Borg message incoming. On screen.
Borg: Blizzard is irrelevant. Even though this is a judicial matter, it's really a shepherding call. It will be on Saturday afternoon. It'll be me, Brother U, and Brother X. Resistance is futile.
Wife: Were you going to tell me about the meeting with the brothers on Saturday?
Me: [Minute-long pause] Yes.
Fact is, they didn't tell me the exact time. That's why they needed to call back. I couldn't give my wife information I didn't have, now, could I?
Their lies never cease to amaze me. The Thought Police officer actually said "it's really a shepherding call". I don't know of any shepherding calls that end with punishment being doled out. Given that the last "shepherding call" resulted in my wife ratting me out--and she didn't like being thought of as a rat, by the way--I can't imagine that this "shepherding call" will be any different. The shepherd pointing his rod at the sheep, "Well, you done done it now. I'm gonna beat your a** when I get back! I'm going to get two of my boys and a bigger rod!"
So...my wife asked me how I felt about it. I told her that I couldn't talk to her about it. "You can, but you just choose not to," she replied. She gets on my nerves when she plays with semantics like that instead of even attempting to understand just how painful this really is. You know, like an actual partner would do. "Believe what you want," I said angrily. She concluded that I was angry with her. I wasn't, even though I was irritated by her response and all. I know this isn't personal. Basically, it's the business of religion. The managers at the local Kingdom Hall franchise have to reprimand their employees for not adhering to the code of conduct. It's all part of the organization. Since she's a company girl, why the frak not?
She said that one day I will be angry with her. Maybe I am and I don't know it. Or won't admit it because I'm worried that I'm seriously thinking about asking her to leave my home indefinitely. I say 'my home' because I alone pay the rent, the phone, the lights and well, just about everything else. It's my home because I paid for it. We didn't pay for it together. I don't believe I have the will to do something like that even if I really, really wanted to. Because...the fact is, and it'll sound the way it sounds [like learned helplessness or whatever], even though she's caused me a lot of pain in my life, she has given my life a fullness I never thought I could have. It would be too quiet if she wasn't there. The pain would eat me like a cancer. I already lost her before. I haven't had her back for that long. I can't let this religion tear us apart.
But it is. It's tearing me apart. So by definition, it's tearing us apart. She will see them as the loving helpers that they claim to be. I just don't believe a word they say anymore about that stuff. I don't believe in them, I don't believe in this religion. I hate them, and I hate this religion. I really, really hate them.
I may have no choice but to ask my wife to leave for awhile, for her sake, for the kid's sake. I don't want to do that. But I'm feeling a gathering storm in my soul right now, one that will inevitably unleash its fury at some point, somehow. And I don't want her to be caught up in that. I may honestly kill myself, maybe someday, I don't know when. I just want it to be over and...I don't know any other way out. It's at a point where I don't just want to kill myself. It's at a point where I just want to kill. And I promised myself I would kill myself if I became a danger to others, too dangerous to be kept alive.
Maybe that's just how I feel, and nothing more than melodramatic bluffing. I'm of no consequence as a physical specimen, unarmed, not even 150 pounds, and probably not even as strong as my wife. I would never hurt her. I love her and I don't care about the religion, I just love her and that's all I know. It's not her that I would target anyway. And it wouldn't be fair to target them; they're the Thought Police, they don't know any better. They don't deserve that. Many of them are the very ones who see that something's wrong.
But the hate is fighting its way past the firewalls and trying to surface. I can't imagine surviving the interrogation without something happening. I don't want to answer their questions. I don't want to be there. I don't want to go. But I can't leave my wife to them. She trusts them wholeheartedly. She doesn't trust me at all. And hey, I didn't trust her--and for some reason [ie. mind control], she doesn't see her betrayal of my private thoughts to the elders as being a validation for why I didn't trust her.
I didn't have the money to buy that spy-style watch/camera I wanted to get for the judicial committee. If I had, I would've recorded it. As it is, I will simply record it with pen and paper as best I can. It is a new experience for me and I want to see what they'll do. I think I already know.
I feel afraid, even though I know they have nothing to threaten me with. The guiding program in my head is still of their design. It hurts so much. I can't believe that God would allow things like this. But then, I don't think there is a God anymore. The closest thing to him got killed a long time ago. Ironically, by 'Jehovah's visible organization'.
... I just bought a great book called 'The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse'. I'm very surprised to see just how common this phenomenon really is. I mean, I knew about cults and all, but...from the Christian perspective, it's so dead-on. I suppose part of me still believes, but...it just hurts too much. You spend your whole life in constant condemnation, and to believe that you're not condemned if you're in Christ? Sounds unbelievable, too easy.
I'm not going to be able to tell you how it went until Monday, if I make it that far. The snow is still too thick. I can't ask my wife to leave for awhile, not with all that out there. The kid is sick now and...and I can't. I can't even show her how I really feel, how deeply this hurts me. I don't believe she cares, because she can't care. They taught her well, and I think she wanted to be taught to be cold like them.
When she was DF'd, years ago, I was by her side, stood with her in spite of the elders' orders. I lost 5 years of my life believing that what we had meant something more than just this religion. When she came back, I hoped and I broke into pieces, and then...and then she put me back together. Waited for the cement to dry. Then she smashed me to pieces again.
I didn't learn to love her because of the religion; I learned to love her IN SPITE OF the religion. She never learned to do the same for me. Perhaps that hurts more than anything else.
I knew it was a mistake to marry her, but I didn't care. I loved her too much to just forget about her. I knew I'd be stuck in the cult for life. I didn't care if we were stuck in hell; I just wanted to be stuck there with her. I don't know how to make this work as long as the cult is in between us. And I don't know how to express it to her. I don't want to turn her away from God. I just want to turn her away from following the wrong people. I want her to examine the abundant proof for herself and consider its implications, and make her own choice, based on real evidence, not blanket statements or speculation or lies. I have no lies to offer. Not anymore. I...I only lied to her to keep her from knowing what was happening, because I knew she would do this.
I see no purpose in battling the elders about doctrine. Perhaps if I can... I just want to tell them to remove me from the congregation. I don't want to go through the rest of it. I just want it to be over.
I asked them to do so during the last so-called 'shepherding call'. I don't want to go through the possibility of some idiotic 'reproved' status where you can't pray in front of anybody else and people always ask you to do it at the field service group or something. There is no indication of such a tiered level of discipline in the Bible. It talks about reproving people, but not some sort of status, like suspending a guy from the NFL for a few games or something.
... Supposedly, elders bend over backwards to keep from DF'ing someone. I just don't believe that. I don't even care. Most of those people I don't even want to talk to. I don't want to live forever with people like that. And besides, that's an illusion anyway. I know that.
I'm supposed to call my wife now. I just...I know. I feel terrible for putting her in this position. I made the wrong choices. I didn't act in her best interests. I forgot that only the Society can have the cake and eat it, too. Not me.
It's fine. I'm not going to hurt myself or anyone else. I'd just create more problems. I just...I can't turn it off. I can't turn off the hate. I want to forget everything. I want to forget about the lies. I don't want to know anymore. I don't want to know.
Can I share a song? It's something I wrote. I'll post it next, since I figure it won't fit in this one. ... You folks warned me, told me, and I just...I just trapped myself. I think I'm having a panic attack again or something. I don't know. Take care, okay? If I don't...if I don't make it, just know that I did my best. If I died, I died because of trying to do the right thing. But then, dead people are dead people. Disappearing from history isn't so bad. History is often not a kind place to be.
Bye.
--Christopher