by minimus 30 Replies latest jw friends
There is a certain intimidation factor of 3 on 1 or 12 on 1 regardless of whether the majority are Elders or any other group of people with a different vested interest than your own.
There is one Elder in our congo in particular who is a very talented manipulator and negotiator. He doesn't scare me but if I can avoid any confrontations with him, it's probably better. I think he's probably smelling a bit of aposta-funk on me these days.
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oh oh
After a while, I began to hate most of them. They wanted to coerce me to keeping my dedication to Jehovah after Jehovah welshed on His part of the deal. They wanted me to go out in field circus, once being worried that I wasn't going out that month when it was only September 3 (and I didn't normally go out on weekends because of my job). They wanted me to be robot-like, and they wanted me to pledge my whole paycheck for a Kingdumb Hell after I got negative value for donating toward it the first time.
And, they wanted me to just meet other men, thereby welshing on their promises to help me out with the opposite sex. After that, I have zero respect for any of them.
Growing up my mother used the elders as a club, I dispised these men after a while due to their failure to realize what was really going on was my mother was using them to frighten me and further abuse me. You see my mother physically abused me as a child . It is interesting to me when i was a teenager (still being physically abused) and said I was going to the elders, she would say "how dare you take personal family matters to the elders if you do i will kick you out. I was told this at 14 years of age.
Eventually I did tell an elder, What was his response? "Well this is a tough situation you know your mother is from a diffrent culture" he said.
never did he even ask her about it. The coward. After this I was no longer afraid of them . You see I knew then that they where just men and really where not men of god deserving of respect. The sad part is I am now so very cynical of all institutions government, religous, and secular. I know this is a sad way to live (lonely) but I am working on rebuilding my faith in humanity.
No, living with 2 abusive parents made the elders a non-issue. But I knew elders were "afraid" of me. I always led them in verbal traps...
I learned dealing with my parents not to give people control over me through fear.
Never had to deal with elders...my experence with them comes from what I read here. My answer would be no.
Had thought of starting a thread to ask: What keeps most of them from getting the sh&t kicked out of them. They INVADE privecy on a whim. Come to your home rifle through DVDs, CDs, books, poke around in closets. Sit in cars spying on people. Take you to a back room ask insulting questions, accuse people of things, that more often than not, are baseless lies. A very SMALL number of them are said to be good guy's, with the rest labled as jerks. Nobody talks about bouncing one of these guys up and down the street.
wtb&ts is, and always will be what it is, a cult, which I do not defend, yet in my time there where jws that would have run these guys off at the point of a gun. Especialy if they came banging on your door uninvited late at night, or got caught wandering around your house. As to spying on people, can't imagine what that would have caused.
Elders...what keeps them from being slam dunked off a wall?
Elders...what keeps them from being slam dunked off a wall?
Jehovahs protection?
"Jehovahs protection?".....Heh, heh, must be. Let me be clear, people did get ratted out, spyed on and taken to the back room, df and so on, but it all seems different from that time. Can't wrap my head around "Elders"...suppose you have to be there to get it.
I really & truly believed that Jehovah was whispering things into their ears with Holy Spirit. I was not in awe...I hated most of them. But I was petrified and felt guilty for that.
I've been 'out' for many years, but I was called into the Kingdom Hall a couple years ago to discuss the matter of my fighting parents. My parents have been bitter and filled with hatred for each other since I was a child, yet my father was recently appointed an elder. Sitting in the back room with 2 elders, my husband, my 2 siblings & their spouses....it was really quite rediculous. I looked at my siblings and saw the 'awe' in their eyes for everything the elders were saying. I did a good job of not making it about me . ..but it was REALLY tough not to tell the elders that they are so full of shit & walk out.
I am afraid of their influence at times......
However I have never met an Elder who I was afraid of as a man.
For whatever reason I learned early that it is I who get to assign who is respected and trusted.
I have had wonderful 'gifts of men', ego maniacs, and those are just along for the ride.
