Madame Quixote

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Posts by Madame Quixote

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  13

  Secrets

  by Carmen in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  i found this board and have been reading what a lot of people have to say.

  i've found it very useful, interesting and informative.

  i'm 19 and am in a relationship with a jw who is 22. i know that this is a subject that has probably been posted many times but i wanted to see if anybody could offer me any advice.. i'm catholic myself and studying to be social worker with a major in theology.

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  Madame Quixote

  Carmen - Is your bf a baptized JW? If not, it will be a little easier for you. Is he planning to "fade" away from the JWs and re-locate with you or something like that? You should find out if you're planning on building a life with him. Things will be very, very difficult for him if he is a baptized JW in a relationship with an "unbeliever" (as they say).
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  21

  Recently kicked out...

  by bluesbreaker59 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  just wanted to share my story.... i was raised a jw all my life, my mother and father married and divorced twice, my mother was disfellowshipped when i was 6 and never came back, choosing a career, and went through various men.

  i was raised by my very loving and wonderful father, easily father of the century in my opinion.

  all my life i was a great kid, example in the hall, great grades, got a full college scholarship, etc.

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  Madame Quixote

  congratulations and good for you; sounds like you're on the track to happiness.
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  229

  ALERT: All Child Abuse Lawsuits have been settled. Millions cashed out???

  by What-A-Coincidence in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  re: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/8/116108/1.ashx.

  a bethel insider in the know told me that all of the child abuse lawsuits where the watchtower bible and tract society was one of the defendants were settled back in the beginning of this year.

  i questioned it and called napa myself and they were absolutely settled back then.

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  Madame Quixote

  I questioned it and called Napa myself

  What is Napa? Somewhere in Ca.? The big court case?
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  35

  Am I bored with JWD? Or have I outgrown it?

  by AK - Jeff in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  this is not one of those 'farewell' threads, 'gotta' go' threads, or 'bye' threads.

  because i know myself well enough to say that i would not honor my own exit - i would soon be back, .

  but in all honesty, i am finding my desire to be on this forum less and less compelling.

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  Madame Quixote

  Same here, AK - Jeff. I'm glad I get bored with it sometimes. It forces me to go out and walk on the beach, go see a movie, clean my apartment, etc. It is an addiction of sorts, luckily not of the physical body.
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  21

  Is Jehovah a chick-magnet?

  by PopeOfEruke in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  growing up in a divided household, i remember wondering about my jw mother and how she would dress up to the 9's when going to the meetings.

  nice dress, makeup, hair done, perfume.. it would drive my non-jw father crazy and i swear that dad was jealous of jehovah.. i also personally felt that mum was dressing up almost as if for a "date".

  it was somehow weird, almost sexual.. was my mum dressing up for jehovah?

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  Madame Quixote

  Women are socialized to compete with each other, socialized to be dependent, socialized to be always feminine, lovely, non-threatening, especially in cults.

  So, why not do the "female" thing despite the Apostle Paul's admonition against it - get gussied up - before such a social event, which is for many JWs, the only socializing they do.

  Honestly, it's the only thing about being a JW that I miss and have great ambivalance about as well - always getting dressed up, making up my face, looking my best. After all, being a Jehovah's Witness is all about double standards, particularly for women. If you don't keep yourself up, you get admonished for it; if you are overly preoccupied with it, you get admonished for it; and/or just gossipped about or marked or shunned.

  As a teen getting prettified was what I wanted to do anyway; as a mature (?) woman, it is something I both eschew and envy - making myself feel beautiful and desirable publically, making myself a center of attention (positive or negative), invoking the jealousy of others, and consequently, the counsel not to be "overly concerned with the adornment of the hair", etc.

