Posts by Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

56

Spiritual "Protection" - a Menace on Psychological Development

not quite a week ago, @lost in the fog created a thread entitled: do you have this illness?.

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5187824140681216/do-you-have-this-illness.

in my year of being on this forum, i have browsed many a disillusioned thread of ex-jehovah’s witnesses expressing similar symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder when detailing their awakening - my own story included.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@jp1692: "we were actively discouraged from thinking."

Total light bulb moment for me. We were NEVER THINKING as fully fledged Witnesses! That is the scariest thing I've just come to terms with. And the most shocking part is that it's dressed up as a badge of honor to be so "humble" and babe-like. The amount of Jehovah's Witnesses I have encountered (either by feigning interest as a worldly person, or trying to stir some thoughts in the otherwise thoughtless minds of my former congregants) who recoiled at the idea of even attempting to understand WT's scriptural ambiguities and doctrinal disasters! It's unbelievable. ALL of these Witnesses, who haven't even met one another, used the same backhanded slur against me: Jehovah doesn't favor the wise and intellectuals. Just the mere hint of an inquisitive mind was something that actually repulsed them enough to look down on me in disgust. Ironic since haughtiness and pride is what they associate with the "intellectuals". Yet I could see their stupidity just brimming with unfounded arrogance.

You also wrote: "It has been a pleasure to see how much you have grown in the time you've participated in this forum... You are now a strong, determined... young woman."

@jp1692 You were one of the first people to reach out to me via PM on here and I've never forgotten our exchanges. When you first started commenting on my introductory thread, I was quaking in my boots because I thought the "JP" stood for James Penton and I was dealing with a knowledgeable heavyweight. Turns out, you're a knowledgeable heavyweight who happens to be named John Proctor. It's an absolute honor to have grown under your watch and guidance on this forum.

18

So, I did a thing ... Shunned VIDcast #1 - Secrets - Jehovah's Witnesses and Cult Life

by dubstepped in

alright, many of you know me from the this jw life and shunned podcasts along with my inane ramblings on here.

i just made my first video and put myself out there on youtube along with my podcast episodes that are on there now.

i put my podcast audio up on there as videos and new people are subscribing and finding it through that.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

I think I'll just squeegee your car window outside for now until I get the nerve to bust into your studio and roll that fifty dollar camera.

18

So, I did a thing ... Shunned VIDcast #1 - Secrets - Jehovah's Witnesses and Cult Life

by dubstepped in

alright, many of you know me from the this jw life and shunned podcasts along with my inane ramblings on here.

i just made my first video and put myself out there on youtube along with my podcast episodes that are on there now.

i put my podcast audio up on there as videos and new people are subscribing and finding it through that.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

OMGAAAHHH nooo. I always bleep my face out in pics on here. Then you'll all knowwwwwwwww.

Not meaning to play on your emetophobia, but I literally feel like barfing from the anxiety of being online! I said to @stuckinarut2 that maaayyybbbeee if I ever take the plunge, I'll just make videos on Vimeo and share them with you guys in the Members Only section. I don't know, I don't knowwww...

*pukes*

19

Just seen on Twitter: Ol' Rubber Face Steven Lett - Obedience Required

by jp1692 in

just seen on twitter: .

.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@sparrowdown: "This is what an MK Utra glitch looks like. Lol."

VOICEBOX BLOWOUT!!! You made me laugh so hard.

Seriously, though...

"Some... may have mental or emotional problems that lead them to believe that they will rule with Christ in heaven." - Watchtower (study edition), January 2016, pp 22-27.

Yep. There's no questioning that statement when applying it to Stephen Lett.

18

New brother to have a bible study with

by Akid48 in

well i moved to a new congregation, and i have no one to study with and i didnt have a bible study in weeks and i was loving but one meeting my aunt said ''im going to set up a bible study with brother bob (dont his name)''.well come to find out brother bob is a man that puts a lot of pressure on you to join the school etc.. well right now im like fuck,because i dont know how to deal with brother bob so i just wanted to know if any could help me..

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

Just trying to put myself in a 13 year old boy's shoes. For a goof, I'd probably tell the brother really shyly that I find it hard to concentrate on the study.

"Why's that, young man?" Brother Bob will ask.

Then you raise your gaze and stare him dead in the eye. "Because I'm attracted to you, brother Bob."

BAH! If he's of the right mind, he'll drop your study like a hot potato due to the inappropriate nature of things. But that's a dicey bluff to pull in WT land, given the industrial scale of pedophila issues they're having.

Nonetheless, if brother Bob cares about not encouraging your "confused feelings" (there's a whole Young People Ask chapter on the pubescent "phase" of homosexuality), he'll back the hell off.

