by minimus 21 Replies latest jw friends
Everyone was always being told, "DO MORE" and you'll feel better! If you're depressed, simply DO MORE! If your life trying to be a good JW was getting to you, you were admonished to stop thinking about your problems and just DO MORE! If you were ill, couldn't you examine yourself and still DO MORE??
How did that counsel affect you, personally??
I remember a CO in Miami told us his jingle:
If you can go to the mall, you can go to the hall...
If you can go to the beach, you can get out an preach...
And if you're nervous, go out in service.
I was a wee lad at the time and it made perfect sense. But later in my life when I haved felt nervous or depressed, service or meetings were not the cure-all they had been cracked up to be.
At one point, though, I was not a pioneer, but I was still getting in the time, since I had been removed. I had thought staying busy in service would keep me on the straight and narrow... but a kind elder came to give a shepherding call, and told me that he didn't care how many hours I put in he still didn't trust me.
That was really encouraging. But I have to thank him, look where I am now!
Whenever times were tough and I was depressed I was counseled to DO MORE and "throw my burdon on Jehovah" and "wait on Jehovah" for a resolution to my difficulties. Naturally, things would worsen because I was spending time in service™ instead of working out my difficulties, and then I would assume that Jehovah hated my guts because he evidently wasn't helping me.
I eventually learned that the cycle of shit would never end until I took "Jehovah's service" out of the equation and channeled my energies into resolving my own problems.
W
Doing more is just a way to get you not to think. The Organization does not want thinkers. They want dummies who will work for nothin'.
This sums up my life experience!!
The deep inner feeling! Profoundly seated in ones core soul!
The all giving, all rejection, not good enough aura by ones closest to you or those you did it for!
And yes it does make you feel much worse the more you give!
So the Bible aint necessarily my favoured ethos for giving being all it's cracked up to be!
It's awful when surrounded by those questioning your motives for all the unconditional giving you have input into whatever circumstance you have been in!
It's why I could so easily walk out of humanity this second, (save distanced one/s I sense kin with but am terminally cut from) and wouldn't blink! Nobody else would either but that's besides the point!
I can only vaguely speculate that those humans who've gone even further, who repeatedly put their lives on the line and lost so much afterwards, have overwhelming feelings along those lines? And others have no clue and think somehow they had different motives or whateva!!
Oooo - core feeling!
Whenever times were tough and I was depressed I was counseled to DO MORE and "throw my burdon on Jehovah
I can tell you right now.... the above counsel in - NO - way helps depression. I would try to do more...it only built resentment in me towards the Brothers, Sisters and Jehovah. To the point, that if I didn't get away from those people, all hell was going to break loose.
That's just how bad it got a few times. So, no I didn't feel better.
Cas
I absolutely bought into that load of tripe! I was a regular pioneer, married to an MS and later an elder and even moved to where the need was great! NOTHING helped, nothing changed, because the bottom line was it was crap. No matter how nicely you decorate a pile of crap or how busy you keep yourself running around the pile of crap or trying to convince other people to believe in the pile of crap, it's still JUST CRAP!
brunn
BrownHilda - you are so right!
I'm sure the farming community knew I was a JW and took loads of $hit!
I once rang and asked for some horse manure and he quoted £12 for a trailer which I thought reasonable - maybe half a ton I thought!
Well he came early one Sunday morning and tipped a 12 ton trailer load next to my house in the row!
It took 3 years to spread it around and yes I did think it was value for money! In fact I started to prefer shifting it to going to the KH!
Just shows the JW mindset suffers fertiliser treatment syndrome thinking maybe there will be a nice harvest in the next life!
Brunn,
NOTHING helped, nothing changed, because the bottom line was it was crap. No matter how nicely you decorate a pile of crap or how busy you keep yourself running around the pile of crap or trying to convince other people to believe in the pile of crap, it's still JUST CRAP!
Cas
Being told to take my infant son with bad lungs to the mold infested KH or else we would all die didn't help me one little bit.
I could never do enough, or do anything well enough.
momz
