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[ENFP] A little help getting over inner anxiety and pain?

Avocado

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I feel like missed out on so many things in life while I lived under the mind control of the cult. I feel like I am stripped of identity. I spent my whole life expecting to never have to grow old, and suddenly knowing I will grow old and die bothers me. I have deep guilt for the pain I caused as a child by spreading hurtful philosophies. I spent my entire life being informed of the pain around me, and being told that by converting others, I could stop that pain. Now, I see the pain and know there is no solution, or at least a practical one. It seems like I spend my life in a manic-depressive series of mood swings, several per day. I have no idea where to go…

Is there any way to regain the childhood I lost?
 

Avocado

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I feel like missed out on so many things in life while I lived under the mind control of the cult. I feel like I am stripped of identity. I spent my whole life expecting to never have to grow old, and suddenly knowing I will grow old and die bothers me. I have deep guilt for the pain I caused as a child by spreading hurtful philosophies. I spent my entire life being informed of the pain around me, and being told that by converting others, I could stop that pain. Now, I see the pain and know there is no solution, or at least a practical one. It seems like I spend my life in a manic-depressive series of mood swings, several per day. I have no idea where to go…

Is there any way to regain the childhood I lost?

At any rate, I usually feel very cold and hopeless at my core, and I find it hard to truly free myself from negativity.

The roads to happiness that I read about seem mostly intellectual points, so my emotions stay very raw. This rawness isn't without mood swings, though.
 

hjgbujhghg

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Sometimes it's scary how much your thoughts and feelings copy mine...
 

Avocado

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Sometimes it's scary how much your thoughts and feelings copy mine...

I wonder if it is because I have a possible strong 4-fix and a heavy 6 wing, or we are both ENFP…

Did you come from a mind-control cult, too?
 

hjgbujhghg

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I wonder if it is because I have a possible strong 4-fix and a heavy 6 wing, or we are both ENFP…

Did you come from a mind-control cult, too?

I wonder the same...Hmmm well I am not sure what do you mean by mind-control cult?
 

prplchknz

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this is bullshit if I make a thread like this it gets deleted. but this is allowed to stay. what the fuck
 

two cents

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Ugh. I've never been in an actual mind-control cult, but it's scary how much my upbringing mirrored one anyway. When I finally started to see through what was going on and started separating myself from all the bullshit and brainwashing and manipulation I became really angry and stayed that way for years. I was angry at all the things that were done to me that I had no control over, I was angry about all the things I missed out on, but most of all I was angry about how deficient I was made in many areas of functioning because of the things that were done to me, because of what I was and wasn't allowed to experience, because of all the lies fed to me for so many years. I felt like all these things were done to me by someone else but now I was left to deal on my own with all the problems that they caused, and that it was royally unfair.

Well, it is royally unfair. You got screwed. It wasn't your fault. However, the fact that this was someone else's fault doesn't get you off the hook from dealing with it: this is who you are now and this is what you have to deal with.

The best advice I can give you (it worked for me, I can't promise it will work for you) is to draw the line at your past being your past and resolve to start over and do the best with what you've got. You must, at any cost, stop dwelling on the past, and who hurt you in what way and how it's messing everything up now. Just don't let yourself go there in your mind. There's no way to go back into the past and fix it, and dwelling on it will only make you more hurt and angry. I'm not saying forgive -- that's up to you. Just do your best to leave it behind you.

What you need now is to strive for autonomy. In the past your decisions were not your own (or at least mostly so). Now you need to busy yourself with making sure that you have more control over the conditions and direction of your life. It will be a lot of work. Maybe you've already done a lot of work towards that -- I don't know your current circumstances, but if you have, keep at it. It will help you feel safe.

You will form a new identity, it will just take time to build. You can't be the person you were before, do the same things or believe the same things anymore, but you will slowly realize that you are still somehow "yourself", and although the conditions of your life and your attachments and your beliefs have changed, there are still things you like/care about, things that you find meaningful. It will come more easily if you can stop yourself from frantically grasping at things to fill the void you feel now.

I don't know if you can find your childhood again. I haven't been able to. You may have to learn to let it go, and to let go of feeling like you were robbed -- you were, in fact, robbed, but the thing stolen from you is now gone. One thing you may be able to do is reclaim some of your memories, some of your childhood identity again, but you can't do it right now -- it will take time for you to emotionally separate from your past, and you have to do that before you can go back and tease apart the things that were you and the things that were done to you, the internal from the external, if that makes any sense.

