Had this guy ever been with TWI? Or is this a different bunch of bananas entirely?
As far as a small communal fellowship, what we then called twigs were the same in TWI if you were under the gun, so to speak. Especially loved it when you walked in a room filled with fellow "believers" and it suddenly fell silent.
Anything you said to anyone was promptly reported to the leadership, even if you thought it was in strictest confidence.
Barnard is a 14th Corps grad who says of himself that he is a true son of Wierwille. Since I came to the Greasespot I have come to see considerable irony in this view of his.
After a while of living under the gun like that, I sometimes wondered if it was my problem or theirs.
To the best of my ability I've dealt with my problems, but their problems have still hurt me an awful lot. I'm sooo glad for the Greasespot Cafe!
I appreciate your honesty and openess in disclosing this situation and I encourage you to remain strong and to dismiss the intrusion of your private life by these religious jerks.
Every man gets up in the morning and puts his pants on and goes about his business...these people have NO RIGHT to intrude into your personal life. We all stand before God...not religious leaders. Life is hard enough...tell them to go p* ss up a rope my friend...and smile as you do it.
And Jeff, you seem to be doing a great job with your little son. You can teach him what it really means to love someone, and to keep confidences. He may, however, repeat back everything that goes on with you and him, back to his mum and she will tell Barnard.
If you aren't already doing it, keep a record of any ongoing violations. It may help you if things deteriorate even more and you need to seek custody of the boy from your former wife.
I will also add, that from my own experience, the day that I decided to walk away from twi...the day that I confronted them and told them all what I thought...was one of the most liberating days of my life. A breath of fresh air that is hard to describe. It was like carrying a 50 lbs sack of sand on my back for several miles and finally setting it down.
As far as other people that I cared about?...ultimately they had to make their own choices, even as I did. Putting up with this intrusion into your life will eventually do one of two things...Eventually a person will say enough is enough and put the boots to them or it will turn a person into a compliant follower who no longer thinks for themselves...
...life is too short, I vote for putting the boots to them.
not sure if this is on topic, but I was talking with someone today about lcm's hatred of imperfection and his reaction to the deaf miss america, his comments about how some people should have been aborted and how we're weakening the gene pool (imagine the forehead talking about imperfections in others! fat, ugly, stupid and a bad dancer!). to me the kind of bombardment we went through in the 90s was a violation of human dignity, and very cruel.
beyond that, my dossier at HQ is a violation of my privacy. religious cruelty, yeah: being held in a room on a conference call with the RCs office b!tch while she humilated and abused me over speakerphone. having every detail of my life controlled by my FCs. being hit and called names by my ex for questioning his decisions. being cut off from family and having to communicate with my sister in secret.
There is a certain aspect of my life that feels a little raw for me right now. The last couple of days it seems to me that what Barnard and my ex-wife did to me, along with his many toadies and thugs of course, is hitting home for me.
It's not just what they did in order to try to get rid of me. But facing that all by myself has been hard.
Until just the last couple of days I've held my ex-wife in my heart with a willingness to be sweet on her still.
But I think their cold, calculating destruction of my life is moving me past wanting to be sweet on her. But it is not the calculating and manipulative part alone, it is realizing that after trying so hard to discard me that she left me saying that she told me why she was leaving even though she did not. She was taught to be a cold, lying, b!tch by my former splinter group. She never did me the couresy of telling me why it was over.
And I now realize that part of their plan was to never admit what they did to me. I think they would have been most happy if I'd just crawled into a hole and died. I don't ever expect to see anything from her other than their pre-planned and complete rejection of me. While that alone has been torturous for me the last several years, I think realizing how deliberately destructive she is willing to be has ruined any sweetness that I have felt for her. Barnard taught my ex-wife to be one destuctive woman, but just like TWI leadership she can actually still love-bomb people. But for her boy's father she has shown nothing but contempt.
I'm not certain if I've just lost something good in me or just coming to an overdue reality check in seeing her hatred for me for what it is. I just am not sweet on her any more, and I'm certain that I never will be now.
Jeff, I'm sorry you feel so raw. The TWI exit is nearly always a raw and painful place, especially in situations like your own.
It is very difficult for you and it is a confusing time where you undergo many conflicting emotions. You are angry, you are hurt, you feel abused, you feel empty, alone, ripped apart, lots of things. Your emotions are justified and appropriate. Keep them under control. Your personal life has been most spitefully abused and your wife's behavior is bizarre.
