Posts by Check_Your

22

Years ago son raised a few years as a JW. Now struggles with depression

by Check_Your_Premises in

background:.

i spent some time here awhile back as an unbelieving mate of a jw wife.

i learned a lot, and was able to be supportive and understanding when she decided to leave the jw.. unfortunately, my son seems to have internalized many of the jw teachings.

Check_Your_Premises

All,

Thanks so much for the tips, advice, and support.

Ughhhhh,

Your name says it all. So sorry man. Been there.

CYP

22

Years ago son raised a few years as a JW. Now struggles with depression

by Check_Your_Premises in

background:.

i spent some time here awhile back as an unbelieving mate of a jw wife.

i learned a lot, and was able to be supportive and understanding when she decided to leave the jw.. unfortunately, my son seems to have internalized many of the jw teachings.

Check_Your_Premises

Hey Carla. Yes I remember you. I remember Blondie and Talesin and Wasa, and I think Zeb. You all mean so much to me, for all the help you gave during my times of angst. Hope everyone is doing fine.

He would have been actively attending from about 2003 to about 2005. So that would be from the ages of about 8 to 10.

After that we had an arrangement where he would go to my church half time, and to the KH half time. After about 2005, field service was strictly optional for him as were holidays.

My wife wandered away about 2007 or 2008?

He has other family that is in. In particular an uncle he is very close to.

I think he would be open to looking into some information. Like I said, he was never very involved, and does not choose it now for himself even though he is completely free to do so.

My wife and I discussed it, and we think it would be better if she approaches him. I was always seen as the outside, resisting, unbelieving mate. I am beginning to introduce her to Hassan's approach, so that she can proceed in a well informed way.

I am not sure how opposed he is to new info. If anything else it would be a matter of getting him to take the time, and to talk to us about it. But once I realized that this was a real problem for him, I began to approach cautiously so as to not trigger his cult personality.

I appreciate everyone's thoughts and input. Thanks so much.

22

Years ago son raised a few years as a JW. Now struggles with depression

by Check_Your_Premises in

background:.

i spent some time here awhile back as an unbelieving mate of a jw wife.

i learned a lot, and was able to be supportive and understanding when she decided to leave the jw.. unfortunately, my son seems to have internalized many of the jw teachings.

Check_Your_Premises

We have been to a doctor/meds for YEARS. NOTHING seems to help. At best it only stabilizes the situation. I think as is commonly the case, many doctors don't understand or know how to diagnose the source as cult indoctrination.

It was only recently that HE pointed to the JW as a source of his angst.

I am very well versed in talking to people with a cult mindset. I lived it for about 4 years with my wife. It is actually almost second nature to me.

I recently found an article on religious trauma syndrome that caught my eye. I would say the author has an anti-religious bias which tends to make her appear to not always argue in good faith. Nevertheless this little snippet rang quite true:

Mistaken Identity

Religious Trauma Syndrome mimics the symptoms of many other disorders –

post-traumatic stress disorder
clinical depression
anxiety disorders
bipolar disorder
obsessive compulsive disorder
borderline personality disorder
eating disorders
social disorders
marital and sexual dysfunctions
suicide
drug and alcohol abuse
extreme antisocial behavior, including homicide

22

Years ago son raised a few years as a JW. Now struggles with depression

by Check_Your_Premises in

background:.

i spent some time here awhile back as an unbelieving mate of a jw wife.

i learned a lot, and was able to be supportive and understanding when she decided to leave the jw.. unfortunately, my son seems to have internalized many of the jw teachings.

Check_Your_Premises

Background:

I spent some time here awhile back as an unbelieving mate of a JW wife. I learned a lot, and was able to be supportive and understanding when she decided to leave the JW.

Unfortunately, my son seems to have internalized many of the JW teachings. He seems to be unable to shake the idea that they are the "truth". He doesn't live as a JW though, so he seems trapped in an intolerable state between thinking the JW are the way to go, but unable (and having no desire) to live as one.

