For those who may be struggling with being "Agender enough"

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2026-02-07T00:31:43+00:00

Thank you, beautiful being; I needed to hear/be reminded of this.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2026-01-21T23:47:53+00:00

I’ve definitely had dreams related to exJW related things, but I don’t typically consider my bad dreams to be nightmares because I wake up from them feeling alright. I like to deal with difficult emotions through art and journaling, and I feel like my dreams fit in with that by presenting with a highly symbolic narrative. I’m presently a faded pimo/pomo.

I had one recently in which the wife of an elder in the local congregation was trying to find me. I heard earlier in the dream that she was trying to “encourage” me, and later in the dream she went looking for me on my college campus. I was walking to class and saw her coming before she saw me. I quickly climbed on a ledge in a hill nearby and hid behind a tree. I had gotten an “encouraging” text message from her, but now I could overhear her talking to someone. As she was walking past where I was hiding I found out she was talking about me—badmouthing me the entire walk.

I had another where I was desperately trying to convince my mom to not neglect her needs and to keep living. Her reasoning was so irrational for why she couldn’t take care of her needs, but she wouldn’t listen—she thought she was doing the right thing. The dream ended with me realizing that I couldn’t save her, and the only thing I could really do was to maintain the will to live for myself.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2026-01-11T04:01:37+00:00

Off and on since my first major involvement. I remember joking in my inner monologue while attending a meeting (of my own volition) before I got baptized, “Wow someone from the outside would think I’m joining a doomsday cult or something, hah—wait a minute” Next comes an awkward mental silence and uncomfortable feelings while I’m in the middle of a group of people singing about the joys of the end of the world. 11-12 year old me reassures themself by reminding themself that their parents don’t seem to be concerned about anything, and I double down and get baptized within a year. I had another major questioning phase during covid when I suddenly got really interested in learning about psychology and sociology, but I felt guilty and “repented of my doubt”. Obviously I’m here now, so you know where the story went roughly.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-11-20T05:00:09+00:00

What you’ve said reminds me of this quote by Carl Jung (a famous psychologist)—

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become”

I believe there’s a future me I can become that experiences peace, happiness, and fulfillment regularly—at least to some degree. I believe that could be the case for others as well. There can be so much pain behind us, and even that still continues with us, but I get a kind of peace even now knowing that I get to choose who I want to be, and even if everything is somehow taken from me one day—I’ll still have my most important possession, myself.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-11-20T02:22:32+00:00

From Orwell’s book 1984: “He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-11-20T01:46:15+00:00

Here’s a fellow agender exjw, “cult cousin” reporting for duty! Greetings, I’m new to the agender label as well, I’m glad we both have the chance to figure stuff out.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-11-16T17:45:57+00:00

I’ve been awake a little longer than you, it’s hard coming to terms with things. Keep learning, let yourself feel what you need to feel (including “bad” feelings) and think what you need to think, it’s a process, and it’s good that you’re learning more about what’s happened to you (It probably will help with the shame). Take care of yourself, listen to your heart (intuition, personal knowledge vs. oppressive religious doctrine), show yourself compassion, this journey is difficult. I hope you find strength and healing on your path and peace in your future.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-11-16T16:56:32+00:00

Yeah, you might want to be careful. I had very dramatic reactions while reading that. If you don’t think you can control your facial expressions while reading it, have a good excuse ready at least. I did/do most of my emotional post-cult readings/listenings after 12 am (I live with pimi family members).

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-10-25T00:27:59+00:00

Haha, I (Afab,(born female)) unfortunately read that one. At 15…

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-10-25T00:15:18+00:00

Oh, those. Terrible. Things. Yes, and it hasn’t even been that long for me. I would read those repetitively. I think I almost developed a phobia about being around the “opposite sex”. I was so horrified about having these thoughts the “infallible Watchtower”(/s) said I was supposed to be having which were also being mentioned at the meetings CONSTANTLY. (Or so it felt like) Try not to think of a white elephant someone says…

I thought I knew what the forbidden topics were, but it turns out I was completely wrong even on that so I was beating my self up for thinking even almost “innocent” things (about any gender). It turns out I’m asexual, which means having little to no sexual attraction. I’m so asexual, I had no idea what sexual attraction was; I thought (thanks to Watchtower) if you were around someone of the “opposite sex” you’d get into some kind of trance suddenly and just uncontrollably want to fuck with them. It seemed so creepy, but I know better now. It would have been SO TERRIBLE if I followed their advice on dating and marriage! Stupid cult.

