hello- i haven't been posting on here lately- i've been a busy jw.
but to keep those on track with how things are going, for those who don't know me on facebook ( i'm taylor 'confliction' garrison), here's how things are looking, and my progress as the ever-so doomed apostate i seem destined to be.. .
apart from creating the facebook page, i've created a youtube channel (youtube.com/shunthisass) where i plan to occasionaly post jw related material... but probably mostly to goof around with ( i like making/editing videos).. .
OK, so I just made the mental connection - you're on my FB friends list, also! *tired*
Would love to hear your letter and just know you've got people here pulling for you. Also, I saw your piano playing on YouTube and I am amazed that you can just improvise beautiful stuff like that, off the top of your head. I've been trying to teach myself to play my baby grand for years but I'm still very plonky at it :-\
'Tis so unfair.
what is the wtbts concept of a genuine frined?
i haven't ever found any in the jdubs, maybe some of you have.
but was wondering what others think about the concept of a genuine frined in the jehovah witness organization?
Thank you, LittleImp. We haven't spoken in a few years; I moved back to CA and just e-mailed less and less. This thread has inspired me to reach out and e-mail him and see about getting back in touch. Dunno if it'll happen now that I'm out, but we'll see. He always seemed aware of the brainwashing thing and the hypocrisy rampant in the Org, so you never know. Maybe he'll think for himself and get back to me. His own sister is married to the congregation PO (both run more along the snooty, judgmental lines) and like I said, he never turned me in to them, and we even joked about their snooty judgmental-ness behind their backs, so maybe there's hope :)
what is the wtbts concept of a genuine frined?
i haven't ever found any in the jdubs, maybe some of you have.
but was wondering what others think about the concept of a genuine frined in the jehovah witness organization?
I had one once. It was while I was stranded in this godforsaken miserable little town in NC. I was 19 and he was a sweet man in his 60s. He was not only my only JW friend there, but my only friend period. He was a good man, we did things like flea market shopping together and several times he let me crash on his couch when I didn't have a place to stay, I trusted him implicitly and he never ratted me out to elders for all the doubts I was having. He was a young soul and I guess we just had kindred spirits and enjoyed one another's company.
He had also been separated from his wife for many years (she lived in Pittsburgh) and he had also been disfellowshipped once, a couple decades earlier (I didn't pry into why) so the congregation (of course) completely imagined our friendship into something disgusting and lewd. EVERYBODY was whispering that I was fucking him, etc. and it was absolutely nothing like that, just a true friendship with mounds of respect and trust. It made me so deeply sad, and I know it hurt him as well.
i scream out sometimes.
am i angry at a 'being' that i don't think exists?
or the embedded concept?.
I used to. Not anymore. But I went through a couple of years of anger/denial/bargaining (i.e., "I know you don't exist, but on the off chance that you do, could you please prove it by fixing my life, and then I promise I'll believe in you..." etc.)
Not sure quite how I got over it. Lots of therapy and overanalyzing until I just eliminated it, I guess. I seem to have had a harder time eliminating the use of "god" in casual slang (i.e., "Oh my god", "I swear to god", "goddammit", etc.) I've just given up trying on that. I figure it doesn't count.
P.S. I DO want to smack my sister and family when I get emails forwarded to me where they tell people that I "hate god" and am "rebelling against god" and am "lashing out against Jehovah personally". It's like, uh, no...I can't hate or lash out against somebody that I don't believe in.
i have been testing the waters with a fade.
waiting to see the reaction.
my friends and family still talk to me, although i haven't been to meeting since november of last year.
I'd say sit in the very back for the first part, as close to the door as you can, then bolt during song/prayer when everybody's preoccupied, before the second half (or even leave before that, after maybe 10-15 minutes...hey, you put in an appearance, right? "A" for effort.) If anybody has the gall to follow you out and be nosy as to why you're leaving early, always have an excuse on hand (doctor's appointment, family emergency, etc., but that you at least wanted to show up for the first half so as to get some "spiritual food" or whatever corny B.S. they're looking for). Be as vague as possible and if they push for details, just give them a polite, strained smile and repeat the vague excuse in exactly the same wording as before, over and over in response to every snoopy question, until they get it through their thick heads that it's none of their business (Miss Manners taught me this. She's genius.)
the other day i was talking to a jw in her 30's and mentioned jonestown and she had no idea what i was talking about.
she had never heard of it.
with all their harping about the dangers of 'false' religion, you would think that jonestown, heaven's gate, and the like would be right up their alley and would be brought up often as examples of why one should never leave the safety of the one true religion.
the other day i was talking to a jw in her 30's and mentioned jonestown and she had no idea what i was talking about.
she had never heard of it.
with all their harping about the dangers of 'false' religion, you would think that jonestown, heaven's gate, and the like would be right up their alley and would be brought up often as examples of why one should never leave the safety of the one true religion.
My family was at our Assembly when we heard about the Heaven's Gate thing. We all sat around at lunch shaking our heads over what kind of idiots would join a cult like that.
It was the same year I was baptized. The irony. It burns.
i have been testing the waters with a fade.
waiting to see the reaction.
my friends and family still talk to me, although i haven't been to meeting since november of last year.
Not sure if it will help, but what I did when I was fading was tell my elders I was switching congregations and asked them to send my publisher card over to a congregation an hour and a half or so away. I went to, like, one meeting at the new congo (never really introduced myself or made friends or anything), and then never went back.
That was about three years ago. Now, even though I'm really outspoken and should probably be DF'd (not worried about fading or being caught now), nobody seems to have bothered. I wonder sometimes if it's because the original congregation elders wash their hands of it (they no longer have my publisher card) and the new congregation elders may very well not even know or remember me because I was never really there to begin with.
That may not help living in a neighborhood of snoopy JWs, but you can put it out there that you've switched congregations, so that might get them off your back a little.
irony - it's what's for dinner.
you know that's gotta be rankling them a bit:.
http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/jehovahs_witnesses_aided_prop_8_reversal_ruling.
Irony - it's what's for dinner. You know that's gotta be rankling them a bit:
http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/jehovahs_witnesses_aided_prop_8_reversal_ruling
up front and first off....some of my bestest friends on the planet are lesbian and i love them to death so this has nothing to do with acceptance or not of it.
im all over same sex marriage and respecting all human beings' rights to live their lives as they see fit.
i was wondering...and i have wondered this for awhile....why some lesbians, who obviously dont like men, then choose to dress in men's clothes, have men's haircuts, wear men's shoes, flatten their chests, wear no makeup and look and act like men.
You also have to keep in mind that many identify as "genderqueer" or "transgendered" rather than just "lesbian" and feel that they are a man in a woman's body, or vice versa. So they may feel more comfortable dressing and acting in a way that you or I may perceive as stereotypically "male" or "butch". They express themselves by dressing and acting like who they are. It's not an affectation. It's just how they feel most comfortable and attractive and sexy.
