Posts by Bruja-del-Sol

5

Holiday laugh on youtube: I set curtains on fire during Christmas marionette show

by humbled in

jw
friends

i made a short marionette show for my adult family and accidentally set the curtain on fire!.

it was years since we had all our sons together, and with no money for presents--i did what i had done before i jumped on board with jw-screw-the-holidays thinking.

we made stuff up and had a good time.. and we did it again after some really rough years.. i don't know how else to get there but go to youtube.

Bruja-del-Sol

Happy holidays! Thanks for the good laugh, was fun watching

21

So done with expectations and waiting for 'when it happens'...

by Bruja-del-Sol in

jw
friends

ok, i haven't introduced myself properly.

sorry for that, but i just never feel like i've got something really interesting to say.

so i rather respond on topics of other people.

Thanks again for all the kind words and ideas! I'm definitely going to learn Spanish real soon. And I will go out and see if I can find people with the same interests as I have. The idea of teaching English is also very appealing to me, just have to see what the possibilities are.

Tonight my husband and I watched the movie 'To verdener (Worlds apart)' together. We both thought he had a pretty good image of my life when I was a JW, but the movie had great impact on him. It was definitely an eye opener to him.

45

When selling was preaching ...

by Hecce in

i am going way, way back.

history reveals that in the beginning the wt was just a publishing house, selling books and magazines; over the years it evolved into what it is today..

the placement of the original publications was mostly done thru sales people masquerading as preachers.

Bruja-del-Sol

I remember those days Hecce. And all of a sudden we were told that we were no longer 'selling' the magazines and books, no we gave them away. Well, no... we weren't allowed to tell the householder that it was 'free' or 'gratis', no we had to say that we gave them 'free of charge' (I don't know how it was called in English, in Dutch it was called 'kosteloos', which literally translates to 'free of charge'...).

And from that moment on publishers were no longer allowed to keep the money the householders gave them. No, everything was 'for Jehovah', so in the KH you had to pay (if you were honest :D) for the magazines, then give them away in FS and if you got paid by householders you had to give that money too... In my opinion this was double BINGO for the WTS, I didn't understand it and it always felt like a rip off for the publishers. So to be honest, after that change I never paid anything anymore for whatever book, magazine or whatever they came up with.

42

New to JWN and excited!

by sunny23 in

have been visiting jwn for about a week now and it motivated me to join.

i look forward to meeting everyone i can and learning from their experiences and wisdom as i search for more and more reasons not to get reinstated.

here's most of my story:.

Bruja-del-Sol

Welcome Sunny23, this forum is a great place with people who know what you've been through and who will help you with whatever you will go through from here. It's a comforting place!

I'm curious to read your thoughts about Christmas, so bring it on

Happy New Year!

3

Out of the mouths of babes

by dissonance_resolved in

since i started my fade, i've been really worried about my kids being taken to meetings by my husband and continuing to be indoctrinated.

i guess i needn't have worried, though, the wt is digging their own grave for me.

below is verbatim my young daughter's notes from a recent meeting (though names have been changed):.

Bruja-del-Sol

This is so funny, it reminds me of a DC when I was a bit younger. It must have been 1998 or 1999. We, my then husband, our children and me, were sitting on the same row with my parents and siblings, and my (much) younger sisters were writing little notes to each other. I was supposed to behave like an adult, of course, giving a good example to both my children and little sisters, but I also was their sister and wanted to join in their fun. So I did and wrote some funny things to them.

At one point my youngest sister wrote down her name and address for my daughter (they're the same age), as if my daughter didn't know that, and the eldest of my sisters thought that was ridiculous. Especially when she saw that our youngest sister misspelled her own name. So she rearranged the letters of her name in such a way that they formed a 'dirty word' and above it she wrote "stupid cow, you can't even write your own name!"... It was really funny at the time, I burst out in laughter (of course our youngest sister didn't like it one bit, but she was a pain in the ass anyway, so we loved to tease her. And afterwards we hugged her to make it up to her again) and I've kept that note as a 'souvenir for old times' sake'. I still have it and I came across it when we were unpacking our things in Spain and it really made me laugh again. The faces of those, then, little girls and the fun we had during those borings talks

24

New Here, Introduction

by budbayview in

jw
friends

i have been eyeing this site for some time (years) and finally joined.

i was born in the organization, and grew up not too far were c.t.

russell started it all.

Bruja-del-Sol

Welcome, nice to meet you!

21

So done with expectations and waiting for 'when it happens'...

by Bruja-del-Sol in

jw
friends

ok, i haven't introduced myself properly.

sorry for that, but i just never feel like i've got something really interesting to say.

so i rather respond on topics of other people.

Bruja-del-Sol

Thank you all so much for your input, this really helps.

@Caliber: thank you for your kind words. 'Yearning' that's the exact word for what I feel every now and then when it comes to my lost family and friends and the loss of what used to be so familiar.

