Thank you all for your kind welcome and responses... it touched me deeply to receive your encouragement and feedback. This is a facsinating board, to say the least!
Orange Blossom, if I had followed all of the advice I'd received at the time of my separation and divorce, I'd probably have no access whatsoever to my kids. Divorce is such a taboo situation among witnesses as I'm sure you are aware; wives stay with incredibly evil abusive jerk-wads and subject themselves and their kids to such misery, people who can't stand each other stay married because of the prohibition against divorce; it's so weird how those in positions of authority in the Borg (my boyfriend explained what that meant to me last night.... AHAH! I said) encourage martyrdom. I read in one of the posts about the sister who, after being stabbed in the back with a knife by her opposing mate, went ahead anyway to the meeting because SHE HAD A TALK. Then she went to the hospital to get the two-inch deep stab wound treated. My heart sank reading that one.... and they praise crap like this?????? Yes, Jehovah hates a divorce, but who doesn't? I also hate paying taxes, going to the dentist, and lies.
I carefully worked with the situation I was in so as to avoid alienating my ex completely. We now work together in a spirit of cooperation and love for our children, and while I don't have "custody" of them, I have unlimited access, speak to them every day, see them whenever I want, and my ex and I are actually better friends now than we ever were. He provides for them materially in ways I could not possibly achieve; he lives in a huge place in the middle of a vast wooded acreage, they go to amazing schools, have full-time live in help, etc. I live in a rowhouse in the middle of an east coast city and barely make ends meet. I honestly feel they are in a better situation there than if they were with me. I was always regarded as some kind of sick freak because I didn't pull every legal stunt possible and yank them around and become enemies with their father and.... all because I refused to do the martyr thing. (He is a good father too.)
Tina, esther and jurs.... depression, and I mean chronic, debilitating clinical depression, is rampant among witnesses, both male and female. Denial and stigma are the overiding principles that permeate just about everything that somes out in the magazines. So many of the friends have euphenistic maladies... chronic fatigue, fybromyalgia (sp?) that weird yeast thing- to name just a few - which are just other ways IMO of being depressed but not having to call it that.
They just pioneer and "rely on Jehovah". It doesn't matter anyway; you are SUPPOSED to hate this system. It's a perpetuating cycle that for some of us is a reality we cannot exist within. I've seen egregious and flagrantly abusive people in the many congregations I've been involved with just go on unchecked leaving behind them an enormous wake of damage, because their behavior is dismissed due to their "imperfect human" status. It makes me sick. (But if you go on a "date" with someone without a chaperone.... whoa..... you are suddenly "bad association")
jurs, I decided years ago to avoid people who were toxic and hateful. Some things are just not good for you - chemical spills, bacteria, eating moldy cheese - so you avoid them. Some people are not good for you either - sometimes it's difficult to determine why, but you just know that you feel "sick" after an encounter with them. My parents were evil, managed to drive my two other siblings to suicide, and almost me. My mom is dead and I did not go to her funeral nor have I grieved the "loss" for one minute. I have not talked to my father in probably seven years and would not let him within ten miles of my children. (My ex-husband is in total agreement with me on this.) I am not a cold, heartless bitch; I simply refused to lie to myself and maintain the status quo for appearances' sake.
Last summer I realized that the meetings and conventions and such (field service - I always felt like I'd been kidnapped!!!) were having the same affect on me. Since I've stopped subjecting myself to this continuous "mind-f**k" there has been a freedom to heal. I do, however, almost constantly wonder how I can worship Jehovah; it's been so pounded into my head that there is ONE identifiable organization....... I do not disavow the doctrinal issues I learned, but could simply not continue believing that Jehovah approves of so much of the blatant, corrupt crap that goes on in the "society" - the same crap that is so vividly detailed by articulate and courageous people who contribute to this board......
I guess that's why I started reading things here on this site. I would be very interested to hear how any of you manage any feelings you have about whether you are still able to worship Jehovah and how do you do that?
thanks again for your warm gestures and remarks.
lauralisa
It's just water.... it's just water from a stranger's tear
(Peter Gabriel)
