8 months df'd.
loving a life of freedom.
however, my family are all shunning me.
It's like the news and all the hype that was going on during the election....I did a news fast figuring if I didn't watch it....it didn't exist. Guess what...it worked ! It wasn't that I was hiding out...it was more a case of not putting my emotional well being in harms way.
Your mother has made it clear what she's about. If I were you I'd take a fast from your family and stop putting yourself in harms way. By doing so, her shunning doesn't exist.
my wife is still nominally in, but only because it "makes me (her) happy".
there is nothing academic about her beliefs and when i try, she interprets me as negative.. but then she cusses like a sailor and watches certain movies with me.
her birthday is coming up and it's also right around valentine's day.
the american psychiatry association lists nine symptoms – if someone ticks five of these, they could have narcissistic personality disorder.
the nine points of narcissism.
has a grandiose sense of self-importance.. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.. believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people.. requires excessive admiration.. has a sense of entitlement.. is inter-personally exploitative (takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends).. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.. .
I think we are all narcissistic to some degree. We are programmed/wired to survive and even though we are capable of truly caring for others, we look out for ourselves first.
The JW religion feeds the narcissistic part of the human personality by constantly reminding it's members that they have an inside track with God and will be the only survivors of his wrath. They convince their members that it's loving concern for others that stirs them to do good works even though it's really about saving their own skins, first and foremost.
When a JW shuns a former Witness, it's not really about loyally sticking up for Jehovah. It's mostly an opportunity for them to feel superior and extra virtuous yet humble in a Watchtower approved way.
i remember once in berlin south germany there was a local needs part for the men only, and how they should use the toilet.
in all seriousness for ten minutes a retarded nigerian was going on about how men need to sit down when using the toilet.
no mention of anything else.. it transpired that some little kraut boy from an "interested" family would aim for the side of the toilet and leave a great big puddle for others to clean up.
Having a "balanced view" of ones pets.
Witnessing without a word...how our homes and vehicles are a reflection on the Organization. (given by a brother whose front yard looked like a pasture)
i'm interested in finding out what it was that finally enabled you to open your eyes to the real truth of watchtower.
what started me thinking, was the societys very own book...' 'revelation..it's grand climax at hand'.
i found that book farcicle.
Shorty after my father died from not taking a blood transfusion, a JW friend sent me an email that talked about Beth Sarim and she thought it was really wonderful how far Jehovah's Organization had progressed over the years.
It had the opposite effect for me. I was floored that even as a former Bethelite, I had never heard of Beth Sarim or the crazy fanatical idea to actually deed it to the Bible Patriarchs to use after the resurection. I investigated further and suddenly all the suspicions and doubts about the Organization that I had been sweeping under the rug, came to life. Then the new light about the 1914 Generation came along as well as the news reports about the pedophile issue within the organization.
There was a life altering family situation that was botched by the local elders that happened at that time as well so it was a perfect storm of events that lead me to dare to look behind the curtain and once I did, I didn't like what I saw there.
Seriously, you have one of the ladies who was on the View, and who else?
Donald Glover seems to use every chance he gets to bring up something negative about his JW upbringing.
You can listen to a pretty good interview with Leah talking about Scientology on the Adam Corolla podcast .
a bit of an update, last weekend was my great grandmothers funeral, now, she was never a jw, and never was going to be, no matter how hard my mother, and grandmother tried to preach to her, she was the type of person that would kindly accept a wt or a book, but she wouldn't bother reading them.. anyways, she was a great wonderful and inspiring woman, the funeral was extremely sad, she had been a school teacher for over 35 years and a member of various clubs, so there were a lot of folks besides family that attended.. well, anyways i was there and so was my jw mother, stepfather, and grandmother, we were cordial, didn't talk about anything jw related because, it was great grandmothers funeral, not really a time to discuss how i am an evil sinner, or how i've escaped the org by avoiding df'ing, right?
wrong, as i'm sitting waiting for the service to begin, a lady shows up, now- i have known this woman for a long time, apparently she baby sat me as a small child, (like i remember?
) so she isn't someone i was ever close with, but knew of her or when she was around would say hi to and make small talk.. to give you a tid-bit on her personality though, she is one of those crazy jw's.. she claims to have been possessed by a demon, very very wacky on the prophesies, or gb talks, etc.
Sometimes life is a muddle at best and it sounds like you muddled your way through this uncomfortable situation admirably. I'm guessing that anything she may have to say about you to others will be disregarded because of her well known crazy ways and you likely scored some points with those within earshot at the time who noticed how well you handled this crazy person.
i do not post ot topics on here but i think this could relate to the jw cult because i remember a brother gave a talk long time ago and he said that jehovah would never allow man or science to play with crossing genes and if humans start to do this then we need to find a new religion.
well.... here it is.. now i also want to say, if jehovah cared so much about all this human suffering then why does science seem to be the one who actually cares about fixing thing?
jehovah does nothing.
interesting story i have a friend who is df but his wife still faithfully goes to meetings.
there's a single brother in the cong that is always flirting with his wife.
well at a recent meeting my df friend decided to show up to check this brother out.
When I was starting to fade from meetings, my beautiful wife "J " still attended, even if I missed. She even attended the District Assembly alone and came home on the lunch break of the first day because she couldn't stand hearing them once again denigrating "higher education". She left that assembly and has never gone to another JW event. (yeah!!)
Early in my fade, the elders came over and said " Pete...you wouldn't want to miss out on everlasting life and have"J" marry some other man and raise your boys would you? I wanted to punch his lights out but I just said.... "Not really too worried about it to tell you the truth but thanks for that little day brightener though".
Anyway, there was this middle aged twice divorced single guy from the other congregation that met at our Hall, that started showing up our meetings and apparetnly kept trying to chat up my wife and wasn't too subtle about it. He'd sit near her and she could tell he was watching her and it creeped her out enough that she thought she should mention it to me. I attended the next Sunday meeting and as we usually do, we held hands as we walked into the Hall and as we talked to people and eventually made our way down the aisle past him and found our seats. As usual she sat turned toward me leaning in a little and/or I with my arm draped over her shoulder.
Apparently that was enough for him to snap him back to the reality that this was a happily married woman who despite whatever fantasy he conjured up in his mind, had a husband who was very much in the picture. He mysteriously stopped coming to our meetings and we heard that he was being a pest to a young sister in another Hall who had no interest in the guy. (I suppose you have to cut the guy a little slack...who knows what one might do if they got lonely enough?)
In every group there will always be some clod who doesn't have a clue how to behave but it seems to me that in JW land, there is, on some subconscious level, an added element of disregard for anyone whom they deem as spiritually weak. There is also to be found an extra ability to thoroughly convince oneself of imagined realities.
