Posts by Reopened Mind

18

Reopenmind is having a brithday tomorrow

by Still Totally ADD in

jw
friends

happy brithday my dear wife.

what a lucky man i am to have you as my life mate.

i am so happy we are free from this damm cult.

Reopened Mind

Ooooo! Champagne (thanks Stan) and cake (thanks Village Idiot, though I'm sure that's a misnomer). What more could a girl want on her birthday? But I do have more. I have a wonderful thoughtful husband and many friends, unconditional friends, here.

carla, corruptgirl, HappyGal, thank your for your well wishes.

Blondie and Irreverent, better late than never escaping the cult. I realize that being able to exit with my spouse is something not all were able to do. The fact that he came out with me made the process so much easier. However, we left our children and grandchildren behind. So in that sense leaving was bittersweet.

Mr. & Mrs. Flipper, it is great to be able to celebrate something so natural as a birthday without looking over my shoulder wondering how I am being judged. Every year Still TotallyADD and I talk about coming to your apostafest and every year something comes up. Well, hope springs eternal.

Reopened Mind

18

Reopenmind is having a brithday tomorrow

by Still Totally ADD in

jw
friends

happy brithday my dear wife.

what a lucky man i am to have you as my life mate.

i am so happy we are free from this damm cult.

Reopened Mind

Thank all of you for your well wishes. When I was in the cult I couldn't understand why we could celebrate the ANNIVERSARY of our wedding, but not the ANNIVERSARY of our birth. To me there was no difference. Even from a Biblical standpoint the angels celebrated Jesus' birth and Jesus performed a miracle at a wedding. And nowhere is there mentioned a commemoration of either.

OK, mini rant over. I was not raised a JW like my husband so had birthday celebrations until I converted in my teens. One of my favorite pictures is of me blowing out the candles on my fourth birthday.

Tahoe, love the picture of the bird-of-paradise.

Reopened Mind

18

Reopenmind is having a brithday tomorrow

by Still Totally ADD in

jw
friends

happy brithday my dear wife.

what a lucky man i am to have you as my life mate.

i am so happy we are free from this damm cult.

Reopened Mind

Thank you my dear. I will be 64 tomorrow. I am so grateful we left the cult together and are now able to celebrate life instead of death.

Love you so much.

Reopened Mind

22

ADHD Caused by Chemo

by azor in

jw
friends

i just found out yesterday that my son who is less than a year out of treatment for leukemia has adhd caused by the chemo that saved his life.

does anyone here have any experience with this?

primarily looking for books or resources that helped you or your loved ones..

Reopened Mind

I am Still Totally ADD's wife. As he says he has ADD, not ADHD. He works very hard but he is not hyperactive, which is what the H stand for. ADD is Attention Deficit Disorder. And yes he fades in the afternoon when his ritalin begins to wear off. We have been married for almost 43 years and I can tell you that ritalin has made a definite difference in both our lives. He has remodeled at least 20 houses. He can see in his mind exactly how he wants to transform a house and then proceeds to do it. He is working on remodeling an old farmhouse we just bought. Someday (sigh) I hope not to live in a construction zone.

Reopened Mind

50

Why Finding the One True Religion is Impossible

by Simon in

jws like to think they have found the one true religion.

but like so many other religious people, it's usually the religion they were born into, the only religion they know because it's the first one they found or, at the most, one of two or three (typically the second one after they left their first / born-in faith).. the trouble is, there simply isn't enough time to explore and investigate each and everyone of the many thousands of belief systems, religions and sects around the world.. think of it this way: which is the best neighbourhood to live in where you would be most happy and most successful?

not just in the city or even the country you are in, but the entire world.. how would you ever know?

Reopened Mind

LOL Outlaw!

When we walked into a Unitarian Universalist church for the first time, it had a KITCHEN! And in that kitchen was a refrigerator with beer and wine. We said this is our kind of church.

Reopened MInd

35

What age were you when you were counted as a publisher?

by OrphanCrow in

the wts has always included minors and adults in the same categories - publisher and baptized.. i am interested in knowing how many minors, approximately, are included in the publisher count.

and, at what age a person started publishing.

what age was the youngest publisher reported?.

