the death of a jw and the birth of me the apostate.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2lwgowdpj8.
a huge thanks to my friend ray publisher (jwstruggle) for posting my video for me.
now that i am no longer held prisoner from the fear of watchtower, i can now help others!.
Isn't it something that if you show someone something from the Societies own literature that is contradictory or raises questions, you are the problem?
People in cults never realize they are in a cult until they are out of them. Otherwise why would they have joined one in the firstplace.
Don't spend too much time looking backward trying to figure out the nonsense of it all. Just be glad it wasn't worse of a loss.
if you hear a second it is probably a jehovah's witnesses.. can someone explain what that to me?.
To me that means, if opportunity knocks only once and the second knock is from JW's, what they are offering is not a real opportunity.
over the years i have had to deal with this problem personally and as a attendant covering my section at various convention centers.
i had people who were suppose to be decent jehovah witnesses pick up all the books, bags and coolers belonging to brothers and sisters who arrived at the appropriate time and picked them up and dumped them all at the end of the seating row.
so here is what goes down, the sister runs up to me panicking and saying "dear brother, i had all those seats reserved for my family and now look!
When I was in Bethel my roommate was from inner city Philidelphia. He invited me to take the train there and stay with his family for District Assembly which would turn out to be quite an eye opener for me as I was from the oh so polite "Pacific Northwest". He warned me that we'd get racial slurs yelled at us as we walked through his neighborhood on our way to his families house (he's black I'm white). Sure enough, the people on their porches started shouting comments at us pretty harmless stuff...Hey Cracker...Nabisco aint around here.... What's shakin' Salt and Pepper etc. We just laughed it off but being fresh from Bethel, it was quite a change but I knew it would be different when we got to the assembly.
We arrived by train at the Philidelphia Spectrum. It was already hot and swealtry and the crowds had been lined up to get in at the locked chain link gates for some time. Then some brother, instead of unlocking the gate where everyone was waiting, unlocked the gate about 10 yards away and caused a stampede. I couldn't beleive how the JW were acting. They were all clamoring to get the best seats. Ball games and concerts I'd been to were more civilized. Some people had blankets and rolls of masking tape and within seconds, were taping off whole rows of seats for their friends and family. I was shocked. My roommate didn't seem to bat an eye. He told me he'd heard about one District Assembly where two heavy set (of course) sisters were each barreling over to save one last empty seat. One of the Sisters saw that the other was going to get there first, so she whipped the wig off her head and threw it into the seat and shouted "Saved!".
It was probably a JW urban legend but they did make an announcement that day and laid out the guidlines for seat saving. Nevertheless, the next day, although somewhat better, there was defenitly and air of thinly veiled hostility and competetion when it came to looking for a seat.
Speaking of wigs, this was the assembly when we sat behind a woman who had on a wig. During the session, some sort of tag had worked it's way out from underneath it and was hanging down and flicking around everytime she moved her head. This was much more interesting to watch than listening to the talk until the Sister she was with, realized what everyone was snickering about and lifted up the edge of the wig and tucked the tag back in and spoiled all our fun.
i was wondering if there were any other ex-bethelites on here.
i personally regularly went for temporary work at brooklyn then was assigned to the farm for a year and a half.
it was... one of the most bizaare experiences of my life.. so i wrote it all down (finally, after some 15 years) so i won't bore anyone on here with the details of the story - because bethel doesn't show up until chapter 15... and for you straight folks, it gets a bit gay in two places... but nothing gross.
I cut and pasted the following from an earlier post I made.
I sat at the "A" table where the GB rotated and did the morning text and comments from. (Heard some interesting stuff there) Russ Kurzen was our table head. Most everyone in the GB and their wives seemed pretty regular except for Marina Sidlig who was a terrible snob,(sorry) but it's true, in my opinion.
I enjoyed my time there (because of the guys I made friends with) yet couldn't wait to leave. It was truly an altered state of reality. I still have dreadful dreams where I suddenly realize I have signed up for Bethel again and there's no way out of it. It's such a relief to wake up and find out I'm free. There was this whole political/rank/seniority thing going on there that was very puzzeling, I thought I was imagining it.
