it's no secret that both remaining a jw or leaving the wts can take a toll on mental health.
some will suffer from depression and ultimately some will have thoughts of suicide and a few will succumb to those.. but i don't recall ever seeing any hard stats or studies on it though.
i'm sure we all know of some people who have committed suicide but i don't know if, because you may have loose association with a much larger pool of people through the religion, that this only seems higher or maybe not be actually higher than the general population.. what i mean is, you go to a kh here there maybe 100-150 people, you attend circuit and district conventions with many tens of thousands - if any one person commits suicide then you likely hear about it and it becomes part of the anecdotal 'evidence' that is then put forward as a fact that there is a higher rate ... but is there?.
There was an ex JW counselor who wrote about this. Jerry Bergman perhaps. In any event, he thought the rates of mental illness were higher among JWs. I have known quite a few who ended their lives in one way or another. Here are some resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1174772
https://www.amazon.com/Jehovahs-Witnesses-Problem-Mental-Illness/dp/9993195286
some facts that make the difference between you and me:.
1 - as a person raised by non jw family, my parents have never loved me based on conditions set out by a group of old men who they don't even know.
how does it feel to know that you are in the unique situation where your parents brought you into the world and said 'i'll show love to you.
It not about sympathy imo. Its about understanding how much all of these kids miss out on, and the horrors that many are are subjected to. In some cases the religion flat out takes their life - they end up dead from refusing a necessary blood transfusion (I grew up with no less than three kids who died this way), and then there are the suicides from a host of WT related anxiety, depression, etc (I grew up with two more who took their lives). That is just my experience....tip of the iceberg. Even those who do reasonably well are missing out on so many "normal" things like good education, comfortable retirement, etc. Its really all very unfortunate and sad imo.
if jws want to inflict shunning on members who want to remain -- knock yourselves out.
but if someone wants to leave - dont believe in an evil almighty god, bible ...or just dont agree with the rules- they should be free to leave- even after being 'disfellowshipped'.
i think it was pre 1980 that you could disassociate yourself without shunning repercussions.
We all have the right to decide who we will spend time with, so impossible to ban shunning I think. It is the "institution" shunning that needs to be addressed, and more specifically, "enforced shunning" as practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses. This is what destroys lives, and families. People are not stupid for the most part. If we don't go out of our way to protect a known pedophile, people who have children will decide on their own not to spend time with them. On the other hand, I think most folks really don't care if someone sleeps with their boyfriend, girlfriend, etc. Takes a puff of marijuana, etc. If they do, and don't care to spend time with that person - that is their choice.
been sent this - could be an interesting story - seems totally unrelated to recent events in canada, but see under the sub-heading 'debate after birth' - translation is via google, which is unfortunately not very good :(.
from the thursday 8 december 2016 print editon of agderposten newspaper - a norwegian daily newspaper with a circulation of just under 20,000 (so admittedly a relatively small regionally based circulation newspaper).
jehovas vitner har laget et blodkort for overføring i en akuttsituasjon.
This is the response AJWRB has been encouraging for almost twenty years. Good to see it is finally getting some traction. Many JW's ultimately accept blood in emergency situations voluntarily. This kind of policy is really the only way to address the Watchtower's coercive policy in these situations imo.
i remember when i was about 17, i started shunning an older brother because he was disfellowshipped.
when i graduated high school, he pulled me aside and said " i know you are not supposed to talk to me, but i want you to have this" it was a gift that he had custom made for me.
i was so blown away, we never even had a real conversation before.
Similar to what you find in the world. Some exceptionally kind people, some exceptionally unkind, most somewhere in the middle.
hi orphancrow.
thought you might be interested in the following, brief, court case summary.
high court family division - 18 november 2016an nhs foundation hospital v mr and mrs t. http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/ewhc/fam/2016/2980.html.
The Watchtower's HLC representatives helped craft a document for Toronto children's hospital that allows children to be transfused without the need for a court order.
http://ajwrb.org/science/blood-transfusion-letter-of-understanding
after many years of objecting to the wt teachings on many levels, blood being one of them, i recently started to wonder (ok, i am slow!
) : what exactly does the wt think that the early non jewish christians were abstaining from in the blood abstention bit.
while i understand the context of the request that the apostle sent to the brothers, i do not understand what jws think they were abstaining from.. meat slaughtered improperly?.
Resources here: http://ajwrb.org/bible
there is not much to be analyzed.
in a cult enviromment the leader will always look up for himself.
he would never hesitate to break every rule to save his own skin.
At times past, we have reason to believe that there was significant support for disbanding or completely gutting the policy. Difficult to say where that stands at this time. True believers, including GB members if they fall into this category, are typically deluded as we saw with Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, etc. If so, I would expect them to support it. If they have favored reforming or gutting the policy completely (removing the shunning mechanism), I would not be surprised to see them accept blood if needed to live.
watchtower misinformation on blood, coupled with coercion equals undue influence, and makes informed consent nearly impossible for most jw's in life or death situations.
.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/jehovah-s-witnesses-incapable-of-free-informed-refusal-of-blood-former-adherent-says-1.3829778.
Watchtower misinformation on blood, coupled with coercion equals undue influence, and makes informed consent nearly impossible for most JW's in life or death situations.
i was going to put this in my thread about pyramid schemes, but i thought it's discreet enough to warrant its own.
1) there are many faithful jws.
2) there are many men and women who could take control and fill the void if the watchtower collapses.
Freedom, and celebration for the most part.
