Newbies Exiting the Witnesses - How Do You Feel ? Steve Hassan Explains

by flipper 43 Replies latest jw friends

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  dinah

  Thanks for posting this Flipper. It will be a big help to our newbies and those who are just finding out they have been deceived.

  Cognac, your post brought tears to my eyes. Those feelings of drifting and being purposeless should subside. I'm deciding to just make the best of this life I've been blessed with. It may be all we get, I'm not sure about that at this point.

  I feel strongly that those of us who made it through should help those who are just starting out. We should be mentors, in a way. There were probably 15 or so who really helped me when I first stumbled onto all the falsehoods.

  I was raised "in the truth" also. My disfellowshipping at age 18 removed my body from the organization, but not my mind. That freedom came about 5 years ago, about 16 years after I was df'd. The realization still hurt tremendously. I looked back and saw a wasted life. A life wasted in fear of the end, feelings of worthlessness because I was not good enough to be a witness. Yes, I could have gone back, but somehow I had no real desire to return. Even though I was miserable I was enjoying my freedom.

  Flipper, I'm gonna get a copy of that book. CoC helped so much, maybe the "Mind Control" book will finish what Ray started. It is available on his website. Commentarypress.com.
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  journey-on

  I mean, I have no idea where I am going anymore and I have no idea where I go when i die... I liked knowing these things. I had a definate plan, a definate hope. Now, I don't know what I'm doing... Or what to have hope in.

  Cognac: You will find your way, dear.....trust me. When your foundation crumbles, you feel like you're hanging in mid air. It is scary, but you'll develop your own wings and learn how to fly. You WILL be okay.
• 

  dinah

  Hey Cognac,

  Your avatar speaks volumes!!!! Let that lion out of the mirror.
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  dawg

  Here's the thing, I did just what many of you have done all without any web sites; and with no friends and family because they'd all abandoned me. So, Cognac, I know how you feel in spades.

  So, my "worldy" friends were no help, no one to talk to really so, since I was in a band I started living the real rock in roll life... drugs, parties, sex, sex... oh, did I say that twice? THat's my favorite. LOL

  Empty, that how I feel and have felt for 17 years.. and that's one of the reasons I can't tear myself from this site, for once I have some damned body to talk to. For 17 years I was alone, I could have some good looking lady by my side and still feel alone becasue she couldn't understand what I was feeling...I couldn't talk to her

  I mean, my thoughts were, am I insane, what the hell is wrong with me? THat coupled with, assurences from no one but myself that I was doing the right, thing. No one knew the struggle, and the music, and drugs and sex were what kept me from thinking about it...for the most part.

  Here's why I believe in God, the internet... yea, I know that sounds crazy, but I really think God wants us to solve our own problems-I'm a Diest. THe internet will destroy the JWs, either make them change methods, or be even more o fringe group than they are.... an example to others in the world of how bad cults are... but with very few followers. We are the ones the great spirit has chosen to destroy these fools, we will do it just as we did as JWs... one convert at a time, convincing others the error of the fools at Bethel....

  Once that snowball starts rolling, w will have completed God's will, it will tumble...the internet and us... we are God's pawns inthis chess game... some do a little and some do a lot..but evil never fully wins, the JWs are evil... the truth will come out, triumph, and w will have done the part God intended us to do.

  Sorry, I've been want to say that a long time.
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  dawg

  By the way Flipper, I've never met you nor your wife... but I feel that you are a great man, and she one great lady... I love you both and really mean it... this thread will for a damn fact help others... thank you Flipper for showing others love, giving your time, even though you are caught in this mess just like all of us!
• 

  dinah

  Dawg,

  I could hug your guts out.

  Yeah, I spent my years from 18-34 alone in this mess. It does help to have someone to talk to who has been there. No one else could ever possibly understand what we went through. That is why we need each other.

  About your God comments, I believe the same. It was always in my prayers to find people who think like me (or were damaged like me). That prayer was answered about 1,000 fold.

  Also, I was blessed with an open-minded husband who lets me be ME! It's priceless. He knows I spend alot of time on here and he seems to think it helps.

  I've come along way from crawling in his lap and crying like a baby.

  We are just all looking to fill a void. Drugs, sex, sex, and rock n roll worked for awhile then you start to feel so EMPTY.

