I don't feel like I belong anymore
Hey everyone.
I’ve been in the "truth" all my life so this is not something I take lightly or say in an emotional moment. It is something I have been sitting with for a long time now and honestly it is getting harder to ignore how uncomfortable I feel.
I am a single mother. I was married to a brother who cheated and he ended up disfellowshipped. After everything that happened I stayed and tried to do things the right way. I tried to hold myself together spiritually, emotionally, and for my child.But what I am struggling with now is that I do not feel like I fit in anymore.
Instead of feeling supported I often feel judged. It is like the innocent person in the situation is still looked at sideways like somehow you did not handle things the correct way. There is this underlying message spoken or unspoken that you should just forgive endure and keep everything intact no matter what. And if you do not you end up feeling like you are the problem.
What makes it even more confusing is when people say your strength is an example. They say most people who went through what you went through would have left the organization. I really do not know how to feel about that because sometimes it does not feel like encouragement. It feels like pressure to keep enduring silently.
What has been even more difficult is seeing how things feel inside the congregation now that I am in this position. I am noticing things I never paid attention to before. The gossip. The quiet comparisons. The way people separate into have and have not groups socially. The way appearances matter more than honesty sometimes. And the fake smiles. People being polite but not really present.
Get togethers are so uncomfortable. It feels like you are not single but also not married when you divorce. You are kind of stuck in the middle and it feels like you are being judged for that.
I also feel like some of the men do the most and then hide behind the scriptures. That has been something hard to unsee once I noticed it.
When I try to express how I feel I am told it is all in my mind or that I am being negative or that I do not trust in Jehovah or that I am listening to voices of strangers. It makes it really hard to open up because it feels like you cannot share your true feelings without being labeled as rebellious or as someone who does not love Jehovah.
It is confusing because I grew up believing this was supposed to be a loving safe spiritual family. But lately I have been feeling more isolated inside the congregation than I do outside of it.
At meetings I do not feel comfortable anymore. I sit there but I do not feel like I belong there the way I used to. It is like something shifted or maybe I just cannot unsee what I am seeing now.
I also carry a lot as a mother on top of all of this. So I am trying to stay strong keep things stable for my child and still show up spiritually but inside I feel disconnected and worn down.
I do not have a dramatic conclusion or a clear answer. I am not trying to attack anyone. I am just honestly saying that I do not feel like I belong in a place I have been my whole life and that is a hard thing to admit to myself.
Has anyone else gone through this shift where what once felt like home slowly starts to feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable? How did you deal with it without losing yourself completely?