my grandfather. Gone 20 years (hard to imagine it's been that long) and I miss him more every single day :(
essie
Ghost of Esmeralda
JoinedPosts by Ghost of Esmeralda
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45
If you could spend a whole day with anyone .......
by azaria indead (resurrected ) or alive who would you choose?.
mood barometer: a little melancholy, but basically .
every once in a while i think of who i would like to meet.
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18
anyone else find that...
by Ghost of Esmeralda in...birthdays are as depressing as all get out?.
this is only my fifth year even acknowledging them in any way...but i still find them horribly depressing.
i got cards from some of my friends and stuff from my husband and daughter and my husband's family, which is wonderful...but only one of my ex-jw friends remembered...(thanks, mulan...) i wish that i didn't know what my birthday was.
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Ghost of Esmeralda
...birthdays are as depressing as all get out?
This is only my fifth year even acknowledging them in any way...but I still find them horribly depressing. I got cards from some of my friends and stuff from my husband and daughter and my husband's family, which is wonderful...but only one of my ex-JW friends remembered...(thanks, Mulan...) I wish that I didn't know what my birthday was. Bad things always seem to happen around it and I always end up counting the minutes until the day is done...just wondered if anyone else ever feels this way?
essie
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question: scuicide and mental illness
by larrynbabies ini am wondering if thier have been any recent studies done regarding a higher incident of scuicide and mental illness in the jw community
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Ghost of Esmeralda
(((((((Larry))))))))) I am so sorry for your pain. I cannot imagine how hard things must be for you right now.
I am so glad your son did what he did. Your kids need you, you are a precious person to them, and especially since their mother is gone, they need you even more now.
I have struggled with suicidal feelings since the age of 12. I was diagnosed with a chemical imbalance, and am on medication but I have to tell you that the thoughts never completely leave me. This is something that no one who knows me realizes, I think it may be the one thing that my husband doesn't even know about me.
But I know that death is not the answer, in fact my leaving would be the most unkind and unloving thing I could do to my husband, and my child and as much as some days I just want everything to stop, the noise, the light, the physical pain I live with, I love them too much to leave them. I look into my daughter's eyes and I know how much she needs her mother, just as you can see how much your babies need you...and that helps to keep my eyes forward, so to speak. It is a struggle, but you have GOT to keep trying.
Please do keep talking. Please seek treatment yourself, have you gone to a support group for families who have lost someone to suicide? There must be internet forums for it too, even if you don't want to go to a physical local support group. And as someone else mentioned (i forget who, forgive me) you may need medication at least for awhile to be able to get through this. Depression is a disease, and can be very successfully treated.
My heart aches for you and your kids. Please keep reaching out, keep talking, find the support you need to keep going, no matter what it takes.
Thank you for letting us know you a little through your post. You have more understanding here than you can fathom.
((((((((((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))))))))
essie
ps ((((((((((Hugs))))))))))))) to lyin'eyes and all those whose lives have been effected by suicide...
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34
Do you ever just get frustrated?
by Aztec innot necessarily with anything in particular, but, with the world in general?
watching the news is disturbing, there just seems to be so little compassion or empathy.
most of us are so spoiled and we don't even realize it!
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Ghost of Esmeralda
oh yeah. I feel this way all the time.
last year there was an incident in my state which haunts me and probably will for the rest of my life.
Two children were left to die in a car in the sweltering summer heat...while their mother got a massage, her hair done, and her nails manicured.
It took them awhile to die. The details of the story are so horrific I won't post them here: but if you want to read 'sanitized' version of the story you can find it here.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/29/dead.kids.car/
OH MY GOD! I can't believe they put that URL with the story, that is HORRIBLE!!!
I cried for days over this. I swear, I would've taken these kids myself to raise, they were so beautiful. Just babies. The older boy tried to get his baby sister out of her car seat too :(
And while filth like their mother is able to reproduce without let-up (later it was found she'd abandoned another child, and was pregnant at the time this happened! At least they took her baby away when it was born!) while I have friends who would make wonderful parents who struggle with infertility and adoption issues.
This is one sick, twisted world we live in...but unfortunately it's the only one we've got.
~essie
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How has the org changed you emotionally?
by obiwan ini'm just wondering how everyone was changed by the wts emotionally.
i find that after going through being df'd and the shunning, the general loss of everything that i'm much harder, i give people less sympathy than i used to, things that are seriuos such as deaths and the like just don't move me much.
i feel desensitized, sorta detached i let so much just roll off my back than i used to.
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Ghost of Esmeralda
well my jedi friend, I know one way that it has changed me forever. I now have, nor will I ever have again, any use for organized religion of any kind...christian, pagan, or otherwise...there is just no room in my life for them! Too costly to my soul!
~essie
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Well here goes
by obiwan ini found an old friends family by using the web.
i'm hoping they are not jw's anymore.
i have sent them an e-mail and i'm waiting for a reply, i'm trying not to get my hopes up, one of this families sons used to be my best friend.
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Ghost of Esmeralda
((((((((((((((((((Obiwan)))))))))))))))))) Take heart, obiwan...if you hadn't checked, the uncertainty would have bothered you...also you've reached out to them, and if/when they do get out, they will remember that, and seek you out...
sending hugs and understanding your way...
~essie
(love your nickname btw!)
