Posts by cognizant dissident

Abstract
A 4-year-old child ingested laetrile and almost died of cyanide poisoning. Treatment with the Lilly cyanide antidote kit resulted in rapid, complete recovery. Extremely high whole blood cyanide levels were documented. The necessity for use of the antidote kit in serious cyanide poisoning has recently been questioned. This case demonstrates benefit from antidotal treatment.

PMID: 2942834 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2942834?dopt=Abstract

21

Congregation Elders got a letter from headquarters on "Sexting". I guess this is the latest trend causing problems.

by miseryloveselders in

jw
friends

last week, my coboe, formerly known as the po, read a letter from ny giving directions on how to handle cases of "sexting" in the congregation.

i've vaguely heard of sexting in news articles.

i'm thinking though, the branch isn't going to send out a letter unless there's a trend.

cognizant dissident

I think the main thing I would be concerned about as a parent of a teen is this: once you send that nude picture of yourself, by text, email, facebook, or whatever, it is out of your control. If your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you and decides to show every single person you both know, put up a poster in the washroom at school, tag it on facebook, you are screwed. Easy to put out there, not so easy to take back.

Why does everyone want to be a pornstar these days, anyway? Is porn now so mainstream that everyone under the age of 25 is now comfortable showing their nudybits on the internet? That being said, how is it any different then a nude beach in Europe where everyone is that comfortable and has been for decades, including the old geezers?

It's really a fascinating social phenomenon, but the underlying human behaviour has not changed. People are sexual beings, the sex drive is very primal and very strong and the younger you are the more obsessed with mating you are (usually), that is never going to change and whatever technology is available is just one more outlet for that expression, the technology is in no way a driving force. That's why railing against the internet and other technology is a big wast of WTBTS time. Before electronics and moving pictures, there was a huge secret market in dirty drawings of sex. People don't change.

91

Newly Exiting JW's ( Last 5 years ) How are you Doing in Life? Let Us Know

by flipper in

jw
friends

considering the fact we've had so many newbies here i thought it would be good to just open it up to you folks to see how life is going for you since you exited the witnesses ?

it's hard many times to move on- however with lots of ex-witnesses on the board here who have been through similar experiences - perhaps those of us who have been out awhile can give you someideas on how to move on in your post jw life to make it a little easier .

so fire away newbies and recently exited jw 's.

cognizant dissident

Yeah, Mr. Flip,

I could bear the loss of everything and everyone, but not my son. He is my only child. I would have stayed in and fought for years for the keys to his heart. I would say to myself, "No one loves this kid as much as I do, no one has been to hell and back for him like I have, and he will grow up and shun me OVER MY DEAD BODY! (or someone else's if need be!).

There is a great link somewhere, I'm not sure if it's on Randy's Free Minds site or someone else's, about how to gently de-program your kids through the family study. I used all the tips and they did work for me. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has raised their kids in the borg and needs to know how to undo the damage with minimum trauma. It is worth the time and effort.

Cog

ps: for anyone with little kids who wants to leave but is procrastinating or waffling, get out now, before you lose your kids. Their minds are little sponges absorbing everything at the KH even if they seem not to be paying attention. Every year you wait increases the chance that you will lose them permanently.

91

Newly Exiting JW's ( Last 5 years ) How are you Doing in Life? Let Us Know

by flipper in

jw
friends

considering the fact we've had so many newbies here i thought it would be good to just open it up to you folks to see how life is going for you since you exited the witnesses ?

it's hard many times to move on- however with lots of ex-witnesses on the board here who have been through similar experiences - perhaps those of us who have been out awhile can give you someideas on how to move on in your post jw life to make it a little easier .

so fire away newbies and recently exited jw 's.

cognizant dissident

I made a decision on Jan 1, 2006 (my first New Year's Resolution), to never set foot in a Kingdom Hall or assembly hall again, and I'm proud to report that I have stuck to that decision despite attempts from parents and old JW friends to invite me. (Funny, that resolution was so easy for me to stick to compared to all the ones about losing weight. )

When I say "easy", I mean I never waffled in my resolve, or even considered going back, but actually it was the most difficult thing I ever had to follow through on in my life. It took me well over a year to get over the anxiety and fears about losing my family and friends and "my life". Rationally, I knew I wanted to change my life and my friends but the fears are conditioned so deep into our psyches for us "born in". We have known nothing else and starting over without JW's is truly like being "born again". When I started the journey out, I was having panic attacks and nightmares. Now, I sleep soundly at night, without fear of demons or the big bad world.

I had some help in changing my thinking, though. Randy Watters Free Minds Site was the first anti-Witness site that I ever gave any credibility too. If you spent your whole life in the org, you know that everything he wrote about being at Bethel had the ring of truth. You just can't make that kind of shit up if you haven't been there and seen it all first hand. Randy is the first apostate I ever talked to and he was such an open and non-judgemental cool guy. He just like to hang at the beach and enjoy his friends, like me, like a normal person. He also directed to me to this site which helped me realize I was not alone. I was not the only one sitting there at the KH, not swallowing "the craziness"

I also cried when I read his mother's account of him having ADHD and being beaten into behaving at the hall. My own son had ADHD and all I ever wanted was to be a good mother and to help him but I was guilty of putting the same kind of pressure on him to conform. My biggest guilt was over the times I lost my temper and spanked him because I was worried what other JW's thought of us as a family. Most of the time I didn't though, and I felt I we didn't fit in with others in the religion because I didn't believe in "beating" children.

