I'm fully convinced that the organization has bred depression and mental illness for many years. I grew up in it through the 70s, 80s, 90s, was never baptized and quit going, jump started with 9/11, and have since given it up. After 9/11 I had to be on all kinds of anti-depressants and finally towards the end I would take a lorazepam just to handle the Sunday meeting. I finally told myself this was no way to live and after I quit attending, I was able to get off my pills completely. I was brought close to suicide several times due to this organization. When you keep asking people, "What more can you do?" then what do you think is going to be the result? Imagine someone who pioneers and puts in tons of hours and does it for weeks and months on end, only to be told, "Can you do more?" Your brain will instantly put 2 and 2 together than what you're doing isn't good enough. I told a co-worker one time, "Nothing you do is ever good enough." He took issue with that statement and told me how he disagreed, etc. I looked at him and said, "You just proved my point."
It just makes me sick to my stomach to sit through a meeting and my anxiety is just through the roof. Something inside me makes me want to jump and run out the door hollering and screaming. I told my wife I just can't do it anymore. Her mother keeps hounding on us both to get back to meetings and my wife said, "Do you want my husband to kill himself?"
I told the local PO one time when he pigeoned holed me at a friends wedding, "If you can pay for my pills, I'll be able to come back."
There are just too many dots that don't connect and my mind is really screwed up from paying attention and eating everything they said while I was a little kid. I told that same PO, "Don't let this religion raise your grandkids." He even told me he won't let their grandkids see certain publications due to the imagery.
It messed me up and darn near killed me. I suffer and struggle every day with the thoughts that religion put into my head, but I really tried hard to be good and holy. I've finally come to terms that nothing I ever do is ever good enough and never will be so I just find things to do that brings me happiness on a daily basis. Little projects around the house, trips with my wife, a few little hobbies I enjoy, visiting with the public at my job, and giving my wife lotsa hugs and kisses and showing her how much I appreciate her. In that there is much healing and maybe one day, I'll be "just good enough."
-silent
