potato

amen rascal. I take responsibility. I finally woke up and walked away. I was terrified of what the devil would be able to do to me, but I was already living a life that had no joy, so I made the decision to leave. I am responsible for that active process of challenging 2 decades of brainwashing and leaving EVEN THOUGH I WAS AFRAID FOR MY FAMILY'S LIFE. I have gotten over a lot of it, but I'm still angry to a certain degree at the injustice and cruelty of the Way government. they lied. it was not all about teaching people the word and helping them. ultimately it was about stroking the egos and filling the bellies of an elite echelon of narcissists. the bible was just the vehicle by which the true objective was obtained.

rascal, someday I want to compare notes with you. the things you say make me wonder if we were in the same fellowships, even though I know this horrible stuff happened all over!

you know, my car is an f-ing mess. I have 2 high energy kids and lots of dang to deal with, and my car is full of trash and it smells bad. I clean it out every couple of months. WHAT FREEDOM! THANK GOD! F U ALL YOU ANAL RETENTIVE PERSONALITY DISORDERED FREAKS WHO WASTED MY TIME OVER TRIVIALITIES LIKE DIRT IN MY CAR! WHO CARES ANYWAY! it's my car. don't ride in it if you don't like it.

thanks for this thread. I left twi just over a year ago, and anger still comes and goes, but it's much less and I had to embrace it before I could heal. I was such an unhealthy person, and so were my kids. we were not allowed to feel anything uncomfortable for my ex-husband. our job was to make him look good, and only a happy perfect family would do that. if we weren't happy perfect, we'd get "counseled", which meant I'd get lectured on how to be a better wife because I was clearly not appreciating the wonderful man I was married to. yuck.

the worst face melting I was ever subjected to was more of of a soul destroying brain washing session where my memories were replaced over the course of a few hours with a different version of events, until I was so confused and distraught I could no longer claim to know what had actually taken place that upset people so much that I was called into a special meeting with my then husband, tc's, and the RC's assistant n@n-c E via phone hookup who pronounced me a dangerous person with a brain full of holes. that meeting ultimately destroyed my sense of self so completely it took intensive therapy to recover and get the F out of dodge.

there was a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle pressure to be a godly woman, and godly women did not make their husbands look foolish in public or in private, so our job was to ego-stroke, always, whether he deserved it or not. I can't count the number of times I was talked to about my house, how it needed to be ready to entertain at any moment, how it was my responsibility on top of my children and my full-time job to make sure my husband had ample time to prepare for the responsibilities of the day because he was my overseer. always hearing about how I should appreciate him (which of course meant he was complaining about me to leadership). so much bondage resulted. "meetings" that destroyed my soul. I don't want a "head" anymore. I don't need one. I want a partner, an equal.

I don't think everyone has the ability to change. there are people who feel no remorse, who are so sure in their own sense of entitlement, that they cannot change. I think martindale is one of those, and it's very likely RR is as well, and Donna, too. my personal opinion is that Donna and Rosie knew what martindale was up to the whole time, and there was a tacit agreement to live and let live among the upper echelon as long as it kept TPTB where they were. martindale upset the status quo by getting taken to court. I firmly believe that if they could have swept it under the carpet and kept him, they would have, but I also don't doubt for a minute that RR was happy to take power when the opportunity presented itself. I waited three years for the apology before beginning to realize that they don't care. they have an excuse for everything, and in their eyes are justified in lying to the flock to maintain their position. it still took a while after my realization to find greasespot cafe. finding this place is the only thing that has made sense of everything I lived, but all the faithful would steer me away if they could because ex-way people are liars and worse than seed (so I was taught, or rather flogged into believing).

:blink: kit, I understand that with God, all things are possible... but with dyed-in-the-wool Narcissists, some things are not.

it's a good day to be out of the Way!!!! I am doing better. I'm still crazy though

my ex was not in TWI when I married him, but we both ended up fully inside the fold. it was the edict that any two AC grads could make a marriage work that kept me in the marriage so long, when I should have left six months into it. I was constantly bombarded with the message to submit to my "wonderful, hard-working husband who obviously cares for me so much", the problems in the marriage were all my fault for not submitting and giving him sex, blah blah blah. what a bunch of insanity! there is no chance for a successful marriage when when person in it is a pathological liar. who cares how many classes he's taken? and if sex had involved more than having some sweaty pig smashing me so I couldn't breathe, maybe I'da been into it. at this point, I'd much rather be single than hand my soul over to someone for convenience or because some stupid "ministry" says I should. I'm happy for you still-marrieds, though. you've succeeded in spite of TWI. as for me and my house, we're MUCH happier since we worked through the aftermath of the divorce. kids CAN be much better off with one parent than two.

I never reuse tinfoil (neurosis stemming from my childhood). I don't eat snickers except in extenuating circumstances. I don't drink orange juice. my fiance will never, ever let me do his laundry, I'm pretty sure. I have no idea what a vcr can do, but I'll format your hard drive and install your OS or build you a website. I don't like lying and avoid it like the plague, and I'm mean to people who I catch lying. I have never switched tags in a store. I shoplifted once when I was about 8 and I felt horrible afterward. I ALWAYS wash my hands after I use the bathroom, and I've told grown ups to go back in the bathroom and wash their hands when I know they didn't. I'm not normal. I'm neurotic as heck.

