Expert: Andrew - 10/23/2007

Question
QUESTION: Dear Andrew

I am from a family of Jehovahs witnesses ( well apart from my dad) I eventually escaped from this brainwashing religion, when I was around 21. I lived with a man who now is my husband. I have 2 lovely boys 1 who is 18 & the other who is 16. My family didn't have anything to do with me for quite sometime not until when my son was around 1 year old.
My mum and sister again became apart of my life again. Now I wouldn't say my mother has ever been a loving person not the type of person you could cuddle naturally.  But she is still my mum. When you go around to visit she drops the odd hind about her religion they call the truth. I am not at all interested anymore & do feel that it took away my fun teen years that I never had. I can actually say my husband was my first love.


My poor sister who is 45 now & never had a relationship at all. She has also got a mental illness Schizophrenia. I feel quite sorry for her not only because she has the illness & stuck in that dam religion but also because she has to put up with my stubborn mother. My mother is in a wheel chair most of the time realies on her all the time. She needs an operation on her knee cap which she wont have done & to be honest could make a great difference to her. She wont let my sister have the Internet because she is worried about the worldly influences might get into her head. She wont claim for disability allowance which she is very much entitled to. Also my sister can't get the carers allowance for her because she hasn't applied for the disability allowance. Also she wont apply for a disabled car sticker. She just wants my sister to run around after her. I think she wont claim for these things because she thinks that it will effect my dads works pension & also she has a bit in the bank.



Recently something came up about what happened when I was little. Our dog had 5 puppies. 3 of which we got rid of and two were left which were bitches. One day I came home from school I would say I was about 9 years of age. As you do so excited about seeing the puppies. I said to my mum wheres the puppies! She said I've drowned them! As a child I didn't believe her but then recently I asked her what did you really do with those puppies? She said yes I did drown them in a bucket of water then buried them in the garden. I was horrified how could anyone do that to those poor puppies & saying it to a little girl what she did. I would rather that she lied to me. One day at a BBQ when I was rather tipsy I told my family all about it. My younger son was really upset & said she was wicked & doesn't want to ever see her ever again. But he didn't mean it. I told my sister what he said & she told mum. She thinks hes not been coming around to see her because I told him about the pups but thats not true.She thinks hive poisoned his mind against her. Also she thinks I have poisoned his mind against Jehovah's Witnesses. Hes a busy teenager & want to get on with his own life. He visits my husbands side of the family as much as he visits her.

I thought I would fill you in with the about before to give you a clear picture of what I intended out of this letter.



As you probably know Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas or birthdays etc. The only thing they do celebrate is wedding anniversary's.  Each year when mine comes along I get quite a large cheque from my mum. It is greatly appreciated of course. This past few months there has been a few problems about us not visiting. Not that we have visited any less at all. But the other day I got a phone call from my sister saying my mother is having second thoughts about sending any money this year for your anniversary as you haven't been to visit as you should I think its especially he grand sons she would like to see. To be honsest they don't come & see us either.  I feel like I'm being emotionally blackmailed with her. I feel like just blocking her out of my life entirely. But saying that they are about my only family left. My dad when he died years ago left her quite a lot of money through his work pension. This money she was going to leave for me when she dies. She tends to use it a bait for me. You would think she was a millionaire the way she goes on about is but really its not much these days. But truly she can stick her money. She can give it to her religion. My sister will get the house by the way. To be honest she deserves it for putting up with my mum.
I would love to here your thought on this.
Im feeling really low at the moment & I really dont know how to handle the situation. Im feeling all alone. Although my husband has been really good about it but also very angry.

Jackie


ANSWER: Dear Jackie,

I hear your anger and depression, and understand why you would feel that way. I suggest you do have recovery work to do in order to find more peace with these challenging issues.

I think you are wise to let go of wanting anything from your mother, as you say, "she can stick her money". That is tremendously freeing for you, because when you don't have to jump through hoops in order to "earn" the anniversary gift, you are free to be yourself and respond to your mother in a way that's consistent with your own conscious values.

I agree that it was very sick of your mother to drown puppies and then tell you so as a child. There are rare times in this life when hard decisions perhaps have to be made and we may have to choose between "the lesser of evils" such as a quick humane death vs. an agonizing death. But to expose a child at a tender age to such hard realities without any context or emotional support and state it in a matter-of-fact way is simply cruel to the child. It was bad parenting and borders on child abuse. I agree with your son, a person who does such a thing is wicked, more because of the child than the puppies.