Please try to feel compassion for - for your wife, at least - which will mean you do not give place to a root of bitterness that will poison your life, thereby allowing more damage to accrue to you at the hands of TWI. Deny them that. :blink:
Your wife wholly believes she is right but her belief is wrong. It is terribly difficult, but pray for her. For her to receive understanding, and for her protection from worse things. When all is said and done, she is your son's mother and she needs protection for his sake. TWI/splinter followers at this level of behavior suffer from something like a mental illness.
It may be of little comfort to you, but these violations have happened to many of us here (as you have read) and it takes time to recover, to grow above, to ... stand back a little. But you will get through it.
I found reading Job and the requirement for him to bless his persecutors scary, horrifying, it was the last thing I wanted to do - but it started the healing process for me. I also bear in mind that Jesus Christ suffered the ultimate violation of human dignity, but still managed to pray for those who were humiliating and murdering him.
But I think their cold, calculating destruction of my life is moving me past wanting to be sweet on her. But it is not the calculating and manipulative part alone, it is realizing that after trying so hard to discard me that she left me saying that she told me why she was leaving even though she did not. She was taught to be a cold, lying, b!tch by my former splinter group. She never did me the couresy of telling me why it was over.
</snip>
sounds like you're moving through the stages of grief. I don't know if it's denial to anger, or bargaining to acceptance, for me they were kind of jumbled up sometimes. I remember though that ANGER was an essential part of it. instead of listening to the people who told me not to be angry, get over it, etc. I decided to embrace it. I confessed it. I said "I'm angry!" until I quit feeling bad about feeling.
so, what you're feeling is actually healthy. it means you'll be able to move on, at least emotionally. since you have ties through a child, it won't be a clean get-away and you'll end up working through things over and over as long as she's toxic, but at least once you've been through the process you'll find it gets easier each time you have to do it. with practice, pretty soon you'll be able to read the signs of manipulation and just not play the game.
When my splinter group owned their camp they invited a minister named Art Katz from Minnesota down for a visit. I participated in an evening of scriptural discussion with them. After the night was over Art and his friend went back to their romm and discussed their evening in privacy. When one of the men came to tell Barnard that from his room (which was right over Katz's room in the housing) that he could hear everything that Katz and his friend said Barnard told him to go listen to everything they said. It may have been that this man was directly over Katz's friend's room, I'm not certain about that point.
So for me, I already know what they are. It is just a simple question of how far they are willing to go in their violations of basic human dignities.
I can give you a couple of specifics. The EOB conference room at HQ was bugged. Meeting were taped. VPW wore a mic under his tie and a recorder in his pocket when it suited him. I know because I'm ashamed to say that I changed the batteries in the mics.
I think it was often close to my thinking that TWI used these devices while I was being provoked as a member of my splinter group.
I'm thinking that in TWI there was quite a few people who were somewhat familiar with leadership's uses of them through familiarity like yourself. But until now nobody had ever directly confirmed my suspicions that my splinter group might have learned some of these nasty tricks from TWI.
While I was in my splinter group it was all too easy for me to think that I was just imagining the possibilities. I know that one of the chief thugs had a history of involvement in TWI security.
I'm very glad that you feel free to tell it like you remember it Jim. I wish that there was more people willing to do what you just did.
As potato says, anger, too. It's okay to feel anger. Just keep it under control. Anger is probably healthy, after the learned helplessness of TWI.
it is healthy and I think it's essential to embrace it because it's a part that was broken off of us.
all the years we weren't allowed to feel it until it was too much to hold in and it came out sideways... that's unhealthy. standing silently by to witness examples of "righteous" anger that stomped people into the dirt and ripped them apart... that's unhealthy.
I think learning to recognize our own anger and deal with it on the spot is essential to wiping the demons of twi out of our souls.
What happened to all that "reaching up in Daddy's cookie jar"?
The more I hear about the inner workings of TWI, the more I'm convinced the current and former TWI presidents couldn't find their own "cookie jar" with both hands and a flashlight.
Jeff - it appears this leader was having to spend an awful amount of time counteracting what you were doing. Of course he wanted to get rid of you - you questioned him and his authority and cost him time, effort, and energy.
My experience is that these little liaisons will implode of their own accord, once you remove yourself as the glue that keeps them together. Nothing will cause that to happen quicker than you giving every appearance that you have moved on.
It's hard to lose, and you have lost a lot, but this guy probably gets a great deal of satisfaction knowing that he's had such an impact and continues to have an impact on your world. When he no longer has that hold, your ex wife won't be so important and she might not like that, either.
With everybody's experiences being different in TWI it seems to me that maybe some of us might be willing to go on the record with experiences that fit this category. In TWI these things did not happen to me, even though some of the bad doctrines and counsel were definitely a factor in the times that I was a jerk. I'm attempting to go beyond the scope of any jerk-ness that I can recall committing and speak directly to deliberate cruelty and violations of basic human dignities. For me, these experiences relate directly to "River Road Fellowship" led by Victor Barnard.
