I lived with a foreboding, a sense of dread. I dreaded meetings. I dreaded service. I dreaded school and the never ending conflicts there. I dreaded home and living with a mother with untreated mental illness. I dreaded the thought of dying at Armageddon. I dreaded the idea of cleaning up the mess after Armageddon if I somehow survived. I dreaded demons. I dreaded homework and reading Watch Tower Publishing Corporation produced literature.
I lived as such a hostage as a child. No sports. No approvable friends available. No money. We lived in the country and our mother was too neurotic to drive a car so we were stuck at home during summers. No TV even till I was 12 or so. At first there wasn't even any furniture. Just the kitchen chair to sit on in the whole house and beds. No air conditioning or even a fan to sleep by. Not enough food or milk till I started high school.
The thing I liked best about high school was the hot, all I wanted lunch with all the milk I wanted to drink. At first I couldn't believe it. Then at 16 I left home, got a job and a car and life got better.
gb
garybuss
JoinedPosts by garybuss
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27
growing up scared of Armageddon
by bittersweet ini was just curious if any of you growing up in the truth were overly scared of armageddon?.
when my mom came into the org.
in the 70's,the only so called kids book was the paradise lost book.the pictures in that book scared the pants off me!at night when i was lying in bed,if i would hear a loud plane go over head,or there was a thunder storm,i was sure it was the start of armageddon and i would be sooooo scared.i was wondering if i was the only one overly scared,or if their were others.. also,was anyone out there extremely frightened of the demons?i would hear all these crazy experiences of people having problems with demons,and i was sooo frightened they would come bother me.maybe i was just a big old scaredycat,but if any one else has any experiences,please post them!
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garybuss
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Shunned & I don't seem to care. Can u relate?
by joeshmoe inhere's a concern... i've been shunned by my family for going on 3 months... and so what?
is it wrong that i don't seem to miss them?
i know that this can be painful for many and i wonder why it doesn't seem to bother me?
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garybuss
Initially I was shocked at how easily my JW relatives, inlaws, and acquaintances rejected me and my family. For a time I was hurt and then angry. Now I am thankful. It has all worked out very well. They have all disappeared in the rear view mirror of life.
I am happy to have had the opportunity to identify people who's connection to me was superficial and conditional on my loyalty to immaterial issues.
The Witnesses are the worst kind of people. They slither in and cut out a spouse or a child and then infect that person with a desire to farther divide the family and isolate the rational people who reject their nonsense. When the shunning begins, the remaining family is protected from farther assault.
I do not want any connection to the Witnesses and I am thankful they shun me and my family. I demand it continues.
The benefits are many. The remaining family members are closer now that the divisive element has been removed. The enemies of our family have identified themselves and made it easy to observe them from a safe distance.
Loosing a relative to the shunning of Witnessism is a little like loosing a limb to cancer. We mourn the loss and eventually we move on. We become grateful for that which we still have rather than being centered on that which we lost. We are not grateful for the loss but we are grateful for that which the loss allowed us to keep.
Those who do not mourn the loss and move on are doomed to be the exact victim the Watch Tower Society designed. They have lost and the Watch Tower Society has won.
I say: The shunning has been good for us. I hope it continues. It has been a gift.
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20 year old JW dead in USA - AJWRB responds
by Lee Elder inon thursday september 5th, we learned that a 20 year old jehovahs witness (jw) named collins stephens had died in an intensive care unit in little rock, arkansas.
for us, this tragedy is heightened by the knowledge that something as simple as a transfusion of red cells might well have saved collins life by allowing physicians to repair his damaged heart and aorta.. we know that collin was in an accident and that he survived for over ten days in a drug induced coma.
we know that physicians worked feverishly to keep him alive and build up his blood count.
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garybuss
Every time the Watch Tower Medical Advise Corporation's agents become active, there is another dead body.
Life is cheap in the Watch Tower Corporations. Members gladly accept the idea that god ran re-create a person and will, if the agent is loyal to the Society. Armageddon is coming soon and the resurrection will follow closely after and it will most likely be only a matter of a few months or a couple years and they will see their dead friend or relative again. It was the same in the 1960's and 1970's and on and on it goes.
