Posts by humbled

9

Friendship

by Freedom rocks in

jw
friends

how long did you all wait before telling new friends or someone you are or were dating that you used to be a witness?

how did they react?

if you did tell them do they make jokes at you every so often about it 😊 is it best not to tell people?

With new acquaintances I soon would bring up my recent leaving of the JWs because it loomed large in my life in the beginning. If a person was surprised or curious that l had embraced that particularly odd religion, l filled them in on how their program recruits, seduces, corrupts and sometimes expels members. AND heartily discourage them from ever accepting a free home Bible study!

Ten years on I rarely mention it. Of course, it has had a residual impact on my life —crissakes, every action I took for 22 years was based on bullshit I bought from the WBTS.

But being an XJDub doesn’t cloud my days anymore. And according it doesn’t come up in conversation—unless I think someone is in danger of accepting a free home Bible study!

35

The Constant Mindchatter After You Leave

by pale.emperor in

i've been out almost 2 years now and consider myself wide awake to watchtower propaganda and well on my way to recovery from the mental abuse we've all experienced.. one thing that just will not go is that i constantly think of jwism and watchtower and get myself all annoyed at their lies and blatant twisting of facts in their broadcasts and magazines.

it's so bad that it's the first thing i think of when i wake up, then i have these mental arguments in my head proving the jw teachings false and then getting annoyed because no jw will listen even if you tried to tell them.

i call this constant thinking and mental reasoning and mental arguing "mindchatter".

humbled

Pale, I am glad you’re laughing your ass off. It is a rough world. l try to keep that knowledge from the chickens. They never see the end coming.

35

The Constant Mindchatter After You Leave

by pale.emperor in

i've been out almost 2 years now and consider myself wide awake to watchtower propaganda and well on my way to recovery from the mental abuse we've all experienced.. one thing that just will not go is that i constantly think of jwism and watchtower and get myself all annoyed at their lies and blatant twisting of facts in their broadcasts and magazines.

it's so bad that it's the first thing i think of when i wake up, then i have these mental arguments in my head proving the jw teachings false and then getting annoyed because no jw will listen even if you tried to tell them.

i call this constant thinking and mental reasoning and mental arguing "mindchatter".

humbled

Freedom Rocks:

l refreshed that post a few hours ago.

It is titled: The Pastor of My Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

Mind you, l don’t say the thread ever arrived at a conclusion. Cofty wrote a summary near the end of the post that indicates a sense of futility that the discussion did not resolve a challenge.

Though cofty responded to comments day after day the marathon post refused to conclude. It simply exhausted.

But what was wrong with that? I was glad l followed that conversation. It burned me. It wore me down. I left some things behind and held tight to other things. And something felt good about the little l held because it really was mine. It has been enough for me to go on with on my own.

2596

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

humbled

2,593 responses to this topic. Unedited.

It was everything. Nothing was off limits—good bad high low kind cruel . It was about...god..or what we each wondered, feared, believed ...or believed we believed. There were wounds.

But for myself there was not one voice that won out in my estimation . But each of us got the sort of thrashing that clears from our grasp what we can’t hold anymore though I held what was mine in the end. It wasn’t necessarily true for any one else. But it was mine and not the Watchtower’s nor anyone else’s.

35

The Constant Mindchatter After You Leave

by pale.emperor in

i've been out almost 2 years now and consider myself wide awake to watchtower propaganda and well on my way to recovery from the mental abuse we've all experienced.. one thing that just will not go is that i constantly think of jwism and watchtower and get myself all annoyed at their lies and blatant twisting of facts in their broadcasts and magazines.

it's so bad that it's the first thing i think of when i wake up, then i have these mental arguments in my head proving the jw teachings false and then getting annoyed because no jw will listen even if you tried to tell them.

i call this constant thinking and mental reasoning and mental arguing "mindchatter".

humbled

It has been a while since I’ve been here. But yesterday l peeked in for the first time in maybe 3 years and saw your post, PE. Your comments and others struck home. I remembered the process after leaving. And yes — the mind chatter.

