Boundless after leaving all of a sudden?

Why some former Jehovah’s Witnesses must rediscover their identity, values, and boundaries after a heavily regulated life

Recognizable questions

- Why do some ex-JWs seem to suddenly want to try everything after leaving?

- Can it feel like you’re going through a kind of puberty again later in life?

- Why is freedom sometimes harder than expected?

- What happens when God set certain boundaries for years and you then have to learn to set them yourself?

- Can you be an adult and still have little experience with dating, sexuality, going out, or personal boundaries?

- Why do some people swing from one extreme to the other?

- Does that mean the warnings about ‘the world’ were right after all?

- And how do you develop your own compass when you no longer want to live by prohibitions, but also don’t want to become boundless?

Do former Jehovah’s Witnesses really “let loose” more often?

Some former Jehovah’s Witnesses recognize a period after leaving in which they tried a lot of things.
Going out. Alcohol. Smoking. Dating. Sex. Festivals. Different clothes. New friends. Holidays. Things that used to be forbidden or strongly discouraged.
Sometimes that mainly leads to new and positive experiences.
Sometimes someone makes choices they later look back on differently.
But from that we cannot conclude:
‘Ex-JWs make more mistakes than people who were never Jehovah’s Witnesses.’
There is not enough solid comparative research for that.
It is therefore important to distinguish between a recognizable experience among some ex-JWs and a trait that would apply to the entire group.

‘It felt like I was going through puberty again’

Some people describe the first years after leaving as a second puberty.
That is not an official psychological diagnosis.
But as an image, it can be relatable.
Adolescence and young adulthood are normally periods in which people increasingly explore independently:
Who am I?
What do I want?
Who do I want a relationship with?
What do I think about sex?
How do I want to dress?
How much do I want to drink?
Which values are truly mine?
Where are my boundaries?
When a large part of those answers was already strongly defined within the family and religious community, part of that personal exploration may only take place later.
Perhaps delayed exploration or catch-up development are more precise terms.
You do not become sixteen again.
But certain parts of identity and autonomy only really get room later on.

Back then I knew what wasn’t allowed

Within a clear religious framework, many questions do not have to be weighed personally over and over again.
There are answers on topics such as sexuality, relationships, smoking, drugs, socializing, holidays, clothing, and marriage.
For someone who believes in that, it can actually provide security:
‘I know what Jehovah expects of me.’
Self-control can therefore become strongly tied to the question:
‘Is this allowed by God?’
instead of:
‘Do I want this, where are my limits, and why?’
As long as someone fully accepts the religious framework, those two do not necessarily have to clash at all. The religious standard can also be the personal standard.
But when faith changes later, the former reason for guarding a boundary can suddenly feel much less convincing.

‘At first God held me back. Then I had to figure it out myself.’

A former Jehovah’s Witness may look back and think:
‘Before, I knew why I didn’t do certain things: God didn’t want it. When I stopped believing that, I suddenly had to figure out for myself what I did and didn’t want.’
That is a bigger transition than simply:
‘This is allowed now.’
The questions change:
Do I really want this?
Is this good for me?
Where are my limits?
What are the consequences?
Which risks do I consider acceptable?
How do I want to treat other people?
What kind of person do I want to be?
There is not necessarily an immediate clear answer to that.

Freedom requires skills

‘You can choose for yourself now’ sounds simple.
But making independent choices requires skills.
Feeling your own boundaries.
Being able to say no.
Delaying impulses.
Weighing risks.
Learning to distinguish between a healthy and an unhealthy relationship.
Discovering what you do and don’t want sexually.
Learning how to deal with alcohol.
Dealing with loneliness.
Being able to acknowledge a mistake without completely writing yourself off.
Setting a boundary when no one else sets it for you.
Someone can function excellently at forty as an employee, parent, and friend, and at the same time have little experience with some forms of autonomous living.
Chronological age and experience are not the same thing.

What if you never really had to practice that extensively?

Many young people learn boundaries partly through small experiences.
A first relationship that doesn’t work out.
A night when they drink too much and think:
‘I’m not doing that again.’
A friendship in which they learn to stand up for themselves.
A row with parents about curfew.
A crush that turns out not to be wise.
A moment when they realize:
‘I should have said no sooner here.’
Not every experience is necessary or wise, but gradual independence does provide room to practice.
When someone has grown up within a strongly regulated system, some choices may have barely come into play for years.
After leaving, the old rules may disappear quickly.
But decades of experience with alternatives do not appear at the same time.

