Billy-What interesting experiences you share here. This is great, that you, 'the sinner', were willing to not be 'protected' and shared you story with everyone. This must have killed them, to lose the power over you, to have the star chamber exposed willingly. Love it!!
exJW Psychology 103--Let's Reconsider "Confidentiality"
by Billy the Ex-Bethelite 25 Replies latest jw friends
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laverite
I really enjoyed reading this, Billy. I wish you would do a "Crisis" book of your own.
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ÁrbolesdeArabia
Billy, I want to say, Bravo! There are people on JWN, I must look at their threads, others have lost their gift of telling a story or helping us live through the actual events that transpired in the writers life, not you, you have a great gift!
You bring out deep emotion in us and especially those who were wrongly charged with lies to have them step down from Pioneer to as high as some men like Ray Franz. Please stop writing so good, just when I am about to head to Bloomberg to review things I see your post and now I am lost in thought and pissed off at how calloused and lying your elders were.
Yet you don't leave us with anger, you add a nice sweet treat to your readers with the story of a kind, good CO who tells you the reality of interacting with the Organization and how you both had some meaningful conversations about how screwed up the Organization is. I hope the CO found some type of peace and Lord Jesus Christ got him a good job (I know your a atheist but allow me to dream that CO got a job by Jesus Christ for being loyal to him!).
Thank's for sharing your deep thoughts Billy, stop writing so good and I have more time to for work!
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cha ching
Billy,
It must have been weird & hard to be at Bethel (and to think, one of my children almost went) but you survived!
Thx for all of your stories, they add insight, and add validity to our experiences also.
I am so glad people take the time to post here, thank you.
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franticfran
We had a friend who was an elder and he was incredibly indiscreet and so was his wife,we were party to all that was happening in the private lives of the brothers and sisters,realy intimate stuff,this elder thought it was so funny and I can remember sitting listening to his "latest shepherding" call,and wondering how long it would be before my family would provide after dinner entertainment for this "prominent" family! Fortunately were open book people with no hidden corners so there was nothing to tell but I locked away a few of his family secrets over the years,now I neither have the inclination, nor the energy, to pour out poison on anyone,my revenge is to be happy and smlie every day,I am damned if I will be like them.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
cha: "It must have been weird & hard to be at Bethel"
It had its highs and lows. I was friends with some good people, very productive at my work, and had some fun. There were also plenty of jerks, stuff that went terribly, and some "is this a prison?" moments. I ignored a lot that just wasn't right, excusing it because "imperfect humans make mistakes." More and more I saw it as just a restrictive job that was going nowhere. I particularly saw that the "bethel family" was no "family" in any sense of the word.
I suffered terribly from depression while I was there. Lots of bethelites were on anti-depressants. I say "were" because they were probably among the first that got dumped during the down-sizing.
fran: I'd heard of those types, but don't have any personal experience with them. The closest I saw was a congregation that was ripped to pieces by two enemy factions that constantly attacked opposing families with gossip. So bizarre to look back at all that stuff now and see it for what it was.
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Scully
Billy
I'm sorry you had to go through all that BS with the BoE, but glad you were able to turn the situation to your advantage.
I wonder what they would have said, had you asked them why they hadn't told the ratfinks Brothers™ who reported to them to apply Jesus' counsel to speak to you about their complaints themselves (Matthew 18:15-17) before squealing going to the BoE?
I've found that whenever gossip about me gets back to me and I trace it back to the source and ask them why they didn't apply that scripture instead of starting malicious rumors about me, invariably I'll get an apology and an opportunity to clarify whatever situation they claim to know more about than they do. And I absolutely LOVE it when I get to tell them "really it's none of your concern" by referring them to the passage at 1Pet 4:15 "Let none of your suffer as a ... busybody in other people's matters".
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
"I wonder what they would have said, had you asked them why they hadn't told the ratfinks Brothers™ who reported to them to apply Jesus' counsel to speak to you about their complaints themselves (Matthew 18:15-17) before squealing going to the BoE?"
I knew exactly who were behind it. It was one of the elders and one of the ministerial servants. A few others got sucked in, but those two were the ringleaders. It was so weird to hear the elders ducking the question with excuses that, "we had calls from several of the friends," blah, blah, blah. When the one elder paid me the "friendly" visit. He owned up that only the ministerial servants and elders and their wives knew anything about it. Those "calls from several of the friends" were just the elders calling each other.
"1Pet 4:15 "Let none of your suffer as a ... busybody in other people's matters"."
Being busybodies is the only thing most JWs are able to do. They certainly don't have lives of their own.
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Aunt Fancy
Billy, I always enjoy your post and I really love how you think things through. I hope you continue successfully with your fade and it is nice that your family hasn't shunned you.
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Just bumping this thread back up to add a fairly recent observation...
I think the fact that I'd confided the details to nonJWs was something that scared the elders. I'd actually told very few people, but when they found out that I was fully willing and able to tell everyone, the elders were frozen to try anything. It was a small town, where the juicier the story, the faster it spread. In a very short time back from bethel, I'd already gotten to know the local attorneys... and judges... and police... and members of probably every church in town... and every gossip in town as well.
The reason I finally noticed this fact?... Although I live away in the big city now, I still have facebook friends from the small town including local attorneys, business owners, etc.
One of the things I learned in bethel: It's not necessarily what you know, but who you know. And I'm not an in-your-face kind of person or a "social butterfly" at all. I was told that I was more of a strike-up-an-interesting-conversation kind of guy that could share a laugh. So after I had a handle on that in the bethel environment, it was easy to get to know some of the really good "worldly people".
I don't know if this observation is of any value to anyone else. Maybe it's just a small town situation.