klydia

Joined

• started 5 topics
• posted 25 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by klydia

• 
  26

  I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing --- (new book)

  by inkling in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hey look, it's a new jw memoir... and this one is funny!.

  will be released march 3, 2009.. preorder from amazon: http://www.amazon.com/im-perfect-youre-doomed-upbringing/dp/1416556842.

  [inkling].

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  Thanks Missinglink! Yeah, I wish I could have written more.

  OnTheWayOut - hope you can make a meetup one day! And good luck with your writing career :)
• 
  12

  "I'M PERFECT, YOU'RE DOOMED; TALES OF A JW UPBRINGING"

  by AWAKE&WATCHING in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  thought i'd pass this on.

  the author is kyria abraham who is one of my ff friends.

  i'm sure she would be glad to ad anyone and would love support at her book signings.. .

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  Thanks for posting this!

  Daniel, the title is really more of a metaphor. You know, trying to come up with a title is a long process and goes back and forth between the agent and publisher.

  Just put "saved" in place of perfect and that's more of what is intended by the title. They are the perfect religion, although the people themselves don't think they are perfect.

  - Kyria
• 
  12

  Update on my situation

  by BonaFide in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  at the bookstudy on thursday, one of the elders that is "investigating" me called on me to comment.

  he didn't call on me to pray though.

  afterward, he gave me a km.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  "I am not sure why, they said they have a second witness against me"
  
  Hi, my name is Kyria. I don't know you, but it broke my heart to read this sentence. Witnesses AGAINST you? Surely, you aren't a criminal! Did you murder someone?
  
  The real world doesn't work like this. No, you shouldn't be treated this way at all.
  
  I know that when I got disfellowshipped, I thought I HAD to go to my hearing. I couldn't even entertain the idea of not going. Ten years later, I realize I could have just walked away. It meant nothing.
  
  You should do whatever you need to do to find closure, but please know that, in my experience, this is not real. It's only as real as you let it be. It's childhood schoolyard bullying. You can just walk away and leave them in their misery.
  
  Perhaps you know this already, but maybe you also need to experience it yourself in order to fully take it in.
  
  I wish you strength in whatever you choose to do.
  
  love,
  
  - Kyria
• 
  30

  The cover art for my new JW memoir!

  by klydia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey all, .

  my memoir about growing up as a jehovah's witness is being released by touchstone in march '09 and wanted to share the news with the ex-jw community.

  it's called "i'm perfect, you're doomed - tales from a jehovah's witness upbringing.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  Yup, it's all mostly in the same tone. I'm just presenting my personal experiences in a way that was fun for me to write and can also educate people about what happens inside the Jehovah's Witnesses.
  
  I tried to be as honest as possible, especially about my own screw-ups. I have no ax to grind and I think my parents did the best they could with what they had. People can make their own judgments.
• 
  8

  Why are people 'Bad' ?

  by Caliban in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as far as i see it, people are bad / evil (call it what you will) because of two possible things:.

  1. they are genetically that way.

  they are born like that.. 2. the way they have been brought up has made them that way.. either way, the influences are out of their control.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  Here's my two cents, for what it's worth... I think people we think of as "bad" are people who make a lot of excuses for themselves. They lie to themselves about how others perceive them. They have no sense of accountability. I've most often seen this in people who were either spoiled or else terribly abused as children (but then, I think spoiling your children is also a form of abuse). Spoiled children feel no empathy for others, they are selfish and only notice their own feelings. Meanwhile, I believe that children who were abused are too scared and insecure to allow someone ELSE to feel good because they fear that they might never be loved in return. Everyone makes mistakes. But it's only when you feel ashamed of your mistake and notice how you affect others that you can grow. If you are strong and are able to look honestly at yourself and admit your faults, you will be a good person. Anyone can be a good person, as long as they choose to be. No Garden of Eden is necessary. :)
• 
  13

  what is Reformed Jehovahs Witnesses?

  by overthehillgrandma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i saw a web site about this..does anyone know what it is?.

  btw i am a grandma to three, mother to three, wife of thirty one yrs to the same wonderfull man... hello to all of you!

