potato

related?? I guess I can see that. it's another story of retaliation, rather than talking things out. after all, the most important thing is to prove what a man you are by putting her in her place without having to spend any time talking things out as friends!

I think it's considered an offshoot because it adheres to the basic doctrines laid out by vpw.

WD wants documentation... that's so funny! I requested documentation of one of my brainwashing sessions and the people involved denied any knowledge of it. there is no documentation! what struck me as most interesting is that telling a woman her head was full of holes and that she's dangerous was unmemorable for them... meaning: 1. they remember and can't admit they do for legal reasons. or 2. they don't remember because such events were commonplace. anyway, matthew 18:15-17 didn't require documents or photographs or police records. WD, we're at the "telling the whole church" step of this process. the one-on-one part, the two or more witnesses... sorry dude, long past. we have a scriptural right to do what we're doing.

if you can only conclude one thing, you haven't put much effort into seeing things from other perspectives. perhaps it was only because I made the scripture my own that I was able to withstand what I did and come out alive. ever think of that? some people also died within the walls of twi. it would be callous indeed to state that they died because they didn't make the "word" their own. my "personal comfort" zone developed out of hopelessness. I was trapped. from then on, all I could do was look for a way to escape. it took years. now, go ahead and "admonish" me for feeling hopeless. I tend to post in the "About the Way" section, and when I share my experiences, they are twi experiences. like I said before, I always put the responsibility for my problems on myself and only recently in the past year started to recognize the role these people played in my life. I don't feel obligated to always qualify my posts with "oh, and this is the role I played in it, this is where I was responsible". I'm still sorting out what I actually am responsible for beyond just being there, since I kind of had to be for all the crap to happen. oh, and not leaving a whole lot earlier... but hindsight is 20/20, yeah? ??? all I can say to this passage is WOW. apparently you didn't read some 2000 of my posts. your use of "total abandonment", "was not priority", "easy recognizable fact" are stunning in that they are not based on anything but your feelings. actually this whole passage is amazing, as it is a complete fabrication of my life based on your limited insight into it. why do you assume I don't know that I did the best I could to remedy the situation? you weren't there, so I wonder what makes you think you know I didn't stand up and speak? you say by my own admission, but why would I say (and indeed, where did I say) something so patently untrue? you're twisting words to give them a completely different meaning instead of reading what is written in order to justify your concept of biblical rightness.

I'm popping some corn now. beer, anyone??

I don't have any problem with anyone embracing what they learned in pfal beyond my own opinion that most of the class was lame, but I really don't like people attempting to discern the cause of my problems when they don't know me or my situation. there were plenty of barely-veiled implications in WD's posts to me. the things that happened to me were not a result of any failure to make the scripture my own. far from it.

I guess I never did say, welcome Nathan. I was in a conversational mood this morning :)

I do pray for my friends, and even though I don't consider myself christian any more, I believe God hears my prayers. as far as living biblically, I do good as much as lieth within me. I would forgive an enemy in a heartbeat were I to see a genuine change. until then, no. you might think it's my job to love everyone, but it's really not. those who continue to do evil, or who act like their past evils never happened, I don't love and I don't forgive. I'll leave that up to God, he knows better than I.

what a great deliverance story!!! you no longer have to discuss with leadership the spiritual ramifications of doing ______ for your wife to make sure you're not opening a door for satan, justify your decision in writing, follow up with your leadership with a written report on the results of your decision, or have to go to meetings if granting your wife's request makes leadership uncomfortable. now you can just say "yes, honey!" what freedom!

hi Nathan. there are people in twi who I love, but many more who left or who were thrown out who I learned from and love. 3 people have apologized to me since I left, 2 are still in. strangely, these people only doubted me or were helpless to help me or played an inadvertent part in instigating one of the brainwashing sessions I was treated to by leadership. the real criminals I've encountered in twi have never owned up to wrongdoing. I do not forgive them. it's just not my job. I do not love them. they are not my brothers. those who I love have acted with love and I forgive them with all my heart. should I find the people who I hurt when I was on the twi bandwagon, I will lay my heart open and beg their forgiveness. there are those who are in or were in twi who I love, but twi itself I hate. it is an evil machine, a whited sepulchre painted with the hearts of well-meaning people who blindly (and sometimes knowingly) hide twi's corrupted, decayed core.

I like your sigline, Hammy. it made some obnoxious things run through my head but I stopped myself from typing them.

very wise words, WG! I like the analogy.

the women's sessions at couples advances consisted of those types of teachings, invariably. they were usually subtle, but always soul-stealing. wow training was another place I heard it, from B. Gr**n himself, a special confrontation just for me, but in front of a small group of outgoing wows. and strangely enough, the wow field was the first place my ex raised his fist to me. when I left my ex, it was because of lying and violence, and M@rk W@11@ce still tried to talk me into staying married because I'd "regret it".

WD, your message, like so many I heard in twi, sounds scriptural, but you're drowning in your own righteousness. I've heard it all before and it's the main reason I'm not christian anymore. the more people profess to know, the less in reality they actually know that's useful. false teachers and false prophets and the devil himself can make scriptural arguments, but when it boils down to it, can you really help someone with that? without trying to understand their background and circumstances? you don't know what happened to me, or really anybody else, in twi, so how can you sit in judgment and pronounce that I'm wrong or that I'm not taking responsibility for being there? my problem was not that I didn't acknowledge my part in it, but that I didn't acknowledge the part others played in it until this past year. have you ever lived with a megalomaniac? or someone with a personality disorder? if so, I'd be really interested in your take on life in my shoes. otherwise, not really.

thanks for this thread, Imagine. I am enjoying it, even if some find it an opportunity to "reprove". I also can live with the tensions, because I just don't think anyone has all the answers. what's more important is that we question and think. both were discouraged in twi, so I'm having a pretty good time being able to do it. I have a whole lot fewer answers than I used to, and I'm ok with that.

