what have you learned since leaving ?

by man in black 16 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  wizzstick

  Like others on this thread it was (and still is) to stop looking down on others (worldly) people.

  That appalling smug superiority that JW's possess is sometimes still there in me. That I'm better as I know something they don't. So I pull myself out of that and start to do nice things for other people like offer my seat on public transport and it's very humbling. Things that for some reason I rarely did as a JW.

  JW's really are self made social outcasts due thie attitude they posses and I'm currently fighting.
• 

  joe134cd

  I'm gunna give you my story from a guy who has just recently faded. I had loyally gone to the meetings for over 40 years, and in that time had never missed reporting a month of F/S. I stopped going about 5 months ago, and in that time only 1 JW from the hall even bothered to phone me. I recently put a up on Jehovahs Witness net saying how I was just tired, and with in 24 hours I had about 6 PMs from people giving me there contact details offering assistance if I wanted someone to talk to. All this from a complete stranger. What saddens me the most is that it was from a group of mentally diseased apostates who are speaking wicked lies, and trying to draw of followers after themselves who out shone gods visible organisation here on earth. Shame on you Holy Spirit. Shame!!!
• 

  Xanthippe

  Man in Black what a great question. I am learning to ask for help. When I left home and pioneered I got ill after a while and wrote several letters to my family members asking for help. No replies.

  Later when I was married to an elder and got sick again (still pioneering because I hadn't worked out what was making me ill) I told anyone who asked how I felt because your Christian brothers are there to help right? I said I felt suicidal, I had clinical depression. People started avoiding me at the KH. Oh no need to go on you all know this story it has been repeated so many times with so many people who get exhausted pioneering, then physically sick, then depressed. So I think after I left I gave up asking for help for well decades I suppose.

  Then a couple of years ago I had to go through three biopsies for possible cancer and I was in such a bad way emotionally. I told people at work I just couldn't take any more. I was so afraid of leaving my teenage daughter all alone because her father died three years before. People at work were great. I kept getting texts and phone calls from people at work which really helped. Eventually I was found to be ok but I tell you I learnt now that I am out of that religion, all I have to do when I need help is ask - who knew! I'm still struggling with it because it became an ingrained habit to just manage on my own out of pure survival, but I will get there.

  Thanks for making me put this into words, Man in Black, I needed to think about this, because I'm still not there yet. Thanks.
• 

  KateWild

  May be losing a loved one in death brings different responses than other difficulties in the Org. I have never lost a loved one, the suffering that me and the kids have experienced is tremendous. The support in and out the Org has been a mixed bag but consistent.

  Those with power in and out the org, have done nothing to help us although they have the power to do so. It's about having the confidence to stand up to your peers and say..."No what you have done is wrong, I am going to make it right"

  The support we have had both in and out the org, has been fabulous from those with the full picture, although not being able to have the power to change our circumstances, these ones are enraged at those in power that do nothing to support us and make the needed changes.

  I feel validated and supported by some in and out the Org.

  Kate xx
• 

  wantingtruth

  This is what I learn since my leaving...

  you can read if you click on it

  and also ... regarding "earthly organization"...

  wt
• 

  Witness My Fury

  When you think you have all the answers and "the Truth" you stop looking, anything that challenges that perception is dismissed using whatever method and resoning that works at the time.

  Since leaving I have seen that as JWs we knew nothing at all except a narrow, conditioned and fake worldview imposed on us from the propaganda spewing from the WTS. We didnt know how to think as it was all done for us, only what we were supposed to think and feel.

  Learning to think for myself is the greatest freedom and one I will never give up for anything.

  Once you see it for the mind control cult it is, there is no going back.
• 

  Watkins

  It's funny - odd - isn't it, that we have similar experiences with death... When my mother died(she was never a jw), I did get a few visits from the kh friends - only the few I felt closest to. Only one 'sister'(who later cut me off due to my 'not keeping in step with Jehovah's organisation') and one special older couple(they WERE special and never 'shunned' me) attended her funeral to support me. I think I got 3 cards - from a congregation of 100 of 'the world's most loving people'!

  My Mom's death really hit me below the belt and I fell into depression and fell out of 'regular attendance'. Of course, their remedy for depression is the more-meetings-and-service bandaid. Doesn't work.

  After several months I got a visit from 2 'sisters' who tried to convince me that 'demons cause depression', so there had to be 'demons' in something of my Mom's that I'd recently moved into my home. Whaaaaaaattt??!! Just because my sweet and wonderful Mom wasn't a jw, they demonized her! Even though the crazy wt teaches it, I'd never believed that ONLY jws had a God-connection. I couldn't even bear to look at jws anymore, knowing what they thought... about my Mom and me - and that was the beginning of the end for me. Soon after I learned ttatt online and that was it, over 10 yrs ago. I don't even know if I'm df'd or not and don't care - the wt club has nothing I want to be a part of, ever.

  What I've learned --- if you're satisfied with your beliefs, no one should try to change you - they're YOUR beliefs --- and I shouldn't try to change anyone else's beliefs which they are satisfied with - they're THEIR beliefs. To each his own, live and let live, etc.

  I'm interested in the hows and whys of others' beliefs and might ask questions, but don't try to convince them otherwise or 'convert' them to my thinking - who am I and what do I know, lol! I would have never been able to come to that very freeing conclusion if I'd remained a witness. I'm so glad I'm out, it was too much to handle, being taught how to hate the wt-way at every meeting. ugh.

  BTW - Nice to meet you, Johnny Cash! Nice thread!

  Watkins