Posts by earthfire

41

Introducing Myself

by DilloTrace in

jw
friends

i'm new to this forum and wanted to give everyone a shout out.

i've been a silent observer of this forum for a long time, but now i feel it's time for me to break the silence and get involved.

i've been inactive since november of last year.

earthfire

Welcome, welcome! It's wonderful having so many new members!

41

Passed my Post Grad with 'Outstanding' grade! Shows it's never too late.

by Lozhasleft in

jw
friends

i've just had the official results on my pgce.

i'm not posting here to boast, but to encourage any who may have abandoned education because of the pressure as a jw, and who may feel that it's too late to return and achieve such goals.

in the 1980s i stopped halfway through my b.ed honours and accepted a dip.h.e.

Internship

by Defianttruth in

i hired three summer interns this year.

all three are senior level engineering students from my alma mater.

i had one working on a project with me and i asked him to replace a bolt on a machine we are building.

earthfire

I hope he's just trying too hard and had a brain fart, otherwise he's in trouble.

19

My Grandma passed away

by Kool Jo in

jw
friends

good day all:.

while at work a couple days ago, i got a call that my grandma passed away.

she would've been 86 next week, but she still lived her life...so i'm getting emails ect from my home congregation from folks just checking up on me.

earthfire

I'm so sorry for your loss Kool Jo, big hugs to you.

49

Hello and my exit story from WTS

by free2Bme13 in

i thought it was fitting for me to share my freedom from the witnesses story on independence day weekend.. i dont have any secret info, just experiences that happened to me and started to open my eyes.. i was a third generation, raised in the truth kid who was never supposed to be born, and then never supposed to graduate high school.

ive now been out of high school longer than i was in school.. the beginning of the end started a little less than a decade ago.

i was late 20s at the time.

earthfire

Welcome! Thank you for sharing your story as well!

29

What do you make of this? Got slapped with a shunning after...

by Julia Orwell in

jw
friends

hi all, here's an interesting fb exchange i had yesterday.

names have been changed.

i'll give a brief dramatis personae and then see what you jwners think of this.

earthfire

You did great. It's really sad how they just can't handle ANY questions. It gets so tiresome walking on eggshells around them doesn't it?

100

My mother passed away this morning...

by Tatiana in

jw
friends

for any old-school ex-jws here that remember my many posts about my abusive jw mother and my sister committing suicide because of it...she passed away this morning because she began to bleed out and refused a transfusion.

she had been in the hospital for a month.

it appears she suffered a stroke and wasn't found by the brothers & sisters for three days (they missed her at the meetings).

earthfire

I'm so sorry.

12

I have to take my daughter to the meeting...

by iCeltic in

jw
friends

my daughter is visiting me from the uk and wants me to take her to the meeting, which i will do, but it's f'in killing me :( sat here crying for an hour, how pathetic is that.

the last time i spoke to her about the j dub she nearly had a breakdown.

what to do...

earthfire

How old is she? If her dad is a JW and typically takes her to the meetings but she is still young, then you should also be able to help educate her about other options in spirituality. If she's young I wouldn't let her be at the meeting alone because sexual abuse could happen. It probably won't but you never know.

I have two younger brothers. When my parents divorced my dad won physical placement (he had all the money and a new wife, my mom had nothing to fight with since he took it all) So my one brother was heavily pressured and ended up writing our mom a letter when he was 15 that he didn't want to see her anymore. It broke her heart but she didn't want to force him to come visit. That was a huge mistake because now he' 36, a missionary, an elder and he has nothing to do with her. My other brother wrote the letter when he turned 18, he's now 27. They each have two year old sons that I got to meet briefly at our half-sisters wedding but our mom has never met her grandsons. So if she could do it over, she'd have definitely made different choices.

I'd check into Steve Hassan's book and maybe get some advice on what to do.

But I'd also be careful on what materials you show her. My mom tried to show my youngest brother some old watchtowers and Crisis of Conscience. That scared him and the plan backfired.

52

A Cry for Help

by Thoughtless in

i have been lurking here for months now, and i just decided to post here and actually interact with this community.

i have a very specific/unordinary life, so i will not divulge too much information to protect my privacy.

i am a baptized publisher who is under the age of 25 who attends college, and i do have responsiblities within the congregation.

earthfire

Hi and welcome to the site! I am so proud of you for waking up so young and having the drive to take college all the way! You've been given a ton of great advice already so I'll just say what I'd do and you can take it from there. If you can stick it out and keep up with appearances through your BA then I'd say do that. I would look into as many scholarships as you can so that when you go for your MA or Phd you'll have a better chance of having at least part of that taken care of. You could also at that time look to a school that is farther away and you could live in the dorm. Plus get a job. It is a lot of work but people do it. You are so young and like someone else said, your chomping at the bit to get out on your own and make your own decisions. This is normal! But try to stay calm and realize that you have so much time ahead of you. You don't have to make all the decisions right now so be methodical. If you can, I'd start making friends outside of the religion, that is an important step.

Like OnTheWayOut said, "Don't hook up with a JW!"

;-)

10

Mourning a child

by dissonance_resolved in

i attended a funeral today for a small child, whose death was an unspeakable tragedy.

it was my first non-jw funeral and indeed the first time i'd ever been in a church.

i couldn't even comprehend what the parents must be going through.

earthfire

I'm sorry about the little one passing. There's something so much more tragic when a child dies. I too think that the funerals that I've been to outside of the JW are so much more respectful to the life now gone and to the families.

Years ago when I was still a kid, my great grandpa Hank died. He and my great grandma were Catholics and so the funeral was at their church, my dad and uncle were asked to be pall bearers for their grandpa. They both said no and since we were in a church my dad made us sit way in the back. Even as a kid I was surprised and ashamed at the disrespect my dad showed.