outandabout

Linda Z, How ironic that the lady who was the most legalistic of them all, as well as being so awful to work for, ended up running the whole dang thing. TWI must be a real barrel of laughs these days.

Thank you all of the above for your kind responses to my story. And Watered Garden, I'm so sorry. I can't believe they would tell you to ABANDON your own child. But then again, I do believe it. When we share the truth of our own experiences we see it more and more clearly the utter hard heartedness that existed in that organization.

I just want to say to Oldiesman and all that I was as the crazy chick they put on a bus from Amarillo, TX in 1974. (was it 1974?) Dang it, I tried to get out of going WOW anyway and my twig leader made me drop the application into the mail after I had told him my reservations. So off I went and scared to death. You're right. I got crazier and crazier the closer we got to Amarillo. Funny thing, though, you don't think you're crazy when you really are. (So those of you who wonder sometimes if you're sane, as long as you're wondering about it, you're ok.) OK, so then they put me on a BUS to Rochester, NY. Except that my parents weren't in Rochester, they were in Del Mar, CA. They had moved but I was so confused I thought they were still in Rochester. (Funny how they ship you off to the same earthly family they say shouldn't matter, not unless THEY can't handle you). What do you know, I got off the bus at Oklahoma City. Like a crazy person in the middle of a friggin MANIC EPISODE is going to sit still on a BUS and remember where the heck they're going or WHY. Ok let's make that a MANIC/PSYCHOTIC episode, which is what it was. It's like you're on speed and acid at the same time. So I get off the bus and act like a crazy person at the bus depot (which I was). Some guy who worked there took me to a room below, locked the door, jacked off in the dark, and let me out. (Good thing he wasn't a rapist)Then the police picked me up and I was in jail for three days. While in jail, I was visited by the likes of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix (in my deranged mind that is) And there was "Good Nurse and Bad Nurse." They were actually wardens. Oh it's all coming back to me now. Bad Nurse scowled at me and reproved me. Good Nurse let me bum cigarettes and when I asked her "Is it day or night?" she replied "When you're asleep it's night and when you're awake it's day." Turns out Good Nurse found the actual address of my parents in CA in my wallet and called my Dad who flew to OK City to take me home. I was still a total looney-toons and my Dad took me to a shrink who put me on some ridiculous dose of Thorazine and I passed out after several days of literally no sleep. It's funny how the person who literally save my life was a NON-WAY person. Funny how the leadership PUT ME ON A BUS to get rid of me. Not that I totally blame her. I wouldn't have wanted me around either. It's called a Manic Episode, and finally in 1998 after a few more, I got a diagnosis. I've learned to recognize their onset and stress is a trigger and subsequent lack of sleep can set it off and medication is important. In my case, I'm not constantly on meds because I have years between episodes. I'm not saying it isn't spiritual as well. Biochemical and spiritual are both involved is what I think. Professionals don't HAVE to know the spiritual side of it. They know what works in the physical realm via medication etc and they can help people because they've been trained and educated, not like that Corps Competent to Counsel class that somebody else mentioned that I missed anyway because I was in Texas hoeing weeds. TWI did not have a CLUE about peoples' mental problems. NOT A CLUE. It was GOD who saw me through 1974 and GOD who saw me through the next one in 1982 after two years of HE11 in Mississippi, my wonderful Corps Assignment. I lost my mind at that Corps Week and got kicked out and sent back to CA. Funny thing, at that Corps week, there I was surrounded by the spiritual elite of the world and NO ONE even THOUGHT to minister to me. I guess I just wasn't worthy enough for God to tell them to pray for me. What? Pray for someone at Corps Week? We're all so spiritual here that no one should need THAT! And if you do need help, out you go! And the CA limb leader the next year at my "Corps Evaluation" told me if it happened again (my losing my mind, that is) the "Devil would kill me." And I sat there thinking, "That's funny, I thought it was God who's kept me alive." But what would I know? Did TWI know anything about people with mental problems? My opinion? They didn't know ****. The lower down the echelon people were, the more compassion I found. And I got more help from professionals of course, uh because that's what they're trained to do, maybe?. And every psychiatrist has seen this stuff before and they're not all freaked out by such a thing. God looks on the heart. GOD took care of me. People who had heart were kind to me in the middle of my crazy moments, not the upper leadership. They looked down their noses and judged me and figured out the next best way to get rid of me. No wonder TWI went down the tubes. The love of God was gone very early in the game. And why I stuck around and went into the Corps and continued to play their game for a total of 15 years is something I don't totally understand. The only reason I can fathom is that I honestly thought it was God's ministry and that I was called to be there. And I believed God's Word was the truth. Still do, actually. Today I'm still alive, despite the limb leader's prediction, because more episodes did follow. (Must not have renewed my mind ENOUGH, dang it). The Devil didn't kill, though. ha ha Actually, God was STILL there AGAIN. Imagine that. I have a good job, a husband, daughter, house, dog, a life. Because of GOD and HIS Goodness, sheer grace and mercy, in spite of TWI, not because of it. Just had to get that out. Love to you all.

I was sure the Devil was going to get me as I was driving to a forbidden Exwafer get-together attended by other reprobates. I got there safe and sound. What a surprise. And the fallen-away, out-of-fellowship attendees I saw there were the happiest people I'd seen in a long time.

