to go to little social things here and there from people we worked with we started saying yes. We started going to football games and talking to people around us. We've made sure to friend people on Facebook as a way of keeping tabs and starting relationships.
You could also try getting involved in some volunteer activities. Do something nice with other people doing the same and you might find some connections.
Funny how some people in the organization did really find some meaningful friendships. I had some when I was younger but the never lasted. We tried so hard, so very hard, when we were in. We always ended up on the outside looking in anyway, so being outside isn't anything new to us. I really do think there's something that has changed in us since leaving officially. Even our clients have told us that we seem so much happier and free, less standoffish. It was like we were running a race with a heavy pack on our backs and we sat it down and are running free.
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98
OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk
by Terry infor me, the dead giveaway is this.
jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".
jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.
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dubstepped
I was really struck by this at first when I read it. Then I thought about how if Jesus wrote the book of Jesus people would complain of circular logic as if it was important only because it said so itself. Instead there were three separate accounts. That's not me saying it is therefore legitimate, just me thinking aloud. The OP has an interesting point. -
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Life After Disassociation (or really leaving by any means)
by dubstepped ini just wanted to take a minute to encourage any that are leaving that the world outside isn't as scary as it was made out to be.
my wife and i officially da'd at the beginning of last september.
i've battled social anxiety, depression, etc.
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dubstepped
Thanks AFS! Like you with us, people want to see you succeed and be happy. The world isn't just some cold awful place. I hope you find whatever you are looking for too. Everything in time. It works best if you don't rush it. -
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Life After Disassociation (or really leaving by any means)
by dubstepped ini just wanted to take a minute to encourage any that are leaving that the world outside isn't as scary as it was made out to be.
my wife and i officially da'd at the beginning of last september.
i've battled social anxiety, depression, etc.
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-
dubstepped
I just wanted to take a minute to encourage any that are leaving that the world outside isn't as scary as it was made out to be. My wife and I officially DA'd at the beginning of last September. I've battled social anxiety, depression, etc. for years and it magically all went away, well not 100% as new situations are intimidating for everyone, but they aren't paralyzing anymore. I was the guy that wouldn't even go into a new restaurant because I didn't know how it was laid out, what they had, etc.
My wife and I have been to our first Thanksgivings at other family's homes with lots of strangers. Just last night we went to our first ever cocktail party with people we didn't really know. I could go on, but you know what, people are NICE! They aren't the evil douchebags that you were always told that they were. I can't begin to describe how much happier we both are since we left, and that includes losing our families. We get to be ourselves, and we get to associate with people that are from all types of cultures and morals and it's okay. We get to be us, and they get to be them. What a novel concept! Almost like we let everyone exercise free will. It is truly a magical thing.
So just know that life gets better. It really does. We've only been out from September to now, the end of February, and life is actually fun and we have people now that actually care about us. Not that fake-azz crapola that Jehovah's Witnesses said was love and care that disappears with the wind, but people actually invite us places and ask about how we're doing and genuinely care. We could disappear for years from our congregations without a peep. Nobody really cared. Dub love is as deep as your score on their performance evaluation called a time slip or meeting attendance and participation. It's all for show, and it all falls apart if you fail to perform.
Be open and honest with people in your life outside of the organization. Tell them what you're going through, what you're going toward, and be vulnerable. We were completely open with the people we clean houses for and they've been our biggest allies through all of this. They are our new friends and family, and we've branched out from there. Find those lost Witnesses that disappeared years ago and reach out to them. We've been reacquainted with several people that left years ago and made friends there again. People are generally good, and if you're leaving something like a cult then you have one of the more interesting stories that anyone could share. People love hearing about it and find it interesting, and they will become your cheerleaders as you escape something that is so destructive. They want to see you succeed. Open vulnerability begets open vulnerability. We've learned more about others around us as we've been open, and it builds real relationships, not surface level ones like the JWs.
I just wanted to share. I hope that it helps someone out there who is afraid. We were open before leaving and saw that we had people there for us on the outside. In a short time we have more friends than we ever did in the Borg despite years and years of trying there. Peace and love to everyone going through this mess. It does get better, and we're living proof in a matter of months.