NORWAY: FRONT PAGE - Former Jehovah's Witness speaks out: 'Life after the threat' - Stavanger Aftenblad

[Jack Ryan]

An article featured on the front page of the newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad (Norway) with the article in the 'magazine' section. Stavanger Aftenblad is a popular daily newspaper based in Stavanger, south-west Norway.

As a child, she knew that everything was made by one judging God. 17 years old with Jehovah's Witnesses

Now, Elin Mork Rørheim (43) from Sandnes will help others with experience from closed communities

Life after the threat

Stavanger Aftenblad (Norway), Saturday, June 2, 2018 (via Google Translate)

As a child, they knew that the remaining day could be the last. And that all they did and thought was seen by one judging God.

It is soft Elin Mork Rørheim (43) from Sandnes, not hugging her childhood, many memories she has displaced.

But then there are also memories she can never glow; to be a little child lying in bed and going to sleep, a child who thinks of everything she has done this day thinking of the little lie she said and the ugly thought she had. The child is wondering if the day of judgment is coming tomorrow, if today's sins make it impossible for you to go to paradise. And she thinks maybe dying ho no.

Elin was brought up in Jehovah's Witnesses, but left the faith when she was 17 years old.

Pattern Children

Elin is a patterned child, can read a long time before she begins on the shoulder and is among those who can actually sit concentrated with the Bible texts.

They should have the least possible contact with people outside the community, and veins should be among the other threats.

"Monday we go to the doors. Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday there were meetings, and before the meetings we had to keep an eye on specific topics. Every morning I read today's text from the Bible. It takes up all the space in your mind, you get one cash flow of info that makes you never have time for your own thoughts, victory ho."

Watched

The very first boy you doubt is about seven years old and at grandmother's visit to grandmother. Grandmother is not Jehovah's Witness, Elin does not fully understand women. When they are going to sleep, Grandma asks if Elin can pray. The girl prays and prays and thinks that no should be so powerful that the grandmother is saved. You hardly know how to win, is completely absorbed by saving grandmother. It's the first and only boy who sees Grandmother say crying.

"I get a keen thing that it's probably not right. After all, there were several things I wondered about. Kvifor does not grandma go to paradise when he is such a good person? And why does the woman in the congregation like to cling to me like me was mad on my cheek for a long time, coming to paradise?"

In the last assembly there is a council of elders who supervises. Have one swim one answer for the elders. Have a trade in class with learning or repeating Gongar's breach with God's bid without regret, one can be excluded.

"One is constantly monitoring their own because one is required to report to the elders. It means you are on duty all the time."

PICTURE: "If you do not like God's victory, you want to die, but if you behave well, you're going to paradise. It is psychologically difficult for a human being to live in this", Elin Mork Rørheim says about the emergence of a close-knit community.

The choice: Religion or love

In youth times, Elin becomes attracted to the world of the world. Ho poses critical questions, goes to party and gets veins outside the pipeline.

"I lived one day at the meetings of the congregation, but then I had another life beside. I started making cover stories for the most part.

Ho is 17 years old when he meets Ho Frode.

"I said nothing about him about Jehovah, it was so good to touch me. But one day he saw a leaf I had and said, "Oh, there is brainwashing. You are not like you, are you? "No, no, no, I'm not, I said. But then it came out afterwards, and he asked me to choose, he or the religion. Then there was a simple choice for me. He had a smile, was five years older than me. Then I move into him."

PICTURE: When Elin Mork Rørheim was 17, she left the Jehovah's Witnesses and chose life with Frode. Thus, most people lose their social networking.

PICTURE: Elin felt fully monitored, both by God and by the members of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Fundamentalist

For Svein Roar Nilsen (46) is violated with religion, there is a violation of his own thoughts. He wakes up at Vea in Karmøy with mother, father and brother in a Christian home. The family goes to the Pentecostal Dei Free Evangelical Assembly, but afterwards it has become too liberal there.

"My parents always said that on the day they buy drums, yes, we will end. Then it just happened. We in the family became a small conservative house personality for us alone."

