Were You Filled With Guilt During Your Witness Days???

by minimus 32 Replies latest jw friends

  • Freedom Fighter
    Freedom Fighter

    All the time! I always felt like a double agent as I had a 'wordly' life as well as a JW one. No matter how I tried, I knew that I was being a hypocrite and couldn't live up to the impossibly high behavioural standards.

    I also felt a lot of guilt that I prefered worldly people and activities and found the meetings etc a crashing bore. As for field service, well, I hated every minute of it. Sure adds up to a lot of guilt !!!

    It's all gone now tho!

    FF

  • HappyDad
    HappyDad

    I have to echo what Freedom Fighter said..............

    I also felt a lot of guilt that I prefered worldly people and activities and found the meetings etc a crashing bore. As for field service, well, I hated every minute of it. Sure adds up to a lot of guilt !!!

    It's all gone now tho!

    FF

    As far back as I remember,,,,,from the time I was baptized,,,,,,,,,,,as an MS, elder and beyond.........I prefered being around the guys I worked with and got some serious flack from a "brother" who worked in the same machine shop about my sharing lunch time and coffee breaks talking to and actually enjoying this time with these "worldly" people.

    No more guilt today.............I'm HappyDad

  • new light
    new light

    Most of the reason I did anything JW-wise was because of guilt. Don't feel like putting on a suit after a long work day? Guilt will see you through. The JWs thrive on guilt.

  • blondie
    blondie

    The WTS was nothing as to inducing guilt compared to my abusive parents. After 18 years of dealing with them, I would laugh to myself in the audience at at meeting.

    I sent many an elder running who tried to "guilt" me as I turned it around on them, all done quite politely using the WTS' own words.

    Unwritten rules must be battled with written rules.

    Blondie

  • Mulan
    Mulan

    I had terrible guilt when I had to quit pioneering. I made plans to do it again, but in the meantime, learned the real truth.

    Before that, I seldom felt guilty. I was doing all I could do, with four kids and an elder husband.

  • Lady Lee
    Lady Lee

    Were You Filled With Guilt During Your Witness Days???

    OMG
    Didn't you know guilt was my middle name?

    I felt guilty for

    • being alive, for breating air,
    • for taking too much space,
    • for asking for anything,
    • for not being perfect,
    • for not having all the answers,

    And that was just the beginning of the family stuff.

    • Guilty for not being good enough so my mother wouldn't abandon me - over and over again.
    • Guilty for the sexual abuse.
    • Guilty for people finding out.

    Then I became a JW. So let's add:

    • guilty for more sexual abuse
    • and then guilty for being sent into foster care
    • guilty for staying home to take care of my mother's children and not pioneering so she could go to work
    • guilty for not being able to care for 3 wild uncontrolled siblings that I barely knew (because of the foster care) and causing my mother to almost have a "nervous breakdown"
    • guilty for not pioneering
    • guilty for getting married
    • guilty for wanting to go to college (but giving it up anyways)
    • guilty for getting pregnant so close to the end in 1975 (after I was already married for a year)
    • guilty for getting pregnant again
    • guilty for not being a good wife
    • guilty for taking care of a sister who was dying instead of going on service (got called on the carpet at home and with the elders for that one)
    • guilty for teaching the "brothers" sign language (apparently after I had already done it (elders included) they decided I shouldn't so got the wrist slap
    • guilty for being depressed
    • guilty for thinking of leaving my elder husband
    • guilty for not wanting to have sex on demand whenever my husband wanted it
    • guilty for not being a good enough mother
    • guilty for wanting to die and leave my girls with their father

    Then we get to the really big stuff

    • guilty for asking the husband to move out and therefore deprive him of the sexual due
    • guilty for having sex with someone else so I could get my scriptural divorce
    • guilty for that experience turning into a rape
    • guilty for say I didn't want his forgiveness and to try again
    • guilty for leading our daughters out of the WTS (YEAH!!!)
    • guilty for turning my back on the WTS

    Well I ain't guilty for any of it. They (all of them) can take their own guilt back cuz I refuse to carry it anymore. Took a few years of recovery to give all that back

    Phew

  • Deleted
    Deleted

    I was a good JW (until 1995) AND I was guilty (felt like an imposter) AND I was a convert and chose that way of life! So I only have myself to blame, which I do, frequently.

  • got my forty homey?
    got my forty homey?

    Never, my conscience was seared like a well done steak from a young age.

  • DanTheMan
    DanTheMan

    forty, you are funny as hell sometimes man! ROFLMAO!!!

    I was a classic case, always struggling(TM) with some weakness(TM) or another, always the pet-project of some well-meaning elder, always feeling like I was toast at Armageddon(TM) because of my failure to live up to Jerhover's righteous standards.

    I remember watching a 60 Minutes II segment back in November of 2001 where they showed this kid who was cured of sickle cell anemia by a blood transfusion. I was happy as hell for the kid, I thanked God that his mom wasn't a JW, and I didn't feel the *least bit* guilty for feeling that way. It was the first time that I ever had such completely anti-JW thoughts, without guilt. It was a great feeling.

  • sinamongurl
    sinamongurl

    Yes, I always felt guilty and not good enough

    I would always run to the elders if I had a bad thought

    It was pathetic

    Sinamon

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