outintexas

Of course we were told in twi it was wrong to get outside counseling. Yeah, what do trained experienced professionals know about anything? It's much better to continue to be the blind following the blind. We're the faithful remnant! We're in the walls of Zion! We know everything! Oh, we don't CLAIM to know everything, but we act like we do. Everybody else is clueless. I started attending a Church of Christ in our area a couple years ago. The church is HUGE, but it has a lot of sub-groups. I started attending one group and they invited me to go to their class. I forget what it was called, I guess it doesn't matter. The spooky thing is that the class was 12 sessions long. We were encouraged to participate, even give our opinions on things! I had a hard time with that because I didn't know if what I had learned in twi would sound bizarro or not. Turned out a lot of the stuff in the church class was similar to things in the first few sessions of piffle. It was quite a mental adjustment to go to a normal church with real people with problems. I also learned to quit arriving ten minutes early. I feel somewhat of a hypocrite (sp?) going to church because part of my motivation is just to meet people. I did attend a divorce recovery group for a while recently, and that was quite helpful. I learned to be thankful to have my kids, rather than to look at them as a burden. A lot of the people in that group were dealing with custody issues. I'm still riding the emotional rollercoaster, but it's smoothed out a lot. I started running again a couple years ago. I still have flashbacks to running in the Way College. I actually enjoyed that then. The three mile route out to Industrial Boulevard, past the Dolly Madison plant and back to the campus. Then to Kenyon Hall to record the aerobic points. Whoops. Almost time for Seinfeld. I don't feel guilty about watching TV anymore, either....

I will continue in the coming days, for sure. I enjoy writing. It seems to run in my family. I've been in Texas since 1988. Stay tuned for more :)-->

My Story spans over 30 years. I'm Outandabout's "little" brother. It was a Saturday night in December 1973 when it all began. I remember that because I really just wanted to watch "All in the Family" that night. I was 17 and a high school senior. My sister was home from college. She sat me down and showed me a bible, which I had never seen before. My dad was and is an athiest. My mom was a Christian, but we never went to church. Our parent's policy on spirituality was to let us kids figure it out on our own. Btw, I also have an older and younger brother that never got involved in twi, thankfully. As far as I know they are either athiest or agnostic. What an odd book with numbers in front of every sentence. And she had WRITTEN in it! That seemed so sacreligious. I started going to a "twig" at her apartment. Of course I was told about "The Class" and eventually I came up with the $85 and I took it the following Fall. On reel to reel audio tape, by the way! There are a lot of details of course, but the overall story is that I was a very shy and insecure adolescent with few friends and these people seemed to be interested in me. In the course of the next 25 years I went WOW twice and I was in the Way "College Division" (as it was known then) for one year (1978-79). I ended up marrying my "WOW sister" a week after my second WOW year (1982-83). Still insecure and shy, I fell for the first female who showed an interest in me. We had three children together born in 1984, 1989 and 1991. On May 25, 1999 we were "put on spiritual probation" largely because our marriage was dysfunctional, we were in debt, and our house was not physically clean enough. Our "Area Coordinator" told me I was guilty of "treachery" on that phone conversation where we were kicked out, er, put on "probation". Many of you know the drill, we supposedly were to get our "act together" on our own and were expected to come groveling back in six months hoping to be let back in. My then-wife and I decided in a matter of days that we would never go back. At least we had that much sense. Eighteen months later my then-wife announced she wanted to leave me and the kids, which she did 5 months later in April, 2001. We divorced four months later. All she wanted was one of the cars and half the cookware. She remarried in less than a year. She lives in town, but sees the kids only sporadically at her convenience. The time since has been very difficult, needless to say. But I have grown and developed emotionally many times more than I ever did in that cult. I feel like the whole time I was in twi, I was in an artificial environment where my emotional growth was put on hold for 25 years. With the help of a therapist and a lot of new friends (and Greasespot!) I am truly becoming a late bloomer. I found to my surprise there are honest genuine caring people outside of twi. Imagine that. I still have a lot of learning and living to do, but I feel God has blessed me more these last few years than He was ever able to do in the 25 I was in twi. I think I'll stop here for now. This is just kind of a skeleton to get started. I've skipped a lot of details which I can fill in later. You guys are great! I've been coming in here almost every day for a long time. God bless you all. Or "y'all" as they say here!

The poll only goes to 20 years. I was in for 25. 1974 to May 25, 1999 (age 17 to 42) when I got M&A'd - the best thing that ever happened.

Thanks for the warm welcome :)--> I'll be posting "My Story" before too long.

I'm suddenly reminded of a classic Twilight Zone episode. The one where this five-year-old kid played by Billy Mumy ran the world had this power to whisk people into the cornfield if they ever disagreed or complained about the way he ran things. So everybody put on their happy faces even though the situation was very bizarre. They had no freedom to speak their minds. Btw, this is my first post! There will be many more :)-->