Posts by life is to short

31

More bad news for the Organisation in Australia

by no-zombie in

it appears the the commonwealth government is bringing in a national compensation scheme for victims of institutional child sexual abuse with individuals able to claim up to $150,000 each.

it's clear that the australian government will not be able to fund this program without serious money from the offending churches.

so it's bad news for the organization today.. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-04/government-announces-redress-for-abuse-victims/7996092.

life is to short

This is great news I truly hope it is true.

LITS

23

How Detached Are The Governing Body From Members Of the Bethel Family Where They Live?

by Brokeback Watchtower in

well consider for a moment the layoffs at bethel?

the gb simply reassigned them out in the field for after many years of service it seems with out batting an eye with no real severance pay.

now to me that spells detachment and lack of any real concern for those who served loyally for years.. spain is trying to get some type benefits for the people/citizens in their country who served the wt corporation for years and are no longer of any use to the corporation.

life is to short

I know when I was there one of my overseer's favorite sayings was that most of the ones at Bethel were there just for the free food and shelter. It used to drive me crazy to have him saying that all the time, he would say that most of the bethelights just dragged themselves around not wanting to work. Funny thing is I never remember seeing him really work.

He told me I was this huge women who should be able to do any job assigned to me. I weighed at the time about 120 pounds and I was asked to life at least 90 pounds over my head in construction work. I have tried to lift up to 150 in the jobs I was assigned. It was crazy and I have the scars to prove it by the hernias that I have had to pay for out of pocket. I figuer it has cost me about $20 grand in med bills to cover it. Stupid tax for going to Bethel.

If instead of working for free at Bethel or as my overseer liked to put it for the free food and shelter and instead worked at a real job I would be in such a better place now.

It just makes me so bitter looking back.

LITS

34

Latest from Australian Royal Commission

by gerry in

just received this update.

http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8e90fa1e64ebb08847cc04916&id=fcec86ae2b&e=0670c7af59.

life is to short

Thanks

13

"Don't you want our kids to have what we had?"

by schnell in

my wife just asked me this.

my answer, in no uncertain terms, is no.

we both grew up in the dub religion.

life is to short

It is so frustrating but they will only wake up when they want to you just cannot force them no matter what. It is just so maddening to see lives wasted like this and children being hurt. Life really is too short.

23

Hey everyone

by coffee_black in

jw
friends

popping in to say hi.... been away from the forum for a long time.... had some serious health issues starting at the beginning of this year.

on the mend now, and getting back into the swing of things.... great to be alive!.

life is to short

Welcome back, I have always loved your input on the threads, glad you are doing better.

LITS

31

At A Loss

by azor in

jw
friends

my wife is in the hospital.

complications of a ruptured appendix.

she had it removed around 1am friday morning.

life is to short

I also want to say I am so sorry for what you are going through. Just know that many on this board are with you in thought and it is good advice that LisaRose said, please ask for help. People really do want to help but as she said they just don't know what to do and so many do nothing because they are afraid of intruding on you. Like she said all they can say is no, but at least ask.

My heart goes out to you.

LITS

40

Question about an elder and if I am crazy

by life is to short in

ok so i have a question.

i was a very, very true believer until i saw the child molesters in my hall and how that whole thing was handled.. my husband is older than i am and had been an elder for 12 when we married.

so fast forward to 06, we are in a hall where i thought all the elders were ok at the worst and great at the best.

life is to short

Thanks everyone for your responses, I totally get that it is a very sick religion and even though the older ones are nice they are brain washed and even being around them puts me into a depression. I feel for them through as many of them are just left on their own after years of slaving for the religion and yet they cannot see it for what it is. As sad as it is it is not my responsibility to help them or befriend them especially when then are encouraging me to come back.

I think that is what hit me last night, I know Mrs. Flipper told me to call off the dinner and in hindsight it would have probably been better to do that as I just did not know it would depress me so much. The creepy elder is really looked up to so much.

The other day it totally hit me that if all of this was happening in a work place environment that it would be deemed harassment if not even sexual harassment. I goggled the word harassment and it describes the depression I am going through of the person being harassed.

The frustrating thing is that unlike in a work place where you can get legal help religions have first amendment rights so they can do anything they like and there is nothing really you can do to stop them.

I am going to do what Simon suggested and even stop going to the memorial with my husband, just going once a year is HUGE STRESS to me. It is just hard to be in a divided home.

