Bramble

FWIW, I don't think we learned how to handle conflict well in TWI. For one thing, we had the All Truth for All people, so there was that touch of arrogance. Then we had a pecking order, who had to obey who..unless you had a get out of trouble free card, because you had a good buddy or a supportive friend in a higher position then the leader on your case. Add the whole 'like minded' doctrine and peer pressure to it. Then there was LCM and other leaders, with their sharp set downs and ridicule. So here it plays out, this group against that group, this poster against that poster. Hopefully the people that moved on didn't move on because their feelings were hurt, but because they figured some things out in their lives.

Pond: Okay, now I'm confused. What post are you refering to? Putting a marriage vow before a job??? What previous post was this about? And who claimed LCM said what? Could you clarify? Because I can't figure out what you're posting about.

A store in the mall was having a sale and I was looking at a rack of dresses. "These are all dresses a fifty year old woman would wear to church, " I complained.( Navy blue with flouncy neck ties etc). My husband just laughed out loud. I was 48.

Well, everything that was not TWI approved seemed to lead to devil spirits or other negative consequences. If you didn't ABS you could expect financial and health diasters. If you didn't spank those kids they'd grow up to be wacko Columbine shooters. If you didn't obey leadership you walked away from God's protection. If you held a bad thought in your brain (I envy my non TWI acquaintances) you build a groove that became a conduit for the adversary to slide a devil spirit in there. If you considered the words of a M&A person, you'd get devil spirits. Don't forget those evil angel statues. I personally think it all started in PFAL. You know what killed that little boy...his mother.

Funny LG. If we got caught out after hours we had to do service--cleaning trash off the campus grounds on a Saturday morning, mostly. Lucky for me I was a natural morning person.

So many ordinary things became so spiritual in TWi--your sock drawer, what you did the first half hour of the day, what was on top of your fridge--and the consequences were always horrid. Devil spirits in your house, or leadership in your face. There was always some area you knew you were falling short in! Now that fear has left, or is leaving, and you need to find nonTWI reasons to do things. Or don't do them, if they are not important to you. I don't think there is anything wrong with getting help through counseling, either. One of the most helpful things we did upon leaving TWI was to return to hobbies and interests we had prior to our TWI involvement, plus find new ones. Things like gardening, cooking, excercise, reading fiction, listening to live music...all those activities took time and had no TWI memories attached to them. We were really living a new life.( I was in twenty years, hubby a little longer.) Cleaning house was a huge TWI memory maker, yet it has to be done sooner or later. I've found a way that works for me, but it took some time.

Excathedra--I don't think I was very mature at all at age 18. I would have been totally out of my depth with grown men, and I'd never been abused. Heck there were times I was out of my depth with the college boys I knew. Fortunately for me, none of the boys I ran around with were abusive or predators. My parents sent me to a college with 'dorm mothers' and bed checks, very 1960s. I think they knew what they were doing! I didn't get into TWI until my senior year of college, and at least in the area of men I had learned a few things. Plus I met my husband right away, he was one of the wows who got me into the class. But at eighteen? I was a baby.

Wow, Wafer not--he changed during your honeymoon. How sad and scary. My decision to marry my husband was one of the few smart things I did during TWI. I married him because he reminded me of my dad--and my dad was a kind, generous, hard working, fun loving man. My husband does have those qualities. Even so, the TWI beliefs on marriage, plus nosy, unkind, unfriendly, unloving, looking for a fault leadership, made for some ugly times for us.

Hopefully there's one near New Knoxville, staffed by former TWIers!

The last Mog drools onto his dark suit as his grandchild turns off the lights at HQ, then drives the feeble Mog away to live his remaining years at the Lutheren Nursing home.

I agree with Socks, Belle, and Mstar about the ignore feature. What possible value is there in reading the spewth from those posters that just tear people down with insults? Really, I don't know how they remain on the boards, anyway. Must be the lack of 'report this post to the moderator' buttons.

