Posts by forsharry

55

What happens when we die?

by Tatiana in

jw
friends

is death an end, a beginning, or just another stage on the path?

i watched a movie last night called the eye 2. it was about the buddhist belief in reincarnation.

in the movie, souls wait for women to give birth in order to reincarnate into the baby.

forsharry

I am soo sorry to hear that you are going through this. The last paragraph you wrote had tears in my eyes...i FEEL the hurt that you're going through right now, even if I don't understand it.

We don't know...seems like such a cop-out, but in essence it's true. I don't know where your beautiful little granddaughter is in this universe other than her body is in the ground...but her life is with you. She lives through you and your family because of your love that you have for her and the memories you were gifted with from her time with you.

It may not be the "truth"...but hon, she's right with you.

I'm not sure if that's the answer...but it's all I've got right now.

3

Haiku Time!!!

by MadTiger in

excerpt from "free therapy": .

haiku chronicles .

when we step on grass .

forsharry

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.

The Website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.

With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.

The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao-until
You bring fresh toner.

Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.

A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.

Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.

Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.

20

I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday....

by journey-on in

jw
friends

and bought two books that have been recommended by jwd posters:.

"how to read a book" by mortimer j. adler & charles van doren.

"the power of now" by eckhart tolle.

forsharry

I'm reading "Day Watch" from Sergei Lukyanenko (part two of a trilogy.) - amazing series!

I read about three to four books a week...

Bad Omens was a fun read. :)

15

Vegetarian Question

by ColdRedRain in

jw
friends

hey, i just became a vegetarian and i'm wondering how do you stop yourself from getting lightheaded?

i'm always getting lightheaded after i work out and i'm fearing i might have to eat meat.

forsharry

Lightheaded can mean a lot of things, but if we're going strictly dietary here it's because you're not eating enough calories and/or the right types of foods. Beans and rice are a complete meal. Just cause meat is off the menu doesn't mean protein is as well. it's an essential part of our diet. Peanut butter, beans of all kinds, tofu, eggs and cheese (if you're not vegan) are good sources of proteins and good-for-you fats (in moderation, obviously.)

I suggest if you're really serious about going vegetarian to speak to your doctor or find a nutritionist who deals with dietplans of these kinds. Otherwise you could really be shorting yourself in nutrients in the long run.

17

Two years

by JeffT in

jw
friends

two years sober today.

it feels good.

actually i get to celebrate being alive as i tried to kill myself a couple of weeks before i went into treatement.

forsharry

Muchos Congratos! :)

Many kudos!

15

For those traumatized by being "raised in the truth"...

by changeling in

jw
friends

what kind of apology would you like to hear from your parents?.

i'll start:.

we are sorry that we were narcissistic wannabe misionaries and that by "putting the kingdom first" we were really putting our personal goals first and never once factored you into the equation.

forsharry

I don't want an apology, really. My parents were only doing what they (thought, were told, had learned) what was right by me. Although I'm very bitter about losing out on my childhood, I don't see how an apology would make me feel any better...cause I've gotten them from both my parents once I started going to therapy and they realized just what an awful mess my coping skills were from internalizing everything while in the org.

The only reparation I would accept would be to go back and time and do it all over again. Sorry to me just doesn't cut the mustard.

Sharry of the "Naw, I ain't bittah" class

155

What Do You Do for Work / Career?

by BlackPearl in

jw
friends

i've been on the board for quite a while now and was wondering, what do my fellow jwdr's do for work, employment or career?

me, i'm in probably one of the most hated careers in america right now.

(not gonna tell you what it is either) but how about you, what do you do to earn a little coin?.

forsharry

I work as a graphic designer (trained monkey) for a newspaper up here in virginia. :)

42

Do you feel out of place, a "misfit", since leaving the org?

by FreedomFrog in

jw
friends

i seem to be "stuck" in between worlds.

the world i knew and the world i'm trying to know and learn.. are there others that feel this too?

do you ever remember feeling this way at any point?.

forsharry

I'm a misfit now. Sure I have moments of clarity if you will that everything around me is so real and right if that makes sense....but I don't know if I'll ever excise the programming and loss of what could have been from my psyche.