Yes, disturbing and creepy. Not something to watch if you want to be cheered up.

I don't care what they do. They have nothing I need or want. I learned about the Bible from TWI and what I learned I can still use but they don't own God's Word and they don't own me.

I got really into it. Part of it was how they really got that working class New England thing down, set wise and character wise. Maybe because I was once a WOW in New Bedford, Mass. and it brought that area back for me. And I do tend to like those brooding dramatic type movies. I went out and bought the book the day after I saw the movie and read it over the next weekend.

It does not matter to me one wit how nice they are now. They wreaked havoc on peoples' lives. They used people, lied to people, took their money, falsely accused people, and even people died. NOW they're so nice??? Like I care.

Hmmm, this reminds me of our branch leader's wife telling us how deeply she delved into Romans and how it lived for her while we were all out witnessing. And in my true brain buried beneath the waybrained one, I was thinking, "Why did she get to stay home and read Romans while we were out witnessing?"

click click of the doggie's toenails was enough to get rid of it? Couldn't one of her minions trim them?

yeah they do turn into teenagers. Take me back to potty training!

Yeah, it sure is pretty weird that she's still there - especially in the Corps Chalet. Do you think TWI is actually being a respector of persons? ha ha ha

I got a letter ...about a year after I split. It was from Craig. It told me it was time to go to my Corps Evaluation with the latest limb leader who was some one I'd never heard of. I ignored the letter. Then I got another letter telling me that because I ingored the first letter I was dropped from the Corps. Oh, tragedy! I'd already left. ha ha ha ha ha

I wish they would go to jail.

Danny said something about sleeping in a tent and putting on a suit. For some reason that really strikes me as funny now to think of it. Sleep in a tent and put on a suit! Ha ha ha ha ha. That's almost as funny as using all your vacation time after begging for that slot off and hoping you don't have to quit your job for it, and spending your last cent on a plane ticket and checking in a tent to go sleep in it and put on a suit or a fancy dress. ha ha ha ha. And of course that stupid Corps Week/ROA had to be in August which is the rainiest month of the year in Ohio. Oh, don't get me started. ha ha ha ha ha. I can laugh now because I don't have to do it anymore. Sorry for the slight derail.

Happy Anniversary. As TWI gets farther and farther into the past it gets less and less anything to think about. Yet, what it was to us in our lives cannot be denied. For me, now that it's been many years since my liberation, I sometimes cannot even comprehend that so much of my life was so totally absorbed and taken over by that organization. It seems so unreal to me, like it was another person, but those were the years of my life that I spent that way. But we go on and life goes on and we find that there is so much more than what we were confined to. Congratulations on the four year mark of your liberation from TWI. All the best to you and your husband and God bless you.

The author makes a distinction between fundamental Mormonism and the main stream Mormonism. The fundamentalists believe in going back to the original ideas of Joseph Smith which include polygamy, which by the way was another parallel I noticed that it had with TWI. The same rationals that were used to support polygamy were those that were used in TWI to support bedding numerous women. Anyway, the author focuses on these fundamentalists that tend to be more out there i.e with their revealtions etc.

Written by the same guy who wrote "Into Thin Air." This book is about two fundamentalist Mormon brothers who receive "revelation" to murder their sister-in-law and her 15 month old child. Chilling but fascinating. Though much of the Mormon doctrine is different from ours in TWI, there are eerie similarities to TWI in how people think and behave. An it shows how "revelation" can lead you to some bad bad places.

ok, I took Momentous and I am one of those cases that didn't turn out so well. I took it because some one I knew who had taken it was zealous to have me take it and strongly encouraged me to go. I was seeing a psychiatrist at the time and that disqualified me supposedly so I chose not to go but I was informed later that as long as I was not on medication it was ok. I had had manic episodes in the past but it had been 12 years since the last one and I was seeing the therapist for other reasons. So I went. I enthusiastically took part in the training, I even did the homework they assigned us that resulted in my lack of sleep because in order to do it you needed to stay up even though we were told to make sure we had enough rest. Unfortunately, my partaking of the Momentous experience resulted in a manic/psychotic episode that resulted in my being hospitalized. The trainers even came to see me in the mental hospital. My husband and best friend both feel bitter towards Mementous. Strangely, I haven't held a grudge, though I do wish I'd never been involved.

I was trying to edit and I ended up quoting.

It doesn't come up much since I've been out for over 15 years and it doesn't ha very little to do with my present life. Once, around ten years ago when my daughter was little and I was in a "play group" of mothers that met weekly at playgrounds to let their kids play, we had one of our mother's night's out. We were sitting around a pool drinking wine and I let it out that I was in a "cult" or something. I don't recall what I said exactly, but the result was positive. The reaction was like, wow, I never knew that about you, and how much do we all know about one another really and it led to more sharing on the part of all of us regarding what we'd been into.

After I left TWI, I mathematically estimated the amount I had ABS'd over the 15 years I was in and it came to around $7,000.00. I don't think I included Corps sponsorship, books, refreshments, transportation, events, love offerings, etc.

It never ceases to amaze me how these people had to meddle in others' lives. What right did they have? Who were they to judge who other people could love? To think we put up with that crap. Unbelievable. I'm sorry it happened to you too, Digger. Glad your life has been rebuilding.

I liked it.