Cicatrix

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Posts by Cicatrix

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  19

  Are Birthdays and Christmas celebrations really rooted in Evil????

  by bk62 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  during the last two months i've tried and tried to rationalize the jw view that, since these "pagan holidays are not based upon the scriptures, they must not be practices by christians".

  i've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and trying to come up with their motivation for these policies.

  they can't think that celebrating will actually hurt, yet they obviously can't honestly think the practice goes against the bible.. i thought it might just be another "control" for them to place on the flock - and a way to differentiate themselves from other faiths.

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  Cicatrix

  It all depends on what your particular paradigm is.
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  32

  Quote from the WT, i.e. Yoga. Opinions?

  by unique1 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  "so once again we ask: 'can yoga be practiced simply as a physical exercise to develop a healthy body and a relaxed mind, without any involvement with religion?

  ' in view of its background, the answer would have to be no.

  ok, i know yoga comes from a religious background, but i have been taking a yoga class for several months, and if there was any thing religious i would have stopped the class, but there is nothing.

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  Cicatrix

  Yoga is a religious experience?

  Well, I guess watching Rodney Yee do all those poses is somewhat of a divine experience:)
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  43

  My Memorial Experience-not so good

  by wednesday in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  well i just got back form the memorial, and well it was not all loving and warm like scobbysnax had.

  two or three couples spoke to us, not one elder.

  an elder came up to some people who had apparently just showed up for the first time, and they were all over them.

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  Cicatrix

  {{{{Wednesday}}}

  I'm so sorry to hear that you had a "typical" Memorial experience. I know exactly what you mean by "nerve wrecking". Last year's Memorial was the last meeting I ever attended. I had a panic attack and had to leave right after it was over. I hadn't been feeling well for months before then, but I didn't put two and two together and realize that I was severely stressed from trying to live in a situation that I could never change.

  It doesn't change when you go to another congregation. It doesn't change when you "wait on Jehovah". It doesn't change when you exert yourself in service more, or pray more, or try to be a more submissive wife.For years, I would take little breaks away from my "healthy" spiritual routine. I would stay away long enough that I would start feeling better. Then I would go back and have the energy drained right back out of me again. It never occurred to me then that if I felt that way, that maybe it was the religion that was at fault and not me.

  I wish you and your husband peace.

  Cicatrix
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  1

  Amish buggy drag race ends in crash. New two-horsepower hard to control.

  by Yizuman in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  woman seriously hurt in buggy drag race

  the associated pressapril 14, 2003 12:35 pm .

  decatur, ind.

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  Cicatrix

  Yep, this really happens from time to time.

  I live near an Amish community, and have seen buggy "drag racing" twice. One incident was two teen boys dragging down a state highway. I was mad, because running on pavement is very, very bad on a horse's legs. It can make them lame to the point they need to be euthanised. The other time, I was taking my daughter (ironically) to horseback riding lessons. We came up to an intersection where the cross traffic was supposed to stop, and I had the right of way. I had a funny feeling that I needed to stop, and it was a good thing I did. A buggy came careening through the stop sign out of control. It seems a couple of fellows were racing down the dirt road, and the one team got spooked and took off. The passenger was just along for the ride of his life:)
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  33

  Do You Think That You're A Little Bit Crazy???

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i spent the week with a few people, 2 jw's and their 2 non-believing husbands.

  a few different situations arose that suggested to me that some of these people are a little bit crazy.

  now, i'm not talking about certifiably crazy,i'm talking about just a little bit nuts.

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  Cicatrix

  Well, I've found my cheese sliding off my cracker every so often. Especially in the years before I bailed from the good ship Watchtower.

  Being "crazy" or "neurotic" for most people just means that you are having a really hard time dealing with something in your life. "Crazy" is usually just an exaggeration of normal behavior in most cases.

  Me, I collect songs, key chains, bumper stickers, etc. that mention the word crazy, or that deal with being insane in some way. This was my reaction to my in-laws going about town and telling everyone that I was crazy (I verified the rumor and the source of the rumor with several reliable sources). So who was more "crazy". Petty, jealous in-laws, or me when I turned the whole episode into a big joke I enjoy participating in to this day?:)

  But alcohol definitely seems to up the amperage. I just went out with some friends about three weeks ago, and was surprised how people act after a few drinks. Don't know how they can do it every single weekend!
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  34

  Ooooh them nasty 'ol JW's

  by ScoobySnax in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just nasty.

  tch, what to do eh, i ask you.

  pesky sorts, poking about in buisness not of they're own.jws eh?