When he made me aware of this fact, I began to realize he had internalized some of the cult mindset; phobias, thought-stopping techniques, adopting JW map of reality (false religion vs. JW Truth).

I was wondering if there were others with similar experiences? Anyone whose parents left, but the kids struggled to follow? Issues with depression? Suicidal thoughts? Nightmares?

The nightmares in particular are interesting to me? Did they follow a basic theme?

9

Born in, Faded, want to date but......

by SearchingForMe in

born a dub.

never dated while in because i "wasn't ready for marriage", haven't dated since fade because i really don't want to burden my girlfriend with the bull@#% of dating me while i still have to put up a facade of being "just inactive" to my family so they won't shun me.. this sucks.

i want to be happy.

Check_Your_Premises

Searching,

I was curious about something, are you describing yourself as a fader because you are breaking one of the soceities rules; you are dating a non-jw?

Or do you consider yourself a fader because you really don't agree with it and don't think the WT is God's organization?

It does make a difference, becuase if you still believe in the WT, there might be a chance you would go back. Your GF needs to know if that is the case. That kind of omission would simply NOT be right.

But if you really don't agree with it, I think you have to follow your conscience. You can't sacrifice your right to think for yourself to keep your family happy. Easy to say...

You are going to have to build a circle of friends and create your own life, so that when they do find out you have some sources of comfort.

Hang in there. Everyone here is pulling for you.

CYP

20

The Prodigal Unbelieving Mate Returns

by Check_Your_Premises in

hey all.. a few of you might remember me.

i showed up on a similar board a few years back because my wife was getting baptized.. it was a difficult time but i was able to work through it with a lot of prayer and help from a lot of smart folks here.. my wife has since left the organization, and the wt has faded into a tiny speck in our rearview mirror that we rarely talk about.. i have enjoyed being free from the watchtower driven life for awhile, and frankly i really needed it, but i also know that alot of people aren't so lucky.

insomnia and a sense of duty has compelled me to wander back in here.

Check_Your_Premises

Jeff, I have noticed once I resolved most of the jw issues, my insomnia got quite a bit better.... apparantly stress related. Whodathunkit!!!

Now I just have problems on Mondays because my sleep gets disrupted on the weekend. I take half a "Simply Sleep" on Sunday night, and I am usually cool all week.

CYP

20

The Prodigal Unbelieving Mate Returns

by Check_Your_Premises in

hey all.. a few of you might remember me.

i showed up on a similar board a few years back because my wife was getting baptized.. it was a difficult time but i was able to work through it with a lot of prayer and help from a lot of smart folks here.. my wife has since left the organization, and the wt has faded into a tiny speck in our rearview mirror that we rarely talk about.. i have enjoyed being free from the watchtower driven life for awhile, and frankly i really needed it, but i also know that alot of people aren't so lucky.

insomnia and a sense of duty has compelled me to wander back in here.

Check_Your_Premises

"Did your time here [JWD at the time] assist you in the matter of nudging her out of the organization?"

I think it helped me understand the situation, and get up to speed very quickly before I started freaking out. I think initially, the shock of it all tends to cause the unsuspecting ubm to over estimate the threat.

In some ways I think hearing alot of people's worst case scenarios made me more frightened than I needed to be. For example I found out that it is quite common for the wife of a ubm to look for a way out so she can marry a dub. That wasn't the case for me. After awhile I realized that my wife still loved me, and was very dedicated to our marriage.

Nevertheless, the benefits it had on my psyche were invaluable. Just knowing that there were people who understood the org, but weren't dubs, was just invaluable to me. Any situation I brought up, they immediately understood. No civilian ever did. It just all sounded so wierd to them.

JWD did help me get organized in terms of the relevant issues regarding the society. So much of the stuff out there really lives up to the billing that jw give apostate material. hysterical, over-the-top... etc. Spending time here did help me to filter out the crap, and really drill down to the relevant issues and especially the issues relevant to OUR lives.

Eventually I had to spend less time here though because I just couldn't be immersed in a lot of the negativity toward the org and then go be completely cool around all these dubs all the time.

