How did you survive?

by highdose 7 Replies latest jw friends

  • highdose
    highdose

    I've been asking myself recently, how did i survive growing up in a cult that activly works to destory your condifence, soul and personality.

    I think it was only because deep down somewhere i knew it was wrong. How about you?

  • mrsjones5
    mrsjones5

    Yeah, I think I know deep down that it was all fake and totally wrong. That feeling started when I was five but what can one do at five? Nothing really. One of the saving graces of my growing up years was my parents were for the most part "spiritually weak". We got to do a lot of stuff that most jw kids didn't or couldn't do. My parents didn't push us to get baptised in our teens years and we were allowed to have friends outside of the bOrg. My parents aren't too happy that none of us are jws but it's too late now for them to try and push the issue, it's totally a non-issue now.

    Thanks Mom and Dad!

  • FreudianSlip
    FreudianSlip

    I don't feel like my soul, confidence or personality were being destroyed.. (?)

  • mrsjones5
    mrsjones5

    I don't think mine was destroyed either. I learned at an early age to hide and insulated myself against the bOrg and my parents as far as my true self was concerned. I was told time and again by my mother that I had no personality but my friends would often tell me that it was very apparent that my parents didn't know the real me. That was just the way I like it and still like it to this day.

  • dgp
    dgp

    Marked.

  • yknot
    yknot

    Honestly there were three factors....

    1) First Eldership trained us to be leaders...... as someone who was to pursue the Legal Department I wasn't required to do nearly as much preaching because once fully utilized by the Org my legal service would be the same as direct FS. We were also expected to survive Armageddon (no later than a month after my 26th birthday) and to aid the 'anointed' in the re-establishment and guidance of resurrected. I was taught teaching skills, influence, patience, strategy, to differentiate between doctrine, policy and interpretation and to actively be aware of threats to the Org... again my only real purpose in life was to defend/protect/ survive and instruct.

    2) Moved to a 'blindfaith' congregation and got my first taste of WTS sexism. I was put squarely outside of the flock in less than a year after moving, Nazi PO more or less said to spiritually die already as I was 'proof' of evilness and endtimes. This meant I didn't receive the peer pressure to dumb-down during the 80s. I just simply watched this new direction take hold....

    3) Accidently clicked onto JWD back in 2007.

  • allelsefails
    allelsefails

    I had a "worldly" father who always gave me the blance needed. Even tho I went along with my mother (JW) I never forgot the basics my father taught me. He believed in questioning everything, trusting your own "perseptive powers". That no "man" is your teacher. Now I live with that reality instead of hiding behind the FDS.

    allelsefails

  • Judge Dread
    Judge Dread

    I will trade you my young life from the age of 6 to 18 in a non-witness household for yours in a witness household.

    Judge Dread

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