Before they kicked me out I was trying to talk to my wife in order to get her to see things my way. After a while it was clear that everything that I told my wife in the privacy of my own house was being reported to leadership. After a while it got to the point where I could just tell her anything and within a day or two leadership would call a meeting in an attempt to deal with it. Sometimes I would talk to her in the evening and first thing the very next morning a teacher dealt with these things. It could have been quite maddening except that I already had seen enough to be certain that these scum-buckets were willing to do absolutely anything to mess with my head.Intimidation was the norm at these meetings. It's not that I felt intimidated by these thugs, I felt my family was under assault. So for the most part I kept a straight face and dealt with it.
Under these circumstances in a small communal fellowship they are capable of putting an intense amount of pressure on an individual. For me, every stare, every inference concerning my issues with the fellowship, and every slight just seemed to add pressure that built up over time. when I was under the influence of such intense pressure they would often try to provoke me into doing something stupid. When they realized that I was just playing with them as far as just watching them react to the things that I would tell my wife in privacy they tried to get me to accuse them of using electronic eves-dropping devices. As I considered my wife capable and willing of repeating everything that I told her in privacy I never responded to the provocation of wild accusations concerning eves-dropping. But I knew that they were willing to eves-drop if it suited them.
When my splinter group owned their camp they invited a minister named Art Katz from Minnesota down for a visit. I participated in an evening of scriptural discussion with them. After the night was over Art and his friend went back to their romm and discussed their evening in privacy. When one of the men came to tell Barnard that from his room (which was right over Katz's room in the housing) that he could hear everything that Katz and his friend said Barnard told him to go listen to everything they said. It may have been that this man was directly over Katz's friend's room, I'm not certain about that point.
So for me, I already know what they are. It is just a simple question of how far they are willing to go in their violations of basic human dignities.
I want people who may be thinking of visiting them to know these things.
(a little added in editing)
This got me thinking about the double edge sword that a small fellowship can present. There is the possibility of spiritual intimacy, connection, and growth. There's also a good possibility of serious friction and trouble, even if all claim to be Bible believing types who worship and reverence and love God. Unfortunately, we are all flawed humans.
I've found it good to be connected with multiple fellowships, big and small, staying connected to God through holy spirit, and trying hard to listen to the still small voice for direction. There can be some downside to this approach, but it works well for me.
Jeff - it appears this leader was having to spend an awful amount of time counteracting what you were doing. Of course he wanted to get rid of you - you questioned him and his authority and cost him time, effort, and energy.
My experience is that these little liaisons will implode of their own accord, once you remove yourself as the glue that keeps them together. Nothing will cause that to happen quicker than you giving every appearance that you have moved on.
It's hard to lose, and you have lost a lot, but this guy probably gets a great deal of satisfaction knowing that he's had such an impact and continues to have an impact on your world. When he no longer has that hold, your ex wife won't be so important and she might not like that, either.
Just a thought...
Dear Tzaia,
I've had these considerations before, and I suppose that it could go down like that. But after the many, many times that I waited for things to implode I'm not holding my breath anymore.
I have considered the perspective that my resistance only served to make Barnard's control over the group and my ex-wife stronger too. Even though I did my best to help keep them from falling farther and farther off the deep end they did get worse. If I knew then what I knew now about TWI I never would have brought my wife-to-be to her first TWI fellowship. And she would have never had to choose a twisted bastard who learned from Wierwille's methods to rule her world.
As long as they persist in the foolishness they live in while fooling themselves into thinking that they are strong it seems certain that no amount of logic or competently handled scripture will sway them. Like TWI, they excel at smearing the good guys in order to not confront their own great darkness.
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Watered Garden
Had this guy ever been with TWI? Or is this a different bunch of bananas entirely?
As far as a small communal fellowship, what we then called twigs were the same in TWI if you were under the gun, so to speak. Especially loved it when you walked in a room filled with fellow "believers" and it suddenly fell silent.
Anything you said to anyone was promptly reported to the leadership, even if you thought it was in strictest confidence.
WG
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JeffSjo
Dear Watered Garden,
Barnard is a 14th Corps grad who says of himself that he is a true son of Wierwille. Since I came to the Greasespot I have come to see considerable irony in this view of his.
After a while of living under the gun like that, I sometimes wondered if it was my problem or theirs.
To the best of my ability I've dealt with my problems, but their problems have still hurt me an awful lot. I'm sooo glad for the Greasespot Cafe!
