do you feel posting on JWD helps or hinders your recovery?

burningbridges

Sometimes I wonder if posting on this site helps me "recover" from the trauma that the Witnesses put me through, and have no doubt it does at times. No where else is there such a support team of individuals who know personally what you've been through and how you feel. But at the same time, I often wonder if coming on here causes me to obsess in a way, preventing me from "moving on" with my life. I know I have to accept the fact that I will forever be scarred from the Witnesses and their is no removing that permentantly, but how do you guys feel about it? Do you sometimes feel that this site makes you dwell on your negative feelings towards the organization and hinders your moving on from it or does it better allow you to cope? Also, much time do we all spend on here a day? Me, I spend about an hour a day on here reading threads sometimes posting. Maybe thats too much.... but I highly doubt I'm a record holder

burningbridges

come on, SOMEONES gotta have an opinion....

Finally-Free

It's six of one and a half dozen of the other. Sometimes it feels like coming here is like picking at the scabs, delaying the healing of the wounds. On the other hand, my stint in the cult f*cked up my life and my attitudes. At least here people can understand why I'm f*cked up.

W

Layla33

I recovered from being a JW and I never heard of this website, actually I don't think it was even in development 18 years ago - it's possibly to move on without it. Having said that, I think for many people who have had issues recovering from being a JW, need that push to get out, need the reference for a listing of different aspects of abuse and such, I think this is a good place to come and interact, especially with people that can understand what you have been through.

However, with any forum, it shouldn't take over your life. You can't live sitting behind a computer, you still have to get up and exist, find friends, interact in the world around you and explore. Some people have made friends here, went to fests - there is nothing wrong with that, I think that's a great thing.

When I first joined I didn't post for almost two years, I read it with interest, but then I was like, I am so over being a JW, do I really want to refer to it repeatedly all the time? And I completely forgot about it for two years. I saved it in my favorites, but had no real interest in coming back. Then a beloved family member died of mine and I had to go to a funeral and be in a KH for the first time in about eight years. So, I do understand and appreciate your concern too.

You just have to find a way to balance it. Sometimes I post, other times I don't come on for days, even a week or so, it's not that big of a deal to me. I enjoy it for what it is, I find out what is going on currently because so many of my family is still in it and that's about it.

hillary_step

Burning,

Each person would have to assess for themselves the effect, or indeed non-effect, of XJW Boards on their lives. I speak for myself.

After my first few weeks on this Board, which as do most posters I took very seriously, it dawned on me that most of us imbue a 'personality' to the Board that is actually a fantasy. Rather like trying to look at a skeleton and imagining what it was like as a living being, this site is one-dimensional. People fight against this fact until an incident such as a 'Trevor' or 'Danny' appears on the Board, that is posters who pretend for many months to be who they are not. Trevor was able to run two personalities on this Board for over a year without anybody suspecting his deception. I suspect that the real reason for the fury that ensued was the fact that the visceral view that people had of the 'personality' of this Board was shaken, not that some nut-case had defrauded them of valuable time.

The reality is that the currency of this Board is words. Words are just letters strung together in a formation that provides a common understanding. They cannot hurt you, inspire you, demean you, educate you, arouse you, 'support' you or do anything to or for you without the input of your own head. It is what happens within your own head that gives life to words. Without your own imagination and mental input, words are meaningless. So each person in reading what are just words has to add or subtract emotional value from them, it is that simple.

That is why some claim that they have been 'supported' or not 'supported' by others on this Board, entriely due to their take on WORDS. A person wishing to hear that their life is a failure due to their being a JW and not due to the fact that they might be lazy good-for-nothings for example, is much more likely to feel 'supported' by those who shred the Jehovah's Witnesses, than those who might tell them to get some excercise, get some education and get moving.

So this Board cannot do a thing to you that you do not allow it to, for good or for bad. The issue is always an internal, not an external one.

HS

Octarine Prince

Replace JW bullshit with addiction, and JWD with 12-step groups, and this has been talked about quite a bit by many.

Some need this. Some don't.

But be happy that it exists, even as dysfunctional as it is, for those that do truly have no other way to get better.

burningbridges

So I'm curious, this "Trevor" or "Danny" your talking about, is that where you guys talk about Trolls? Can I have a real life experience of something bad that happened? How can a "troll" be so bad? Arent they still learning (or fading?) or is it much more sinister than that?

-burning

journey-on

It is what happens within your own head that gives life to words.

I have to agree 95% with Hillary_Step (I can never agree 100% with him...It's my own personal rule.)

That being said, we bring our own disposition and past experiences to this board and add to the overall

community personality. If you don't think discussion boards develop a "personality", just check out some

of the other ex-JW discussion forums.

I find that it is necessary to break away periodically and not get too caught up in its personality.

hillary_step

Journey,

That being said, we bring our own disposition and past experiences to this board and add to the overall community personality. If you don't think discussion boards develop a "personality", just check out some of the other ex-JW discussion forums.

Discussion boards have a tenor, but they cannot have a personality. My point is that people mesh their living personality with what they *percieve* to be a board 'personality' and subsequently imbue dimensions in that board that are actually a fantasy. This is in some ways pyschologically rather like those who get involved in soap operas and actually begin to believe that the characters who appear on these shows are not acting.

Cheers - HS

journey-on

Semantics, HS, semantics. Substitute the word "tenor" then, and you will still have the same meaning, an overall general sense of the "character" of the board.

I agree that some posters are probably presenting a facade, but that facade still contributes to the personality/tenor of JWD. Are you presenting a facade? I have

an "image" in my mind of you and what your personality is based on what comes across to me as I read your topics and posts. Whether that is your "real" personality

or not doesn't matter. It's the personality you have brought to this board. If your board personality is different from your "real" personality, then you are a master of deceit,

or a really good actor (like Trevor). He was an aberration. I am amazed he was able to carry on for a year. I never posted on any of his stuff. He never "smelled" right to me,

not that I have any special insight...it's just that some posters don't feel "real" to me.

I think mine is pretty much the way I am. But, you're right...it is filtered through others' perceptions. But that's the way it is face to face, too, isn't it?

We perceive others through our own psychological filters. But fantasy?...semantics again. I tend to think that written words can reveal just as much about you as your verbal conversations.

This board is like a cyber congregation really. We gather ourselves together an hour or two a day or week or just occasionally to encourage one another, admonish one another,

learn things, and just hang out for awhile. It is a mental construct....but fantasy? Semantics.

do you feel posting on JWD helps or hinders your recovery?

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