Cicatrix

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Posts by Cicatrix

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  35

  Faithless apostate ridiculers, disaster is sure to befall you - July 15 WT

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  here are some loving, choice words from the watchtower empire.. .

  july 15 - first study article page 10 .

  do you find delight in the law of jehovah?.

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  Cicatrix

  scapegoat- 1. a goat upon whose head are symbolically placed the sins of the people after which he is sent into the wilderness in the biblical ceremony for Yom Kippur 2. a. one that bears the blame for others b. one that is the object of irrational hostility
  
  projection-6. b. the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or ATTITUDES [emphasis mine] to other people or to objects;esp:the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety
  
  Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
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  31

  Partisan bickering

  by avishai in

  1. social
  2. current

  i am so sick of the "team" mentality on both sides.

  for instance, i am a fiscal conservative, right?

  but the conservatives in office are spending like drunken sailors.

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  Cicatrix

  I here ya, Avishai,
  That's why I'm an Independent;)This year it will be choosing the lesser of two evils, but I'm going to vote because there are certain issues that I DO NOT want being decided for me by a faction that thinks they know what I need better than I do.
  
  When I was JW, I had no say in what went on because I was a woman. My say might not mean much in the political arena, but I can exercise it and I will exercise it. If I'm wrong, I'll just have to learn from the mistake and move on, just as others who have voted for princes who turned out to be frogs have.
  
  I respect those who listen to the issues and make a careful decision not to vote because they really can't support the policies of either party. What bothers me is the vast amount of people who never vote because they think their vote doesn't make a difference.Of course, they have the right to hold that view-we live in a relatively free country. I just hope the apathy doesn't come back and bite us in the butt someday, that's all.
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  19

  Verbal Abuse in Jehovahs Witnesses

  by truthbeliever in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i dont know much about physical abuse in the jehovahs witnesses,but there is sure alot of verbal abuse.i was verbally abused for many years in the congregation by a high up elder,who didnt know anything about his own religion,and a ministerial servant i will call jerkwad abusive.

  (almost sounds like a jedi doesn't it?

  )this punk was a first class liar,jerk,and cared very little about the organization.here's how his cycle of abuse would work:he would do a mean thing,you would become offended,then he would say if you didnt work it out with him,he would go to the elders.you would then forgive him,and then next week,he would do it again.nice,huh?when i first joined the organization,they told me to never tell anybody in the world about any incidences like that,or i would bring reproach on jehovahs name.i wanted to tell somebody,especially the cops,but never did.has anybody else had any experiences like this?god bless.

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  Cicatrix

  I've been doing some reading and learned that this is a common cult tactic that keeps you unable to gain any equilibrium.
  
  My daughter had an experience with the grand daughters of a prominent woman in another congregation. They were doing to her what you described (though not to the point of warranting police involvement), so she decided to avoid them. Well, Grandma called me and threatened that if my daughter didn't continue to "associate" with her grand daughters, she would go to the elders and charge her and me with causing a division. When she said that, I just hung up on her, I was so pissed. After thinking about it for awhile, I called her back and told her that I had "strongly encouraged" my daughter to continue associating with her grand daughters, but that I was leaving the matter entirely in her hands as to what she would choose to do, as I trusted her judgement in the manner. My daughter decided she would not physically leave when the girls came around, but she would mentally shut off anything they had to say. She also stopped responding to any of their emails. Grandma was livid, but technically, there was nothing she could do about it. I had "mended the fence" and the elders had consistently refused to baptise my daughter, so there really wasn't much that could be done to her.
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  32

  My sad start to the day.

  by Lehaa in

  1. social
  2. family

  to all you animal lovers out there.. i awoke this morning to find that my dog had passed away during the night.. he was a golden retriever cross and the baby of the family.

  he loved the kids and would lie down so my 2 year old could sit and lie on him.. he dug out of the back yard and got into my gardening stuff.

  he ate half a box of snail bait.. i'm feeling really guilty, sould not have left it out.

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  Cicatrix

  {{{{Lehaa and Family }}}}
  When I was younger, my family got a beautiful little pomeranian puppy. I loved him to bits, carried him all around like a little baby. About a month after we got him, my mother put him in his crate before she went to work. When she came home, she found him dead. His collar had somehow gotten caught on the door edge and he strangled. She felt so guilty for leaving that collar on him! When we got home from school, she told all of us kids. We cried and hugged and had a popcorn and grape juice wake for him, then buried him in the back yard. Later, we adopted another dog from an animal shelter. It made us feel that somehow, Pancho's death could be accepted if we adopted a little guy who might be euthanized if we didn't give him a home.A life for a life kind of thing.
  
