Missing meetings due to the weather, and then attending meetings is making me Bipolar I think.

by miseryloveselders 24 Replies latest jw friends

  • miseryloveselders
    miseryloveselders

    Without divulging too much information about myself, I'm on the East Coast, up north. We've been hammered by snow storms, and from what I hear we've got another one on the way tommorrow night. This month, I've missed 4 meetings total. 3 Tuesday night meetings, and one Sunday. I got 4 hours of field circus this month, two of which I'm lying about. You know I've never felt better in my life. Granted I'm sick of shoveling. Between shoveling for my personal parking spot, and helping older neighbors on my block, to slipping and falling, trudging through the snow and slush, making up hours at work, a fender bender that a hillbilly autobody shop overcharged me to repair, shopping for my parents, .....I'm about sick of this weather. And its early yet. Still got March and April and we get snow here during those months too.

    However, call me crazy, but the night before a meeting when I'm watching the news and the weather girl comes on and says we've got a low pressure system developing from the south, I get all tingly inside. Then she says the potential for 3-6 inches.......my ears perk up.........then she says starting between 5pm-6pm.............call me Caligula. Granted that means its going to be a nightmare getting home from work, but thats ok!!!! Because its guaranteed the PO (I still call him that) is going to call me and say, "I talked with the other brothers and we're thinking about cancelling." He calls it , "thinking about cancelling". Translation: he's spineless and worried I'm pious enough to question his spirituality for even considering such a thing. Little does he know, I've been expecting his call, and looking forward to it. I reassure him, "yeah we need to cancel. The roads are getting bad out there." It gives me so much joy to call those in my group and tell them the real "good news." Thank you white manna from the sky! Thank you arctic cocaine from the heavenly Bolivia! I can relax for a change. I actually sleep better on non-meeting nights. When a meeting is cancelled its like I've over-dosed on Ambien. Serenity. Peace.

    Eventually though, the weather gets better. The sun comes out, and the roads are clear. Full of pot holes, but driveable. I've been to two meetings this month, and now I'm completely miserable again. The concluding chapter and final study in the book Keep Yourself In God's Love, talks about how Jehovah has given us "hope" , and not to let "Satan's old system" make us "negative." Whats ironic to me is this system doesnt make me negative. I deal with it. Accept it for what it is, and deal with it. What makes me negative, is these meetings, which are often about meetings. We apply Hebrews 10:24-25 at meetings. You understand what I'm saying? We have meetings about meetings, for the sake of being in harmony with a minute section of the Apostle Paul's letter that dealt with group support. Not only that, but I go in service as a Christian to preach to other Christians. Or its some adult who can't handle life's simple problems that calls me in the middle of the night because she feels guilty for watching and enjoying House. Its all so repetitive and time consuming. Its not encouraging. It's depressing. Its all a waste ot time. The past week and a half I feel like my life is coming to a close. My chest feel like I swallowed a tennis ball as I'm typing this.

    Why is it that the religion or faith that is supposed to give you comfort or hope, is the very thing that makes you contemplate stepping in front of a bus with hardly any traffic around, or leaving your car running in the garage while you sit and wait for the exhaust to put you out of your misery? I miss meetings and I feel great. I attend meetings, and I leave disgruntled, angry, cheated, dissillusioned, even somewhat suicidal. Not that I would ever do that. At least not now. But you ever feel like this? Did it ever get to this point in your life while still in? Feel like I'm breaking.

  • White Dove
    White Dove

    Misery,

    I felt EXACTLY like that, and that is why I quit. Life is better without that time wasting, energy sapping crap. Quit. You'll love your life for it.

  • life is to short
    life is to short

    I always felt like that. I thought it was me. There had to be something wrong with me which just made my depression and self hate worse.

    What I really hated was being a elders wife and having to wait for the very long elders meetings and all the clicks. I was never in a click. All the cool elders wives were together and I was always sitting by myself. I felt so stupid and my husband would tell me to try harder. How do you make people like you? I was never one to gossip and so I was left out. I tired and tired to break in but I could never do it.

    I hated sitting in the car for hours sometimes as the other wives would drive each other home but not me. I was to much scum to ride in their car plus the gas it would take to take me home. I would sometimes offer to even pay them to drive me home but no I was not good enough for them.

    I hated the meetings, I hated being alone with tons of people around me.

  • dig692
    dig692

    Totally know what you mean misery. When I miss meetings I feel wonderful, free, not a care in the world. When I even think about attending meetings I get the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach...like a terrible anxiety that just will not go away. And when I am sitting at the meetings I'm always angry and frustrated...I feel like they are trying to dupe me into believing the crap they are preaching...I feel out of place. It's not a good feeling at all. It doesn't make me feel better like they claim it does.

    So yeah I feel for you...and I hope for more snow so that you can miss more meetings and feel good.

  • JWdaughter
    JWdaughter

    Man, you know the bus and garage are a permanent solution to what can be NOT A PROBLEM AT ALL! Just stop going to the damn meetings!

    I never hated the meetings that much, but there have been other things---I know where you are coming from with that. I don't think you are serious about the ideas that are crossing your mind, but I don't understand why you are going at all. Your head is OUTA THERE, why you making the rest of you miserable along with it?

  • leo999
    leo999

    Oh I do know exactly how you feel !!! I feel sick at the thought of having to attend to please family still in . However , it is also amazing how often there is a real genuine reason why I just cannot attend . Maybe you will find some also .

    Leo999

  • pixiesticks
    pixiesticks

    You're not alone in feeling this way! Not long ago we had a post about Witnesses who hid in the toilets at Kingdom Halls and Assemblies, just to get away from it all. I used to actually sleep all day in the toilet stalls at the assemblies with my coat folded up against the wall as a pillow! I just couldn't take being out there, having to listen to those talks and having to feel so awful. It just saps all your energy does't it? Physical and emotionally. It makes you anxious and claustrophobic.
    I hope that you'll find it in yourself to stop going to the meetings if they're making you feel like this! It's not good for your health!

  • blondie
    blondie

    Being bipolar or schizophrenic is not caused outward events but are medical illnesses. I think you are searching for another term...cognitive dissonance?

    http://www.bipolar.com/

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut

    "Meetings are fortifying, they are a joy, we love them." While that could almost be a battle cry, the reality is that "Snow days that cancel meetings are fortifying, they are a joy, we love them." It's practically an organization-wide truth.

    Really, do yourself a favor and figure out how to resign as an elder, then you can work on missing meetings regularly because of GOOD weather or relaxation days or whatever. It can be done. Do babysteps if necessary, but make a plan of action.

  • babygirl30
    babygirl30

    Thank you white manna from the sky! Thank you arctic cocaine from the heavenly Bolivia

    Oh.....my...GOD - THAT was hilarious!!!! LOL. But I feel ya on that whole 'cancellation' issue. I live in the Northeast myself (near Philly) and we have been hit HARD. IT seems like a weekly occurrence that snow is here...and it's getting old now. I want sunshine, I want warmth, and I want to be outside instead of inside. But mother nature isn't playing fair with us.

    I remember the days of driving home in a snow storm just WAITING for that phone call that the mtg was cancelled...and on those RARE times that it wasn't, I just didn't GO. But the nights it was, oooooh how sweet to lay up in the house, watch tv (shows I usually missed cause of mtgs), and feel NORMAL doing things everyone else did on mtg nights when I was stuck up in the Kingdom Hall.

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