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GrouchoMarxJr
I appreciate your honesty and openess in disclosing this situation and I encourage you to remain strong and to dismiss the intrusion of your private life by these religious jerks.
Every man gets up in the morning and puts his pants on and goes about his business...these people have NO RIGHT to intrude into your personal life. We all stand before God...not religious leaders. Life is hard enough...tell them to go p* ss up a rope my friend...and smile as you do it.
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Twinky
And Jeff, you seem to be doing a great job with your little son. You can teach him what it really means to love someone, and to keep confidences. He may, however, repeat back everything that goes on with you and him, back to his mum and she will tell Barnard.
If you aren't already doing it, keep a record of any ongoing violations. It may help you if things deteriorate even more and you need to seek custody of the boy from your former wife.
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GrouchoMarxJr
I will also add, that from my own experience, the day that I decided to walk away from twi...the day that I confronted them and told them all what I thought...was one of the most liberating days of my life. A breath of fresh air that is hard to describe. It was like carrying a 50 lbs sack of sand on my back for several miles and finally setting it down.
As far as other people that I cared about?...ultimately they had to make their own choices, even as I did. Putting up with this intrusion into your life will eventually do one of two things...Eventually a person will say enough is enough and put the boots to them or it will turn a person into a compliant follower who no longer thinks for themselves...
...life is too short, I vote for putting the boots to them.
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potato
not sure if this is on topic, but I was talking with someone today about lcm's hatred of imperfection and his reaction to the deaf miss america, his comments about how some people should have been aborted and how we're weakening the gene pool (imagine the forehead talking about imperfections in others! fat, ugly, stupid and a bad dancer!). to me the kind of bombardment we went through in the 90s was a violation of human dignity, and very cruel.
beyond that, my dossier at HQ is a violation of my privacy. religious cruelty, yeah: being held in a room on a conference call with the RCs office b!tch while she humilated and abused me over speakerphone. having every detail of my life controlled by my FCs. being hit and called names by my ex for questioning his decisions. being cut off from family and having to communicate with my sister in secret.
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JeffSjo
I don't think that your experiences are off-topic in this thread at all Potato.
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JeffSjo
There is a certain aspect of my life that feels a little raw for me right now. The last couple of days it seems to me that what Barnard and my ex-wife did to me, along with his many toadies and thugs of course, is hitting home for me.
It's not just what they did in order to try to get rid of me. But facing that all by myself has been hard.
Until just the last couple of days I've held my ex-wife in my heart with a willingness to be sweet on her still.
But I think their cold, calculating destruction of my life is moving me past wanting to be sweet on her. But it is not the calculating and manipulative part alone, it is realizing that after trying so hard to discard me that she left me saying that she told me why she was leaving even though she did not. She was taught to be a cold, lying, b!tch by my former splinter group. She never did me the couresy of telling me why it was over.
And I now realize that part of their plan was to never admit what they did to me. I think they would have been most happy if I'd just crawled into a hole and died. I don't ever expect to see anything from her other than their pre-planned and complete rejection of me. While that alone has been torturous for me the last several years, I think realizing how deliberately destructive she is willing to be has ruined any sweetness that I have felt for her. Barnard taught my ex-wife to be one destuctive woman, but just like TWI leadership she can actually still love-bomb people. But for her boy's father she has shown nothing but contempt.
I'm not certain if I've just lost something good in me or just coming to an overdue reality check in seeing her hatred for me for what it is. I just am not sweet on her any more, and I'm certain that I never will be now.
Being able to talk about it hear has helped some.
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Twinky
Jeff, I'm sorry you feel so raw. The TWI exit is nearly always a raw and painful place, especially in situations like your own.
It is very difficult for you and it is a confusing time where you undergo many conflicting emotions. You are angry, you are hurt, you feel abused, you feel empty, alone, ripped apart, lots of things. Your emotions are justified and appropriate. Keep them under control. Your personal life has been most spitefully abused and your wife's behavior is bizarre.
Please try to feel compassion for - for your wife, at least - which will mean you do not give place to a root of bitterness that will poison your life, thereby allowing more damage to accrue to you at the hands of TWI. Deny them that. :blink:
Your wife wholly believes she is right but her belief is wrong. It is terribly difficult, but pray for her. For her to receive understanding, and for her protection from worse things. When all is said and done, she is your son's mother and she needs protection for his sake. TWI/splinter followers at this level of behavior suffer from something like a mental illness.
It may be of little comfort to you, but these violations have happened to many of us here (as you have read) and it takes time to recover, to grow above, to ... stand back a little. But you will get through it.
