Been there. It sucks. Sorry that it's happened to you.
Posts by Scully
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19after sending him a Fb message to be a *true*brother to his brother, my BIL BLOCKED ME!
by losingit ini'm absolutely furious about it!
no message, just deletes me from his friends list-- which is fine.... but i can't even *message* him.
funny, the bum of a bil just had his district convention in his home country, which he attended with his mother and father.
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55
"You knew what the consequences were when YOU decided to leave The Truth. This is YOUR decision and the outcome is YOUR responsibility."
by nicolaou inhow many of us have had to deal with a version of that retort?!
it's hurtful and i suspect - for some - that's partly because of the nagging feeling that our families may have a point.. but do they?.
i was 15 when i got baptised, is it reasonable that as the 50 year old man i'll be on my next birthday i continue to be held to a decision i made as a schoolboy?.
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Scully
The wife of an abusive husband may "know the consequences" of trying to leave him. He may have "promised" to make her sorry for abandoning him. He may have told her that he would tell everyone they know that she went crazy. He may have told her that he would turn their children against her. He may have told her that she would never be able to make it without him, that without him she is nothing, and that she has nowhere else to go.
The fact that she "knows the consequences" doesn't make him, or a belief system that behaves like him, any less abusive, or any less in the wrong.
The Watchtower behaves just like an abusive spouse, trying to keep their abused mate to stay in a horrible and untenable relationship:
They call us "mentally diseased" when we leave.
They turn our friends and relatives against us.
They tell us that when we leave, we are like "dogs returning to our own vomit", that our life will spiral into a nightmarish existence.
They say "Where else can you go?"
We went into a relationship based on promises of love, respect and honesty, and when we discovered the relationship was based on us doing all the giving and the WTS doing all the taking, that we were expected to obey without question and respect without having respect given in return, and that everything we were taught was a LIE, that relationship became null and void.
Walking away from abuse is an incredibly difficult thing to do, even when you know it's the right thing to do. Battered women are at their most vulnerable when they attempt to leave the relationship - that's when most intimate partner murders occur. That's when we can expect to be treated with the most violent reactions too - when we are trying to leave the JWs behind.
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Question: In what cases is a transfusion of whole blood or the 4 wt prohibited components the only lifesaving solution?
by Daniel1555 indear friends,.
my mother in law said, that bloodless medicine works in all situations.. .
i don't have a lot of medical experience.
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Scully
Daniel1555:
I think that there might be situations during birth or c-section where a transfusion is absolutely lifesaving (as there are a lot of sisters who died during childbirth (at least some cases in the media).
I've talked about a complication of pregnancy called PIH (Pregnancy Induced Hypertension) before. It needs to be monitored closely and managed effectively. One of the further complications of out-of-control PIH is called HELLP syndrome (Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes, Low Platelet count). The red blood cells start breaking down and platelets are being destroyed due to stress on the liver. This can rapidly cause DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation) and becomes a medical emergency, threatening the lives of both mother and unborn child.
With severe PIH and HELLP syndrome, the most effective treatment is delivering the baby as soon as possible - sometimes extremely prematurely - and treating the mother with magnesium sulphate. If the conditions are such that DIC develops, infusions of red blood cells and platelets are really the only effective treatment to keep the mother from exsanguination.
Postpartum haemorrhage is also a very real complication - it's defined as a blood loss of greater than 500 mL of blood (approximately 1.5 units) with a normal delivery, and up to 1000 mL with a c-section. Severe postpartum haemorrhage is a blood loss of greater than 1000 mL. It can occur immediately after delivery or it can be delayed. It is the most common cause of perinatal maternal mortality in the developed world. The American College of OB/GYNs estimates that approximately 140,000 women die of PPH every year - that's one woman every 4 minutes.
The fact that these conditions only happen with pregnancy and therefore NEVER happen to men, has made me extremely angry with the Governing Body of the Watchtower Society. Ironically (or hypocritically, take your pick), one of the first "fractions" permitted were clotting factors used to treat haemophilia. Haemophilia is a recessive, sex-linked, X chromosome disorder - thus it appears mostly in male patients. The Watchtower Society shows its utter disdain for pregnant women and children by denying them potentially life-saving treatments, while favoring treatments that improve the quality of life for men - potentially Microphone Handlers™, Ministerial Servants™, Elders™, travelling Overseers™, Bethel workers™, and Governing Body™ members.