Witnesses tend to be cold hearted because Witness policies condition them to be so. For example, the fact that we never received unconditional love, ever, from anyone, made us guarded in our affections toward others and shut down in our relationship toward ourselves. The fact that Witnesses have to view the entire world as threatening and hostile and minions of the devil worthy of death makes them shut down their compassion for neighbor, upon which all spirituality and socialization is based. The fact that Witnesses do not recognize the divine within each of us and instead hold doctrines to be more important than persons (one of the keystone cult characteristics) makes them squash creativity and inspiration unless it is supported by intellectual interpretations of doctrine.

So I am very familiar with cold-heartedness as you describe from your mother. It might be of benefit for you to ask yourself how this has affected you through your life, and how you can recover from these specific effects so as to become the person you choose to be, fully realizing your own unique potential.

I believe you need connection and support. We all do. You need to continue moving forward on your life journey. It sounds as though perhaps your forward movement has stopped because of your anger toward your mother.

Many former Witnesses imagine that looking at their past experience as Witnesses is unnecessary rehashing of the past. They just want to forget it and move on. But it really is necessary to address wounds that are not healing on their own. It's like removing a splinter and cleaning a wound so that it can fully heal.

We cannot ever fully recover without carefully removing the deep and complex splinters in our minds that were placed there on purpose by a manipulative and deceptive organization. Our experience as Witnesses carries deep impacts that most former Witnesses carry with them for a lifetime. But the good news is that these impacts can be reduced significantly with effort.

Have you looked into the possibility of a face-to-face recovery support group? You might find or help create one in your area. Or participate in online networking with other former Witnesses in order to more fully understand how you've been affected. Or read books on recovery from cult mind so as to clearly identify those pieces of Witness baggage that you still carry. Once you identify the baggage, it is easier to set it down and move on. It is very easy to live out of habit and not realize we ourselves are still acting like Witnesses in certain respect even though we do not consciously believe Witness doctrine anymore, even though acting that way is not consistent with our true selves.

Ultimately, your mother's manipulations are her own. All you can do is love and bless her despite it all and distance yourself to a greater or lesser degree. But in order to get to the point where you are able to be generous with her and at peace with yourself, you have to first get the support and connections that you need.

Please let me know if I can further help you find resources. Don't give up on yourself. You are not an enemy of God, despite everything they say. There is no reason to doubt yourself. You deserve love and healing and blessings.

Blessings,
AndrewXJW

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Andrew

Thank you so much for your super quick reply.
I think you are so right I have found it very difficult to move on still. I my mum & sister are still chipping away at me. I think it has effected me more than I thought it had done.

I manage to escape the religion they called the (truth) just over 20 years ago when i met my husband. He was my first boyfriend. I look back in anger & fell that the religion has taken away my youth. I feel I can't get those years back ever again. I would have liked to have played the field a bit with having a few boyfriends before settling down. My husband now is such a good man hes a good provider & everything but I just can't see myself living with him for the rest of my days.I am not sure I really love him. I keep hearing this voice in my head from my mother saying JEHOVAH HATES A DIVORCEE! If we ever did split that would be the end of me & my family as they are dead against it as you know. I couldn't go home to mother where would I go. Again I feel this religion has a hold on me.

I am not sure if I should cut them out of my life completely. If I just kept in contact with my sister my mother would work threw her. What should I do Andrew? If they did send a cheque what should I do with it? My husband said he would rip it up in front of her face. What if they just sent anniversary card what should I do?

What would the elders or other members of the religion say about how my mum is treating my? the fact that she is using her material possessions money the use it as bait for me? I don't think it would go down very well.

I would like to know what your believes are now Andrew? I myself believe that there is a god. I also think there is an after life & they do look after us all. I do believe I was guided to you tonight. I can honestly say after 20 odd years you are the only one that's actually understood what I'm going threw & that is because you have been threw it yourself.

I would like to that you from the bottom of my heart for you response.

I do feel better that I am actually going to tell mum to stuff her money.

I do feel I need some support. I also feel I would like to help others like myself.
I would love to here from you again.

Love Jackie




ANSWER: Dear Jackie,

> I look back in anger & fell that the religion has taken
> away my youth. I feel I can't get those years back ever
> again.

I have felt exactly the same way. There's no way I'll ever get those wasted distorted years back. There's a necessary grieving process about that loss. And I've come to peace with the fact that my path was what it was, and it's brought me where I am, and now I can make choices that are more conscious and more in harmony with my conscious values.

> My husband now is such a good man hes a good provider &
> everything but I just can't see myself living with him for
> the rest of my days.I am not sure I really love him. I
> keep hearing this voice in my head from my mother saying
> JEHOVAH HATES A DIVORCEE! If we ever did split that would
> be the end of me & my family as they are dead against it
> as you know. I couldn't go home to mother where would I
> go.

You have lost so much Jackie. You've been deworlded and been made to fit in a box. Maybe staying married is like being made to fit in a box again. But in a way, didn't your husband save you from the "box"?

Maybe divorce would be like you're being deworlded again. Or maybe it's the only way you can really find your true self?

I can see how big an issue it is for you. I suggest you do your recovery work first, and THEN decide whether to divorce, especially if there are children.

The Witnesses aren't wrong about everything. There are some areas where the world is wrong, like setting us up for failure by expecting too much from a marriage partner, like suggesting children really don't need fathers (when they do), like painting a picture that divorce is an easy answer (when it is a difficult painful process for almost everyone who goes through it).

Most of all, in order to RESPECT THE PATH YOU ARE ON, you need to remove the outside influences, find your true core values about marriage and family and other things, and then make conscious choices based on what YOU value, and your fully-informed decisions about likely consequences from this point forward. Consequences to you, consequences to your husband, consequences to the children.

I myself stayed married even though it was never good for me, at first because Witnesses do not consider divorce an option, later because I didn't want to hurt the children. I believed my wife and I could have healed our relationship and built something better. But in order for that to work, both parties have to believe it. Sometimes divorce is the right answer. But I hope not before the kids are grown. It really does hurt kids a lot. It hurt my kids tremendously when my ex decided to divorce rather than heal the relationship.

When you're in a mode of seeking freedom and justice after years of being oppressed by deception, that may not be what you want to hear, but we are adults after all, and they aren't. Part of the responsibility of parents is to do what's good for the kids even when it isn't good for us personally.

In my view, there are two areas where the Witnesses are dead wrong: (1) they deprive people of freedom of mind, and (2) they destroy families. After leaving the Witnesses, these major errors of theirs required me to take a completely new focus. Now I (1) deeply respect other people's views and life path and (2) consider family ties vitally important.

Trust yourself to find your core values and make conscious decisions in harmony with conscious values. (But don't necessarily trust yourself before you've done your recovery work; because you may make decisions you'll regret later.)

> Again I feel this religion has a hold on me.

It does have a hold on you. But as strange as it might sound, it isn't because of what your Witness relatives are doing that it has a hold on you. Rather, from a certain perspective, it's because you haven't yet come to terms with what your relatives are doing and what they did in the past, how you have been conditioned, and how you were manipulated in the past.

> I am not sure if I should cut them out of my life
> completely. If I just kept in contact with my sister my
> mother would work threw her. What should I do Andrew?

I know that's a hard decision, but nobody can tell you what you should do. And eventually you will no longer look outside yourself for answers to questions like this. Part of your Witness experience, which may still holdover in varying degrees, was that you were conditioned to let others make your decisions. Always look up what the Watchtower says about this matter or that. Always let the elders preferences win out over your preferences, no matter how personal or private the decision. So your growth includes finding the resources inside yourself to make hard decisions about personal matters.

Sometimes cutting people off is the right thing to do. Not because we want to remain pure and shun those who don't "measure up". Obviously that is nonsense. But when you need to move forward with your life and your parents or siblings are holding you back with baggage, you may have to decide what kind of relationship is best.

> If they did send a cheque what should I do with it? My
> husband said he would rip it up in front of her face. What
> if they just sent anniversary card what should I do?

Your husband doesn't have a right to make your decision for you. If the gift is to you, you decide what to do with the gift. He can still have his strong feelings and express them in his own way.

The important thing based on what you've said is that you won't be manipulated by money, in other words you won't jump through hoops in order to get it. So whatever she gives is a freewill gift, as gifts are supposed to be. It won't matter whether you keep it. The important thing is that you won't jump through hoops an allow her to manipulate you further. The answer that works for me is detaching from the outcome, rather than needing to fix the outcome this way or that. You deserve all the blessings the universe brings your way. And you are a free agent that doesn't allow the prospect of a gift to be used as a manipulation tool. At least I think that's what I heard. Look inside yourself to find whether this is true.

> What would the elders or other members of the religion say
> about how my mum is treating my? the fact that she is
> using her material possessions money the use it as bait
> for me? I don't think it would go down very well.

Non-Witnesses often imagine that Witness elders are actually reasonable people and since we see someone treating us badly, we may imagine Witness elders will see the same thing. But based on what you know of them, will they see the same thing you see? My experience suggests that Witnesses put non-Witnesses on a different level. All Witnesses treat all non-Witnesses unfairly. So I would not expect the elders to take my side against their "sister". To them, I am a minion of the devil deserving of death. To them, their "sister" is condescending to me to even say hello.

> I would like to know what your believes are now Andrew? I
> myself believe that there is a god. I also think there is
> an after life & they do look after us all. I do believe I
> was guided to you tonight. I can honestly say after 20 odd
> years you are the only one that's actually understood what
> I'm going threw & that is because you have been threw it
> yourself.

I am very glad to have been able to help you, even just a little. Being able to help people like you is what makes all the suffering I went through a little less wasteful. Yes, I agree, God is loving, and sometimes directs us toward solutions when we need them. Whatever you ultimately end up believing in God, you must at least believe in yourself, and realize that the evil things they say about us former Witnesses is just hogwash.

I want you to know more than anything else that, even though this may seem like a dark tunnel, there is a bright light on the other side. You can eventually come out the other end and be the person you were meant to be. Just hold on for now, do your work, and you will find your way. Give it time. Give it time.

> I do feel I need some support. I also feel I would like to
> help others like myself. I would love to here from you
> again.

Psychology professionals are often not trained in cult recovery. Those not trained in it are likely to misguide and misdiagnose. So if you have in mind looking for a psychology professional, I suggest you look for one who has specific training or experience with cult recovery. They see themselves as the expert, of course, so are likely to give a tongue-in-cheek or condescending response, but you have a right to ask clear questions and get clear answers and choose the professional that's right for you. "Do you have specific training with cult recovery issues?" is a reasonable question. If they smirk, move on to the next psychologist.

There are lots of good books. One of the best for former Witnesses is "Crisis of Conscience" by Raymond Franz. It's not about needless mudslinging, but rather clearly seeing the errors of the organization is helpful because it enables you to reclaim your own mind, a vital step in your recovery process.

Other support resources include networking in discussion forums (there are many former Witnesses in various stages of recovery on the Internet) and live face-to-face support groups. If you can find or create a live support group in your locality, that might be the best form of support. Watch out because some are religious, pressuring you to follow a specific religious path, and others are more open.

If you'd tell me which of these avenues interests you most, I could perhaps offer more specific ideas.

Best wishes,
AndrewXJW

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Andrew

Sorry you may get this amail twice as I may have messed the previous one up.

You mentioned in one of your previous replys about a recovery support group which I have found. I am going to a EX JW party really soon. The problem is my husband doesn't understand it at all. He says thats your past over 20 years ago. Hes being very sarcastic saying things like if you can't get that religion out of your head why don't you go back then at least you can be with your family. I'm finding this very upsetting that he doesn't understand how I feel. I actually have starting feeling really positive about meeting people with the same past as I have but hes sort of put the dampness on it. Can you help?

Ive ordered the book Out Of The Cocoon Which im really looking forward to reading.

EX JW Jackie

Answer
Dear Jackie,

It's a wonderful advantage to have access to a live XJW support group, assuming they do not pressure you to adopt any new religion or pet idealogy. Participating in the group will help you move forward in your recovery, and may save your life (assuming they do not pressure you to adopt any new religion or pet idealogy).

> my husband doesn't understand it at all. He says thats
> your past over 20 years ago. Hes being very sarcastic
> saying things like if you can't get that religion out of
> your head why don't you go back then at least you can be
> with your family.

He can't understand something he hasn't been through. But he can respect your path, and recognize we each have to travel our own path. If he doesn't respect your path, that's a serious problem. Negativity is often based on fear. You might ask yourself what is he afraid of? Even positive changes in a spouse can be upsetting because they might raise the question, "What if she outgrows me?" So maybe, in order to be supportive, he just needs reassurances that you still need him.

Perhaps it would be helpful for him to recognize that the support group is what it takes for you to get it out of your head.

Your husband seems to be possessed of a very common notion, in fact the greatest obstacle to the healing of former Witnesses, the notion that "time heals all wounds". It's just not true in this case. There is work to be done before the wound can begin to heal, because there are large splinters stuck in the wound preventing healing.

You know your husband better than anyone. If you feel it would help your situation, show him the letters I've written to you. I know what I'm talking about, as I have been down the road you're travelling, and worked with hundreds of others who have travelled our road.

Best wishes,
AndrewXJW