I found reading Job and the requirement for him to bless his persecutors scary, horrifying, it was the last thing I wanted to do - but it started the healing process for me. I also bear in mind that Jesus Christ suffered the ultimate violation of human dignity, but still managed to pray for those who were humiliating and murdering him.
Feel free to PM me if you wish.
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potato
sounds like you're moving through the stages of grief. I don't know if it's denial to anger, or bargaining to acceptance, for me they were kind of jumbled up sometimes. I remember though that ANGER was an essential part of it. instead of listening to the people who told me not to be angry, get over it, etc. I decided to embrace it. I confessed it. I said "I'm angry!" until I quit feeling bad about feeling.
so, what you're feeling is actually healthy. it means you'll be able to move on, at least emotionally. since you have ties through a child, it won't be a clean get-away and you'll end up working through things over and over as long as she's toxic, but at least once you've been through the process you'll find it gets easier each time you have to do it. with practice, pretty soon you'll be able to read the signs of manipulation and just not play the game.
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Jim
I can give you a couple of specifics. The EOB conference room at HQ was bugged. Meeting were taped. VPW wore a mic under his tie and a recorder in his pocket when it suited him. I know because I'm ashamed to say that I changed the batteries in the mics.
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waysider
What!!!!
I'm aghast!
What happened to all that "reaching up in Daddy's cookie jar"?
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JeffSjo
Thank you both, Twinky and Potato,
You've given me some good things to consider.
Dear Jim,
I think it was often close to my thinking that TWI used these devices while I was being provoked as a member of my splinter group.
I'm thinking that in TWI there was quite a few people who were somewhat familiar with leadership's uses of them through familiarity like yourself. But until now nobody had ever directly confirmed my suspicions that my splinter group might have learned some of these nasty tricks from TWI.
While I was in my splinter group it was all too easy for me to think that I was just imagining the possibilities. I know that one of the chief thugs had a history of involvement in TWI security.
I'm very glad that you feel free to tell it like you remember it Jim. I wish that there was more people willing to do what you just did.
Thank You,
JEFF
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Jim
Your're welcome.
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Twinky
As potato says, anger, too. It's okay to feel anger. Just keep it under control. Anger is probably healthy, after the learned helplessness of TWI.
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potato
it is healthy and I think it's essential to embrace it because it's a part that was broken off of us.
all the years we weren't allowed to feel it until it was too much to hold in and it came out sideways... that's unhealthy. standing silently by to witness examples of "righteous" anger that stomped people into the dirt and ripped them apart... that's unhealthy.
I think learning to recognize our own anger and deal with it on the spot is essential to wiping the demons of twi out of our souls.
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Kevlar2000
The more I hear about the inner workings of TWI, the more I'm convinced the current and former TWI presidents couldn't find their own "cookie jar" with both hands and a flashlight.
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Tzaia
Jeff - it appears this leader was having to spend an awful amount of time counteracting what you were doing. Of course he wanted to get rid of you - you questioned him and his authority and cost him time, effort, and energy.
My experience is that these little liaisons will implode of their own accord, once you remove yourself as the glue that keeps them together. Nothing will cause that to happen quicker than you giving every appearance that you have moved on.
It's hard to lose, and you have lost a lot, but this guy probably gets a great deal of satisfaction knowing that he's had such an impact and continues to have an impact on your world. When he no longer has that hold, your ex wife won't be so important and she might not like that, either.
Just a thought...
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caribousam
This got me thinking about the double edge sword that a small fellowship can present. There is the possibility of spiritual intimacy, connection, and growth. There's also a good possibility of serious friction and trouble, even if all claim to be Bible believing types who worship and reverence and love God. Unfortunately, we are all flawed humans.
I've found it good to be connected with multiple fellowships, big and small, staying connected to God through holy spirit, and trying hard to listen to the still small voice for direction. There can be some downside to this approach, but it works well for me.
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JeffSjo
Dear Tzaia,
I've had these considerations before, and I suppose that it could go down like that. But after the many, many times that I waited for things to implode I'm not holding my breath anymore.
I have considered the perspective that my resistance only served to make Barnard's control over the group and my ex-wife stronger too. Even though I did my best to help keep them from falling farther and farther off the deep end they did get worse. If I knew then what I knew now about TWI I never would have brought my wife-to-be to her first TWI fellowship. And she would have never had to choose a twisted bastard who learned from Wierwille's methods to rule her world.
As long as they persist in the foolishness they live in while fooling themselves into thinking that they are strong it seems certain that no amount of logic or competently handled scripture will sway them. Like TWI, they excel at smearing the good guys in order to not confront their own great darkness.
But, I suppose that I do need to move on too.
Thanks.
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