Another potentially dangerous condition of pregnancy is called isoimmunization, wherein a female with Rh-negative blood is exposed to Rh-positive blood from her unborn child. This causes the mother to develop antibodies that attack the Rh-positive blood cells of her unborn baby, causing them to break down. The child usually requires intensive treatments with phototherapy to mitigate the effects of jaundice caused by Hemolytic Disease of the Newborn. Isoimmunization can easily be prevented by giving the mother an injection of a blood fraction called "anti-D"/WinRho/RhoGam, which prevents the accumulation of antibodies in her blood stream. The injections are typically given around 26 - 28 weeks' gestation and within 72 hours of delivery. The effects of isoimmunization are compounded with each untreated pregnancy, with the accumulation of more antibodies in the mother's bloodstream, thus each subsequent pregnancy is more dangerous for the unborn baby than the previous one.
While the WTS permits the use of this fraction, many JW couples (i.e., the husband) will refuse the injection - basically they want to practice the doctrine more stringently, believing that will prove their Loyalty to Jehovah™ all the more. They are deluded in thinking that Jehovah will protect their babies because of their faithfulness, despite the biological processes that they believe Jehovah created in the first place.
You can't fix stupid.
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15
Question: In what cases is a transfusion of whole blood or the 4 wt prohibited components the only lifesaving solution?
by Daniel1555 indear friends,.
my mother in law said, that bloodless medicine works in all situations.. .
i don't have a lot of medical experience.
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Scully
Whole blood is almost never used, except in the case of autologous transfusion. Your own blood is stored and reinfused when required when you have surgery.
Packed red blood cells are transfused in cases of severe anemia and in life threatening situations of extreme blood loss, like a car accident or gun shot.
Platelets and red blood cells are used in cases of DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation), where a person literally "bleeds out" - I've known of cases where a person's entire blood volume had to be replaced several times over to save their lives (50+ units). Non-blood treatment almost never works with DIC.
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77
I think a troubleshooter has been assigned to our congregation
by hoser inthis new couple moved in a couple weeks ago.
special/regular pioneers, he's an elder from bethel.
i think he might have been a co at one time.
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Scully
Several families have packed up in the middle of the night and left. Moved to other locations with no notice. Just left.
That happened with one family in our Congregation™ when I was growing up.
I found out many years later that the dad had been molesting one of his step daughters and after being DFd, the Elders™ reported him to the local police. They left town to avoid him getting arrested.
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17
Books used to study with JWs - what are they?
by Scully ini'm on the jw.org website, looking at the publications.. i'm curious as to the books being used with the 'new' studytm, and the order in which they are studiedtm.. anyone still on the inside, can you help me?.
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Scully
CoCo:
Solomon Asch did a series of experiments in social psychology back in the 50s to show how peer pressure induces conformity. Here's how one of the experiments worked:
Subject is recruited to be part of a panel for testing perception. The subject believes all panel members are similar to him, that is, other recruits/subjects, however they are actually confederates of the experimenter.
The panel is shown a series of images (what we would recognize as optical illusions or comparisons of pictures to select one that is different, etc.) and then the experimenter asks each participant to orally respond with their choice. What the subject doesn't know is that the other panelists have been instructed to deliberately choose a wrong answer, and each panelist is instructed to agree with the panelist who answers first.
More often than not, even when it was OBVIOUS that the answer is dead wrong, the subject's answer conformed to the incorrect response of the other panelists.
What's more disturbing is that even when the subject gives the correct answer initially, in the face of the other panelists' giving incorrect answers, the subject usually changed his answer to conform.
Make no mistake, the WTS is aware of these tactics.
Why do you think all the answers they want you to parrot back to them are already printed in their publications? They know that your better judgement will be supplanted by your subconscious desire to be accepted by the "in-group". Especially when other members are giving the answer that the WTS wants to hear, the JW - wanting to save face and maintain their standing with the "in-group" - just goes along, pretending to understand or agree, even when they don't.