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Update on my Heart condition
by wednesday ini just got out of the hospital, and have some news on my heart condition.
i have apparently had hypertension for some time and it had caused a slight thickening of my heart.
it makes the heart stiff and causes it to work harder.
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Ghost of Esmeralda
(((((((((Wednesday)))))))))) i'm glad that you know what it is now and that it can be treated!
believe me, I know what it's like to be facing major diet/lifestyle changes, i've been moping around all day today because I just got whopped by the necessity to do that as well! I got a little note from my doctor in the mail today concerning the results of my cholesterol bloodwork... apparently they were not good at all :( Never had that problem before!!! The diet he wants me to follow basically eliminates everything i have ever wanted to eat in my life or may want to eat in the future!!! damned depressing! my husband is going to go on the restrictions (ugh, hate that word!) with me since we knew his was high before and he should've been doing it for awhile now.
so if anyone starts posting any recipes anywhere, please let me know. this is depressing as all hell, and i am not looking forward to these changes one bit. maybe if i can do them with some company it won't be as bad? *wishful thinking*
thank you so much for keeping us updated on your situation, i've been thinking of you!
hugs
essie
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Dr. Phil -- an idea for his show -- need your help!
by cruzanheart inyesterday i sent dr. phil an e-mail (which i'm sure he will review personally.
well, here's my suggestion: how about as many of you as feel comfortable e-mail dr. phil too and suggest that as a topic.
that might get his attention and we might get a little more attention directed to the danger of associating with jehovah's witnesses.
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Ghost of Esmeralda
Good luck!!! I remember reading somewhere that one of the few subjects Dr. Phil won't touch is religion because it's so 'subjective'...I had written to him ages ago, many times, about help in letting go of the family that was shunning me. I even wanted to be part of his Get Real program that he did on Oprah, alas no response.
I don't think it's an area he is willing to get into :( But if he would, I'd LOVE to hear what he'd say to these people! I know what I've heard him say to people who were shunned by their families because they were gay...if he's willing to talk about that I don't see why he won't take on religion!
essie
~dr.phil fanatic
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Cruising for chicks/guys @ assemblies.
by avishai inyup, the one thing i miss about assemblies.
the chase.
sneaking off at lunch and/or half the afternoon session to make out w/ someone you just met.
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Ghost of Esmeralda
ROFL! Here's a walk down memory lane for you...
Anyone remember the phrase "Smiling, styling and profiling?" They counseled the young people in our district against it! Assemblies were for learning, not checking out the opposite sex.
What I want to know is when else were we supposed to do it? LOL
*shudder* oh, the memories. I had horrible times at assemblies. Especially because the Pioneer for whom I carried a torch for YEARS used to think it was cute to sit behind me, just on an angle so I could be keenly aware he was watching me. And he knew it broke my heart, too. The b@stard!
Not good memories for me, assemblies. Except the year my sister and I finally decided to say screw the program and write eachother notes on our notepads. My sister came up with a great acronym while we were hearing the introductory talk on the district con. about paying attention:
Look around
Invent things
Smart off
Talk alot
Entertain others
No smiling though!
LOL one good memory amid a flood of others. Painfully shy as I was, most of the time if anybody was looking at me I didn't have my head up high enough out of my Bible to notice.
~essie
edited to add:
" Sneaking off at lunch and/or half the afternoon session to make out w/ someone you just met." you're KIDDING me!!! I never would have had the nerve! Of course, I was such a good JW girl that I married the first guy who ever kissed me, no, unfortunately I'm not joking. But what the hell. I'm on my second marriage now and I also married the second guy who ever kissed me! LOL (but he's the right one! :)
My father would have cheerfully dismembered any boy caught doing such a thing with us, assembly or otherwise!
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Forget your JW history and move on...
by Brummie inwithin the first couple of years of leaving the wt quite a few people told me to forget it, get over it and move on, it wasnt like i kept talking about it, in fact, as much as i needed too, i seldom did.
its just that they observed my interest in talking with exjwsan interest that ive never tired of.
i used to feel like i owed people an apology because a lot of my best friends were exjws!
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Ghost of Esmeralda
Bravo, Brummie!
You've eloquently stated exactly how I've been feeling lately. Right down to the part about it not bothering you most days, and it getting more distant all the time.
But it is there, it is part of who I am, and I cannot change that.
Were you 'born in"? Because this seems to be a common thing with those like me who were born in, who have 4 or more generations of family in the Borg. When you go, literally everything and everyone you have ever knew will not acknowledge you. I loved what you said about them thinking your dead and just refusing to lie down...that hits it right on the head.
My daughter does not have the friends I thought she'd have growing up. Children of my friends, who were born around the same time she was and who I always envisioned her growing up with. Gone. Everyone I ever knew, loved, or was close with the first 25 years of my life....gone.
Now, if someone lost everything and everyone they ever knew through a great natural disaster, accident, or a war or an epidemic, something like that, would people tell them "Oh, it's been x amount of years, get over it!" I don't think so!
I think the reason that exJW's tend to find eachother is the simple need to talk to people who have shared your experience. This is true of any support group. And that is really what we have here, a support group of sorts.
I have gone on with my life. Being an exJW doesn't define me personally, just as having Multiple Sclerosis doesn't define me, personally. I am more than those things. But they are an integral part of who I am, and you could just as soon tell me to make my eyes stop being blue as you could tell me to "just move on" from my past in the borg.
Brilliant thread, thank you.
~essie