Another thing that may be helpful is therapy. I don't know if you have supportive friends -- it would be great for you to have some. Therapy, however, will go beyond providing support and will help you get your bearings in a more general sense. You can learn mental/emotional/social skills you may have missed out on while growing up in a cult. You can set/discuss life goals and your progress towards achieving them in a safe environment, and it will help to have another person there to run things by, someone who can provide perspective.

Lastly, I will also heartily recommend that you try antidepressants. If you find one that works for you, it will help you with emotional regulation. Yes, you have all the reasons in the world to feel bad right now, and feeling bad is not a sign of anything wrong with you. An antidepressant will not stop you from feeling bad altogether. However, it will help you feel better, be less anxious, be less sad, feel more insulated from the things that upset you. It CAN happen, and if it does, it will make some things easier for you. The drugs won't do the work for you that you have to do to extricate yourself from the situation you are in and to move on, but they will help you feel better while you are doing it. It's up to you of course: if you decide it's not for you and you'd rather work things out on your own, that's just as valid a way of dealing with things.
 
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rogue350

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There are a number of solutions to your problem. I would definitely suggest some sort of therapy so that you can express your thoughts, fears, and concerns and be guided by a professional. There will always be scars from your past but you CAN come out of it as a better person. Don't let the past define your future and don't get stuck in this toxic mindset. Negativity is a lethal snare that will leave you either lonely or stuck with other negative people that keep you trapped.
Don't let what you missed out on keep you from new experiences! PM me if you ever need to talk. I hope these nuggets of advice assist you in your journey.
 

Avocado

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Ugh. I've never been in an actual mind-control cult, but it's scary how much my upbringing mirrored one anyway. When I finally started to see through what was going on and started separating myself from all the bullshit and brainwashing and manipulation I became really angry and stayed that way for years. I was angry at all the things that were done to me that I had no control over, I was angry about all the things I missed out on, but most of all I was angry about how deficient I was made in many areas of functioning because of the things that were done to me, because of what I was and wasn't allowed to experience, because of all the lies fed to me for so many years. I felt like all these things were done to me by someone else but now I was left to deal on my own with all the problems that they caused, and that it was royally unfair.

Well, it is royally unfair. You got screwed. It wasn't your fault. However, the fact that this was someone else's fault doesn't get you off the hook from dealing with it: this is who you are now and this is what you have to deal with.

The best advice I can give you (it worked for me, I can't promise it will work for you) is to draw the line at your past being your past and resolve to start over and do the best with what you've got. You must, at any cost, stop dwelling on the past, and who hurt you in what way and how it's messing everything up now. Just don't let yourself go there in your mind. There's no way to go back into the past and fix it, and dwelling on it will only make you more hurt and angry. I'm not saying forgive -- that's up to you. Just do your best to leave it behind you.

What you need now is to strive for autonomy. In the past your decisions were not your own (or at least mostly so). Now you need to busy yourself with making sure that you have more control over the conditions and direction of your life. It will be a lot of work. Maybe you've already done a lot of work towards that -- I don't know your current circumstances, but if you have, keep at it. It will help you feel safe.

You will form a new identity, it will just take time to build. You can't be the person you were before, do the same things or believe the same things anymore, but you will slowly realize that you are still somehow "yourself", and although the conditions of your life and your attachments and your beliefs have changed, there are still things you like/care about, things that you find meaningful. It will come more easily if you can stop yourself from frantically grasping at things to fill the void you feel now.

I don't know if you can find your childhood again. I haven't been able to. You may have to learn to let it go, and to let go of feeling like you were robbed -- you were, in fact, robbed, but the thing stolen from you is now gone. One thing you may be able to do is reclaim some of your memories, some of your childhood identity again, but you can't do it right now -- it will take time for you to emotionally separate from your past, and you have to do that before you can go back and tease apart the things that were you and the things that were done to you, the internal from the external, if that makes any sense.

Another thing that may be helpful is therapy. I don't know if you have supportive friends -- it would be great for you to have some. Therapy, however, will go beyond providing support and will help you get your bearings in a more general sense. You can learn mental/emotional/social skills you may have missed out on while growing up in a cult. You can set/discuss life goals and your progress towards achieving them in a safe environment, and it will help to have another person there to run things by, someone who can provide perspective.