From external to self-chosen boundaries

That is why there is an important difference between:
‘I’m not doing this because it’s not allowed.’
and:
‘I’m not doing this because I have decided for myself that it doesn’t suit me.’
For example:
‘I don’t smoke because Jehovah disapproves of smoking.’
can later become:
‘I don’t smoke because health and freedom from nicotine are important to me.’
The outcome is the same.
The reason has changed.
Or:
‘I’m not having sex before marriage because it is forbidden.’
becomes, for example:
‘I want sex when there is mutual consent, trust, safety, and emotional responsibility.’
That doesn’t have to produce the same practical boundary.
But it is a boundary you have examined for yourself.

A boundary you choose yourself is still a boundary

After years of following many rules, any new boundary can initially feel like being restricted again:
‘I’m finally free. So why would I give myself rules again?’
But a self-chosen boundary is different from an imposed one.
‘I don’t want to have more than two drinks tonight.’
‘I don’t want to sleep with someone if I’m unsure.’
‘I don’t use drugs.’
‘I want to learn to be on my own first before I start a new relationship.’
‘I don’t want to cheat, even if there’s no one around to correct me religiously.’
Those are not signs that someone is under control again.
They can be autonomy:

‘No one is forbidding it. I’m choosing this boundary myself.’

Doing the opposite is not the same as freedom

There is also another pitfall.
If before the rule was:
‘This is not allowed’
the first reaction after leaving can be:
‘Then I’m going to do it now, precisely.’
But even then, the old rule is still partly determining your behavior.
Just in the opposite direction.
True autonomy may be more like:
‘Whether it was forbidden or allowed before is no longer decisive. I want to find out for myself whether this suits me.’
So you don’t have to get a tattoo.
You don’t have to smoke.
You don’t have to drink.
You don’t have to sleep with different people.
You don’t have to like Christmas.
But you are allowed to examine each subject anew.

Psychological reactance

The psychological concept of reactance fits here.
When people experience that their freedom is being strongly restricted, a need can arise to restore that freedom:
‘Now I’m in charge.’
Research on parenting and autonomy shows that highly psychologically controlling forms of parenting and frustration of autonomy can be associated with more resistance or other problems.
That does not mean:
strict parents automatically create “wild kids.”
The popular saying “strict parents create wild kids” is too absolute for that.
It also does not mean that boundaries are bad. Children actually need structure and boundaries.
The difference lies more between:
boundaries with warmth, explanation, and gradually increasing autonomy
and:
control in which there is little room to practice, ask questions, or choose differently.

A religious upbringing is not automatically psychological control

That distinction matters.
Many Jehovah’s Witnesses raise their children out of love and from a sincere conviction that Bible standards provide protection.
Families also differ greatly.
One family gives relatively much room for personal development.
Another is stricter.
So it cannot be said that every religious upbringing leads to later difficulty with boundaries.
What a highly regulated environment can do is influence how and when certain forms of autonomy are practiced.

From “Is this allowed?” to “Does this fit me?”

After a strongly prescriptive system, the automatic question can remain for a long time:
“Am I allowed to do this?”
A next developmental step can be:
“Does this fit my values?”
That seems like a small difference, but it is a big one.
“Am I allowed to do this?” asks about a rule outside yourself.
“Does this fit me?” asks for judgment and responsibility.
For example:
Do I want this?
Could anyone be harmed by this?
Am I being honest?
Is there mutual consent?
Is it safe?
Can I still stand by my choice tomorrow?
Freedom therefore does not mean less morality.
It may actually require more personal responsibility.

What if the old moral system suddenly falls away?

When someone has answered many moral questions for years through one source:
“Jehovah says this is good.”
or:
“Jehovah says this is wrong.”
losing faith can be confusing for a while.
“If I no longer see that authority as absolute, how do I determine what is right?”
That does not mean the person has no conscience.
It means he or she has to reorganize their moral system.
Many values may simply remain:
honesty, loyalty, care for children, respect, not stealing, taking responsibility.
But the reason becomes more personal:
“This matters because I understand what value I am protecting with it.”

And then there is the identity crisis on top of that

Leaving does not only affect behavior.
It can also touch the question:

“Who am I, really?”

Within a close-knit religious community, there is a strong shared identity:
we have the truth.
we serve Jehovah.
we are brothers and sisters.
we do not belong to the world.
we know where life is headed.
When someone leaves that framework, not only certain rules disappear.
The shared story about who someone is can change too.
Then two processes sometimes have to happen at the same time:
“Where are my boundaries?”
and:
“Who am I without this group?”

