by EmptyInside 25 Replies latest jw friends
Scarred for life,
I think that if people knew of your JW background, it wouldn't bother them. They would find it a curiosity and ask you what it was like.
The barriers are created by the WTS, not by outsiders.
I wasn't raised in the borg. In school, I had some classmates who were raised JWs. Unfortunately, I never really got to know them because I was "worldly" and they weren't allowed to participate in anything.
I hope you can find some unconditional love and acceptance here on JWN.
I think I don't want people asking me what it was like. I don't want to feel like a freak.
Thanks. I do like coming here. I'm not here every day. But I have been coming here off and on for over 3 years. I find people that understand here.
HATED service in areas where schoolmates lived. Never was comfortable explaining why we didn't celebrate birthdays...that always seemed like pretty thin reasoning even when I was trying to be a good Witness girl. My sister and I had a thing when we went out in service together where we would mimic knocking on the door without making any actual contact with the surface. We'd fake knock, wait a minute, fake knock, wait, shrug and move on. I don't remember discussing it with each other, or who did it first. Of course, one time we were in the country and as we started back to the car in the lane, the elder driving leaned out the driver's window and yelled, "Put some magazines in the door!" We turned around and sweat blood as we opened up the screen door and stuffed a couple in.
Short answer: Yes, a hundred times a day in hundred different ways.
I really hated being paired with this particular MS (ex-elder who demoted himself to care for his chronically ill wife)... whenever the house holder mentioned anything that was the slightest bit contrary to JW beliefs, he would get excited and start raising his voice at the house holder... then the house holder would raise his/her voice and all hell would break loose... whenever this happened, I simply could not get a word in edge-wise (to pacify the situation)... it usually turned ugly very quickly... extremely embarrasing...
I understand I used to feel that way also even as child i used to think is their more to life. I also remeber doing field serivce and encountering classmates that was very embrassing.
Yep, so many things about it made me want to hide the fact that I was a Witness that you would think that the light bulb would have clicked on in my brain.
But no, I swallowed all the Bul* S**t about "If it is the one true religion, it will be different, blah blah" and carried on for bloody years.
I feel such a friggin fool !
Even now, when I consider myself an xJW, soon to be an Xjw , then a XXjw, I do not see myself admitting to many people that I was one, it is just so cringe making to admit that I was a numb-nuts-crap-for-brains.