  If you aren't in a position to adopt a dog, maybe you could give a donation to an animal shelter in memory of your dog.Any little ritual like that really can help.
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  12

  To my dear brothers and sisters

  by Vivamus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  did that gave you the creeps?

  for the past three weeks i have been home, on sickleave.

  nothing serieus, just uncomfy.

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  Cicatrix

  {{{{Viv}}}}
  I recently met a man who left a political cult. We still speak the same "language" though, and he said the same thing that you did-people who haven't been there, can't really understand the enormity of it. They don't understand that "moving past" your cult experience would mean that you would have to eradicate a part of your history, and that is impossible to do.
  
  I think it's kinda funny when people post here about "getting over it." I always wonder, if they're so over it, why are they still posting here?
  
  I'm really greatful to have this community. Before I found it, I thought I was the only one going through the hell I was going through. I seriously thought I was going insane. When I started lurking here and reading all of the experiences which were so like my own, I realized that I was pretty much okay-it was the religion that was insane.
  
  Anyway, I want to thank you for your contributions on this board. And I hope you get well soon.
  
  Regards
  Cicatrix
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  125

  It's Time to Find New Vistas

  by Farkel in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i cannot compete with threads anymore.

  they beat me!

  threads about pit bulls and other dogs and virginity get all the attention.

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  Cicatrix

  Hi Fark,
  I just wanted to let you know that you have helped me immensly with your posts. I don't always add a comment to your threads, because you usually hit the nail on the head so succinctly, there is nothing for me to add. I enjoy your topics very much.
  
  There are lots of new comers here lately. I think they would benefit from some of your excellent advice for combatting exit turmoil(your suggestion to read anything about science I could get my hands on really helped-it also resulted in my developing an interest in Quantum physics).
  
  I see JWD as being a lot like television. You have your Nickalodean kinda threads, your Survivor style stuff, and a little bit of PBS and History channel. Well, I'm a PBS and History channel fan, so I tend to be drawn more to that kind of topic:)
  
  If you want to expound on Rachmaninoff, please do. I love music and I can't read a single note (I played in the school band for three years, and no one ever caught on that I was playing by ear, lol. I even won second in a regional band competition). I like the history behind the music, too, so if you know anything about Rachmaninoff,or any other composers, do tell.
  
  There are two things in life that I am determined to learn before I die-algebra and how to read music.I'm concentrating on the algebra for now, so I will have to vicariously enjoy music through folks like yourself, for whom it is a gift. So please do share.
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  79

  So What The Hell Are You?

  by shamus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  according to dubdom, what are you?

  i am a lame weakass lamb who goes on apostate websites who faded.

  in the real world i am free from mind control.

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  Cicatrix

  I'm the new "American Jezebel" lol. Anyone read the book by Eve LaPlante?
  
  I DAd myself when I realized I was being scapegoated (I figured it was better to go out on my own terms), but never gave a reason for leaving, which gave the elders no ammunition and subsequently ticked one off.
  
  I was a target of a witch hunt before that, though. It had nothing to do with spirituality, and everything to do with the fact that a "worldly" brother- and sister-in-law (who just happened to be high school friends of Elder Witch Hunter) were incensed because my husband bought the family business and they wanted it. They made accusations of immorality about me, and the hunt was on.
  
  The leave and say nothing has worked pretty well. Several others I know well started fading shortly after my kids and I left. But right now, I'm trying to decide if I'm going to become a more vocal Apostate or keep doing things the way I've been doing them.
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  40

  The Surreal JW Horror show our agony and anguish

  by Undaunted Danny in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  the anguish and the agony of having to renounce the lifelong convictions of one's heart.the surreal horror to know that it was all a lie!

  for the 33 years that i was a j-ho,the central theme of discussion among active jehovah's witnesses was their inescapable mortality.here i am 47 years old and the onset and onrush of middle-age can be overwhelming and devastating.

  when they die they don't go to heaven.many like myself,squandered our youth for the watchtower.years of are vital prime spent in the borg are gone now forever.

