"I'm Perfect, You're Doomed" discussion...

by Tuesday 58 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  OnTheWayOut

  The book is not for everyone, but I loved it. My sister found it too sad. She stopped halfway through it because it hit home too much. Despite my sister's lack of finishing the book, I thought that was the greatest credit to the book, letting my sister see how someone else was brought up to be screwed up for various reasons including JW's, drugs, sexual relations, marriage.

  It was trying to be funny, and I can see that it wasn't hysterical in every paragraph no matter how hard Kyria tried.
  But that was what made the book important to me. Here was an extremely sad story told in dry humor in an attempt to address the issues.
  
  

  I don’t know how she can’t see herself as just the biggest whiny, spoiled, little brat imaginable.

  I cannot speak for Kyria, but I imagine she sees herself for what she is. She's not asking people to see her as JUST a victim of her upbringing, but she wants to acknowledge her upbringing and it's effect on her path, and wants others to benefit in anyway they can. If she is a whiny, spoiled brat, perhaps a reader would see how they don't want to raise their daughter in the same way.

  It took 50 pages for me to say “I’m pretty sure I hate this person.”

  Kyria probably hates the person she was. That's okay to hate her.

  However, at every instance the only thing I could bring myself to is: you brought this upon yourself.

  Consider for a moment- a girl in gifted class whose parents don't encourage them to advance toward being a scientist or a doctor or an athlete or something besides a wife of a JW. Even without the JW factor, we are learning from this book that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Consider raising children to avoid the opposite sex, dating, premarital relations of any kind. This is what I noticed from the book- not assigning blame, but telling a true story and letting the reader pick out the obstacles in that life and reflect on their own obstacles.

  On the negative side, I do think that trying to put Vaudeville-type humor in every paragraph was a bit heavier than I cared for. To me, that just added to the sadness of the story. I liked it, but had to get used to the style of humor.
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  truthsetsonefree

  There is no question that she fell for a lot of harmful vices that the dubs try to keep people away from. Perhaps if she could have gotten the sense of what the dubs were saying in these areas, her life at that time may have been different. But it and she didn't. And that's the point. This is an account of HER life growing up as a dub. It's not good or bad, it just is. And it makes the point that WT is not the perfect organization it pretends to be. It is not as successful as it thinks in helping people out of difficulties. Many times it causes these difficulties. That being said, different people will react differently to it. That's why a wide variety of books and materials are needed so that different sorts of people can relate to leaving the JW's and perhaps leave themselves. Or if they have left, can find comfort in that they are not alone in their feelings and experiences.
• 

  Tuesday

  Consider for a moment- a girl in gifted class whose parents don't encourage them to advance toward being a scientist or a doctor or an athlete or something besides a wife of a JW. Even without the JW factor, we are learning from this book that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Consider raising children to avoid the opposite sex, dating, premarital relations of any kind.

  That's actually what annoyed me the most, I was in the same situation as she was. I was in the gifted programs at school, and my mother was trying to convince me to become a plumber. Anyone who was raised a JW was raised to avoid the opposite sex and so forth.

  This may be a symptom of leaving JWs that everything JW related should be used as a tool to inform people on how to leave and why it's OK to leave. In this case, I think it very much does the opposite.

  It seems like I'm in the minority of not liking this book though. So this looks like it might be a recommended reading for ex-JWs.
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  Gayle

  I just finished the book. I felt sadness for her as I do for all JW youth. I found her different than me as a child, teenager, young adult. I toed the JW life into my 30s. Some of her remarks/ways as a child, teenager would have scared me to death and I may/would have been judgemental. I would have never quit school. However, I do understand the struggle for a JW kid going to school, juggling that tight-rope life where you are not even allowed to integrate socially at any level.

  How can a JW kid "love" school fully, not easily, where you can not celebrate simple kids stuff,,,cannot join extra-curricular fun programs or sports, the arts (Kyria's interest) etc., call door to door on your classmates and even teachers. You are doomed to be an oddball to some degree. The Watchtower Society clearly criticizes college education of being of any value. That attitude can easily trickle down to some JW kids having a hard time. Kyria was crying out, who would have cared in her world? She was "cutting" herself and threatening suicide, interpreted that she was just trying to get attention, yes,,but that was serious. How much does the Watchtower Society nullifying and choke the spirit of their youth?l Her JW world and parents would not encourage her to get her some professional mental/emotional health care, which JWs are only taught a paranoia at best that the counselor would probably try to break down their faith.

  She married too young. Most JW kids get married too young, not enough maturity and not enough of life skills and there is a very high rate of divorce. My JW marriage ended in divorce too though we married in our late 20s at Bethel and married 21 yrs. Hard to prove, but I suspect JW marriages have a higher divorce rate than the national rate.

  So she became out of control, feeling "doomed" now herself and nowhere to go as the Society closed down in her mind to any normal healthy sources or options. She made other additional negative, harmful choices.

  The exJW kids have a hard path, especially when their own parents shunned them. (I sometimes wonder how parents can shun their own kids unless it in some way makes them feel righteous even though they themselves obviously were not so "perfect" as parents themselves) It's terrible!

  Kyria seems to have had to go through a lot of "hard knocks", many learning experiences to move on through. I can only hope now with the Internet with information and facts that more JW youth can be informed of the "dooming" Watchtower Society and see it as a destructive religion and not worth the youth investing their life, education and freeminds in it.
• 

  Nathan is immoral

  Since I was a "sinful" teenage witness myself, I think I understand her motivations a bit better. The thing is, even when you're sinning and breaking the rules, you still believe wholeheartedly that the JWs are the truth. And so, when she gets married, she does so because its an easy fix to her life at home, and it doesn't matter that she doesn't love the person, because God is going to fix everything anyway.

