I was 28 or 29 when I first stopped in here. There was another poster, PMosh, who stops by from time to time as do I, that was 25 at the time I believe. I am 34 now so he is probably 30ish. We were more or less the regular "youngins" around here when we were more regular.
Here's my take on why there are not more 20 somethings here:
First off it seems to take a while for someone who was raised in the Way to get out. There is the whole life long indoctrination part and the fact that they also have at least their immediate family still in TWI. Combined with the old "non-policy" policy of mark and avoid that lingers in one's mind, it is hard to break away from the family. Second, if you did get out of the Way at an early age then you just saved yourself a lifetime of therapy. Cheers to you. If you look around here, one reason people are here is for a therapy of sorts, a connection with people that know where you are coming from and a family of support so to speak. If you got out early you missed out on some wonderful things to be disgruntled about. You didn't waste the better part of your youth on a cult. You most likely didn't get involved enough to be in the corps and if you were corps you were more likely thrown out than dropped out of TWI so again it takes time to realize that it was TWI that was screwed up not you... ok maybe both were screwed up.
If you are 25 years old or younger now then that means you were in your mid to early teens at the time of the Martindale blow up and even younger during the 90s when the control of TWI really came out of the closet. Those were not pretty times, but as a teen and younger these things don't usually stand out to your naive brain yet. I have chatted with many of the 18 -25 crowd over on myspace and facebook and they are clearly clueless as to how bad things were and are ready to write it off because they feel good now. The reality though is that TWI has not changed. Control has just gone back in the closet, it is much more subtle, but all the same teachings are there. The same basic flawed framework is still in place, only the faces on the package changed and they have led people to believe that it was the personalities of the past that were the problem. wrong wrong WRONG! It is only a matter of time before the old face of TWI rears it's head again... or they fizzle out.
There are a few of us 30 somethings around here and we were not unlike yourself in twenties. Confident that we had the greatest thing since the first century and ragin' full on. Different organization than you, but the same doctrine more or less and the same basic attitude.
So, SOWER, when ever you are ready to open up a little more about yourself and what the SOWERS program was like or if you grew up in TWI or otherwise, or there is something weighting on your heart, feel free to let loose. It is a good thing to do.
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lindyhopper
I was 28 or 29 when I first stopped in here. There was another poster, PMosh, who stops by from time to time as do I, that was 25 at the time I believe. I am 34 now so he is probably 30ish. We were more or less the regular "youngins" around here when we were more regular.
Here's my take on why there are not more 20 somethings here:
First off it seems to take a while for someone who was raised in the Way to get out. There is the whole life long indoctrination part and the fact that they also have at least their immediate family still in TWI. Combined with the old "non-policy" policy of mark and avoid that lingers in one's mind, it is hard to break away from the family. Second, if you did get out of the Way at an early age then you just saved yourself a lifetime of therapy. Cheers to you. If you look around here, one reason people are here is for a therapy of sorts, a connection with people that know where you are coming from and a family of support so to speak. If you got out early you missed out on some wonderful things to be disgruntled about. You didn't waste the better part of your youth on a cult. You most likely didn't get involved enough to be in the corps and if you were corps you were more likely thrown out than dropped out of TWI so again it takes time to realize that it was TWI that was screwed up not you... ok maybe both were screwed up.
If you are 25 years old or younger now then that means you were in your mid to early teens at the time of the Martindale blow up and even younger during the 90s when the control of TWI really came out of the closet. Those were not pretty times, but as a teen and younger these things don't usually stand out to your naive brain yet. I have chatted with many of the 18 -25 crowd over on myspace and facebook and they are clearly clueless as to how bad things were and are ready to write it off because they feel good now. The reality though is that TWI has not changed. Control has just gone back in the closet, it is much more subtle, but all the same teachings are there. The same basic flawed framework is still in place, only the faces on the package changed and they have led people to believe that it was the personalities of the past that were the problem. wrong wrong WRONG! It is only a matter of time before the old face of TWI rears it's head again... or they fizzle out.
There are a few of us 30 somethings around here and we were not unlike yourself in twenties. Confident that we had the greatest thing since the first century and ragin' full on. Different organization than you, but the same doctrine more or less and the same basic attitude.
So, SOWER, when ever you are ready to open up a little more about yourself and what the SOWERS program was like or if you grew up in TWI or otherwise, or there is something weighting on your heart, feel free to let loose. It is a good thing to do.
peace
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