PICTURE: "I wholeheartedly believed that everyone else knew of guilty and bad consent to live in sin", Svein Roar Nilsen sees as a fundamentalist.

As a youth, he is introduced to the literature of the Plymouth brothers, a stirring that originated around the 1830s in the UK.

"It's a counter-reaction against world-renowned churches, and involves living aloof from the verda. Verdict music is not allowed, nor popular culture films and books. The first time I went to the cinema was on the verge of skule, it was in school affair and it is not okay", Svein Roar says.

Stirla rejects the theory of evolution, meiner woman shall subordinate to the man, and as the verda is permeated by the Antichrist, the proprietors must have the least contact with the verda.

Svein Roar participates in a Bible group consisting mainly of well-educated men, but at Vea there is no organized environment around the Plymouth brothers, so he becomes a sitting soft aleine. He reads the Bible from Permit to Permit, over and over again.

PICTURE: In the 30's, things begin to take care of Svein Roar. He goes to a psychologist and gets the right that the way he lives on is totally self-evident.

"I develop a total fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. In my mind, God was almighty and more or less ready to send you to hell by the least mistake. And if people tried to penetrate to me, yes, they were sent from the devil."

PICTURE: Samuel and Solveig enjoy the unusually hot spring with ice cream until evening, while mother and father make ready for supper.

"They'll love each other"

Svein Roar moves to Stavanger to educate himself as a computer engineer. There he lives an isolated life.

"I think most of my studies are mostly gray and woolly. Even if I offered a student camp with nice people and good environment, I nevertheless felt like I was in my own bubble and I participated in some of the social. As one of the few few right-wingers, I felt more comfortable than those around me.

He is in the early 30's when everything begins to crumble. He strives with meininga with it all, goes to a psychologist and gets the right that the way he lives on is self-evacuating.

"What happened then was that bubble began to burst from the inside. It was just the Bible that made me change my mind. I read in the gospel of John, saying, "A new bid, I give you a dive: They will love each other." Then I began to think that I do not go here and pour aleine and thank everyone else for the poor.

PICTURE: As a youth, Svein Roar Nilsen was introduced to the literature of the Plymouth brothers, a fundamentalist pipe lion that encourages living on the side of society.

Conversation group in Stavanger

Today Svein Roar Nilsen is buried at Orstad in Klepp municipality with his wife Marta and two children.

Elin Mork Rørheim and the teenage girlfriend marry and have three children.

The two have gone on, and they will use the evil they have experienced to help others.

Under the auspices of the Helpkild organization, they set up a group of conversations for people with experiences with lukka truss communities. The group will meet one gong a month at Midjord bydelshus in Stavanger to talk about topics like trauma, guilt and shame, corleis establish new network and corleis find new meining with life. Elin arranged the same on Klepp last year with Benjamin Hauge, who also has a background of Jehovah's Witnesses. Then they were six goats like a meeting.

"Many people find it difficult to break out, they are standing a little in between and do not get it all right. Then it is important for me to find out that it is possible to have a good life afterwards."

PICTURE: Elin Mork Rørheim is going to hire a call group for staff who have experience with closed communities. It costs her to think back on her own experiences, but hope she can help others.

Elin never glows the day ho broke out. He can see three older men sitting above her and asking questions; if the alcohol ho is busy, parties you've been on and the sex ho has had. Afterwards, you know that you have lost most of your social network.

"The next day I met my best friend in the store. We stood there in our box with our boyfriends, right next to each other. You look awake, could not you say hi to me. I did not react, because I knew it was going to happen."

Ho Meiner Still, Ho is lucky because you had more family members who were out of touch. As a result, he never gotten aleine.

"I have talked to people who feel unable to contact their children after they broke out. Other gongars can be forced to live a double life with two completely different sets of rules."

Svein Roar Nilsen is happy Vea did not have an established environment around the Plymouth brothers.

"I can hardly think of corruption it must be to break with a big environment. At the same time, I think it would have forced me almost enough. It required me too much to be a host in that bubble."

