Posts by life is to short

12

One Big Family... Except For When You Need Them

by pale.emperor in

when i was in, we all used to claim us jw's were "one big family" all around the world, and how we're the happiest people on the earth.

except that isnt true is it?

i knew that when i was in, but i've just had some news which shows me how unloving, uncaring and un-family like they really are.. my ex-best friend (he has to shun me doesn't he?

life is to short

That is how it was when we pioneered, even through there were 10 other pioneers in the hall we were dumped on all the time, we lived on nothing no help from anyone so I got a job there is no reason the wife cannot. I worked 35 plus hours and put in 90 a month in service. It was hell and I hated every minute of it but I was told I was doing Jehovah's will and too keep my blinders on, the other pioneers were mostly wives who's husband were selfish and they burned through their money so when it came to using their cars for service they could not afford to but hey there were my husband and I to dump on,

My husband would get 7 people in our small Honda Civic that we bought with my tip money from work. It was crazy not enough seat belts but they did not care as long as they did not have to use their money for gas it was all good with them. Also I had no say in the matter after all I was just a stupid women and when I voiced that it was not safe to pack out our car my husband always shot back that everyone who showed up at the hall had to go out and it was the best he could do, We beat the crud out of that car with so many in it.

The places we lived in were dumps but I was told Jehovah provided. If this couple is young maybe this is a good thing as they might wake up and not waste so much of their lives like I did.

LITS

6

Hope deferred

by life is to short in

proverbs 13:12 "hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

i have heard this before from dave ramesy about finances and how if you can never see an end in sight to get out of debt, if you always are making nothing to live on and getting nowhere with no hope of it ever changing, you just give up.

thank god's it's friday and oh god it's monday breaks your spirit.. i was reading this book by henry cloud and he expounds on this and says "there are few sicknesses of the heart like hope deferred.

life is to short

LHG ones like you did not bother me in the least, the ones who bothered me, upset me were the ones who pioneered but could not work, many lived on welfare or got what ever state help they could. They rode around with us in service, many of them we had to pick up and take back home. None of them could afford to give us a dime for gas but they all had really bad health and would tell me that Jehovah had given me good health so working was not hard for me.

The most they could do was an hour or two in service before they had to take a break and somehow they had money to buy hamburgers and sodas, chips, candy bars, etc though like I said they could not afford to give us a dime for gas and I am not joking. One sister I finally confronted as when my husband would drop me off for work she would wine to him for her to take her out longer as she lived two house past us in the country. She would say she just needed to go home and veg out. One time I just got sick of it and told her she needed to give me something for gas, She dug in her purse and gave me five dimes which she counted out very slowly. I took them all. Another sister made the loud announcement as soon as she plopped into our car that she was giving me a dollar as she and her husband had only $5.00 dollars to last them to the end of the month and it was only the 15th. She must have forgotten because around noon she said she was starving and had not had time to pack a lunch so we had to stop and she spent over $5.00 on lunch. I sat in the car while she went in because I felt so stupid going into a place and not being able to afford anything. She took everything to go and sat and ate it in front of me. I was so mad I threw my sandwich out the window as it just made me sick to my stomach and I just could not eat. It just really hurt.

Another pioneer couple who were very, very, very broke bought a brand new car and parked it one to 2 blocks away so as to not get door dings on it and only took their family in service in it but rode around all the time in ours. The husband told us that he did not feel he needed to give us gas money because all we did was just pass the proverbial dollar around.

LHG honestly ones like you were not even on my radar, I never even gave those who were not pioneering a true thought because I was just trying to survive pioneering. We had 10 pioneers and they were all free loaders. There were many in the hall who did not pioneer but I was just not around them and when I was I just never gave the fact that they were not pioneering a thought.

I was just trying to keep my head above the water with working 30 plus hours a week and putting in 90 for service. Looking back now I do not know why I did not judge those who worked full time, but I just did't I judged those who were pioneering and treated me like crap, and I did not really judge them I just was really hurt by them.

Also my husband and I qualified for government help but I would never take a dime as I thought I put myself in this place and I was not going to let the government take care of me, nor did I ever go around acting poor. I have since learned that many thought I had money because I never complained.

This religion just is so hurtful.

LITS

63

Life is changing for me: no pioneering, got a job!

by Skepsis in

jw
friends

a month ago i decided to register in this board.

i had decided to step down pioneering but was frightened about the consequences.

i had finished my university degree some months before (despite disaproval from brothers in my congregation) and i had to choose: continue pioneering and working in jobs with no future or starting a career, working full-time.. i was thinking to postpone the decisiton but... i was fed up with preaching.

life is to short

LisaRose and ATJ gave such great advice, I loved LisaRose when she said it is your life, also becareful of who you make as friends outside. I know I jumped so fast that I made friends with ones who did not have my best interests at heart. I was naive and learned the hard way. Take your time, you are young and enjoy your life, don't let them rob you of it anymore.

