"I should have known" moments

by dubstepped 14 Replies latest jw experiences

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  dubstepped

  I got ready for the meeting. My wife did too. We drove out to the Kingdom Hall and the closer we got the higher my anxiety would spike. As we pulled into the parking lot I just felt sick, and I looked at my wife and said "I can't do this", and once again, we turned right around and went home. The feeling of relief was instant the second we left that parking lot and headed home.

  This was repeated over and over. Sometimes I made it in and to the meeting. Other times I left before even going in. Eventually I just didn't even want to leave the house and head that way. I had this massive social anxiety that was kicking my ass, and my wife was understanding. Funny how almost all of that went away once I left and disassociated from those people forever. I should have known. I had all of the signs that my body was giving me that the religion and people just wasn't for me, but I ignored it for years.

  What about you? Did your mind/body send you messages that looking back you can see was its way of telling you that you were doing something unhealthy? Looking back the signs were there for me. No matter how hard I pushed to fit into their mold, it just literally made me sick.
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  sparky1

  I am 61 years old. Raised in the religion, along with my brother and sisters, by my mentally unstable, fanatical single mother. At 7 years old I began to have anxiety symptoms over meeting attendance and field service participation.

  I fully understand your pain.
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  FadeToBlack

  I had some of the same symptoms. It ended up working for me though after the 2 cong's merged to one. There were just too many people in such a small area, my wife knew I couldn't handle it. She called ahead and tried to save some seats for us in the back row but my lack of regular attendance led to some starting to avoid me when I did come. In Poland it is customary to go around the entire hall and greet everyone when you arrive. That makes it easy to see who is avoiding you.

  Actually, I should have known when I first came into contact with them, but my lack of critical thinking skills and the love-bombing from my new instant friends ruled the day. What a cluster-f*ck!
  
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  Pete Zahut

  I am not a person who drinks much or feels at all well when I do but towards the end of my JW career the years of anxiety became so unbearable that I couldn't make it though a meeting without ducking out to my car to have a nip of beer or wine in order to quell the flip flops in my stomach. (I'd pour a small amount into a container and place it in the trunk before going to the Hall) This is a highly irregular thing to do, I know and if you knew me, you'd realize how drastic things had gotten for me to resort to such a thing.

  I tried every anxiety medication and treatment out there and it just didn't work. I fought what my subconscious had been telling me until finally there was a perfect storm of JW caused life ending (blood issue) and life threatening family events that occurred back to back that really opened my eyes to the dark side of the religion. Things finally came to a head JW wise and I was able to see clearly what my problem was. Memorial 2008 was my last meeting and within that week, the debilitating anxiety magically disappeared and hasn't returned.....vanished...pooof.....gone. It was such an unbelievable life changing relief. This was a huge indicator to me that leaving was the right thing for me to do despite all of the resulting fallout we'd experience. To this day, I feel almost giddy on what used to be "meeting nights" at the thought of not having to sit through those mind numbing anxiety promoting sessions anymore.

  A sister from another Hall came to our door a year or so ago. She didn't realize we weren't Witnesses anymore. To the point of being almost annoying, she kept saying over and over how good I looked and how peaceful I seemed, how slim , fit, young and healthy I looked. She finally said didn't you have a terrible time with anxiety.....how did you get over it? I told her she wasn't going to like the answer and gently broke it too her in so many words, that the key to my current healthy state is a direct result of having left off being a JW. We had a long discussion after that and I could tell she was really thinking seriously about what I told her.
  
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  Dissonant15

  Sparky sorry for the accidental "dislike," I was trying to give you a "like."
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  sparky1

  Apology accepted, Dissonant15. Thanks for your understanding.
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  Skedaddle

  Yes dubstepped, yes! Same here! Being a born-in, I kept telling myself I was a bad person and a failiure and I tried to conform - I didn't know any different. It made me ill.

  I told my mother a few years ago that the kingdom halls were full of lonely, depressed, pill-popping, sad people and not the happy place that it's advertised to be - not exactly God's happy people are they with their fake prozac loveliness. Her head snapped right around and her eyes went wide. ''Do you really think so?'' she said. I shrugged and left her with the cogs turning. She has loads of female friends popping happy pills but she didn't know that I knew that.
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  life is to short

  It was the same for me. My husband was an elder and we went to were the need was great for elders, than to Behtel, than back to our home congregation and each congregation I had some sort of anxiety causing problem plus severe depression. We pioneered in the first hall and it was hell. I was so depressed and tired all the time, so tired that it just came in waves and I would fall asleep if I was not moving.

  At Bethel I would get major headaches at the meetings so bad that I felt like my head was going to explode, sick to my stomach, etc. When we came back to the hall here my heart would race at the meeting so bad that I thought I was going to pass out. The next hall anxiety attacks so bad where I could not breath. I would feel like I was chocking to death. I could not get any air in my lungs, if felt like I was dying. All the other problems only happened at the hall but this breathing problem started to happen all the time sometimes when I was driving I would have to pull over as I felt like I was going to pass out.

  I still get that kind of anxiety when ever I run into a JW now but for the most part it has ended, I have never gotten a headache like I did in the hall while we were at Bethel since I left that hall, my heart never races,

  On Friday, we were at Costco and we were talking to this sale's person about buying a product. This lady comes up who looks sort of familiar but I could not place her and we were right in the middle of giving the sales person our address and such and really, really not a good time while this lady just barges in and starts saying HI, I am like looking at her like we are kind of busy here and I really do not know who you are and could you wait a minute but no she processed to demand to know what congregation we go to now. It was than that I realized that she was a JW. I just thought how rude and tired to ignore her but I mumbled where I had attended and that satisfied her and she moved on.

  After something like that I will sometimes wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air feeling like I am chocking to death again.

  I just wish I could have realized what my body was telling me so many years ago. It has been so horrible and I am so glad to be away. I feel so much better.

  LITS
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  brandnew

  I used to pray on saturdays....pray real hard. Tears and all...praying 😢😢😢.... For rain.☺
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  Alive!

  Husband and I just had a long, long talk.

  We would never, ever want to bring people into that JW culture of fake.

  We tried so hard, but ultimately, we don't want to ever again labour under 'men'.

  We never want to feel that darkness again, the physical and psychological strain and hurt.

  We had a conversation - the reality is we can project and imagine and ultimately 'feel' a love and mercy beyond our daily evidence - even though we are no great shakes - our 'Christ' is about hope, reconciliation and love - for everyone.

  The Watchtower hurt us - it put a wall between us and our fellow humans - done with that. And done with the WT horrible doctrine.