All I can keep doing is fighting. That's all there is for me anyway...fight or die.

Sorta melodramatic, I know...but it comes down to truly simple, basic decisions in the end. This damnable religion took away my childhood and so many possibilities in my life, left me with a damaged coping system which I'm still trying to rewire and the feeling that sometimes I don't even belong to the human race because of the lack of common learning that most of the population that I interact with has gone through....absolutely I'm a misfit.

18

Work Contest unburies pain

by forsharry in

not sure why i'm writing this really.

i'm a grown woman and should be able to deal with these things in a more constructive way.

and yet here i am... my job is doing a contest...bring in your prom photo and the neatest one will win a really cool prize (it's a weekly celebration for back-to-school around here - i'm in the newspaper business.

forsharry

thanks...all of these are good ideas. I'll definitely look into the anti-witness angle. Otherwise I was just going to bring in what assembly pictures I had (and I looked soo happy! ;)

It's not good to know that you all know what i'm going through. (I wish none of us have had to deal with these things in our rather short lives here.) It's a hurtful thing, but it is nice to know that I'm not alone in going through these little 'episodes' for lack of a better word.

I mean I've been out of the organization for a long while now, but there's not a day that doesn't go by that I'm not reminded, don't remember, think back to it kind of thing. I mean there's a huge part of me that no one can ever really know or understand because they didn't live in that kind of environment. (I know you all have that part of you that is truly...alone...in there somewhere...) I mean heck, even my husband...he doesn't understand that part of me.

Sometimes I feel like I'm just moving through some kind of conditioning that I've slapped together to get along in this world because truly I have no concept of how to truly integrate myself into it. And I usually do great until something comes along and reminds me just how aberrant my formative years were.

----

I've stopped writing to get some work done and have finally had a chance to look back at what I've written here. Woah.

I'm doing okay. I'm going to look through some of my pictures (I don't have all that many childhood pictures actually.) Honestly? I have nothing of my childhood save for a handful of photos that my worldly associates from school gave to me. My parents have all of the things belonging to my childhood.

That said...I guess I'll find some hideous picture on google and photoshop my face onto the girl. :) Update at 11. I'll be disqualified, I'm sure but it'll be a conversation starter as to why I don't have a prom-picture. the Ultimate anti-witness!

18

Work Contest unburies pain

by forsharry in

not sure why i'm writing this really.

i'm a grown woman and should be able to deal with these things in a more constructive way.

and yet here i am... my job is doing a contest...bring in your prom photo and the neatest one will win a really cool prize (it's a weekly celebration for back-to-school around here - i'm in the newspaper business.

forsharry

not sure why i'm writing this really. i'm a grown woman and should be able to deal with these things in a more constructive way. and yet here i am... my job is doing a contest...bring in your prom photo and the neatest one will win a really cool prize (it's a weekly celebration for back-to-school around here - I'm in the newspaper business.) Well, of course, being raise a JW, I've never been to a dance. Heck, I never put on a formal gown till I got married... The other contest is school spirit...wear your school colors, bring in all of your high school memories. I have a yearbook. No sports, no groups...no spirit. Cause the world was going to end... I made a mention of no prom picture to my boss. (she knows I was once a JW.) She said, "Well...just bring in a Jehovah's Witness party picture." I don't have the internal strength to even verbalize that I never had or was ever invited to a JW party of any kind. I'm just feeling so incredibly left out and 'different/other' inside. I'm trying not to cry here, because how in the hell could I possibly explain to my coworkers what kinds of feelings this has brought up that I thought were good and buried? Just when I think I've left all that behind it all gets dredged up again...how do we move on? How can we forget what was done to us? The children of this cult?