I realized also like some said on this thread that I have ptsd, I never really bought into all of that before I always thought ptsd was put on by many to just get by with copping out on life, but man just hearing that creeps voice sent chills down me, it is also so frustrating that there is nothing in the laws of this land that prevents child molesters from gaining trust in a religion and getting to be around kids. The laws leave it totally up the the leaders of the church to handle it. There should be a law against the two witness rule and elders talking to children alone once they say they have been molested.

I have to realize there is nothing I can do. The police have told me that, one cop told me to never go back to the church as he thought it was so horrible but there is noting anyone can do until another child gets harmed and the powers to be a Bethel know that. And if a child does come forward the elders like I mentioned will talk to the child alone and destroy what they can and in all like hood by traumatizing the child.

It is just so sad and frustrating, but thanks everyone for your replays. I also realized that I needed to find a counselor who can really help me, I had been going to one but like I told OTWO she was telling me her problems also, I was confused as I was gong to her for help yet it was like friends meeting and sharing problems. OTWO said that really should not be happening. This new one is not doing that, she is confirming that I do have trauma that I have been hiding and you just cannot do that you have to address it or it keeps coming back. I really am trying to work through this, I just do not get it because before the creepy elder called in April I really did feel I had made progress and then to fall back like I did I know I have a lot more to work on.

Again thank all who have answered and sorry to be such a basket case.

LITS

40

Question about an elder and if I am crazy

by life is to short in

ok so i have a question.

i was a very, very true believer until i saw the child molesters in my hall and how that whole thing was handled.. my husband is older than i am and had been an elder for 12 when we married.

so fast forward to 06, we are in a hall where i thought all the elders were ok at the worst and great at the best.

life is to short

To answer some questions

1. this elder is very wealthy and does not need to live with his in-laws. They built a house together only because of convenience. It is worth well over half a million and he works as a professional, so that is another part of the picture that I do not get.

2.I have went to the police, the news media, the parole officer, to every person I could think of and yes the elders were breaking a RCW law where I live and if I had handled it right I could have called the police and had them come but at the time I did't know it and I flipped out telling the foster mom and she instead of checking the internet's sex registry list went to this elder and then the elder's stopped letting the child molester hold the children because they knew I was on to them so that hit a wall. The parole officer was very nice to me when I first called him but after the foster mom's thing I could tell the parole office had spoken to this elder and he blew me off like I was a nut case, it was bizarre but I knew the parole officer had spoken to the elders.How they could convince a parole officer is beyond me.The police have not blown me off but there is honestly nothing they can do as the elders are not breaking a law now. They can send child molesters DTD it is not against the law, the police think it's disgusting but there is nothing no one can do as the pedophiles have done their time.

3. My husband that is where a lot of this is still having problems for me. One when he walked into the back room and saw myself and the elder alone why didn't he flip out? My husband asked what was going on and the elder threw his hands up and said 'you ask her I am washing my hands of this.' At the time like I said we thought we were friends with this guy and we were both truly blind sided by what he was doing. When he got me alone in his home I left crying my eyes out and in all honestly when I got home my husband was on the phone yelling at the elder telling him that he had no right to be talking to me but the other elders in the hall backed this elder up. Than one of the pedophiles shoved my husband and they deleted my husband in a 5 hour surprise elder's meeting with one of the main reasons my not being in subjection.

Also I flipped out at my husband because he did not tell me that there were THREE! child molesters in the hall and that I had had one of them to my home for dinner many times. He swears that he was not even told for the first 2 years we were in the hall, I do not know even now if I totally believe him but I do know that another elder moved into our hall who had very small children and this elder was not told for at least a year and it was my husband who finally told this other elder. It got bizarre with that whole thing too, the elder's wife got upset with me because my husband did not tell them sooner and they moved out of our book study group and the CoBE made some lame excuse from the stage as to why they moved and than one of the pedophile's and his wife held a baby shower and this elder, his wife and children all went and let their little girl play in front of one of the pedophiles, and I also heard that one of the pedophiles fed the speaker and this family went to the pedophiles home and let their little girl play in the backyard with the pedophiles daughter, of which fact I confronted the dad and he denied it. But I do know for a fact that they were at the baby shower because I went only to get pictures and I have a picture of his baby girl around on of the child molesters.

