How do you switch off the thoughts of being raised JW and feelings of anger

Zeds Dead

Raised as a Jo Blow and married into it. 37 years in it and now last 7 years out of it which feels great.

Have memories of being a kid in school in the UK and just hating everything about being the JW kid. Bullied, embarrassed in front of others and self-esteem went into the toilet.Wished i was born into a different family.

What angers me is the messaging i would receive at home when i talked about being bullied. "Im special, in a special club and all the other kids are going to die soon. Great parenting that was.

These memories and feelings sometimes play in circles in my head and looking for comments on how others handle this?

Dubfounded_12

It comes and goes in waves for me. Especially being shunned by family.

But, I just think about the freedom to do what I want when I want with no one to judge.

skin

I wasn't raised a jw. I'm so glad I wasn't. Thinking back at my enjoyable childhood, the great memories I had with school friends during and after school. I would not have had those happy memories if I had been raised a JW.

stan livedeath

hello Zed: are you able to say where abouts in the UK you were when you were a dub ?

i was born in birmingham--and attended hockley and west bromwich congregations ( i even hate that word ).. that was in the 60's. Then i moved to the Isle of Wight and it took a few years till i broke all contact with the cult in 1981.

my greatest fear as a kid was the deemunz !

truth_b_known

Great question. I too have experienced similar thoughts and feelings. I will just share my viewpoint.

I was also angry and resentful towards my parents for raising me as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. What I found was that anger and resentment (a form of anger) are natural feelings, but harmful. Underneath anger lies the root of any issue - fear and anxiety.

Anger tends to come in the guise of a protective friend with airtight logic. That logic however has a very narrow view and prevents us from seeing the whole picture. We have laser like focus on the reasons for our anger and tend to have a blind eye to anything good that may be there. Anger is also a defense mechanism from both physical and emotional harm.

It has been said that he who can forgive anything can understand everything. If you can empathize with your enemy you understand him. Put yourself in your parents shoes. They truly believed in the story the Watchtower has spun and truly believed that what was best for you was to raise you in their belief system. They truly believe you would die at Armageddon and be lost for all eternity. Like most parents - they did the best that they could with what they had.

The hardest part is not the youth we think we lost out on. The hardest part is the shunning we experience and being separated by their fanatical devotion of a publishing company that is about to go belly up. True happiness comes from freedom. We cannot have freedom is we are unwilling to hold on to anger or anxiety.

1234

I was in 15 years longer than you and have been out for 19 years. I'm afraid you will never completely get rid of all of it.

However if you bless it and make peace with it at least you can enjoy the rest of your life. Don't let them steel your future as well as your past from you.

LongHairGal

1234 (K. Casarona):

That is wise advice, even for people like me who were not raised in the religion.

I was raised Catholic and grateful for family and good memories.. But, I still have angry moments when reminded of the bad future that COULD have been if I didn’t remember my father’s wise worldly advice - and instead caved in to JW peer pressure against careers!

Everybody, make peace with your JW experience and then move on with your life as best you can..Try to be happy..No sense letting them steal the rest of our lives as well.

DesirousOfChange

I spent 50+ years in the JW Borg being "programmed". Wash, rinse, repeat. Wash, rinse, repeat. It really works. Sadly (I suppose), I clearly do not have another 50 years for DE-programming. So we continue to plod along and try to ignore the JW nightmares that resurface from time to time. There is still ONE couple from our former Cong that keeps in limited contact. Truly good friends. (Just like we thought the others all were too!) They are concerned about us. Of course, they are not going to socialize with us if for no other reason, it would look bad for them to do so.

We've made a great effort to make new friends/associates. That's tough. Most of a person's friends are from the years at school or work. We're past that. If and when we ever do bump into a former JW acquaintance (we found out they were not friends), we put on the Happy Face and assure them that Life is Good! And in reality, LIFE IS GOOD! We have the time to travel (before COVID) without feeling guilty about missing our meetings. While we do wish we had invested more heavily (but we thought the world was soon to end), we try to balance "keeping our eye simple" and enjoying life to the fullest.

So, I'd say fill your life with other things. Work hard. Live modestly. Invest compulsively. Above all, make new friends. Real friends.

Mr.Finkelstein

The anger and anxiety from leaving the JW cult does wane itself over time.

Upon leaving you can still look at things objectively, ie. Christmas, Halloween, personal abuse such as smoking, drinking , drugs just to name a few things.

Yes you can live a wholesome happy life without religious cult associations.

Some people refer it to living a real life

snare&racket

We are the lucky ones pal. Most people that were fellow JW kids back then are now saying the same harmful bs to their own JW kids.

You untangled it, you saw it for the lies it was and have escaped,

Enjoy being free, don't look back with anger ;) . Our horrid past is someone's horrid reality today.

How do you switch off the thoughts of being raised JW and feelings of anger

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