Have you noticed the common practice is to knock indivual's self esteem? (page 2)

Frazzled UBM

Wow - thanks for that list Oubliette - my wife hit most of those but especially 1, 5, 9,12,15,16 and 19 and also probably 10 and 11 but she never lets me in enough to know for sure. I always suspected her dyfunction was a product of her Witness upbringing but this confirms it. Cheers Fraz

KateWild

Certain elders were always telling me how inadequate I was and how I was missing the mark. They beliitled me infront of my kids, it was disgusting that I alllowed it for so long, but eventually I got out before it did too much damage to them.

My kids now know it's a destructive cult.

Kate xx

carla

I have not been keeping up with the weekly mind numbing soul bashing literature but I don't need to, just noticing my jw's demeanor lately and I can tell they must be on a kick of browbeating their people, again.

AndDontCallMeShirley

Aside from their obsession with control, I think the core of WT leadership's approach is really projection- they are empty and unfulfilled and fill that vacuum by projecting their emptiness onto the R&F, essentially making it their issue too.

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In truth, the constant bashing reveals how small the leadership really is. They have nothing to build a person up, so resort to tearing others down to make themselves feel better through pseudo moral superiority.

stuckinarut2

So very true ADCMS....

and yet they say that "apostates" are the ones with nothing but negativity and emptiness!

ha!!!! damn cult!

Finkelstein

Therefore this leaves the average witness to be a blubbering mess of insecurity and instability completely Dependant on the organization...Kind of like a 'battered-wife' scenario...

And intellectually stinted by discouraging learning new things with a open mind.

The main objective though is control , a devised control that works solely for the praise and

self appealing worth of the WTS., humanity and the individual is vacuously weak and unimportant.

LongHairGal

stuckinarut2:

Possibly it was my comment in the "Janitor" thread. However, I am glad you made a thread about it because it is a topic that needs to be addressed.

Yes, it is most definitely a practice within the Jehovah's Witness religion to try to knock an individual's sefl-esteem. As you said: "..as soon as someone does something well, accomplishes something, excels at something, the atmosphere [in the congregation] effectively "kicks them in the gut" to bring them down."

I came from a dysfunctional non-JW family and as most can understand I had to go through the usual adolescent issues of easing into adulthood and feeling good about myself. In the few years before I came into the JW religion as a young adult I was just at a point where I was somewhat comfortable with myself and I was looking for answers on a religious level as to end-time prophecy.

When I made the fateful mistake of walking into a kingdom hall, I had no idea that I was stepping into a place where self-esteem (particularly in women) was frowned-on. In all the love-bombing I experienced in the first few years I did not detect that anything was wrong.....just yet.

After the love-bombing phase ended, the atmosphere changed. The rude awakenings set in, along with attacks on my self-esteem. I got the message that I was not supposed to feel good about myself.

Certainly I was no celebrity or "golden girl".... I was simply a well-spoken, working young woman and the idea that they could be 'threatened' by somebody like me really makes you wonder! However, I never once took this to heart and I said to myself that I was not going to have my self-esteem torn down by what I perceived were jealous idiots.

jgnat

Frazzled UBM, my pastor's wife just came back from a missions trip to the Phillippines and the examples of crushing poverty left me bowled over. This woman worked with a boy whose family shared a shack with ten people. This boy slept in shifts with his brothers, and was lucky to get three hours of sleep a night. Now tell me, when does such a young man have a chance to get an education or do anything to raise himself above his condition?

No wonder the temporary workers from the Phillippines take our low-paying service jobs in this part of the world and by all appearances, are happy to have it?

I guess I say that to try and understand why your wife remains so closed-off. It could have been an early defence mechanism from a harsh childhood.

Vidiot

Teaching that humans are the pinnacle of God's creation whilst calling them hopelessly "bad" is one of the more paradoxical aspects of fundamentalist Christianity.

Oubliette

Vidiot: Teaching that humans are the pinnacle of God's creation whilst calling them hopelessly "bad" is one of the more paradoxical aspects of fundamentalist Christianity.

Good point. I never thought about it that way before.

I guess even God's best isn't all that good after all!

Have you noticed the common practice is to knock indivual's self esteem?

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