Posts by dubstepped

10

Week 16 Since My Disfellowshipping - Update

by pale.emperor in

hi guys.

i could really do with you advice regarding my current state since being disfellowshipped 16 weeks ago.. since being given the boot (i did try to fade but it failed) ive been on a rollacoaster of emotions.

lately im getting frequent headaches, tiredness and i have about 3 or 4 thoughts running through my mind at all times.. im passed the sadness phase of discovering it's a cult.

dubstepped

I've been thinking about this all day and finally got home to reply. I wish that meant that I had some amazing words of wisdom, but I likely don't.

I think that the five stages of grief, denial, grief, bargaining, depression, and acceptance do occur but not necessarily after you leave. I think it's part of the process of leaving and then continues some afterward.

For me, I was super anxious right when we left, but it was buffered with this almost manic sense of freedom. It was without compare. It was maybe a good anxious, as anything was now possible and I was free. I had a lot of time to make my decision to leave though. I'd say it took maybe six years of getting healthy enough to do so. Really, our path afterward was nothing short of fantastic. Lately I did get down and posted here a bit, but I'm past it already. It was just a minor funk, likely caused by some things I referenced in the thread.

I gave my example a little just for context, but honestly I think that there is no list of phases. Everyone exits in different ways. You were preparing mentally by reading apostate stuff, but you were caught and thrust out without it being your choice. You lost your wife and share your child in a different way now. My experience is so different than that. I really think that we all come out in different ways and that it impacts those phases. Plus, we all have different emotional makeups, different social circles (or lack thereof) when leaving, etc. It's kind of amazing that we all spent years in an organization doing pretty much the exact same things, but we all have such different experiences on the way out and after.

I'm so sorry you found yourself homeless. Isn't it awesome though when those evil "worldly" people prove themselves better than the dubs over and over again? I mean, the acts of kindness toward us have been so much greater than anything experienced in decades with the dubs. It just affirms how much we were lied to by the dubs who mischaracterized an entire group of people to make them so ugly you'd be afraid of them and stick closely to the Borganization. Isn't that sick?

I don't want to pry or anything, but if you need any financial advice or ideas on how to make some money or something shoot me a pm. I'm not rich, but I've turned my financial situation around completely and money is no longer a worry, and my wife and I don't have any special skills. I just listened and learned from people that had been through the wringer and had wisdom to offer.

It sounds like your brother is really falling for the fantasy of the JWs, and I'm sorry. It unfortunately dehumanizes people. It steals their compassion for the world and makes them self-centered, looking for the panda paradise to come fix their problems. It also makes them paranoid, as you see from his comments about apostate materials. I was paranoid like that. I was shaking the first time I came on a site like this.

Hugs man, I'm so sorry about your family. It's an unfortunate reality that they will cut you completely off 99% of the time. We got to leave on our own initiative. We knew exactly what the consequences would be. We had seen our families shun before and knew what it would be for us. I think those expectations made it easier to accept. It sucks though, doesn't it, no matter what you expect.

25

Is disassociating worth the hassle?

by HereIgo in

i have been out now for 6 years but lately i have been giving some thought to da.

i just kind of feel that chapter in my life is still open and for some reason i feel like da'ing might close that chapter but i'm not entirely sure.

im not df either, when i left i basically faded and disappeared.

dubstepped

The answer to your question is in your question itself. DAing is a way to end the hassle. If you've faded and can be anyone you want to be without hassle, enjoy. For us, we knew that wasn't the case. Had we celebrated holidays openly, taken a tranfusion, etc. at some point we would be hassled for sure.

Fading isn't some magic way of not playing their game unless you're one of the few that can do so without hassle. If you read on here very long you see people that face tremendous hassle but turn around and recommend fading. Most think they can save family. It is rare that it happens and they stay in the toxic environment for some time.

Disassociating ends the game. You can be whoever or whatever you want without fear of hassle. Then they truly have no power over you. You are truly free. There's a price to be paid, but freedom is never free. We have never been happier since DAing last year.