@Quellycatface: I like your new years resolutions. I think I'll adopt them, it's what I should do too, get out of the house more, meet new people, make friends and definitely need to lose weight! Thanks for the kind thoughts

@Garyneal: I've had that behaviour as well once: shop til you drop and then end up with debts... Not a very sensible thing to do, but it's like you said, there's often a lack of something emotionally to get that sort of behaviour. My thought used to be 'money has to roll, just spend it, don't safe it'. But that has changed. I'm a lot more careful with money these days. So there's still hope for your wife And I'm certainly going to live more in the now as in 'no more waiting for the perfect day'.

@Clarity: you're adorable, I'm really fond of you! Your copy/pasting my very own words made me feel like I'm 'seen' here. So often that I feel like I'm a nobody, that people just don't 'see' me. Don't know if you've ever seen the movie 'What women want', but in that movie is a girl who works in the archives and all she does is bring files around at the office. And nobody notices her. I often feel like that, like it doesn't matter to other people who I am and that I'm actually there. The Christmas cards-thing gave me that feeling as well. I've left and moved to Spain and even though I reach out to my former friends, they seem to have already forgotten about me, like I've never been a part of their life. Same with the JW's. Being DF'd and it's like you no longer exist. But you (and the others who responded) have shown me that I'm seen here, I am part of the whole on JWN. And that feels GOOD! So thank you very much!

@Abiblestudent: You're being very helpful as well! You've just given me a couple of ideas that I wouldn't have come up with myself. Thanks for reaching out and sharing your thoughts. And thank you also for the compliment about my English. I just love that language. So your idea of helping Spanish students with their English is a good great one, it would work both ways: me learning more Spanish, while I help them to get better at English. (I'll ask my hubby to watch the video with me. Thanks for the link).

for all of you!

21

So done with expectations and waiting for 'when it happens'...

by Bruja-del-Sol in

jw
friends

ok, i haven't introduced myself properly.

sorry for that, but i just never feel like i've got something really interesting to say.

so i rather respond on topics of other people.

Bruja-del-Sol

Thank you designs, for the effort of writing something

21

So done with expectations and waiting for 'when it happens'...

by Bruja-del-Sol in

jw
friends

ok, i haven't introduced myself properly.

sorry for that, but i just never feel like i've got something really interesting to say.

so i rather respond on topics of other people.

Bruja-del-Sol

Ok, I haven't introduced myself properly. Sorry for that, but I just never feel like I've got something REALLY interesting to say. So I rather respond on topics of other people. Feels safer and more comfortable. But today I feel down and depressed and don't know any other thing than to write it down here for people to read who know what I feel.

What's the problem? Well, I'll tell you.

I've got a wonderful husband. Nothing to be depressed or down about. He's my everything. And that's actually where the problem does start...
We live in Southern Spain since january this year and we don't speak Spanish yet, at least not good enough to have a real conversation (other than paying in a shop or ordering coffee in a restaurant). We have no friends here. We used to have a couple of English people we associated with this summer, it felt like they were our friends, or at least becoming such, but with the blink of an eye it was all over and they disappeared as fast as they appeared. (Of course there's a whole story to it, but that's not related to this topic). So when they were gone we also lost contact with their friends and people around them. We were back to basics, just me and my husband again. The only social contacts we have are online through skype with my kids, my SIL and a handful of friends in Holland and some email contacts.

I've written and sent nearly thirty Christmas cards by regular mail and a same amount through email, so over 60 people received our wishes for Christmas and New Year. Less than 10 people responded (I'm not expecting people to send cards in return, but a simple email with a note like 'hey, thanks for your card'... is that too much to expect?).

So actually today I feel lonely. The friends I had in Holland are minimized and they rarely stay in touch. So basically it's just me and my husband. Day in day out.

And don't get me wrong, I adore him, he's the love of my life. I've lost him when I was sixteen, because he wasn't a JW and my father just blew him away and forbid him to contact me ever again. That was THE trigger for me to get baptized, because then the loss of my love would at least had a purpose and wouldn't be for nothing. So I got baptized age 17 with a whole group of folks around the same age (actually, it wasn't just because of losing my love, it was also that I never felt I fitted in with the other JW-children, so this was something that made me feel like I was one of them, I belonged with them... at least that was the thought). Shortly after that I got married to a JW elders son, we got children together, we were together for nearly fifteen years, then I fell in love with a guy I met through the internet and left my then husband, got DF'd for adultery, a year later I left that guy who was really bad for me and I went looking for my first love and found him. All I wanted was closure, because my father had removed him so brutally out of my life, but we ended up together. Our love was so strong, even after nearly eighteen years, and we both felt we were meant for each other.

Anyway, we got married and my husband is my true love, my soulmate... but I also want other people to talk to. So I can get my feelings, doubts, worries, thoughts off my chest. Because my husband has never been a JW and he doesn't understand why I'm on JWN. So I can tell him everything I want, but the things related to JW's... he just doesn't understand. He can't imagine why I would continue digging up this whole ordeal with my family, losing my friends, being DF'd etc. He says it just makes me feel miserable and doesn't do any good. His solution would be "drop the topic, forget about it and move on".

