- Do you have an intense need to try to get them to see the light?
- Are you trying to tell them what you would like to say to your family and friends?
- Is this an opportunity to let the JWs as a whole know how badly they hurt you?
- Is this just a mob mentality? Whenever you see one JW post their beliefs ten people have to pile in and all pull in different directions.
- Do you have an intense need to join in?
Lady Lee,
You raise a question that I have thought about and realized cannot be answered definitively. All of the possibilities you identify above are certainly true for different individuals. That it is an intense experience to leave the JW's is inarguable. Generally, there is no formal, structured "exit program" that allows for desensitization, including expressing one's hurt and anger. Some come to this forum to do it, because they have no place else to go.
Apologists who come here are usually confrontational and antagonistic. It goes with the territory. They are going to be responded to in myriad ways depending on the individual poster's agenda, as per your list above. I would guess that your agenda is the first one - ? To help JW's who come here to get out? Personally, I think that is fine, even though I don't share that view. Otherwise my blood pressure would be sky high - the responsibility would be crushing! I understand completely how upsetting it would be when other posters step all over that agenda and alienate the JW. But if you come from the persepective that the apologists who show up here are a certain breed - usually a little wacky to be here in the first place - you realize that they are not likely to get de-programmed here.
I really believe that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Those sincerely looking for answers to their questions already have doubts and will find a variety of support that will appeal to their particular needs. For me, humor is very helpful in deflating the emotional ties that are usually more persistent than the intellectual ones. So that is more often my approach to apologists. Those with sincere doubts get a different response.
