potato

so it's YOUR fault we got that awful class!! just kidding WD, I'm glad someone called them on the carpet over that crap. they got away with way too much.

I was pretty new at the time, but didn't abs once upon a time go from twig to branch to limb to root? I don't know if I'm recalling this correctly, but I thought I heard a lcm tirade about having to change it because branch and limb leaders were using too much of the ministry money... this would have been around 1989-90, maybe at WIB (Fresno???), and he made some snide comments about twig welfare systems.

I'm sure I'll see a few of my posts edited, as they should be... but I have a hard time seeing other people attacked on not jumping in... guess it's the opposite of what I was expected to do in twi... but I my main point of wonderment is: some people refuse to believe people were victimized, and want to talk about the grand times they had, so why don't they just start their own threads? posting in a thread with the intention of correcting people's testimonies tends to put them on guard. in twi if leadership told you "this is why you did it" or "yeah I reamed the guy but he was possessed" you didn't question if you wanted to stay, and of course we wanted to stay because leaving meant horrible consequences... so we're out now and find a place where we can talk about what happened to us, but some people don't want to listen. that's ok, but they don't need to be defenders of twi's integrity, either. maybe they can just show some respect and let us talk. that would be nice. I'm trying to respect the experiences of people who had a good time in twi, after all, everyone's experiences were different. some were much worse than mine, and I almost lost my son. some had great lives, I guess. they were the lucky ones... but I still wonder why they're here if it was all puppies and rainbows.

jeffsjo, I'm sorry for the loss of your family. I understand the loneliness and the feelings of loss. I was lonely every day when I was in twi, and it I still regret that I cannot feel close to people, and I regret the damage done to my kids, but it doesn't hurt like it used to. I feel like there is a lot to grieve when you come out of a situation like you or I have, and anger is a necessary part of it but so difficult to deal with! we can make the people around us so uncomfortable because there is no way they can understand and it's far too easy to cross lines and lash out. about 4 years ago, I stopped denying my emotions and decided to embrace my anger and make it a friend. people ran for the hills! but it's much tamer today and I'm a stronger person, and sometimes anger helps me get things done that I need to :) hang in there and keep working on it, it gets easier and won't always feel so fresh, like you're still in the middle of it.

manslaughter can be alleged... so vpw made a manslaughter allegation against the mother because her son got hit by a car and it was her fault.

dooj: oh hell no. lcm said that's not what abs was for. he said all kinds of mean things about cop-out ministries who used their money to help their members in need because they WEREN'T USING IT TO MOVE THE WORD.

I experienced something along the same lines. I think the woman who did it to me loved to hurt people. she seemed to get a kick out of the power. I'm glad you're here, happyheart.

hi happyheart, welcome! thanks for the compliments I can't speak for what WD, pond and bumpy are up to... I respond to WD for probably the same reasons others here do when it'd be easier to ignore him, and that is because I hate bullies. I had enough when I was in twi and I just want people to let other people take their own healing road and lend a helping hand on the way... now bumpy is one I don't understand for the most part although once in a while he'll say something intelligent so I've decided to take him with a grain of salt as long as he contains his mean streak. you'll find there's some disagreement here (which to me is great, since we couldn't do that in twi!) and lots of stories and opinions to read.

thanks for the lecture, WD. now we all know how much better you are than the rest of us.

just because the reply feature quotes your words out from between the two posts you were replying to doesn't mean I am stupid enough to read them that way. I took them as you intended, as separate replies to two separate posts. Hammy, you depress me. I really hope the work in AI comes up with something better than WD. oh, I'd better supply context so that I don't get accused of making a personal attack... preface my last statement with "if WD is a program to answer certain questions within a limited context,"...

so did lcm, in wow training... guess he didn't want anyone else to get any action.

hi Roy! you are a wonderful person for sharing your soul like this. personally, I don't know yet what I'm willing to do. changing cult thinking has been a slow, hard process for me that started a few years before I left twi and has continued apace since I left a little over a year ago. today what I'm willing to do is learn to speak up about what I know in my heart is right so I can take care of my children. that in itself has been a huge hurdle since twi and my ex-husband ran the show and my children took a lot of damage. it takes up most of my time and my ex-husband is still trying to damage us, so it's a constant fight to keep him from crossing the line. I don't go to church and I don't want to right now. I believe God wants me to take care of my kids first and sort the rest out later.

yes, they said it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the word says. the purpose of that was so they could tell us what the word said so they could control what we thought. when you're told you're stupid often enough with no other input, you start to believe it. boy did my life change when I stopped letting them isolate me. everyone had to care what lcm thought. if you ever had a personal encounter with him, you would have no doubt that's what was expected. vpw sounds like he was exactly the same.

Danny, I'm so sorry. I would love to see a class action suit against twi to compensate the victims of the many, many violations they committed against their employees.

