Are You a "Mess" Since Leaving The Organization or Are You OK?

by minimus 37 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Celtic

  On the whole I think I've done ok. Am doing ok. A bit of anxiety they say is quite normal, even healthy for us. It's when you hit depression, only then it can get bad. That isolatory feeling, does, now and again still get to me.

  I'm just a very deeply puzzled gentleman, so last night from beginning to end, I read Ecclesiastes from the Living Bible. It's all futility, a chasing after the wind. But one day, like it or not, I will meet God when I kick the bucket. I don't know what it is, but right now, these days, I think I need him more than ever, and, He actually feels like an actual being, a person so to speak, I wish someone would explain him to me.

  Hmmmmmm ....

  Celty
• 

  minimus

  Celtic, you're a spiritual man.
• 

  fair

  I feel fantastic. At first I was a mess, like everyone else. I was mad at the time I'd wasted. I was especially sad about the friendships I'd spend so much time on that dissolved and for the ones I've wanted to form throughout my life but didn'tt. I eventually somehow figured out that, for me, pure acceptance was the key. I can't change the past, but I can accept what's happened in my life and go forward with no worries and no fear.
• 

  minimus

  Life DOES get better if we allow it!
• 

  Coop Man

  Mess isn't exactly the word for it.....

  Tired of these damned nightmares about Armageddon coming and watching my 3 young children die. Tired of feeling guilty every time my Mother (who is dying of breast/liver/spinal/brain cancer) calls me and reminds me of how important it is to be a Jehovah's Witness because the future of my children at Armageddon depend on me....

  Just plain old tired....
• 

  minimus

  The last 2 weeks my wife has been dreaming of all different JWs. She either is with old friends or sees elders hile fast asleep......What does it all mean?
• 

  sinamongurl

  still confused :o(
• 

  alias

  I'm okay now. I've come to a place of acceptance over the past. I can't change the fact that I was raised as a JW, or that my life could have been way different otherwise. What I do now is up to me.

  However, the first couple of years fading I was a mess. I didn't think I'd live through it. Suicide was an option that I was seriously considering because I couldn't deal with the collapse of *everything* I'd come to identify with being a JW for the first twenty-some years of my life. My social life... my future. Instead of knowing all of the answers, I was deeply confused and afraid.

  It's a tough road walking away and reconsidering every thread of your life that was based on that belief system. It's not something you turn off like a switch. Some find ways to avoid dealing with the pain: excessive drinking, drug use, sex....

  Some things that helped immensely during those first few years were places like this... listening to the experiences of others. As well, Ros had an e-mail group I joined for a few months that literally kept me hanging on.

  I look back at those years with sadness, but see how far I've come. I'm glad I was able to allow time to do its healing work.

  alias