It’s a well-established fact that we learn what love looks like from those around us as we are growing up. While some of us may have had strong examples of loving relationships modelled by our parents or caregivers, chances are, if your family were Jehovah’s Witnesses, all of you were at least somewhat affected…
In Part 1 we identified three reasons why implementing an effective self-care routine is so difficult for former JWs: So where to now? We will now explore three corresponding ways to address these challenges, to help us make self-care a priority in our lives. 1. Back to basics: Identify what you need, and learn…
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,…
While we all judge and compare ourselves to others from time to time, for Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s a way of life. Members of the JW religion experience a strange dichotomy where they mean nothing as individuals, but as one of the only group on earth with God’s approval, they are superior to all other…
Being manipulated and coerced into living a life ruled by fear and devoid of the full range of human experience means there are essential life skills that JWs simply never learn. Previous posts have covered how the JW organisation controls its members and the harmful impacts this can have. In this post, we are…
This is a question we all likely heard the Elders address from the platform from time to time. It is also clearly a topic the organisation feels strongly about, because they have chosen to include it in the FAQs on the JW.org website. Do they really answer the question though? Or does their own…
Self-help, Life coaching, Counsellors, Therapists, Psychologists, and Psychiatrists: What’s the difference?! What do I need? This post is about the many different ‘helping’ options out there to help you find the one that is right for you. As JWs we were never encouraged to seek any form of mental health treatment outside of the…
Being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses affects us all differently. Believe it or not, some of us come through relatively unscathed. Perhaps the unscathed ones were lucky enough to have an extremely stable and loving family life despite the religion, and they grew up having at least some autonomy and agency over themselves and their…
Before leaving the Witnesses I had never even heard the words coercive control, and if I had, I certainly did not apply them in my own life. Control is normal in this organisation. If you were born-in, this is all you have ever known. You are totally unaware that every aspect of your life…
It is hard to know where to start with the damaging and controlling practices of my former religion, but Adam Harvey and the team at the ABC (Australia) recently gave it a good go in the Four Corners episode: ‘Escaping Jehovah’s Witnesses: Inside the dangerous world of a brutal religion’. They covered a lot…