18

So, I did a thing ... Shunned VIDcast #1 - Secrets - Jehovah's Witnesses and Cult Life

by dubstepped in

alright, many of you know me from the this jw life and shunned podcasts along with my inane ramblings on here.

i just made my first video and put myself out there on youtube along with my podcast episodes that are on there now.

i put my podcast audio up on there as videos and new people are subscribing and finding it through that.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH, MIKE!!! I smiled through the whole thing. You are seriously such an inspiration for having the guts to just put yourself out there under less than perfect conditions (no studio lights, shimmering backdrops and gum-chewing cameraman behind the scenes).

I am literally this close to doing the same and just broadcasting my apostate ramblings:

I need to just squeeze my eyes shut, scream "3, 2, 1, GO!" and rip that f*cker of a bandaid off.

10

"Colour inside the lines!"

by stuckinarut2 in

just some random musings here.... picking up on the thoughts expressed in other posts (such as @wake me's post excellent earlier this week), about how "infantilized" jws are, it made me think of this post topic.. just like little children, jws need to be given constant praise and reassurance that they are doing well and doing the right thing.

also, they feel so bad if they stray or deviate from the ideal prescribed course, behaviors or activity that is approved by the society.. if they are told that they have "coloured outside the lines" so to speak, they feel dejected - or worse - defensive, depending on who points it out to them.

(eg a witness vs a non witness).

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@HiddlesWife Here's @stuckinarut2 giving my "apostate child" lessons on not only coloring outside the lines, but graffiting the heck out of them! :D

56

Spiritual "Protection" - a Menace on Psychological Development

by Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho in

not quite a week ago, @lost in the fog created a thread entitled: do you have this illness?.

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5187824140681216/do-you-have-this-illness.

in my year of being on this forum, i have browsed many a disillusioned thread of ex-jehovah’s witnesses expressing similar symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder when detailing their awakening - my own story included.

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@mentalclarity YES. The fact that there are so many cookie-cutter experiences of those who left and had their lives unravel in the most depraved ways possible shows that something in our shared upbringing went radically wrong.

It's interesting that you even mention Stockholm syndrome when you consider the countless medical journals that have covered the correlation between it and PTSD. Since PTSD occurs when we experience something so malevolent that we cannot account for it with our existing system of interpreting the world, we go into trauma. I don't believe it's a coincidence that the German word for "dream" is "träumen". This is the kind of daydream a victim of Stockholm syndrome lapses into. The romanticized version of events where the villain becomes the hero is precisely the victim's mind of piecing together the unknown whilst using their current knowledge system: (WT = savior, outside world = roaring lion seeking to devour me).

22

The Excuses JWs use for the child abuse mishandling issue...

by stuckinarut2 in

i have noticed a pattern of regurgitated excuses and justifications used by the average jw if the topic of child abuse gets raised:.

"oh but jehovah's organization is setting the lead in how to handle this issue".

"why are you getting so hung up on this one issue?

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

@pale.emperor: "Bob, as you've might have guessed, is a c^nt."

Watch your mouth. That's "ALLEGED c*nt" to you, sir.

8

Census of the consensus

by Normalfulla in

a worldly friend of mine i grew up with at school has at the ripe old age of 40 just posted an honest question on his fb page.. .

"which religion or belief system is the truth?

" be respectful please .

Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho

I've always thought about it this way: If you're seeking the truth, then what you don't know is more important to you than what you know. That's a fundamental orientation. Some may consider this "analysis paralysis", but if you devote enough time to figuring out where you're wrong (I spend hours before hitting the "post" button sometimes), you strip away the ambiguity and falsehoods. Scientists operate under this principle when testing a hypothesis.

Any religion or belief system that claims to not only HAVE the truth, but to also BE it has committed a paradoxical flaw. That finalistic attitude is the ultimate shut down of the data window which prevents new information entering and contradicting (and therefore updating) the belief system.

Consider the staunch and dogmatic approach of religion. The Bible, for instance, was written when there was no concept of physics, chemistry, biology, meteorology or medicine. Yet, the arrogance of Christianity claims with absolute certainty that the virgin birth was a fact. Dead people being resurrected is conclusive. Sicknesses and disease were caused by divine plagues. Thunder and lighting were portentous signs of Yahweh's communication. This is not progressive. They say that the Bible has never changed and that God remains the same to the tests of time? That's not a virtuous sign of credibility.This is stone age defiance that warrants extinction.

Like language, truth is progressive. We live in error and strive toward the truth. Scientists are willing to rip holes in their own theories and arguments.That is why you'll find countless books on Darwin's Ghosts, Discarded Science, The Origins of Modern Science, and so on. I believe it's in this striving that the truth is most accurately embodied.