Amazon.ca just delivered your book about a week ago. I`m only a few chapters in. I enjoyed watching you read the story, because in the parts that you read to the audience, I didn`t read in the correct context. Now I get it. I mean I got what you were saying - as growing up JW`s know- I just didn`t quite get the humour in it until you posted this.
misguided
JoinedPosts by misguided
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22
The assembly mating game
by mutinyinheaven ini haven't been on the board for a while, but i thought you'd dig this.. it was taped last week at a reading from my novel.
the first part is about the hot girls at assemblies and how we'd sit through doom and gloom talks.
part 2 is a scene where gabe is found out for having a girlfriend.. http://vimeo.com/12066637.
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How did you find the strength to leave?
by SAHARA into all of you exjws, i'm sure you've been asked this question one way or the other many times and i'm sure the answer is different for many of you, i'd like to know directly from you never having a chance to hear or read many exjw's answers to this.
knowing that you would be cut off from your family and friends and other consequences for your decision to leave, how did you ever get the strength to do it?
i mean really, i find it fascinating to know that there are so many of you who were at one time very devout, if not at the very least loyal to one of the most successful mind-contol organizations ever who believed all if not most of what the society taught and still you found the courage to risk everything once you accepted that it isn't what it claims to be.
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misguided
There was not one things...but many, because I believed with my whole heart that Jehovah would make things right in his own time. I couldn't understand why his own time was allowing others to be hurt.
Firstly, I was sexually abused by 2 brothers in my early teens, including one who was an elder. This was in the same time frame as the other. When I got the courage up to tell my father, he put a knife up to my throat (before a meeting) and told me to never talk like that about a brother/elder again. I was disbelieved. 10 years later this same elder sexually abused my sister who is 10 years younger than me.
Then...I married an elder's son. .
turned out this elder had had a baby with his daughther. Cover up in the ORG....Yup, real bad. So my kids have an aunt who is also their cousin...all covered up.Then...This elder's MS son, my husband's brother (he's a MS, my H was not) tries to have sex with me while my husband is passed out drunk in the other room. I was appalled and never let it happen. I went to the elders. Anything done? NO...He's walking around the assemblies with his "attendent" badge on, while I look like a liar (jehovah, why are you doing this to me?)
Then...The elder's son leaves me 7 months pregnant and moves in with a girl from his work. I'm left to raise 5 kids on my own. A sister says to me, Who's going to want you with 5 kids? So when an unbaptized man wanted to marry me I took the offer. He started abusing us so bad...long story short...he's served a 3 month sentence and 1 year of probation for what he did to us. What did he do during this time? He got BAPTIZED!! Jehovah's holy spirit at work!
After being DF'd for a year or so - yet still thinking I must go back at some point - a jw lady at work told me I had a bad heart. She told me I had a bad heart because she had given me crap for putting a palliative cancer patient in to see the doctor before her for a sore knee. I pointed to the JW-NO BLOOD on her chart after she had made a big scene in the waiting room, and told her this is one of the reasons I had abandoned her religion. There was no love. That's when she told me I had a bad heart. I realized at that moment she was crazy...and that I may be crazy for still believing.
A few weeks later it was the memorial. I took all 6 of my kids and we went. I listened to the speaker. I felt nauseaus. When I walked out those doors, I knew it would be my last. It was. It all fell together. I wasn't the crazy one...everyone else was.
Left the Org...everything is good now. That was in 2002. Have 5 of my kids. May still lose my 6th to the Org (12 years old)
All the time, I couldn't keep up with the changes in things...generation, donation arrangement, etc. The truth was supposed to be free...
So happy to be reallty free!
Rose
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How Do You Feel Being Thought Of As An "Apostate"?
by minimus indoes it bother you if witnesses regard you as an apostate?.
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misguided
I love it. At first, as I discovered I was technically, in JW land an "apostate" I felt evil and somewhat terrified. Now that I realize the true defintion, I know its a good thing.
When JWs have to deal with me at work, I try to be really civil. Sometimes I can see on their faces, or by their little comments, that they just don't understand how an "apostate" can be so happy and grounded.
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What "Bad" Food Do You Enjoy That You Know Is Bad For You?
by minimus ini love chicken pie.
the calories are terrible for a pie crusted chicken pie dinner but i love it.. and i love milk chocolate covered candy such as raisinettes or raspberry chocolate candies..
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misguided
Driving to the US, and having KFC with a biscuit! It just tastes better than Canadian KFC, and I don't know why. We don't have the buscuits either...we used to...not now. Now we get bread buns.
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Can a Jehovah's Witness nurse/doctor administer a blood transfusion?
by ThomasCovenant inhave the watchtower society said/printed that witnesses who are medical staff are not allowed to participate in the blood transfusion process?
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surely they would not showing proper respect for blood and would that be a disfellowshipping offence?.
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misguided
My mom is/was a RN. I remember her delivering babies in the early 70s "underground" with a JW physician when there was the issue of RH incompatibility before the Rhogam injection (which I believe is a blood product) came to be, or became JW approved.
If i remember correctly this was to avoid a blood transfusion for the baby when the mom was having a subsequent pregnancy from her 1st. It angers me deeply to recall this. I remember that a baby, a boy, died. I also remember a incubator with lights hidden in our home - from what I remember this was to provide light to babies with jaundice, which, if I remember correctly, was a side effect of Rh incompatibility.
As a nurse, my jw mother would not give blood to anyone.
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What year Did you Stop Attending Meetings - How Long were you a JW ?
by flipper ini'm trying to compare some statistics and figures on this to share later in the thread to see if more long-time witnesses are exiting- or are newer witnesses exiting after a shorter period of time.
and - are more people exiting in the last 10 to 15 years than before.
so your answers would be helpful in looking into this .
