My first week here ...thoughts

emy the infidel

I have been hear for about a week now, and have not been is such a strange mental place since I was a witness. It has been good, the programming still kicks in however, but I'm getting less and less afraid to reason with it. I got my CoC book yesterday...

I sat looking at it and thinking of all the years I avoided it, mischaracterized and marginalized it, w/out having any specific knowledge of what was actually in it. If the truth is the truth, nothing Ray F. or anyone else says will change that. In fact, how could anyone honestly devote their entire life to an organization, w/o examining all sides of the issue? But that's what I did at one time, and probably a lot of you did as well.

The scary thing is the mind games that I'm becoming aware of, that were played and held me firmly for many years after leaving. As I've posted, I changed and grew dramatically over the years, acquired vast amounts of higher education and critical thinking skills and have become accomplished in many areas. But that compartment of my life remained unchanged, unquestioned and unquestionable. A self-imposed unconscious 'purgatory' of sorts. The block that my experience as a witness left in that 'compartment', caused a shut down in that area. If that's not kinda of scary, I don't know what is. Thanks to all of you and your candid and encouraging posts that helped me to get motivated to clear the cobwebs off.

You meet all kinds here, and I love reading the posts. It's interesting to see people in all phases of witnoos-dom, hear experiences and have some good laughs.

Thanks guys! emy

megsmomma

Welcome!!!!

I remember when I was thinking of going back and I was doing research on the inter-net...I would come across WT quotes that were showing how wrong they are...and for some reason just reading the way they said things, and seeing the type set they used made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It was weird. That is when I felt I had been brain-washed.

I am sooo glad you are on your journey!

nvrgnbk

Hi, emy.

I've enjoyed your posts.

We're in different places politically, but that's ok.

I appreciate someone challenging my views.

Thank you.

I thought it was funny that we had the same take on the hats/head-coverings of the Paradise-dwellers. LOL!

Take care and I hope you keep getting the good stuff that this place has to offer.

Like Peter said to Jesus when some were thinking about leaving JWD, "where else would we go?"

LMFAO!

still_in74

The scary thing is the mind games that I'm becoming aware of, that were played and held me firmly for many years after leaving. As I've posted, I changed and grew dramatically over the years, acquired vast amounts of higher education and critical thinking skills and have become accomplished in many areas. But that compartment of my life remained unchanged, unquestioned and unquestionable. A self-imposed unconscious 'purgatory' of sorts.

How true that statement is. While I am still in the org., I have been moving into inactivity for several years now, only putting in token FS hours and irregular at that. Now I have been inactive for 4 or 5 months.

For all these years I let myself become distant from "the truth" but never questioned it, and always defending it. But if it was so true then why didnt I care that I was drifting? Because I never questioned it. I just let it sit there undisturbed, so that eventhough I wasnt doing anything for "the truth" I could still tell myself that "one day" I will be that spiritually happy person that I have always wanted to be. That "one day" I'll be happy and active and spiritually content like "everyone else" other than me.

It is not a nice feeling to open your eyes to the mind games that you fell for. You do indeed feel like a sucker. And you think back to all the comments of coworkers and schoolmates about how "messed up" you are for believing it and how you used to shake your head at how foolish they were, only to now realize that you, truly were the fool.

Maybe you can give me a recap of CofC from page 321 to the conclusion, thats when my wife found it and threw it out! Damn, it was just getting good!!

For me personally, the most important fact is the spiritual condition of the org in 1919. So many imperfections of the org can be rationalized by human imperfection in the same way that the Israelites were imperfect despite being gods chosen people.
But to make the claim that the org was selected as the FDS in 1919 when one considers the teachings of Russell and Rutherford both before and after 1919, and how almost everything they were teaching at the time was later abandoned, and how R&R both made predictions as to when armageddon would come (which the scriptures teach as how to identify false prophets not true ones).
When Ray Franz cites passages in Rutherfords pre 1925 books, this is eye-opening. At least for me it was.

Anyway sorry for my long winded post. Enjoy C of C and keep us posted on what your learning!!!

Still_in74

shell69

Hi emy,

Welcome;

Funnily enough my copy of coc has arrived with my husband today at work, and I'm expecxting him home any time with it.

Shell

golf2

Greetings. Stay the course and always be yourself.

Golf

AWAKE&WATCHING

Glad you are OUT sweetie, visit us anytime.

emy the infidel

nvrgnbck-- I enjoy your posts too! That 'hat wearing multitude' gave me a good chuckle. I look forward to many more.

stillin74-- Your wife threw away you book! Aaaaahhhy! Sheesh. I just started CoC this morning and am up to his examination of the yearly reports, baptisms vs active publishers. It is eye opening the amount of people who leave. Perhaps some never should've been there in the first place, but the majority of those no doubt leave over the strong arm tactics feeling as though they are the failure, psychologically harmed. I was part of that group, and have had a distrust of religion in general since. Therein lies the paradox, still clinging to the beliefs to the point of rejection of anything other than what officials of the group say, and unable to trust anything anyone else has to say (stockholm syd.). I think we've solved it all now. Thanks so much for your kind words and I look forward to seeing your posts as we continue to roll on.

Purza

The scary thing is the mind games that I'm becoming aware of, that were played and held me firmly for many years after leaving.

I hear you on this. Just two days ago I made a comment to my boss about the flag salute and worrying about being seen and she said "I don't know if you have really mentally left the JWs like you think you have". That gave me pause and is something I really need to look at. There are lingering thoughts and emotions that come up now and then.

I am glad you found this site.

Purza

emy the infidel

Sure golf2, and you be yourself too. thanks

My first week here ...thoughts

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