Lost at Sea

UntoHim... mmm.... It's a threatening warning.

I think the second part of what Carol said is true... then things got really messed up... and I don't really know... or understand... the why, what, how....

OnHisPath.... As for having possible ptsd symptoms... yes, I have been diagnosed with having ptsd as well as a psychotic depressive disorder....

I just have to be in a neighborhood with houses on a block...like Saturday I was walking to the bank... I look at the houses, the steps, the front doors and the first thing that comes to mind is not "oh, it's another house"...what comes to mind is me 12 years old with two LC members that I know who are on fire for the L--d going door-knocking... all the rejection that went along with it... and the strangeness of entering a total stranger's home...and also have the pressure to share my testimony/experience of the L--d when I had none to give/say. It made me feel really uncomfortable and anxious... to have to lie. It made me really uncomfortable to have to talk to a total stranger. I told them I couldn't... they said to try anyways... I said I really couldn't and again they said to try... So now all eyes (8 eyeballs) are on me... waiting... it was such long silence that i started crying... then the other two finally talked to the unbeliever(s)... but in my mind... total strangers. I did not know whose home I was going into. I was taught not to go into people's homes and to not talk to total strangers. When jw's come around a-knocking, 2 grownups with a kid, I see myself as that kid. And when I think about it, I feel sad... and mad... and used... a pawn for others' benefit and agenda. Like my purpose was really to make our group look safe because a kid was in tow. On top of that... I'm wearing a white blouse/top and a blue skirt... why???? And then when I see a jw kid in the same attire, I think of door-knocking... then I think of the summer school of truth where that attire was required for the girls (of course the guys had the privileged option of wearing nice jeans that I decided to try that one day...and, boy, did I get reprimanded for it)...and I HAD to sit in a particular seat and act a certain way... pray a certain way... pray-read a certain way... very mechanical and unnatural... and when I prayed.. I thought it really rude and uncourteous to be interrupted with "A--n's" before I finished a sentence... before I finished my prayer. It made me feel really uncomfortable. The whole atmosphere made me uncomfortable. The whole everything made me feel uncomfortable. The J-word makes me shudder to this day. So does G-d... Ch--st... C--rch... Sp--it... Ha------jah.... "O L--- J----"... "Ch--st and the C---rch"..... L--- J-----.... J---- Ch--st.... sove---gn is one that I hadn't heard or thought about in 15 years since I walked out the lc until UntoHim used it in the above posts. When I saw it... it stung. I have to block it out... and go bleep-bleep. Basically anything and everything I have to go bleep-bleep. My face freezes or I feel great dread.

I've made some progress though... I've been able to function in the real world... I'm happy... or rather happ-ier... In the LC I never could naturally smile...it was always a fake or forced smile... but out here I came alive. I'm more my natural self... but still have a long ways to go in getting in tune with myself and connecting with the world. I'm even able now to walk into four different church buildings... but only these four... one Methodist, one Presbyterian.... one CMA... and one Lutheran. It's progress... and I can tolerate the hymns as most of them are tunes I've never heard of. Familiar tunes are harder to tolerate along with the words. Forget about the sermon... I have suicidal thoughts while listening to the sermon... because I feel like I'm in the LC... even though I know I am not physically... Every word spoken and heard then was an individual lash across my face... every shout as well... shaking finger and fist.... causing me to feel numb and have morbid thoughts or stabbed in the heart. I didn't feel glorious or uplifted at all... I was dying in my mind, my heart and my spirit... spirit in the Merriam-Webster meaning. It's very difficult to dissociate from my conditioning... very hard for me to distinguish now what is real or not...what is true or not. I wouldn't find out how crazy I was until Sept. 15, 2004 when I was police escorted to the hospital and being evaluated before being hospitalized in the psych ward. One of the questions asked was "do you think you are another person other than yourself?". And I said, "yes, I'm God". Really, tell us more about this... how do you know this... How is it that you are God? "I learned it in church... We all believe this." Really? Everybody? "Yes, we all are becoming God... We are god-men... Half man and half God. Half man and half J---s. I'm becoming Ch---tlike. I will soon be J---s.". Really? "Yes... We are all little gods.". Really? "Yes, the Bible says so.... I have the same nature as him because I'm becoming him.". Next thing I know...I'm given an oral tranquilizer and a big shot in the arm that make me very drowsy... being transferred to another hospital in an ambulance... the shot was meant to knock me out and I wake up in the morning in the psych ward. I could have lived there the rest of my life.... I felt so safe from the confusing world with all its evils, but the staff told me I had to go back out... that I couldn't stay... that the longer I stayed in the ward... the harder it would be to adjust to the outside world. As if THEY really had a clue about me adjusting and living in this world.

It's been 12 years now since that fateful day.... 12 more years than I had cared to live.... 12 extra years of trying to make it through this life... I don't know why I still feel like I have lc blood running thru my veins... with a messed up brain... living and walking around in a body that doesn't fully engage with the world around me... Sometimes not knowing what is reality and what is not.... It's been so long ago. Even my therapist asked me just last week... Is it really still a part of you? Why? Why, when others jaded or turned off have they been able to move on into the world, staying religious or not...? Are you sure it's still a part of you, that you've been so extremely affected... It's been so long ago... 15 years ago... Are you sure that it's not about letting go... because you can just like others have... You can decide right now to let go and just move on... you don't have to hold on anymore... I still think it is so engrained in my being and my thinking still... You would've thought I would've move on in life.... You would think that I would be able to just let go... I just don't understand... I really don't....