LITS

58

baptised nearly 51 years

by Phoebe in

jw
friends

been reading this site for awhile now.

i have had a long and often tragic life as a jw.

my story is so long because i'm pretty old :) i feel sad i've been locked in fear and guilt for my entire life.

life is to short

if I dropped dead in the K.H no one would notice

Your words there make me so sad, but it's true I have felt the exact same way. When I pioneered I passed out in service once and crawled to the car, no one came to check on me so I thought they did not know I had passed out. Nope they knew, the sister I was with told me she heard me fall, never came to check it I was OK. My husband had a major heart attack at the KH I drove him alone to the hospital with another elder knowing and only asking if I would be OK no one came to the hospital to be with me expect that elder and then he got upset when I called him the next day to talk as he was busy, my husband was an elder at the time himself.

My heart breaks for you. My sister started to shun me while I was still an elder's wife I have not spoken to her for over 11 years.

It is just so sad and welcome you need support.

LITS

6

Hope deferred

by life is to short in

proverbs 13:12 "hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

i have heard this before from dave ramesy about finances and how if you can never see an end in sight to get out of debt, if you always are making nothing to live on and getting nowhere with no hope of it ever changing, you just give up.

thank god's it's friday and oh god it's monday breaks your spirit.. i was reading this book by henry cloud and he expounds on this and says "there are few sicknesses of the heart like hope deferred.

life is to short

Proverbs 13:12 "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. I have heard this before from Dave Ramesy about finances and how if you can never see an end in sight to get out of debt, if you always are making nothing to live on and getting nowhere with no hope of it ever changing, you just give up. Thank God's it's Friday and Oh God it's Monday breaks your spirit.

I was reading this book by Henry Cloud and he expounds on this and says "There are few sicknesses of the heart like hope deferred. Companies and individuals get sick and stall out when they keep hoping for something that just never happens."

I know I felt so hopeless as a JW. We drove and drove and drove pioneering, we lived on nothing had nothing, just the hope that the world would end very, very soon. That was my only hope, my only way out, It was wishing that everyone who was not a JW would die, not only die,but die a horrible death, killed by God. It made me want to so badly tell everyone that they had to be a JW and I would get so frustrated with my fellow JW's because they did not seem to have the same urgency that I felt. Than I was told to keep my blinder on and not look at what anyone else was doing because it all came down to my relationship between Jehovah and myself. I honestly tried to do that but the bottom line was that the other JW's did affect me

I remember the trapped feeling like it was yesterday. I have often wondered how the GB keep selling the end is so close with a very true scripture like Proverbs 13:12, how often can that carrot be dangled in front of it's members without them reaching it before everyone becomes hopeless and just cannot do it anymore.

LITS

8

JWfacts: Excellent 15 minute video and script presentation - "Growing up a Jehovah's Witness"

by AndersonsInfo in

jw
friends

http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/growing-up-a-jehovahs-witness.php.

"growing up a jehovah's witness" .

following the title, is the statement, .

life is to short

Excellent, that is exactly how I grew up, I am so thankful to ones like jwfacts for the dignified way he presents the fact.

Thanks Barbara for sharing this, also thank you for all of your hard work and how much help you have given to everyone. I really appreciate you and all you have done.

LITS

6

A jw thought trap

by purrpurr in

i've been watching louis therouxs documentary about scientology.

one of the thought traps they createn in people is that they make them belive that all good things come from following the doctrines correctly and all bad things come from not doing so.

and in this way it becomes a thought trap where the person is self regulated mentally by trying ever harder to be more indoctrinated.

life is to short

I totally believe this to be the case and one huge reason I had a hard time leaving. I was a born in who truly believed it with every ounce of my being. If they said jump I said how high. Seriously, I could not understand why ones my age got married and had children as the system was so close to the end. Not going to collage, no problem as the end was so close. Working at a dead end job making nothing, spending all the money I did make in car gas driving around aimlessly drove me crazy but I did it because I was told that is what Jehovah wanted.

I forced myself to read all the WT's and Awakes, study for all the meetings no matter how much it was just mind numbing and not what I wanted to do in the least. I longed just to be able to read a novel or study something that I was interested in but nope I did as I was told and beat myself up for not being able to do more. I always thought if I could just read faster than maybe one day I would have time to read what I really wanted to. But there was always something more to read in the JW land, the newest WT or a new book released at the convection always something more..