While Svein Roar became a fundamentalist, he never did so for his brother. He thinks personal qualities, as he himself is introvert, explains this.

"I was the guy who sat in and read the lexicon while the other youngsters were playing. I am his nerd, who is always in drawing films."

PICTURE: "One would like to talk about the Christian heritage, but I also feel that we have a cultural heritage of music, movies, books and soccer, and all of this is not enough to me," Svein Roar Nilsen says.

Power through judgment day

Svein Roar may think fear him as a child had for judgment day.

"I came home to an empty house, I thought that no, Jesus would be here and be suitable for the others. Redsla for Judgment Day always followed me. One might think I felt safe given the life I lived, but I did not."

"What do you think about the powerful religion can have over a human being?"

"Kids do not have a chance. From the age of, in the time we lived in tribal communities, one said that you have to take care of those green snakes, do not bathe in the river for crocodiles, and then you must sacrifice a goat at the moon's mouth, and it's raining. Borna is a sponge where everything goes in."

As he grew older, he looked at the lives of the others living and thought that they could work well.

"I wholeheartedly believed that everyone else knew of guilty and bad co-existence of living in sin, that all who lived in cohabitation were all around and fainted. They must be bad, I thought," Svein Roar wins.

"As a child, you think that, as you have, it's common. I thought it was normal to spend the night and did not know if I was going to wake up that day after. I was completely watchful, could never relax, because God saw through walls and houses, looking through everything," Elin Mork Rørheim wins about the rise of Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Desire is a pity, but sexuality is one of our foundations. You have to go to fella. It's a few days you can agree with the reunion."

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that there will be a struggle between the good and the wounded in Armageddon, and then a thousand years in which Jesus will judge living and dead. Those who survive this shall live forever in Paradise. Armageddon can occur at any time. Ten years after Elin broke with Jehovah's Witnesses, he could wake up by the sword, lifeguard for both himself, the man and the children.

"Many novel pipelines usually use methods of psychology to manipulate their members, to be judged through judgment day. If you do not like God's victory, you want to die, but if you behave well, you're going to paradise. It is psychologically difficult for a person to live in this, victory ho."

Inner Terror Mode

Gry Stålsett is associate professor of religious psychologist at the Faculty of Theology. He also works at Modum Bad where he usually uses a religious psychological approach in the therapy of people who have experience with lukka truss communities. The repercussions may be many:

"Many people know about sadness and loss of belongings, lost dreams and crisis in the truss system. Some people are in contact with a desire to be lost and preferably die while at the same time there are plenty of what they fear most because then God is not there. Transparency is a guilt of self-esteem and feels it's a feeling. Many close neighborhoods are difficult. Then there may be sorrow of the unlearned life, all years gone because one was in this closed community."

PICTURE: Svein Roar and his wife Marta are concerned that Samuel and Solveig will soon become part of society. "It's all right for me if you're going to go to a monastery as a vaccine as long as it's of your own choice. But if it owes me that I've raised them in one way that they do not work out in the world on my own hand, I've gotten miserable," win my family father.

Many depicting spiritual abuse experiences that can cause nausea and panic symptoms in the same way as one experiences other forms of mental retaliation or abuse.

"Korleis affects a child to grow up in a trusses direction where judgment and death are very central?"

"It's very soft about the correlation it gets mediated. In many contexts, it has been referred to as the "black pedagogy" when the fright is central to making the child subordinate to a set of rules. My experience from the work of threat in therapy is that those who have experienced this struggle with fear, depression and not seldom also obsessive thoughts. The living space is cramped, and many are insecure of the women they are and whether they are allowed themselves to themselves. Unfortunately, many people struggle with scary, persecuting god cares. They can experience an inner terrorist state with redsle for everlasting fortunes."

Arne Tord Sveinall is an institute professor at the Department of Soul Care and author of the book "Believers to some of each" about religious sectarianism. He finds that many criminals lack the community.

"It's paradoxical that some people feel it's right that others chose one. Taking vala yourself becomes scary for when you think about guilt and sin. Many must be helped to take responsibility for their own lives. Some people feel free, while the transition is hard for others. It's difficult because it's a language one must get rid of. Stemma pops up in the head when one is going to make a choice, because one's fortune is solid in the language that the group had."

