by The wanderer 16 Replies latest jw friends
welcome to the board..
my experience growing up jw is that i was kept too busy to spend time thinking about any doubts.
after all, 5 meetings, service, personal study, bible reading , daily text , children, a home, a husband, a job, elderly parents.... who has time to THINK?
it wasnt till the generation change in the mid 90s that i really took the time to look into things that bugged me.
Dear Wanderer,
Welcome! We are glad to have you here. I think most serious x- Witnesses will tell you that they would supress anything negative. Afterall, the organization would tell you that anything negative was an attack from Saten, and was alie. So the natural thing to do would be to ignore or turn away from anything negative about the organization.
Glad to have you with us.
Sincerely,
Lady Liberty
I would love to hear from some of you whether or not this is quite common or just something I personally experienced.
Suppressing doubt is much more common than you might think. You asked a very poignant question:
"How could I have ignored my gut feelings all of this time?" The answer is really quite simple. It is because you are a human being.
If you are like most of us, you had no choice but to ignore it. It is constantly drilled into us that we have the "truth" and that Satan uses doubt to "draw us away from Jehovah's theocratic organization". Why do you think the WTS constantly hammers into the minds of JWs to never indulge in doubts, never allow oneself to engage in "independent thinking"? Why do you think they constantly discourage the rank and file to only do Biblical research using the Society's publications? They know that even a casual investigation into areas such as archeology, geology, religious history, and ancient mythology will shoot several holes into their ideology.
This is probably why so few JWs have library cards. The public library; next to the internet, is probably the biggest enemy to the WTS system of psychological control over it's minions.
You certainly are not unique in the way you tried very hard to suppress all of your intuition, gut level feelings, and doubts. I tried to do this for some 15 years; until I just could not do it anymore.
There is a book I think is an absolute MUST READ. It is called: Combatting Cult Mind Control. It is written by Steven Hassan. When you read this book, your eyes will open, and you will understand yourself and the JW psychology so much better!
Welcome to the site, and most of all, welcome to reality.
Tell me three things you love about being a JW...
Now tell me three things you hate....
Since the JW mind is not able to find anything wrong with the Watchtower envorioment at all, there is nothing they can say. Their mind freezes. Of course there are all kinds of things they don't like, but they can never verbalize them and thinking them is only in the deepest part of their mind.
Great point drew !
This is a point that Steven Hassan brought up in his book "Combatting Cult Mind Control". It's interesting to note that Steven Hassan never once mentions JWs in his book. Most of what he wrote applied to the Unification Church; of which he was a member. However, it is chilling to see all of the similarities between cult mind control methods, and the methods used by the WTS.
One of the most enlightening books I have ever read.
Its the same if you find out a parter has been cheating and then you look back and loads of things add up, and you think "god im stupid all the clues were there staring me in the face".
But I think its possibly a sign of good nature that we dont trash things straight away, we wait until the evidence is slapping us in the face, because were not willing to act on less than conclusive evidence (which is many times a good thing).
Its just that when the evidence eventually does slap you in the kisser, you do feel kinda stupid. But weve all done it. Only thing we can be pleased about is that we saw it in the end, and acted on it when it dawned on us.
Welcome to the board.
Welcom to the Board, The Wanderer.
Gutfeeling. Inuitively you may be able tag the smell as fishy. It is our reasoning that playa games with us. I often have the same thing. But in cases where I ´ve listened to my gutfeeling, well, things turned out to be ok. The best thing is, it feels good!
Learning to listen and to train your gutfeeling is something ongoing. So, retrospectively, it´s okay to learn a lesson or two, but then, move on. I spent my about 36 years in the org and spent it by the book. do i regret the things I´ve done? To a degree, yes. The things I am aiming at here are the people I "helped into the truth". If I had known better, back then...but I didn´t know better.....So, apart from a occasional feeling of fading discomfort, I learned alot from this experience. Although, it has not totally left my system, reading and speaking to other people sharpens the mind to think outside the box.
Wish you all the best on your journey.
cheers
>p>Borgia
Welcome, wanderer.
Following is a great article which may help you understand:
