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Imagine, if you can, the ability to crush a person. Take her will to live. Remove all joy from her life until she's a hollow shell of a human being whose only thought is "Dear, God. Why haven't you killed me yet?" That might be the best way to describe losing my husband and trying to understand where a f'ing religious organization might have played a part, where the man was his own enemy, where I "missed it", where the he!! we go from there and seriously looking at my kids and knowing that I have to get up, I have to breath, especially breath out. The human spirit is a fragile thing. A friend of mine on the phone last evening said "I wish my man would die like yours; it has to be easier than this bullshi+ I'm living with now. My answer was for her to look in the faces of her children as they lay sleeping and ask herself some serious questions. I am a strong woman, I am a fierce scrapper and I'm still very pizsed off but my babies needed their mama, my babies needed some solid something, my babies needed to know that even though daddy was dead, mama was not going to die too. It's a daily thing when you're that low and breathing isn't always the better choice. I didn't want to consider that my breathing was only contigent on my man being alive, but when one speaks vows to another, at least for me, I was serious; I meant every word and I fully joined my heart with his so what was I to do with this half of a heart now. It sure didn't beat in any pattern that was compatible with life. I keep trying to find an end to this story and there just doesn't seem to be one. This morning as I watched my 14 year old walk from my car to her school, I remembered her at 23 months old when daddy died. She had no idea what was going on, she played, she sang to herself, she stuffed strawberries up her nose while I was on the phone with a Coroner deciding the disposal of her fathers remains. Now she's this amazing, beautiful, hysterical teenager and I decided that's what this life is about, we're ok, we're strong and most days are really really good. Before becoming a widow at 36 years old, I only knew aged widows, you know, grandma. There aren't a lot of resources for young widows and people didn't really know what to do with me, how to speak to me, what direction to place their eyeballs when I was in front of them, what to say. Sadness, pity, sorrow, fear, confusion, awkward, unsteady, scared, speechless. Those are descriptions of how others behaved with "her and those two daughters". I felt if I stopped putting them in such uncomfortable situations that I could help them. So I stayed home. There's not much call for a single woman at weddings and somehow worse if she's a young widow. The tables at functions are mostly set for an even number of diners; couples. I was even uncomfortable at funerals ! 'cuz my presence somehow drew from that widow or widower into "oh, you must be in such pain being here". I often felt like I'd worn white to a wedding and distracted from the bride. Life is so odd.

About a decade or so after she left TWI, my wife was diagnosed with the debilitating form of bipolar mood disorder and a whole potpourri of other mental illnesses. Not because of her involvement with TWI. We were acquainted with each other in TWI, but we didn't get married until several years after we had each left separately. After my wife was diagnosed, I became aware of the fact that I also have the milder form of bipolar mood disorder. We have both been involved with the National Alliance on Mental Illness for a number of years. We have come to recognize that mental illnesses are brain disorders that may have environmental triggers. If you are deliberately seeking safe places to deal with your problems, then I admire you for your wisdom and your courage. We try to see the individual first, not the illness. My bipolar mood disorder is no more a moral failing on my part than my diabetes, high blood pressure or the weakness of my abdominal muscles that led to a massive hernia. You are a precious person, brainfixed, and no more "fouled" than the rest of us. It's just that some people's problems are easier to see than other people's. There are some people who look like they have it all together that I wouuldn't trade places with for a million dollars. The only people who don't have really serious problems are the people we don't know very well. I say God bless you, brainfixed, and the best of luck to you! Love, Steve

I don't know, brainfixed. To me, any time you find genuine friendship, love, it's a gift. Quite the opposite of the fake friendship and love we found in cults.

thanks for taking the time to tell me some of your thoughts and experiences because it helps me to see things a different way from how i see them, and i've been thinking about this a lot today and how i like it here because i don't know anybody and don't have to know anybody but i get to talk about it all with people that knew about it all, which means that i don't have to have a relationship with anybody to get to talk about it all, which means that it is "safe" for me, and me being safe is something i haven't done very well so i get very different when it comes to "real life" people, which means that when i try to think about "real life" relationships and people from the way international i just break down into tears and usually have a full blown panic attack. does that make sense? and yes i am getting professional help. but i think i am probably a bit more "fouled" in some way because it was mostly all i knew and i was raised with it all and it defined who i was to the point that i am having to make myself all over again from the very beginning, and i even have to re-parent myself in many areas and some really intense stuff that sometimes i have to do in the hospital for a couple of days so that i won't hurt myself when i do them because it can be very scary stuff and brings up stuff i don't like to think about at all and i have been known to bang my head against the wall until i knock myself out and stuff like that, so i have to be watched when i do some of the work. so now that you all know i'm a real nut job you also know that this is scary for me and i am asking these things because i really am trying to understand how people "move on".

If it is God who "blesses" us with all this money . . . than why does He need it back to "move the word"? Can't He just budget better?