Posts by dubstepped

27

Need help. Daughter wants to leave org but does not know how.

by Indian Larry in

jw
friends

long question, but very important.. i can use some help.

my daughter wants out of the organization and i need some advise.. here is my background in a nutshell.

i am fully faded for 10+ years.

dubstepped

So she "likes the brothers and sisters at the hall and they all love her, and is not having any personal problems", other than the fact that she contemplates suicide, is very depressed, and has pulled away from her friends. One of these things is not like the other.

You sound like a good guy and you care about your daughter and that's great. Your daughter is likely to face a lot of pain because if she truly wants to be herself and be free, she doesn't have the luxury of faking it like you and she doesn't have a good example of taking that stand. She doesn't just need one PIMO friend, you're fooling yourself. She is suicidal. That's what you wrote. She may feel trapped, or like she's worthless because the cult she's been kept around makes young people feel worthless. So she's already going through pain, you can't save her from that nor is it your place to.

Your best plan of action is to let her be her, support her in that, be a shoulder to cry on, point her to professional help outside of the cult, etc. If she wants worldly friends she should go get some. If she wants to date a worldly boy she should go do that. Be careful that you don't let your own compromised position with the cult impact how you steer her in these matters. She's got a long life ahead of her and she will have to try to pull off a fade unless and until her real life on the outside catches up to her, which it likely will because you're in a cult where that's kind of their modus operandi. You got to skirt by and you're lucky. Some are. Many are not. With her being so young she may likely have a hard time playing the long game. She could move far away and start over if she wanted, but of course she won't be able to be around you guys or the rest of the family.

Maybe it's just me, but although I see you as this loving dad with a kind heart I (fairly or unfairly) worry that you're a little too deep into the JW weeds to fully see what your daughter is saying to you. There were giant red flags of depression and suicide and that's as things are today. I know you're worried that if she left totally and was shunned that it would get worse but it might get better. My depression and anxiety nearly vanished when I put that cult behind me and disassociated. I haven't had suicidal ideations since leaving that garbage behind.

I really hope your daughter finds places like this or the exjw reddit or videos online or podcasts like I do or something so that she can feel less alone and start to find herself. I firmly believe that one of the biggest reasons for depression in life is living a life that is inauthentic and she's been doing that. If she can live a life true to who she is she will be far happier than playing games with cults.

9

"The little one becomes a thousand" The "ingthering" is speeding up!

by stuckinarut2 in

heya all!.

over the last few months i've been doing a lot more support work with people who are waking up and exiting the "truth" .

i'm part of a team that receives on average 10 new emails, messages or contact through various means, from ones who have just awoken to the realisation that they have been in a cult!.

dubstepped

I'm proud of you and your lovely wife for stepping up to help out others. We can't all do everything, but we can all do something, and good for you for doing just that. People are leaving the cult and we can all be ready to help them when they get out in some way, even if just a listening ear here on a forum. We all started somewhere in that journey.

24

March broadcast - Tightpants Tony wants to be filmed in action

by sir82 in

jw
friends

did anyone else notice this?.

tony tightpants has the "morning worship" featurette in the march jw broadcast.. he appears to be hoping that someone will be videotaping the slaughter of 7 billion men, women, and children at armageddon.. quote is something like "we have some really good videographers here at bethel, but i don't think even they could capture what will happen.

still, all things are possible with god..." (not exact, but that is the gist).. and of course morris imagines himself as one of the "anointed", who will be the ones, per wt doctrine, to conduct the slaughter.. it takes a special kind of hubris, arrogance, and sadism to wish that you yourself could be filmed in the act of slaughtering billions of people.. i've encountered a lot of jws with "dark souls", but based on his public comments, i'd say morris has teh blackest one i've seen.. if he says stuff like this for broadcast to 8 million + jws, what does he say in private?

dubstepped

Yeah, like SBF said, he wasn't asking that it be recorded on video, he was talking about the difficulty in creating a video today that would do it justice. Now he did go on to call the deaths of everyone "spectacular" several times, but the comment about video was clear though clumsily said. He had just stated how they made the Hezekiah video and was stating how difficult it would be to depict this latest "spectacular" slaughtering of humans.

30

Awake No. 2 2019 - Way To Destroy Your Childrens Hopes And Dreams Watchtower!

by pale.emperor in

not that i spend much time on the cult's website, but i like to skim through their latest propaganda to make sure i'm up to date with their nuttiness.

(and when i say skim, i mean just that.

the wafer thin, dumbed down content can be read in like 2 mins flat).. i just had to share my thoughts on the above piece of trash.. no.

dubstepped

Make sure that your child never feels very good about themselves. Those with little self esteem are easier to control. Create a need in them and lack of secure attachment that the cult can fill. Don't let them dream, we'll give them their dreams.

16

Research Help Needed for University Presentation

by dubstepped in

my wife and i will be presenting in a class at the local university in a couple of weeks.

the class is about social media and psychology.

of course they talk about fake news and propaganda.

dubstepped

Great points about the images used. I was looking for quotes but that's a great point.

