Posts by gypsygirl

17

A wasted life.

by Crazyguy in

jw
friends

now that i have fully awaken from this nightmare cult, it pains me to know that i have wasted most of my life.

when i was young i was a very driven boy wanting to accomplish all sorts of things.

i smart kid and an athletic one too.

Well said Mum!.... and all of you who mention that it is never too late or "it's how you play the cards".......soo true. Crazyguy: your story is my story, altho' my interests were a little different. I was ambitious and smart and could have gone far had I been given the opportunity for more education or support in exploring my interests. However as a JW I ended up dropping out of highschool to get married at 16, and had a child by 18. (When I was young, many of the the JWs were getting married young in our area).

I am now in my mid 50's and have only been away from the WT for 12 yrs. Since then I have gone to Japan and toured with a dance troupe, gotten my GED and went to school and became a licensed vet tech, started my own pet sitting service which became large enough that I was able to quit working for other people, taken belly dance lessons and became involved with some performing, become involved with a city choir, and most recently I've gone through some extensive training that enables me now to facilitate workshops for people who need to build their self esteem, and learn to change their thinking so that their thoughts are mostly positive, and to just be able to have more love for themselves and others. The past several years have been a whirlwind of exploration and learning and new experiences. I'm not saying that any of this has been as easy as it would have been had I been younger, but I am here to say that it was worth the effort and had I stopped to think about what most people my age were doing, I might not have done any of it.

As for your kids, I wish you all the best and just want to say HAVE PATIENCE with them. And the best thing to remember when you are being faced with an unpleasant situation is to just have and show UNCONDITIONAL LOVE........something we as JWs were never shown.

My kids are now grown (4 of them) and all now xJWs. Each one of them have issues surrounding their childhood, which causes me pain and regret. They have to figure out what they need in life in order to move on and I can only offer my support and love. I cannot take back the damage that has been done but can only go forward each day. They all know and understand that I was only doing what I knew how to do (or was told I should do) and the time. I didn't know any better.

Be brave, be strong, go forward in life with fire and intention. Like the saying, "Live like theres' no tomorrow!" There are plenty of years left for you.

Hugs to you.

11

Theft of Reminiscing

by rebel8 in

jw
friends

so i'm now at the developmental stage of adulthood when my peers and i are beginning to reminisce about our childhoods.

if you've ever taken developmental psychology, you know the importance of reminiscing.

yesterday i went to an event about something retro and participants were really nostalgic and just really enjoying themselves.

gypsygirl

Hello Rebel8,

I can feel your pain. I was raised as JW by my mother and molested by my step father at the same time throughout my childhood. Talk about losing a childhood! Yikes! Sadly I grew up and raised my 4 children as JWs and now, years later, as adults and all of us now x-JWs , it breaks my heart to hear my kids talk about all of the things they missed out on growing up. Of course I didn't see it then, and the past is the past, but I cannot help but feel their pain even today. I am at peace with my own lost childhood, but I now live with the pain of seeing the effects this religion has had on my kids. They are all adults with issues, and one of them even went through a period of time when she blamed me and the religion I crammed down her throat for everything that was wrong in her life. She actually called me abusive, and now in retrospect, I see what she meant. One time not long ago, she was involved in a conversation with her mother-in-law and was describing how she and her brothers never had Christmas, birthdays and other holidays and how she now cherishes the event and celebrates with a vengeance, and she began to cry. I was sitting there and I also began to tear up, and all I could say is "I'm sorry. I didn't know any better." She wasn't trying to make me feel bad, but you can see she still has some "stuff" to deal with. But she has come to terms with some of it and has apologized and told me that she realizes I was only doing what I knew how to do at the time.

Carla: Kudos to you for SNAPPING out of it soon enough to protect your children from the impending phsycological damage.

I guess my kids could still thank me for coming to my senses and participating fully in their lives today. There are still lots of family events and holidays ahead! But I sometimes feel like I have lots of time to make up for.

26

Losing my religion

by vikesgirl101 in

howdy!

i have been out of the jw's for about five years now.

it has been about four years since i've posted.

gypsygirl

I have avoided any and all religions since I left JWs 12 yrs ago. It really did cause me to have an extreme distaste for religion in general. But this past year I became a bit involved with a "new thought" church. The new thought philosophy can vary from church to church but is generally based on the laws of attraction and the idea that we are all connected, all ONE. So it's actually more of a philosophy than a religion, but it does provide me with a spiritual outlet and the opportunity to meet and socialize with like-minded people. But groups of people will be people, so i still feel the need to keep my walls up , as I am always on the guard against negative or judgemental people, and I have an aversion toward anyone who feels the need to control or have authority over other people. I suppose these are left over "issues" (ya think???) However it's nice to be aware of these things and to know the choices are mine. I do know that I will never make a committment of any kind to a church or religion again.