4. I have stopped going to the meetings, etc. That is why this has so baffled me as to why it has affected me so badly. The newer elder started to love bomb me and I fell for it, I thought maybe they had changed somewhat and I could reason with them. I went to a meeting or two and the older ones who just don't get it started crying when they saw me. See I was always having people over for dinner and doing things for ones. As the new elder said I am hospitable not to be bragging on myself in the least. I just want to be accepted so badly that I was trying to, if I am totally honest with myself, buy my friends. I thought if I invited ones over that they would invite me over to their homes and I could have the family I never had, see I am all alone I have no family expect my husband, No children as we followed the rules, only one sister who shuns me that is it. And hey after all are we not told that the congregation is our true real family well it never happened for me, I gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and got NOTHING! No invites to other homes, nothing. The new elder moved in right when I was stopping going and I do know his wife is a lot like me but she got her invites, reciprocated something that never happened to me, not really, but to be truly honest one sister did but she was so judgmental it was so stressful to be around her at times, Like I got snapped at because I liked a Starbucks's cup and she shot at me that the Starbucks's logo was a pagan Goddess.. Who knew?

Anyway this is why I feel so crazy. It's like all the trauma I went through in 07-09 is right back and I do feel like it is harassment. I am wondering if the new elder was directed to love bomb me from Bethel. Like the CO wanted me to burn the email at first I thought he meant figuratively but then it hit me he truly wants me to burn the emails.

It was bizarre meeting with him, first off he did not want to pray, not that I really wanted to either but still that was strange then he told me I was a volunteer and the the CO in 07 could not force me to work with pedophiles DTD and that I had only needed to tell him that. The new elder totally backed up the CO, we all know that has never been the case, and there is nothing in writing that says you can refuse what an elder tells you to do, in fact there are tons of WT's that say you have to follow what the elders say even if it does not make sense to you.

Than the CO said 'well would you want the child molesters to go door to door without being in the truth?' Well that totally threw me and I looked blankly at him like why in the world would anyone go door to door unless they were JW's. The CO said anyone can go DTD and this way having the child molesters in the truth they were being watched. I told the CO that the CoBE was putting the child molesters with young ones who did not know their pasts so what good was it, the CO shot back to me not anymore and that I needed to forget the past and realize that things had changed and that the faithful slave has it all under control now and that I did not need to know what or how it was under control but that it just was and not to worry about it anymore then he smiled at me and told me that I needed to not think of it anymore that is when he told me to burn my box of stuff that I have.

This just all happened in July and to be totally honest I have had some of the older ones to dinner I just feel for them and like I said I am alone in this world and the religion was all I had and since I stopped going it has been really hard. I have tired to make friends outside but starting in your late 40's after being in such a confined group is hard. I had some older ones over last night for dinner and I have never told them anything of what is going on they do not in the least understand any of it. I had the new elder's parents over and they are in their late 70's early 80's totally brain washed and it just got to me. They do not understand why I am not at meeting's and in all honestly I do like them.

I think the thing that embarrassed me the most is that I texted their son about all the crap that I have been through with the other elder's thinking that if I could just get him to understand than maybe as he and his wife who is the one who told me she had been abused herself would be on my side. No he totally went with the other elders and is defending them. He told me it was not proper for me to text him, it is not like I am sending him love messages, I am telling him how they were allowing child molesters to run free and how it made me so depressed that I tried to commit suicide. That the main elder had me to the point of suicide.

He told me that "elders have been counseled regarding private communications with sisters. and that we all follow the direction of Jehovah's organization. Yet he will never address my depression over the elder talking to me alone, how he knew I was in the bathroom with the child molesters daughter, etc, Every-time I bring that up he just gets a blank look on his face and say's nothing as soon as he can he asks me to break bread with the elders, tells me I need to forgive them etc.

A huge part of me just feels really stupid for texting him and the way he response back to me. I told him I was having thoughts of not wanting to live again that I am majorly depressed, etc and he shoots back that response to me. Like I told my husband he could have said I can clearly see your suffering depression why don't you come over and have coffee with my wife since you have both been abused and she has been able to move on maybe she could help you. Nope all I got was shut down and made to feel like I was an idiot.

I just feel so trapped in my own prison sometimes. I am going to a new councilor but I have only been like three times and I can only go every two weeks,I looked up the definition of harassment and even sexual harassment and I see part of my depression was caused by the elders that creepy one in particular.

