Diary of a thinking to return ex-Jw

by reniaa 223 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  BizzyBee

  renaai - some food for thought:

  Experiments have been done with lab rats, placing them in a cage with an electric grid on the bottom. At random intervals, the rat's feet get a mild shock, similar to a shock of static electricity we get from touching a door handle after walking over a plush carpet. The rat freaks out over this and tries to escape, but it is trapped in the cage. After repeated attempts, the rat gives up. No matter how much the experimenter continues to shock it, the rat will just lie there and take it - even if the door to the cage is opened and the rat can clearly see it can now escape. It has learned to be helpless and will no longer try to be free, even when it can easily and obviously do so. When the experimenter then does a chemical analysis of its brain, he discovers the dramatic depletion of noradrenaline. The animal's brain has 'learned' not to produce more noradrenaline, and thus has 'learned' to be helpless.

  The phenomenon of learned helplessness occurs in human beings just as it does in animals, and has the same neurochemical cause: inadequate noradrenaline production. If you give a learned helpless animal the right combination of nutrients and administer them in the right way, the animal's brain will be able to use them to synthesize additional noradrenaline. Once those rats had plenty of noradrenaline surging through their synapses again they all jumped out of that open cage door real fast!

  JWs are in a cage of their own making - they could walk through the door anytime. But most have given up and learned to be helpless. Information and truth are the noradrenaline that can help them escape.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  the sharp scalpal used on this forum to cut open teachings of Jw's has to be equally applied to other religions if we are to be fair, and unfortunaltly none suffer well from the pruning

  By all means examine every belief.

  If your elders and other JW's have treated you humanely, but many thought they would not,
  that is good for them. They are trying to be kind and human DESPITE the organization rules.

  I have not read all your posts, but let's get this clear. If you were involved in any activity they
  defined as "sins" and you were totally upfront with them, even if they didn't disfellowship you,
  they would be required to have a judicial committee and would be required to "reprove" you.

  Either you were not involved in "sins" as defined by them, or you were not totally forthcoming.
  I have no problem with either, but remember that this is not the case with everybody. Often,
  the elders and members follow the prescribed methods of the WT organization. In many cases,
  if the former member attended religious services of another religion or slept with someone who
  wasn't married to them, or associated with their disfellowshipped relative or ..., the judicial
  committee would be formed and some restrictions would be imposed.
• 

  legalchickie

  Reniaa,

  Be very careful and think long and hard before going back. During the time that my son was inactive, two "loving brothers" came to see him and they both told him that they really missed him and would be please come back. He went to one meeting and before leaving the hall that night, they had him in the back room and told him they were going to have to disfellowship him (for something he didn't even do!) He begged them not to do it and sent a heartfelt letter. They had set him up to be DFd. They did the very same thing to my step daughter.

  That was the beginning of the end for me. I started to fade until I finally I stopped going at all. I will NEVER, EVER set foot into another KH.
• 

  Mr Ben

  Well if you want to be told what to think then you're going to the right place, it's your life to throw away.

  But will you make sure your kids know both sides of the story? Will you make your kids study, say, Crisis of Conscience by Ray Franz, as well as the Society's publications? And if ever your kids are faced with a medical crisis that requires YOU to make a life saving decision involving blood, will it be just your life that faces the consequences of this decision? How will you feel if your child dies because of a decision you made based on the Society's teaching? How will you feel if, a week after your child has been sacrificed to the alter of the old men in Brooklyn, the WT magazine reverses it's teaching on blood? Preposterous scenario? Read up on organ transplants.

  Off you go then, but be sure to tell the elders that you post and talk to apostates on the internet. Or do you intend to live a double life already?
• 

  bluesbreaker59

  Reniaa,

  Enjoy yourself!!! You'll have to keep us posted on the exciting NEW LIGHT!!!! And please share with us all the new releases from the District conventions!!! Hell maybe you can even shun some people? Won't THAT be FUN!!!! Perhaps in a few years if you kiss up to the right elders you can even be on a circuit assembly as an example??? How you left the world and all "Satan's devices and wiles" behind to take up a life of "uprightness". Maybe you can cite me as one of the "evil apostates" that tried to "deceive you". Surely I am a tool for Satan...

  Truly though, I do wish you and your kids the best. But please, do me a personal favor, don't allow your kids to be baptized until they are at least 18, ok? Afterall, JWs don't support child baptism.
• 

  Layla33

  I think people create their own realities, and there are definitely people that find it much easier to follow and have their lives ordered around than those that dare to think for themselves. Even when armed with truth, honesty, facts, a person will choose something what is comfortable and easy. JW makes it easy in that if her family is in, associations are in, the cult is far reaching - we all suffer from it occasionally - family still in, friends that won't speak to us. I don't agree with anything she's saying, but I do understand.

  I want to relay a story of my experience with someone who reminds me so much Reeina. About three years into working in social service, particularly the homeless population, which to me is some of the most fascinating people in the world, I came across a client who needed some attention.