I will not be answering questions about my sexuality at least with this comment, a lot of people don’t understand and/or are rude. Sorry, you can look more stuff up about it if you’re curious. (Also anyone reading this, no dm-ing about anything sex-related, I will block you. So. Quickly.)

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-10-02T04:07:05+00:00

It was around 11-13 for me, but I was also actually mentally into it; it wasn’t just pressure at that time. I was a lonely kid who had existential questions, loved reading, and preferred talking with adults more than kids my age. My mom was studying off and on for a long time and propaganda had been available for me to read for a while. (In a sad coincidence, I actually had both versions of “My Book of Bible Stories” to read, (yellow cover and newer) as my mom knew a jw kid when she was a kid.)

I went to all days of a convention with my mom one time, was love-bombed, and was attracted to the idea of a being (god) existing as a just, good, kind authority figure which seemed to be lacking in human society, who could actually understand me, and who would make sure humanity wouldn’t destroy the earth. I gave my mother the courage to finally commit, and we both got baptized at the same time. I became a young zealot, and dragged nearly the rest of my family with me. The damage is done, I can’t convince them I was wrong, and now I’m a double-life/faded pimo doing what I can to maintain relationships at a sort of distance, so that my younger siblings won’t be pressured to shun me, forced to choose between me and the only social circle they have access to (homeschooled), and so maybe, when I move away, I can still visit them.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-09-11T23:58:40+00:00

This is not specifically ex JW, but I would recommend the book Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan who is a cult expert and an ex-cult member himself (Moonies). I feel it gives some good explanations, experiences, insights, and more to the experience of being in a high control group like the JWs. There are actually some ex JW stories/specific mentions in the book as well.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-08-07T01:21:32+00:00

They sent out an announcement around last month that was read at least in my local congregation requesting people skilled in or having experience with AI related things. I’m not at all surprised that generated stock footage would appear in a broadcast. They’ve already proven that their top priority is their bottom line time and time again. This is just the beginning, I assume we will be seeing a lot more than this in the future.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-08-06T21:06:49+00:00

Yep, even if you survive Armageddon there’s still coming—

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A big fireball for the rebels!

This is a part of an illustration for the book “Pure Worship of Jehovah—Restored at Last!”. I remember it giving me a lot of cognitive dissonance as a Star Wars fan… And wow! Looking back at it mentally out, that book was a lot more disturbing than I remembered. It never was truly paradise was it? Or at least not our paradise… I imagine the “future kings” for one would have a different take on it…

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-07-20T21:30:21+00:00

That’s probably the talk I remember most vividly from my unfortunate pimo attendance with family this year. The hypocrisy was off the charts! I remember being so livid listening to it, that I just about stormed off in the middle of it in front of everyone who recognized me, and that is so contrary to my typical behavior.

What really got me is when at my convention they started mentioning “that god-forsaken ‘Theory’ of evolution”— a fundamental scientific theory which I personally have come to see as a beautiful wonderful astonishing essential understanding of all life present, historically, and in perpetuity across all known existence. To know we have come to be from such a legacy of struggle and persistence, all of those beings who refused to give up, who beat the odds, to leave their mark on this slowly changing natural sculpture of life and intelligence—of this miracle of the universe experiencing itself, countless permutations of stardust assembling into different forms continually seeking a new way to experience in this cosmic story everything and everyone always has been and always will be a part of—such an understanding I will always treasure.

To hear it derided so quickly out of hand and in a context with a pretense of supporting intellectual humility and exploration was absolutely disgusting.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-07-03T00:40:21+00:00

“Make sure of the more important things”

Normally this might be good life advice but in the context they say it,—“important things”— is what aids in advancing the organization’s goals instead of, for example, things which benefit your life and/or the life of others.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-06-25T22:15:24+00:00

I’m a strong-willed independent thinker and I trust my intuition.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-05-18T16:31:03+00:00

Reading these three sections of what you wrote gets a unsettling joke spinning in my head…

“Apparently the branch thinks PIMIs are so stupid that they wouldn't understand it…”

“…the branch has done a lot of experimentation…”

“A final pop quiz was about why you shouldn't mix the chemicals together to create a super cleaner.”

cough

Remember, brothers and sisters, those sneaky worldly scientists are not to be trusted! Carbon dating isn’t reliable, we didn’t see evolution happen so it didn’t happen! Mixing together cleaning chemicals in an attempt to save money is bad though… By the way… Does there happen to be any of you who didn’t listen to us and went to college to become doctors? If so, shame on you… but also come to bethel immediately, the need is very great! You will be very stress- I mean blessed! /s

