There are WAY to many what ifs in my life to ever think again that growing up in that insane envirement was good.I would have rather anything else.The way I was raised in that organization was completely wrong.It has only caused confusion and hurt along the way.Just my circumstances I guess.
not just yours, Stopthepain - i can't find anything good either...unless you consider the few, rare social gatherings good... and the fact that i always beat everyone else when "the bible" is one of the Jeopardy categories. even those were supervised, and every movement and action constantly scrutinized by some ever watchful brother or sister. as a survivor of abuse and shame, it bothers me when someone tells me my experience "wasn't that bad", or worse, that i exaggerate the truth of what happened to me. i wasn't allowed to go to high school. i asked to be home-schooled, but was told i would "just marry a brother in a few years" and didn't need it. instead i was a convenient baby-sitter, housekeeper and cook. i couldn't even escape this loneliness, shame and anguish through fantasy, because i was told Jehovah could read my mind and knew every thought. even my own mind didn't belong to me. the past is the past, and painting it with pretty colors isn?t going to enable you to get past it - what enables you to get past it is to acknowledge it for exactly what it was, accept it and move on. you can whitewash a rickety old fence all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that underneath all that clean, new whiteness, there's still a rickety old fence. some people had it worse than me; some better... but it's not for me to trivialize another person's experience, and to do so is arrogant, it seems to me. only they know how it affected them, and their pain is profound to them, even if it isn't to you. acknowledging the past for exactly what it was doesn't mean you stay stuck in the past - it just means you accept it for what it was, instead of denying it. after therapy and introspection, i realized my parents, especially my mother, were human, with frailties and weaknesses, which caused them to do what they did to us. but i never altered my knowledge and memory of the abuse inflicted upon me, and i won't because in doing so you are in fact changing the truth, and dishonoring yourself, because it?s something you survived.
the witnesses didn't make me a good public speaker - they made me shy and ashamed because i didn't fit in the larger circle of the world, but only in the tiny one of theirs. it was only when i came of age and broadened my horizons that i was able to begin healing the damage done to me. i met people who allowed me to tell what happened without judging me or making fun of me, and who opened up a whole new world of experiences. i had to learn assertiveness skills, real public speaking (at school (communications and public speaking classes) and at work (Toastmasters)), and build confidence in myself; something i had never had before. Unlike normal people who just have to learn life skills, I had to learn them AND learn how to overcome phobias, panic attacks, and self-doubt. even now, i feel some of the old fears creep in, but i use the skills i learned and push them away from me. I am confident that my life would have been a thousand times better if I had never been a part of the Jehovah?s Witnesses.
i don't think you're a crybaby. not at all. luv, j
