Posts by misguided

39

The spanking room

by dgp in

i just got "the spanking room: a child's eye view of the jehovah's witnesses", by william coburn.

the author says that their old kingdom hall didn't have a spanking room, so the spanking took place in the ladies' room.

there was always a line, either for ladies wanting to make use of the toilet the way it was intended to be used, or for ladies waiting their turn to spank their children.

misguided

I thought the book was excellent. William Coburn is around my age, I think.

The KH I grew up in had a room where children could be spanked attached to the women's bathroom. It wasn't separate from the bathroom, though; and all the women standing in line could see the children being spanked. I remember one sister even carried a wooden spoon for the purpose in her diaper bag.

When I was 2, my parents asked me why I go to meetings. I think they were expecting me to say 'because I love Jehovah' but my answer to them was, "to get a spanking."

When my kids were little, the KHs we attended has sound-proofed "mothers" rooms with a speaker in them so you could hear the meeting. Some mothers used them as spanking rooms. I used them to nurse and change diapers, etc. It was a great place to escape.

I'm so glad today that I didn't spank them at the kh much, although I am guilty of it, and that the six of them all followed me out of the org!

71

I would like to hear your experiences with being SHUNNED

by jwfacts in

i am going to put together a page of short experiences of how shunning has affected exjws.

you do not have to be disfellowshipped, even if you were shunned after being marked or after fading.

all comments are welcome, such as who shunned you, how long since family have spoken to you, what your situation is, why you are being shunned and how it has made you feel.

misguided

I'm so happy to be free from this cult. A year ago my JW grandmother died at age 98. She wrote me out of her will because I df'd. My other 3 siblings don't have anything to do with jw, but were not df'd so they were not written out. I really don't care...she did not have much to give...and what she did my mom deserved for putting up with that biddy. When she wrote me out of her will, she also wrote off 6 of her grandbabies as well. She was evil in my eyes....not a loving JW!

48

Just talked to a brother in the service department and he hung up on me!

by life is to short in

ok so last sunday was my last meeting.

i have been in contact with the service department over this problem with the child molesters in my hall, i have written many, many letters begging for help, i have gotten nothing for help from them, but to wait on jehovah and pray more study more, etc.

so i want them to know that they they win they have weeded me out from the "truth" i am a bad seed from satan as i cannot abide by how we handle child molesters.

misguided

My last post was just a start...I was molested as a teen...both "brothers" (1 was an elder) were from North Vancouver.

I reported all incidents to the elders. NEVER did they tell me what was dealt with or not. Lost my faith when I saw one I saw one of these ass**** walking around with his "attendant" label at the dc assembly, when I got df'd for doing much less. It was so wrong. There is no holy spririt...or he/she'd make sure things were made right....

48

Just talked to a brother in the service department and he hung up on me!

by life is to short in

ok so last sunday was my last meeting.

i have been in contact with the service department over this problem with the child molesters in my hall, i have written many, many letters begging for help, i have gotten nothing for help from them, but to wait on jehovah and pray more study more, etc.

so i want them to know that they they win they have weeded me out from the "truth" i am a bad seed from satan as i cannot abide by how we handle child molesters.

misguided

I'm not shocked at all. My ex-father-in-law had a baby with his one and only daughter - he had 9 kids. He was an elder when I married his 6th child...a son. His daughter was 2nd.

33

I'd like to know who you were before you were baptized a JW? Were you raised a JW? What religion or denomination of Christianity did you profess before you became a JW.

by SAHARA in

if you were raised a jw, how well did you research the history of the org.

before you were baptized?

if you were a convert to the watchtower society , how well did you know the doctrines of the faith before your conversion?

misguided

Born in

3rd generation

Baptized at 16. Felt pressured into doing it. Didn't research the org myself beforehand, but always felt something wasn't quite right.

DF'd in 2002

Last memorial 2003 was my last ever meeting. I knew when I walked out the doors I would never go back

Started researching and finally escaped the mind control

Rose

23

Did You Screw Up Your Kids Because Of Being A Witness?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are they ok now?.

.

misguided

I've managed to get 5 of my 6 kids out unscathed. My youngest is still being indoctrinated by his father, and I have a tough time trying to anti-witness to him. I only hope that he sees the real truth about `the truth` in the end.

65

Have your views on gays changed over the years?

by laverite in

jw
friends

some questions....feel free to answer any or all of these.

have your views of gay people changed over the years?

do you have or have you ever had gay friends?

misguided

Back in the early 70s, in the small circle of jw friends my brother and I regularly got together with in the congregation, 8 of us - 5 girls and 3 boys, there was one boy who always wanted to play with the girls. He wanted to dress up in dresses. He wanted to play dolls. He wasn't into doing the "boy" things. He always joined in what the girls were playing. This was when he was about 5 years old.