:biglaugh: thanks T-bone, from henceforth twi's upper eschelon shall be known as The Priesthood of The Box, or POB for short (at least for me).

looking back, there really wasn't anything I liked. I thought I was doing God's will by being there, but I didn't hear, see, or experience anything that would make me want to go back... except that I was miraculously healed there once, but I think that had more to do with the simple fact that being there caused me so much physical pain that I went to God for an answer. it had nothing to do with the roa itself. I started going in 1990. as long as I went, my experience pretty much sucked. human contact was filtered and controlled by my ex, so I didn't make any real friends there, and I had no friends to reunite with by the time the roa tradition ended. its demise was a relief to me.

I love the foot @$$ exchange, that one made me laugh too. thanks for your kindness. it was a nightmare that was confusing to wake up from. that's why I'm a bit of a bulldog about some things.

well, that gets me too. he stopped, within seconds. now, Dot, sounds like we had some very similar situations with spouses. if I had it to do over again, I would press charges and send him to jail. when a muscular, 250 lb man is laughing at my pain and suffocating me with his weight, he doesn't need to punch me or hit me to do whatever he wants. the only reason my screams and punching did anything is that it irritated him and he lost his "mood". and I agree with you on the romance novels. I grew up reading them. they set very wrong expectations for young women regarding sex and love.

now that you've given your remark some context, yes, I agree with you, I was condescending. most of the thread for me has been a completely different context, that of whether or not a man can "take" his wife against her will and under what circumstances people feel it's acceptable to do so, and whether or not a girl is at fault for giving a rapist opportunity. people are in arms about women who wrongly accuse men of rape and I agree. things will swing too far, I'm afraid, in trying to find a balance between protecting a woman's right to control access to her body and recognizing that the same type of people will use these protections as used the lack of them for their own ends. I don't remember stereotyping anyone... unless calling a man a rapist who says "enough is enough" and finally has to "take" his wife because she withholds sex from him. if that's what you're referring to, then I'm classifying, not stereotyping.

thanks, I love free toilet paper.

why would I want paw to ban you? I wasn't even aware you had an opinion, as your statement about celibacy seemed to imply you'd rather give up sex than be forced to exercise restraint if your partner asked you to stop. I have nothing to get over, you're entitled to your opinion and so am I.

when we ate well, I spent $600-800/mo for 3 of us, mostly organic, no fast food, even our pizza was home-made. we ate VERY well. I spend less now and we eat so poorly. I'm maxed out both in finances and time, court 3 times last year and a medication reaction that left me exhausted beyond belief for months... eating well is something so important to me and something I want so badly to get back to, but the closest I can come these days is homemade soup or burritos. another court battle coming up, kid with issues at school, and putting in more than 40/week at my job. I skip lunch a lot and just grab whatever is cheap to eat when the hunger pangs get too distracting. things will get better eventually. we could eat a lot better on what I spend, if I just had the time to prepare food... a decently working stove would help too, of course.

thank you excie. I respect you infinitely, and these discussions are all about thinking, imo. I have to consider and adjust my opinions all the time. I wasn't going to either, but now I will: mark, any man who doesn't think he can consider a woman's need for him to stop during the act should do the responsible thing and take an oath of celibacy.

yikes, what weirdos. some people shouldn't breed. my ex expected us to be all goodness and light to make him look good for the other TWIts. everything had to be "positive"... except, of cours, when he and the various leaders who felt like it was their job to "help" us explained all our "opportunities" and why our lives were so awful (it was my fault of course, for not appreciating my husband enough).

I disagree with you. if the act has commence with me as a willing partner, and for whatever reason I want the other to stop... panic attack, pain, whatever... my body is mine and they'd better get out and get off. if they don't, they are raping me. sorry, but I've been in a situation of pain and had to fight someone off with my fists and screaming my head off to get them to stop, and I was willing to begin with. I can understand it taking a few seconds or more for a man to realize something is going on, but if a man continues to pleasure himself with an unwilling partner, what do you call it if not rape? my opinion is if they stop out of consideration, it's not rape. if the act was consented to and even if injuries happen, if both parties cease on the request of either, maybe reckless endangerment, but not rape... but if they choose to disregard either a request or an imperative to cease and desist, it's rape.

for people still inside, the LCM years have to be nothing. if they acknowledge that he wouldn't have been ousted and it would have been business as usual under his reign of terror for the rest of his life if a few people hadn't been brave enough to bring lawsuits against him, they'd have to acknowledge that twi cares nothing for its people. problem is, they still think it's zion because they have to, that they're God's chosen remnant. the cleaning up IS over, and it only consisted of subtle rewriting of history so the fact that LCM existed can be ignored, but inside he is not held responsible for being an adulterer. if his existance is ever acknowledged, the opinion is that some jealous ex-leadership ruined his ministry with lies. the classes have been changed, but LCM's teachings have NOT been recanted and they are very much at the core of how people conduct the "ministry".

I feel like an oddball. at a birthday party recently, I had to go find a place to cry by myself for a few minutes because the social interaction was so painful that I felt like I won't ever be able to make friends with people. the interactions at twi meetings was so shallow and the approved topics were so few, I think I lost the desire to converse with people long ago and just put out the efforted expected. just try talking about something interesting, and you'd get shut down. thanks twi.

taking a charter flight is cheating. when I join the club, my membership will be legit.