From group identity to personal identity

A group identity is not automatically something negative.
Everyone derives identity from groups: family, nationality, work, culture, religion, sports, or friends.
But the greater the share of one group in your social and moral identity, the more disruptive leaving can be.
Before, the answer was often:
“That is how we do things.”
Later it becomes:
“But how do I do things?”
That brings up questions that may earlier hardly have needed a personal answer:
What do I think about relationships?
What does loyalty mean to me?
What do I want with sexuality?
What does spirituality mean to me?
Which people suit me?
What do I want to do with my free time?
Which parts of my former identity do I want to keep?
Who do I want to be when no one tells me who I’m supposed to be?

A mistake at forty feels different from a mistake at eighteen

A young adult who has an awkward first relationship is among many peers who are also still learning.
A forty-year-old who, after decades of marriage and religious rules, starts dating for the first time with freedom may think:
“Why don’t I know how this works?”
But lack of experience in one area of life does not mean someone is immature.
You can be very mature and still be a beginner.
That can explain why some former members say:
“I had to learn things that others had already learned twenty years earlier.”

Not only freedom, but also loss

There’s another factor involved here.
Leaving Jehovah’s Witnesses can for some people involve losing:
family contact, friends, community, daily routine, a sense of future, and identity.
Research among former Jehovah’s Witnesses describes, among other things, identity change, loss of connection, and grief over family members who are still alive.
That means new behavior does not always come only from:
‘Finally, anything goes.’
Sometimes it also comes from:
‘I don’t want to feel how alone I am.’
‘I want to belong somewhere.’
‘I want to reinvent myself.’
‘I don’t want to think for a while.’

When experimenting becomes numbing

That is why there is a difference between:
experimenting
and:
numbing.
Going to a festival because you want to experience music and freedom is different from using substances every weekend because silence is unbearable.
Exploring sexuality is different from constantly seeking sexual validation because you feel worthless.
Drinking too much a few times is not the same as using alcohol structurally to suppress grief.
When behavior is used mainly to avoid feeling pain, shame, emptiness, or loneliness, help may become important.

Self-destructive behavior

Some people can develop self-destructive behavior during such a transition phase.
That is not specific to former Jehovah’s Witnesses.
It can happen with many forms of loss, trauma, identity issues, or dysregulation.
Self-destructive behavior can, for example, include:
excessive substance use, dangerous sexual situations, repeatedly entering unhealthy relationships, severe self-neglect, or making choices over and over again that someone knows are harming them.
Then the relevant question is not:
‘Does this prove I should never have left the organization?’
but:
‘What am I trying to solve, feel, or avoid feeling with this behavior?’

Self-destruction does not prove the old teaching was true

Suppose someone really runs into problems after leaving.
Drugs. Alcohol. Debt. Unhealthy relationships.
Then that problem is real and does not need to be romanticized as ‘freedom.’
But it also does not automatically prove:
‘See? Without Jehovah, things always go wrong.’
An individual life course can be influenced by many factors:
loss, mental health, social support, personality, financial problems, earlier experiences, substance use, and a lack of a stable network.
The question why someone goes off the rails is more important than using their story as proof of a general worldview.

The lost son

Within Jehovah’s Witness publications, the parable of the lost son is used in connection with people who have drifted spiritually or left the congregation.
Publications also describe life stories of people who, outside the organization, became involved in things such as drug use, crime, alcohol abuse, or sexual immorality and later returned.
From the Jehovah’s Witness perspective, there is a clear message in that:
Jehovah’s standards protect you, and what seems like freedom can in practice have painful consequences.
For an active Jehovah’s Witness, such a story can confirm why it is important to stay close to Jehovah and the congregation.

The world as a warning

Within Jehovah’s Witness teaching, there is also a warning about the harmful influence of ‘the world’ and bad associations.
A young person can learn that certain appealing opportunities outside the congregation can ultimately cause spiritual or moral damage.
That is why visible risky behavior by someone who leaves can easily be interpreted as:
‘This is exactly what we were warned about.’

But the same behavior can be explained in different ways

Suppose:
someone leaves the congregation.
A year later, they go out a lot, smoke, drink, and have several relationships.
A family member in the faith may think:
‘See what the world does.’
The person themselves may later say:
‘For the first time, I had to discover where my own limits were.’
A psychologist may also ask:
‘Did loss, autonomy, identity development, or reactance play a role?’
It’s the same behavior.
The explanations differ.
That does not mean every explanation fits every person equally well.
It means that one visible behavior does not automatically have only one cause.

Confirmation bias

Biases of confirmation can also play a role here.
People mainly notice examples that fit what they already expect.
When an ex-JW gets into serious trouble:
‘See?’
A former member who quietly keeps a job, builds a stable relationship, hardly drinks, and lives responsibly draws less attention.
Conversely, an ex-JW may only want to see stories of people who became happier after leaving and downplay problems in others.
A balanced approach takes both into account.

