Posts by Gill

14

Kwithmath Twee, Oh Kwithmath Twee..

by Englishman in

jw
friends

lets just spare a thought for the tiny tots and older kids who won't be enjoying any christmas festivities this year.

no parties, no presents, no santa, no fun, no carols no anything.

it's a damned shame that kids miss out so much.

Gill

Good for you, Melbatoast!!

I can't even remember once receiving a present from my parents in all the years I lived with them until my first wedding anniversary.

Presents, to me, always make me feel sad for all the ones I never had.

There is no joy in being a JW, nothing to celebrate, nothing to look forward to that doesn't involve the Borg.

My older children will have their first christmas and for my younger ones i hope it will be the first of many in their childhood.

Nowadays it just represents a time to be together and celebrate being together and that's just what it will be, I hope.

My husbands just finished decorating his garden shed! The big chicken!

16

Who else hasn't got a pension plan?!!!!!!!

by Gill in

jw
friends

well here we are starting to think about retiring in another twenty years and what do we find?

we find that we've missed the best years of our lives for saving in a pension plan simply because we knew that we wouldn't need one because armageddon was coming.

we were told by quite a few elders in our congregation that simply having a pension plan showed lack of faith that the kingdom was coming very soon and we should actively get rid of the company pension plans that we had.

Gill

Well here we are starting to think about retiring in another twenty years and what do we find? We find that we've missed the best years of our lives for saving in a pension plan simply because we KNEW that we wouldn't need one because Armageddon was coming. We were told by quite a few elders in our congregation that simply having a pension plan showed lack of faith that the Kingdom was coming very soon and we should actively get rid of the company pension plans that we had. I remember one elder acutally getting a solicitor to help him get our of his company pension plan because they were compulsory in his firm.

Now it looks as if we're both going to be working for the rest of our lives just to survive.

Any one else with the same problem?

14

Kwithmath Twee, Oh Kwithmath Twee..

by Englishman in

jw
friends

lets just spare a thought for the tiny tots and older kids who won't be enjoying any christmas festivities this year.

no parties, no presents, no santa, no fun, no carols no anything.

it's a damned shame that kids miss out so much.

Gill

What the hell! In for a penny, in for a pound!

This year my youngest will be in the school nativity play!

All my children, including the older teenage obnoxious ones, will have presents on christmas morning and I"m having a bloody tree whether my husband likes it or not. He doesn't really mind, in fact he's wanted a christmas tree his whole life but would like to avoid any furthur shunning from his family. How can shunning get any worse?

He plans to decorate his garden shed inside and out though! How sad is that, love him.

We have now adopted this ancient festival as our own, well more or less, and whilst not doing the religious thing, except for the play of course, we're going to all try to make eachother happy for a day.

We'll get back to fighting with the kids on boxing day, isn't that what it means? Time to box the kids ears again.

Ooooh it's so exciting!!!!!!!

24

144,000 taking their lead from elders?????

by Dansk in

jw
friends

the 144,000 are supposedly to give the flock their spiritual food at the proper time.

how is it the elders can laud it over a member of the (supposedly) anointed when it is members of the anointed who are supposed to distribute the spiritual food?

why can they not distribute the spiritual food at the proper time?

Gill

Why would an elder who is constantly being told by the WTBTS that he is a "Star' of the congregation, listen to a bent over old person, worst of all an old person without a willy?

I know of such a lovely old lady and in the thirty five years I've known her I can't think of many occassions when she's even been spoken to by elders and also, her attempts to answer at the congregation meetings were regularly ignored by whoever was taking the Watchtower Study. When they did allow her to answer they were often patronising towards her well researched answers.

I hope she kicks all their asses should she ever get to heaven but I don't suppose that will ever happen.

23

The subtle distancing of my Witness past....

by logansrun in

jw
friends

hello folks,.

it has been said by many long-time ex-witnesses that the greatest stage of "healing" we can go through is when we feel like an ex-ex-jehovah's witness.

more and more i have been feeling this way.

Gill

I understand what you're trying to say Logansrun about not hanging around JWDF and gradually letting go, but I have only just a few weeks ago started reading these sites. Though I have been fading out of the JW's for a couple of years my first experience with ex-JW's was on such discussion boards. What did I find? People who had been 'there' before and who knew already that escaping the JW's was going to get easier.

Having been a JW in the past for such long periods of time can't help but shape all of us and people who have never been in the cult CANNOT even begin to understand the devastating effect being brainwashed for all your life can have on you mind.

One of the most comforting things that I found when I began reading JWDF was that everyone was coping and recovering no matter what else was going on in their lives and the reason for that was that they had such strong solid support from other ex-JW's who knew what they were going through.

So, if you need to cut down posting, then fine but, don't abandon it all together, please.

It has already been an enormous help to me and I'm sure countless others.

I hope that one day I can also help people who have only just left the craziness that is the JW cult

18

What TV/movie characters could you see as JWs?

by MungoBaobab in

jw
friends

religion is rarely covered in poular entertainment, so who knows?

there could be a plethora of jw characters in popular televison and movies, and we don't even know it!.

for example, what about bill lumberg (the boss) from the movie "office space?