Sacrifice all for the Tower Power and if you need any real help, call your worldly relatives or shunned children or parents.
Are there any patterns emerging here?
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Humanitarian assistance
by garybuss in"discretion should be used in determining what, if any, assistance might be given on a humanitarian basis to those not having a good standing in the congregation.
("pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock" wtb&ts 1991 p. 22).
i was associated with the watch tower bible and tract society of new york and pennsylvania, also known as, jehovah's witnesses.
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garybuss
Thanks for all the replies and comments. I had always hoped this was an isolated incident, but it appears it was not.
The irony of it all is this happened when they were treating me good.
Best wishes all,
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Humanitarian assistance
by garybuss in"discretion should be used in determining what, if any, assistance might be given on a humanitarian basis to those not having a good standing in the congregation.
("pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock" wtb&ts 1991 p. 22).
i was associated with the watch tower bible and tract society of new york and pennsylvania, also known as, jehovah's witnesses.
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garybuss
Hi Lisa, Max died years ago. This was not the end for me. I did start to leave individuals and that is how I actually did leave. I left people. One by one until the backpedaling of 1974 and the denials of 1975. I had been outraged by so many Witnesses that all that was left were those I really didn't care about anyway and those that were not interesting to me.
I tried to reconcile the behaviors or many, including Delores' relatives but I couldn't. It was too terrible.
Free, Thanks, best wishes to you.
Grits, Good idea. Thanks. The local paper did interview me in 1996 and that made the front page but the people at Sunshine are still not repaid to the heights they deserve.
Andee, thanks. I have forgiven them but I still think it was a terrible thing to do while expecting impunity.
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Humanitarian assistance
by garybuss in"discretion should be used in determining what, if any, assistance might be given on a humanitarian basis to those not having a good standing in the congregation.
("pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock" wtb&ts 1991 p. 22).
i was associated with the watch tower bible and tract society of new york and pennsylvania, also known as, jehovah's witnesses.
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garybuss
"Discretion should be used in determining what, if any, assistance might be given on a humanitarian basis to those not having a good standing in the congregation."
("Pay Attention to Yourselves and to All the Flock" WTB&TS 1991 p. 22)
I was associated with the Watch Tower Bible And Tract Society Of New York and Pennsylvania, also known as, Jehovah's Witnesses. I was "in good standing in the congregation". My monthly field service reports were being accepted by them, as were my donations for literature and expenses. This is a story of my first hand experience with the Watchtower Society.
Back in December of 1970, my first wife, Delores, was dying from leukemia. She had been a pioneer until she became ill. She would not take blood treatment or a bone marrow transplant according to the Watchtower Society's current suggestions and guidelines. Since she would not receive blood treatment to support the drug treatments, she was not able to take the non-blood treatments either. She was so weak that she was bed ridden and needed help in getting to the bathroom, and getting food. She was virtually blind due to the blood vessels breaking in her eyes. We were living in a tiny 10' X 50' mobile home that was made for the southern climates rather than the frozen north of Dakota. I was working nights with little or no sleep in a supermarket bakery.
Delores wanted to stay at home as long as she could before she went into the hospital. She knew that this trip to the hospital would be her last.
I had been staying home from work for weeks, caring for her, but we were out of money. Her relatives came to visit on a weekend: brother and wife, sister and husband; father and wife. They were all JWs and were all pioneering. We needed help. I asked them. I told them we were out of money and I needed to go to work to earn some money to buy food and pay utilities. I asked them all, in front of Delores, if they could help her, if they could work out their schedules to come to stay with her for a few days each, or something, so I could go back to work. I didn't ask them for money, although this is what we really needed at that time. They, one by one, said, "no", that they had to get their pioneer hours in, until last to answer was Delores' step mother. She said yes she would come and stay a few days. But Delores' dad, said no she couldn't come. And that was that. None of them ever came to stay with her or to help in any way.
I was only 26. This was a desperate time.
I ended up going to my employer who was not a Jehovah's Witness and asking for an advance on my pay that I hadn't earned yet and more time off to take care of Delores. His name was Max Gerkin. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me to go take care of my wife and he'd take care of the money. I did and he did.