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  Cicatrix

  "When i was conceived in 1956,my pioneer parents were reviled by the 'friends' for getting 'knocked up'."
  
  Nothing much has changed over the years, Danny. When I unintentionally got pregnant with our last son, a pioneer sister felt it was her duty to come and chastise me for it-and I wasn't even a pioneer. There I was, suffering horribly from morning sickness, wondering how I was going to find the energy to care for another baby when I still had one nursing and in diapers, and she was lecturing me about how she didn't understand why "the friends" didn't take the advice of the Governing Body to delay having kids. She actually asked me if I knew what birth control was and how to use it!
  
  Well, life sometimes has a funny way of evening up the odds. She got pregnant herself a few months later, despite birth control and her intention to fully obey the Governing Body, lol. She did have the decency to apologise for the things she said to me.
  
  As far as the retirement issue, I hear you there. I wasted my time helping to run a business that was running in the red when we bought it, made a profit for one year out of ten, then subsequently sucked us dry. I wanted to go to school right after high school (was offered a full scholarship), but the WTS mandate on that was not favorable for so long, and I wanted to "please Jehovah" so much, I didn't go.
  
  The conflict was terrible, though, and I finally broke down and enrolled in college in my thirties. I thought things would get better, as the society had started to have a different view of higher education. But it turned out that our congregation didn't. I had tons of negative pressure from the "friends" and from my husband, who assumed I was going to college so I could divorce him (somehow he was able to not even think about the fact that we were going broke-probably because he had made me the treasurer of the business, and told me he was "too busy" to be concerned with the monetary issues. Add that to the fact that I was still working full time, taking care of five kids, and getting them to as many meetings as I could ( I missed a lot of them), and voila! You have a recipe for a breakdown. Something had to give before I did, so I quit school.I quit six freaking weeks before the end of the semester. I was getting all As! Somehow, having the "friends" and my husband console me just didn't make it better-it made me angry.It also made me start thinking, and pulling away from the WTS control.
  
  I ended up going back to school about a year later. This time, I ignored the "friends" and endured my husband telling me almost every morning that I was just going to school to "meet guys".A year after returning to school, I disassociated myself.Then the business finally went belly up for good, and I was able to concentrate totally on school.
  
  My husband has a much better job now, back at a plant where he worked before we bought the business, and he has excellent retirement benefits (he could be retired by now if he would've stayed in this job instead of quitting to run the family business). But he will have to work until he's about seventy to save even a minimum retirement now, and I will have to work too. Plus, we have four boys to educate yet. I'm still a few years away from a degree. I won't be in a well-paying career until I am over forty. But still, things are much brighter than they would be if I were still a Witness, waiting for "permission" from the elders to be able to move where we could find work to support us (that's something that always urked me-that you were supposed to get the approval of the elders before you moved, and you had to be "in good standing" to get their permission. We didn't notify them one time-just up and moved, and I had to put up with a lecture for my "transgression".The stupid thing was, my husband wasn't a baptised publisher, he was just studying, and he's the one who wanted to move, not me. And I didn't even see the control then. Geez, was I blind or what).
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  21

  Colorfull babies.

  by Stefanie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i had always wanted a baby from each race.

  my thought was that when paradise came, we would be able to have any kind of babies we wanted.

  was this weird or did anyone else feel like this?

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  Cicatrix

  Nope. I wanted a rainbow family, too. My favorite dolls were all black. I dubbed one African American, one Native American, and one Asian (hey, it was the closest I could get to an Asian baby in that time).
  
  I never had a rainbow family of my own, and now I need to concentrate on earning the retirement I never saved because Armageddon was "just around the corner", so I have no plans to adopt. But oddly enough, my daughter told me just the other day that she admires Angelina Jolie for wanting to have a rainbow family. She would like to adopt a daughter from China herself, so maybe I can fulfill my dream by helping her adopt a grand daughter from China someday:)
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  28

  Encouragement to get back to the meetings

  by cyber-sista in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i keep getting these forwards from certain ones who i knew in the org.

  they know i have left because i was "discouraged".

  they are keeping their distance by not writing to me anything personal, but keep sending these "encouraging" forwards in hopes that i'll be re-awakened, dust off the book bag and head on back to the old kh.

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  Cicatrix

  Well, it would inspire me to change my email addy;)