"What are they losing?"

"Some losers relate, with Jehovah's Witnesses as the most extreme die where reluctant family members break contact and the report becomes isolated. Others are experiencing tough reactions from a member of the party to the death of being sentenced to "you are the devil's children" in the street. Then it becomes especially difficult for outbreaks as a trainer because they can not stay longer, but still think the truss community might be right."

PICTURE: At the age of 46, Svein Roar Nilsen is what he calls a late youth rebellion. It all starts with ABBA

Happiness

Psychologist Kjell Totland Meiner There are several risk factors associated with growing up in the Lukka community. Particularly this is an issue in the environment where the ward has great ambitions on behalf of the children, to the judge's connection to missionary work and special open berries. Borna's needs can then come in second place. He thinks there's one part that wants to break out, but experiencing pressure and expectations that they do not dare.

"At the same time, there are also many who break out, but seek back. Some people find that they are not comfortable with the culture they entered into, and come back to the group saying 'they were right'."

Totland was as young in the 70's in the Christian Newly-Religious Mobility Navigators.

"When I get into trouble, I lose many of my childhood friends and have to re-establish a friendship. There were many positive things about being part of a herd, but I knew that I did not manage to get out, it was too demanding and intense."

"Is it possible to be successful in such a close environment?"

"Yes, it's easy to make it black and white, but many are very nasty in such groups. It's not enough reason to leave enough one feel gives meining. Working to get them out will be unethical, at least as long as we do not have the most extreme variants in Norway."

PICURE: Svein Roar Nilsen and his wife have talked softly about how they grow up for Solveig and Samuel. "I do not intend to indoctrine their children with a lot more than they have to be critical, check the cellar and think about themselves," Svein Roar says.

To be free

Is it possible to submit absolute trusses and at the same time be free? No, Meiner Religion Psychologist Gry Stålsett.

"Not so we understand freely like feeling, thinking, reflecting and taking independent choices. But you can feel some kind of freedom just because of having to think and take personal decisions in a complicated and difficult way. It may seem that one is protected from life pain."

After breaking with Jehovah's Witnesses, Elin Mork Rørheim can recognize an overwhelming sense of freedom.

"I have seen so much appreciation of the peace we have in this society. If I want to go out and have a beer, take a smoke, and I can. I can walk in the clothes I want, and that means nothing, nobody punishes me. It knows I'm amazing no when I've managed to put away all the rules, victory ho."

Today there is no religion.

"I have had an overdose. I do not mean trur or no trur. I do not feel well. But if I still had to define that, maybe I would say I was human ethics, victory ho."

PICTURE: Svein Roar Nilsen thrives his personhood to be decisive for becoming a fundamentalist. As a child he liked the best aleine, with his books.

Delay youth rage

Svein Roar Nilsen has gone through what he calls a late youth rebellion at the age of 46. 30 years old, he bought his first CD with pop music, "The Visitors" of ABBA, and he knew that listening to it was a bad thing.

"First, I discover the pop music, then rock, and no, I hear most of symphonic metal and death metal."

Woman Marta is trying to make a list of everything he needs to know about to participate in conversations. All the books, filmmakers, the music that other people have grown up with.

"One would like to talk about the Christian cultural heritage, but I also feel that we have a cultural heritage of music, movies, books and soccer, and all of this is not enough for me," Svein Roar says.

He has printed a drawing showing people who go in a wide range. All hero left her umbrella, and under umbrellas it hurts. In the middle of Rekka is a man who has dropped his umbrella and looks up in a clear sky. Below it says "What leaves your religion can be like". Svein Roar has just entered the Norwegian Church.

"I do not know if I'm Lutheran, but I'm no longer so keen to know it for sure. I am on my quest and strive to find myself right. It feels like I've picked up both the car, the car and the car, and then try to put together another sensible whole again. But in any case, I have come to the conclusion that if God has made us so different then he may also be more spacious than my God."

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