So it depends on you and the level of hassle you currently endure or are willing to put up with. Whatever you do, do it for you, not for a fantasy of what you can do for or to others. Going out with a bang changes nobody's mind, and neither does staying in thinking you can save others. Again, it happens, but is rare. It's more common that people live their lives for others and end up miserable.

20

Successes you enjoyed since leaving the Org

by Tallon in

thought i would start a discussion, and hopefully a positive one, on what successes you’ve enjoyed since leaving the org.. each of us is different as people, in life experiences etc.

however we all share one common factor in that we have all experienced the negativity, to a greater or lesser degree, of being a jw and the org.. each success is worth celebrating so i invite you to share some of your achievements.

it does not matter how ‘big or small’ it is, share it with us.. my achievement means a great deal to me both personally and professionally.

dubstepped

Before officially leaving my wife and I paid off $55,000 in debt in 18 months, making an extra $80,000 or so to clear enough to pay that. That year and a half was a catalyst that gave us the space to think about what we had been taught and to start processing how things didn't add up. We clean houses and did that, by the way, so that was all by the sweat of our brow. We cleaned houses during the day, often house-sat at night for people and watched their pets, detailed cars, cleaned carpet, power washed concrete, sealed a driveway and patio for the first time, just anything we could find to make a buck. Worked 34 days straight at one point, but usually at least 6 days a week. I still can't believe my wife and I did that.

Since officially leaving I'd say that one accomplishment I'm the proudest of is just making new friends. I always struggled in the Borg to make any friends. I used to be petrified of trying new things and now I go to places where I don't know a person and walk up to perfect strangers and start talking. That is HUGE for me. I have more Facebook friends now than I had as a JW. I have more real life friends too. It is nice to have built a community on our own that we both care about and that cares about us.

For me this whole thing has just been a perspective change. I only have this one life. Might as well push past my anxiety and fears and do something new even if it terrifies me.

21

Struggling a bit, guess it's to be expected...........

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

throughout this process since my wife and i disassociated just over a year ago i've been pretty positive.

focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life.

it's been great.

dubstepped

Wow, thanks for the kind post Emperor. It's nice to know that our words help others. I've enjoyed following your experiences too. I just want the best for you and your kid.

And Tallon, that's funny, as long as you aren't on the receiving end, lol.

21

Struggling a bit, guess it's to be expected...........

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

throughout this process since my wife and i disassociated just over a year ago i've been pretty positive.

focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life.

it's been great.

dubstepped

Thanks guys. I think I've got Halloween figured out. I've been making lots of great memories. Not a problem. It just hit me that so much was taken from me and some things I can't get back, that is all. A person that was sexually abused as a child can't just go have better sexual experiences as an adult and act like it didn't happen. A person that was emotionally abused in a cult can't just go have healthier experiences and make it all go away either. I'm not wallowing in the losses of the past, just feeling them as they've hit me out of nowhere lately. It's all good. Like I said, I've had a fantastic time since leaving the dubs. I have so many friends I can't keep up with them all, have had many new experiences, celebrated my first birthday this year and my wife had a huge party with about 65 people present for her first birthday. We went to three Thanksgiving celebrations last year. We've really enjoyed life, the past just came up and bit me.

I won't be around here for Halloween night or I'd love to hand out candy to kids. I really look forward to that next year. We are going to a Halloween party or two though the weekend before. That should be fun. I've got my stuff picked out for it that I'm comfortable with and purchased already. The Halloween thing isn't so much a problem as a catalyst for thinking about how the Borganization changed me and influenced who I became.

21

Struggling a bit, guess it's to be expected...........

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

throughout this process since my wife and i disassociated just over a year ago i've been pretty positive.

focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life.

it's been great.

dubstepped

Thanks for the kind comments. I think I just came here to put my feelings out there, maybe because misery loves company. Again, I've been feeling great since leaving for the most part. I have a lot to be thankful for. I think I've just been hit by a lot of stuff lately.

Oh, I guess it probably didn't help that I just did an AMA on the Straight Dope forum about the dubs. Someone asked me to so I started one there. I think that it just has me in the frame of mind where I've been reflecting on a lot of things. That probably helped get me down and I didn't even think about that possible outcome. Then I met some other ex-dubs in real life. The whole Halloween thing got me thinking. Probably just a convergence of many things and a little JW overload for me with the PTSD that I probably have after all of this getting touched off. I'll be fine for sure. It's nice to vent a bit with people that understand.