JW publications also give a broader picture

It would be wrong to say that Jehovah’s Witnesses explain every departure as a desire for sex, drugs, or a wild life.
In publications about inactive ones, other circumstances are also mentioned, such as serious personal problems, work pressure, discouragement, health problems, or being hurt.
So the picture in their own literature is broader.
At the same time, the warning about the dangers of ‘the world’ and the prodigal-son motif do indeed exist alongside that broader picture.

‘Strict parents create wild kids’

The statement sounds appealing because it suggests a simple connection:
the stricter the upbringing, the wilder the child later on.
It is not that simple.
Many children raised strictly do not become ‘wild’ at all.
And many people who live riskily were not raised strictly.
What research does support is that psychological control, little autonomy, and harsh parenting can on average be associated with less favorable developmental outcomes.
That is something different from saying that rules are harmful.
Boundaries, involvement, and structure can actually be protective.
The main question is:
does a child learn only to obey, or does the child also increasingly learn to understand and self-regulate?

From obedience to self-regulation

That difference becomes visible after leaving.
When someone has mainly learned:
‘I don’t do this because it is forbidden’
the reason can disappear once the external rule falls away.
When someone has also learned:
‘I don’t do this because I understand what this choice can do to me and to others’
the boundary may still hold, even when the religious authority disappears.
That is why self-regulation is so important.
Not just knowing where the boundary lies.
But understanding why you want to uphold it yourself.

Sexuality makes that clearly visible

The old rule can be simple:
no sex before marriage.
If that rule is no longer accepted, many more complex questions arise:
When do I want sex?
What does consent mean?
How do I protect myself against STIs or an unwanted pregnancy?
How important is emotional connection to me?
What do I do if the other person wants more than I do?
What does exclusivity mean?
When does something feel right afterward, or not?
A simple external boundary is replaced by a personal moral judgment.
That takes practice.

The same applies to alcohol and drugs

The question changes from:
‘Is it allowed?’
to:
‘What does this do to me?’
‘Why am I using this?’
‘Can I stop when I want to?’
‘Am I using it for pleasure or to numb my feelings?’
‘Which risks am I not willing to accept?’
A self-chosen boundary can ultimately become stronger precisely because someone understands why they have it.

You do not have to prove your freedom

An important message can therefore be:

You do not have to do anything that was once forbidden to prove that you are free.

Freedom also means being able to say:
‘I could do this, but I don’t want to.’
Or:
‘I tried it and it doesn’t suit me.’
Or:
‘I thought I wanted this because it was forbidden before, but actually it does nothing for me.’
That is not a step back into control.
That is information about yourself.

A mistake is not proof that your whole choice was wrong

Anyone who makes a bad choice after leaving can easily fall into black-and-white thinking:
‘See? I can’t handle life outside the organization.’
Or the opposite:
‘Now I’m free, so no one may judge my behavior.’
Between those extremes lies a more mature possibility:
‘I made a choice that was not good for me. What can I learn from this?’
Everyone makes mistakes.
The question is what you do afterward.

A new social network is important

Freedom and identity also develop in relation to others.
When someone loses almost their entire social network, the first new group of friends can have an exceptionally strong influence.
That is why it can help not to let one new group define your entire identity straight away.
Work.
Sport.
Study.
Volunteering.
Hobbies.
Neighbourhood contacts.
Fellow sufferers.
Different social worlds offer different perspectives and can help you discover who you are outside a single all-encompassing group identity.

“The world” turns out not to be just one kind of people

After leaving, your view of “the world” may also change.
Outside Jehovah’s Witnesses there is no uniform way of life.
Some people drink heavily.
Others do not drink at all.
Some have many short-lived relationships.
Others live monogamously for decades.
Some use drugs.
Others have never had any interest in them.
Some people live selfishly.
Other non-religious people devote a large part of their lives to care, volunteering, or family.
The choice is therefore not:
Jehovah’s Witnesses or a life without boundaries.
There are countless ways to lead a stable and responsible life outside the organization.

Recovery is more than ‘being free’

Recovery after leaving can therefore mean:
building your own identity.
Developing a personal value system.
Learning where your physical and emotional boundaries lie.
Learning to say no.
Taking responsibility without external religious control.
Making mistakes without declaring yourself worthless.
Discovering that something does not suit you, even though it is allowed now.
Learning to trust that you can make moral decisions yourself.

For active Jehovah’s Witnesses

An active Jehovah’s Witness may rightly point to people who, after leaving, made choices they later regretted.
Those stories exist.
From his conviction, he may see the protective value of Bible-based standards in them.
This article does not have to decide that faith interpretation for him.
It does add other questions:
Could loss, delayed autonomy, identity development, and having to relearn your own boundaries also play a role?
And can the same visible behavior have different causes?