  You're doing good, Dawg and I just love ya!
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  dawg

  I love you too Dinah, isn't it a wonderful thing that we've all been called to this mission? I consider it my mission to help my family get out, and its working to some extent. Like from the begining this is what I was called to do. I can't stop doing it now that i've started.. I don't want another life ruined by these fools.

  God bless you all... but he still wants us to be active and do what's right. He wants us to slove this mess all on our own, we must/will succeed.
• 

  R.Crusoe

  when I was fading and sinking and working just to keep wifey and 4 kids above where I was I often wonder why is it I didn't pull the plug on the kids oing to meets etc etc.

  It's because they had me so brainwashed that paradise and the spirituality of all my kids was my responsibility that even when I let myself sink it was so they could make it and I had no alternative I could work out or imagine to replace my and their spiritiality with! The key is an alternative spirituality or atheism that you move on to believe yourself.

  All those years I was cut off from any -even 1 of any friends I could make or any social life I could have withthsi idea in my head that I was sacrificing my situation to help theirs whilst struggling in my private life ground zero heart condition.

  So when I finally divorced after 20 yrs I felt maybe for the first time I could start to link in some way with the rest of teh world but ex was keen for the kids to go her way and I was free for them to choose it because I believe in free choice - but they grew up with that shunn psychology or something of it that makes it easy to cut others out and the circle of JWs are so cunning with all their remarks and since not one of my 4 have ever got dipped they still get the affection showers which make it seem anything I say is magnified and exagerated! Anyhow non of them are in which is cool but the road has been one which pulled us all apart just like the JWs love to do!

  You know evryone - I never needed much from anyone - just the single line of trust and love that showed me I had someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with me in this life on this planet - that's all. And their psychology theives that away from families all over!! Teaches them a different way! It sucks! And in your weakness it reveals a broken you that justifies their smarmy claims that you don't have this steely love in your heart that will stand by them as they twist all their reasonings around and around in others heads!

  It is a shame that noone has been able to see in me and be part of what I am enough to build what could have been!!

  And I know in having given it my all way past dead inside that many of you survivors have ended up in drydock in the same state of disrepair and anchoring after that same kind of loving, understanding soulful person I searched to find my whole life until way past dreaming! And looking at kids you'd have loved to bring to better times who've sailed a road to someplace else which feels so weak and dilluted!

  Funny how and why become so irrelevant till nothing means anything!

  Maybe some of you can see patterns in your souls which reflect other feelings?

  That's all folks!
• 

  TheDoctor

  Since I'm still relatively young i don't have as many years in it as some, but nonetheless I'm angry. What angers me the most is that im only 25 and i didn't get to do the things that a normal 20-25 year old does because i was trying to live a good "Christian" life. Date lots of girls, go to college, travel, etc.I started working full time right out of high school. The only girl I've ever dated is the girl that i married. Not that its a bad thing, and i love my wife every much, but i still would have liked to have been with different girls that way i could see who was really right for me. (We really have nothing in common except being witnesses and now that doesn't even apply anymore.)I got so depressed at one point that i didnt care if i dropped dead that day. The elders came over to talk to me about it at one time and pretty much they said that i just need to study more, pray, go in service, and i would feel better. Nope. Fortunately I'm in college now, and in June im going to Japan for a month to stay with some "Worldly" friends. My friends from work have been so helpful as far as making me feel loved. I knew i was going to lose everyone when i decided to fade and it was a terrible feeling, but knowing that there were people who care about you regardless of what god you worship makes all the difference. Finally, the thing im most angry about is the fact that ive been so indoctrinated that even though i see so much wrong and so many things that i disagree with, (Even more so now that im on the outside looking in) i still always have a nagging feeling in the back of my head that im gonna die because im being petty and leaving gods organization. The hold that they have over you is tremendous, especially when the first words you ever spoke as a baby were "Paradise coming".
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  wildfell

  The sense of pain and betrayal is enormous

  Hi Flipper, This book sounds like a good read. I should have read something like that months ago. From the beginning of this journey, I was dealing with an enormous amount of distress and anger. I was in that state for a long time. I had been wondering whether I was weak for experiencing these emotions? It's reassuring to know that it's a normal reaction to finding out you have been living a lie generated by some clever and evil con artists. I understand that grieving is always an intense and complex process, but it is a necessary start to a new life. I will survive.

  "What seems to help the most is to enable people to realize that positive things did come out of their involvement"

  I must disagree with Steve Hassan here. Nothing good can come from being abused (and watching others being abused) mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially.