#blog journal
One of the hardest obstacles I have faced after leaving the cult is death. The deaths of those I love, and my own inevitable ending. How do you cope with being raised to believe you will be given salvation and see your passed loved ones again, only to realize that the whole religion being fed to you is… wrong? How can you even begin to come to terms with your own mortality at that point, or get over the now more permanent losses you’ve faced?
It was a struggle to find some way to accept this, and in many ways I still haven’t. But that’s okay I think, because I don’t know what will happen once I die. It may not be nothingness, I may indeed still see whom I have lost again and have purpose anew in a future existence- it’s just completely unknown to me. Ignorance may be the only comfort. Because we’re all equally in the dark.
It has taken a lot of time for me to comprehend just how exactly the org has been able to indoctrinate so many. When I first left, I always wondered how anyone who lived a normal life could ever be roped into a life of repression and worship. It has taken me hitting my lowest points to really ‘get it’.
The org has perfected its tactics to prey on emotionally vulnerable people. It goes beyond giving a grieving person hope of seeing their loved one again in paradise. It’s sending witnesses to under developed nations to witness to the impoverished and uneducated people who may be desperate to have a hope for paradise, for a future where things are good and just. It’s telling stories to those in hard times how Jehovah answered their prayers, and if you put your faith on him he’ll give you his divine help.
I miss my hopes for paradise. I don’t miss the cult itself, but I miss my ignorance. As I still grieve my mom and go through the stress of having crippling anxiety attacks daily, I wish I could cast my burdens on Jehovah. But I can’t, and I know that. If I hadn’t already known that JWs are a cult though… I probably could have been persuaded.
Jehovah’s Witnesses and other cults prey on the vulnerable and emotionally taxed. It’s pathetic if you really think about it.