WD, you should adhere to your own standards. you do not use clear language and appropriate word selection, and the above argument incorporates a glaring logical flaw... can you find it? or maybe it's just the lack of punctuation that makes it so hard to find a real point to what you're saying. if I didn't consider your willingness to twist the facts to suit yourself so damaging to people coming to GS for the first time, I'd put you on ignore. why don't you go start your own sanitized version of a discussion forum instead of trying to make people adhere to your idea of what a discussion forum should be?

HEY EVERYONE!!! WD says we have to use proper english! should we hold him to the same standard, I wonder? WD, believe me if I had a microscope on what people say, I'd have no life other than monitoring this site. what a waste of time.

I wasn't arguing the meaning of words, I'm just saying your arguments are irrelevant. my words do have integrity. I thought it was clear that what I meant was proof of they type you require, submitted in a court of law, since that's where allegations typically require proof of the kind you drone on about and you've been hell-bent on holding us to legal standards. then yes, I could hand you "proof". it would not, however, make my words or my experiences any more factual or true. as was pointed out to you earlier, statute of limitations have run out for most of us. doesn't mean we can't talk about the crimes committed, nor are we required to use the word alleged when making our allegations. clearly I'll have to make sure I supply you with abundant context from now on so you can't pull my words out of the supplied context and accuse me of speaking without integrity.

the more abundant life has also started for me, since the waybrained cobwebs are clearing out. I've done a lot of work to overcome the learned helplessness they pushed on us, so now I can make my own decisions. I don't need or want twit leadership to hand down bogus revelation about what I should do with my life ever again. thanks for this thread, templelady. WD, yeah, we all learned some things in twi, even if all we learned was that cults are a waste of time. I leaned how to clean houses. I feel like the price I paid to learn that was far too high. I could have learned it somewhere else without paying the high price.

so what? I'm not pleading a case in court, I'm not a newspaper reporter, and I'm not a law enforcement officer. I'm under no obligation to use the word alleged. everything on this site is the opinion of the poster. I'm giving testimony from my experience, which is established for me and the people who know me as fact. you're under no obligation to believe it, neither is anyone else. I don't post the things I do to convince anyone else I experience what I did. either people relate, or they don't. people who posted the same things I experienced helped me realize how screwed up my life in twi really was. I didn't need them to pull documentation out of their @$$ before their experiences helped me.

WD, you don't just ask people to speak factually. you have no basis to assume they aren't, yet you accuse them of making stuff up all the time. I don't have the time or money to take twi and their minions to court to prove any case I have against their actions. doesn't make my experience non-factual. the facts could be proven, but it would take free access to twi's records and unhindered memory of other parties present. I already know that the innies involved have conveniently forgotten what occurred. I will continue to relate the facts of my case as I see fit. it is my right.

I'm with you, Mr. Hammy.

geez, just go write your own poll if you don't like this one.

OMG you're hilarious WD. 1) shield law, baby. media does not have to disclose their sources. 2) media makes up all kind s of stuff they have to recant later after investigation. 3) if what is written here is slanderous/libelous, then vpw's heirs have the right to bring civil suit for damages. however, with the great cloud of witnesses I pointed out before, it's unlikely a court of law would find in their favor, as the combined eyewitness accounts of so many victims carries a great deal of weight in such cases. 4)vpw is dead. he can't be prosecuted for his criminal acts. doesn't mean his victims can't talk about it. like I said, his heirs can prosecute if they think they can prove his victims are lying to discredit his name and reputation or to gain some benefit by it. there, both sides get their rights protected. now stop telling people to shut up.

I know first hand that twi felt threatened by this website. top leadership directed us innies to never visit lest we become possessed by the same spirits the GS'ers are possessed with... it actually started out around the time of the waydale site I believe... and they may not care so much anymore since they don't seem to need ABS anymore to maintain their lifestyle, but right before I left some hard-core long-time innies were bashing this site and everyone on it at a branch meeting.

some people find it easy to blame the victim for not repelling advances, for not being stronger. they say, don't blame the MOG for your upbringing making you vulnerable. if you weren't already screwed up, you wouldn't have been taken advantage of. your emotional problems and mental instability are really the problem. I counter this with, the MOG abusers looked for people who were already in pain, who needed healing, who were vulnerable because they were easier to push over the edge than someone with no self-esteem issues and no confusion about love. it wasn't my problems that made me pick my abuser, it was my problems that made my abuser pick me and become what I needed the most, so he could get close enough to use me emotionally. people like vpw are bottom-feeders. they look for people who need a hand up out of the pits of despair because they are easier to drag all the way under. let's not blame the victims for the predation they were subjected to. the water was nice and cool when you jumped in the pot, little froggie. as it was for me.