Hello all. I come here today to ask for any thoughts on how I can help my girlfriend, an ex-witness. Coming from a background of being raised in the "truth" from day one, and also suffering numerous bouts of abuse from an elder in her congregation as a small child, she seems to have now reached a point where she's simply dead inside.
I thought (foolishly, perhaps) that I could help her recover, "worldly" as I am, and not having been raised in such a religion, I believed I could help her learn that the outside world is not what she was raised to believe it to be; that there are good people out there, and a loving God as well. Not one based on fear and hate.
Unfortunately, as we've progressed through our relationship, I'm beginning to see the effects of the brainwashing used by the witness organization take its toll. Although she was kicked out a number of years ago, the mentality has stuck like glue (in my opinion). Some days it seems like she's on her way up the downward spiral, thinking and acting like normal, but when I think she's starting to heal, the next day it's like she's relapsed ten times worse. She now is asking me if we could attend a Sunday meeting just to see what it would be like.
I've always been fearful that she'd return to the religion, especially when she tries to explain their beliefs to me in an attempt to get me to understand what she came from. It sickens me to hear the drone-like theories and responses coming from her mouth. I feel even worse when I realize that I will never know or understand what she went through. She's reluctant to share, and I feel priviledged that she's shared as much as she has already. But truth be told, I'm getting to my rope's end as well. It's like there's no helping her.
I read Flipper's post on methods of unlocking the mind control, and I gave it a try a few days ago, but as usual, every question I asked thinking I would stump her or get her to think, she only fired back with responses which did that to ME. "Typical witness" is what my mind was screaming. She refuses to share enough about her past for me to get to know who she was back then. There is no pre-cult identity; only the rebellious post-cult one, which frankly I don't want her to reflect on, as drone-talk is enough to turn my stomach. I don't need to hear more about the drug/sex/alcohol days. You would think things were turning for the positive when I asked where she saw herself in x-amount of years, and she said with me. But the way she talks about our relationship these days, how she just does what people tell her to do, how she's programmed, etc, it's like she's more of a drone in our relationship then she was in the religion. This, of course, saddens me deeply. I do not wish to be a repeat of what hurt her so bad in the first place. I know it's bad because I ask what she wants to do in life, her hopes, her dreams, and she says "cease existing". I don't want to believe that's all that's in her head, because sometimes she can be so alive and give me so much hope for her recovery. Other times, she has me ready to snap and end things for my own sanity, because I don't know if I can deal with this constant up and down for the rest of my life. Then I feel guilty for betraying her. When I get frustrated she says I'm no different from "one of them", that I must be stupid for not understanding. She knows well enough that the organization, its doctrine, and its teachings are bogus, but she says that letting that in to her brain raises up this reluctancy for her to accept it. It's denial, she says. Her mind tells her that all the anti-JW things are BS, even though she knows it's not.
I apologize for the long-winded post. I'm just lost and confused. I've managed to link up with a few others who are in very similar situations, but I'm still left with the same dilemma, and I'm clueless how to approach it as neither any contacts nor myself have any first-hand experience in this religion or anything like it. So I thought to seek help right from the source. I thank you for your time, and look forward to any advice or information you can share.