This website, the people. the community here, the threads – – truly I can’t imagine my coming out of the brainwashing without the support and even the buffeting that one experiences in this community. We who leave the Org are having to leave a high control environment and it is hard to find our own footing so that we can move forward. Move forward on our own.

l mean moving forward without hearing that constant echo of the anxious JW self-censor that subverts our personal agency, makes us second guess our every thought, doubt the value of our own feelings and judgement. Sharing the struggles and stories with other XJWs was crucial.

That said, I did say goodbye to this community about three years ago to. I had to invest in real-time, in building relationships where I live. But this community helped me to process the core of my personal healing that may perhaps be useful to you: I believe that I had to come to my own reckoning about what-kind-of-if-at-all god was left in me. Or not. And this place was where I sorted out a huge part of it.

There was an epic thread on this site that cofty started. The conversation he opened skinned and dissected all notions of god that any of us had. Cofty opened the topic but everyone weighed in. We- all of us thrashed and winnowed everything—sometimes each other. But at its end l felt purged, released. I found my peace, no anxiety about god.

I have been 9 or 10 years out. No more chatter.

Good luck!

15

China from the Inside; The Grasslands of Ruoergai

by fulltimestudent in

sichuan province in the soutwest of china is closer to india than it is to beijing.

it borders burma and bangladash and shares borderzones with xizang (tibet).. the architect of modern china, deng xiaoping, came from a middle class sichuan family, who sent him to france, sponsored by a group called the diligent work-frugal study movement, a work and study program, which sponsored some 4000 young chinese by 1927. young deng was only 15. why did he do this.

deng says, in"to learn knowledge and truth from the west in order to save china.

humbled

Love your pictures and love your story of how you became interested in China.

Maeve

9

Vic'n'Bob ... in the US?

by LoveUniHateExams in

i must be mad for starting this thread, but here goes: i quite like vic reeves and bob mortimer.

before you all jump on me, i realise that their humour is often childish and very hit-or-miss, to say the least.. however, when i'm in the right mood, some of their sketches are simply hilarious.. i was also wondering how british humour is received in other countries, particularly the us.. .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oizyptckdz8.

humbled

Dad's Army? Just looked it up--they're doing a remake??!!!

My father died 3 years back --a veteran who was mustered out from England I believe. I believe he would have love d this---Did it ever air in the U.S. I wonder? We had( in our home anyway) a limited number of Brit-coms availible.

9

Vic'n'Bob ... in the US?

by LoveUniHateExams in

i must be mad for starting this thread, but here goes: i quite like vic reeves and bob mortimer.

before you all jump on me, i realise that their humour is often childish and very hit-or-miss, to say the least.. however, when i'm in the right mood, some of their sketches are simply hilarious.. i was also wondering how british humour is received in other countries, particularly the us.. .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oizyptckdz8.

humbled

Vicar of Dibley, Are you Being Served?, Red Dwarf, Last of the Summers Wine probably saved my sons and youngest daughter from insanity before I left JWs.

We had an old television and few channels. But the Public Broadcasting Stations here provided these during a critical time when we had Television available in our home. I felt guilty for allowing this in my children's minds--but loved it myself here were more but I can't reall them. My guilty pleasure for a few years. and my youngest kids' delight.

Long live British comedy!

8

Secrets to getting along with practically anyone:

by Roamingfeline in

jw
friends

thought you all might enjoy this, i sure did!

hugs, .

rcat.

humbled

Yup.

24

Muslim refuses to stand for the National Anthem

by designs in

cleveland cavaliers basketball player dion waiters stayed in the locker-room during the national anthem at a recent game.

asked why he responded 'i am rededicating myself to my muslim faith'.

another basketball player recently refused to stand for the anthem while on the court and was fined by the nba, dion chose to remain in the locker-room.. have you heard of followers of islam refusing to stand for the national anthem or to say the pledge of allegiance on religious grounds.. .

humbled

...sorry. i meant NOT pitched into the town square and stoned...