I think we're not even close to being on the same page WD, but that doesn't surprise me. you said I may have had deeper issues, and I explained what my deeper issue was. I wasn't referring, at that point, back to the question at the beginning of the thread. this is where I take a different fork in the road, since I believe a lot of the process of making the scripture your own as learned in PFAL actually was PI and some man's opinion. PFAL was PI, vpw's PI based on other scholars' work. anyway, it mattered little as to what I made my own of the scripture and only the scripture; what I learned in real life was that to survive as comfortably as possible, I should not disagree with what the leaders were teaching. if I hadn't been married, it might have been a lot different. I would have got myself kicked out, no doubt, for disagreeing with the teachers :)

uh, yeah. the issue was wanting to be right by twi's standard... pretty sure I said that. twi's standards were almost universally unbiblical, although they got wrapped up in pretty scriptural packages. if I had been able to discern truth from error, I wouldn't have gotten wrapped up with twi in the first place. unfortunately, that's where I learned all my bible study tools, hand fed down the food chain. it took a while to wake up. in the meantime, I lived among people who magnified my mistakes and flogged me with a standard of rightness that wasn't scriptural although they twisted it to appear so. I didn't walk into it with an attitude that verbal and physical abuse was ok. if the first thing I'd heard at twig was if you leave your kids will die, I wouldn't have gone back. that part came after years of conditioning in twi. since leaving, I've learned a little about the techniques used to break people's wills. those were used on my by a RC, FC and my ex-husband to break my will. their reasons naturally were wanting to get the devil influence out of my life, get me healed, help me be "right" by being a good submissive wife. is that the deeper issue you're suggesting I needed to address? I coudn't even address it until I was well out of twi.

it may be that the wolves who led the sheep astray will cry "lord!" and he'll say "I never knew you". fatherless children, indeed. do you get a chance to confess and be forgiven when you come face to face? according to what I remember of lcm's words, you don't. how can we know that those wolves are God's children, unless everyone in whole world is regardless of religion or lack thereof?

this was what virtuous women were required to do because vpw lived that kind of life and God forbid a MOG's wife be anything but what the bible said they should be. vpw had an excuse for everything wrong he did, and by extension every man in twi could blame his wrongdoing on his wife. I'm really glad most didn't take it to the extremes like vpw and some of our husbands did. only 2 leaders out of the many I encountered recognized the fault wasn't mine. the rest lined up to stone me, and my ex had most of the body ready to line up with them. your post is excellent, rascal.

if you substitute "right" with "right according to twi's take on life, the universe, and everything" then it won't baffle you anymore. no one wants to be wrong, but the obsession with having an answer for everything and being right when the rest of the world was only guessing is an obsession I don't want sucking up my energy any more.

I agree... I think there is a lot more valid data out there on domestic abuse and the effects it has on relationships and child-rearing than what hollywood invents. my kids saw their dad "clocking" me for being irritating, because yes, God forbid, I wanted a bit of his time, in the middle of working two jobs and taking care of the kids and house, to talk about getting his help with some things. some people enjoy creating drama and hurting people, and pushing them to the point where they "deserve" clocking is part of their MO. if I'd understood that, the marriage would have ended shortly after it started, but I tried talking, I tried counseling. unfortunately, I became the bitch who needed clocking and now my older child is so messed up... I can't list the things he's been through because of it. but really, johniam, it sounds like you'd consider me justified in punching my spouse in the face for his verbal tirades. after all, he would just go on and on about his day, his needs, his complaints until my patience was shredded, and I couldn't just walk out because I had kids to take care of. a good fist in the face might have shut him up... but then again, he's twice my size so I may not have walked away from the situation. it only works if you can physically bully the person irritating you, which is why women and children are *usually* the victims (but not always). the more people feel it's ok to slap or punch someone who's irritating, the harder it is for the people being hurt to get help.

or it getting rid of itself.

thanks for the link, mr. strange. the "stuff" portion of this thread got me to thinking about how much evil was hushed up. I had no idea until I got here to GS how much twi kept everyone in the dark about things that wouldn't "profit" us... like knowing that a murderer or a rapist might have visited our own homes, or might have dated our daughters or worse. I was witnessed to by wows in a college town, as was a fellow student of mine. he went out wow. I found out several years after the woman who got us into twi left, during a conversation with here wherein I hoped to win her away from the Geer group and back to twi, that my fellow student and "successful" wow was in prison for raping teenage girls. I wondered how many people ever knew about it. at the time I was of the same mindset as most everyone else who was still left (the remnant) that things like that shouldn't be talked about because they weren't "profitable". I've never been able to substantiate her story although it happened before the internet became a news repository.

mr. strange, did you find the thread? I couldn't locate it.

it's a relief to not have to be right all the time. no more fear of an abusive husband or FC or RC when I wasn't perfect. I can just be human and sometimes forgetful without having to prove I don't have holes in my head.