lauralisa

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Posts by lauralisa

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  4

  The 'tower and your TEETH

  by thinker in

  1. social
  2. physical

  it is my contention that many of the actitivities prohibited or discouraged by the watchtower are used to control jw's time and money.

  smoking is just one example.

  the wt claims the prohibition on smoking is for the good health of it's members.

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  lauralisa
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  13

  my son's poem

  by lauralisa in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my son is fifteen years old.

  he is a portrait of conflict.

  he has a lot of weird, definition-avoidant neurological problems (adhd, ocd, latent tourettes syndrome.... "those" kinds of things.

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  lauralisa

  I want to sincerely thank each of you for responding to my ... moment.

  bigfloppydog: your gesture of caring helped me.

  Windrider: thank you. Your comments were soothing and helpful.

  belbab: How perfectly incredibly wonderful was it to read the words you put down? I am keeping it close by for awhile. It was like a fresh-water spring materializing before my eyes when my need for water was so great I couldn't move anymore. Thank you from the whole of me. Your insight is startling.

  Wendy: {{{{{Wendy}}}}} omg, I'm doing the hug thing, and I don't "do" the hug thing. You know this: there is no peace when your child is in need. Thank you for revealing yet another situation where your unfathomable optimism rises up and shows that the human spirit is a marvelous thing to behold.

  I guess I learned how to articulate "shit happens" when I was a tiny child, and don't get too stuck in the why of things; it twists like a cord around my neck though to see my kids thrashing with anger and frustration - their having to reconfigure their thinking as to why the world is so weird - they feel betrayed by those who claimed to represent God and "truth", just like I do. If I regret anything, it's that I didn't find out about the foul global cluster-fuck that IS the WTBTS earlier. You take care of yourself and your bundles, and I crave more time to spend with you.

  Dogpatch: Thank you... Words from you mean a great deal to me. You Rock...

  teejay! hey, friend. Well, I could write a book here. He's in counseling, of course. My son will be alright..... I WILL MAKE SURE OF IT. He's amazing, passionate, alive, all over the curve, and brilliant, and the long term goal is to get him to manage all of these very strong feelings cognitively. I'll write more to ya later. Thank you for your caring in the past, and now. You are a special person to me.

  Who's not under a great deal of stress? (no hands are raised!) but caring gestures like what I've received here are like being rescued by a big strong fireman. Thank you all again.

  much love, laura
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  2

  NEW LITE! NEW LITE ! NEW LITE!

  by belbab in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  all the sons of god have assembled in the heavenly realms before the ancient of days.

  seated on the old ones right is his first born, dressed in white robes.

  on the left, the stubborn one, you know, ole dirt mouth , himself.

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  lauralisa

  gotta bring this one back up
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  8

  What Could Have Been

  by mikepence in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  sometimes, i try to be sad.. as the sun sets low, turning the rugged hills of arizona into soft, purple, fuzzy-looking rumpled cones, dappled in the red-orange reflections of failing sunlight, i stand upon a hill.

  i try to reflect on what could have been.. i could have been part of a family that was close -- a family that hugged, laughed and cried together, always.

  a family that strove not to take everything personally, but to see that even our attacks, especially our attacks, are projections of our own insecurities.

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  lauralisa

  Mike,

  Arizona... the healing land.

  You - just keep rockin in the free world.

  Shedding a tear for you,

  lauralisa.
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  13

  my son's poem

  by lauralisa in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my son is fifteen years old.

  he is a portrait of conflict.

  he has a lot of weird, definition-avoidant neurological problems (adhd, ocd, latent tourettes syndrome.... "those" kinds of things.

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  lauralisa

  My son is fifteen years old. He is a portrait of conflict. He has a lot of weird, definition-avoidant neurological problems (ADHD, OCD, latent tourettes syndrome.... "those" kinds of things. The kind of things that the AWAKE (KIRAP) mags encourage serious "discipline" for). His father, a serious scientist, never bought into the jw doctrine, and ejected me from the family unit when this son was just eight years old. His brother is twelve, and is so normal that it's boring. (Not really.)

  Despite his father's efforts to shield them, I managed to inculcate him and his younger brother in the mindset that the WTBTS promulgates for over a decade. I was consistent in that, if not other things, until he was thirteen. (I broke apart mentally when he was five, but that's another story.)