  She was part of a white couple, both very well known in the homeless crowd, he had dubbed himself her boyfriend and protector because where I worked the homeless population was primarily black and hispanic. He came to my office one day and said "Jane" had not used the shower in about two weeks and refused to change her clothes. Now, Jane could have been a model, I mean drop dead gorgeous, she was about 45, of course you could see the lines and worry in her face, extremely beautiful, but very quiet. She would attend some of the workshops I gave, and she would always eat the food we set out, but she kept to herself, I wasn't one to push. However, when one of my clients came to me about something going on, I paid attention.

  So when Jane came passed my office, I asked her if she wanted to split a meal with me. She knew me well enough to not be suspicious, and she came in and we chatted. She had a fascinating life, had lived all over the country, came from Arizonia I believe, and worked as a hotel maid for many years until the hotel burnt down and then she wasn't able to pay for her apartment anymore, she started living in the street. Somehow she had gotten to the state I was working in and met up with the guy, let's call him "Max", who had dubbed himself her boyfriend and protector. I liked Max quite a bit, he and I had some lovely lively conversations and he seemed more of a renegade than anything else. He always had clean clothes, took a shower everyday, went from day centers through the day and slept in a parking garage at night that the homeless people had some sort of unsigned agreement. Max had a bit of mental illness, and so did Jane, but they were functional and not dangerous to anyone.

  She told me Max was getting on her nerves because a new white guy had come into the area and took a liking to Jane and Max was very protective of her. Whenever this new guy would start talking to Jane, Max would freak out. So in a very passive agressive way, she just stopped caring, wouldn't shower - although she would still hang around him. But she told me, he was getting crazy with his paranoia and she was going to leave him if he didn't stop.

  I asked Jane if I could help her. And for two weeks straight, I made phone calls, took her places, I got her $1500 dollars in emergency money from Welfare. I found her a place to live, a beautiful home that a woman had opened up to homeless single women. I even found her a job. A JOB where she wouldn't make huge money, but she would make enough to support herself. I was so excited. She wouldn't have to live in the parking garage, she would be able to support herself, she would be an independent person.

  I received the check at my office, because they didn't have a mailing address and couldn't afford a post office box. She was to come see me and I was to take her to her new place, and pick out some nice clothes from a thrift store, for her work that started the next week. Jane never showed up. A week went by, two weeks, three weeks - Max of course told me that she was avoiding me and that they had made up. Finally, she couldn't stay away, we had a big seminar, with loads of food.

  I asked if I could speak to her, she agreed. I wanted to give her the check, she refused. So I asked her why she didn't want the money, why she didn't want to live in the house with a few other women, and she said, "well I don't want welfare, that's welfare" and then she said, "well I don' t want to live with other women in a house" and I said, "but you have your own room" and she just looked at me, "I'm happy with my routine, I have been doing this for 14 years." I said, "you would rather live and sleep in a parking garage, then in a warm house with your own bathroom?" She didn't say anything, because what I was saying was completely true and logical, but she had made up her mind.

  In one weeks time she was right back to her routine, with Max by her side.

  Whenever you see a JW that has been doing it for years considering going back, think of Jane and sleeping in the parking garage.
• 

  BizzyBee

  Good post, Layla.

  I used to work with a similar population, putting people into jobs. Most of my clients were just a step away from homelessness and at first I thought they just needed an opportunity to get on their feet.

  After a year of trying to help these folks - gas money, transportation, trying to secure promotions for them, interceding with employers, making excuses for no-shows, begging my clients not to let me down - I was so discouraged and disappointed in my fellow man that I quit. Most of these people were right where they wanted to be - living constantly on the edge of disaster. It was a way of life that was comfortable because it required very little effort. I concluded that some people have a high tolerance for what I would consider 'discomfort.'
• 

  Renegade

  Little bit like the matrix isn't it? Some people find it easier just going back to the world of lies and ignorance. Yet some people want to help spread the truth. I still haven't found 'The One' yet, but I'm still looking.
• 

  R.Crusoe

  Layla what you say is so amazing!

  I see a vastness of analogous parallels in peoples lives to what you describe in your example.

  I know personally that things I ached to help others with half a decade ago and was rejected for, I could not now do even if the circumstances represented themselves. I have been mutated by circumstance into a person of a routine I had no inclination or desire to establish, but established it has become - and I tell you truly that I find it almost impossible to demolish the cycle. It is a cycle I do not like but one I am growing reluctantly accustomed to. It is almost an accidental indoctrination after the fallout from a meltdown of other routines utterly different.

  Human behaviour and pattern are things large organisations know only too well and I'm sure you see many in your line of work. Intriguing how she avaoided opportunity and tolerated lack of privelage since she knew how to find choice within a tribal system she had learned to live within.

  Luxury sometimes removes choices and makes demands for unhappy commitment as payment for its provision of perceived respectability.
• 

  heathen

  I can agree the world is full of some very sick people but so is the WTBTS , I can see that if you had some good friends or family in that you would want to return, or is it this latest end is near campaign that has you concerned? You've been conditioned to respond with guilt and fear if you were in for any amount of time , they possibly have key phrases or words that trigger a reaction of panic or despair . At this point I don't put anything past them for being control freaks and very dishonest and sneaky. They boast about themselves all the time but in the end they're lying .