Advice for my DF'd friend

by wobble 3 Replies latest jw friends

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  wobble

  I have a dear friend who has recently been DF'd,which may not be relevant to the problem,but I told her she now has the time ,and the reason, to examine the religion,and I urged her to use the internet,esp. Freeminds.

  Her problem is her son,for years,15 or so,he has been on a downward spiral of drug abuse.Although never baptised,he was brought up,until his teens,in the WT.He is now thinking that to turn his life around he will get properly involved in the religion.

  His mother has said to me that she does not wish to dissuade him,as she fears for his future if he does nothing,conventional counselling,and some less conventional, has failed to help him in the past.She does not want to do an examination of WT at the present time as she feels whatever she discovers she will tell him, and he will go further off the rails ,because he believes it is the truth at the moment,and to take that away from him would leave him nowhere to go.

  Any helpfull words I can send to her would be appreciated.

  Many thanks,

  Wobble
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  dinah

  Wobble, I don't envy your friend's situation. Do all you can to help her get out of the JW mindset so she can help her son.

  His drug addiction could be directly related to being raised in the Witnesses. I started drinking when I was 12, and looking back I do think it was to help deal with all the mental anguish related to hearing about Armageddon constantly. For a child to look around at school and "know" every child in their class would die a horrible death is too much to deal with. Also, their teaching of "underserved kindness" sure doesn't help a developing child's self esteem.

  He's so young to be in such a terrible situation. If he can get those horrific teachings and doomsday scenarios out of his head, he may have a better chance to recover.
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  thomas15

  In my opinion and I'm sure others will agree, your friends son will be replacing one problem with another. Your friend, if truly wanting to be come part of the solution should be able to eplain to her son that if using the org to rehabilitate will put her out of the process because the org doesn't like her. This is just a simple fact of JW doctrine.

  If your friend is a believer in Jesus then she should be asking Christ for his guidence and wisedom. If she is not trusting in Jesus then I have to admit that I don't have any useful advice to give. I will though be praying to the God in heaven through the Son that He reveal Himself and His will in your friends and her sons life and bring healing.
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  snowbird

  When I told my estranged, non-JW husband that I was going to tell our then 16-year old baptized JW daughter that the WT was deceptive, he advised me not to do so.

  His reasoning was that the WT is the lesser of two evils. The greater evil (in his eyes) was that she could possibly become involved in sex, drugs, drinking, and other things that would prove detrimental to her.

  She is a super academic achiever since kindergarten, and he is so proud of her! I grudgingly heeded his advice.

  Our daughter is nearing 20 years of age, is a senior in college, working part-time, and is still a zealous JW.

  I count my blessings every day, because things could be so much worse.

  Sylvia