FHN: Cofty brought up the word context. It is all about the context. In addition to context, it helps if it's not worded in a mocking way.
Cofty has a way of getting under people's skin. When I first came on this board, I went head-to-head with him for a few rounds. (Not sure who, if either of us, won!)
He and I have discussed his somewhat abrupt manner on more than one occasion. One thing I like about Cofty is that he listens to what you have to say. He may or may not change.
But the really important thing is this: It's not about Cofty, or me or you or anyone else. It's about all of us; and it's about all of us trying to figure out what is really right, what is really true and who we really are. So many of us here left the JW religion at great personal expense. We've lost friends and family members. But we've gained ourselves.
For my part, I miss my children terribly and everyday I try to find a new way to reach them and to rescue them from this cult. But I don't regret leaving and re-discovering myself and living my own life. I would not, if I could, do it over and stay in this religion living a lie just to be with my children. If I did that, what kind of example would I be to them? Not the kind of example I want to be, that's for sure!
I am here, on the outside. I daily plan and work to find a means of rescue for them. I may be successful, I may not, but I never give up.
Now it may seem that I've digressed and moved off the point of the OP with my rambling, but I have not. I have lost much to leave this religion and I have suffered much to try to save my children. I have even undergone the painful humiliating process of being reinstated into a religion which I believe is a destructive, deceitful cult just so I could attempt to reach my children with TTATT. I endured all the meetings for over a year listening to all the indoctrination and lies and manipulation; I sat through seven different judicial meetings where elders I could not respect interrogated me mercilessly just so I could be reinstated. I bit my tongue, I held my voice, but I never lied or compromised my integrity. I used their own manipulation and deceit against them to accomplish my goals. I told them things knowing full well they would understand them differently than I intended them: Theocratic Warfare is a bitch, ain't it honey. Well fuck them, because I learned if from them. It was difficult, it was painful and it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life ... and the worst part is that here I am a year later and it doesn't even seemed to have done any good. Time may tell a different story, but for now it is what it is.
Don't misunderstand. I'm not asking for your sympathy, only your understanding. Maybe you can't give me that, but I believe I deserve it. I believe we all do. With all that I have gone through--as have so many of us on this forum--for anyone to accuse me of "behaving like a JW" is one of the most despicable insults they could hurl at me.
It's not only wrong, it's grossly insensitive, it's mean-spirited and it is cruel. But most of all, it is just wrong.
I come here for many reasons. I come here to rant; I come here to deconstruct WT fallacies; I come here to be helped by others that are farther along than I am in the journey out of this nightmare, I come here to hopefully help others who are maybe not as far along in their journey out of this cult. I come here to listen and to make connections with others that have experiences similar to mine. I come here to share and I come here to learn.
But there is one thing that I do not come here for. I do not come here to be abused.