So I've tried that. I was very active on a Dutch ex-JW website and a couple of years ago I quit. I thought "time to move on". I really thought I could forget about it, feel numb about the loss of my family and never look back. But it just doesn't work that way for me. So I started to read here earlier this year and after reading a couple of months I became a member and started to post. And it feels good, since here are so many people who can relate to and understand how I feel.

It's like being amputated. You can live without that arm or leg, hand or toe. But there always will be times when you think "what if it didn't happen?" or just remember how it was when you weren't amputated. I feel amputated. Even though I don't have any positive feelings for my family, at least not for the people they are NOW, hateful and hypocritical, but they are my family and every now and then I do miss having family. I've got nieces and nephews who don't even know me, probably don't even know I exist. And the ones that do know I exist have been told that I'm crazy (I know, since one of my nieces said that on the last occasion I've seen them, at my non-JW grandmother's funeral). That hurts. I can't help it, it just hurts. I've always wanted to be their 'favorite auntie'. When I was still 'in' I always was the first to visit my siblings when a new baby was born. I'm such a 'family person', I love giving presents, letting the people around me know that I love them, giving and receiving hugs, laugh with each other, talk about vacations in the past, watching old photographs together...

And so this morning I was thinking. And it suddenly was crystal clear to me that my biggest issue is my expectations. I expect things to happen, I expect people to do things... Like with the Christmas cards, I expected more response and hoped to hear from all those people I think of as friends... And when that doesn't happen I'm disappointed. I was expecting to be a wonderful aunt and everything fell apart when I got DF'd. I came to Spain and expected to speak Spanish within weeks and build friendships with people here... but it hasn't come to that (yet). So I'm disappointed.

And then there's another issue... My husband has a dream, he wants to be rich, financially free. And of course I want him to achieve that, for him and for me. So I've supported him for the last ten years. And very often he told me it's just a matter of 'a couple of months'... and I expected it to happen. I could nearly FEEL it happening... how could it turn out differently? It HAD to happen. For over ten years I've been living with this expectation of financial freedom 'around the corner'. Just a couple more months, it won't take long... and when the money starts to flow we can travel, pay off our debts, buy a beautiful house etc. We will be able to live the life of our dreams. "When it happens..."

This morning it just hit me... I'm doing the EXACT SAME THING as I did as a witness!!!! I'm waiting for things 'around the corner' that might never come. I'm expecting this paradise-like life... always feeling a bit that the life I'm living right now is not yet what it will be... I'm living on expectations and hope, waiting... always waiting... "When we have a lot more money... then..."...

I told my husband how I felt and he doesn't get it. He feels like I'm blaming him for not being rich yet. But I'm not blaming him. I told him I want to live more in the HERE and NOW, but he translates that to a life without dreams. He feels bad about how I feel. But I don't blame him, I blame myself for walking into the same trap again! I was a born-in JW, lived that life for 32 years and got kicked out. I still believed they had the 'truth' when I got DF'd. Only a year or so later I started to read about the WTS and learned that they're a bunch of liars. I suddenly realized "I'm going to die!" So I've started to live my life in a new way. I became a pagan, later I learned about witchcraft and became a witch. But slowly somewhere along the way I've put in the expectations and hope just like I had as a JW... it's like a computer program that runs in the background...

And I don't want it to be this way. I don't want to expect things and get disappointed when they turn out to be wrong or not realistic.

Now that I've come to this realization the question is: how do I change it? How do I end this unwanted 'program', or should I say 'virus', to run my life?

If we will ever be rich, wealthy, financially free, that would be great. But it shouldn't be a 'show stopper' if it doesn't happen. My life is not about that, I don't want it to be. I want to enjoy the things we have, even though they're small and old. I want to be happy with the tiny rented house we live in, without every time looking at the packed full kitchen thinking "soon, in our new big house I'll have a huge kitchen with lots of space"... That kitchen might never come! I want to be happy that we have a house to live in, we have a kitchen, we're able to live in Spain and enjoy the sunshine 320 days a year, we have enough money to pay the rent and buy food. And yes, I would love to have more money to be freed from the worries if we'll be able to pay the rent, be able to visit my children more often (haven't seen my eldest in eight months now ), but I no longer wish to live with that feeling of 'soon, anytime now'... and 'when it happens...'.

Thank you for reading (if you made it til here). I'm starting to feel a bit better now, good to have it off my chest.

Bruja-del-Sol.

106

No more doubts for me! Good-bye JWN! We have THE TRUTH!

by DATA-DOG in

i could go on and on about my personal journey over the last 2 years or so, but i don't need to.

everything i needed to hear to finally lay my doubts to rest happened on one meeting night.

it could only be divine providence.

Bruja-del-Sol

Well Apognophos, we thought slimboyfat was joking, but up until today he's gone back, at least never showed up again on JWN. There's no way of telling if someone is really using sarcasm or has just been mentally 'hit' by something that makes them go back!

I think it's just very nice to see that people care about each other when someone says something unexpected, sarcastic or not.

Oh and DD, glad you haven't lost your mind.