i have never smoked or used any tobacco products aside from puffing on a cigar a few times (maybe 5 times in my life).
even with the few cigar experiences (which i did not enjoy much) i never noticed any real "feeling" from the tobacco.
what is it supposed to feel like?
I smoke and like it, feeling of needing it. Yet, I feel "bad" about doing it, I need to quit, but I just do not hate it! I do not smoke in my house, always go outside no matter how cold...I do not like the smoke smell on others, therefore others probably do not like the smoke smell on me, but I can't smell it on me, you know???
It makes me feel calm when I have not had one for awhile. Which is why I needed a smoke anyway!
I need (want) a cigarrette!
Nikki
have any of you had the experience of a bethelite brother visiting your kh?.
here's how it always seemed to go in my experience:.
there is a general kh-wide excitement in the air that a real, live bethelite rockstar is at the hall; overheard are numerous convo's featuring words like "o, he's a bethelite".. visiting brother bethelite gives the closing prayer and is immediately mobbed by adoring fans.. all the single sisters are on high alert, you can smell the estrogen in the air.
In 1992, when I was 18, (a few months before I left home and the org), we had someone from our hall that got accepted to Bethel. He was a few years old than me, and we were both pioneers, so we spent alot of time in service together.
Well, we were having a good bye party for him, and the new thing to do with going away parties for people accepted to Bethel, was to take the movie "The Wizard of Oz" and make a play about it, and taylor the lines to go with the JW type of talk and poke fun at the person going to Betel. Guess what, I was picked to be Dorthy! Instead of saying "Somewhere over the rainbow...I sang..."Some time in the near future, God's kingdom will arrive...blah blah (*gets a little sick*)"
Then we had to do interviews for him on video, and I made a joke to him, perhaps "I may be disfellowshipped when I see you again"...little did they know that I was planning my escape even that day that I had to do this little play...
Having a bethelite or someone going to bethel was a huge deal in our area...I know my parents wanted me to marry a bethelite...oh the memories...
Nikki
Nikki
i was informed recently that a former hardcore, dyed-in-the-wool elder (lets call him elder a) has been in and out of a mental ward recently.
it came as a surprise at first, but upon further reflection, it really isnt that surprising.
let me give you some background.. my childhood up through elementary school was played out in the 80s.
Well, my mom was married to my elder dad for years. She divorced him in 2000, I think. She was DFd in 2000 for adultry. She has become an alcoholic, has been in and out of rehab, has been in and out of psych wards since. In fact, she had another break down yesterday and checked herself into one again...I am not involved, I hear this from her sister...
Anyway, after reading about the former hardcore elder on this thread, and then thinking about my hardcore JW dad, and former hard core JW mom, well there sure is a pattern.
Nikki
when you look back, were you considered a "good" jw?
?.
I was a good JW kid, but led a double life, we were considered a very spiritual family, mom pioneer, dad elder....yuk.
Nikki
when you look back, were you considered a "good" jw?
?.
I was a good JW kid, but led a double life, we were considered a very spiritual family, mom pioneer, dad elder....yuk.
Nikki
most ex-jw's df/da that i know end up living a dangerous life.
some get into drugs, prostitution, gangsterism,etc.
as a result they prove the jw theory that says "whoever leaves jehovah's organisation won't make it" right.. it's difficult for me to say this, but it seems like jw's are partly right on this one.. why do most ex-dubs end up in a predicament of some sort?
I think if people have been raised in a cult time religion, and get out, some will go down the road of self-destruction and some will not. This applies to all fanatical cult religions. When I 1st left at 18 (16 years ago), I went out into the real world for the 1st time wanting to experience all I could but I never realized how hurt I really was or how it affected my life. I had to learn through life experience. Alot of JWs get DFd, go down the path of self-destruction out of fear, get in trouble, etc...then they wind up returning because they believed the JWs were right, it is Satan, I need to go back...or they have no where else to go...all because of the cult mentality.
It is not about the JWs being right (in fact that is how they brainwash you), being raised in a cult in my case was abuse. I can't change what happened but I made sure I was going to have a bright future no matter what...
I started living life once I got over the gulit of leaving because it was all I ever knew.
Nikki
boy or girl names, don't know for sure which as of yet.
preferably something with apostate or rock musician connotations.
i thought of "stevie ray" as in stevie ray vaughan and as a tribute to both steven hassan and ray franz but it sounds a bit too redneck for my taste.
My two year old daughter is Delanie Parker (could spell it Delaney too, call her Laney)
Boy = I always liked Parker (hence the reason why we used it for Delanie's middle name), if we had a boy it would have been Parker Matthew, or Parker Mitchell etc...
Nikki
dear friends,.
please share your original short or short-short stories and poetry with us.. i'll start the ball rolling .... .
i wander as i wonder.
"The Expression"
Allay the harshness in the expression
There is extremity in this place please move
A jovial practice is what is favorable but
the practice is distorted and twisted
What a shame a voice says
but everyone is bound by his own injury
We yell, we yell, but not even one exclusive person hears us!
Treasure your life and your race before you
Grope for endurance, reach for vitality
and you will have the right expression
I wrote this in 1990 when I was 16, I was a JW teenager that expressed herself through poetry.
I had submitted this into a contest too, supported by the Library of Congress, but my JW parents would not let
me buy the volume it was published in because they thought my poem was weird and that I didn't mean any of it.
Yet, my parents were not very poetic
Nikki
when i first got the internet in 1998, i was out in fs with 2 young bros in their teens, best friends.
they wanted to check their email, and i said that they could use the computer.. i went upstairs, and found them in a chat room.
(this was before the first article on chat rooms, i think.
I was a mischevious JW teen girl. I was the typical "lived a double life" JW, I went to school and became "worldy", I came back home and became "the good JW daughter". It was so stressful LOL.
Nikki
i saw one up close and personal because the jw annointed sister who was studying with me, told me that if i looked up every scripture in her (illegally gotten before the school started) pioneer school book and cut it out of old green nwts and pasted them in the margins, it would make her a stronger pioneer and jehovah would reward me.
and in the process i would learn where things were in the bible.. gosh what an incredible honor i was blessed with!
you know i did it..i didnt know a damn thing.
I went to pioneer school in 91 or 92 in Northern Illinois, I don't remember a manual, but I remember it was like going to a meeting for 2 straight weeks, or was it one week??
I enjoyed pioneer school because I had some friends in the school with me, and I also got away from my strict JW parents.
Nikki