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  I agree, Redhorsewoman, that is truly a beautiful sentiment.
  
  Many Jehovah's Witnesses are good people underneath it all. They are currently brainwashed into believing that others are "wicked", but in their hearts, I believe they want to love everyone. I certainly did.
  
  Unfortunately, the only honest and loving Jehovah's Witness reform movement I can think of would be one that doesn't believe good people need to be killed at Armageddon simply because they aren't JWs.
  
  This is the main thrust of the JW teachings, therefore, I don't believe there could ever really be "Reform Jehovah's Witnesses".
  
  They need to stop believing that they are the only ones "Jehovah" loves.
• 
  27

  When You Were In, Did You Regard Apostates As Losers?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we were trained to not even look at them at conventions.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  When I was a kid and they picketed the conventions, I thought I would get possessed by just looking at one. Now, my heart goes out to anyone who is picketing JW conventions. I understand the feelings of anger and the sense of injustice, but demonstrations also make the Witnesses look BETTER. It's awful and wrong that society views things this way, but unfortunately, the immediate connection in people's minds is "picketer = insane."
• 
  28

  How many of you would still be "Blinded" by the JW's had it not been forJWD

  by superman in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just conducting a little survey for all of you active members and lurkers of jwd.

  just simply proving the importance and support of this website.

  for me personally, while i was still in jw land i had always ahd doubts but still generally believed it.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  I wish a website like this had existed when I left. People who leave now are very lucky to have this kind of a support system. I was just lucky to meet some good people who took me in. My dream is to one day create a network of homes and education programs where people who leave cults and are shunned by their families can have somewhere to live while they reintegrate into society.
• 
  30

  The cover art for my new JW memoir!

  by klydia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey all, .

  my memoir about growing up as a jehovah's witness is being released by touchstone in march '09 and wanted to share the news with the ex-jw community.

  it's called "i'm perfect, you're doomed - tales from a jehovah's witness upbringing.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  Here's a little excerpt! Hope it's not too long.

  I wasn't sure what to choose, but I think the "congregation nutjob" is something every ex-JW can relate to.

  Hope you enjoy it!

  Chapter 2: Rejoice! For The Dead Are Rising!

  "Would you like to see a picture of my dead baby?" Sister Bailey asked me, already opening her wallet. "This is Jason. He died."

  Sister Bailey did not look well. For one thing, surgical gauze was flapping off the side of her face. She had recently lost one of her eyes to cancer and didn't seem all too interested in getting it replaced. In lieu of a glass eye, she regularly covered her ocular cavity with a vinyl, flesh-colored patch. She held this in place with surgical tape, wrapped her whole head in gauze, then accessorized the entire dressing with a lunch-lady hair net.

  "I'm sorry your baby died," I said. At ten-years old, I didn't know how to respond to an unrequested dead-baby picture. I'd merely been walking down the aisle of our Kingdom Hall, looking for my friend Michelle so we could play hide-and-seek under the coat rack. Now I was confronted with Sister Bailey's dead son.

  "Don't be sorry, sweetie! He's only sleeping," she chided. "We'll see him again in the New System!"

  One of my favorite Kingdom Melodies was called 'Keep Your Eyes on the Prize'. It told the story of how, after Armageddon, Jehovah was going to bring us all back to perfect health and resurrect our loved ones into paradise. Sister Bailey always punched it when we got to the line: when eyes of blind ones see again.

  Someday, Sister Bailey would be able to see again. Jason would be reunited with his mother, and she would greet him with two wholly beautiful blue eyes. Still, I got the feeling that Sister Bailey might continue to wrap her head in gauze, even after paradise. It was her signature style, her single white glove.

  Then, too, you'll see the dead arise. If you keep your eyes on the prize.

  Jason was grey. He had white streaks through his face from having been folded and unfolded so many times. I asked what he died from.

