by Mysterious 33 Replies latest jw friends
No, but by the time I finally left physically, I had been gone mentally and emotionally (no jokes now) for 3 years. I haven't been in a KH or at an assembly/convention since.
I'm just so glad to be out and that my hubbie left too.
Counseling is not a bad idea...finding a counselor that is equipped to handle an ex-JW might not be. I went to one who had grown up in another cultish group and left as a young man...knew what it was like to be shunned (not the Amish).
Blondie
Thank you for sharing this..............I've had them ALOT! In my case, it's not only that I am at a DC or CA...........it's also that I'm remarried to my ex!!! And, in my dreams, I am overwhelmed, again, by the feelings that being in those two situations made me feel. Complete dispair and depression............nothing to stimulate my intellect, no emotional connection with the husband........I wake up sometimes weeping.......but, because I'm sleeping they come out as inarticulate grunts.........just as I'm coming to, I can sometimes hear myself and I sound like a wounded animal..........it's awful!!!
I still occassionally have dreams about my ex-husband, my son, and a very few about being a witness.
Before I found this forum, I would have dreams about Armegeddon (earthquakes, the ground splitting open, running toward a spaceship type thing where I knew I'd be safe, panic that I wouldn't make it, frantically looking for my sons...blech).
I can't remember when I last dreamt about witness stuff now. I have no ties to them any more, though...no close friends or relatives still in. I haven't been inside a KH for probably 5 years now, and mentally I've been free for a year.
i've had dreams/nightmares in the past, but unfortunately i tended to be living the nightmares more than dreaming them lol.
I have had dreams about being back at the Hall, it's the ex-JW version of those "at school naked" or "faced with an exam you haven't studied for" dreams. :D
all the while thinking how it's wrong and I shouldn't be here but I can't stop myself.
YES!!!
Quite often, and ive been left about 10 years.
Im always going out on field service, or at the pre service pep rally. Im thinking to myself 'this is totally wrong, I dont believe this. How am I going to be able to convince other people to join when I dont think they should?'
In the end I usually content myself with giving a REALLY crappy presentation of the magazines and hoping that evreyone will say no. Or knocking the door really quietly so that nobody answers. Sometimes I place a set and then I feel really guilty.
Sometimes I explain to my dad that I no longer believe it and I dont want to go out on the doors but he just makes me anyway.
Sometimes I tell myself 'this is the last time im ever going to go out on field service, and this is the last time I am going to attend a meeting. Then I get this overwhelming feeling of relief that I am living what I believe at last by not going anymore.
I dream this about once a month.
When I first left, I often got nightmares about being back in the KH, sweating and panic-stricken, with everyone looking at me in that trademark JW disapproving way. The nightmares went away gradually. I haven't had one like that for at least 10 years.
I recall having nightmares about having to go back to highschool because it was discovered I hadn't completed a couple required courses. Silly since I have two college degrees yet every once in a while I have the same silly dream. On nightmaring about going back to the Kingdum Hall, never had that one! Thank you Jesus!!
carmel
On occasion and they always deal w/me being shunned.
Juni
Occasionally I will dream a strange amalgam of being at an assembly or meeting with my parents, but also with other people from my current life in juxtaposition, or with some other bizzare story line unrelated to my jw upbringing.