  It's pure socialization and double standards. Jehovah was not the reason for it at all! He's just the social proxy.
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  34

  For those who've settled on 'no contact' with their JW families . . .

  by Madame Quixote in

  1. social
  2. family

  for whatever reason.

  do you question it sometimes and think you should try to "reach out" to them again?

  i was this morning and then came across the thread above and was reminded why i need to stay away.. but, still, i read threads of people who have managed somehow, despite being d'f'ed or faded or d'aed and think i might try to be more understanding, supportive, reach out or something.. despite all the problems growing up in a fairly dysfunctional family, i still feel a deep attachment to them and hope against hope that they might come to their senses (if they ever had any to begin with) and get help and leave the cult of jehobo; and we might reconcile,etc., etc., blah blah blah dream dream dream.. i deeply wish for them all freedom and happiness and healing and feel so helpless to free them of their bonds and yet see so much possibility for it, if only they could be reached somehow.

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  Madame Quixote

  Thanks, co co. I agree. I'll just stay away for now and try not to make any drunken tirades over the phone against the "philistines," lest I return to being one myself!
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  13

  Missing someone... badly

  by daystar in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  brigid took a weekend trip back to where she moved from to visit family.. i know it's selfish of me, but i miss her very, very badly.

  i have never missed anyone so badly in my life, other than my son when he visits his mother.

  and it's only been three days.. it's very lonely here without her.

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  Madame Quixote

  When we first met it was more like I was returning to him after a long journey of being apart and we are not so much getting to know each other anew, but old lovers rediscovering each other after a time apart.

  and I just love him

  That is so sweet. I won't need any chocolates today after all.
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  34

  For those who've settled on 'no contact' with their JW families . . .

  by Madame Quixote in

  1. social
  2. family

  for whatever reason.

  do you question it sometimes and think you should try to "reach out" to them again?

  i was this morning and then came across the thread above and was reminded why i need to stay away.. but, still, i read threads of people who have managed somehow, despite being d'f'ed or faded or d'aed and think i might try to be more understanding, supportive, reach out or something.. despite all the problems growing up in a fairly dysfunctional family, i still feel a deep attachment to them and hope against hope that they might come to their senses (if they ever had any to begin with) and get help and leave the cult of jehobo; and we might reconcile,etc., etc., blah blah blah dream dream dream.. i deeply wish for them all freedom and happiness and healing and feel so helpless to free them of their bonds and yet see so much possibility for it, if only they could be reached somehow.

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  Madame Quixote

  . . . for whatever reason. Do you question it sometimes and think you should try to "reach out" to them again? I was this morning and then came across the thread above and was reminded why I need to stay away.

  But, still, I read threads of people who have managed somehow, despite being d'f'ed or faded or d'aed and think I might try to be more understanding, supportive, reach out or something.

  Despite all the problems growing up in a fairly dysfunctional family, I still feel a deep attachment to them and hope against hope that they might come to their senses (if they ever had any to begin with) and get help and leave the cult of jehobo; and we might reconcile,etc., etc., blah blah blah dream dream dream.

  I deeply wish for them all freedom and happiness and healing and feel so helpless to free them of their bonds and yet see so much possibility for it, if only they could be reached somehow.

  On the other hand, some days I think and have said," they can all move to Mars" for all the interest they've shown me and my daughter over the years. Unless I come crawling and begging or something, they make no effort to be in contact with me.

  It is infuriating to keep repeating that pattern and it's not healthy so I just stay away now and wish that I did not have to.

  Wish there was something more "in between," but because of their religious obsession and the emotional damage I know it entails for those involved, I just have to stay away. And let them continue to blame me for it all. Oh well. Whateva'!
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  32

  JW children - conditionally loved?

  by Gregor in

  1. social
  2. family

  when they reach a certain age they are expected to "sign up" (get baptized).

  in many cases if they choose not to their parents essentially "disfellowship" them.

  so a lot of children get baptized under pressure from the parents and when they fail to live the jw life and get df'd the folks are the harshest shunners.

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  Madame Quixote

  Trevor said they say:

  . . . they are practising a form of principled love for the child . . .

  when shunning or threatening them with everlasting whatever. Oh, yeah, they borrowed the "worldly" term, "tough love." However, they completely misunderstand and disabuse its power to heal.

  When I read these posts, I feel validated in my decision to stay away from my family now. I was just feeling a bit ambivalent about it and was reminded by mimimimi's post how horrible my sister was treated and how I internalized the idea at a very young age that she somehow deserved it for not conforming enough, for being too argumentative, for being provocotive and disrespectful, etc., when what was really happening was black and white "splitting" behavior of my mother (and the Society's) teaching us that someone always had to be the bad child and another would be the golden child, etc.