50

Really enjoyed the CONvention....why?

by punkofnice in

i remember when i was a mind cleansed(tm) jw i would listen to the talks when i wasn't napping.. on the long tiring drive home i'd say how i ''enjoyed(tm)'' the sessions and felt ''encouraged(tm)''.. .....and yet i couldn't recall a single ''point(tm)'' made.

i couldn't remember what it was that actually made me feel good.. on one occasion i asked the family what they found ''encouraging(tm)'' or interesting.. tumble weed.

no examples.

gypsygirl

I remember sitting at Dodger's Stadium and/or Padre's Stadium for 4 days in a row roasting in the heat of mid July or August. The only slight relief was a small clamp-on umbrella which would help with some shade the sun but do nothing for the sweltering heat. One summer in the mid 80's my whole family and many people I know got food poisening from something we all ate at the convention. So I spent a whole day in bed at our motel and several other witnesses went home, and one sister ended up in the hospital. That was when they made sandwiches for sale and stacked them on tables outside the stadium, sometimes directly in the sun, without ice or refridgeration. The sandwiches had been made ahead of time and then transported to the stations in plain cardboard boxes, not coolers.

Once I had children of my own, I would often times be fortunate enough to sit in the shade under one of the decks, but not always. Sometimes the kids were right there in the sun with me. I am ashamed that I allowed that now. I thought we were enduring for Jehovah at the time. Trying to stay awake in that heat sometimes felt like agony and I spent hours trying to avoid going to sleep, rather than listen to that droning loud speaker. I still have a photo I snapped one time at a convention of the entire row I was sitting in where every single person in it had their heads drooping and their eyes closed. It's very funny. And the craziest part was that the reason I had my camera out was because I was trying to sneak a picture of Michael Jackson who was sitting 10 seats to my left and one row behind. LOL Yes, I counted. That day we were reprimanded from the podium to allow celebrities who may be attending to enjoy the convention in peace and to treat them like we would any other attendee and to stay in our seats and not to wonder to other sections causing commotion over them. I'd gotten up to go to the bathroom at one point and then was stopped and questioned by an attendant when I tried to go back down that row to my seat. I can't say that wasn't an interesting convention due to the buzz over MJ.

But as for looking forward to the conventions, for me it was definitely a deviation from the daily routine. I was a stay-at-home mom w/4 kids. So for me it was fun to get away and what I really looked forward to each year was making new dresses and clothes for all the kids. So we all had a new outfit for each and every day, and I spent a lot of time admiring everyone else's clothes too. It was like being at a fashion show! And of course it was really fun to spend time with friends and family and to see people you may not have seen in a while. We looked forward to meeting them for dinner and socializing in the evening.

I have to laugh at myself now when I think of how excited we would be looking forward to the "drama" which was nothing but people dressed as Bible characters waving their arms in exaggerated motions, walking back and forth across the stage and mouthing the pre-recorded stories. And when you're at a stadium they appear to be nothing more than colorful dots on the stage so I'd always wondered why they still had to memorize and mouth the dialogue. There was a time though back in the 70's when I first attended a 5-day convention with my mother, when the program went on until late in the evening and the dramas were quite different. I remember that first one and there was this big red heart that lit up and a brain too. The drama dealt with the treachery of the heart and each organ would light up and the heart would beat loudly. I was only 10 so it did catch my attention. Just something I remember.

Last time I was at a baseball stadium for a ball game I was miserable sitting in the sun ,and for only a few hours. I wondered how I'd ever done it during those conventions for so many years. I still have no clue, and I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

21

The Fake "Joy" Of Jehovah's Witnesses

by minimus in

jw
friends

do you observe this "joy" when you see witnesses going from house to house, in the kingdom halls, out working, or during theocratic wholesome recreational activities?.

.

gypsygirl

St. George.....No exaggeration there! That was one of the things I can now look back on and see! Everyone comparing ailments, everyone complaining about their latest diagnosis. One sister I remember had 6 children and every one of them had strange and bizarre symptoms or illnesses. She missed lots of meetings due to the different illnesses of her children, but when she did make it to one, she talked constantly about which child had the latest or worst symptoms and what new doctors they'd seen recently and what new prescriptions they were using. I remember noticing the happy look on her face as she would describe the latest health woes of herself or her family and realizing she seemed to get some kind of thrill, maybe it was just attention, or something out of it. She definitely seemed to thrive on it. It's so sad because, she must have needed attention and this was definitely one way of getting it