Reopened Mind

I converted to this religion in my teens. I didn't go door to door until after I was baptized at 20. I did, however, turn in time of incidental witnessing from the time I was about 18 or 19. I believe I was counted as a publisher then.

When my youngest son was one year old I began pioneering. The secretary suggested that since he accompanied me most of the time it would be interesting if I turned in a time slip for him. I doubt if he was actually counted as a publisher at that time. He gave his first talk at 5 and I know he was an unbaptized publisher by then.

Reopened Mind

ps: Still Totally ADD is my husband

84

I COLLECT QUOTES. . . Here are some of my favorites

by Terry in

jw
friends

please post your favorites too.

my favorite quotations:.

you cannot change what you refuse to confront.. sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.. don’t think of cost.

Reopened Mind

One I heard from my mother (nonJW) growing up:

The more you know the more you know you don't know.

Reopened Mind

91

Just wondering ....

by talesin in

jw
friends

there are many new posters here, and i'm very interested to learn why you chose your screen names.. .

one book i read, the mists of avalon, was very important to me.

among the main characters was merlin, who in the book, was called "taliesen".

Reopened Mind

When I was a youngster in my teens I considered my self to be open minded. Well I opened my mind up too far and let in the JW cult. It flew in, set up housekeeping and shut the door for 40 years. I am gradually reopening my mind to all the possibilities I missed. Just that now I am more cautious.

Reopened Mind

37

Jehovah Witness vs Jehovah's Witness

by Simon in

being brought up as a jehovah's witness means you are so used to the term that you rarely stop to think about it.. one thing i've noticed is that people unfamiliar with the religion will say "jehovah witness" (no 's) instead which i always found a bit grating.. but watching the us election, something struck me.

people are often referred to as "trump supporters", not "trump's supporters" and so on.

thinking about other things, people would say they were "united fan's", not "united's fans" and so on.. it seems weird that a group would refer to themselves as though it was someone else talking about them (in the 3rd person, if i have that right).. what do you think?

Reopened Mind

When my husband and I were still Witnesses I would correct his grammar. Needless to say he would get very annoyed with me. Yes, I often did it at inappropriate times. I was not always the "submissive wife". LOL Since he was a sought after public speaker I thought I was doing him a favor. I still correct his grammar and pronunciation from time to time, especially to clarify what he says. He often counters with, "you know what I mean!". Well, no, I don't always.

Poor grammar, spelling, and pronunciation have always grated on me. As I get older though I try more to live and let others babble on.

And while I was still a full cult member I would introduce myself as "one of Jehovah's Witnesses".

Reopened Mind

92

Only a few days ago I was entirely lost and without hope the rug was pulled out from under me

by elderess in

jw
friends

only a few days ago i was walking around the house in a mindless wander thinking if i needed to seek professional help.

then i got the courage to seek the comfort of complete strangers on the internet and found a world of support here on this website.

thank you simon and whoever else has made this website possible.

Reopened Mind

elderess,

I, too, was an elder's wife when I began to wake up. My husband was the PO at the time. Like you and your husband we tiptoed around each other until one of us had the courage to bring the subject up.

When he came back from temp work at Bethel he kept saying how he didn't understand why the WT was maintaining so many empty buildings. I had the scales drop from my eyes when I read an article in the local newspaper about blood and Jehovah's Witnesses, looked up the cited website, then followed links to JWN, JWfacts, and more. My husband could not understand how the Flood could have been worldwide. So I offered to research it for him. That was the beginning of our talking about how we really felt.

By this time our two boys were grown with children of their own. When we shared with them what we were learning they at first agreed it was a cult. However, they have since returned to the organization and are presently shunning us. It has been 5 years since we have seen our grandchildren.

You have been given much good advice. Take things slow and deliberate. We were fortunate to have some of my nonJW family nearby to support us. We were able to move 1000 miles away from Florida to Pennsylvania.

We are here to support you and your husband. I am sending you a PM.

Take care and best of luck on your journey out of the JW prison and into the real world.

Reopened Mind