Take Back Your Life: Chapter 3: Understanding Thought Reform Part 1

by Lady Lee 21 Replies latest members private

  • Lady Lee
    Lady Lee

    bttt

  • dinah
    dinah

    Maybe it'll helped us to all see where those "lost" and "worthless" feelings come from. Thanks, Lady Lee, for doing this. I've read all the posts on this thread, this is just the first time I've added a comment.

    The words that keep jumping out at me are "totalitarian authority". As was mentioned, if you DARE make a mistake you face an inquisition ON TOP OF all the guilt you already feel. Having faced a JC myself (twice) I must say it is extremely humilating. Of course it is MEANT TO BE. There I was carrying IMMENSE guilt in my own conscience, and had to tell 3 old men all about my very first sexual experience, complete with gory details. (had to tell them about the 2nd one too).

    Sometimes I wish I could just call them up and give them a VERY explicit description of what me and hubby did in bed the night before. Can you just hear that----"Bro So-and-so, since you guys were so interested in my body when I was a teen, I thought maybe you'd want to know what I'm up to these days!" Of course, I can't---all the elders that were on my committee are dead as far as I know.

    Back on the guilt subject, we are all made to feel like worms in dirt--especially if our meeting attendence was not perfect and our service hours were down. If not for the WT we would have no hope at all. Gotta take a break and go puke.

  • Jankyn
    Jankyn

    What really struck me about this--and the ensuing conversational high points from Ms. Scully--was that it truly explains the low self-esteem/arrogance conundrum I've struggled with for years.

    There's a constant push-pull going on. First, you can NEVER measure up--what's asked of you is just too much for a person to do. But that's followed up with the constant reminders of how much "better than the world" we are. And so you've got a congregation full of egomaniacs with inferiority complexes.

    Geez, this is really eye-opening.

    I haven't set foot in a Kingdom Hall since 1979, and I've done some serious work, both in therapy and in 12-Step programs, but still find myself struggling with the sense that, however well I do, it's not good enough.

    But then I'll turn around and take a superior attitude with those who don't agree with/understand me (I really hate admitting that, but it's true. I'm working on it).

    I think that a lot of this stuff is learned behavior, but when you learn it from the cradle (as I did--first meeting at four days old), it's almost as if it's hard-wired. It really takes work to remember that, no, what I've done is good enough. It's better than good, in fact. And these other people are okay, too.

    Jankyn

  • Balsam
    Balsam

    Scully,

    Something just occured to me. How Elders sometimes ask details of folks when it comes to immorality. When I went and said I'd committed adultery with my Sweety, they did not ask details. Could it be that I was an older woman and not so pretty to look at? Could it be that Elders like to be titillated by the younger folks who do the dirty? The Elders asked me absolutely nothing except to return to my JW husband which I was not willing to do. Actually I didn't cheat until later after I was disfellowshipped. I just wanted to make sure my ex was entirely free to be unhitched from me. But I've heard it said that many Elders really love to probe into what sexual acts were preformed. I was already with some juicy details I'd made up but they didn't even ask. I suppose visual affects were just too much for them since I am not a sweety young thing. LOL LOL

    Anyone else had this experience.

  • Lady Lee
    Lady Lee

    about the guilt thing. An an incest survivor I carried the guilt and shame of my abusers. With the JWs I carried the guilt of never being good enough. I used to feel so much guilt that if I was sitting on a bus and overheard a conversation by 2 strangers about something bad that a person THEY knew did, I would still feel guilt. I took on the guilt of people I didn't even know!!

    What I discovered along the way is that the most I can do is deal with my own issues and stop taking the guilt of others. But it sure is ingrained deeply. Glad you are finding it helpful. I think it helps for people to address some of these issues and learn to establish boundaries.

    One time I had an interesting exchange with my then husband. He wanted to know who I had sex with. I refused to tell him. He thought it was a friend of mine who is blind. So he asked me if it was him and I said No it wasn't him (which was the truth) Then he stopped and said something to the effect that because he was blind he wouldn't be able to have sex. I think this symbolizes the thinking of people who are still in the dark ages when it comes to viewing older people and people with disabilities as sexual beings.