Anyways, so how you doin' Jeff? How's the fam?

48

Elder said people "rarely" die from refusing a blood transfusion

by InterestedOne in

i sat in on the "know your options" reading tonight, and the elder said a couple things i was wondering about:.

1. he said if a doctor says you have a high risk of dying if you refuse a blood transfusion, he is misleading you.

he said people "rarely" die from refusing a blood transfusion.

Check_Your_Premises

If you lose enough blood, your red blood count level will become to low to carry sufficient oxygen throughout your body. In that event, you WILL die, regardless of how many stupid meetings you went to, how many times you went out in FS, or how many magazines you peddled for the publishing company.

If it was such an insignificant number, why doesn't the society EVER offer a number on how many witnesses died while refusing doctor prescribed blood treatment?

They count everything else?!?!

The WT blood policy is an abomination.

20

The Prodigal Unbelieving Mate Returns

by Check_Your_Premises in

hey all.. a few of you might remember me.

i showed up on a similar board a few years back because my wife was getting baptized.. it was a difficult time but i was able to work through it with a lot of prayer and help from a lot of smart folks here.. my wife has since left the organization, and the wt has faded into a tiny speck in our rearview mirror that we rarely talk about.. i have enjoyed being free from the watchtower driven life for awhile, and frankly i really needed it, but i also know that alot of people aren't so lucky.

insomnia and a sense of duty has compelled me to wander back in here.

Check_Your_Premises

Open mind... not many pick up on the Ayn Rand reference. I got over my Ayn Rand phase a long tme ago, but that one always stuck with me. She did write a lot of good stuff.

20

The Prodigal Unbelieving Mate Returns

by Check_Your_Premises in

hey all.. a few of you might remember me.

i showed up on a similar board a few years back because my wife was getting baptized.. it was a difficult time but i was able to work through it with a lot of prayer and help from a lot of smart folks here.. my wife has since left the organization, and the wt has faded into a tiny speck in our rearview mirror that we rarely talk about.. i have enjoyed being free from the watchtower driven life for awhile, and frankly i really needed it, but i also know that alot of people aren't so lucky.

insomnia and a sense of duty has compelled me to wander back in here.

Check_Your_Premises

So many good people here. I am indebted to you guys for helping me through a real rough patch. Sorry I haven't been around much L. Hope things are well.

garyneal, so much of this experience has taught me about control. I, by nature, have always been very controlling. Not of people so much, but that has also been the case, but mostly I try desperately to control my life. The hardest thing about the WT experience was the loss of control over my marriage, my children.... my my my. Must be an EE thing... ... ironically control theory is one of my favorite subjects. Sorry, that was nerd talk.

I ultimately found comfort in my faith. One day my pastor told a story of recieving an advertisement promising to double his flock. His response was to chuckle and think "What if God doesn't want me to double my flock?"

I started to realize how often I would become enraged, flabbergasted trying to control the uncontrollable. I started asking, "What if God doesn't want me to do that?" Or garyneal, "What if God doesn't want me to take that class yet." In my specific case, "What if God doesn't want my wife to leave the WT?" Well you can't fight that one can you? It's not as if God was in heaven saying, "Oh no, CYP's wife joined the WT, where is CYP??? He can fix it!!!" A time for every purpose under heaven, right? Faith means trusting in those purposes, and that God is in control.

I do think my efforts were a factor also... a counter reacting force. Women do operate at a much more sophisticated level. My wife seems to know my thoughts almost before I do at times. Any time I was doing something to "try to get her out" she must have seen me coming a mile away. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction, right?

I think the UBM, once they are over the shock factor, needs to work patiently with their spouse to work out compromises to the multitude of intrusions the WT makes on the marriage. Once the many sore spots are covered, the UBM can comfortabley be available to offer welcome help to their spouse, who is truly bearing the more difficult burden of being a WT member.

Take away? I didn't "get my wife out", I just finally learned to get the hell out of the way.

Check_Your_Premises

Posts by Check_Your_Premises