I remember on elder who's prayers were 5 minutes. If a baby started to cry it added a minute to the prayer. It was beyond frustrating and upsetting.
LITS
another thread on here made me think of it.. its a personal peeve of mine.. you bow your head in prayer and the brother says thinks like thank you for the lessons we learned today like bla bla bla and for that wonderful point about yadda yadda yadda.
jehovah we know that etc etc etc therefore we must...well you get the gist.and on and on it goes.
absolutely drives me mad..
I remember on elder who's prayers were 5 minutes. If a baby started to cry it added a minute to the prayer. It was beyond frustrating and upsetting.
LITS
the forward the following story is my fifty year relationship with the watchtower bible and tract society otherwise known as the jehovah witnesses.
it started when i was just two years old and ended just one week after 9/11, 2001 just three weeks before my fifty second birthday.
i was basically raised in that thought system i became a full time minister in my late teens.
Just read the first couple of paragraphs have to run for work but looking forward to more.
LITS
it appears the the commonwealth government is bringing in a national compensation scheme for victims of institutional child sexual abuse with individuals able to claim up to $150,000 each.
it's clear that the australian government will not be able to fund this program without serious money from the offending churches.
so it's bad news for the organization today.. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-04/government-announces-redress-for-abuse-victims/7996092.
This is great news I truly hope it is true.
LITS
well consider for a moment the layoffs at bethel?
the gb simply reassigned them out in the field for after many years of service it seems with out batting an eye with no real severance pay.
now to me that spells detachment and lack of any real concern for those who served loyally for years.. spain is trying to get some type benefits for the people/citizens in their country who served the wt corporation for years and are no longer of any use to the corporation.
I know when I was there one of my overseer's favorite sayings was that most of the ones at Bethel were there just for the free food and shelter. It used to drive me crazy to have him saying that all the time, he would say that most of the bethelights just dragged themselves around not wanting to work. Funny thing is I never remember seeing him really work.
He told me I was this huge women who should be able to do any job assigned to me. I weighed at the time about 120 pounds and I was asked to life at least 90 pounds over my head in construction work. I have tried to lift up to 150 in the jobs I was assigned. It was crazy and I have the scars to prove it by the hernias that I have had to pay for out of pocket. I figuer it has cost me about $20 grand in med bills to cover it. Stupid tax for going to Bethel.
If instead of working for free at Bethel or as my overseer liked to put it for the free food and shelter and instead worked at a real job I would be in such a better place now.
It just makes me so bitter looking back.
LITS
just received this update.
http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8e90fa1e64ebb08847cc04916&id=fcec86ae2b&e=0670c7af59.
Thanks
my wife just asked me this.
my answer, in no uncertain terms, is no.
we both grew up in the dub religion.
It is so frustrating but they will only wake up when they want to you just cannot force them no matter what. It is just so maddening to see lives wasted like this and children being hurt. Life really is too short.
popping in to say hi.... been away from the forum for a long time.... had some serious health issues starting at the beginning of this year.
on the mend now, and getting back into the swing of things.... great to be alive!.
Welcome back, I have always loved your input on the threads, glad you are doing better.
LITS
I also want to say I am so sorry for what you are going through. Just know that many on this board are with you in thought and it is good advice that LisaRose said, please ask for help. People really do want to help but as she said they just don't know what to do and so many do nothing because they are afraid of intruding on you. Like she said all they can say is no, but at least ask.
My heart goes out to you.
LITS
ok so i have a question.
i was a very, very true believer until i saw the child molesters in my hall and how that whole thing was handled.. my husband is older than i am and had been an elder for 12 when we married.
so fast forward to 06, we are in a hall where i thought all the elders were ok at the worst and great at the best.
Thanks everyone for your responses, I totally get that it is a very sick religion and even though the older ones are nice they are brain washed and even being around them puts me into a depression. I feel for them through as many of them are just left on their own after years of slaving for the religion and yet they cannot see it for what it is. As sad as it is it is not my responsibility to help them or befriend them especially when then are encouraging me to come back.
I think that is what hit me last night, I know Mrs. Flipper told me to call off the dinner and in hindsight it would have probably been better to do that as I just did not know it would depress me so much. The creepy elder is really looked up to so much.
The other day it totally hit me that if all of this was happening in a work place environment that it would be deemed harassment if not even sexual harassment. I goggled the word harassment and it describes the depression I am going through of the person being harassed.
