Message from Designer Stubble to the former JWR members

by Designer Stubble 123 Replies latest jw friends

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  Worldling9

  Love your post Jane M. The sudden closing of JWR has prompted me to look at a number of things, one being "Is it time for me to move on as well?" JWR was a good fit for me...these other sites, no offense, I'm not so sure about. I am 57 and have been out of the org for many years. I've been in therapy and have made a lot of progress...so why AM I still here? I think the answer is that I still want to be there for others who need help. JWR was such a help to me...maybe I need to try and pay it forward a bit. And maybe I do still need to connect with some others who understand this very strange part of my background...and maybe I will still struggle with the old JW crap from time to time and need to vent. So for now, here I am. And if another recovery focused site comes along (Fugue...) I'll be there.

  wl9
• 

  OneGenTwoGroups

  All organizations need exit strategies for key members and the organization itself, especially ones that wish to support fragile people in hellish curcumstances.

  As Moxie, the founder of JWR, handed off to Rifter, perhaps Rifter should do (should have done?) something similar.
• 

  Ixonegal

  Whew... it took me a couple of tries to get on here. Very different way of posting replies. etc. almost not user friendly for me.

  Anyhow.. Designer Stubble, thank you for the explanation. I am better known as prariesgal from JWR and i hadn't been there for a while when my best friend told me that JWR shut down.

  Wow... what a shock. But, I think I am almost ready to move on. I'm much happier since I disassociated myself. I have no fear or anything of JWs. I can look at them in the eye and smile. I'm FREE!

  Now I'm here as Ixonegal. If you knew me from JWR, feel free to connect with me. I am also on facebook (pm me for the name).

  Warm hugs.
• 

  FreeAgent

  Hi everyone, FreeAgent here, another ex-JWR addict.

  Just want to throw out a few thoughts on behalf of the lurkers & non-participants out there. Most from the JWR community won't know my name though I'd been a member since early 2013. I haven't posted at all since an early 3-month flurry so haven't lost the thousands of posts some others have, but that doesn't mean I haven't been listening & benefiting from the experience.

  I had originally joined, having been a successful 20 year self-administered fader, because I felt I could offer something to help any others on their path out of the JW quicksand, maybe throw out some sage advice at a key moment of need to offer hope & support. I'd never been much of an online forum guy, but liked JWR a lot, as it seemed the "kinder, gentler" alternative to other angrier sites at the time, focused on support & healing rather than dishing out vitriol for its own sake. I was past that phase, but still felt the pull as most of my family including grown kids were still in, & there's no real escape in that situation. So, needing an outlet & a desire to contribute, JWR suited me just fine.

  Funny thing is, as I started to participate, I soon realized I was not as "over that" as I had thought. I started to be the angry one in the posts. Old resentments & wounds, issues I thought I had put to bed years ago, morphed into bitter, preachy rants. When certain subjects were offered up by well-meaning posters, the old fangs would come out & I just started to sound like an ugly old curmudgeon, the exact opposite of my original intent. So I stopped....

  I realized that I was the one that needed support, and JWR gave that to me whether the admins knew it or not. I stopped "helping" & just listened. And learned. And grew. And changed. It's never too late to do those things. I'm 57 as of this writing, and only just now do I feel somewhat released from much of the pent-up anger & resentment I had been holding on to. Just by lurking & listening. Regularly.

  Thanks to all the truly kind & mature folks at JWR who offered their love & time when a newly damaged refugee would 1st post, asking for help. Thanks Helen T, Lonepine, Shimmy, Fantome & all the rest. You showed me how it's done.

  Thanks for the depth & quality of your thoughts and the willingness & courage to share. Many a time I’ve been blown away by an idea or new piece of research I’d never considered from Bears, Borgia, Palimpsest, TallullahB, Tree, Zebedee, the list goes on…..sometimes from those of tender age (talking to you Jane M)….

  Thanks to those who somehow have the stomach to keep ties to the Org so we can receive inside info, often before the elders even know, and be prepared for the after-effects. Special thanks to DS on this count, but Tony Brock, 1Gen2Groups and many others have my eternal admiration for actually doing this from inside the belly of the beast.

  Thanks for all the laughs Fugue, Queequeg, Gargamel & the rest of you comedians. I need help keeping it light sometimes.

  Thanks especially to all the JWR admins & mods, including (maybe especially) Rifter & Moxie for the truly high quality work while it lasted. It must have been a real chore to keep the experience balanced & mostly civil. You'll probably never get the recognition you deserve for what have must been thousands of hours of personal time & toil, but big kudos here from a humble lurker. Despite your challenges there was always a comfortable, friendly feeling about that site, and most members got the message early that the real goal was helping people get whole, get healed & ultimately move on, just like some of you seem ready to do now.

  I’ll miss JWR. A lot. It felt like family even though I was like that distant uncle who lives in the woods & never writes, but I’ll take this transition in the “When one chapter ends another one begins” spirit. Looking forward to settling in a new community here, and will give active participation another shot. Really appreciate the open-armed welcome Simon & giving us a place to land. Looks like many have already made the same jump.