    Jankyn Later on in the book there is a section re: people born in or raised in the cult

  • AuSet
    AuSet

    I wish I could share this with my sister. Recently D/F'd, she has decided to go back, and thinks she deserves this punishmnent. The loss of boundaries between self and group is so true in her case. A few weeks ago she sat through a local needs part which broadcast private details of her sex life to the entire cong. Of course she was d/f'd only about a month ago so everyone knows it was her.

    She called me to tell me all this on the phone, and it was with no emotion at all. She wasn't even really upset about it. She thinks this is what she deserves, and there are no limits, I believe, to what she will allow them to do to her. I tried having a discussion with her about boundaries, and how they had violated her in a most intimate way. She completely shuts down at this, sensing possible apostate material. I don't know how to get around it. Its sooo frustrating.

  • AK - Jeff
    AK - Jeff

    Interesting points all.

    In the public forum of Jehovah's witnesses is the oft held to light sage from Hebrews about meeting attendance "Do not forsake yourselves from meetings - incite to love and fine works." This adage and it's misapplication to the meetings of Jw's in exclusion of all others seeking Christ is the ultimate guilt trip.

    I often told wifey that the brothers had might as well restate it, in Watchtower, to 'do not forsake the gathering of yourselves together to incite to guilt and works that will perhaps buy everlasting life'. For this was the thrust of the use of this passage. The forever 'do more' 'study more' 'more service' pioneer more' 'more meetings' 'more assemblies' 'more hall cleaning' 'more submission'.

    While this mantra did create a lower social layer for the sisters in some respects as mentioned, it was not much better for the males. In short, the cult mentality was that you could never do enough, nor do it good enough, to be sure you would get a pass at amageddon.

    Guilt drives, but it kills integrity. Hence nice field reports, but no depth in personality.

    Jeff

  • Lady Lee
    Lady Lee
    Guilt drives, but it kills integrity. Hence nice field reports, but no depth in personality.

    Now why does this remind me of this scripture:

    Matt 23:27, 28

    "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisses, hypocrits! because you resemble white-washed graves, which outwardly indded appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men's bones and of every sort of uncleanness.

    In that way you also, outwardly indeed, appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocracy and lawlessness.

  • Lady Lee
    Lady Lee
  • truthsetsonefree
    truthsetsonefree

    "Legitimate methods of education gpeople do not use deception or manipulation to inform/educate people. If I take a course in human relations I expect that by the end I will have learned something about Human Relations. I don’t expect to be signed up the Scientology. I expect to get what they are saying is up front and honest. Cults on the other hand use "manipulation, compliance, rigid obedience, stunted thinking, and childlike behavior’ to control their members (p. 34)." Reading the above reminds me of all the times Witnesses are encouraged to get people's attention by saying that they are conducting a survey and want the individuals thoughts. Or a book dealing with a controversial subject such as evolution vs. creation or on religion will be written and presented as if the authors were impartial. Witnesses will be encouraged to 'offer' it as a book written 'for the non-Witness.' Or as from the perspective of an putsider to the JW faith. But in actuality there is rarely the promised impartial discussion of anything. And as mentioned it is this deceptive presentation that is the problem. A fellow elder told me recently that someone he and his wife studied with and aided to baptism disassociated herself. Out of concern he called her to find out why. She stated that she learned about the disfellowshipping arrangement and how it works and wanted no part of an organization that treated people that way. Interestingly, Witnesses don't teach people about disfellowshipping before baptism except to say that it is some kind of disciplinary procedure. I have people who I have dealt with judicially, after being df'd ask me if that would mean they could no longer go out in service! Anyone who understands the procedure knows that service is out of the question. These people were not new JWs. Yet they had never grasped what disfellowshipping really was until it happened to them. Because they had never really been told in a way that they could understand. I wonder why.

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