21

Struggling a bit, guess it's to be expected...........

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

throughout this process since my wife and i disassociated just over a year ago i've been pretty positive.

focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life.

it's been great.

dubstepped

If you don't want to have anything more to do with the Bible, that's up to you. Please realize, though, that what you said (quoted above) is an interpretation you got from the Watchtower.

That's an example of what I meant earlier when I said, "please don't equate the WT religion with the Bible."

I didn't really come here to debate the Bible, nor was my one quip about it indicative of the reasons that I disregard it. The Watchtower is far from the only religion to teach the very simple thing that I outlined. The story of Noah is fraught with issues. What Lot and his daughters did right after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for immorality was sick but tolerated. The use of women and children as spoils of war, even at God's command, gives me room to pause and reflect on the real qualities of God in the Bible. That Jesus guy was pretty cool. Paul seemed like an authoritarian douchebag. Revelation reads like a guy on bad trip wrote a bunch of things down. I realize that the Watchtower has their own interpretation of many things, like the blood doctrine for example, but it doesn't take away the many flaws of the Bible. Maybe there's another way of looking at it entirely that would help, but I don't care.

If God wanted me to understand him and if the Bible was really this fatherly love letter to people that we needed to understand in order to please him, he should have made it more clear. He should have left some evidence like the Ark or that flaming sword at the entrance to the garden of Eden as clear evidence confirming what he had to know would sound just like fairy tales to adults later on in time. A loving father doesn't give his children a riddle and if they can't figure it out take away hope from them.

Why did miracles conveniently stop back then where nobody had any proof of them like video? Why couldn't an all powerful God have reasoned with people instead of killing them, talking directly to them like any father would instead of sending humans fraught with their own issues? Why were so many books written well after the fact, like the Gospels?

Look, I could go on, but as you can see I don't want anything more to do with the Bible and it isn't because of the Watchtower. If you believe, go on with your bad self and find what you're looking for there. I do still quote some wisdom contained therein, and I don't think it has zero value, but as some magical holy book from God it falls far short for me, but I realize that's just me. Again, none of that was the point of this thread.

21

Struggling a bit, guess it's to be expected...........

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

throughout this process since my wife and i disassociated just over a year ago i've been pretty positive.

focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life.

it's been great.

dubstepped

Oh, believe me, I'm not worried about what the JWs or Bible has to say. However, those automatic responses are programmed deep. I've also come to realize that both my wife and I bought in more than a lot of people that we met that are out. We were thoroughly convinced, very black and white thinkers, and lived by the letter of the law, so to speak. We were both the oldest of our siblings, both people pleasers, both perfectionists with the black and white cognitive distortions that comes with that. just deeply entrenched uber dubs even if we couldn't keep up with all of the organization's demands, which ultimately backfired on them.

I'm not repulsed by Halloween, though I don't like horror films or spiders, lol. I just don't like to stand out, don't like to be seen. It's a social anxiety thing. JWs had me all twisted up with social anxiety. Most of it has gone away, but deliberately dressing in a way so as to be seen and noticed is terrifying to me. From what I gather it can be that way for introverts anyway, but I know that the JWs made me more socially anxious as my levels of terror have gone way down since leaving them. In fact, I actually like people now. I used to kind of just generally hate everyone, lol.

The Bible loses me right in the first chapters where creative days are figurative but a talking snake is literal. It really "jumps the shark" from the beginning and doesn't get any better when I look at it objectively.

21

Struggling a bit, guess it's to be expected...........

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

throughout this process since my wife and i disassociated just over a year ago i've been pretty positive.

focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life.

it's been great.

dubstepped

That's the sentence that jumped out and smacked me as I read your story. That's the issue that has me so angry (and the Cult cost me an additional 20 years of my life than it did you). All that is just gone! Not just the time/years of life, but the experiences of life!

I hope you at least saved something for retirement because you're so much closer than I. I'm so sorry it two more decades from you.

