Posts by pamkw

7

Oppositional Defiance Disorder

by outnfree in

i have always felt that my goal as a parent should be to raise healthy (where it is up to me), happy, well-adjusted children who will be a credit to society.

for the most part, i think i'm succeeding.

despite and because of my past involvement with jehovah's witnesses.

pamkw

Hi outnfree,

I understand just what you are saying. It sounds like you live at my house. Blake also has a warped
sense of humor, and doesn't know what is truly funny and what is being mean. He is very defient at
school, doesn't want to do his work, etc. And at home, he is a big NAG, beg, beg, want, want. He is the
most demanding person I know. He is now on depakote, and adderal, since he is adhd also, and he takes
trazdone at night to help him sleep.

I have know for over a year about the adhd, but I knew there was something more. He was also so
angry,and could rage for hours at a time. I had him put in the hospital in March. That is when they
started the depakote. This does seem to help his rages.

But I know how you feel, I do not take him to stores, or any place if I think he will not be able to keep
it together. He also has behavior counseling a couple times a month, and this summer, I am putting him
into a group a couple days a week, just for kids with emotional disorders.

I read a bunch of stuff on the web about ODD, and it makes me soo sad. I was telling my sister,
Oh my God, my kid might end up in jail.

I don't always cope very well, and I am glad now that I am divorced, my ex husband would not be able
to handle the way Blake has become.

I really don't know what to say, we just get by some days.

You are not alone,
Pam

7

Glad I am no longer a jw parent.

by pamkw in

jw
friends

i have been thinking lately how differently i raise my kids now as compared to when i was a jw.

my oldest son had the bad luck to have a mom who was trying to be the perfect jw single mom.

i. was really mean to him at times.

pamkw

Hi everyone,

I have been thinking lately how differently I raise my kids now as compared to when I was a jw.
My oldest son had the bad luck to have a mom who was trying to be the perfect jw single mom. I
was really mean to him at times. And when I wasn't I had elders telling me to beat his butt. But
Brandon was a quiet kid, who like to draw during the meetings, so he really was no problem.

My 9 year old son Blake is ADHD and ODD. Which means he can not sit still or be quiet ever. And he
part of his problem is he likes to annoy people. If I were still a jw, his life would be hell. I would
probably be in jail for child abuse. Because most jws think the only way to train your children is
to beat them. And with a child like him spankings have no effect.

Brandon sometimes gets angry because I do not treat Blake the same way I did him. I tell him that
I didn't know any better then, but I am alot smarter now.

Looking back, I see that there is never any leeway for kids with speical needs in the congregations.
They all had to be quiet and sit still, with no colorbooks or toys to help them. That is hard even for
so called 'normal' kids. For kids like Blake it must be a nightmare. The one good thing, is when my
boys are visiting grandma, she no longer tries to take Blake to the meetings. When ever she did,
they left early because she couldn't handle him.

Having a child like Blake gives me lots of stress, but I would have had even more if I were still jw.

Pam

5

Another JW fantasy

by NikL in

jw
friends

contrairy to popular belief, jws have fantasies.

wheras mine usually involve a wild night of passion, jw fantasies seem to involve something else.

read the following e mail and see what i mean.... dear joe, .

pamkw

I guess this was after the big dead body clean up. That just about made me sick.

Pam

26

jWs Musing about the Big 'A'

by Tallyman in

jw
friends

* http://www.witnessesonline.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/witnessesonline/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=21&t=000024

pamkw

What a nice group of people. How can anyone get happy about a lot of people getting killed.
The people on that board were all so self-rightous, it made me sick.

Pam

13

bloodguilt

by teejay in

jw
friends

i came upon the idea for this topic in backward fashion.. not long ago, someone was attributing greatness to one of us .

because of all that one had done to bring about the end of the .

tower.

pamkw

I am grateful that anyone I studied with never got very far. I was telling an old high school friend I would no longer be a jw and she said, "hey, you tried to make me go!" And I replied, yeah, but now I know better, and I'm sorry about that. So glad she never listened to me.

