@Wakanda and @Diogenesister, the three of us should band together and do a collaboration video on YouTube. I think I'll do it if there's someone else in the video with me to hold my hand (and hair in case I puke).
Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
JoinedPosts by Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
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18
So, I did a thing ... Shunned VIDcast #1 - Secrets - Jehovah's Witnesses and Cult Life
by dubstepped inalright, 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.
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A great article! Highly recommended!
by stuckinarut2 inim not sure if anyone has posted this before?
(sorry if so).
http://exitwatchtower.weebly.com/.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
Highlights from Vincent Gomez's Journey Out of the Watchtower:
"That late-winter day, my soul was ripped out of me. Our brains are chemical/electrical components. What happens when you discover that what you have dedicated your life to is a lie, is like pouring water over electronics. Your brain literally short circuits. Everything you believed and everything you were, suddenly cannot be processed by the mind. It almost is seizure like."
"The entire range of emotions was something I will never forget. Even the way I viewed my physical surroundings suddenly changed. No longer would I drive to work thinking about talks or having kingdom melodies in my head. Now, there was this indescribable silence of the world around me. The real world became a foreign and mysterious place."
"Shortly after that, I received a phone call from my mom one evening. Word had gotten out that I was questioning things. Quickly, she started saying, "Tell me what is going on?!" I tried to calmly tell her what I had discovered. Within seconds, she said, "You are an apostate! I don't even know you anymore!" This was stated several times in our short conversation. She then hung up on me. I can honestly say, that her tone of voice was no different than what you would hear on a horror film. It was simply evil. I will never forget how she spoke those words to me."
"What I once considered to be a clean and undefiled people, was now becoming a dark and mysterious entity. Something to be feared."
"One day my older children came over. Something snapped within me. It was like a dam of emotions erupted that had been built up over a few weeks. That is when I began to pace the floor and experience what I described in the opening paragraph. The Watchtower likes to run with such experiences. Simply because it appears to be that Satan is taking control, but in reality, I was having a nervous breakdown."
"By the time I went to my second meeting, I had done much research on mind control, known as undue influence. I was taking in information from many unbiased sources. This is when things really turned dark for me. As I walked into the kingdom hall that evening, the kingdom hall became a very frightening place. I now could hear the “cult talk”. My mind could now take note of this type of control on the mind. The parroting of answers from publications began to seem strange and pointless. Personalities became plastic in so many ways. I began to see how difficult it is to separate the authentic person from the cult. I was terrified."
"The kingdom hall was now haunted, by the seven spirits of the governing body that sit in New York controlling every facet of my thinking."
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Begining of freedom???
by JW-AWAKED J17 inhello every body!.
it's my thirst time here.
i'm verry glad to tell you my resignation as an elder in my local congregation.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
Welcome home, brother.
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Spiritual "Protection" - a Menace on Psychological Development
by Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho innot 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.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
@Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho: "...threatening [the elders] with legal action will make me feel like a toddler going head-to-head with an armed bank robber, threatening to fire a water pistol at them."
*CRINGE* I can't believe it was me who wrote that! Well, I guess it really was someone else who was writing those words a year ago: my cult persona. Thanks for that awkward, albeit empowering, throwback, @jp1692.
@jp1692: "...you're a bad-ass woman that can take care of herself. A real force of nature."
*Bows* Thank you, senei.
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How do you feel you have progressed ?
by stuckinarut2 inin the months or years since leaving the organization, how do you think you have progressed as a person?.
(or if you have regressed too i guess?).
what aspects of personal development are you happy with?.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
@Whynot: "...I lost ALL my friends."
I hear you. One thing that became painfully obvious to, though, was...
You can't lose something you never had.
I remember that dilemma of being a fully-fledged adult looking on at other groups of people in their little social network. I felt so despondent at the thought of having no one to call on. No one to hang out with. No one to trade stories with. All of that was snatched away with the cult, as you've experienced.
