Posts by dubstepped

27

I dont know how i can leave my family!

by BlackWolf in

jw
friends

my mom and i were talking today about how next summer i will be 18 and she said that just thinking about it might make her cry.

that made me think about how much more it would hurt her if i quit being a jw.

i really do love my parents, i know they are just being cruelly manipulated by a cult and that they really think they are doing what is best for me.

dubstepped

You can't live your life for others. It simply isn't possible, and you'll end up with health problems if you try to be someone that you aren't, whether physically or mentally you'll suffer one way or both. Change in life is inevitable, but for now you're just a kid and you just need to worry about today. Don't worry about tomorrow or what those changes will be. In the end, you can't control life. You can do your best and live it as who you are, but you can't control what your parents or anyone else thinks or feels or how they react.

So, for today things are good with you and your parents. Appreciate it. Take what love you get from them now and try to be present mentally when you're with them. When and if the time comes that you need to make changes you'll do so then. No amount of worrying about it today changes what happens in the future. You'll be a different person then, with different coping skills and goals in life. Your parents may be too. All that you're guaranteed is this moment, right now, so have gratitude for what you have and don't worry about what you might not have later. For now, you have them.

This is coming from a guy that lost his family due to leaving the religion. It does hurt, but I can look back and know that I did everything I possibly could to make things work, to enjoy the time that I had, and I have peace even in the great divide between us now because I didn't leave anything undone and I did my best to appreciate what I had and make it better. In the end, any relationship takes two people, and while I'm still open to a relationship they aren't, and that's on them. I have peace in that I acted right on my end. They have to live with theirs. It isn't my problem. Love isn't control. It take a lot more love to have a relationship with someone that you don't agree with everything on and that you may not even always like than it does to love someone that is just a little robot that does what you say and obeys. My love isn't so small that it can't survive a religious disagreement. My parents' love is that small. That makes them toxic, and people that ultimately I know it is best for me to be separated from anyway.

10

I can't just walk away, I need to keep reinforcing what I did was right (Leaving the org)

by pleaseresearch in

when i speak to my mum about things, she says why do you keep looking on the internet and news etc... why don't you just live your life and forget what you learned growing up.. maybe i was so so indoctrinated as a child that even though i have woken up and learnt ttatt, i still need to keep up to date with new findings from ex and fellow brothers and sisters.

listening to their testimony about why they left.. this was to me and all of you i'm sure, the truth.

so to finally wake up is absolutely massive.

dubstepped

Why don't you just forget it and move on is a very ignorant recommendation. It sounds nice, but you can't just put a cult that you were a part of down like it never existed. An illustration that I like is that leaving a cult is like putting a photo on your computer in the recycle bin and deleting it. That photo isn't no longer there. It will be written over, bit by bit, over a long time, and is easily recoverable. It never really goes away.

Or think of any childhood abuse. You will have those scars with you the rest of your life. They don't just magically disappear.

We're also hurt and have no real recourse against the Borg. It forever remains unfinished business on some level.

The fact that it is harder for some to walk away shows that some took it more serious. I certainly took "the truth" very seriously and tried so hard to make it work for years, even through my doubts. So a person that wanted it so badly can't just walk away like it never happened. Grief takes time and is a process, and I can no more just forget about this than I can loved ones that I lost in death or that are still in the organization.

9

What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

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.

dubstepped

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.

9

What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

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.

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 in

jw
friends

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.

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.

9

What if your mother tried to cut her heart out?

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

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.

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 in

jw
friends

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.

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.

66

What's the point?

by punkofnice in

jw
friends

i 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.

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.

14

Life After Disassociation (or really leaving by any means)

by dubstepped in

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.

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.

98

OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

by Terry in

for 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!.

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.