Lastly, I will also heartily recommend that you try antidepressants. If you find one that works for you, it will help you with emotional regulation. Yes, you have all the reasons in the world to feel bad right now, and feeling bad is not a sign of anything wrong with you. An antidepressant will not stop you from feeling bad altogether. However, it will help you feel better, be less anxious, be less sad, feel more insulated from the things that upset you. It CAN happen, and if it does, it will make some things easier for you. The drugs won't do the work for you that you have to do to extricate yourself from the situation you are in and to move on, but they will help you feel better while you are doing it. It's up to you of course: if you decide it's not for you and you'd rather work things out on your own, that's just as valid a way of dealing with things.

Thank you. I got into college. I am getting trained to work as a pharmacist's assistant. I feel I must find something of some meaning I can invest my energies in, but I don't know what meaning means anymore.
 

Avocado

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Ugh. I've never been in an actual mind-control cult, but it's scary how much my upbringing mirrored one anyway. When I finally started to see through what was going on and started separating myself from all the bullshit and brainwashing and manipulation I became really angry and stayed that way for years. I was angry at all the things that were done to me that I had no control over, I was angry about all the things I missed out on, but most of all I was angry about how deficient I was made in many areas of functioning because of the things that were done to me, because of what I was and wasn't allowed to experience, because of all the lies fed to me for so many years. I felt like all these things were done to me by someone else but now I was left to deal on my own with all the problems that they caused, and that it was royally unfair.

Well, it is royally unfair. You got screwed. It wasn't your fault. However, the fact that this was someone else's fault doesn't get you off the hook from dealing with it: this is who you are now and this is what you have to deal with.

The best advice I can give you (it worked for me, I can't promise it will work for you) is to draw the line at your past being your past and resolve to start over and do the best with what you've got. You must, at any cost, stop dwelling on the past, and who hurt you in what way and how it's messing everything up now. Just don't let yourself go there in your mind. There's no way to go back into the past and fix it, and dwelling on it will only make you more hurt and angry. I'm not saying forgive -- that's up to you. Just do your best to leave it behind you.

What you need now is to strive for autonomy. In the past your decisions were not your own (or at least mostly so). Now you need to busy yourself with making sure that you have more control over the conditions and direction of your life. It will be a lot of work. Maybe you've already done a lot of work towards that -- I don't know your current circumstances, but if you have, keep at it. It will help you feel safe.

You will form a new identity, it will just take time to build. You can't be the person you were before, do the same things or believe the same things anymore, but you will slowly realize that you are still somehow "yourself", and although the conditions of your life and your attachments and your beliefs have changed, there are still things you like/care about, things that you find meaningful. It will come more easily if you can stop yourself from frantically grasping at things to fill the void you feel now.

I don't know if you can find your childhood again. I haven't been able to. You may have to learn to let it go, and to let go of feeling like you were robbed -- you were, in fact, robbed, but the thing stolen from you is now gone. One thing you may be able to do is reclaim some of your memories, some of your childhood identity again, but you can't do it right now -- it will take time for you to emotionally separate from your past, and you have to do that before you can go back and tease apart the things that were you and the things that were done to you, the internal from the external, if that makes any sense.

Another thing that may be helpful is therapy. I don't know if you have supportive friends -- it would be great for you to have some. Therapy, however, will go beyond providing support and will help you get your bearings in a more general sense. You can learn mental/emotional/social skills you may have missed out on while growing up in a cult. You can set/discuss life goals and your progress towards achieving them in a safe environment, and it will help to have another person there to run things by, someone who can provide perspective.

Lastly, I will also heartily recommend that you try antidepressants. If you find one that works for you, it will help you with emotional regulation. Yes, you have all the reasons in the world to feel bad right now, and feeling bad is not a sign of anything wrong with you. An antidepressant will not stop you from feeling bad altogether. However, it will help you feel better, be less anxious, be less sad, feel more insulated from the things that upset you. It CAN happen, and if it does, it will make some things easier for you. The drugs won't do the work for you that you have to do to extricate yourself from the situation you are in and to move on, but they will help you feel better while you are doing it. It's up to you of course: if you decide it's not for you and you'd rather work things out on your own, that's just as valid a way of dealing with things.

Thank you. I got into college. I am getting trained to work as a pharmacist's assistant. I feel I must find something of some meaning I can invest my energies in, but I don't know what meaning means anymore.
 

