Presley Michelle

POV your thirties will be better than your twenties because it’s the first decade you’re able to be authentically Y O U✨🤍

Heard we’re doing the 2016 throwback 👀

May I present to you:

Hardcore JDub Mom Me

22 years old, married for 4 years with a baby.

We read My Book of Bible Stories to my pregnant belly, we played the Caleb & Sophia videos for our son. “Family Worship” was a very important part of being a “good Witness”.

We attended 2 hour meetings twice a week, went in field service(door-to-door ministry) every Saturday, traveled 2.5 hours away for assemblies and conventions. We did all the things. We shunned family and friends who left, because we were told to. We only had friends. Our cookie-cutter little Christian family.

I wonder how much more present of a mom I would have been if I wasn’t living in a constant state of fight-or-flight. Not that I’m not now, especially in this dumpster fire world. But the constant longing for a relationship with my father and the shame/punishment if I did have one. The constant nightmares of him dying in . It was something that didn’t end until I woke up and left the .

Healing isn’t linear. There isn’t a special handbook you get when you leave a high-control group. That’s the whole point. You become so dependent on them, it becomes your entire world. Your community, your identity, your ideals and values.

So for many of us, if not all.. we had no idea who the hell we were outside of the organization.

And the only way for you to figure out who you truly are, is to shed the fear you were never meant to endure as your reality. If you were born-in, like me, I have 27 years of deprogrammingto do.

I cannot stress the importance of therapy.
Therapy, therapy, therapy. Oh, and did I mention therapy?

Wherever you are on your healing journey, I hope you remember to give yourself grace and remember that YOU MATTER 🤍🤍🤍🤍