I think that if a couple's theology teaches them that women are too emotional and influenced by the devil to be rebelious, then the trust and respect the husband would have for his wife has already taken a hit. SHe must be watched, controlled--for her own good, of course.She can never be his equal or as good as he is, simply because she is a woman. Sad...

I remember my husband's complete look of astonishment when I was on the phone to a leader wife who asked me to babysit her kids. 'Ask you husband to see if it is all right,' she commanded. So I turned to my husband and asked if him if I could baby sit. He was all, I don't know, can you? After the call ended I had to explain what that was all about. He thought it was ridiculous. That was one of the reasons I wanted to stick things out and keep my marriage together when TWI got into our business so much--my husband really did ( and does) respect me. He has never treated me like a stupid child. We never did get into the tattle trap, either, even though our leadership was always fishing for stuff. I don't think too amny marriages could stand up to that.

Hmmm, seems like some of those old TWi attitudes live on GSC. ...the devil promotes rebellion among women... ...another poster-- women are way too emotional( some doctrinal thread) Seems like the 'it's all the womens fault for not submitting' TwI attitude still lives and breathes.

This is just bizarre. A man couldn't wear a nice light or medium grey suit? It HAS to be dark? Why? Do light suits draw devil spirits??? Snacks are an important topic? Heck, they'll all be staying in motels--they can plunk a dollar into the vending machine, can't they? My hubby and I had a cooler with fruits and veggies, no one had to tell us, sheesh, being as we were all grown up with functioniong brain cells. Perhaps this Advanced class is made up mostly of children. I can see telling a thirteen year old they'll need $3 a day for snacks. And with all the money TWI has--couldn't they send people off to the motels with a soda and a pack of cookies??

Had to add-- I had a playdate once with a child from one of the fast food families. I fixed a kiddie snack--orange slices. The kid--four years old--had never eaten an orange slice. Didn't know how to eat it( it had peel) Alrighty then.

Once all my kids were catching a cold, but both my hubby and I were scheduled to teach (10 min teachings) at HF so neither of us could stay home with them. Since I wouldn't be able to wipe noses etc( kids were little then) I gave them all a decongestent, which made them all sleepy. They all sat like little zombies in fellowship that day(Sunday fellowship) and fell asleep on the car ride home. Not their normal lively selves at all. We got all Kinds of compliments on their behavior that day. Such a sick ministry. Ours was a limb that quit doing childrens fellowships--those adults who taught it NEEDED to hear the rehashed Way Mag teaching out of the LC's mouth. And kids can be spanked, ya know, to sit through all that crap.

QUOTE(allan w. @ Feb 15 2006, 11:47 PM) Ex Cathedra..if some of us had been around I hope we would have bopped him right on the nose. I am not a staunch 'Wierwillite' but I am a staunch 'Word of God is the Will of God' type of person. What irks me the most are those who walked, ran to other denominations, beliefs etc.. putting down people like me.Some of you have only been Agnostics, Mormons, Catholics, JW's for a short period of time and others maybe not even as long as you were involved in TWI. Either way, don't you think it's a bit premature and naive to take potshots at posters of my persuasion while staunchly defending your new- found beliefs ?? After all, some of us could be Hare Krishnas, Freemasons, whatever by next week and Wiccas, Naturists the week after.?? End Quote ??? So, those not of your belief system are supposed to just hush up? That only the words of long time believers have value? You know, maybe you should start your own board, where no unbelievers are allowed. I remember. I was in TWI twenty years, I remember really well. And people a like you are a big reason I 'ran to other beliefs.' I won't even get into pot shots other than--pot, meet kettle. I had you on ignore, but you had to go change your name, sheesh. Now I have to go change my settings.