Qlip

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Which cult was this, Qwan?
 

Avocado

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Which cult was this, Qwan?

The same one you were in…JW…
I think I told you before about my doubts on it's validity…now I know it's wrong…
 
N

ndovjtjcaqidthi

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Qlip

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The same one you were in…JW…
I think I told you before about my doubts on it's validity…now I know it's wrong…

Sorry for forgetting, yeah...

I don't know what to say. THEY teach you to internalize blame. They want you to be useless outside of them. This is their legacy, don't let them have that.
 

Avocado

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Sorry for forgetting, yeah...

I don't know what to say. THEY teach you to internalize blame. They want you to be useless outside of them. This is their legacy, don't let them have that.

Thank you…
Where do you find your comfort?
Did you ever find a source of meaning?
I'm in this weird limbo thing right now, and I need a base to build a philosophy off of something…

I just don't like a world absolutely void of all meaning.

I'm not sure where the meaning will come from, but I shall seek…
 

Qlip

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Thank you…
Where do you find your comfort?
Did you ever find a source of meaning?
I'm in this weird limbo thing right now, and I need a base to build a philosophy off of something…

I just don't like a world absolutely void of all meaning.

I'm not sure where the meaning will come from, but I shall seek…

Ah.. yeah that's the tough part. It took nearly a decade for me to find a world-view that I was comfortable with. You're an ENFP, so you're going to have to just find out for yourself and see what feels right.

It took a while to come up with some basic precepts to help me out. First of all, I decided that if God was a dick, then fuck him. Seriously, if the secrets of the universe are hidden like something in a Nicolas Cage adventure movie, screw that. If he exists, then he has to exist in a way that makes him a nicer person than I am, AT LEAST.

This sets me up for the most important thing, my senses are to be trusted. If we can't know the truth by our own reasoning and experiences, then we are and will always be truly lost.

Qwan, the whole 'no meaning' thing is scary, but it's something that I think you're going to have to ordeal through at some point, it's something to go through and come out of.
 

SubtleFighter

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I feel like missed out on so many things in life while I lived under the mind control of the cult. I feel like I am stripped of identity. I spent my whole life expecting to never have to grow old, and suddenly knowing I will grow old and die bothers me. I have deep guilt for the pain I caused as a child by spreading hurtful philosophies. I spent my entire life being informed of the pain around me, and being told that by converting others, I could stop that pain. Now, I see the pain and know there is no solution, or at least a practical one. It seems like I spend my life in a manic-depressive series of mood swings, several per day. I have no idea where to go…

Is there any way to regain the childhood I lost?

Hi Qwan,

I know this is really painful. :hug: You sound exactly like I did two years ago.

Like Qlip said, they've been molding you to not be able to live without them, and that's part of why it's painful to break away from them. But you can and will get through this and come out on the other side a happier, more content person. I have talked with many people who have felt similar things as to what you're saying, and they came out on the other side and have found more peace. I'm just telling you this to help you to have hope.

It is ultimately up to you to find your own meaning. This is hard when you've had people forcing you your whole life to not think for yourself. But it's absolutely essential to do.

Here are some things that I've come to understand, and you may end up disagreeing with me in some things, but I hope this helps you in some way:

One thing I'll tell you is that the world is not perfect, not by a long shot. But it still has good in it. People are not as horrible or sad or depraved as the JWs want you to believe. And this is something that took me a while to learn and believe, but it's true--the world doesn't have to be perfect.

I don't believe that there is an ultimate meaning to life or absolute truth. But that doesn't mean that life still can't have meaning for you. This probably sounds unsatisfactory when you're used to grandiose meaning. But it's all that's really true. I take comfort in doing things and hobbies that make me happy, in having relationships with the people I care about, in learning about knowledge that I never had before, and in trying to make the world a little bit better for the people around me. I'm not happy that I will die, but my goal is to be as happy as I can while I am alive. I believe it was a book by Richard Dawkins where he said that the chances of us even being alive in these particular gene combinations like we are now is so astronomically small. There are so many other possible human gene combinations that will never even be conceived. So I feel very lucky to be here. These are all my meaning.

Here are some practical steps I think will help you:

1) Realize that this is a process that will take years. I believe the average person in your situation takes about 3 years to feel like they have gotten settled into a new identity and their new surroundings. The hurt has accumulated over years, so it makes sense that healing it will also take years.