The frustrating thing is that unlike in a work place where you can get legal help religions have first amendment rights so they can do anything they like and there is nothing really you can do to stop them.
I am going to do what Simon suggested and even stop going to the memorial with my husband, just going once a year is HUGE STRESS to me. It is just hard to be in a divided home.
I realized also like some said on this thread that I have ptsd, I never really bought into all of that before I always thought ptsd was put on by many to just get by with copping out on life, but man just hearing that creeps voice sent chills down me, it is also so frustrating that there is nothing in the laws of this land that prevents child molesters from gaining trust in a religion and getting to be around kids. The laws leave it totally up the the leaders of the church to handle it. There should be a law against the two witness rule and elders talking to children alone once they say they have been molested.
I have to realize there is nothing I can do. The police have told me that, one cop told me to never go back to the church as he thought it was so horrible but there is noting anyone can do until another child gets harmed and the powers to be a Bethel know that. And if a child does come forward the elders like I mentioned will talk to the child alone and destroy what they can and in all like hood by traumatizing the child.
It is just so sad and frustrating, but thanks everyone for your replays. I also realized that I needed to find a counselor who can really help me, I had been going to one but like I told OTWO she was telling me her problems also, I was confused as I was gong to her for help yet it was like friends meeting and sharing problems. OTWO said that really should not be happening. This new one is not doing that, she is confirming that I do have trauma that I have been hiding and you just cannot do that you have to address it or it keeps coming back. I really am trying to work through this, I just do not get it because before the creepy elder called in April I really did feel I had made progress and then to fall back like I did I know I have a lot more to work on.
Again thank all who have answered and sorry to be such a basket case.
LITS
ok so i have a question.
i was a very, very true believer until i saw the child molesters in my hall and how that whole thing was handled.. my husband is older than i am and had been an elder for 12 when we married.
so fast forward to 06, we are in a hall where i thought all the elders were ok at the worst and great at the best.
To answer some questions
1. this elder is very wealthy and does not need to live with his in-laws. They built a house together only because of convenience. It is worth well over half a million and he works as a professional, so that is another part of the picture that I do not get.
2.I have went to the police, the news media, the parole officer, to every person I could think of and yes the elders were breaking a RCW law where I live and if I had handled it right I could have called the police and had them come but at the time I did't know it and I flipped out telling the foster mom and she instead of checking the internet's sex registry list went to this elder and then the elder's stopped letting the child molester hold the children because they knew I was on to them so that hit a wall. The parole officer was very nice to me when I first called him but after the foster mom's thing I could tell the parole office had spoken to this elder and he blew me off like I was a nut case, it was bizarre but I knew the parole officer had spoken to the elders.How they could convince a parole officer is beyond me.The police have not blown me off but there is honestly nothing they can do as the elders are not breaking a law now. They can send child molesters DTD it is not against the law, the police think it's disgusting but there is nothing no one can do as the pedophiles have done their time.
3. My husband that is where a lot of this is still having problems for me. One when he walked into the back room and saw myself and the elder alone why didn't he flip out? My husband asked what was going on and the elder threw his hands up and said 'you ask her I am washing my hands of this.' At the time like I said we thought we were friends with this guy and we were both truly blind sided by what he was doing. When he got me alone in his home I left crying my eyes out and in all honestly when I got home my husband was on the phone yelling at the elder telling him that he had no right to be talking to me but the other elders in the hall backed this elder up. Than one of the pedophiles shoved my husband and they deleted my husband in a 5 hour surprise elder's meeting with one of the main reasons my not being in subjection.
Also I flipped out at my husband because he did not tell me that there were THREE! child molesters in the hall and that I had had one of them to my home for dinner many times. He swears that he was not even told for the first 2 years we were in the hall, I do not know even now if I totally believe him but I do know that another elder moved into our hall who had very small children and this elder was not told for at least a year and it was my husband who finally told this other elder. It got bizarre with that whole thing too, the elder's wife got upset with me because my husband did not tell them sooner and they moved out of our book study group and the CoBE made some lame excuse from the stage as to why they moved and than one of the pedophile's and his wife held a baby shower and this elder, his wife and children all went and let their little girl play in front of one of the pedophiles, and I also heard that one of the pedophiles fed the speaker and this family went to the pedophiles home and let their little girl play in the backyard with the pedophiles daughter, of which fact I confronted the dad and he denied it. But I do know for a fact that they were at the baby shower because I went only to get pictures and I have a picture of his baby girl around on of the child molesters.