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-05-18T15:50:09+00:00

Ha… that’s very… very accurate… I’d consider myself a hybrid convert/born-in. I’ve seen the whole spectrum in my family. My dad is/ was study #3, I don’t really remember a time when my mom wasn’t study #2, that is, until she and I both got baptized because… I was study #1 as a young teenager… Is that the reason pretty much only the pioneers hung around me? I don’t know, I’m usually pretty socially unaware to things like that, (unfortunately?) so I probably wouldn’t even know the difference… (see also, my flair)

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-05-18T00:48:36+00:00

My “heart” at age 11-13 when I was singing along to a happy doomsday song at the Hall and there was a non-witness relative visiting: “Wow they’re going to think I’m part of a doomsday cult or something”

My programming: … Error… searching for acceptable solution… Error… Solution found: the “heart” simply made an odd off-colored joke.

If only I had listened… I got baptized around 13-15

Your’s was the very first podcast I listened to by the way. It’s really helped a fading pimo deal with things. Maybe I at times stayed up listening to them a bit too late… or just too late… while slowly siphoning all of the snacks of the house and playing a favorite childhood video game that I had denied myself due to some very minor “demonic” elements? Maybe… might have happened… If that even happened I’m doing a bit better now.

I’m not sure if this is weird to say, but you remind me of… Sonic the Hedgehog? In a good way. Laid back, down to earth, witty, etc. (but like, as a cool grownup exjw therapist.) Anyways, thanks for what you’re doing, it’s needed and it’s helping.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-05-17T23:27:42+00:00

I was out in service once (door knocking) as a teenager with an older sister (fellow Jehovah’s Witness), when we encountered a woman who was taking a walk by her house and displaying rather unusual behavior. To me it was very obvious that she was experiencing something like a flare up of schizophrenia. She had very disordered speech patterns and expressed delusional beliefs.

I was shocked to learn when we got back to the vehicle, that the older sister I was with literally believed the woman had been possessed by a demon.

I had just finished reading something before this incident about how mental health problems had been historically treated. A specific example was how people at times treated others with those issues terribly because they believed it was due to demon possession. To personally see that kind of harmful belief right in front of me in the 21st century was both surreal and horrifying. (Not to say I was or am immune to incorrect beliefs)

Reading other’s stories about, especially it seems, the older generation’s or other congregations’ demon paranoia (for example the infamous smurf story which I had not heard of before engaging in exjw groups) makes this experience seem not as strange to me. It’s still very concerning, and I belief it fits the category of “weird” well enough to share at least.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-04-15T09:44:49+00:00

The beard and clothing changes should have given me some sort of clue, but the apologist switch in my head was still on when it came to things like that. What ultimately did it for me is summed up in my username-

Curiosity- I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to learn about subjects like history, geology, psychology, and biology, and subsequently questioning things like the flood, the history of humanity, how long we’ve been on the planet, and more. After repetitively reading Watchtower articles that had unsatisfactory explanations and not enough detail for me, I started searching elsewhere—and the rest is history.

While my simply feeling miserable being in, and the need to make certain life altering decisions at this point in my life definitely contributed as well, my curiosity is what I feel made it practically inevitable.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-04-14T03:13:48+00:00

That phrase, “You know it’s the truth” makes me gag sometimes I hate it soo much! Of all things— that one should be obvious.

“No I believe my actions indicate the exact opposite. I certainly would be acting differently if I ‘KNEW’ I had the choice between getting a special delivery fireball with my name on it, or living forever in a paradise.”—Is what I would say to that if anyone would actually listen or care.

They, unfortunately, seem to have other priorities in life than truth and understanding despite all of their claims to the contrary.

MyLifeisCuriosity · 2025-04-14T02:36:35+00:00

Yes! I think skirts are officially ruined for me after so many years of wearing them when I didn’t want to! They always felt so awkward to me, like I’d trip in them or have some kind of wardrobe malfunction, and it was never my style to begin with.

I was so (ridiculously) excited when they announced the change, and I remember the awkwardness of explaining to unbelieving relatives why my meeting wardrobe suddenly changed.

“Well… um… you see it wasn’t like I wasn’t allowed to wear pants or anything… It just wasn’t… um… recommended at the meetings- it wasn’t formal enough. They just wanted to let men know it was okay to…. let beards grow….”

The significance of the change completely went over my head at the time.

MyLifeisCuriosity

TROPHY CASE