It just really does make me feel so crazy sometimes.

LITS

40

Question about an elder and if I am crazy

by life is to short in

ok so i have a question.

i was a very, very true believer until i saw the child molesters in my hall and how that whole thing was handled.. my husband is older than i am and had been an elder for 12 when we married.

so fast forward to 06, we are in a hall where i thought all the elders were ok at the worst and great at the best.

life is to short

OK so I have a question. I was a very, very true believer until I saw the child molesters in my hall and how that whole thing was handled.

My husband is older than I am and had been an elder for 12 when we married. So fast forward to 06, we are in a hall where I thought all the elders were OK at the worst and great at the best. Than this pedophile moved into the hall and I knew he was a child molester and since I was an elder’s wife that the other elder’s would listen and make sure that things were handled properly and of course they would never be allowed to be around kids right.

Huge mistake on my part, I know. Not only were they allowed to be around kids one even held a sleep over for little boys since he was sent to prison for raping a girl I can only guess the elders felt boys were safe around him? So this one elder who I thought was friends with my husband and me and who is married and we have had him and his wife to dinner and even taken them out to dinner. He turns into being one of the biggest supports of the child molesters.

So to not drag this out I lose it and get very upset with the elder’s they lose it and delete my husband as an elder after his being one for 32 years because I am not in subjection enough.

So this elder pulls me into the backroom alone before they deleted my husband and yells at me telling me that ‘we have made him look like he has egg on his face and no one does that and gets by with it.’ Now there was no reason in the world for him to talk to me alone, my husband was at the meeting as were many other elders. I know I was partly to blame as I went with him but up until that point I had thought of us as good friends and was totally blindsided by his anger. I left the room shaking and went home and curled into a ball and just wanted to die, I got into a major depression it was horrible.

Than a couple of weeks later, I had taken his MIL out shopping and dropped off at her home this elder lives upstairs from his in-laws and he works from home. Well I said something to him and he told me to come into his office and shut the door, I know, I know big mistake on my part again, he proceeds to just rip into me calling me nothing but a pure gossip, than he threatened to DF me for telling a foster mom in the hall that one of the ‘brothers’ was a child molester and then tells me that he had to convince this mom that the child molester was OK to be around kids. I would not back down and he yells at me “THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER! I started crying his wife came home and did not say a thing. It was so bizarre and strange it is even hard for me to believe.

He pulled me aside at the KH many times one time he somehow knew I was alone in the bathroom with one of the child molester’s daughters and he drilled me about what happened when I was alone with her. I swear he was trying to scare me by intimidation that I could be accused of molesting myself, I finally said I peed washed my hands and left, I never used the KH bathroom again. He counseled me because I always went to the second school when this one child molester gave talks and he told me it really upset the child molester that I did not listen to his talks.

So I stop going to meetings in 08 and only go to the memorial with my husband, around 2011 or 12 I am at a memorial and I hear this elder coming toward me as he has a limp I can hear him. Now I do not want to have anything to do with the guy and so I move to the other side of the hall and he starts coming that way so I go back to the other side and he starts that way again. It was totally freaking me out. I see his wife sitting in the back and I think OK he won’t bother me if I am talking to her. So I am standing there and she is sitting and I feel him whisper in my ear that I look nice that night. It really freaked me out but I never told anyone as I knew I would not be believed and since then he has not really tired to communicate with me, expect he did write a bizarre letter to us with only a PO box for a return address saying he did not know why I stopped going to meetings expect that I am having problems because of Satan’s system getting me down and he quoted Galatians 12:16 which says “Well, then, have I become YOUR enemy because I tell YOU the truth?: I do not know what in the world that was supposed to mean.