I had my whole months pay stolen out of my room one time. I had gone directly to my room after lunch when our pay envelopes were handed out ($40 cash) I hid it in my bottom drawer under my things. I didn't have a room mate at the time. I'm pretty sure it was my housekeeper who took it as she and her husband always looked very uncomfortable when ever I happened upon them in the halls. Or they would suddenly look away if I saw them across the dining hall. I hadn't even suspected her until many months later while trying to understand what was making them act so oddly. I went to the Bethel office to ask for help as this was all the money I had in the world. They were very suspicious of me and even indicated that I might be lying so they only gave me enough to get a few subway tokens for the meetings. I was already poor but now I was totaly broke. I couldn't tell the family back home because my Dad wasn't a Witness and this would have been a big reproach on the organization I felt. I was so disillusioned, I had gone through public school and never had a thing happen to me and here I was at Bethel the world headquarters and my room had been robbed. I only had enough money to get to Sunday meetings and quit going in service and no one noticed. If the Congregation back home could see their bright and shining Bethel Boy now.
I went back years later with my wife and sons. It gave me the creeps just being there. The familiar smells and the glazed over look on peoples faces, I'd forgotten all about that. Someone in the group we were in group said " I know this sounds really bad and unappreciative, but I'm sorry I don't want to spend anymore time here"
to twins!!!!!!
melanie ( my daughter that passed away in 1999 that had twins,)tara & ashley .
( who posted on here years ago.
And I'm sure you will be a GREAT great grandmother. If they're naming one Grace, to be fair they'll have to name the other one "Mouthy" !
i once attended a two day special assembly with my gums bleeding after having 4 widom teeth pulled the day before.
i managed the two days by rinsing out my mouth all day long and placing cotton in my mouth.. one brother had back surgery the week before but attended a two day assembly by laying on a matress in the back of the assembly hall.
why he needed to be there i'll never understand!.
We had a sister come to the Sunday morning meeting after having given birth on late Saturday night. She sat there with the baby like a virtuous Martyr looking like death warmed over. No one was impressed....everyone thought she was a fool.
i just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge today as my 22nd wedding anniversary.
fortunately its the 5th one for my wife and i outside of the borg.
i've been working out of town, my job has moved me to tulsa, family soon to follow, but get to spend a happy day with my wife (enlightened ephesian) today.
i hated peas.
my mom would say, "the kids in china are starving.
eat your peas.
We were so poor we had more problems than you'd find in a typical math book but getting us to eat wasn't one of them. Eating vegetables was for rich kids. For breakfast (if we were good) we'd sometimes get "toaster shakin's ". Mom (bless her heart) would tip the toaster upside down over the bowl we shared, give it a good shake then pour a little powdered milk over the deliciously burnt crumbs. To this day, the smell of burnt toast sends me down memory lane. I also didn't have any clothes as a kid which meant I couldn't go outside during daylight hours. Finally, on my 8th birthday my Dad (not a JW) got me a hat so I could at least look out the window. Later I started wearing the hand-me-downs of my older siblings but unfornunately I only had sisters.(that's another story) My sisters and I didn't have any real toys but we used to make up our own games. One of them was called "The Donner Party". Another thing we liked to do was to make toys out of whatever we could find laying around. One time we were rolling an old barrel down the street and some smart ass kid asked us if we were moving. He was one to talk, his brothers used to pee in the dirt and make their own mud pies. Not only that, their whole family shared the same hair brush...even the dog. The poor dog caught their head lice, they caught his fleas and they all had dandruff.
Anyway, I liked this post, it made me remember some things I had blocked hadn't thought about in a long time.
hello, lately in our local newspaper i've noticed a weekly column that is written by a current elder.
when i left 6 years ago he was the po.
and for some added background info , if he saw someone who was df'ed or "spiritually weak" he would go out of his way, and do his best to avoid them.
Perhaps the people on the street saw the two large angels who follow the elder everywhere he goes.
coming home from work this song came on the radio and it just hit me what the words mean to me now after everything i've been through.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u036m7p6-ak.
gojira.
I think this song resonates with a lot of us especially if you take the word "religion" literally to mean ones form of worship.
Actually the expression "Losing My Religion" is an old school way of saying that you've lost your temper or lost your sense of civility. "She kept on pushin' my buttons till I almost lost my religion " It's a way of saying you've really had enough, so much so that you forget all the niceties that your religious upbringing has taught you. You momentarily or permenently cast aside all that used to keep you in check. Whether you view the term literally or as an expression, the song can fit almost any circumstance one might find themselves in that is so intolerable they toss aside what they were always taught to believe, in order to survive the situation...the old rules no longer apply or work for you anymore. In many of our cases, we found ourselves in such a place and on top of that we also found out "our literal religion" was not true.
