hi simon - i'd sent you an email regarding this problem;.
i cannot see the captcha facility to enable me to prove i'm a humanzee and log-on.
so i could not gain access to my account and participate - despite trying numerous suggestions provided on the internet.. i tried one last thing - i downloaded mozilla firefox (never tried it before) and it by-passes the captcha function and gives me access now.. i look forward to getting acquainted with the new-look web site.. thanks simon..
my husband and i have been out of the org for quite some time, but still find that old ideas and values come up and bite us on the ass.. lately, i've been plagued by an increase in the frequency and severity of my nightmares (which have always been an issue,) so i've begun to dream journal.
in just a few days, this realization cropped up.
i can't save people.. i've been blogging again recently.
Smiddy and others who have written me kind words to reassure me that I carry no bloodguilt: Thank you. I do know this. My conscious thoughts are pretty well up-to-date on what is wrong with authoritarian religious ideology. Interestingly, I have very few symptoms of PTSD in the daytime, when I'm in control of cognition. I have some very mildly disordered behavior that mostly nobody notices, because it's in the form of thought processes that mainly result in my being a little more self-contained (stand-offish?) and/or intimidating than the average person. Like a protective mechanism, but not to such a degree that I stand out terribly.
At night when the subconscious is in play, however, I continue to have issues, which even a dozen years out of the Org, and after all of the research and deciding I've done, means that I still have symptoms of PTSD, such as nightmares and panic attacks.
I'm attempting to make the connections with early childhood values formed by controlling groups like this, and even though I know the concept of "bloodguilt," as supplied by the JWs and other fundamentalists, is utter rot, it seems that some of those ideas are still trapped in my subconscious.
Interestingly, since writing all of that down, and having the discussion here, I've had a nice week of reprieve from this sort of nightmare. So there is some progressive and therapeutic value in identifying the line of thought. At least for me.
Cheers, all! Don't worry too much about me. :)
my husband and i have been out of the org for quite some time, but still find that old ideas and values come up and bite us on the ass.. lately, i've been plagued by an increase in the frequency and severity of my nightmares (which have always been an issue,) so i've begun to dream journal.
in just a few days, this realization cropped up.
i can't save people.. i've been blogging again recently.
Data I don't think I could go to one of those things, because while I might be able to remain silent when angry, one statement like that and I'd probably burst out laughing.
my husband and i have been out of the org for quite some time, but still find that old ideas and values come up and bite us on the ass.. lately, i've been plagued by an increase in the frequency and severity of my nightmares (which have always been an issue,) so i've begun to dream journal.
in just a few days, this realization cropped up.
i can't save people.. i've been blogging again recently.
DATA, you're at the CA??!!! WHY the F would you do that to yourself man? blech.
I've just been poking around the boards again this week, so I don't know what ol' Tony has been saying about the "inactive," but I can imagine. The man's an ass. So at this CA, are they being less or more strident against the inactive?
You know, I swear that their current doctrine all depends on which GB idiot's secretary wrote that particular manuscript. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of consensus in some of these ideas.
Some days I feel like I should make it easy for them and have a goat tattooed on my arm.
my husband and i have been out of the org for quite some time, but still find that old ideas and values come up and bite us on the ass.. lately, i've been plagued by an increase in the frequency and severity of my nightmares (which have always been an issue,) so i've begun to dream journal.
in just a few days, this realization cropped up.
i can't save people.. i've been blogging again recently.
Magnum and Coded no kidding. I did the letter writing too. I hated it, so I never did it just to mark time, but because the not-at-home and no trespass people needed their chance. Crazy.
Apognophos I think my husband was more like you, he never bought into the death and destruction quite as fully as I did.
my husband and i have been out of the org for quite some time, but still find that old ideas and values come up and bite us on the ass.. lately, i've been plagued by an increase in the frequency and severity of my nightmares (which have always been an issue,) so i've begun to dream journal.
in just a few days, this realization cropped up.
i can't save people.. i've been blogging again recently.
baltar and steve2 I hope you're right that the WT is generally kinder and gentler regarding bloodguilt. I suspect it varies a bit by congregation, and even more by family.
