by minimus 54 Replies latest jw friends
I have an aquaintance that likes to say, "Once an A Hole always an A Hole". I guess you could reason that whatever your religious views were, your core is you are who you are.
Did your personality change for better or worse when you left the Organization?
My stress level has gone down noticably.
Yes! I was a drone.
I'm less inhibited, not concerned one iota of stumbling anyone.
I believe that what I am is what I have always been . Perhaps that is what your aquaintance was suggesting. I have core defects that outweigh my strengths. Therefore whether I became a Witnesss, Quaker, or Catholic etc. I think it would have all ended the same.
In my case, being a Witness exacerbated my low self-esteem ... perhaps a different choice would have been beneficial.
Being a JW for people such as I requires living a double life. We become ashamed that we can't cut it ... yet powertless to control our unacceptable preferences ... even if the religion itself is flawed or unhealthy.
The short of it is that NOT being a Witness now allows me to face WHAT I am and manage it. As Martha says: "that's a good thing"!
Yes, but maybe not as much as I would like.
Did you turn into a social butterfly SLoon? Unstoppable party dude?
Ummm.... yeah! That's it. Curse my unstoppable partying.
I bounce more!! Happiness does that to me!
No, but I've noticed that I'm getting better reactions from so-called "worldly people". I believe that the cult-world of the JW creates an invisible crowd around you so that you don't reach out or relate to others as well as you should if you were really being Christ-like. One of the things that led me away was that hate, or malevolent disregard that I felt evident in the KH w/regard to humans in general was affecting me and I couldn't allow that to happen. It had happened to me, I saw it and it was ugly. It reminded me of the scene in the movie "Cabaret" where this clean young hitler youth sings "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" and then everyone gets upand begins singing too... Only we know the "Tomorrow" these were looking towards DIDN'T belong to those who were unlike them. I saw Jehovah's Witnesses singing this song and it horrified me.