Pam

32

She was a fine sister

by silentlambs in

she was a fine sister with a history that went back six generations with jehovahs witnesses.

her family boasted well over 1000 jw family members, many of which had high station within the organization.

this proud heritage was marred by another fact in the familys history this sister had not disclosed.

pamkw

I know how true this is. My step-father was studying when he molested me and my older sister. He didn't get a change to hurt my younger sister because I was always there in the way. He was phyically, mentally and sexually abusive to us for years. I told my mom, who of course went to the elders. They didn't believe us. My step-father told them that it was our fault our clothes were too tight. Mind you, I was 13, who do you think bought my clothes. Basicly it was our fault, not his. and that is what the elders told us. They told my mom to be a better wife, and they also told her not to leave him. So she didn't they are still married, it has been over 30. A total marriage from hell. A few years ago, after I was grown and had a child of my own, the elders decided that he had never been a jw because at the time of his baptizm he was molesting his step-daughters. So that made his baptizm void, like it never happened. I remember thinking at the time, so what? Big deal he hadn't gone to meetings in about 20 years. That didn't hurt him. Now he is an old man, with bad health, I for one don't care if he is sick or not. But no one at the time, was encourage to go to the police, no one would listen to the victims. It is a great thing that you are doing.

Pam

23

Marriage

by Mr Magoo in

jw
friends

when i married my jw wife i was told that marriage was a very important thing.. i have, however, later learned that:.

1) my sister-in-laws husbands jw brother got divorced because his jw wife fooled around.. 2 - 3) 2 couples were divorced after we got married (212 years ago).

one of them had only been married for a couple of years.

pamkw

My sister is in a very unhappy marriage. Why? Because when she was 19, she thought she had to get married so that she could leave my mother's house. I asked her why she just didn't get her own place. She said, I can't live by myself, it's not proper. What is this the 1800's? So she married the first guy that would have her. He started sending her gifts, and immediately they were engaged. Witness woman don't just get to date, if you go out to dinner with someone, you have to decide to marry them. In my sister's case, he was so impatient to get married, they kept moving the wedding date up. Finally they went before the judge and had a civil ceremony. He couldn't wait a few months for sex. They do not have a good marriage, and that's what comes from marrying a total stranger.

I know another woman who was conned into marrying a man who didn't even speak English, only Spanish. She spoke no Spanish. I don't know how she is now, but for the first few years she was very unhappy. She was a single mom, and the sisters in the congregation set her up, because she needed to be married.

Another woman was forced to marry a man after he was reinstated, because they had slept together once. She was so happy, he looked so miserable at their Kingdom Hall wedding. Turns out, he was a wife beater, and she finally left him for her own safety. His first wife did find another man, because of the abuse. He was forgiven for sleeping around and beating his wives. The first wife is treated badly by the congregation because she remarried, no one has forgiven her. The second wife moved across the country from him.

I think all the forced marriages in the org. is why people cheat on each other. If you looked at someone of the opposite sex you were expected to marry them.

Pam

24

did you talk to the elders?

by Moxy in

jw
friends

on your way out, did you have the 'talk' with an elder?

(or elders?

) the kind of, 'excuse me, brother only-elder-who-i-really-trust, i've been having serious doubts about such-and-such and i would really appreciate it if you could help me see if i'm missing something, i sincerely want to know...'.

pamkw

no talk just quit going, and no one seemed to notice. The elders did come to my house when they thought I was married and only wanted to know if I had slept with him before I married him. I lied and said no. But really we lived together for 5 months before we got married. The elders never came back, and no one noticed I never went back. Except maybe my mom who thought when I got divorced I would return to the meetings. Fat chance.

Pam

5

Short Term Thinking

by hippikon in

jw
friends

what are some of the results of the short term thinking the wtbts has espoused over the last hundred years.

i know with myself i put off buying or even saving for a house, i put of medical treatment, didnt save for retirement.

i know of kingdom halls that were dangerously built/modified with short-term goals in mind.

pamkw

Short sightedness is one thing that makes me so angry. My mother lives in a very abusive situation, but she stays because the new order is coming. She says it doesn't matter if I am unhappy now, Jehovah will fix it pretty soon. She has been married to an awful man for over 30 years. But still she waits. It will all be better in the future.

it makes me sick
Pam

25

The elusive Brother Some.

by Norm in

jw
friends

the elusive brother some and the watchtower society.. in brooklyn , they have for years been bothered by a shady and very mystical brother.

they usually call him some.

we receive constant reassurances from the watchtower that what is printed in the literature is the truth.

pamkw

Hi Norm,

What a great post. the "New" light on the 1914 generation was the first thing that made me realize I would never be a jw again. At the time, my mom was pushing real hard about how I was killing her grandbabies, because I refused to go to meetings. But after I found that on the internet, I have never looked back. What does she say when I tell her about the change? (she never realized there was one.) She says "It's no big deal, it didn't change that much.

Always been too independant for my own good.
Pam