Well, it’s the start of a new year and as a good a time as any to tackle a subject that is foreign to many JWs and former JWs: Self-care.

While we have all likely heard about it, particularly given how much attention it gets these days, knowing what it is, and doing it, are two completely different things.

I’m sure we all know what self-care should be: eat well, sleep well, exercise, manage your time, be proactive with medical issues and appointments, relaxation, etc, on it goes. Any google search on self-care will bring up all sorts of lists with strikingly similar contents.

I’m also sure we understand the point of it, which is to get the best out of yourself, both for yourself and others. You are no good to anyone, yourself included, if you are exhausted, burnt out, resentful, irritable, and short tempered. The idea is to take care of yourself not only so that you feel good, but so you also have enough in the tank to give of yourself to others.

While this is all very helpful and makes perfect sense, for former JWs, there can be blockages inside, sabotaging our efforts to take care of ourselves. It never mattered before, so why should it matter now? How can we prioritise it if we never learnt how, and never even learnt to care?

Part 1 of this post explores three reasons why self-care can be particularly difficult for former JWs, and Part 2 explores three corresponding ways to address them, to help us make self-care a priority in our lives now.

Why is self-care difficult for former JWs?

1. Self-worth and identity

The main reason self-care is difficult for former JWs is that we were never considered worthy enough to care about ourselves or put ourselves first, and we wholeheartedly accepted this as totally fine. The organisation/God came first, and that was it. After internalising this for so long, it is incredibly difficult to change this way of thinking just because we are now ‘allowed to’.

From the time you were born (or joined) it was all about the organisation. It was not about you. The God that Jehovah’s Witnesses worship is apparently so insecure that he needed your complete devotion, and if you dared to deviate in any way from what made him happy, he would get angry and kill you at some point (such a loving father hey?!).

We feared making him unhappy and losing our good standing, so we ignored or suppressed anything and everything about ourselves that didn’t fit with organisational requirements. We didn’t learn to think independently, to develop our own identity, or even understand what our own basic needs were beyond food, clothing, and shelter, because none of that was a priority for the organisation. We were on our set paths as JWs and that was it. That was all we needed to please God and make it through to the new system.

It is impossible to care for anyone if you have no idea who they are and what their needs are, and this goes for ourselves too. After we leave, we first need to learn what our needs actually are before any of those well-intentioned self-care articles can be of any use.

2. The pointless productivity of the JW life

Another reason it is difficult for former JWs to prioritise self-care is that we have learned the art of pointless productivity, and we are at risk of bringing this ‘skill’ with us into our post-JW lives.  

As JWs, we learnt to feel ‘satisfied’ after doing things for the organisation that were objectively totally unproductive, such as standing for hours at a literature cart to place perhaps one magazine; knocking on doors for an entire morning to have maybe one 2 minute conversation (if you were lucky); or driving for hours with an entire carload to do one ‘country call’, only to find out they weren’t home, but it was fine because everyone in that carload could report those hours on their monthly field service report. What a total waste of time, yet we could derive satisfaction from believing that it made Jehovah happy.   

Part of the strategy to prevent members thinking too deeply about anything is to keep them busy. The organisation must have you on the theocratic hamster wheel, always ‘keeping busy in the work of the lord’. It doesn’t matter if it was productive work that actually achieved anything. For them, it served the purpose of keeping you obedient, too busy to think too much, somewhat satisfied in the belief you were doing something for God, and most importantly, under control.

The constant pressure and urgency ensured that this ‘work’ remained our top priority. Lines like ‘We are in the time of the end!’, and, ‘Now is the time to show your loyalty to Jehovah’s organisation!’, are commonplace in almost every talk from the platform. I once asked an elder why the urgency, because the end had been coming for such a long time and we weren’t meant to know when it was anyway. His response? ‘Because if we didn’t say it was urgent, nothing would get done’.

As a JW, your worth as a human being came down to how productive you could be for the organisation, effectively earning your salvation in the manner deemed appropriate according to them. The fact that salvation was meant to be free, a ‘gift of undeserved kindness’, was conveniently overlooked or explained away as still needing to ‘do good works’ and ‘not presuming on God’s kindness’. If self-care was ever mentioned, it was only in the context of ensuring you could continue to ‘seek first the kingdom’ (aka, do the organisation’s work for them).

The organisation is extremely good at coercing people into thinking they aren’t doing enough, with lines like, ‘are you really doing enough for Jehovah?’ and one of my personal favourites, ‘Do you want to be blood-guilty?’ regularly trotted out to send listeners on a guilt trip. As a result, you drag yourself out regardless of how you feel, because that is better than the guilt of not doing it.

