by Crisis of Conscience 83 Replies latest jw friends
This is my biggest dilema. Although mentally I really feel I could walk away from the org right now, I still have genuine love for the people I have come to know over the years. I love people!
And yes I do realize that if they find out I have become "weak", most will, if not all, abandon our conditional friendship. So I have been keeping up a great act. But this feels like the only thing holding me in the org.
What are your feelings?
Comments and experiences welcome please.
It hurts, especially when the realization that they weren't truly good friends hits you.
Is it that we give them up or they give us up for a variety of reasons?
I am not df'd or da'd, "just inactive" but that is enough to be tainted with the label "bad association."
When I was active and moved/switched to a nearby congregation (10 miles), I would be totally dropped. Just because you weren't going to the same KH, the same schedule of meetings. I found it hard to even make arrangements to go out once a month with them in "field service" and lunch afterwards....just so busy, busy, busy, to keep old friends. So even if you are still attending but in another congregation, people drop you or severely curtail their "association." It doesn't drop off totally right away, but after 2 years, hardly anyone will keep contact unless it is briefly at a convention.
I adjusted to that and was not surprised to see the same response when I just stopped going to any KH.
I'm in the same situation as Blondie. Inactive. I have had no contact with any friends since I stopped going to meetings. The service overseer, who would routinely hound those who were late with their service reports never even bothered to ask me about a report last month. I have been contacted by one person from the KH and that is someone I've barely had a relationship with at all, so I guess I'm seen as "bad association" by most and some sort of reclaimation project by one other. There is also the "out of sight, out of mind" factor. Dubs are too busy with meetings, study, and service and the people who ARE there to be able to make time or room for thought of others who aren't.
Is that friendship?
Not in my book. I didn't drop my friends. Turns out they weren't really friends at all.
i did not drop anybody,,,,they dropped me....OUCH....takes a mean heart to beable to do that...
I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, its so good to not be around the cult mentality by being w them. But on the other hand, I miss some very close friends that i had over the years very much, and wish they would wake up.
I remember confiding in a really close friend as i was on my way out that it isnt personal, but I find myself on a different path now and dont relate to the congregation anymore. She was really hurt, and wrote me a letter full of guilt-tripping and threats, including 'you may not realize it, but satan is manipulating you.' When a person leaves the cult, it is a painful side-effect that we lose friends. I go in peace.
Its been wonderful that i've been making some really good friends with some amazing people, now that ive allowed myself to. As a jw, I closed myself off from so many wonderful people and experiences! sometimes i feel like a kid in a candy store! And people are very accepting of a freak like myself! its been a new lease on life to give up the congregation~~losing some friends, yes, but gaining so much!!
It's THE hardest part of leaving. Simply -mentioning- that we may not believe anymore caused virtually all friends to drop us an run immediately. I mean just a sentence! Not one even tried to comfort us, work with us, find out what's wrong. Just scared to death of 'Satan', 'doubt', etc, and they left us.
There is no easy answer here. We had some very good friends who were very good people, some the whom I still think we may never meet again. It's tough, but end of the day it does get easier and you do slowly find good friends outside the cult...
Be ready to be dropped. WT articles say to not only to avoid non-JW's ('worldly people', I hate that term) but even avoid weak ones in teh congregation. Best thing to do is start a social network out the cult now, to have something to fall back on when the time comes. And on that note, most of our friends know we are former JW's, and know the story of all our friends dropping us, and they are all very respectful and supportive. This helps a lot.
i guess it depends on how long you want to keep up the installments to keep them, whatever feelings you may have or however much you like them they are only on loan.
i lost all my conditional friends/family when i left it seemed like a great void at the time, there were too many to count. it took a little while for the penny to drop that they weren't friends but aquaintances who i probably wouldnt have a thing in common with if it wasnt for enforced meetings and doorknocking.
these days i have less but more, there is absolutely no comparison when it comes to quality over quantity.
WWSBD
What Would Strong BAD Do ?
All those "friends" will cease to exist the moment they find out you are educated. You could hope that some of them also are aware that something is amiss with the WBATS and maybe some of them will also leave the Borg.
I think Strong Bad would punch the friends so they would follow him as he exits.
I was actually DUMBFOUNDED and astonished that my "brothers" and "sisters" could turn me off like a lightswitch!
It drove a stake in my heart.
Until years later. It dawned on me that there is a difference between being loved by a person who values you because they share your values and
goals and being loved by a person who has been commanded to love you.
So, I didn't lose any friends or loved ones. I had only thought they were friends and loved ones.
Somehow, I had preserved and developed enough individuality to make a choice to befriend and love; they rest of them had not. They were doing
what they were told to do. They loved when commanded. They were indifferent when commanded.
That a difference that makes all the difference.