Than one day I woke up and really looked around and realized that hardly anyone in the "truth" was doing half of what I was, most were not pioneering, most bought and sold homes, almost everyone had children, none of the elders were pioneering, many had good jobs with 401K's and saved for retirement. If I beat myself up like I did and I was trying to do what was demanded of me and everyone else got the same information that I did than there has to be a lot of screwed up people because it is impossible to do it all.

Having children is natural, getting paid reasonable is normal. At the hall I always heard Satan did this or caused this problem in my life, it was because they were not doing what they were being told. They were not pioneering or living poor. It totally missed with everyone's mind.

Every time something bad happens and bad things happen to everyone the JW's blame themselves for it because they did not do enough. It was Satan that caused because they were not doing enough for Jehovah, not the fact that car accidents happen to everyone, or the washing machine, or fridge goes out at the worst time. Or you lose your job, everyone loses their job at some point but a JW will beat themselves up over life happening thinking it is because they bought a home and had kids and work. If they had just did more for Jehovah than this bad would not have happened.

It is so unhealthy it is crazy.

LITS

33

Leaving the jws is a "lifestyle choice" according to a counsellor

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so i had my first appointment with a counsellor, of course i explained about being a born in jw, mentally leaving, the penalty of doing so and therefore the mental strain of pretending to be someone i'm not.

her response was that she couldn't help me with that because leaving a cult was a "lifestyle choice".

i tried to say to her that its a cult not a religion and how it brain washed me but no.

life is to short

I have been to several counselors and some of them were as crazy as the JW's. One I work for and I am amazed at what and how she believes. I am like really you are a counselor? How? I mean do not get me wrong she is a nice person but does not have her life together anymore than anyone else.

One counselor told me that men should have control over women as it is in the Bible? I am like seriously? Another told me that I should be willing to go and change my dad's diaper and that there was a problem with me not being able to touch my dad's penis. My dad molested me. Seriously I should now as an adult not have a problem with changing his diaper?

It took me at least 4 counselor's before I found one that was not crazy themselves. I had one that I found and I only went about 2 or 3 times a year just for checking in as I am still connected to the JW's through my husband. I also have a really hard time with boundaries and letting people make me do things I do not want to. So my counselor had to quit and just in the last couple of months I had to find a new one. I found one I loved or so I thought and she called me out of blue and insisted that I change my time with her so as to accommodate another client of her's. At first I thought she was joking and just seeing if I would stick to my boundaries. I told her no as my schedule is very tight and she would not let it go but kept insisting that this other client needed my time slot. So I did, I changed my day with her and jumped through hoops to do it. I then left her a voice mail telling her that it was really putting me out and that I just could only do it this once.

Well she called me again and again insisted that I change my time. Well at this point I thought for sure she was just testing me to see if I would do what she was demanding. I texted her and just told her it was unacceptable and that I would not do it. I thought she would say I was just testing you with your boundaries, nope she was not she meant it she really wanted me to change my time yet again. I told her I was not coming anymore than. She texted back that she would still like to see me just one more time, I stupidly went thinking she would tell me it was just a misunderstanding, nope she never brought up how rude she was and than proceeded to tell me she belonged to a cult. She is more screwed up than I am, the cult she belongs to is truly crazy.

So my advice to you is just find someone else as it is really hard to find a good one and counselors can miss with your mind just like that JW's did if you are not careful.

LITS

46

Mom died, How and When I found out

by 3rdgen in

hi friends,.

it's been awhile since i've been talkative.

thought i'd give you an account of my latest family dysfunction.. a brief backstory is that i am an only child whose parents were born in jw's.

life is to short

I am just so sorry, it sounds a lot like my family. I hate to think that there are more than one family so mental in this world. I swear that this religion breeds them.

My heart goes out to you.

LITS

38

If the WT is a "money making machine"...who gets the money?

by NikL in

jw
friends

i've seen claims over the years that wt is in the real estate, book publishing business and is a for profit enterprise at it's core.. can those of you that believe this to be the case tell me who benefits from all this wealth?.

the governing body lives in relatively humble conditions no?.

i've been curious about this for a while.

life is to short

darkpilver

Yes they did rent out some of the apartments to non JW's. When we were there we lived in what is called an out building meaning it was not connected to the tunnel system. In our building we had about 1/4 who were not JW's. Granted it was a small building but still and there were many out buildings in the Heights that they owned.

LITS