  I stopped indoctrinating my children in the borg mindset over a year ago, when I realized that it was a cult and was killing me and just about everyone else who was associated with it. My sons are trying to readjust their thinking in terms of why the world is so screwed up.... it was such a convenient explanation before.... satan was ruining things, Jehovah would kick his butt in due time, etc. etc. They are still confused. Of course they are!

  My heart is breaking. All I want is to provide my children with a safe environment within which they can find a path and thrive. This is tough to achieve, however. All people, especially children, want explanations for things: who, what, when, where, why. Especially WHY.

  His most recent report card: All D+'s, except for two A's. He is making a statement.

  His most recent poem (an english assignment):

  I am a spirit. A life varnished in blood.
  I wonder if I truly exist.
  I hear the tormented ones and the fear of the hunted.
  I see the sadness that no one else sees.
  I want help but there is none that I can reach.

  I am a spirit. A life varnished in blood.
  I pretend my problems are inexistent.
  I feel the tears I cry for others.
  I touch the very spirit of all and nothing.
  I worry that I'll die worthless.

  I cry for my mother.
  Her trauma is her spine.

  I am a spirit. A life varnished in blood.

  I understand that no one can tell if they exist or not.
  I say what I feel in my heart though few listen.
  I dream of my family being whole again.
  I try to strengthen my heart.
  I hope for my angst to fall away from me.

  I am a spirit. A life varnished in blood.

  Thank you to any who read this and think about it for a few seconds. I am realistic and know that only a mere few, if that, will even respond. Regardless, I can still publish it here on an international data board, and some will read it, and somewhere, somehow, these words will be registered somewhere, somehow. My howling moans of grief and regret are registered. My son's words are powerful. My son's words are important.

  Drama-moi, lauralisa
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  27

  What are the three best things you did in life?

  by Skeptic in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in another thread, i stated the three best things i ever did with my life, but i thought the topic would make a good thread.. what are the three best things you did in your life?.

  mine are:.

  third best: divorcing my first wife.

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  lauralisa

  1. I didn't give up.

  2. I never gave up.

  3. I resolved to never give up.

  lauralisa
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  11

  Role Play among the Dubs

  by Duncan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  dear all, .

  this is my 100th post, and i decided to repost something i originally did as a post on h2o a couple of years ago.

  it was a reply to somebody, and buried miles-deep in the thread, so hopefully it wont have been read by too many already.

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  lauralisa

  Hi Duncan,

  What comes immediately to mind for me is the following:

  As a still-enmeshed dub, dependent upon the few conditional relationships I managed to acquire with some of the sisters in the congregation, I was always intriqued with the 1975 thing.

  I was not "encouraged" to even ponder over the issue. It was taboo. Power Pioneer sisters, during a typical day in FS driving around aimlessly, during their aimless gossip and analysis of all other people and their children and their relatives and anyone else, would sometimes emphasize an particular individual's "spiritual weaknesses" by recalling their behavior during "1975".

  I was newly ensnared, not afraid of looking at "stumbling blocks" straight in the eye; in fact, I felt that as in proper scientific approach one should accept challenge to accepted "truths" and see how they held up.

  When I inquired about just exactly transpired during "1975", I was given loving, motherly advice, with lowered voice tones and through narrowed eyelids and a warning grimace, that I was much better off not knowing about it. Of course, that just made my curiosity level blast off even higher.

  The salient memory, relative to your post, is that there was a collective agreement that to talk about "1975" was tantamount to talking about beastiality or necrophilia or something. You just didn't "go there". That was the rule.

  Now I know better.

  Thank you for an interesting post.

  lauralisa
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  19

  Social Security and Jws

  by badboy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am a severly disabled adult who receives disability benefits.. i understand sometime ago the watchtower said in one of its magazine(probably watchtower)that a smaller pertentage(sic)of jws claimed the dole in france(this was, i believe during the problems with the french government)as opposed to a higher pertentage(sic)of roman catholic etc etc claiming the dole.. in view of what paul says in one of his letter`he that doesn't work, shall not eat' should jws be claiming the dole if they truly follow the bible.

  discuss.. i believe a social security system should provide for the disabled and pensioners.