So anyway in April of this year after not speaking to him really since 08 he calls out of the blue and wants to talk to my husband, I had answered my husband cell phone we do not have land lines anymore. I demanded to know why he was calling and of course being I am a stupid women he would not tell me but demeaned to speak to my husband, at first he said he was ‘going to apologize’ then he said ‘NO that my husband needed to apologize as my husband did not speak to him at meetings and was treating him like he was DF’ed and he did not like it.’ My husband hung up on him and I was so mad that I called him back and told him to leave us alone I had not truly been at the meetings since 08 and never to call again, well he starts in saying that I don’t speak to him either and that I was actually running from him at one of the memorials. I just lost it and started yelling at him telling him he was a ‘nut case and a freak, no one in their right minds would follow someone around like that, He stopped me and said “no you were running from me” I said “running, following what difference does it make you totally had me freaked out that night and it was the memorial, what in the world were you doing that for?” He said that he ‘needed to tell me I looked nice.” I just totally lost it and told him ‘that was totally inappropriate, creepy and that he was totally nuts.’ He stopped talking and said ‘you thought that it was creepy?” I said “beyond creepy, what normal married man does that?”

The question I have is that I called another elder that night and totally lost it. All of those years that he talked to me alone and yelled at me, that he threatened to DF me, on and on came crashing back, the pain of that time was some of the worst I have ever experienced. I had so thought I was over it but just hearing his voice and the way he talked to me April, him and I got into an email war also in 07-09 which I have every email printed and saved, in one he acknowledges that he knows I loathe him. OK since he knows I loathe him why would he chase me around the hall in 2011, 12 to tell me I looked nice? How did he know I was alone in the bathroom with the pedophile’s daughter? In one of the emails he says that he still had to talk to the daughter to see what her side of it was, so clearly she was not the one who told him it was just her and I in the bathroom.

OK so this is getting really long and I did not mean it to be this long. I feel this guy is truly a nut case and he scares me. I was molested myself as a child which fact he knew and when my dad died in 05 he would not give my dad’s memorial talk because as to quote him “I could never give a talk for a man who did that to his daughter” yet this one pedophile he budded up to did way, way, way worse to his daughter than my dad ever did to me and this pedophile served 10 years in prison.

The elder that I had called at first seemed supportive but now he is also demanding that I let it all go and make peace with the nut case of an elder, I even went so far as to speak to the CO who wanted me to burn the emails I have which I will never do but when I told him all that had happened he just looked blankly at me for about 15 seconds he thought about what happened and then said “Nope he still qualifies to be an elder.” How? Elders are never to be alone counseling a sister. I did not truly realize how much his behavior affected me. I have been in a depression since April as it was such a shock that he called and the threat of being DF’ed is still out there. They will use the excuse of causing divisions.

My question is am I crazy or is this just truly nuts and insane. So much of the time I doubt myself and think did I do something to cause this. I will not back down on my stand about pedophiles.

Again sorry for the long post.

LITS

PS I have been afraid to post about this in case someone who knows this case is on the board but I have been so down and it has been going on for so long I just feel crazy. I have been extremely depressed since April and I just doubt myself all the time. I just do not get why it has brought me down so much.

15

Adult survivor of sexual abuse as a child

by life is to short in

i showed the video from the midweek meeting of september 12th to my counselor to get her take on it.

she said that it clearly was a propaganda video and was appalled that it was shown to an audience that had small children in it.

she said that they could have been way more generic in their way of portraying the women as having been abused.. the subject of sexual abuse and the way the video zeroed in on it would have small children asking questions that really did not need to be addressed.

life is to short

thanks OTWO and yes stuckinarut I would love to hear that. I know it will never in a million years happen but what a huge healing that would be to victims of abuse. I still just cannot wrap my mind around how they expect victims to be be able to hang with child molesters.

Like I told that elder you did not see in the video the sister saying she worked in service with the man who molested her, she did not say that a CO demanded that she take a pedophile DTD, than after 8 years of anxiety have a different CO tell 'oh no you never had to do that as you are a volunteer that's all you had to say to the other CO.'

It is truly crazy making at it's finest. With my husband in I feel so trapped sometimes and I wish with all my heart that they could just get it, understand the true pain of being molested. That elder who told me to break bread with the other stupid elders who see nothing wrong with child molesters, his wife told me she had been molested for year's by her non JW grandfather and non JW uncle, yet he still told me to make peace, it's just mind blowing.

So many times I think what is wrong with me, why do I seem to be the only one in my area that thinks pedophiles, people who have raped children, that it is not good to send these people, men or women DTD.

I have lost it so much when I talk to the elders, I just cannot see straight when they are stupid then I feel embarrassed by my trying to make them see, they do not want to see and they tell me I am crazy and that they just did not understand how much this would affect me. How could they not know that forcing me to be around child molester would send me into major depression?

I really wish this religion would implode on it's self.

LITS