by stuckinarut2 23 Replies latest jw experiences
Just had to find my own sense of morality as opposed to that as presented by the WTBTS.
Cult followers and drug addicts have one thing in common in particular: Their maturation and personal growth are suspended while they are partaking.
Ex's and leavers take a while to catch up.
I think all the years of the nagging little voice inside my head..."something is just NOT right here" finally confirmed, after leaving, that there was/is a major problem(s) with the organization. It made me realize why some of our family members are the way they are.
I have moved on realizing that I am a stronger person. I am still very guarded over who I become close with.
Wow. All the comments shared here are so heartening!
There seems to be a real theme of all of us becoming kinder, less judgemental of others, and HAPPY.
Please keep the comments coming.
For any lurkers or newcomers to this forum, please feel free to share. Also, please see that as we all grow apart from the infantilised state of being under the control of the Society, life gets oh so much better!
I think I took some backsteps and some forward.
For a while, I still believed JW doctrine (the broad stroke), just not the JWs. Then I gave up that to believe in Christianity - just the Bible. Then I gave up on the bible entirely and I feel much more free as an agnostic.
For a while, I think I headed in potentially harmful directions just to prove "I'm not that". The JWs had all these rules of conduct that you believed any misstep you did might reflect poorly on JWs. So I was eager to show I wasn't part of their rules of conduct. From partying to sex to wild stuff. I joined the SCA and fought in medieval battles because the JWs would hate that. I went to regional Burning Mans because of all the many, many things JWs wouldn't like. I went to nudist resorts because Adam and Eve thought being nude was sinful and I was proving that wrong. But now I think I've settled down and the things I do are the things I do because I like them, not to prove who I'm not.
Socially, I don't look down on any of the groups JWs used to like gays or people of other religions.
Some things I got rid of while still in. Like fear of Armageddon. Anybody live through 9/11? You remember how in the days that followed, you expected more attacks? Then they didn't happen. And then for a while, every 9/11? But now it's just a remembrance every 9/11? As a child as early as 4, I was petrified. Every time I did something wrong, like have a fight with my younger brother, I thought I wouldn't go to the new world. And was scared to death I couldn't repent and change my ways in time because it was right around the corner. But as the years went by, like 9/11, I feared something happening less and less. Hard to remember now, but I think I progressed to where I didn't even think it would happen - even before I read Franz's book and gave up on them.
Jo-Ho
Thank you so much for your kind words. I cried a little from relief and hope. Thank you!
@Whynot xxx
There's nothing more awkward than wondering how to explain yourself when entering some existing friendship circles...
Where do you come from? What's your circle? Where are your friends? Why don't you have friends? Are you normal?
It's like you've got social training wheels on as you get uprooted from your beloved hometown and thrust into a brand new school. It's daunting when you start the tenth grade as you stare into a sea of strange cliques whose seats seem to be all filled.
I have learned that the answer isn't in printed form.
I have turned into a voracious reader of self improvement books. Most of them involve well researched psychology, which is very healthy, and has helped a lot. However, I realized that I was trying to "do the system" in these books in the same way I looked for all of lifes answers in the WT magazine during my culty hay day. I have learned that if I am to take my place among the real living, I have to accept responsibility for me, and my own thoughts. And that I am allowed (if you will follow my meaning) to "write" my own book. The answers are truly within me. Will I do that? Will I embrace who I am, shame free? (cue dramatic music.... :)
I have only me to offer. I am only me, and it never was anything other. It is sort of like the metaphor of the elephant tied up at the circus while young. all that is needed to keep the adult under control is the same bolt around it's ankle. Doesn't have to be posted or ground. It's just the memory of previous captivity that the elephant must overcome. And so must we...
That's where I am over 10 years later...
Ive become a new person. Thats the only way i can put it.
I see the family who shunned me a decade ago as strangers and i see a few of those awful worldly people i was warned about as my family.
The worlds not such a scary place afterall.
And this site and its residents are amazing.
I joined posted a bit and went quiet. But i shall be participating more now.
"To be able to feel sadness and pain without either being consumed or incapacitated by it is in itself an achievement. It is—I have learned—a measure of our progress and growth. A marker along the pathway to healing." - jp1692
G. feels better then ever. No worries, no obligations, no headache caused by the congregational meetings.
Happy! But not always a better person, some cursing problems, rougher. Short tempered.
So, yes and no.
G.