For former Jehovah’s Witnesses

On the other hand, a former member does not have to excuse every behavior just because it is called freedom.
You can be critical of your former system and at the same time look critically at yourself:
Am I drinking because I truly enjoy it, or because I’m trying to numb something?
Do I really want this relationship?
Do I respect my own boundaries?
Am I building my own life, or mainly doing the opposite of what I used to do?
Which choices fit the person I want to become?
Those are not Jehovah’s Witness questions.
Those are adult human questions.

When professional help can be useful

When the transition is accompanied by serious substance use, dangerous behavior, depression, self-destructive tendencies, recurring unhealthy relationships, or the feeling of no longer knowing who you are at all, professional help can be worthwhile.
A counselor can help with:
identity, grief, impulse control, self-image, boundaries, addiction, relationships, and building a personal value system.
The counselor does not need to decide whether the former faith was true or false.
The goal can be:
“How do you want to consciously shape your life now?”

Questions to reflect on

- Which things did I used to hardly have to judge for myself because there was already a religious rule for them?

- Which experiences did I only have later in life?

- Are there things I mainly wanted to do because they used to be forbidden?

- Which of those truly fit me?

- Which old boundaries do I want to keep, but now for my own reasons?

- Where have I perhaps swung from one extreme to the other?

- Do I only know that something was not allowed before, or do I now understand for myself why I do or do not want to set a boundary around it?

- Do I sometimes use alcohol, sex, going out, or other stimulation to avoid feeling grief or emptiness?

- Can I set boundaries for myself without feeling controlled again?

- What role does my need to finally be free play?

- Who am I if I no longer think only in terms of “we Jehovah’s Witnesses” and “the world”?

- Which qualities and values do I want to recognize in myself five years from now?

- Which mistakes can I see as information rather than proof that I have failed?

- What does freedom look like when it means not only ‘no one is telling me what to do anymore,’ but also ‘I know why I’m making my own choices’?

Summary

Some former Jehovah’s Witnesses describe a period after leaving that feels like a second puberty.
This is not an official psychological diagnosis, and certainly not an experience every ex-JW has.
Nor has it been shown that former Jehovah’s Witnesses as a group make more mistakes than people who have never been Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Still, various psychological processes can help explain why some people, after a highly regulated life, temporarily do a lot of experimenting.
They may have to determine their own boundaries in detail for the first time.
Certain parts of identity development are explored later.
Old external rules sometimes lose their authority faster than new personal values can be built up.
Psychological reactance can also come into play.
And leaving can at the same time mean losing family, community, certainty, and identity.
Within Jehovah’s Witnesses, warnings about the dangers of ‘the world’ have long existed, along with publications comparing people who strayed with the prodigal son or with those who return after risky behavior.
Those experiences do exist and, from a faith perspective, can be seen as confirming the protective effect of Bible-based standards.
But they do not prove that someone who leaves Jehovah’s Witnesses will necessarily go off the rails.
Another possibility is that some people, after leaving, first have to learn what others were able to practice more gradually:

carrying their own freedom.

Not just:
‘No one is telling me anymore that this isn’t allowed.’
but ultimately:
‘I increasingly know who I am, what matters to me, and which boundaries I want to protect myself.’

‘If no one is telling me anymore what is and isn’t allowed, can I learn to trust my own boundaries — not out of fear, but from the person I want to be?’

Sources

Jehovah’s Witnesses - own publications
JW.org / Watchtower Online Library - How Can You Help a “Prodigal Son”? - The Watchtower, October 1, 2001
Watchtower Online Library - publications about the prodigal son, ‘the world,’ and bad associations
JW.org - ‘I Will Search for My Sheep Myself’ - The Watchtower, Study Edition, June 2020
JW.org / Watchtower Online Library - articles about inactive ones and those returning to the congregation
JW.org / Watchtower Online Library - life stories of people who returned after a period outside the congregation

Psychology and development
Edward L. Deci & Richard M. Ryan - Self-Determination Theory; autonomy, self-regulation, and internalization
Van Petegem, Soenens, Vansteenkiste & Beyers - research on reactance and oppositional behavior in adolescents
Martin Pinquart - meta-analytic research on parenting styles and internalizing and externalizing behavior
Henri Tajfel & John Turner - Social Identity Theory
Research on religious identity development and exploration among emerging adults from highly religious environments
Ransom, Monk and colleagues - research on identity change, social loss, and recovery among former Jehovah’s Witnesses