I so clearly remember one time at the Kindom Hall, my son was really "misbehaving" (being a normal kid) and my husband grabbed him none too carefully, and put him forcefully in the chair, but banging his back into the pointy edge of the arm by accident. Well my son started screaming and then my husband grabbed his arm to take him to the back and I said "NO, I'll take him!" and then I gathered up our stuff and I whispered to my husband I was leaving and to get a ride home with someone else.

Then I took my son and walked out of the hall. My son was asking "Mommy, where are we going?" Even he was shocked that I walked out. As we were driving home along the beach on the most beautiful sunny Sunday, my son, who was 5, kept asking why we left the Kingdom Hall. I told him it was just too beautiful a day to be indoors. Then I pulled the car into the ice cream shop at the beach and got us too huge cones and we sat on the beach just licking the melting ice cream and playing in the sand and enjoying our Sunday!

I think that was the beginning of the end, and also why Randy's story made me cry, but it took ten more years of various beliefs unravelling before I truly left for good. That little 5 year old boy is 21 now, and lives with me and we are both out and relaxed and happy. We've lost all our JW friends and my husband and I just settled our divorce. (He found a good JW woman who attends all the meetings to have an affair with). It's been six months and so far, I"m really enjoying being single and I can totally be myself with my new friends and never worry what they think of me. Well, If I do worry, it's because I respect them and their opinions not because of fear.

I'm in my third year of a businees degree. I will be the first woman in my family (both JW and non-JW) to get a university degree when I'm finished. That is a real goal of mine that has meaning beyond the degree itself. It's a symbol of breaking the cycle in my family of religious and male domination.

I know my parents are going to grow old, get sick and die in this system, and take their JW beliefs to their graves. I know I'm going to eventually do the same, (sans the JW beliefs). I'm happy and content with that. I've stopped living my life for the future and for other people. Now, I can think about what I would like to do and why, and then just do it, no guilt, no apologies, no having to explain or defend to anyone. I trust that I'm a good person and don't won't want to do anything that harms myself or others. I trust that my son is a good person too, and I don't have to constantly make him feel bad about stuff to protect him.

This has been almost a 5 year process and it has got easier every day and I have more clarity every day. Some insights I have gleaned from people on this site, as well as some friends, some I have got from non JW's and some I have got from deep within myself. It's all good and all a part of the journey. It takes courage to go forward on such a road, and if I occassionally look back, it is with a touch of bittersweet sadness, but no desire to ever return to the places I've been. I'm a little excited not to have all the answers, and looking forward to being a little surprised by what lies on the other side of the twists and turns in the path ahead.

For the newbies, I would say, it is a scary journey at the beginning, but the light does get brighter and the path more clear if you have the courage to take the road out, despite your fears. A broken marriage and a broken family and lost friends can be a frightening, lonely, dark place to be. That is what it may come to for some, but it is not as bad as a life lived for someone else, a life lived in fear and guilt, or a life put on hold and never lived for a future promise that never comes.

JW's used to point to happy people in the world and say with a note of contempt, "They are having their paradise now in this system, and that is all they will ever have," and the rest of us would nod in sad agreement at their short-sighted foolishness.

Now, when I see people who are able to find their happiness in this world and feel content with that, I think, "how wise of them". They know life is short and they seize their chance at happiness now! Now is all any of us really have.

Cog

27

Would taking the Harp book from the KH library be stealing?

by EndofMysteries in

can anyone verify, but aren't those supposed to be trashed?

there are no pre 1950's wt in there anymore.

i saw that book there though, wondering if once an elder realizes it, will it be trashed or not?

cognizant dissident

Well, officially you could be "borrowing" it and forget to return it on time like at a regular lending library. At least, if you're caught taking it, that's the story I would go with. Tell them you thought it was a lending library.

123

Are you single and looking? Or Do you consider yourself to be available?

by Scott77 in

are you single and looking for a soul mate?

or do you consider yourself to be available?

please, declare on this thread..

cognizant dissident

After reading Terry's list, I think I'm in love. Plus, he works in a book store. I used to work in a book store. Plus, I never meet anyone either, because I'm grumpy and don't like to go out. I like to stay in and read good books. Plus, I don't really believe in romance either. I think people "merge" because they are driven by hormones but for some silly reason we feel the need to dress up our animal urges in romantic stories.

We have so much in common. (Although, I do say "plus" a lot. I hope that's not a dealbreaker!)

125

Religion and Cults

by alice.in.wonderland in

i've heard certain people here refer to jehovah's witnesses as a mind-control cult, high-control cult; theories perpetrated for how long i don't know, but at least since the days of ray franz.

i had spent nearly forty years as a full time representative, serving at every level of the organizational structure.

the last fifteen years i had spent at the international headquarters, and the final nine of those as a member of the worldwide governing body of jehovah's witnesses.

cognizant dissident

Yes, it does Darth

It is the cult of the blue oyster. I just realized that could be a euphemism for something else!

24

Verbal abuse and an apology

by Cagefighter in

jw
friends

i have enjoyed the battles like any gladiator but i realize that my behaviour on and off the interenet is often seen as verbally abusive.

just because someone dissappoints me is not a reason to attack them or their character.

so to all those.... beks, dinah, sammieswife comes to mind i apologize.

cognizant dissident

Wow, that's pretty amazing that you would admit to that behaviour on the list. I'm sure that makes you half way on the road to recovery.

Or is it a similar situation to physical abuse, where the person apologizes and all is well for a time, until the next incident where they feel the pressure building and then go off on a verbal tirade?

I ask that in all sincerity, since you have been so open. I'm just wondering if you have insight about your pattern. Have you had any counseling re this issue?