  Being a JW really fueled a sort of wreckless abandon with me, and a lot of people I know. Whether you thought you'd make it through armegeddon or not, you still believed it was coming, and so doing anything with the long term in mind was really stupid. I've known former JWs who somehow escaped this feeling, but Kyria fell victim to it, as well as me.

  Of course she should have known better. Everyone "should" know better. But how was she supposed to know better? At what point was she really, clearly instructed on the right path to take? Any good advice somebody gives her is immediately overwritten by the overall theme of being a JW, which is that the world is coming to an end, so fuck it.

  It isn't a story about lessons learned, its just a story. Thats why its sad, because this situation doesn't miraculously fix itself. A lot of us came out of the "truth", some more damaged than others. Its nice for someone like me to read someones story of becoming damaged. Its cathartic.
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  joannadandy

  I liked a lot, and agree whole-heartedly with Nathan on the take that she's not supposed to be "likeable".

  Christ, not many early-20-something are, horrible emotional messes making all the wrong choices, (or was that just me?!).

  I liked the book because for once it wasn't a tale of how the JW's made me a victim and it couldn't be helped. I think it's a fine balance. Was she unprepared being raised a JW, yeah...but, she still made crap choices. Frankly, I can relate, especially at that age in my life. "What random sex with people I barely know is a bad idea? Are you sure? I mean the JW's say that's wrong, but they also told me I'd live forever on earth with puppies and lions, and they were wrong about that -- maybe I'll just give it a whirl anyway."

  I think it illustrates that while yes we are ill-prepared for life "outside", it's still our lives to do with what we will. We may destroy them, we may redeem ourselves, but for the first time they are truly our lives. I think instead of it being a preachy tale of "Wow - those JW's sure did f' me over" - it was more about - "sheesh I was f'ed."

  It was sad, I did relate a lot to her dark places, but I moved past them. I only wish we could have seen the author come past it. It seemed to end rather ubruptly - but with hope. I just wish we could have seen more hope. Because there is hope, and no matter how f'ed up I was, I was able to pull it together finally, and on my own terms.
• 

  skeeter1

  I just read it, so I'll chime in.

  What struck me most, was how similar our lives and stories were. I wasn't the only one with parents who fought, getting to get to the KH were the pre-fights, worried about slinking in late to meetings and how it looked, the high number of peopel with serious emotional people in the JWs..... everyone has the same "JW story"!

  I don't know why this sameness has me baffled. It shouldn't. The WTS has created each KH to be a McDonalds style; same sermons, same music, same policies, same recruitment technique, same discipline. Put people in, people have the same experience (but thinking their life disattisfaction is "their" problem) during it.

  I especially found interesting that she had trouble catagorizing serious sins, and just lumped sins together in one big "don't go there" bucket in her mind. I remember struggling the same questions, and finding my own answer.

  I will call the author the Alanis Morissette of the writing world. Very funny, very biting, and very true satire of the JW life experience.

  I too was in the gifted program. Luckily at the time I was in school, my father was disfellowshipped and both my parents went back to college (after 1975). They encouraged me to go to college, as long as I lived at home. This was good, even though I gave up an almost full scholarship to an almost Ivy League school in Boston to attend their engineering program based on super high science scores. I wonder how my life would have been different. But, I am glad my glass is half full and I went to college and had parents who pushed me despite the dire warnings that the Generation of 1914 would not pass away.
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  skeeter1

  Sorry for the typos and bad writing. I didnt' check, can't make corrections, and haven't slept much in 48 hours. I'm going to get some sleep. Goodnight y'all. Skeeter
• 

  Gayle

  I especially found interesting that she had trouble catagorizing serious sins, and just lumped sins together in one big "don't go there" bucket in her mind.

  This is created by the Watchtower. It stresses every little thing as big deal, wraps it all up with a scripture like "faithful in little, faithful in much." The Society makes kids feel so guility about every little thing, they often finally give up.
• 

  B_Deserter

  I enjoyed the book and don't pity her. It doesn't bother me that her story confirms the watchtower stereotypes or not. Those stereotypes are going to exist regardless. Honestly I agree that she has only herself to blame for many of the poor decisions she made.

  So often we expect a book by an ex-JW to be some expose on the organization focusing on historical and doctrinal minutiae. I did find the first half of the book funny. The humor to me was a mixture of Douglas Adams and Wil Wheton. Halfway through though it gets dark and stops being funny. I have to confess it was not an enjoyable read through the second half, and I had a lot of the same feelings Tim had, namely, she was really a bad person. I mean the part where she gets married to a guy that normally wouldn't have a chance just shows a lot of cruelty on her part. Her story actually made me feel a bit sorry for her dad and ex-husband. I know I'd be devastated if I came home one day and all of the sudden my fiance told me she didn't love me anymore, after giving me ZERO indication that there was a problem. And so her character is flawed. So what? I mean would you rather she just shut up and not talk about it? I mean you can fault her to a point, but just because she didn't have the inspiring exit story where she goes off to college, marries a wonderful worldly guy and now lives in a house in the suburbs with a 2-car garage/runs a multinational corporation/competes in the Iron Man Triathlon/etc. doesn't mean that her story isn't somehow legitimate.

  I just don't understand why some of us think that every story by an ex-JW needs to have an anti-Watchtower angle to it.

  As far as the whole "manatee joke" allegation I don't really see it. It's a memoir so it's going to jump around a bit, but it wasn't like she wastalking about the horrible singing at the Kingdom Hall and then immediately breaks into a "it's like that time I slept with Bill clinton" sidetrack. Maybe I'll have to read the book again.