I am always really, really curious when people advocate accepting 'olive branches' from people who are *still running abusive and manipulative patterns*. To do so simply enourages them to continue with these selfsame abusive and manipulative patterns.
WHY do we encourage this? Because we have been so deeply programmed to accept abuse, being told it's the 'christian' or 'humane' thing to do?
Bizarre. Abusive, psychologically/emotionally damaging behaviour is no less harmful even if the person 'has their reasons'. They're welcome to their reasons, it's just that the rest of the world doesn't have ANY obligation whatsoever to cut them one iota of slack IF THEIR BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS ARE ABUSIVE. Islam has some revolting practices- do these not deserve the same refusal of acceptance? Judaism does too, so does some forms of Buddhism, democracy, politics, schooling and pretty much any form of 'structured' organisation. Where do we draw the line?
Zero tolerance for abuse. Just because someone has the claim to physical parentage does not make them good to be around. Find people who WILL love and accept you without requiring you to hock parts of your spirit for the experience. Abuse in any of its forms will never end until the people involved stop tolerating it in any form whatsoever.
rimfiredancing
JoinedPosts by rimfiredancing
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18
can any one help
by ladylove ini cant believe after 20 years of not being a jw that i found this site.. if anyone is willing to read this, and has any knowledge on the subject, i dont want to hate my father.
i am looking for biblical proof that shunning your family is ok, if it exist.
brief history .
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rimfiredancing
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10
"Ears tickled"
by poppers inis that phrase from the bible?
i know i've heard it here a couple of times - is that one of the dub's pet phrases unique to them?
i am curious because i've been on oprah's website looking through the threads devoted to her latest book club selection, a new earth, by eckhart tolle.
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rimfiredancing
Burn the ships: really? What problems does the Borg have with sex NOW? It was actually my observation of just how bent and distorted around sex the JWs were that first triggered the alarm bells for me: I noticed that they were obsessed with it, paranoid to the point of bizarreness about any sort of contact between males and females at all. I'd grown up in a fairly bohemian setting and had no problems or obsessions with nudity, sleeping naked with males *without* sex, physical contact and loving touch with my male friends, so coming across the puritannical hysteria of the dubs was mindboggling. Then when I started to find out that they had problems with sexual acts- talk about invasive! Being told what I *could* or *couldn't* do with my spouse??
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14
greetings from Australia
by rimfiredancing ini have been lurking here for awhile- i think i first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after i'd walked away from the jws.
i have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok. .
i'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions i have to the toxicity of civilisation.
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rimfiredancing
editing says 'no joy for you!', so I'm doing it from scratch. :)
I have been lurking here for awhile- I think I first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after I'd walked away from the JWs. I have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok.
I'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions I have to the toxicity of civilisation. I have no spirituality left to speak of, having been a very spiritual and gifted child. I am hoping that my return to the rainforests will help heal this gap in me, so that I can connect to the natural world on a deep level again.
I have adult children who have never managed to recover from their time in the Borg, but fortunately I have children who also don't remember their brief time there. I am getting married again in June to a man who supports my recovery on every level, and who is also the best deprogrammer I've ever known, so my healing moves in its own cycles and spirals. My 13 years of panic attacks, nightmares, daymares, dissociation, PTSD and personality disorder have eased into a flow of close family and little outside interaction (by choice: both my partner and I are classed as highly gifted and we don't really fit in with society anyway, which makes my disinclination to be around people much easier). The Borg got me as a result of my highly traumatic and abused childhood: I have spent three decades recovering first from physical and psychological/emotional violence and then spiritual/emotional/psychological violence and abuse. I have zero- and I do mean zero- empathy and tolerance for abusers. I am no longer a pacifist, thanks to a writer named Derrick Jensen and his marvellous books, and have learned to physically and mentally defend myself against abusers of any kind.
I no longer really consider that there is an answer for everything in the universe: if a creator does exist, it's not interested in interacting with humans at this point. Maybe it figures that if people can't figure out 'stop doing evil sh*t to each other and stop destroying the planet', then they're kind of a failed experiment anyway. I don't really go looking for those kinds of conversations anymore: I'm more interested in learning how to grow food, and hanging out with my partner in the natural world, learning to shoot an arrow and actually hit what I'm aiming at, building our own earth house, wandering with the family down to the creek and spending the day watching the world just be. We're having our first child together sometime in August/September. It's my ninth (seventh living, I lost twin girls) and his first. He is the greatest gift that I have ever had in my life and I had to wait a long time for it: he's 18 years younger than me and totally immune to social programming. In him, I catch glimpses of who I used to be and am finding my way back to myself as a result.
I'm a person who lives with pointed ears and fangs, even if they're only obvious to some. :)
I'm passionate about my children and my partner, about the planet. I don't think the coming crash of civilisation has anything whatsoever to do with a homicidal, genocidal god that has an inferiority complex and a thirst for blood: I think it has everything to do with an insane group of people who thinks that they can violate the planet and each other without consequence.
