GodfearingAtheist wrote:
 My two sisters and one of my brothers have never met my son who is 33 years old now. How can I not think about it constantly?

Now that is extreme! You must be in your 50's and 3 of your siblings have never met your adult son? I can understand why you went off this site for a while because I did the same thing. Sometimes we make things worse for ourselves by constantly keeping all the past JW stuff fresh in our heads. But then again it always seems to pop back up and it's forums like this that sometimes seems like the only place we can vent, get things off our chest, and to have some others know exactly what we're talking about. I don't have an answer for you about how to avoid thinking about it all the time, other than doing what you've been doing and stay busy living your life, doing things that are enjoyable to you and keeping your mind on positive things as much as humanly possible. We all realize that at times that's much easier said than done.

GodfearingAtheist wrote:
 My two brothers left the JWs and became involved with other religious groups like Gateway and never really changed. The church building is different but the religious bigotry and self rightous pompitude is still there, willing to put me in my place because I have chosen, through much studies to be a non believer.

I thought by now me and my brothers would be united and stronger as a family but nothing has changed. The JWs taught my family the power of the silent treatment well and they proudly still use it against me and one another with full support from fellow like minded sheeple that surround them.
 

This is why I have a disdain for religion in general. This is a specific ex-JW forum but religious dysfunction, extremism & narrow mindedness are not only a JW issue. ANY EXTREME religious group has many of the same symptoms. The big difference with JW is the shunning & how well they all accept and apply that as a group. People that quote scriptures to respond to questions, people that repeat the same verbal rote as perpetrated by their faith's leadership, people that have to refer to their particular faiths literature to decide about menial tasks in their life all have the same narrow minded thinking and they are mostly incapable of independent personal thought & decision making. For they are taught that is the work of the Devil and to be avoided.

Yours is a unique situation to me because you say two of your brothers are DF from the JW but yet they still look down at you, don't understand you, don't communicate with you and your just as withdrawn from each other as always. I find that very strange and to me it shows signs of a much deeper issue possibly. Is there major emotional abuse, physical abuse or mental illness in your family that goes back to everyone's childhood?
 
 Going back to my point about religion in general I have a friend (kind of a friend...more of an acquaintance that I actually try to avoid these days). He is what I privately refer to as a "Jesus Freak!". LOL While he doesn't practice shunning, he's a Baptist maniac and everything is about Jesus. JESUS, JESUS, JESUS. It's as annoying or more than the JW "Jehovah Freaks". 

I think religion is more of a personal disorder. smiley: grin