by minimus 48 Replies latest jw friends
Being taught not to lie, cheat, etc. is something that JWs believe and teach their kids
Bollocks.
We had to be dishonest with ourselves and each other in order to 'believe' everything. Anyone who thinks this isn't true is just very good at this deception. I was an expert for 50 years.
Sure, we were taught to be honest in many things, but athiests were teaching their kids honesty in the same things. We did not gain any advantage because of our particular style, or definition, of honesty.
It was very unheatlhy.
Very interesting perspectives...Thank you!
Overall it was more negative to my social development. I have to admit to several things though. I believe I'm naturally more inclined to be a recluse anyways, but the environment I grew up in just exacerbated my isolation. I grew up in a religiously divided house for the longest time (till my Catholic mom finally relented to my hard core Dub father).
So I was going to Catholic school but still being made to live as a JW. Because of that I was never accepted by the true-believer dubs (only tolerated), I wasn't cool enough for the teen dubs living double lives (they avoided me like the plague) and just forget about the guys and the gals at school. Being an outsider in all worlds stunted my making real friendships, going through all the ups and downs of trying to strike up relationships (intimate or otherwise).
I did have a fairly close non jw school friend in grade school so that tells me I'm not unibomber material and there was some hope for me. Some people only have a closer smaller circle of friends. But the stupid pushing from my Dad to "preach" messed things up so that by middle school with larger classes and other kids, he moved on but I just got further isolated.
As for intimacy with the opposite sex, all attempts at relationships floundered because of not having the freedom to interact with them on our own mutually agreed upon terms. It had to be chaperoned and "acceptable" activities. It was completely artificial and I learned nothing. Mind you I'll also be objective and say that my parents were a horrible match and should never have stayed married so that dysfunction also was a huge deficiency for me because I had no model for how to positively relate to the opposite sex . But then thats why I really could have benefited from the more typical dating scene.
Maybe I really should consider therapy. But this board is free.
One positive thing about the witness upbringing: Its taught me the importance of NOT going down the same mistaken path most of them take: i.e. I should fight my (also natural) tendency to ignore inconvenient truths rather than stick my head in the sand.
Brought up as a dub -- sucked, sucked, SUCKED! Hated every minute of it.
It was a constant irritation and embarrassment as well as a prison. Yeah, I'd call that bad.
I see many HATED their upbringing.
I was never accepted by the true-believer dubs (only tolerated), I wasn't cool enough for the teen dubs living double lives (they avoided me like the plague) and just forget about the guys and the gals at school. Being an outsider in all worlds stunted my making real friendships, going through all the ups and downs of trying to strike up relationships (intimate or otherwise).
Midget-Sasquatch, your experience sounds a lot like mine.
Most of the things that were wrong with my childhood wernt the fault of the org they were just the fault of parents with emotional problems and next to no parenting skills.I had a very warm and loving extended family mostly jw and i think things probably would have been worse if they wernt united by a faith.
bluecanary
Well, at least today, I can look back at some stuff and laugh. Like the different times I tried one on one meetups with some girls from some of my university classes. Oh gawd were those pathetically sad! I'll admit its still hard even just hanging out with workmates.
But on the bright side, I've met alot of accepting "worldly" people. The dubs are only superficially accepting so long as I keep up the facade of agreeing with them.
freedomisntfree
To really get to the root of our own "deficiencies" (applying that more to me than to anyone else), its important to be objective and not just easily blame the big bad evil org. My parents shouldn't have gotten married, much less stay together even after me and my sib grew up (we're both in our early mid 30s). But as weird testament to the members of a dysfunctional family not really helping themselves to change: I still want to keep in close contact, so I'm just fading and trying not to get DFed. So I'm sort of making it harder for me to just let it all go. I accept my own part in it all, along with my own natural tendencies of being shy/a loner. Its just that i'm pretty sure that without the dub factor my issues would have been less blown up.