Scary, isn't it?
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55
"You knew what the consequences were when YOU decided to leave The Truth. This is YOUR decision and the outcome is YOUR responsibility."
by nicolaou inhow many of us have had to deal with a version of that retort?!
it's hurtful and i suspect - for some - that's partly because of the nagging feeling that our families may have a point.. but do they?.
i was 15 when i got baptised, is it reasonable that as the 50 year old man i'll be on my next birthday i continue to be held to a decision i made as a schoolboy?.
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Scully
The vows I said Yes to when I was 17 have changed since then, yet I'm being held to the newer version.
Not only that, like others have said, I was threatened by my mother with being kicked out of the family home if I didn't "smarten up and get baptized". That's like being forced to get married at gunpoint. Is leaving that marriage safe, knowing the threat that existed on your wedding day?
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151
If you don't believe in God where do you get the strength to cope?
by Miss.Fit ini know there are some here that are going through some tough times.
some of you do not believe in god.
some are not sure.. i was told recently by a friend to pray to god for help and he would comfort me.. my first impulse is to pray.
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Scully
When I'm feeling down, I pick up my copy of The Book of Awesome, by Neil Pasricha. The book contains one- to two-page entries from Neil's blog, 1000 Awesome Things.
It's an easy read, and makes you appreciate the little things in life that really are wonderful.
I agree with jgnat - I see signs of severe depression and suicidal ideation in your posts. This should not be ignored. You need to get to a doctor as soon as possible and if your doc can't help you with counselling, ask them to refer you to someone.
It may take some time getting in to a specialist. Check whether your employer offers an Employee Assistance Program. These are usually free of charge, you can get attended to quickly and you can maximize your sessions by taking advantage of in-person, online, and telephone counselling.
Whatever you do, don't lose hope. Your family needs you. Your husband and your daughter needs you. We need you.
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SURVEY QUESTIONs
by Terry ini'm on the brink of publishing my book.
here are some survey questions that will help me make some important decisions.. if you were ever going to actually buy a book about an ex-jehovah's witness conscientious objector who went to prison, would you:.
a. prefer the book to be 8 1/2 x 11 ?.
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Scully
Terry:
the (nobody laugh!) artist in me wants to make sure it sounds exactly the way it is written, so... I'd have to read it myself.
I'm not laughing at all. In fact, I was kind of hoping you'd say that. I prefer when an author reads their own work. Sam Harris has done it with a couple of his books (Free Will, most recently) as did Christopher Hitchens (RIP ) with God Is Not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything. Seth Andrews (of The Thinking Atheist website and podcast) read his autobiographical work Deconverted - A Journey from Religion to Reason. All of these audiobooks are available at Audible.com.
I would stand in line around the block and camp out on the doorstep to get your book, read by you, in audiobook format. I would.
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37
Excuse needed to get out of talk
by noonehome ini work with the school overseer so he'll be with me all day before the meeting...so being 'sick' isn't an option.
this really isn't like me to weasel my way out of something....but i've been ridiculously depressed lately and honestly i just don't have it in me to do anything let alone put a talk together.
everytime i do one it takes allot out of me and let's just say the well is pretty dry.
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Scully
You know, there were a few times people made totally unintentional goofs in their prayers. People in the congregation noticed, though, and tongues started wagging (like clockwork!!)
One Brother™ prayed for Jehovah's blessing through Jesus and the Holy Ghost. OOOOPS!! That got him canned for about six months before they asked him to do another prayer.
Another Brother™ gave thanks for the hard work of all the Sisters™ in caring for their families, making sure that meals were ready and clothes prepared for Meetings™. Who'd've thunk that would offend anyone... but it did!! (Probably some microphone handler with a Napoleon complex...) This Brother™ was not invited back to give another Public Talk™ for a couple of years...
Then there was the Brother™ who in the middle of the Watchtower Study™ he was Conducting™ got a weird look on his face, suddenly went pale and passed out right there on the Platform™. A couple of people went over to attend to him, but the Presiding Overseer™ stepped right over him and carried on with the Watchtower Study™... The Show Must Go On!! The Brother™ was relieved of his Conductor™ status for a couple of months.