Posts by Scully

45

Feel the Goddamned Love

by AK - Jeff in

my mil of 38 years - who has not spoken to me for the 9 years since i left her cult - died on sunday.. today, as a favor to my sil who has spoken to me very rarely, for the same reasons, over the same period of time, i was moving some personal items to her home from the nursing home.

in this instance i guess it is ok to speak with me - if i have a strong back and a conveyance that aids her needs at the moment.. anyway, in the parking lot of the apartment complex where she lives, while we are moving in those items, guess who shows up?

five or six of my old 'best friends'.

Scully

Jeff,

How can that behaviour not make you want to go running back to the JWs? I don't get it.

Well, actually I do. It's kind of funny, in a pathetic sort of way, how it backfires on them - with you, your wife and any bystanders who are thinking "WTF??"

Sorry about your family's loss. Such as it is. When they have refused to be part of your life for almost a decade, it's kind of like all the mourning has happened already - they killed you guys off emotionally because of their stupid cult - and now you have to deal with the burial.

16

Quick question for recent convention attendees, did your hotel offer box lunches?

by Theocratic Sedition in

jw
friends

our hotel did, and on the surface that's no big deal.

matter fact i think it's a good business move on the hotel's part and pretty darn good customer service.

after the song was finished and the chairman did his announcements initiating the noon break, i got to wondering if the wt had anything to do with these box lunches offered by the hotel.

Scully

All I can say is that I am soooo glad that I don't have to go through this crap every summer anymore. Living in a convention town (at least it was when we attended) the commute wasn't a problem, nor was bringing a picnic lunch and snacks for the kids. To put it very simply, conventions are torture for small children in particular and for families in general. You don't get anything out of the program, the children don't want to sit (and really they aren't meant to) for hours on end, and I'd get pins-and-needles from the waist down thanks to the uncomfortable seating. The air conditioning was never put on in the main auditorium, so it was miserably hot... which at my current stage of life would not go down well.

3

Husband wanted wife to reconcile marriage w/ group of JWs - instead triple murder

by spike2 in

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/aug/24/tp-killer-wooed-women-despite-violent-streak/?print&page=all.

killer wooed women despite violent streakman accused of killing wife, kids dies after suicide attemptby kristina davis & dana littlefield u-t. originally published august 24, 2012 at 12:01 a.m., updated august 23, 2012 at 9:34 p.m.. clarence blunt has been described as a murderer, abuser, misogynist and sociopath.. yet as much as the san diego native intersected the justice system over the years, he repeatedly managed to rebuild his life, rebounding with work and women.. the violent circumstances that resulted in his death thursday at age 55 have put a renewed focus on a past filled with psychological struggles and relationship turmoil.. blunt nearly got away with his first murder, a hatchet attack on a gas station attendant in 1973. and on sunday, he is suspected of killing his wife and two young children before trying to commit suicide, wounds that he succumbed to days later.. in the decades between, blunt fathered three other children, served numerous stints in prison and worked as a licensed security guard.

national city police say he was also a person of interest in the slayings of two women and a baby.. modern dna technology has all but cleared blunt as the main perpetrator in at least one of those homicides, police said, and the level of his involvement may never be known.. court records hint at a painful childhood of abuse, incest and neglect trauma that psychologists say manifested into mental illness and a dissociative disorder, with an alternate personality he called ricky.. he lived in fear of his stepfather, who was eventually killed by his mother.

Scully

How in the bloody hell does a guy with known mental health issues and a violent record, including a murder conviction, get licenced as a security guard?

12

First shunning, now love bombing

by hoser in

jw
friends

i had mentioned in an earlier thread that brother and sister hoser were being unofficially shunned at the kingdom hall.

now i think that they realize it is not having the.

desired results( we are quite happy on our own, and have done a few things with our non-jw neighbors).. .

Scully

The Circuit Overseer™ must be coming in the next couple of weeks and they're trying to drum up attendance for his Sunday Public Talk™.

67

does the watchtower still believe this?

by lastchance in

questions from readers ?

some animals have characteristics that seem especially suited to killing, such as lions and poisonous snakes.

how can this be, if they were all vegetarians at one time?l.

Scully

Funny, in a way they are endorsing evolution, without even realising it.