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  Cicatrix

  Hi Scoob,

  I suggest that if you attend a convention or assembly, you listen very carefully to what is said from the platform about people who think JWs are mostly right, but who don't join the religion themselves. Those who don't tow the entire party line and get baptised are known as "fence sitters". Listen very close to what they say will happen to them at Armageddon. The JWs won't let you have it both ways.
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  4

  Negative Mention of JWs in books-How did they affect you?

  by Cicatrix in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it happened to me when i was in the org-i'd be reading a pretty good book, and every once in awhile jws would be mentioned in a less than flattering light( or a description of "the dark night of the soul" would feel a little too familiar).

  i would skim that part really quickly and tell myself that it was just opposers "persecuting" the jws.

  but a little flag would go up in the back of my mind.

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  Cicatrix

  It happened to me when I was in the org-I'd be reading a pretty good book, and every once in awhile JWs would be mentioned in a less than flattering light( or a description of "the dark night of the soul" would feel a little too familiar). I would skim that part really quickly and tell myself that it was just opposers "persecuting" the JWs. But a little flag would go up in the back of my mind. It's not that I knew the mention was in the books, they were innocent encounters, but they did leave me wondering, even as I was trying to refute what I'd read. I knew what I was reading was being played out in the congregations I was in, not to mention it was happening to myself.

  One such account was in the book Nurse, by Peggy Anderson (1978, St Martin's Press). In it, she describes an account with a JW that she befriended on page 89-90. It says in part, "She was the first Jehovah's Witness I had ever known, and she talked a lot about her religion. I thought she was interesting. Even though I sometimes thought she was trying to convert me, I became fairly attached to her.

  But she was a strange person. How much that had to do with her illness I don't know. Personality changes are common with lupus, and Shriley was also on cortisone, which can affect mood. She would go through crying spells, then be euphoric."

  ...Finally, the doctor ordered us to try Shirley on a placebo injection.Then she found out. I tried to explain to her that emotions play a large part in a person's reaction to what's happening in his or her body. She would have no part of it."

  I read this book about a year before I decided to leave. I was going through crying spells and periods of euphoria myself at that time. And I suffered bouts of unexplainable chronic pain. When the docs tried to suggest it went far beyond the injuries I had sustained, I just didn't want to hear it. Only I knew the doubts I was having with my religion, my trials with dealing with an abusive mate and the society's lack of support, and how it was all eating at me.The happiest people in the world never felt like this, right?

  Ironically, when I was an up an coming but as of yet unbaptised believer, I read an article by Barbara Grizzuti Harrison that said the JWs were a cult. I fired off a nasty letter to the editor defending my new found "family".

  Some twenty years later, I read her account online. I was surprised to see how much my decision to leave paralleled hers. I, too actually lost touch with myself to the point that I ended up being "lost" in very familiar territory. I was driving down a road I took every day, and I had no idea where I was at.

  This dissociation and my other symptoms fitted beautifully with a description in the book "Women Who Run With the Wolves" by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. In a part called "Sealskin, Soulskin", she writes "But as time went on, her flesh began to dry out. First it flaked, then it cracked. The skin of her eyelids began to peel. The hairs of her head began to drop to the ground. She became naluaq, palest white. Her plumpness began to wither. She tried to conceal her limp. Each day her eyes, without her willing it so, became more dull. She began to put out her hand in order to find her way, for sight was darkening."

  (This was me-my skin was white as a ghost's and it was dry and peeling, my clothes hung on me, and I limped. I was literally falling apart, and the doctors were clueless how to help.)

  Estes went on:"The seal is one of the most beautiful of all symbols for the wild soul...Like the seal woman in the story, and like the souls of young and/or inexperienced women, she is unaware of the intentions of others and potential harm. And that is always when the sealskin (soulskin) is stolen."

  My only regret is that I never got to tell Barbara Grizutti Harrison thank you.
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  50

  Favorite authors?

  by bebu in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  first, i never was a jw, but since a dear friend of mine is one, i'm here to learn from the human elements in order to give her quiet assistance in leaving someday (soon, i hope).... i love reading.

  my favorite author thru the years has been cs lewis.

  i read narnia in hs, and loved the last book the best (last battle).