  “He just died,” she answered. “It was a long time ago.”

  If I'd thought Sister Bailey was crazy before, this was definitive proof. I couldn't wait to tell my friends that Sister Bailey had shown me a picture of her dead baby, then wouldn't even tell me how he died.

  "Sista Bailey smells like cat pees," was Michelle’s only reply when I finally found her. "Wanna play hide n' seeks?"

  My mother had no patience for people like Sister Bailey. Most of our congregation had already had it up to here with her antics.

  "She just wants attention," my mother said. "Well guess what? Don't give it to her." Mom stamped her feet and cackled a purposefully fake, slapstick laugh. This was her signature note of sarcasm and schadenfreude.

  Sister Bailey was self-involved. Naturally. What other reason could someone have for refusing to get a glass eye?

  It was hard to garner pity in our congregation, especially when Ida Wachohowitz had already been in a concentration camp. Michelle told me that Ida always drank her coffee scalding hot and in one single gulp. She'd gotten used to doing it that way under the Nazis and never quite dropped the habit.

  "She had it rough," my mother sighed. "Real, real rough."

  Unfortunately, she hadn't been locked up for being a Jehovah's Witness, which could have made her a congregation celebrity. Still, it was impressive. The point was, she'd been persecuted by Nazis and you didn't hear her complaining. Our congregation had a low tolerance for whining, but a high demand for a good story. And, frankly, Sister Bailey's missing eye had long grown boring.

  Sister Bailey was just one of the large group of insane, elderly sisters for which our Kingdom Hall was slowly becoming infamous throughout New England. While every Kingdom Hall had at least one "eccentric" member, we boasted an entire coffee klatsch of mumbling, mothball-scented, silk flower-behatted widows with spotty memories for taking their anti-psychotics.

  Sister Blanche was our very own Minnie Pearl, with price tags dangling from her clothes like a septuagenarian shoplifter. She believed the secret to longevity lay in the consumption of raw garlic. She swallowed her ambrosia in whole cloves, with a spoonful of honey, immediately before clutching a bible to her chest and shuffling off to the Kingdom Hall.

  It became a game to my father to presuppose where "the garlic factory" would settle during any given meeting. Then, with all the drama of a high school cafeteria, he would make a big show of seating our family on the opposite side of the room.

  Like all factories, Sister Blanche belched. She became increasingly huffy with each passing eruption. "Ex-CUSE me!" she'd exclaim indignantly, as if she'd had just about enough of these shenanigans and demanded to know exactly where this disruption was coming from.

  "Jeez-Louise!" my father would not-quite whisper to whoever was sitting nearby. "Maybe if our sisters didn't eat an entire Italian restaurant before every meeting, we wouldn't have this problem."

  Sister Dubin was our resident schizophrenic. She was only occasionally aware of what year it was and held the deep-seeded belief that house cats were actually demons in disguise. While Sister Blanche fell into "old bat" category, Sister Dubin was crazy for real. One Sunday, our congregation received a phone call from an irate neighbor claiming that someone from our Kingdom Hall had verbally accosted her kitty. Soon after this incident, Sister Dubin was privately taken aside and asked if she might not prefer to praise Jehovah in a more personal, silent way. For example, by staying home.

  My father told me this was because Sister Dubin was "making us look bad," but I didn't understand how Jehovah could allow himself to look bad. Wouldn't his Holy Spirit stop that from happening?

  "It did," Dad explained. "The Holy Spirit moved the elders to tell her to stop preaching."
• 
  30

  The cover art for my new JW memoir!

  by klydia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey all, .

  my memoir about growing up as a jehovah's witness is being released by touchstone in march '09 and wanted to share the news with the ex-jw community.

  it's called "i'm perfect, you're doomed - tales from a jehovah's witness upbringing.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  klydia

  p.s. If you're on Facebook, I made a group for the book, so I can post updates about it:
  
  http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=518290543&ref=ts#/group.php?gid=64879220692&ref=share