She joined a cult..

by Sassy 8 Replies latest members private

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  Sassy

  This morning while getting ready for work, I was thinking about a cousin of mine who disappeared many years ago. She was my favorite cousin and so as I have been sharing more and more of my life with this wonderful man so he can really know me, I was telling him about her. I then told him that for a while we thought she joined a cult...

  he laughed so hard and it took me a minute to realize why. It caught him off guard that I would have said that..

  He said "Now who is calling the kettle black?" and it dawned on me about my own experience and the fact that yes, I had been in a cult as well..
• 

  morty

  Aww Sassy,

  This is to bad that you have lost contact with your cousin....You know, we never really consider our selfs as cult members, till we get out and relise how much brain washing the religion has done to us....I hope your cousin is safe and sound out there in this world? What kind of a cult do you think she is in? And why do you think she is in one? I hope you get in touch with her soon...it would be nice for the holidays...Merry Christmas..

  Morty
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  Sassy

  We thought she was in a cult because she wrote her parents once after she left telling them she was with good people and that she was leaving their lives. We all assumed it was one of those cults that sell flowers at airports and on street corners.. I have missed her for many years. It's been maybe 15 years since we heard from her but we have no way to reach her..

  but here I was in a cult too.. I just didn't know it.

  and if we think about it, JWS cut you off from everyone too. So much control and so little independent brain activity and personal choices allowed.. Scary how I never looked at it like that till I got out...
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  Winston Smith :>D

  he laughed so hard and it took me a minute to realize why.

  Most anyone I tell at work that I just left the JW's, one of the first Q's they ask is, "Aren't they a cult?"

  I guess it's common knowledge.

  Saying what you did about her being in a cult and getting the above response is not unlike a gossiper complaining to me about how 'so-and-so' is such a little gossiper.

  Too funny!
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  simplesally

  The big difference is that JW's have become pretty mainstream in most people's eyes. JW's don't disappear and don't drink cyanide. Yes, some go to Gilead and go off to foreign countries to live and many give up their income or donate their lives to JW's. Jehovah's Witnesses don't send letters to their families and go off to never never land.
  
  I am not saying that JWs are not a cult, just some are worse than others.
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  Odrade

  LOL! So true Winston! I've actually had people go "Whoohoo!" when I tell them I quit the JWs. One lady from school, who I had only met one time gave me a huge hug and said "You're like a newborn baby, your life is just beginning."

  Then there's the other end of the scale, people who don't know anything at all about the JWs, so you start to tell them stuff. One guy told me that it sounded just like Grimm's Fairy tales before they were sanitized for the modern masses. It cracked me up because just the week before I said essentially the same thing to some x-dub friends from this board. Crazy, crazy.

  Odrade
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  smurfy

  my fiance is an ex jw and hadn't really done much with them for a short while before we met. I never really new much of the religion before we started dating. i always had thought it seemed a little like a cult but didn't think much of it. Once he started to tell me more and more i said to him "wow, i never really knew how much of a cult it really is." well, that went over like a lead balloon. he was pretty offended. now that he has been in the "world" for a while i think he is starting to see the other side. he found this site and i think it has helped him soooo much! i can't imagine turning my back on my family for any reason and yet his family had done it so easily. i am so glad there are others who have been through this that have helped him and also help me understand. i took alot of it personally and thought that they just hated me for some reason. he kept saying that it wasn't me at all but i didn't get it. well, thanks for letting me vent for a while

  Anyways, there are so many ways to look up people that you have lost contact with, especially using the internet. I hope you can make contact with your cousin again.
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  Sassy

  Its funny but I never would have ever thought the JWs were a cult.. until I got out. I think the thing is, it is sneakier. It is a gradual process of brainwashing that happens. But it happens before your eyes. We aren't 'taken' out of our homes and living in some commune.. And it is true, we don't write letters telling our family and friends that are not JWs that we can have nothing to do with them because they are "worldly"..

  but..

  it still divides family and friends. You are just supposed to be tactful when 'avoiding' spending time with worldly associates in order to 'not offend them' just in case later they can be converted and sucked in...

  over and over my bf is amazed when I tell him, oh we couldn't do that.. and we couldn't do this.. He will look at me with this dumbfounded look like I am crazy and how in the world do people agree to such a life..

  and I tell him.. you don't understand, you don't just get into it over night, you are carefully taught a reason for everything and before you know it, you stop questioning but only following..

  yup.. it's a cult..

  when my brother found out I stopped being a JW, his reaction was.. Welcome to the real world __ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___!
• 

  Eyebrow2

  I still dont think they are a cult..not a real cult like the Jonestown people, Heaven's gates and others.

  Perhaps they could come up with a cult rating system...maybe like the terror rating system hahah.

  If they did, on a scale of 1 to 5, I think the JWs would be on the same as Mormons, only on level 1. At least with JWs you can track them down most of the time. Scientologists....1 or 2 not sure about those guys...though John Travolta scares the hell out of me at times.

  If you have to actually hire the A Team to drive a black van up to your missing family member on the street and kidnap them to bring them back to you physically...that would be at the top...5.