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  Cicatrix

  Aaah, books. One of my favorite pastimes. I was supposed to go to Barnes & Nobles today, but got snowed in.

  Some of my favorite authors are:

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Gary Paulsen (Woodsong is my favorite)

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan series)

  Sinclair Lewis

  Ayn Rand

  LaVyrle Spencer

  L.M. Montgomery (Emily of New Moon and Anne of Green Gables series, but "The Blue Castle" most)

  John Grisham

  Karen Cushman (Catherine, Called Birdy)

  Harper Lee

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Scott O'Dell (Island of the Blue Dolphin,lots of others)

  Leo Tolstoy (his short stories-haven't read anything else)

  Terry McMillan

  Toni Morrison

  Stephen King

  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (A Midwife's Tale:The Life of Martha Ballard)

  Virginia Woolf

  Mark Twain

  Louis Lamour

  Madeline L'Engle

  Rebecca Wells (Little Altars Everywhere, Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood)

  Zena Jeter Naslund (Ahab's Wife)

  Jack London (White Fang)

  Anita Diamant (The Red Tent)

  Rod McKuen (Suspension Bridge-especially the poems "Lillian at Fifty" and "Sacrament")

  And I just picked up a book of Annie Dillard's stories that looks interesting, but haven't started reading it yet.
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  21

  RUMOR ABOUT ME FLOATING AROUND THE HALL : (

  by MoeJoJoJo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i cannot tell you how angry i am right now.

  the rumor is that i was pregnant before my husband and i were married.

  we were both witnesses and were married at the hall.

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  Cicatrix

  {{{{MoeJoJoJo}}}}

  Welcome to the hotel California. "You can check out anytime, but you can never leave."

  We bailed last year, and my daughter married shortly thereafter. She got pregnant about a month after the wedding, and you can bet that they are counting on their fingers to see when the baby is born. Alas for them, we didn't make the date of their marriage public (and they got their license well before they married):) So we are having some fun with this one. A "brother" saw her hugging and kissing her new hubby in public. He didn't have a clue they were married and called my mother to "expose" her "shameful, wonton behavior" with a "worldly" man. Funny, wonder why he didn't call me:) Ironically, this man, who is so "concerned" about my daughter's behavior and its affect on the congregation, was accused by his own granddaughter of molestation. He remains in good standing at his congregation:( His granddaughter was villified-you know, you can't trust the judgement of a female, especially a worldly one -blaagh!).

  The rumors started about me before I left, because I reported to the elders when my husband hit me. Big mistake! Even though he wasn't a JW, it somehow became my fault that I got hit. Then my morality became suspect (you know, those men have to keep their womin in line somehow-blah), and the elder's wife and other "upstanding" members of the congregation were warned against associating with me.

  My heart goes out to you and your family!! I know well the frustration of trying to repair your reputation when there is no basis for the accusations that are leveled against you. Just understand, it's part of the control factor of a cult, or any other abusive relationship for that matter. They have to deliver to their "flock" some explanation of why you left, afterall, "No one would ever want to leave the court yard of Jehovah." unless "Jehovah's spirit left them" for some reason.I've found it helps to tell people I trust exactly what the situation is. I've gotten lots of support, because most people are smart enough to see through the BS. The ones who aren't are those who have their own agenda. I no longer think it's worth my time to try and defend myself against their ignorance.

  When it first started happening, I was beside myself with grief,and I kept trying to defend myself. A very kind woman in town took me aside and said not to worry about it. She'd heard the crap and didn't believe it, because people make those kind of accusations all the time where we live. She said that the people who matter will see through it, and the rest just aren't worth it.She told me to keep living just as I have been-that actions speak louder than words. Best advice I ever got. And by the way, if you stay calm and matter of fact about it, your accusers don't know how to handle it. They bank on an emotional reaction from you to add credence to what they are saying.
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  33

  Goofy's Introduction, hello

  by goofy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i feel like i know some of you since i have been lurking here for almost two years, yikes!.

  let me introduce myself.

  i go by goofy here, you know the disney character, always liked him.

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  Cicatrix

  Hi Goofy,

  And Welcome!