Later, in the late 80s, he left the jws and came out "gay." Many people were shocked. I wasn't. I knew it wasn't a choice he'd made, like so many said. I knew that was who he was.

That's when my view on gays changed.

26

Has anyone had a WT literature burning party?

by lepermessiah in

jw
friends

i keep staring at the bookshelf full of wt literature in my house and keep having visions of a red-orange glow as the flames crawl higher and higher.

my goal is to gather it all together, douse it with lighter fluid, and watch it go!.

ultimately, i dream of my wife being the one who strikes the match and joins me in the celebration.. has anyone had that experience?

misguided

Oh ya. I've been burning WT liturature at every winter party for the last 5 years. I still have 4 bound volumes to go.

22

The assembly mating game

by mutinyinheaven in

i haven't been on the board for a while, but i thought you'd dig this.. it was taped last week at a reading from my novel.

the first part is about the hot girls at assemblies and how we'd sit through doom and gloom talks.

part 2 is a scene where gabe is found out for having a girlfriend.. http://vimeo.com/12066637.

misguided

Amazon.ca just delivered your book about a week ago. I`m only a few chapters in. I enjoyed watching you read the story, because in the parts that you read to the audience, I didn`t read in the correct context. Now I get it. I mean I got what you were saying - as growing up JW`s know- I just didn`t quite get the humour in it until you posted this.

49

How did you find the strength to leave?

by SAHARA in

to all of you exjws, i'm sure you've been asked this question one way or the other many times and i'm sure the answer is different for many of you, i'd like to know directly from you never having a chance to hear or read many exjw's answers to this.

knowing that you would be cut off from your family and friends and other consequences for your decision to leave, how did you ever get the strength to do it?

i mean really, i find it fascinating to know that there are so many of you who were at one time very devout, if not at the very least loyal to one of the most successful mind-contol organizations ever who believed all if not most of what the society taught and still you found the courage to risk everything once you accepted that it isn't what it claims to be.

misguided

There was not one things...but many, because I believed with my whole heart that Jehovah would make things right in his own time. I couldn't understand why his own time was allowing others to be hurt.

Firstly, I was sexually abused by 2 brothers in my early teens, including one who was an elder. This was in the same time frame as the other. When I got the courage up to tell my father, he put a knife up to my throat (before a meeting) and told me to never talk like that about a brother/elder again. I was disbelieved. 10 years later this same elder sexually abused my sister who is 10 years younger than me.

Then...I married an elder's son. .

turned out this elder had had a baby with his daughther. Cover up in the ORG....Yup, real bad. So my kids have an aunt who is also their cousin...all covered up.

Then...This elder's MS son, my husband's brother (he's a MS, my H was not) tries to have sex with me while my husband is passed out drunk in the other room. I was appalled and never let it happen. I went to the elders. Anything done? NO...He's walking around the assemblies with his "attendent" badge on, while I look like a liar (jehovah, why are you doing this to me?)

Then...The elder's son leaves me 7 months pregnant and moves in with a girl from his work. I'm left to raise 5 kids on my own. A sister says to me, Who's going to want you with 5 kids? So when an unbaptized man wanted to marry me I took the offer. He started abusing us so bad...long story short...he's served a 3 month sentence and 1 year of probation for what he did to us. What did he do during this time? He got BAPTIZED!! Jehovah's holy spirit at work!

After being DF'd for a year or so - yet still thinking I must go back at some point - a jw lady at work told me I had a bad heart. She told me I had a bad heart because she had given me crap for putting a palliative cancer patient in to see the doctor before her for a sore knee. I pointed to the JW-NO BLOOD on her chart after she had made a big scene in the waiting room, and told her this is one of the reasons I had abandoned her religion. There was no love. That's when she told me I had a bad heart. I realized at that moment she was crazy...and that I may be crazy for still believing.

A few weeks later it was the memorial. I took all 6 of my kids and we went. I listened to the speaker. I felt nauseaus. When I walked out those doors, I knew it would be my last. It was. It all fell together. I wasn't the crazy one...everyone else was.

Left the Org...everything is good now. That was in 2002. Have 5 of my kids. May still lose my 6th to the Org (12 years old)

All the time, I couldn't keep up with the changes in things...generation, donation arrangement, etc. The truth was supposed to be free...

So happy to be reallty free!

Rose