It is never ok for JWs to simply rest up, put themselves first, or do whatever they want to do, at least not without a tonne of guilt and potential questioning from ‘concerned’ fellow worshippers. Even when on holidays, a time when you are meant to take a break from your usual routine, we were ‘encouraged’ to keep up our spiritual routine, attending meetings and going witnessing in another city or country.

And all this pointless productivity was rewarded because it apparently pleased God and would help us survive Armageddon. I heard countless stories and even saw a few firsthand, where JWs had completely burned themselves out at Bethel. I also had several conversations with different sisters who were literally ‘hanging in there’ until the end. Exhausted with the gruelling JW schedule and lifestyle, but it was all they knew. They couldn’t wait for Armageddon.

After we leave, we are at risk of needlessly flogging ourselves on a different but equally unproductive hamster wheel, because this is all we have known. This can look like: filling your days with non-urgent and unimportant things, keeping yourself too busy to think too much, doing far too much for people who really don’t appreciate it all that much (or even expect it), or measuring your worth by the amount you get done each day or the amount you do for others: The perfect recipe for burn-out.  

The opposite may also happen. Now that you have finally stepped off the theocratic hamster wheel, all the ‘rewards’ of the JW way of life are gone, so instead of jumping on another treadmill you may just fall off entirely. Your whole purpose for being is now gone, everything feels a bit pointless, and it is hard to get going again. In this frame of mind, self-care is once again the last thing on your to-do list.

Whether you jump on another hamster wheel after leaving the organisation or end up with no wheels at all, the result is the same: A lack of self-care.  

3. Not ‘using the world to the full’

Another factor that may contribute to a lack of self-care, or at the very least a lower quality of life after leaving, is the result of internalising the belief that we should not ‘use the world to the full’.

Witnesses are continually warned against ‘using the world to the full’, and ‘taking advantage of Satan’s system’. This world is both evil and impermanent, so why would we want to use, get attached to, or take advantage of, anything that essentially belongs to Satan and will be gone soon anyway.  

Through this teaching we learned:    

• Not to become too reliant on things that could be seen as self-indulgent, unnecessary, or ‘worldly’.
• Not to get too attached to material things because they would all be done away with at Armageddon anyway.
• Not to take opportunities that came our way unless they supported (or at least wouldn’t interfere with) our theocratic obligations.
• To only ‘use’ those opportunities to the extent that it enabled us to further kingdom interests (ie. be prepared to leave your colleagues in the lurch so you can skive off to go and be a good Christian)
• To try and align our use of things in this world with what may be available to us at some future point in time (either during the Great Tribulation or the new world).
• To believe that doing things the hard way is the right way, because everything that could be used to make something easy essentially belongs to Satan.

How we interpreted and applied all of this will be different for all of us, but if you have taken to heart this belief of ‘not using the world do the full’, behaviours like the following may be familiar:

• Limiting or avoiding use of appliances or gadgets that could make life easier, or not even buying them in the first place,
• Scoffing at, or judging, people who prioritise ‘self-indulgent’ things like massages, socialising, or hobbies,
• Not applying for jobs or seeking out opportunities that may require longer hours or more responsibility,
• Not applying for jobs or seeking out opportunities that may come with additional perks because you don’t want to be seen as taking advantage of anything or anyone,
• Feeling guilty if you have a job that does have a level of prestige and come with additional perks, so you downplay them and minimise your use of them (even if you have worked hard to have a job like this),
• Not planning ahead financially or prioritising your financial wellbeing,
• Not buying your own home even when it may be possible (not easy, but possible) to do so.

As a child I often imagined myself in prison during the Great Tribulation because I had refused to give the whereabouts of fellow believers. I thought about the bare minimum I would subsist on when that inevitably happened, and as I went through life, I noticed a tendency to use up as little resources in this world as possible. I once rented a flat with a dishwasher, living there for two years without ever using it. It seemed such a luxury, and a waste of water, so I just continued to wash up by hand as I had always done. Can’t have myself getting too comfy or having things too easy!

It is perhaps a silly example, but it shows how internalising such unhelpful beliefs can affect our behaviour years later.

These thought patterns and behaviours don’t necessarily affect all JWs or former JWs. I knew quite a few who were objectively successful and wealthy, and many had no such concerns about doing or purchasing anything that may make their life easier. I guess these people were able to take what JW rhetoric worked for them and leave the rest, or they somehow just remained unaffected by this particular aspect of the culture.

For others though, myself included, this way of thinking not only stops you doing even small things that have a massive impact on your quality of life, it prevents you from prioritising self-care after you leave.

For three ways to address these challenges, read on here: Self-care for ex-JWs (Part 2).

Hope to see you there!

Renee