For some reason, I've found myself cycling through the old JW abuse again, which is what prompted me to come looking for information and to connect with people who get what it's like to recover from a cult. I have found great strength today in going over the information on some other boards (mainly beyondjw) and this board has also been awesome. I just felt the need to connect somehow with people who understand that sometimes, the nightmares of being found 'unworthy' and watching your family be taken to safety while you stand outside the gates, watching and waving until the gates shut and sight of the ones you love is completely gone, sometimes these nightmares hit out at you decades later. At least last night I fought back and made the elder attacking me sick with the information I was throwing at him, so they all left and my family were around me, hugging me. I'm no longer afraid of or get toxic reactions to JWs, which is very different from when I originally walked away.
Thankyou for this board and the information, for your bravery in leaving, your determination to be free. Hopefully this will format properly, haven't quite worked it out. foosticks. -
14
greetings from Australia
by rimfiredancing ini have been lurking here for awhile- i think i first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after i'd walked away from the jws.
i have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok. .
i'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions i have to the toxicity of civilisation.
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rimfiredancing
*nods* that would be pretty tricky in the UK, I understand.
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14
greetings from Australia
by rimfiredancing ini have been lurking here for awhile- i think i first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after i'd walked away from the jws.
i have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok. .
i'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions i have to the toxicity of civilisation.
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rimfiredancing
I'm not using Firefox, but I've figured out how to format- it's the editing that's giving me grief, as I'm not being allowed to.
re the elders comment: heh heh, there's always that, if my biting sarcasm and complete disinterest doesn't work. I'm actually moving back to the area that I walked away from the JWs in, so I'm not anticipating a great rush of people keen on seeking me out in our remote house in the bush. :D viva la isolation!!
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14
greetings from Australia
by rimfiredancing ini have been lurking here for awhile- i think i first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after i'd walked away from the jws.
i have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok. .
i'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions i have to the toxicity of civilisation.
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rimfiredancing
hey, awesome! Brisbane here, soon to be back to North Coast NSW.
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14
greetings from Australia
by rimfiredancing ini have been lurking here for awhile- i think i first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after i'd walked away from the jws.
i have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok. .
i'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions i have to the toxicity of civilisation.
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rimfiredancing
thanks! I'm currently trying to workout how to format using Konqueror. Wading through the tech support... I loathe it when things don't look right. >
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14
greetings from Australia
by rimfiredancing ini have been lurking here for awhile- i think i first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after i'd walked away from the jws.
i have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok. .
i'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions i have to the toxicity of civilisation.
-
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rimfiredancing
I have been lurking here for awhile- I think I first came to this board 8 years ago, a couple of years after I'd walked away from the JWs. I have found that even after all this time there are still things that come up for me, particularly about feeling 'safe' in the world, feeling ok.
I'm moving back to the forest in a few weeks, due to my disinclination to be around large groups of people and the reactions I have to the toxicity of civilisation. I have no spirituality left to speak of, having been a very spiritual and gifted child. I am hoping that my return to the rainforests will help heal this gap in me, so that I can connect to the natural world on a deep level again.
I have adult children who have never managed to recover from their time in the Borg, but fortunately I have children who also don't remember their brief time there. I am getting married again in June to a man who supports my recovery on every level, and who is also the best deprogrammer I've ever known, so my healing moves in its own cycles and spirals. My 13 years of panic attacks, nightmares, daymares, dissociation, PTSD and personality disorder have eased into a flow of close family and little outside interaction (by choice: both my partner and I are classed as highly gifted and we don't really fit in with society anyway, which makes my disinclination to be around people much easier). The Borg got me as a result of my highly traumatic and abused childhood: I have spent three decades recovering first from physical and psychological/emotional violence and then spiritual/emotional/psychological violence and abuse. I have zero- and I do mean zero- empathy and tolerance for abusers. I am no longer a pacifist, thanks to a writer named Derrick Jensen and his marvellous books, and have learned to physically and mentally defend myself against abusers of any kind.
I no longer really consider that there is an answer for everything in the universe: if a creator does exist, it's not interested in interacting with humans at this point. Maybe it figures that if people can't figure out 'stop doing evil sh*t to each other and stop destroying the planet', then they're kind of a failed experiment anyway. I don't really go looking for those kinds of conversations anymore: I'm more interested in learning how to grow food, and hanging out with my partner in the natural world, learning to shoot an arrow and actually hit what I'm aiming at, building our own earth house, wandering with the family down to the creek and spending the day watching the world just be. We're having our first child together sometime in August/September. It's my ninth (seventh living, I lost twin girls) and his first. He is the greatest gift that I have ever had in my life and I had to wait a long time for it: he's 18 years younger than me and totally immune to social programming. In him, I catch glimpses of who I used to be and am finding my way back to myself as a result.
I'm a person who lives with pointed ears and fangs, even if they're only obvious to some. :)
I'm passionate about my children and my partner, about the planet. I don't think the coming crash of civilisation has anything whatsoever to do with a homicidal, genocidal god that has an inferiority complex and a thirst for blood: I think it has everything to do with an insane group of people who thinks that they can violate the planet and each other without consequence.