  As children, those concepts were also deeply, unconsciously and consciously internalized. They slam me in the face quite regularly, but with a lot less regularity than when I was enmeshed. Whenever I feel that sense of "disliking" someone for no apparent reason, or for some minor irritation or because they remind me of someone or something else, I can eventually come to a place that says, "this is splitting;" and ask, "what is good about this person, situation, etc. But it is very, very hard to do because so much of it is deeply unconscious; that unconscious sense of unworthiness, self-loathing, jealousy, etc. is projected onto others and makes relating profoundly difficult and causes a great deal of depression and isolation, which can lead one to return to the abusive situation (be it cult or family or both).

  As the oldest child, and as the one who most often in mid- to late-childhood was favored, I was essentially given permission to "lord it over" my little brother and sister as the great exemplar, "the example," etc. and so forth. It completely ruined our relationships, in my opinion, and I feel disgusted both with myself for falling into the trap, and more disgusted with the adults in the family for encouraging it. This pattern also happened with many of my cousins who seemed to be allowed to be more physically abusive of each other than we were.

  The black and white thinking of the Society only reinforced damaging, bullying, isolating parenting behaviours of my father's mom/family and of my mom's splitting behaviours due to mental illness. For a long time as a child I understood it to be the way things are, whether I liked it or not. When I was 13 I was baptized (more people-pleasing behavior, a deeply-ingrained lifelong pattern for me), and I was disfellowshipped at 15 (cutting self off from others consciously and unconsciously also became a deeply ingrained pattern and I still struggle against it). During that period my sister vacillated back and forth for a couple of years about her belief system.

  When she went away to college, I thought she was home free from the bonds of the Watchtower, but thanks to this thread, I now see that she was simply caught up in a desperate fight/conflict for her independence versus winning the approval of my parents (probably because she was not baptized and felt conflicted over losing her disfellowshipped sister and because she had been so often cast into the role of bad child (although we did occasionally switch roles; I was also referred to as the one leading her down the primrose path whenever we got into trouble - most remarkably as a toddler and then as a teen-ager). When I "rebelliously" left home for college and refused to return to Jehovah, she finally had the opportunity to totally outshine me and to finally be conditionally loved by my parents - to become the golden child, or at least the less-hated one.

  Additionally, she too had deeply internalized a lot of the black and white beliefs of the Society and had not really begun to reject them as wholeheartedly as I had. For the longest time, I felt it as a personal betrayal (that she "returned to Jehovah"), because after years of fighting like cats and dogs, sister and I began to become allies and to eschew The Society during the last two years of my high school. My going away to college a year before her was more of a boon to her enmeshment than an inspiration, I am very, very sad to say.

  Eventually she caved in, despite the fact that she was badly abused emotionally and physically by my mother and has been an active witness for years. During this time, my baby brother also experienced his share of being the golden child and of being deeply pressured to remain loyal to Jehovah, etc. He too caved in to the incessant need to please and I think he might also have a bit of OCD. He even remarked to me about how intense the pressure was for him, years ago when we were still speaking occasionally, though rarely because of the d'fing policies. My sister could only say to me of our abuse that "we could have had a worse childhood," something I would never dispute, but I can certainly see it could have been better.

  -Teresa Nichols
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  14

  The "Truth" Hurts

  by Cold Creek Swimmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it is finally out there.

  my dad has finally faced it.

  he screamed that i am "apostate".

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  Madame Quixote

  I told her that I loved them both and that I did not come to their house to have this discussion. I respected their faith and apologized for being disrespectful in their home. My mom was fine. She got my pop and I had to say it all over again. He was still hot and barely accepted my olive branch. I never backed down about how I feel, I just wanted them to know that no matter what, they were my parents and my anger was not justified.

  On the contrary. Your anger is justified and no religion deserves all the respect it is granted, most particularly a cult religion.

  Being disrespected by your father should anger you; he disrespected you by not allowing you to finish making your point and by screaming name-calling at you.

  Is "apostate" really the best they can come up with?