Always exhausted--yes! Especially during the mid ninties, when I was sincerely trying to do everything--LCM's bizarre retemories,, the studying, putting together teachings from Way rags and the Wap class and the tapes. Arg. I remember at one point we were told to listen to the tapes as a couple, then listen to them separately to 'work' them. This, along with jobs, small children, the 3 fellowships per week--plus one branch meeting, one low level leaders meeting, one hook up a month, one HF meal a month, witnessing night( not on a HF night, but a different night so we could invite people to the regular HF). Advanced class grad study nights.... I knew families that ate nothing but fast food every night, because there was no time to fix anything healthy, plus clean up afterwards. Insane living. *shudder*

Hmmm, good and bad. Most people here seem like good people. I don't know. I have a few people set on ignore, posters who didn't treat me the way I expect to be treated, and none of those were one time happenings, either. Or people who are so one note, why bother reading what they have to say? Are they bad? Maybe, maybe not...but I wouldn't trust them with my actual name and address! I don't have problems with other's belief or religious choices being different than mine, though I feel for those still in TWI who think that's the highest form of spiritual maturity. This site is about my past more than my now. In my real life I have (very)minimal interaction with ex ways or current way folk. IMO people who were leadership, especially in TWI 2, expected people to give their words and opinions heavier weight than other people's, and they probably don't even know they are still doing it. I think a bit of arrogance helped you get those leadership positions in TWI, and being a big dog builds some habits. The old--I'm the spiritual leader! thing. It doesn't really work on a message board though, how frustrating. But I doubt they are bad people. Maybe a little self centered. I also think there are probably people here who have actual untreated mental illness, or some other issue, that causes them to have little or no empathy with others. Are they bad? Don't know, but there again, they are not on my Holiday Newsletter list or on quick dial. I'm pretty picky about who I actually let into my real life, and few are from the internet.

We stayed after POP, but then we didn't really know what was going on. We didn't read POP until 2000, when we found it online. Uur Way leader then was a good guy, the corps in the area that left were clickish and never had much to say to us, so we stayed with the group that seemed healthiest to us. We left in the late nineties when our HFC got more and more into our business. Our previous LC had been a buddy of ours from the old days(early eighties) and our HFC was held back by that. Then we got a new limb guy, who gave our HFC his way. Leaving or letting this creepy guy run us into the ground were our only options. We left.

Those were cringe worthy, Chasufarley. And don't forget that weakness brings down strength! Which was the big motivation for M&A, probabtion etc.

My husband had a heart attack several years ago, he has 4 stents. He's been on lipitor, norvasc and diabetes drugs for years and has had none of the adverse side effects. He has regular heart check ups and is doing great now! In fact, except for the stents and the history, his cardiologist said he wouldn't have known he had a heart attack at one time. He also watches his diet, excercises and has lost alot of weight. Honestly, I think if he blew it all off, he'd be dead by now.

Boys and Girls Club My kids went to B&G after school for a few years.A child can visit a couple of times, but after that the parent has to fill out an application, similar to a daycare application, and pay a small fee. The child checks in and out with their card at ours. The bus is not free, and again, kids have to be signed up for it, there are always more riders than seats. I paid a neighbor who was retired to drive my kids, because the bus cost me $15 a week. Where I live the B&G clubs have to follow the same DFS guidelines that regulate all child care centers--training, TB tests, background checks(including criminal), child/adult ratios etc. I think the ratio for grade school (in my state) is 25/1. Some of the staff was Americore, the rest were local and paid. The summer program is also by application, and there are fees for it also. They had more than one program, the regular on site program, and a more expensive one that involved lots of field trips( $60/month --childcare would run around $400/month.). Perhaps some kids got financial aide etc and attended for free--mine didn't. But it was still much cheaper than the YMCA school age child care program, which at one point would have cost $1200 for my family for a month in the summer, and the staff was great.

I guess it was all over the US--we knew people who had trust funds and huge inheritances being lauded in the area we lived in, too. I remember telling my husband that it was alot easier to live on 50k a year when you have 265k in the bank, the lovely brick executive home and two newer cars are paid off, and there really is no such thing as a financial emergency, ya know? Everybody acted like these folks were great believers, and why couldn't we do that well? Because we stunk at believing. Oh, and neither one of us had a grandfather who was one of the richest men in the STATE.