abuse is such a serious word and i'd hate to use it lightly so if anyone reading this has suffered physical or sexual abuse please know that i absolutely do not equate religious abuse with your suffering.
that being said, many of us were lied to and manipulated for decades.
this cultic 'abuse' has borne fruit in shattered relationships, broken families and estranged children.
if you are left emotionally or physically scarred by another person or collective group of people especially for long periods of time. you were abused. It doesn't mean it takes away from any other forms or abuse in the world. It just still is.
if I am a scared scarred shattered adult as a direct result of choices and actions my parents took and still take as a result of being Jw. I was and am abused.
(and that's not even mentioning the elders and their emotional abuse.)
after exiting the org, i mean cult, how have each of you felt personally about the lies you had been taught, the hurt from feeling betrayed by these people, actual hopes of once believed false teachings, rose colored lenses of seemingly just and right doctrines that turned out to be a bunch of horse $#!+, the shunning of family and friends?
right now i am going through the motions, i've just moved to a new home, which means hopefully no more elders searching for me at my previous address.. i can't help but feel sad though right now because of the fact that although i am not df'd ( maybe the elders will do it in absentia assuming i've been avoiding them and the 2 jc's they've invited me to as well as the last handwritten letter at my door before i moved ) my mom treats me as though i am dead to her, she says " i am living the life of a disfellowshipped person, and until i come back to jehovah this is how things will be because this was my choice to leave jehovah " ok i get it, but i don't- everyone has free will, so yes this was my choice but it is also her choice to shun me, especially after the "shun unrepentant wrongdoers" talk at the rc, funny how they come out with these talks to reel members back in.. she claims that she has an obligation to jehovah of which she promised to him after she was baptized not at 11, 13, or 17 ( young ages ) but fricken 26 years old.
i absolutely hate this organization and everything that it is, it's taken away my family and most importantly my own mother.. i always thought that a mothers love was to be unconditional, but hers for me is only conditional.
My moms pretty much the same...it's a pain that I don't think will ever go away cos it's just so unnatural. I feel ya pain.
