WILL YOU kindly help me? (page 2)

Paralipomenon

Things I would question without knowing the content.

While in prison as a faithful person, did you feel God was blessing you and protecting you? If so, how do you view those incidents now when looking back?
How often did friends and family come to visit you?
What did you fantasize about doing when you got out?
Were you looking for a way to escape, or resigned to serve out your time?

Usually I form questions as I read, are you going to make a draft copy available for perusal?
I would be really interested in reading it.

wanderlustguy

Did you get any help taking care of any financial or moral obligations (i.e. taking care of members of your family with health concerns, etc) while you were in prison for the organization?

I'm sure you covered this, but how about your witnessing efforts in the clink? Did you convert the whole place?

WLG

Terry

I'm willing to help, and since someone has to be an asshole and ask the "indelicate" questions, it might as well be me:
How brutal was your prison experience?
Was the threat of homosexual rape real, or is that hollywood ("OZ") hype?
What was the most pleasant (positive) surprise about your time spent in prison?
What was the most shocking (negative) surprise about your time spent in prison?
After you were released, how were you treated by the congregation? Better? Worse? No change?

The brutality issue in a minimum security prison is certainly an issue of not only psychology for the inmate, but; it comes down heavily on how the brothers back home in the Kingdom Hall view your experience!

I do address in great detail the fact that nobody from the Kingdom Hall came to visit me, send me a letter or a post card and that nobody had any curiousity about my entire prison experience when I got out!!

The "rape" issue is central to my story and how it is perceived is the pivotal issue in framing the transformation of my protagonist.

I need to develop the attitude of my congregation when I was released in more colorful detail and depth. I tended to gloss over it with a paragraph. Actually, now that you bring it up--it is rather astonishing that everybody was so casual about my return. It is, frankly, dumbfounding!

Thank you, N.N.

Sad emo

What were your thoughts and feelings when you were sent down and how did they change.

Did you feel proud at first that you were being persecuted for Jehovah's sake for instance?

Gradually come to the realisation that you'd been conned?

... and in between?!

And how did the experience affect you emotionally overall - do you feel you've become hardened towards others - and maybe yourself?

I'm asking these because I'd have an interest in the psychological/emotional effects. Life dishes out some hard blows but how we deal with them makes all the difference

Terry

How isolated were you? What were your thoughts? Was there someone in your environment that challenged your beliefs? Were you righteous in the situation, or horrified by it? What did you think of others there? What were your feelings about those back home? What helped you to emotionally get through it?

Of the above questions, what I neglected to detail most (which I now must remedy) is the aspect of "what got me through it." I had a different opinion at the time than from what I now appraise.

Very helpful. Thanks!

Terry

While you were in prison, did you begin to doubt the Organization and their rigid legalism which caused your imprisonment?

That is what is so psychologically interesting to me now. I should have and didn't come to any critical evaluations in prison. I was completely and utterly in a state of psychological surrender to the "service to Jehovah" and actually lost my identity as a person.

This forms the ingredient of the book I found most painful to write about. That is chiefly why I had to change the main character from me to a fictional name! I found "myself" so completely unlikeable and empty-headed that I kept wanting to slap him!!

This has been real therapy--believe me!

wanderlustguy

I need to develop the attitude of my congregation when I was released in more colorful detail and depth. I tended to gloss over it with a paragraph. Actually, now that you bring it up--it is rather astonishing that everybody was so casual about my return. It is, frankly, dumbfounding!

This ought to take quite a bit of writing, because you have to start at the beginning where they treat you like thye love you, then the slide down after you are dipped, on to the fake smiles and "oh we have been so worried about yous" and eventually the spinning around of the shopping cart and running the other way when face with "The Terry".

WLG

UU Now

Your last post answered one of my questions -- what contact/support did you receive from the congregation while you were imprisoned? It was of interest to me because a good friend of my family made it a practice to write to incarcerated JW conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War. I had hoped she was one of many.

I'd also be interested in learning about your relationships with other prisoners, their initial reactions to you, if and how those reactions changed over time, etc. Ditto re: your relationship with the facility staff and administration.

Did you have a cell/roommate? Was it another JW? Were JWs grouped together in general or dispersed throughout the population?

Terry

While in prison as a faithful person, did you feel God was blessing you and protecting you? If so, how do you view those incidents now when looking back?
How often did friends and family come to visit you?
What did you fantasize about doing when you got out?
Were you looking for a way to escape, or resigned to serve out your time?

I do cover these things. All except the fantasy aspect of getting out. This surprises people when I tell them this: you don't and can't think about "outside". It ceases to exist as a real and tangible thought!

Your dreams of outside vanish and all your minset becomes like inside of a theatre with the backdrop solely that of the play you are in. Weird as it sounds; my dreams were all institutional. People, places and things in the outside or "normal" enviornment become fictionalized in your subconscious.

Escape I address as pertaining to non-JW prisoners.

JW's could get out instantly. One did. All you had to do was agree to go into the army and within hours you were released!

The mindset of a person going into an institution semi-voluntarily (sensing it was a religious duty) is peculiar at best.

Nathan Natas

Terry, I have to admit that after checking your file I can't find any information at all regarding your imprisonment. So I suppose I ought to go to question #0: What were you in for?

I had assumed your were a conscientious objector to the draft, but I'm not sure.

Do I understand correctly that you converted to JWism while you were incarcerated, or did I get something bass-akwards?

If you were a JW conscientious objector, tell us about your meetings with the draft board and your (presumed) attempts to be recognized as a minister. How much support di your local elders offer and actually provide in your pre-convict ordeal?

WILL YOU kindly help me?

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