I was an outsider looking in at sometimes decades-long friendships that people all around me were sharing. Shopping malls, cafes, social media - everywhere I looked was a painful reminder that I was a newcomer into this world.
Maybe your child's upcoming "Appreciation Day" will be a good opportunity to meet some other parents of the invited kids. Swap numbers without a few people. Chances of them becoming your BFF are slim. But it's through this act of networking that you might just meet a fellow soul that really clicks with you on a social level.
Postmodern artist, Dulce Ruby, wrote: "Sometimes your circle decreases in size, but increases in value." I think that's a good one to keep in mind.
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So lonely and isolated.
by CampcO0perate inreading some post on here today has me wonder ing if there is some others out there that understands the duplicet fickle person i am on the inside.
i was brought to the kingdom hall 3-4 times a week.
to this day i have an aversion totuesdays.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
Heyyy... you've been summoned:
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/4717375272255488/im-new?page=20#/5893823105335296
We see you, @CampcO0perate. And we hear you. A year ago I wouldn't have even had the emotional or physical strength in my fingertips to even type a response to a post like this.
If it wasn't for the incredibly patient, insightful and and strengthened minds on this forum, I wouldn't be where I am today.
You've taken the right step by waving smoke signals in the direction of this forum to signal you need help. We're here now.
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The biggest news of the year for Mr. and Mrs. Totally ADD
by Still Totally ADD inthis is bigger than christmas and birthdays wrap into one.
thanks to the australian royal commission our youngest son has woke up.
we received a e-mail from him tonight where he apologized to us for shunning us all these years, how bad he felt for doing this.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
This is the most exciting news EVER!!! Mark the date of the email in the calendar to always look back on. It's just so special. Thank you for sharing such a happy turn of events.
Nothing brightens my month more than hearing about a reunited family, @Still Totally ADD.
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How do you feel you have progressed ?
by stuckinarut2 inin the months or years since leaving the organization, how do you think you have progressed as a person?.
(or if you have regressed too i guess?).
what aspects of personal development are you happy with?.
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
Freud once said that no one could be a man unless his father had died. Jung agreed, but added that this death could take place symbolically.
When I first faded, I was still thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that my parents' perception of me mattered. The way they did or did not approve of me held final dominion over my mood, actions and self perception.
I just didn't realize how defined I was by the whole Witness idea of Jesus still being under his parents' household when he was thirty, and that I should alway respect my elders because, hey, what the hell do I know?
So, in spite of doctrinally waking up, I was still willing to maintain that tyrant/slave relationship with my parents. That dynamic always forced me to be inferior because, on the one hand, you've always got the judge watching you, and on the other hand, there's always someone who knows what to do and how it should be executed. And in that setup, it was my parents.
The progress in consciousness came when I learned the hard way that when it comes to exiting Watchtower and fathoming its lies and manipulation, my parents not only didn't know any more on the matter than what I did, but they actually knew far less. It was at that point that I had conceivably outgrown them.
That's when the symbolic death of my parents took place. I had to let go of that image of perfection and godlike influence they had over me. And that exposed me to growing up in the deep end and learning real fast what it means to be, not an orphan, but an individual in the truest sense.
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Anyone ever know gays in the hall that are lying to them selfs or others?
by blownaway ini know of three situations i saw myself.
the first one was when i lived in arcadia.
all the people i use names on are dead and gone so no probs.
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Tired and Poor
by Diogenesister in* "if you want people to remain loyal followers you have to keep them tired and poor" - jim jones, said to a trusted confidante.. sound like anyone we know???.
* from the book "a thousand lives" .
( as told by neil "great apostate" gardener) .
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Wake Me Up Before You Jo-Ho
Holy crap, @Diogenesister! This is insidious cult leadership 1-0-1! People say the Governing Body are bumbling idiots, but they KNOW this stuff, I tell you. They knowwwwwwwwww.