why we dont tell(apologies for this veeery long post).. i cant even express how much i am behind silentlambs right now though i may be overly concerned by the latest letter sent out im sure bb knows what hes doing and all will become clear, and even if its a mistake then we have to allow for mistakes as long as they dont cost lives like wt mistakes do.
bb is only a man and hed be the first to admit that.. i know the majority of people on this board totally understand why an abused child doesnt tell they have been abused straight away, as far as i know there has only been one buff here that suggested all abused people should speak out straight away or not expect help later simply because someone touched them!
like all of you i switched off to this jw clown but began wondering how many more people or jdubs are taking such a pathetic outlook (very few i guess).
{{{{{Brummie}}}}
Welcome. Thank you for your candid post. That took a lot of courage to do.Two men that I love have experienced something similar.One didn't reveal what happened until his late 20s, and even then he didn't want to say much about it.Your post helps me to understand why.
ok, question for all the non dubs.
am i the only one who went totally wild (sexually) when i got df'd?
well, i actually went wild when i turned 21 and became inactive.
Hi Buffy,
Some people call it going wild, I call it giving myself permission to explore my sexuality and deciding which perameters I can live in.And it varies over time from very wild to barely simmering.That's what makes it so much fun:)
Keep smilin' and enjoying your life.
By the way, how do you get to that ignore button?
i just lost my last fleshly brother to the borg.
i am moving this weekend and i need his help.
and i asked him whats up?.
{{{{Wildabeerman}}}}}
So sorry to hear about your brother. The shunning policy is sooo evil!!
they left a note.
he is the one that kept trying to get me to state i wanted to da myself.
to which evil elder kept trying to get me to da.
Go Joe!!!
I DA'd myself last month. I got a visit from the Big Boys about two weeks ago.They weren't considerate enough to call and make an appointment(but then I'm just a woman and my husband never was a witness-sooo).Being a woman, I felt it better for me not to give a reason for DAing myself.They kept pressing, I kept refusing.They seemed to need some kind of an admission, and asked if I was involved with another church(looking for evidence of apostacy, I guess).I couldn't understand why they needed an admission. I thought if you DA'd yourself, you were automatically considered an apostate .That's what their rule book says, anyway.Could it be they need a legitimate reason to convince the congregation?:)
At any rate, whatever they decide now has no bearing on my life (I'm fortunate enough not to have family memmbers in the Borg and the real friends I made could care less if I'm in or out). I made my intentions clear when I sent my letters out. Whatever they do now after the fact is moot. But I am interested to see how they handle this.
we have been lurking here for many months.
the many horrific and sad experiences many have endured in the name of the watchtower religion saddens us and sickens us.
we are ashamed to have ever been taken in by the lies and deceptions told to us by the wtbs.
Welcome Shakitas~I echo your sentiment.
It was my children also that made me step back and take a look at all of the pain that our family was feeling.I, too, appreciate the work of Simon and all of the others on this board who bare their souls so others can know the real truth.
I continue to have faith in the young. I was recently thinking about a statement made at the last convention I attended. The point was made that a large number of youth are leaving the organization.Of course, in WT style, the blame was placed on the parents who weren't getting with the "theocratic program" of constant WT drill.Funny, I know of several cases where the children of very "theocratic" families defected.Young people are a lot more insightful than most people give them credit for.
it seems that jws en masse are choosing to marginalise, dismiss and ignore the damning paedophilia issue.
that's the standard tactic when truth penetrates and can't simply be 'babled' over the top of - when recognised it's a bit of an internal shock - pretending is the chosen solution.
an arrogant lie is certainly the way to insist on the direction of your will - it's the shunning that isn't shunning, the religion that isn't religion, the clergy that aren't clergy.............. pretending is an effective escape from reality - with practice, even your soul joins in on the sharade.. paduan
We just had a former AP journalist discuss this with us in communications class. He said that he was sometimes surprised by the reactions of people to some of the articles he wrote. He said that sometimes people don't want to hear the truth.
Our perception of the world is what our reality is constituted of. Each person sees it from a different perception. We create a perception based on our cultural conditioning and the various things that happen to us in our lives. If we are secure with the way we see things, we will be resistant to changing our perception, even if we are given evidence to the contrary about its validity. That's why child molesters can continue to justify their actions and racists can continue to hate.It's also a large part of the reason that JWs prefer to ignore the child molestation issue--they need to believe the perception that their leaders are the sole channel being used by God to bring salvation to the earth.When faced with the questions "If Jehovah chooses all the elders by holy spirit, why do some of them molest children, and "Why is the organization as whole denying that child molestation is a problem within the organization that needs to be dealt with?", it's easier to kill the messenger than deal with a blow to their spiritual paradise.
any suggestions on movie rentals that might make a jw think.
or maybe present new or other possibilities?
"what dreams may come" is a good one that i know of, so....any sugestions?
While still an active witness, I found The Matrix and Pink Floyd's The Wall to be disturbing on a level that I didn't understand at the time.My daughter was also affected by the Matrix.I like The Scarlett Letter a lot, too, but the book explains it a lot better than the movie.
Stepford Wives comes to mind also.