Delores lived till January 12, 1971. I was able to spend her last weeks with her at her bedside thanks to Sunshine Food Markets, Max Gerkin, Neil Jensen, and George Sercil who gave me the time off work and the money to pay expenses.
Delores' Witness relatives came for only one two hour visit while she was in the hospital the last two weeks before her death, even though they all came from 100 miles or less. One of her sisters, didn't even bother to come at all because she was on a winter vacation.
The actual love shown Delores in her last weeks was all from non-Witnesses. The Witnesses were too busy pioneering to help their daughter and sister. After Delores died, I was left with all the medical, funeral, and burial expenses which, thanks to my employer, Sunshine Food Markets, I was able to pay off.
There was about $300 donated at the funeral and Sunshine employees donated another $350 for a memorial. After the bills were paid and I had recovered, I offered to donate a hand built walnut bookcase to the Kingdom Hall as a memorial to her. It was refused.
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A memory of Mom and Dad
by nilfun inone evening, mom and dad told my cousin.
and i to get ready, we were going to buy some new.
shoes.
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garybuss
Only on reflection do I seem to see reality. In the present I am rationalizing, justifying, internalizing, projecting, and trying to be comfortable where I am and with who I am with.
On reflection, I had to be a disappointing son and brother. I didn't blindly obey or conform or follow. I didn't respect the unrespectable or honor the un-honorable. I was opinionated and vocal and defied authority.
I wasn't a good father or husband either. At the time I thought I was fine but I wasn't. I am proud of my sons. They did fine in spite of me.
I do think of my relatives sometimes. The last time my brother spoke to me, June 1992, he told me I represented everything in the world he hated. The last time my mother talked to me, January of 1995, she told me if she had known I was unhappy with their abuse as a child they would have put me in a foster home.
So this is how it has all ended for me.
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MIND RAPE?
by bay64me ini read something recently, possibly, (no probably) here, on the subject of mind rape.
my encounter with the jws was kind of self inflicted, i.e.
i was not brought up in it.. i am sort of coming to the conclusion, that is meaning, that with my association with the witnesses and reading here, that those that were introduced to this particular form of mind control later on in life, seem to be more adversly affected mentally than those that have the misfortune of being 'brought up in the faith'.
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garybuss
It's a gang. Those of us who were raised by gang members were educated to accept that the gang was the only safe and good place. Those of us that joined the gang were all looking for something and thought we had found it.
We were all guilty of supporting an evil system and allowing it to continue and to function.
Silent, anonymous walkaways too afraid of loosing their conditional relationships to speak out, still support the evil system and allow it to continue by their silence. The silence and anonymity effectively support the system by the design of the group leaders. Every walkaway that remains anonymous and silent is another victory for the group.
Hard to rape a prostitute and that's what we willingly were at some point. We did whatever the masters told us to do. Now our job is to remain nameless and anonymous so the master can continue.
gbThe Way I See it http://www.freeminds.org/buss/buss.htm
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Anyone from Minnesota?
by scootergirl inlooking for anyone from the st. cloud congregations (i was in the north one)...or surrounding areas.
oh heck, anyone from minnesota is fine!
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garybuss
Out here in South Dakota in the 50's our congregations were called Companies and the divisions were called Units, and right here in Sioux Falls, we had the East Unit and the West Unit, back near the end of the world.
Certainly these were military terms cause we were at war ya know! Us against THEM, back near the end of the world.
Now the Witnesses don't try so hard to look different anymore and the Companies are called congregations like other religions, and the names sound like shopping center names, and there are parsonages built right on to the Kingdom Halls. The parking lots are all paved with concrete now, not gravel anymore, and there are Lincolns and Cadillacs there. The magazines have color covers now and there is no back call night or service before the book study like we had, back near the end of the world.
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I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by Jesika ini am still shaking from the phone call!!!!!!
i just go off the phone with a reporter from the dallas morning news(paper).
she is a reporter for the religion section of the paper and she was interested and disgusted with what i told her--about the 2 witness policy.
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garybuss
Advertise, advertise, advertise, the king and his kingdom! Hahahahaha
Good! I'm glad to see it is finally getting done:-)
gb