  (i don't think the present uk social security system will survive in its present form with accelerting(sic)costs etc etc)

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  lauralisa

  Hi badboy,

  A couple of comments:

  First of all, the "watchtower" magazine is NOT an appropriate source for information if one is trying to decide whether their lifestyle is consistent with the principles in the bible. It is simply one tool of many in the WTBTS arsenal to control the thinking and behavior of its members. It is propaganda at its finest.

  PLEASE. Do your OWN thinking, based on your OWN research, and I implore you to read a huge range of material from many different sources. Anyone limiting their research material to that which is promulgated by the WTBTS is ..... well, it is tantamount to doing research on mosquitoes and using "Raid" labels as source material. It's dumb.

  Second, disability benefits exist for a purpose. Some people would have no recourse but to expire from lack of medical attention and financial help without it. (Of course, it is abused by certain individuals just like any other social program, but that does not mean the benefit program is inherently bad in and of itself.) Each country you referenced has strengths and weaknesses in their disability programs, but it's difficult to make a case for comparing them as they are based on different economic dynamics.

  What is the issue that prompted you to post this topic? Are you a jw who is being made to feel guilty for your disability status? Are you in fear of losing your benefits, or what?

  Just curious. I've been on disability since 1993. There's more story to tell here, but time does not allow.

  Welcome to the board, btw.

  lauralisa
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  5

  My brother's anniversary (*spoiler warning)

  by lauralisa in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i posted this previously.

  tonight is the anniversary of his suicide.

  sorry to any who are unduly provoked.

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  lauralisa

  I posted this previously. Tonight is the anniversary of his suicide. Sorry to any who are unduly provoked. I am very sad tonight.

  My brother's name was Paul.

  ___________________________________________________________

  When I found the "truth", I told someone I knew very intimately about what I had learned. He lived in another state, but he was sufficiently intrigued so as to seek out the local kingdom hall in his area.

  He was battling with excruciating depression, alcoholism, addiction to cocaine (free-basing was then the "new" thing; this was way before crack).

  Within a few months of his intitiating a bible study, he was convinced. He attended all of the meetings, he changed jobs (a good thing: his employment was very "enabling"), he broke up with his girlfriend, he slowly stopped associating with all of his "bad" friends. He sold his stereo equipment to pay his old drug debts.

  He had just become a publisher. He was having a difficult time making ends meet with the markedly reduced income resulting from his job change, and he was extremely lonely. He was a 27 year old man with no relatives within the congregation, and was finding his new lifestyle spiritually and intellectually rewarding, but replete with gaping holes in terms of a social structure. There was no one, NO ONE, in his immediate area, who was able to relate to him or assist him in this unfathomable transition. He was discouraged from the study conductor and local elders from participating in any 12 step programs.

  I kept in constant touch with him, encouraging him, reinforcing the pearls of 'truth' he was embracing, supporting him in his lonliness, relating my own difficulties and sharing my own newly-found "scriptural" reasoning to continue fighting.

  He was supposedly very close to baptism, and I was so thrilled. I mean it. I was so proud of his integrity and self-control; it seemed like there was so much evidence of "god's power" working in all of this. It reinforced my own faith. Not many people can pull off what he did; it reflected incredible courage and strength, the way he withdrew from the things in his life that had sustained him through incredible pain... but these very things, we reasoned, kept him from achieving an "approved" status with god.

  Not long later, he filled up the back seat of his car with as many individual gallons of gasoline that his back seat would hold. He chose a good time: 4:30 am.... not many people on the highway at that time. He drove directly along a perfectly planned route, smashed his car into a telephone pole, resulting in it rolling down an embankment, where it exploded into flames. One witness gave a florid description of what they had seen. There was very little collateral damage, but his body was burned such that they had to identify him by dental records.

  He was my brother. He was only 27.
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  47

  Let's have a baby shower!!!

  by Julie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as most of you know one of our long time posters, "mommy"/wendy, is expecting a baby in the very near future.

  as some of you may not know (and i hope she doesn't plot my murder for discussing it) wendy is going through some real tough times.

  she could use a few things for the baby considering getting by with two other children is difficult enough!.

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  lauralisa

  Thank you for posting this Julie; I can't wait to go "shopping"!

  Wendy,

  You have my admiration, respect, compassion and support in anything I can do. How you are holding up with such dignity and positive determination is amazing and wonderful. I hope you know you are dearly loved.

  laura