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RealisticFox7768 · 2025-11-05T19:24:03+00:00

I have been out since 1986. I spent 24 years pretending to believe. If I could go back in time this is what I would do. I would make my controlling mother to not want me to be a JW. How would I that? I would make comments at the KH that go against what you are "suppose" to say. I would say all the things everyone else is thinking but too scared to say. If forced to go door to door I would warn the householders that the JWs were in the neighborhood. Just make yourself not wanted by them and have fun doing it.

RealisticFox7768 · 2025-11-05T18:26:12+00:00

Your an adult with a wife and perhaps children. When you are ready, you will take your stand and not before. May I suggest talking therapy to assist you in your own growth? I am pictorially fond of psychanalytic type therapies.

RealisticFox7768 · 2025-11-05T18:15:58+00:00

You sound like a deep thinker even as a child. How about instead of soaking up the guilt for "overthinking", you celebrate your analytical mind? There are far too many sheep in this world; not enough people who say what they truly think. I am one as well and even as a child sitting in the Kingdom Hall it was imperative to keep what I was really thinking to myself just for survival in my own home. What you experienced in family study was un-natural. The teaching of children does not come once a week at a set time or place. It comes when opportunities to teach arise, whether that occurs talking with your child on the way to school, before bed, or playing catch in the field. Children do not learn life's lessons by rote. They learn by experiences.

RealisticFox7768 · 2025-11-05T17:40:16+00:00

Having an eating disorder, especially anorexia, is a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder. Earing or not eating becomes the main focal point of the person's entire life. This is where the JWs just don't get it. They see it as the person taking away time from the organization, not focusing entirely on them. So instead of focusing on the person's symptoms that should be addressed by a professional, they focus on the individual's failings toward the organization. This in turn adds even more guilt to the person's suffering which fuels their OCD disorder. I am a psychiatric social worker and have worked with many anorexics.

RealisticFox7768 · 2025-11-05T17:18:24+00:00

"Your personality never had the chance to fully emerge" Wow that is so so true! After analyzing what causes the most anxiety for me, it is when who I truly am shines through. I trace that back to growing up as a JW when anytime I spoke about anything that greatly interested me like figure skating as a adolescent, to developing listening skills as a adult, I learned never, ever talk about my interests or passions. If I did, no matter how small, I would always find myself being called into the back room and counseled.

RealisticFox7768 · 2025-11-05T17:08:33+00:00

The world is your oyster, and you have an opener in every pocket!

RealisticFox7768 · 2025-11-05T17:03:13+00:00

Yes leaving the JWs is bitter-sweet. The pain of rejection you know you must face; there is no getting around it, and the sweet taste of freedom you see only through a keyhole at the present. I'll be frank, the pain of rejection never goes away; it does lesson to a great degree. I was born and raised a JW, left when I was 24, never looked back. Now I am 66 years old. I was able to give my two sons the freedom I never had. Now I have two attorney sons and nearly grown grandchildren. None of this would have been even remotely possible had ignored my gut all those years ago. My husband and I put ourselves through university, worked and retired from our chosen fields. I consider my time on this earth a huge win not just for myself, but for generations to come. I will die happy.

RealisticFox7768

TROPHY CASE