Another thing that really made us think was the song by Creed entitled "What If".But most Witnesses won't listen to them, because they say they are a religious band, due to the religious symbolism in some of the songs. My daughter used to carry around an article from a magazine in which they stated that they were NOT a religious band:)
does anyone remember the advice from from the stage, encouraging mothers to remove babies from the room when they were hungry?.
how about, wooden spoons to beat toddlers into submission, preferably in front of the congegation, as to set an example in disipline?
was this just in our hall, or was it from the borg?
We had the district overseer and the circuit overseer over to our home one time for lunch (we lived five minutes from the hall). The do picked up a ruler I had in the kitchen and told me to use it to discipline my children. He said I should never use my hand, as a parent's hand signifies love to a child.
I was talked to repeatedly for not spanking my children enough.I was counselled for removing my children from the main hall and sitting with them in the library or the restroom when they got antsy.I was told to spank them and take them back out in the main hall.
My father used to hit me with his belt when I was little. I distinctly recall the arm that was attached to that belt was his, hand and all.
I skipped a lot of meetings when my kid were little.
one of the first "privileges" any prospective witness has is that of being a publisher.of course, once you're a publisher,you are one for life.
so, either you are a "good" publisher or a "bad" one.
a good publisher has to get the national average,be a "good" example, and pretty much do whatever the elders ask of you.
I was a bit of an enigma. If you went by hourly requirements, I was a horrible publisher.I had this personal little "shortcomming", you see. I would only go out in service when I felt in my heart that I really really wanted to go and talk to people about the Bible.That was maybe one or two days a month, tops, with gaps of two to six months of irregularity not uncommon. And surprise of all surprises, I always had very good response at the doors(how the regulars hated this fact--kinda blew their theory of "the more you do it, the better you get at it, and the more results you'll get).I really enjoyed getting to know people, and talking with them about the Bible. I liked to hear their perspective.I must say, I learned a lot at the doors. I never had any Bible studies, though. I turned all of my "prospects" over to the pioneers.Just helping out those pioneers anyway I could, you know:)
The pubs hated to see me arrive at the service meeting.I usually got assigned with two other sisters. They would go to one door together, and I would work every other one by myself. Or I'd be the only woman in a car full of men (boy did the local town gossips have fun with this one). One time, the guy who was assigned to go out with me just got up and went home! Left me standin at the kingdom hall all by my lonesome, after everyone else except my kids and I had started out in the field.The thing was, he was the one with the territory. Boo hoo. I went home and had a great morning lounging around the house in my pjs watching cartoons with my kids:)
Now I get to do it every weekend, and there's no one calling me bugging me about my time and being Irregular. AAAkk! Irregular--that sounds like a laxative commercial.
i think it just really hit home with my nine year-old son that this time we are not going to go back to meetings.
he's been asking a lot of questions, and reminiscing about past events nostalgically, yet he is really looking forward to celebrating holidays this year and playing organised soccer next summer.i try to answer his questions to his satisfaction, yet i can sense the confusion he feels and i'm not quite sure how to make him understand ( he seems to think that he shouldn't believe in god because he's not going to meetings anymore,although i've told him that he of course can believe in god).
i imagine all of my kids are going through a similar process as myself right now-good days and bad.some of them wanted to leave before i did, and are handling it pretty well.one of my teenage sons was reluctant about my decision, but i explained to him that my decision to da was my own, and that if he wanted to continue going, i wasn't going to stop him.my daughter, however, discussed the whole silent lambs issue with him, and he was shocked, to say the least,and not so keen on continuing when she told him about this(he told me this himself).. so, for you parents who have been there-do you have any tips for easing their transistion?did you do anything that seem to help your kids?how do you handle kid's questions about religion, when you're not sure of the answers yourself anymore?.
Thank you, Xena.It looks like I am on the right track, then, because that is what I have been doing.One of the things my kids really missed out on was organised sports,so next summer, I'm going to let them play soccer.
I don't have any family who are JWs.My parents studied for a long while, but my mother was never permitted to be baptised (no reason was given),so they quit.That armageddon threat is one of the things I really hated,so my kids have heard my opinion on that a number of times:)They are a bit older, also (my youngest is nine),so I don't think it will be much of an issue.
I think getting involved with their school friends and school activities will help.The meetings were such a ritual, it seems odd to not be filling time with it, yet we are all relieved.The lid to the pressure cooker is opened,and we can all breathe again.We used to get really cranky getting ready for meetings.We'd even fight all the way there in the car.I never realized until recently that it was a stress reaction, though.The last meeting I tried to attend,I had a full blown panic attack.That's when I knew I could never go back.Now, we sleep in late on Sundays and have a relaxed family breakfast.Then a lot of the times, my husband takes the boys out on the motorcycle trails.We visit friends and family-all the things we yearned to do while we were at the Kingdom Hall for yet another meeting.
Over the past few days, I've noticed my kids are starting to define for themselves what they will continue to do, and what they will discard.There is a bit of a tendency to want to hang on to some practices.One son doesn't want to do some holiday related things in school, but wants to do them at home.Poor thing-he argued with his classmates for years,now we're doing a total reverse in thinking.Even though he has always wanted to celebrate holidays, he doesn't want to put up with the teasing and I told you so from his peers.So I guess we'll just take it day by day, and I'll let them decide for themselves how they want to handle it.
Regardless of the confusion, they definitely seem happier and more at peace now:)