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misguided
Stopped meetings in 2001...36 years in the nightmare.
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How many DF'ed on this board have actually had...
by tenyearsafter inhow many disfellowshipped ones on this board have actually had follow up elder visits "encouraging" them to return to the meetings?.
i have been df'ed for 15 years now, and i have never had one visit (i am not saying that is a bad thing!
) from an elder encouraging me to return to the organization.
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misguided
Nothing in 6 years...not even a memorial invite this year...no invite even for the other 7 people living in this household.
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Pedophiles in your congregation??
by ziddina ini'm listening to the "six screens of the watchtower" broadcast from october 25, 2008 [yeah, i know, i'm waaay behind...], discussing pedophilia... that broadcast caused me to look up the current status of 'pedophilia notification' in the u.s.a..... rebel8 posted a link sometime back that gave locations of pedophiles in one's (u.s.a.) neighborhood... that portion of the link is, unfortunately, not working right now.... i decided to check out my [old] site, http://www.nsopw.gov/core/offendersearchcriteria.aspx to see if it still functioned the same way.... again, unfortunately, that site is also no longer giving out maps of one's area.... but, as pointed out in rebel8's posted link, pedophiles tend to move around.
this was also mentioned in the six screens broadcast by a lady named "lilly".... the new versions of both sites simply allow one to input the name of someone suspected to be a pedophile... not as effective, imo, but perhaps the cost of updating the maps due to pedophiles' high mobility became prohibitive.. so, here's my suggestion... using the 'name' search function, check out every name in .
your congregation, starting with the elders!!!.
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misguided
was molested by a Jehovah's Witness brother.....as a very young soul....I was victimized....my childhood damaged.....
That is appalling, but that is the fault of your abuser, not the congregation.
I too was molested by 2 Jehovah's Witness brothers - one was an elder. I was victimized....my childhood damaged, too...
I went to the congregation for help. What help did I get...silence (no word on if anything was ever followed up on), and then silenced (don't tell anyone in the cong. or I could be faced with "discipline" for causing divisions)
Fast forward a few years...one of these @$$holes abuses my younger sister (10 years younger than me.) It is the congregations fault 100 percent for what happened to my sister. I told them. They chose to keep their reputation than deal with either of these men. My sister had to pay the price.
That's just one story...there's also the fact that my ex-husband's father had a baby (he was an elder) with my ex-husband's sister (a pioneer). My kids have a cousin who is also their aunt. It's sick. The lengths the organization went to hide this story (Lake Simcoe, Ontario - early 70s) to when in finally came to public knowlege (Ladner, BC apx 1985) is unbelievable.
The policies of the organization make it the congregations fault. Take your head out of the sand Jordan12, your ignorance is foolish.
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Need some support
by ~Jen~ ini don't post very often but i'm in need of some support.. i left my husband and the jw's back in the summer.
we have 3 kids and have joint custody of them.. i've spoken to my family once - back in the fall and it was a great conversation - my parents (dad is an elder) said that they just wanted me to be happy however that is.. last week i got a voicemail from my mom saying that she loved me and thought about me every day.
i was so happy.
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misguided
Jen...I don't post much either, but I feel the need to respond to you.
My JW ex husband did/said similar things to me when I left the a-hole. (Actually, he said/did so much (threatening/harrassing) that he ended up getting a 30 day sentence and 1 year of probation for what he did/said to us) My parents did/said similar things to me when I left the a-hole. The JWs in my life did/said similar things to me when I left the a-hole.
In the end, it was the best thing I ever could have done. I'm in awe myself that my life has changed so much for the better - because I believed that JW mentality that if I left the JWs only bad things would happen to me because Jehovah would turn his back on me.
That was about 9-10 years ago. All my kids (6 of them) so far have turned out to happy, well-adjusted, non-JW human beings (ages 22, 21, 19, 18, 17, 13.) 4 have graduated from highschool. All of them are doing better than I would ever have expected. It's hard for my parents to take that their df'd daughter raised better kids, mostly as a single mom, than some JW 2-parent families whose kids have ended up on drugs, became teen parents, or worse. My oldest daughter went to university, became a RN, and just bought her first home. I am now married to an awesome ("worldly") guy who treats me and the kids so unbelievably well. It's been 5 years that I've been with him. As well as being a terrific husband, he's brought financial security into my world. He's also brought family, real family, into our world.
It drives my parents/ex-husband crazy to see us successful. I see JWs from my old KH regularly through my work. They've stopped making comments to me about how I should come back to Jehovah. I think it's because they see me happy, active, and successful. I'm no longer a depressed, running-in-the-hamster-wheel JW. I am no longer working at Wendys, because I went back to college even though my family/jws were against it and told me so. I've been happily employed for almost 10 years now. I'm no longer driving an old, unreliable mini-van to the KH, like my ex-husband is now...I could go on...
My point is, YES! It does get better! Better than even you think possible.
((Hugs)) on your journey..it's going to be a roller coaster ride. Stay strong, stay focused...and know you've made the right choice. Your kids will see the "truth" in the end.
Rose
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Your worst field service experience.
by littlebird inmy worst field service experience was this.. i didn't have a car at the time and so a pioneer sister was picking me up of service every couple of days.
she was my partner and i got a door where the woman was clearly not interested.
as i am stepping away the pioneer sister starts in with all the objection stoppers.
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misguided
These are my worst:
A big fat man answered the door naked. UGH!!
A man answered the door with a pistol in his hand. We left VERY quickly!
I lived in east-end Vancouver.