Gill

From my experience I"d say THE TERMINATOR

35

Getting fed up with fading

by Pole in

ok, so here is my story in put a nutshell: .

1. i first had "nagging doubts" about the borg some three years ago (after 6 years of being a faithful witness).

2. i stopped avoiding "apostate" internet sites some 1.5 years ago, which really helped me confirm my doubts.

Gill

Hi Pole,

Yes, you never quite know who you can trust in the truth. I can think of many times when certain ones asked leading questions. I think though if my husband had insisted on staying in the truth I would have had to stay with him and remained unhappy. I wonder how many other couples do that?

As for the secret police, well, my mother's family came from eastern europe and when we visited, as a child I remember a member of the communist party going round to every one's home to find out how many chickens they had and how old each one was. My grandmother joked that they needed birth certificates for each chiken they kept, but she was very irritated by the whole palava.

Reminds me of the 'Organization' wanting to know everything and expecting total conformity!

Oh well!

Better out than in!

40

Anyone raised a Witness and broke free?

by rune in

jw
friends

hello, my name's daniel and i'm new to the forum.... i was raised a witness for the first 14 years of my life and then finally got out when my dad turned atheist...i live in ottawa, ontario of canada... i'm 21 now... still kind of unaccustomed to the world at large, if you catch my drift.

my msn is [email protected] if anyone wants to chat.

nice meeting you all

Gill

Me and my husband were both born into the truth and in it until the last few years. Even though we'd faded we hadn't completely broken free from it's grasp because we hadn't learned the 'truth about the truth'.

Then, one day, my mom said to me, 'whatever you do, don't go on those terrible internet sites that the apostates have. The brothers were saying last night that the internet says that all Jehovah's Witnesses are paedophiles and all kinds of other terrible things.'

I went straight home and on the 'net'.

Even after all those years of fading I had not dared to read so called 'apostate' materials.

Thanks Mom!

Now wer're really free!

Thanks Gary Buss and JWD. Me and my husband sit and read these postings some evenings and the kids rush in to find out what we're laughing about so much!

35

Getting fed up with fading

by Pole in

ok, so here is my story in put a nutshell: .

1. i first had "nagging doubts" about the borg some three years ago (after 6 years of being a faithful witness).

2. i stopped avoiding "apostate" internet sites some 1.5 years ago, which really helped me confirm my doubts.

Gill

I have faded. It's wonderful and now I don't care. My husband is a little more nervous though, he may have to go to another county to buy christmas wrapping paper!

But all this talk of beards has made me LMAO.

When we were Witnesses my husband always had some kind of beard on the go, much to the annoyance of the elders. But now we've faded, he's clean shaven.

He always was a secret rebel! I wish he'd told me years ago how he felt about the truth. We both felt the same and just never knew, both afraid of losing each other. I'd have followed him to hell and back if he'd said at the beginning that he'd had enough of the JW"s and he would have done the same for me. Sad we sacrificed so many years in this pointless exercise of avoiding being disfellowshiped or disassociated.

41

Depression & Jehovah's Witnesses

by minimus in

jw
friends

is it me or does it seem that nearly all jws go through depression in varying ways??

i'm not talking about what the average person could deal with because of a loss of a loved one or a job termination, etc.

i'm referring to being depressed because you're a jehovah's witness.

Gill

Hi there all!

The problem for JW's is that they can never relax for a second. Even if they're on holiday they're expected to hunt down the nearest kingdom hall and go to the meetings, even if they can't understand the language. Then they have to come home and give their lovely experience of going to this strange hall, with strange people and explain how they sang in English and all the foreign brothers really loved it. More like they were laughing their asses of at these stupid English visitors making fools of themselves.

Then there's the 'kingdom ministry' giving unreasonable instructions about preaching at bus stops, train stations,airports etc. Have you always got some literature with you so you can 'save' some poor sod who just wants to wait quietly for his/her train, plain, bus or whatever, like you should be doing.

Didn't Witnesses ever learn from their mothers not to talk to strangers!

Put more hours in!

Can YOU pioneer next month.

Are YOU studying enough!

Are YOU putting in more hours at work than you are serving Jehovah!

When does it end, these constant admonitions and instructions and brow beating...

I was always ill when I was a witness and stressed and horrible to my husband and children.

Why didn't the children want to study or get baptised or preach to their friends or place magazine with their school mates like the nice magazines said they should be doing?!

Because they had more sense than me!! I've finally caught them up.

Why was my husband not taking the lead in EVERYTHING!

Because he wasn't an overwhelming bossy boots who wanted to control us all. He's cool and relaxed and I was trying to make him do things he knew better than to do.

What a bloody moaning hag I was! But I think it comes from a lifetime of being nagged at by the organization.

No wonder witnesses are depressed.

Why can't they just GIVE IT UP!

But I know that most of the JW friends that I had were mentally unstable to a lesser or greater degree and I believe it was due to the ENORMOUS amount of pressure put on them to fit an impossible mould.