to any child who is an abuse survivor:.
at some point, your abuser was made known to the elders in your local jw congregation but .
the "elders" did nothing to report the matter to local authorities.
My parents told the elders, but never informed the authorities. Afterwards, they pretended like the whole situation never happened.
I know it would've been really hard to go through the whole mess with a legal case and everything, but I guess the upside would've been access to therapy (if my parents hadn't been so mistrustful of worldly psychiatrists). Even now, I really don't know what I would've liked them to do, but I've still never forgiven them for how they acted.
i ask this question because now that i'm out of the borg and see things for what they are, i have been reflecting on what i did and said as a dub.. i truly believed in the preaching work when i was in.
i believed in alot of the things from the bible.
so for me, the preaching was something i enjoyed.
Once I became old enough to realize what I was doing, I felt guilty about going out in field service, trying to convert people to a religion that I didn't fully understand or believe in. Of course, I was a child, so I didn't have a choice not to . . . but I still felt guilty going out door to door especially when I did "bad" things secretly, like read books that had spiritistic themes (fantasy novels about witches and fairies and mythological things).
no epiphany whatsoever, but i was pondering this subject tonight on my way back home from work.. there are many subjects on the matter of health, and of course: post jw, our mental health.. for most of you, how would you rate your present mental health?.
comparitively, our physical health, depending upon what ails us, we can generally heal and feel better after brief or extended recovery time.. mental health on the other hand, is definitely long lasting.. i've been almost 20 years outside of the jws, but i think it nearly took me that entire 20 years to get where i am today.. sad, but true.
anyone like to contribute their thoughts on this matter.. thank you.
For the past couple years I've been consistently depressed. I've also had problems with anxiety my whole life, including panic attacks since I was young. I think this may be due to having grown up with sexual & emotional abuse, the JW upbringing, plus some probable genetic contribution, since mental health disorders are common on both sides of the family. Anyway, I guess things have felt especially bad these past few years from the family & health problems, mental wrestling with JWism, and perhaps the usual adolescent mood swings, too . . . I hope I'll feel better once I'm out of this house, which should be (knock on wood?) next year.
did you ever find yourself having to defend your faith, while at the same time knowing, that your arguments were not so good to begin with?
for example, a person might say,"you people don't take blood and believe in doctors.
" even if we might have doubts about the blood issue, we would still defend our "faith" as best as we could.
My teachers thankfully never made a big deal about the flag salute, holiday parties, etc, though I could tell that they didn't like JWs. In talking with peers, I would always try to avoid subjects that have to do with JW beliefs, out of worry that I would be made fun of . . . When those subjects came up anyway, I would try to explain the Society's views, sometimes using the Reasoning book . . . but on the issues where I disagreed with the official view, the thought running through my mind as I made my explanations was, "Why do I have to tell people this when I don't even believe it?"
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if you had your whole adult life ahead of you, what career would you choose to pursue and why?.
i'd choose marine biologist or scientific research.....because i wouldn't hafta deal so much with people's attitudes, marine life is beautiful and fun, science of this planet is interesting....it *can* be a lucrative field, depending on which aspect of it i choose to pursue.... frannie b
When I was small, I loved math and science and dreamed about working in academics or engineering someday. But in secondary school, I ran into problems in school, and thought I would do something else... I like foreign languages for their sounds and orthographies, and thought I would find some job using those skills, but since I'm not very good at or interested in communication, I don't think it would be a good idea. Now I think since I may only have one chance at university, I'd like to do something very challenging. I daydream of majoring in civil engineering someday, if I can get through the math . . .
i'm interested to know which category we are in.
i am fading fast and no longer reporting time or going to meetings.
I think I must be fading: I haven't turned in time for almost a year now. The explanation I have given is illness . . . However, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep up the fade, because I still live with an MS father who thinks I've had enough time to be sick, and should be getting back to meetings and service now . . . if my plans go well, I should be completely out within a year, though.
whatever your age, do you make friends and hang out only with people your age or will you hang around with people much older or much younger than you?.
mentally i must be quite young, because i love to hang around with people 10 to 15 years younger than me.. .
i never hang around with older than me, and rarely with people my age.
I've usually disliked being around other people my age, especially when I was a child. I've generally preferred to associate with people older than me, if I have to associate with anyone at all. Older people tend to be less noisy and irritating.
even when i was a dub i felt this way.
i mean, i would just stand there at gatherings and feel that i was in my own world -- that, somehow, everyone else was "in" and i was "out.
" i never felt this way at formal gatherings -- meetings, assemblies, etc -- only in most social settings.
I also feel this way. I've wondered if it's some kind of disorder, like social phobia or Asperger's syndrome . . . I don't know if it's from having spent much of my childhood alone being homeschooled, or from having been raised a dub, or from something innate in my personality, but I also feel like I inhabit my own little isolated universe. Even keeping one or two close friends is very difficult for me. This inability to maintain friendships or hold normal non-anxiety-inducing conversations has bothered me for a long time, and I wonder if I'll have to live the rest of my life like this . . . at least solitude has gotten familiar to me by now, but what's most worrying to me now is whether or not I'll be able to hold down a job and support myself.
I've always been partial to #111, "The light gets brighter." o/~ La luz de Dios en su Palabra brilla-- o/~ It sounds nicer with the orchestra. I can't think of any other one I've liked; they all sound so much like elevator music. And the lyrics . . . I remember as a kid getting in trouble with my dad because I would only mouth the words instead of singing the embarassing lyrics. At least it was funny hearing all those terrible singers at the meetings tunelessly belting out the songs at the top of their lungs, as if the louder they got, the better the chance of Jahoho being able to hear them in heaven. :D
for those who have been out for a while, was there anything special about the very last meeting you attended (excluding memorials)?
was there anything incredibly memorable about it?
My last meeting was almost a year ago . . . last October, I think. I'm technically still in the org, but I'm hoping that was my last meeting for sure . . . anyway, I remember nothing about that meeting. I'm sure that's because the things they said and did were the same as at any meeting, boring no matter what. Thank dog for my imagination, because the only way I could last through them was by spacing out fantasizing.
