The ExJW community is in upheaval at the moment. I think a lot of people felt their trust was was sliced open by the Lloyd Evans scandal, and the outcome of his personal life hurt a lot of individuals. The reason you might be wondering "Why are so many persons taking this personal? Like it involved them in some way." Short answer; We are Ex Jehovah's Witnesses and we are all still healing from previous wounds.
When you are healing or beginning to learn trust again it can take a lot of time and energy. We seek out others who understand our situation. Lloyd Evans understood our situations. He was a Jehovah's Witness himself, he was an elder at one point, and then later he became a very well known activist to make communities at large aware of the Child Sex Abuse cover up with in the JW organization. Out of all the lies and hidden truths of the JW organization this particular issue stings the most for almost all ExJW's. No one in their right mind would support a community who they Know is doing harm to little children. Now, for a lot of ExJW's we feel it is our duty to educate those who do not know of this scandal, and to inform current JW members that what the organization is telling them is not all the details. We know this is not an easy task. There are layers and layers of indoctrination to get past. Lloyd Evans (with help from others) had started to make decent gain in this feat and with that I think a lot of us started pouring our hope and trust into that. When Lloyd made his mistakes it didn't hurt just those immediately tied to him, but rather it hurt the community at large because as ExJW's we were all hurt before and now the sting is that much worse.
What has been the outcome of this pain? I think it's safe to say, there's been some upheaval. There is hate being displayed, hurt and anger, some opinions are stated as facts, and others say to trust no one. So where do we as a community at large go from here? How do we display ourselves or show ourselves to others who don't know our history? How do we help each other? What is our goal? Why are we apart of this community? Why do need this community?
To find the answer to those questions someone would have to ask each and every one of us separately. Each of our stories is unique in some way. We're here in different areas of our own individual journey, so much so that we have acronyms for it! (click the arrows below)
ExJW, POMO
After fully leaving the JW Organization and now
Considered to be "Physically Out, Mentally Out".
PIMO (also PIMQ)
PIMI
Whatever your acronym is it is your life and your story. Some stay quiet and in the background just observing, while others speak out and write posts, write comments, make videos, and become fully engaged. There are no rules to what you need to do or not do. There is no leader. There is no Governing Body type board guiding us in a specific direction. Our community is made up of different individuals, with different personalities, different passions, different opinions, and we open ourselves to this because of our background.
As Jehovah's Witnesses we lived entirely opposite then that above. We were ruled by rules, and "spiritual guidance", and fear of being rejected then shunned. To speak against the leadership was forbidden. Did we not break free from that leadership when we left the organization?
So if there are no rules or guidance, why are we here? Again, this is different for each individual. We each have our own 'reason' for being here, but at large I think a lot of us feel comfort in seeing others who are experiencing similar things. We can seek out help if we need it. We can observe others getting help when they need it and it strengthens us. We can ask questions openly without reservation. We can share opinions knowing that it is just that. We can share information previously not available to us. Past JW literature, news, and articles from around the world! We can debate! We can speak of all religions, war, politics, life styles, and anything else that we were barred from speaking about while in the JW Organization.
For those who were not Jehovah's Witnesses they may not understand why this freedom is so important, but when you experience control as we did it becomes something to savor, and something to appreciate. Freedom is something to exercise.
The ExJW community is bigger then one person. For me, I'm so grateful for every different person, story, experience, comment, post, and opinion. These make me think and it makes my understanding into situations better. So during this time of turmoil and upheaval I wanted to share my reminder and opinion for why the ExJW community is so great.
With much love,
D.R.ExJW
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