Wasa Once, I suspect this is a problem particular to born-ins and raised-ins. Yes. It has nothing to do with arrogance ("get over myself") though, it's way more gut-level - almost limbic.
no not that letter.. so we hobbled along with the family relationship.
my parents (super-devout, highly involved and connected in jw-land,) spoke with me occasionally with that sad mopey voice.
at one point about 6 years ago, my mom quit speaking to me.
LB, I love your rambling. It's fascinating to me to see the commonalities so many of us raised-ins share.
We are all incredibly strong people to come out the other side of that level of indoctrination, with our lives and personalities as intact as they are.
so recently, several over-righteous ones in the cong were discussing "how amazing it felt when they got baptised".
statements like "how awesome did it feel as you got raised back out of the water?!".
or the classic "i felt so close to jehovah as i came out of the pool"!.
Proud, because I had not only done what I was "supposed to be doing," but I had done it before any of my peers.
Worried and confused, because I didn't feel any different, and none of my emotions felt like Holy Spirit.
my husband and i have been out of the org for quite some time, but still find that old ideas and values come up and bite us on the ass.. lately, i've been plagued by an increase in the frequency and severity of my nightmares (which have always been an issue,) so i've begun to dream journal.
in just a few days, this realization cropped up.
i can't save people.. i've been blogging again recently.
My husband and I have been out of the Org for quite some time, but still find that old ideas and values come up and bite us on the ass.
Lately, I've been plagued by an increase in the frequency and severity of my nightmares (which have always been an issue,) so I've begun to dream journal. In just a few days, this realization cropped up. I can't save people.
I've been blogging again recently. When we first left the WT, I blogged pretty extensively, to help sort out my feelings and bleed off some of the rage I felt. That old blog was anonymous, and at some point I took it down and quit writing much about the process of cult recovery.
Lately, I've felt like I needed a place to process some of these things that follow me. My parents converted when I was still so young that my values were in a formative state. These are the hardest things to discover and change.
Intellectually, I know I can't save people, but it seems my subconcious has yet to get the message.
I've shared about 1/2 the post - the part that I think is common to many of us here - in the quote below. Be kind to yourselves, people.
One of the things I learned as a child was that my words had tremendous power. They could save lives, but only if I used them in exactly the right way. (...) If you are ineffective, that person, upon whose doorstep you are standing, might die.
Might die.
Because of you.
Because this may be their only opportunity. And if you don’t get it exactly right with your “life-saving” magic words, you will be Bloodguilty.
It’s difficult to determine at what age a child begins to understand complex communication like irony, sarcasm and hyperbole. Given the fact that very young children think in linear yes/no terms, it’s not surprising that this idea that “life-saving work” translates into “if you do it wrong, you’re killing them.” It turns out that “bloodguilt” is an easy concept for a child to learn, right alongside “shame” and general guilt.
I’ve begun keeping track of my nightmares. I have them nearly every night, and have had for as long as I can remember. These dreams are vivid and cinematic, often about people I know and care about. Very recently, they have been so visceral that I will come crashing into wakefulness with my heart pounding and my hand on my phone, driven by a need to check on the safety of the person I was dreaming.
This is one of the things my dream journal is showing me. Many of my worst nightmares are about something I have to do to protect, help, or save somebody I care about. And no matter how good or fast or smart or eloquent I am, I can’t save them.
In my nightmares, I’ve watched my friends being ridiculed, shunned, sickened, shot, beaten, drowned, emotionally distraught, tortured, or killed, and been unable to do a thing to prevent it.
I can’t save them. Just like I can’t save all of those people who deserve to Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, because of that one day I was having a bad day and made a bad presentation at the door, or the one day I quit service early and went to swim in the river.
A child can’t understand that if she reads a scripture without the proper inflection she won’t literally be killing the person she’s reading to. But if you teach that lesson of bloodguilt young enough, before a child can make a distinction between abstract ideas and personal responsibility, she will quite literally come to believe, at the core of her being, that she could be the reason people die, if she doesn’t get the message exactly right.
A bit like the "parlor walls" in Fahrenheit 451.
"My wife says books aren't 'real.'"
"Thank God for that. You can shut them, say, 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it. But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is the truth. Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge and skepticism, I have never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece symphony orchestra, full colour, three dimensions, and I being in and part of those incredible parlors. As you see, my parlour is nothing but four plaster walls. And here " He held out two small rubber plugs. "For my ears when I ride the subway-jets."