2) Figure out a process where you evaluate what you believe or don't believe. This will greatly help you in forming a new identity. Different people have different methods of evaluating if something is true or not--try some out and see what works for you. For me personally, I read up on the scientific method, and I believe this is the best way we know of finding what's real. I also studied logical fallacies so that I know when someone has scanty logic. But some people believe that science isn't the best way. Think about all this.

3) Make an outline, so to speak, about different things you need to figure out whether or not you believe in it, and then tackle them one at a time instead of feeling overwhelmed with feeling like you have so many things to figure out. Since you've already determined that you don't believe in the JW doctrine, that's one thing you can cross off the list. Maybe other things on your list could be a) does God exist, b) if so, what kind of God is he/she, c) is the Bible infallible, d) if not, is there a value in it, and so on. It is easier to do one thing at a time, and eventually you will build up a bunch of answers for yourself.

4) Learn, learn, learn. It is hard to figure out what opinions you have about things if you don't have knowledge about them. It seems daunting, but you'll have to relearn a lot of things you thought you already knew. This will take some time. One thing you might do is make another list of things that you want to learn more about, and then go down the list and read a non-fiction book about each of those things. Or if it's more your style, stay on one of those topics and read a bunch of books about it until you feel like you've learned enough to move onto the next item on the list and then repeat. Some things in particular that you may benefit from learning more about are science/evolution, what other religions' real doctrines and practices are, learning the history of human civilizations from a secular historian's point of view, and learning logical fallacies. This will help you to figure out your identity and what you believe in because you will start to form opinions about what you are learning.

5) Find support. Make non-JW friends. If it's possible, see a therapist to talk to face-to-face. Talk online with other ex-JWs or JWs who are coming out of the religion. One website where you can find a lot of people like this is http://www.jehovahs-witness.net. You could also try JW Recovery. Everyone on these forums has been through the same thing.
 

AzulEyes

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I recommend therapy.
You cannot control what people put in your head whan you were a child. :( SO SORRY you were put through that. It sounds AWFUL.
You are an ENFP- so I KNOW you KNOW that yesterday is dead and gone. It is never coming back. All that matters is TODAY. And the future is BRIGHT. Whoever was doing that to you- I'm assuming- is no longer in your life or has any control of your life. (Except these bad memories they left with you.)

Are you going to allow them to continue to control your life?

That is the question you must ask yourself.

If you are ENFP- you have the resilience to say, "Screw This. They will NOT control my head for another minute. I'm taking back my life right here and right now."

I know it is not easy- and I'm sure there is A LOT of Fi soul searching you need to do to figure out what YOUR values are since someone else's values were pummelled into your head- no fault of your own.

You can do this.
 

Avocado

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I recommend therapy.
You cannot control what people put in your head whan you were a child. :( SO SORRY you were put through that. It sounds AWFUL.
You are an ENFP- so I KNOW you KNOW that yesterday is dead and gone. It is never coming back. All that matters is TODAY. And the future is BRIGHT. Whoever was doing that to you- I'm assuming- is no longer in your life or has any control of your life. (Except these bad memories they left with you.)

Are you going to allow them to continue to control your life?

That is the question you must ask yourself.

If you are ENFP- you have the resilience to say, "Screw This. They will NOT control my head for another minute. I'm taking back my life right here and right now."

I know it is not easy- and I'm sure there is A LOT of Fi soul searching you need to do to figure out what YOUR values are since someone else's values were pummelled into your head- no fault of your own.

You can do this.

Thank you.
 

zago

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The only way to move on is to forget. The only way to forget is to find something you enjoy doing enough that it stops your thoughts from re-visiting the negativity and the past. For me it is reading, and I find hope in the singularity especially. When I read things I like to read, my mind pretty much stays away from the painful topics and gets into the reading.

Your mind dwells on what you spend your time doing. If you spend your time thinking negative thoughts, your brain will think even more about the negative thoughts and their consequences. If you spend your time doing what you like, your brain will begin to start thinking in those terms.

Summer 2013 was a waking nightmare for me. Midway through I cracked and tried to get myself out of the hole. I would spend my time reading, and as I was doing so, sometimes terribly painful thoughts would arise, but I would go back to reading as soon as I could once it happened. In a couple months, those thoughts became less frequent and sharp and I was even able to be unoccupied without those painful thoughts coming up most of the time.
 
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