Again, I'm looking for specific quotes that set the stage for us vs them, that incite fear, that shame people, etc., from the JW realm. I know that they've said a ton of awful things but have a hard time remembering specifics. In an academic institution I'd like to have citations with publications and pages. Videos may work too if I can narrow them down. I can't have students spending hours watching them. I'll look for clips.

16

Research Help Needed for University Presentation

by dubstepped in

my wife and i will be presenting in a class at the local university in a couple of weeks.

the class is about social media and psychology.

of course they talk about fake news and propaganda.

dubstepped

@betterdaze - Has that talk been given in English? That would be easier to share.

16

Research Help Needed for University Presentation

by dubstepped in

my wife and i will be presenting in a class at the local university in a couple of weeks.

the class is about social media and psychology.

of course they talk about fake news and propaganda.

dubstepped

My wife and I will be presenting in a class at the local university in a couple of weeks. The class is about social media and psychology. Of course they talk about fake news and propaganda. We all grew up around a lot of propaganda.

So what I'm looking for is examples of things that I can put together for a presentation. I want examples of propaganda featuring the us vs them narrative, the way apostates are labeled, the way the world outside the cult is portrayed, the hyperbole used and the way one extreme example is used to paint everything. I am sure that I can find some but I don't have access to a lot and I know that people here are more well versed in maybe specific examples. I remember that a lot of things were brought out over the years, but I don't know that I could find many of them.

If you have some favorites, or just cringe worthy things to share, post them here and maybe we can use them. We may even use them as a handout or email sent to students. The goal is to show how propaganda is use to paint people in certain lights and then we'll talk about how with that in mind we don't just accept things that we read on social media (i.e. the portrayal of the white kids from Covington Catholic and the media narrative there with the native American man and the Black Hebrews) without taking our time and trying to allow facts to come out or researching them. We don't just take claims as facts without investigating them and have learned so much about how humans work.

So post your cites and examples and I'm going to work through them and find my own as well and see what we can put together. One of the episodes of This JW Life that I did (my first podcast about my story) was about the FOG (fear obligation and guilt) and BITE (behavior, information, thought, and emotion) models of control. The professor asked which of my episodes might be good for them to listen to before we come and I picked that one. Hopefully I can back some of that up with direct quotes and videos or whatever works.

One thing I think I'd like is if I could get the clips from JW Broadcasting about the dangers of college. Wasn't it Morris that said "the better the college, the more dangerous"?

Anyway, I appreciate any help.

16

shunning of those who have "left da troof"

by resolute Bandicoot in

hi friends, .

can somebody please help me locate a recent thread that dealt with shunning of family members and the policy double standard, e.g.

jw.borg explanation that the family relationship is unchanged and the recent daily text that suggested that we should shun them.. tried searching but could not find it.. thanks rb.

dubstepped

I'm pretty sure that people just get confused about different situations. You can have association with family that live in your household, just not spiritual association (talking about religion). You do shun family that live outside your house. It has been that way for a long time but the JWs spin answers to reflect either situation that suits what they need at the time and those who are out get confused. You couldn't totally shun a family member living with you. You can totally shun those not living with you. I think that causes confusion for many that are out.

I think a lot of people want them to be duplicitous, or want them to say certain things, and read into what is said. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've seen it quite a bit in these circumstances. There are multiple circumstances at hand but people see it all through one lens trying to come up with a "gotcha". Watchtower certainly spins and uses theocratic warfare, but we all know what the rules are and no they haven't changed them.

39

When you were an active JW, did you ever have dealings with a pyramid scheme?

by Tameria2001 in

i'm not sure why this memory popped up, and i was wondering if any others, when they were still active jw had dealings with a pyramid scheme involving other witnesses in the organization?

at the time it was 1993, and my husband and i were still newlyweds.

once in a while, we would attend a neighboring congregation because that was where he grew up, and some of his family was still attending there at the time.

dubstepped

Sure. I was caught up in this massive thing that overtook my life where I felt like anyone not in it was an idiot. I tried telling everyone, knocking on their doors, but they didn't want the miracle cure to life that I had for them. Either way I kept giving of my time and energy and money, never got anything tangible in return other than a feeling of superiority knowing that I had the secret to happiness, while those at the top got money and I was living a life of poverty and servitude slaving for a fairy tale that I bought in to. I might still have an old box of product around somewhere in the basement.

Other than that, sure, I saw things like vitamins and supplements, legal aid, telecommunications, and other such mlms.

15

Dubtown episode - melch’s week from hell

by Dubtown in

new dubtown episode.

poor melch cant take part in anything in high school.

https://youtu.be/egcegptsn00.

dubstepped

My wife and I watched this last night. Dream small or not at all (if I'm remembering correctly). That one really got to my wife. Her parents preferred the "not at all" approach and squashed dreams of even growing up or being an adult and wanted to keep their kids small and at home forever. Just a family unit cult inside a cult.