Once you realize that the panda paradise, and the hopes that you hinged your future on were likely a fairy tale, it puts even more importance on living this life, not the next. There is only one life that I KNOW I have, and it is this one. My goal isn't to run out and do all of the things they told me was bad, like some people that I've known over the years, but to live a good life, do no harm, be happy, grow old, and die with something I can be proud of behind me. If there's something ahead of me that's awesome, but I want to control the controllables, and this life is the only thing I have any control over, any concrete knowledge of. I just wish I hadn't wasted so much time. Then again, there are many people that aren't JWs that waste their lives in other pursuits. We aren't alone in that for sure. It doesn't take the sting away though when things hit you.

21

Struggling a bit, guess it's to be expected...........

by dubstepped in

jw
friends

throughout this process since my wife and i disassociated just over a year ago i've been pretty positive.

focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life.

it's been great.

dubstepped

Throughout this process since my wife and I disassociated just over a year ago I've been pretty positive. Focusing on my new life, new friends, having fun, and living a good life. It's been great. However, like most things that happen in life, there seems to be an inevitable process that one has to go through and I'm not sure I'm done going through it yet. Heck, even during this year I couldn't help but be touched directly by the insanity of the cult when my dad died and I wasn't welcome at his memorial and was unshunned for 30 minutes or so to see him one last time in hospice and say goodbye. My mom then had no problems contacting me promising me that we'd see each other again, and of course wanting things from me like to sign papers for the estate, you know, all the things that they're welcome to contact us for but that I'm sure we'd be unwelcome if we needed from them. Anyway, I digress.

What brought about this current struggle is Halloween. My wife is excited about it. For the first time she gets to dress up and everything. For me, well I am struggling mightily. I don't like to be seen, don't like to stand out in the crowd, as I did so much as a JW kid as was bullied so much for it. I was bullied for other reasons too, but that was one. I was thinking back though to myself as a 6,7, 8 year old kid before the JWs. I remember being excited about Halloween, loved going trick or treating in the neighborhood, and as far as I remember loved the costume part too. Somewhere in the decades of destruction that followed, the dehumanizing of me that occurred in the cult, I lost that part of me.

It made me realize that there may be other parts of me that I lost. I was a happy and sweet kid and I know I turned into a rage filled judgemental prick at their hands, something I've tried hard to shake off and leave behind. But there are still remnants of their crap that are with me. I read something about Russia and nukes the other day and there's something in the back of my head that brought up a panicky feeling inside about the end of this system and were they (JWs) right and other garbage. I'm struggling looking back at all of the time lost to the cult, all of the things I'll never get to experience. I missed my youth, college, sports, girls, etc. All gone and can never be recovered. I'm left with feelings and thoughts of a doomsday cult that pop up at unexpected times and make me feel weird inside. I'm also left fighting from behind, trying to catch up on experiences and things like retirement savings that I was never prepared for. Of course, I have to pay for these things with money made cleaning houses. It's not like I have a six figure income. Heck, I surprised my wife last week with her first ever water gun. She had never been allowed to have one. At 36 she finally got to play with one. I mean, really? The simple stupid things we were never allowed to do.

I wish there was one of those devices like in Men In Black, a clicker of sorts that makes everything previous just disappear. I know that there's more to me than what the cult took from me. I know that at 39 I have years in front of me. I know that I have a good life right now. I have a lot, and generally choose to focus on that, but right now my focus isn't my choice. I've been hit by a few things out of the blue and they shook me a bit. I met some other ex-JWs locally and heard their painful stories (two young ladies whose mom died and they were adopted by JWs that now shun them, and a young man whose wife turned him into the elders for smoking weed and then he lost everything). That miserable cult just leaves destruction, misery, and dysfunction in its wake. I think for the first time some of it is hitting me. I really hate them, and I mean that sincerely with every fiber of my being right now. I know that will dissipate. I know that I'll move past this stage. I may also come back to it at some point, but for now I seem to be here whether I'd like to be or not.

I'm not good at asking for help. I'm usually the guy trying to help others. I'm not even sure I'm asking for help or what in the world I need, but it was nice just to write this out and put it somewhere where I know others will understand.