4. I have stopped going to the meetings, etc. That is why this has so baffled me as to why it has affected me so badly. The newer elder started to love bomb me and I fell for it, I thought maybe they had changed somewhat and I could reason with them. I went to a meeting or two and the older ones who just don't get it started crying when they saw me. See I was always having people over for dinner and doing things for ones. As the new elder said I am hospitable not to be bragging on myself in the least. I just want to be accepted so badly that I was trying to, if I am totally honest with myself, buy my friends. I thought if I invited ones over that they would invite me over to their homes and I could have the family I never had, see I am all alone I have no family expect my husband, No children as we followed the rules, only one sister who shuns me that is it. And hey after all are we not told that the congregation is our true real family well it never happened for me, I gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and gave and got NOTHING! No invites to other homes, nothing. The new elder moved in right when I was stopping going and I do know his wife is a lot like me but she got her invites, reciprocated something that never happened to me, not really, but to be truly honest one sister did but she was so judgmental it was so stressful to be around her at times, Like I got snapped at because I liked a Starbucks's cup and she shot at me that the Starbucks's logo was a pagan Goddess.. Who knew?
Anyway this is why I feel so crazy. It's like all the trauma I went through in 07-09 is right back and I do feel like it is harassment. I am wondering if the new elder was directed to love bomb me from Bethel. Like the CO wanted me to burn the email at first I thought he meant figuratively but then it hit me he truly wants me to burn the emails.
It was bizarre meeting with him, first off he did not want to pray, not that I really wanted to either but still that was strange then he told me I was a volunteer and the the CO in 07 could not force me to work with pedophiles DTD and that I had only needed to tell him that. The new elder totally backed up the CO, we all know that has never been the case, and there is nothing in writing that says you can refuse what an elder tells you to do, in fact there are tons of WT's that say you have to follow what the elders say even if it does not make sense to you.
Than the CO said 'well would you want the child molesters to go door to door without being in the truth?' Well that totally threw me and I looked blankly at him like why in the world would anyone go door to door unless they were JW's. The CO said anyone can go DTD and this way having the child molesters in the truth they were being watched. I told the CO that the CoBE was putting the child molesters with young ones who did not know their pasts so what good was it, the CO shot back to me not anymore and that I needed to forget the past and realize that things had changed and that the faithful slave has it all under control now and that I did not need to know what or how it was under control but that it just was and not to worry about it anymore then he smiled at me and told me that I needed to not think of it anymore that is when he told me to burn my box of stuff that I have.
This just all happened in July and to be totally honest I have had some of the older ones to dinner I just feel for them and like I said I am alone in this world and the religion was all I had and since I stopped going it has been really hard. I have tired to make friends outside but starting in your late 40's after being in such a confined group is hard. I had some older ones over last night for dinner and I have never told them anything of what is going on they do not in the least understand any of it. I had the new elder's parents over and they are in their late 70's early 80's totally brain washed and it just got to me. They do not understand why I am not at meeting's and in all honestly I do like them.
I think the thing that embarrassed me the most is that I texted their son about all the crap that I have been through with the other elder's thinking that if I could just get him to understand than maybe as he and his wife who is the one who told me she had been abused herself would be on my side. No he totally went with the other elders and is defending them. He told me it was not proper for me to text him, it is not like I am sending him love messages, I am telling him how they were allowing child molesters to run free and how it made me so depressed that I tried to commit suicide. That the main elder had me to the point of suicide.
He told me that "elders have been counseled regarding private communications with sisters. and that we all follow the direction of Jehovah's organization. Yet he will never address my depression over the elder talking to me alone, how he knew I was in the bathroom with the child molesters daughter, etc, Every-time I bring that up he just gets a blank look on his face and say's nothing as soon as he can he asks me to break bread with the elders, tells me I need to forgive them etc.
A huge part of me just feels really stupid for texting him and the way he response back to me. I told him I was having thoughts of not wanting to live again that I am majorly depressed, etc and he shoots back that response to me. Like I told my husband he could have said I can clearly see your suffering depression why don't you come over and have coffee with my wife since you have both been abused and she has been able to move on maybe she could help you. Nope all I got was shut down and made to feel like I was an idiot.
I just feel so trapped in my own prison sometimes. I am going to a new councilor but I have only been like three times and I can only go every two weeks,I looked up the definition of harassment and even sexual harassment and I see part of my depression was caused by the elders that creepy one in particular.
It just really does make me feel so crazy sometimes.
LITS