Need help. Daughter wants to leave org but does not know how. (page 3)

Vidiot

Best advice I can think of is for her to quietly start building a support group of friends outside the Org.

Do you guys have any (potentially sympathetic) non-JW relatives, too?

Thank you for being a good father. Your daughter is somewhat stuck and she has needs that despite the love of the JWs, are not being met. She could consider some meet-up groups. Any interests/hobbies she could gradually investigate....not advertising in the congregation....and start making friends there. When I left I just did it. I did not have outside friends and that was really hard. She can start filling her own needs slowly but surely. She can and will be happy but she has to work at it.

OnTheWayOut

Indian Larry, I have a good feeling that you are still reading the responses here. I hope so. You have received much caring thoughts. We are very concerned that you mention your daughter being suicidal and we don't want to say anything radical that doesn't help.

I don't think anything ANYONE has said was too over-the-top radical like that.

I also think your daughter has to be herself in that she has to ultimately decide how to get out. I would tell her to work up a plan with her counselor. One of the best books I discovered long after I got out was Bonnie Zieman's EXITING THE JW CULT. She's a former JW turned counselor with a great help to the depressed as they discover the truth about "the truth." RUN TO AMAZON and get that for her. DO IT!!!

Billzfan23

Dubstepped hit the nail on the head:

I get why you would be concerned about her going onto sites where she might find things out for herself with her suicidal feelings. She didn't catch those feelings from going online though, she caught them from the life she's already living.

floridaborn

Larry you were fortunate that when you decided to fade you had a family in place. Am I wrong in stating, though, that your wife will not travel with worldly friends that you have? That’s not living a full life if you are still picking friends because they go to a specific building on Sunday.

Your daughter is at a point where she needs to be able to build her life and that is not easy to do while faded. It took me 16 years to finally rip off the band aid, leave my friends and family behind and finally start living my life at 36. Up until then I was never truly happy because I was living for other people. Couldn’t date, had no real friends, was miserable every time I stepped into a KH.

Your daughter sounds young, encourage her to dream and plan out her perfect life, from the car she will drive, to where she will live, what she will do with her children on Saturday mornings. If that doesn’t include the org help her to rip off the band aid and tell her it’s ok to say a big F you to all those that will shun her. But she is in a much different place in life than you were when you faded and your tactics probably won’t work for her.

Iamallcool

(Bookmarking)

Pete Zahut

I think I'd try to help your daughter to see that although it may feel like it at times, her JW situation isn't an emergency and that there's no need for her take it all so seriously. JW's tend to think that the world is watching their every move and that everything they do is of global significance. Each JW is made to feel that they are personally representing the organization and even God himself. Even poor little Sophia in the JW cartoon video was made to feel that she had the ability to make the creator of the universe sad if she bought herself a little ice cream cone instead of giving the money to the Kingdom Hall.

Your daughter and most of us here, have been carrying this mental load our entire life and it's all so completely unnecessary. Nothing they've ever said has happened and there's no hard data to prove any of the things they believe in.

She is undoubtedly very anxious so I think I'd let her know that as far as you're concerned she's off the hook. She's free to choose to quit going altogether, attend once in awhile or to keep attending regularly so that she can see her friends and she can pay as much or as little attention to what's being discussed at the meetings as she chooses.

I'd line up a few names and phone numbers of Counselors for her to talk to and let her know that she free to decide whether or not to go see one of them if she thinks she needs to. In the meantime, I think you can help her understand that there's nothing wrong with her and that what she is experiencing is completely normal under the circumstances. Help her understand that she has complete control over her thoughts, feelings and emotions and can decide how seriously she wants to take all of this.

Nathan Natas

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Need help. Daughter wants to leave org but does not know how.