  Till I’m ready to be an Ex-Ex myself…..

  FreeAgent
  
• 

  thereishope

  FreeAgent - you brought tears to my eyes! How elegantly put!
  
• 

  fugue

  I totally understand the need for personally moving on. I don't fault anyone who decides to put all of it, the religion and the recovery phase, in their rear view mirror. That's my ultimate goal, too.

  What I'm hearing from those who dislike the situation isn't that Rifter, DS, Palimpsest or anyone else was wrong to decide to turn the page and move on. You all did an amazing job helping hundreds of people recover. No one should feel obligated to keep volunteering their time and effort; this isn't the borg where your "volunteer work" is mandatory and never ends.

  But what I'm hearing here is that JWR was bigger than "Rifter's website" in the minds of the people who relied on it. On paper sure, it was and is his property to do with as he pleased. My thousands of posts were my intellectual property, but I trustingly (carelessly?) left them on his database on his servers. Oops, my bad.

  But the bigger issue is a question of ethics: is it ethical to offer people a "recovery service," then with no warning just shut it down? What would have been wrong with saying something like: "I have decided that I need to move on. If anyone is interested in taking ownership, let me know ASAP. The current hosting plan runs out in X number of days, and after that if no one else wants this burden, the site will be closed."

  Thats not difficult. And if you weren't in the mood to hear people clamoring about who should or shouldn't step up, then just send that message in a PM to maybe the top dozen most active people. Then walk away.

  There were, are, and will be people whose only connection to a support group is JWR. Will they be able to find a continuum of the support they need? The message on the site right now would have left me feeling totally lost if it had happened when I needed a support network the most.
• 

  fugue

  And Simon, if nothing else positive comes from this, I would say that at the very least I have a newfound respect for your sticking with this project for so long. I don't know how long I would want to keep doing it, especially when it's completely voluntary and is subject to all kinds of trouble making and high school level drama. I'm not in any way trying to diminish the value of JWD. For me, JWR was what I found first and where I made friends. The differences between them were more of a "iPhone vs Android" choice of personal preference. I like that I had choices and options.
• 

  marlborobarbie

  Whoa. This thread kind of blew up...both in a good and bad way. Man, Tallulah, lord I love you. Love luv LAHV you!

  So here's the thing, after I've read and skimmed through the rest of the thread, I've decided how I truly felt about JWR: It was a safe haven. I never met anyone face to face, although a few of us attempted to meet up in the ATL, but I felt close to most everyone I interacted with. It's kind of like, when you go to school or a large gathering, you always meet up with the same group of people, at the same place, because your personalities work so well together, and that's just how it is. No matter where else you go, you don't feel as welcome and at home as you do when you're with your friends at your usual spot. No one else gets your inside jokes or knows your background, or why you wear that certain ring, why you're not wearing that certain necklace anymore, etc. You don't have to explain to anyone how you're feeling that day or why, because your friends already know.

  That was JWR to me.

  The tiny community we had there was comforting. I may not have been the most welcoming to newbies, but I did my best to engage and not let them feel like outsiders in "my clique". We're all here for the same reason, recovery, camaraderie, support, entertainment, and above all, love. Stepping into JWD feels like I'm a little peon, a savage, stepping into a new world where no one knows my name or story or the hell I've been through and keep trudging through. It's hard and scary. Losing JWR is like a kick to the gut, because I'm no longer someone who (I think) others feel has any valid reason to comment. I'm just a newb that probably won't contribute anything useful in the community...at least that's how I believe I'm seen. No matter how I try, I'll still be that little girl in the group of older girls trying so hard to be heard, but only talked over and ignored in the end. At JWR, I felt like I could contribute and mean something to the other members. I felt like my words could really help, or make someone think. Here...I'm nothing but a name and a 1x1 thumbnail picture.

  That's why I'm upset that it was just, shut down. It's like a repeat in my life: Nope. Shut down. No chance to save it. No chance to voice an opinion. Just, shut up and deal.

  I hope I can be a thriving member on JWD and be accepted and contribute good things.
• 

  MacSwan

  We have all we need now. The refugees. We've made our own place. It's small, but it feels like home. Its only been a few weeks and its thriving.

  http://ex-jws.boards.net
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  vicolisted

  I was quite saddened to find out that JWR had closed its doors. Although I had moved on a couple of years ago, I had been quite active back in the day, that I still felt comfortable to come back for a visit and a whinge when the JW nonsense increased in my life. I never posted a goodbye post on JWR, like so many do, because I always knew I'd be back for a visit, so I guess this is my goodbye post.
  
  I am surprised at how much I hurt that JWR, all of its wonderful people and helpful (and the silly) information are gone, just gone. I know I will miss that community. So for those of you who were currently active on the site how much worse it most have been for it to have been closed without warning? I hope you all find a new community as supportive and lovely as JWR was, as you work your way into being an exex-jw
  
  I just wanted to post on here to let all those who read this (and who remember me on JWR haha) that I will miss you, your wisdom, your understandings and sympathy of the JW nonsense that us faders deal with, the humour and the comradeship that was always to be found on that board.
  
  -vicolisted