23

Advice please...teenager stuff

by Aussie Oz in

jw
friends

Scully

Both my girls have used gauges in their ears. Both of them outgrew the desire for them on their own, without interference from me. What do you think might have happened if I'd made an issue of it??

To answer your question though, prepare to have her move in with you. Clearly she does not want to abide by JW rules, and her mum and step-father want to shove those rules down her throat. Have a sit down with her prior to her moving in and make it abundantly clear that while you are far more liberal than her mum and step-father, you are concerned about her safety and, as jamiebowers said, will not tolerate drug or alcohol abuse, you expect her to be responsible for her overall well-being (eating disorders) and particularly so when she is sexually active (birth control) and she has to take school seriously. Set curfews for her, give her chores and an allowance, and once she's old enough to get a job, she should get one.

24

Anyone watch "Grimm" ?

by Glander in

i have never seen an episode but my wife loves the show.

we just heard today that our 18 yr. old granddaughter will be an extra in an episode filming now.

guess i'll have to watch it.

Scully

Love it!

20

untitled

by iknowall558 in

im an ex jw, out 3yrs after spending 24yrs of my life in the organisation.

i spend most of my time on fb exposing the org and having conversations with active jws.

i have recently agree to a 'bible study' with a woman, a grandmother, who is a regular pioneer and has only been a jw for 5yrs.

Scully

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shun

Definition of SHUN

: to avoid deliberately and especially habitually <shuns publicity>
- shun·ner noun
Examples of SHUN

He shuns parties and social events.
After his divorce he found himself being shunned by many of his former friends.
Origin of SHUN

Middle English shonen, shunnen, from Old English scunian
First Known Use: before 12th centuryRelated to SHUN

Synonyms: avoid, dodge, duck, elude, eschew, evade, finesse, get around, scape, shake, shirk, shuffle (out of), escape, weasel (out of)

Related Words: miss; avert, deflect, divert, obviate, parry, prevent, ward (off); ban, bar, debar, eliminate, except, exclude, preclude, rule out; bypass, circumvent, skirt; foil, fox, frustrate, outfox, outsmart, outwit, overreach, thwart

Near Antonyms: accept, court, embrace, pursue, seek, welcome; catch, contract, incur

16

I would like to try different kinds of flavored toothpicks.

by Iamallcool in

jw
friends

there are so many different kinds of flavored toothpicks.

what is your recommendation?

thanks!

Scully

I should lock this thread on the principle that some people don't deserve attention and need to be slapped upside the head for asking dumb questions that don't belong here.

7

Cutting the emotional ties with family

by feenx in

jw
friends

it's been quite a while since i posted here... so hello everyboday!.

this time of year is always an interesting one for me emotionally.

my parents anniversary, which we all know was the one thing anyone ever celebrated, is two days after my birthday.

Scully

I think what a lot of us are mourning when we lose our family to the JW mindset, is not so much the people they are, but the people we hoped they could be. Our idealized notion that "family" would mean more to them than ties to a belief system.

We are not orphaned in a literal sense, but because of the JW belief system we find that we have to fend for ourselves, with a very important support system denied to us. We are, in a very real way, all alone in the world.

It's okay for these reminders to haunt us. When a family member dies, the days on the calendar that mark important events become bittersweet because of the loss. We remember the good times with that loved one, and feel the sting that the person is no longer there. You can bet that the JW relatives feel that sting too, but they are the ones who chose the path of shunning over the path of love and acceptance and tolerance. They drew the line in the sand, and they must live with their choice just as we must live with it.

It takes time, but it is important to cultivate new friendships and build a new "family" around us. They can help soften the sting of the past, of the family that rejects us in favour of their so-called faith. We don't have to settle for a life without community. It's something we can choose and embrace, when we find people who accept us for who we are, who don't base their opinions about us on the hours on a Field Service Report™. They can have interests similar to ours, or ones that open up a world of diversity for us and help us learn new things and have experiences that we never would have had otherwise.

Most of the time, I don't give the JWs I used to know a second thought, I realized that I gave them far more of myself than they deserved and I really didn't get anything back for my care and compassion for them. But, like you, I have days when I think about my JW family members and wish how things could be different, and then I think about what having them back in my life would cost in terms of going back to the belief system. It isn't worth the price I'd have to pay to have them in my life. I could never relinquish my ability to think critically, to unsee what I've seen, to un-know the things I know. My freedom - mentally, emotionally, spiritually - is far too valuable.