For some reason, I've found myself cycling through the old JW abuse again, which is what prompted me to come looking for information and to connect with people who get what it's like to recover from a cult. I have found great strength today in going over the information on some other boards (mainly beyondjw) and this board has also been awesome. I just felt the need to connect somehow with people who understand that sometimes, the nightmares of being found 'unworthy' and watching your family be taken to safety while you stand outside the gates, watching and waving until the gates shut and sight of the ones you love is completely gone, sometimes these nightmares hit out at you decades later. At least last night I fought back and made the elder attacking me sick with the information I was throwing at him, so they all left and my family were around me, hugging me. I'm no longer afraid of or get toxic reactions to JWs, which is very different from when I originally walked away.
Thankyou for this board and the information, for your bravery in leaving, your determination to be free. Hopefully this will format properly, haven't quite worked it out. foosticks.
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62
Need some advice
by KICKED OUT ini have not been on here in a long time but i have always valued the advice of everyone, so here goes.....i am dfd and my wife has never been a part of the org.
we are getting ready to have our first child in may.
my mother who is now living in patterson(at one of the motherships) speaks to me every 1 to 2 years.
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rimfiredancing
arrrrgh, need to learn the formatting here. grr.
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62
Need some advice
by KICKED OUT ini have not been on here in a long time but i have always valued the advice of everyone, so here goes.....i am dfd and my wife has never been a part of the org.
we are getting ready to have our first child in may.
my mother who is now living in patterson(at one of the motherships) speaks to me every 1 to 2 years.
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rimfiredancing
I am new to commenting on this board and haven't introduced myself formally yet, but this post moved me to registering because I was so distressed at some of the advice.
JWs are an organisation founded on the abuse of its members.By their very nature, JWs are abusive psychologically, emotionally and spiritually: it doesn't matter if they 'mean well', it doesn't matter if this abuse is done 'out of love' or 'christian concern' for the people they are abusing, the simple matter is that this board exists because being a JW can be something that it takes a lifetime to recover from.
How many stories do people need to post here re their painful, traumatic and exhausting recovery from JW abuse? When your brain is being hammered into cardboard by the constant, insidious and subtle manipulations that constitute the 'teachings' of JW's, does it really matter that the people doing it might actually believe that it's a 'loving' thing to do? Does this not actually point to how toxic their very definition of 'loving' is?
They are violaters who have zero understanding of the violations they inflict. Why would you want your wife and child around someone who has had long training in the subtle art of mind control? How long must we be subjected to the idiocy that allowing such violation is 'loving' on our part, shows us to be 'better people' than those that violate us? Please, do some research on the minds of habitual violaters of any kind: in ALL cases, they have a complex chain of 'reasoning' that justifies everything they do by reducing the value of those they abuse. Those who beat their partners or children do so because they actually view their victims as lower on the humanity chain, they cease to see them as people and view them as 'things'. This is true of molesters, rapists *and those whose abuse and violations are directed more at the spirit and mind of the abused*. How many children have been killed this year because their abusers (most often family members and most often parents) have decided that the abuse is 'deserved', that they 'need to be taught a lesson', that 'it's for their own goddam good' or because 'the devil is in them'?
The comments re JWs taking the 'letter of the law' to cruel extremes are right: your mother is not interested in a real connection with your family because she's blown off every opportunity beforehand to create that connection. This is not a loving act on the part of your mother, this is the action of someone who is looking at the opportunity to draw someone else into the Borg- your son. Everything that has been said regarding leaving your unprotected child in the company of someone *who WILL violate your requests NOT to preach*- hello, the Borg are VERY open about their 'theocratic responsibility' to LIE IN COURT if it suits the GB's purposes- if they are happy to do that, why do you think your mother is NOT going to violate your requests? JB's LIVE in violation, they are accustomed both to being constantly violated and violating others 'in the name of Jehovah'. I have seen JWs in KH's respond to the tired cries of their *SIX MONTH OLD CHILD* by *SLAPPING THEM HARD*. Do you remember the closed and shut down faces of witness kids? If parents are prepared to *destroy* the spirits of their children 'in Jehovah's name', what matters a grandchild?
Please, protect your wife and son. This is not a harmless religion, this is a potent and destructive cult that NEVER has its members wellbeing at heart. How many children have to be damaged before we give up this ridiculous idea that being kind to abusers and violaters works, and that violation and abuse in the name of religion (or any other name, really) is ok because oh, they MEAN well..?
No more victims of poisonous doctrines. No more nightmares because someone has told them their parents are going to die at Armageddon because they have sinned against Jehovah. No more kids lying in bed with visions of being swept away in a river of blood because they're not 'in the truth', no more adults having nightmares that started when they were kids.
Love does NOT mean putting yourself in the path of abuse. If your mother isn't going to be swayed by the loss of relationship with her son, she will only have a relationship with her grandson while the possibility of luring them into the truth exists: when it becomes obvious its an empty cause, she'll shun him too. But oh wait, by then there might be *another* child she can focus on...