I think we're all in rough agreement. I'm tired of being an 'issue', I'm just a family man who wants normal interactions with his Mum, brother and sisters. When (and if) they are ever ready for that they know where I am.
Nic'
Could use a little input on freedom of speech with JW relatives.
by nicolaou 20 Replies latest social family
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bohm
Nicolau: Perhaps this? "I feel i am in a difficult position. On one hand i would like to answer your question, on the other hand i am afraid i might violate your consciousness with my answer and we could both suffer.. i feel that has happened before. Whats your view on that?"
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nicolaou
Hi bohm, how are you doing?
I appreciate your comments but that kind of polite, 'walking on eggshells' approach has accomplished very little in my experience. I'm tired of it.
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bohm
this is more aggressive:
"I have gotten in trouble before by giving my personal view. If you are really interested in an answer to that question, i can point you to a publication which contain a much more precise answer than i can give you. Would you like that?" (no) "why did you ask me if you are not interested in an answer?" (apostates) "so why ask me if you will only accept an answer that conform to the kind of answer the WT would tolerate? This is precisely why i am not so keen on answering questions anymore, i feel people are not interested in answers..."
but i got no idea :-(. from your experience, it sound like a polite decline might be the wisest option, i have bit my tongue more than once...
Everything is good! there is plenty of things to tell, but i have desided not to give so many personal details after cantleaves troubles -- short answer: still fading and it is going as well as it could. The elders have stopped calling!
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OUTLAW
It was awful, I was on trial by my own family.
There were tears, raised voices, phone calls to elders, the whole lot.....Nicolaou
" Can I just ask you one thing?"..
"Your JC Meeting is Waiting"..
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...OUTLAW -
Band on the Run
Freedom of speech is a legal/political concept that applies to the government. I don't think free speech exists in any family. Free speech conveys two similar parties having a mutual conversation. You can't reason with the brain-washed. Based on my own experience with my family, I don't understand the responses that it is so easy to separate from your family. When I was an older teen, I despised the Witnesses and embraced the world in sundry ways. Freedom was my goal. I thought college would magically answer my quest on the very first minute. The abuse from the Witnesses and my family created a trauma bond. Despite hating them I was glued to them emotionally. Separating was so painful I can't believe I survived.
My age precluded me from realizing things are temporary and times change. College was utter agony. Very slowly, I assimilated. Law school was my promised land. There is something very unnatural about family members turning each other in to authorities. Can anyone imagine Jesus snitching on loved ones in his family. The Witnesses heartily condemned the practice in Red China and the Soviet Union.
It hurt me to burst full of all these thoughts. Rejection is cruel. When I am on a Brooklyn or Manhattan subway train and a gaggle of Bethelites appear, they stand out as zombies. Everyone on the train looks up to figure out what is going on.
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Giordano
Looking back from a perspective of some four decades: The determining factor about me in my families eyes was that I had rejected the 'truth'. They weren't interested in my reasoning........ just theirs. There was nothing I could do about that, nothing I could accomplish that would have allowed us to have a 'normal family relationship'. It was greatly aggravating for me and my wife.......... and them. In retrospect it would have been a kindness if we had shunned them or at least limited out visits.
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nicolaou
Hi Giordano - you nailed it.
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oompa
decisions decisions...i have been there....and gotten my ass bitten badly by a DF'D good friend!!!!...how was i to know their defiant ways had turned to mental mush....you just never know so be careful.....or be brave and take the lumps....if you lose friends and family...that is THEIR choice.....oompa
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Band on the Run
The problem is that the Witnesses have sundered their natural family ties. Normally, there would be some equipose. They would not want to lose you as much as you don't want to lose them. I always was surprised that strangers embrace me more. Strangers were more interested in my views.
Mind control is very hard to break. We talk about Witness doctrines and their refutation but the argument is elsewhere. It reminds me of myriad sci fi shows where an alien becomes a parasite and eats a human body. We act as if the original person were still there when they have long vanished. My brother became a Maoist for decades. My father the crazy Russian witness at Bethel and my brother the Maoist, putting up posters at 3 am and imagining that the FBI saw them as true national security threat. My brother left. We did not know if he was dead or alive for decades. If he did show up, we had to have family meetings to discuss immediately reporting any hint of violence. Those were nut fun times. He sees no link between nutty father and wacko Maoist.
Mao killed more people than Hitler and Stalin. The Viet Nam war made him a hero.
