I've read this site, and made a few posts in the last couple of months, and in my meager opinion, y'all just don't want to get over it.
Do you have lives?
It's been 23 years since I left the ministry. Please don't tell me I didn't know what was going on. I lived with J.P. at Emporia and packed a gun doing "bless patrol". Time to move on kids.
Eagle
I just wonder.. why would (or in some cases could) one want to "get over" experiences that define their for lack of better words, existence?
Some people, this defined much of their existence.. others less, some practically nil..
my experience at a Junior college, and four year university in mid-life also define much of "me"..as well as the pains of adolescence.. parents.. loss of both parents before I could sufficiently "rebel"..
Marriage.. being a responsible adult, caring for family with children..
Divorce.. and the pains involved with that..
personally.. I wouldn't want to just "get over it". I think its a part of "me"..
maybe there will be more of "me" if I "keep truckin"..
it took me a long time to be able to even hear the words "look for the good" or "keep the good" or "surely some good happened so remember those good times" as geisha and a couple of others can tell you that even now i have a hard time with these words but how i look at things now is that the good was in me. my current therapist spent many months helping walk through situations and decipher what i was thinking and feeling and knowing what was right from wrong versus what others were putting out and were doing that was pure bs. when people have been abused for a long time their own inner voice cannot be heard by themselves except for the pain cries and fear screams. that's probably what's happening with this person and i'll bet if she can get with a good therapist that will help her find that voice of hers that was silenced so viciously when she knew that something was wrong and she knew she needed to be taken care of then she could probably also get the kind of therapy that helps a person nurture themselves into wholeness. that's the stage i am in now and it is really cool and i'm learning so much and i'm changing so much and i feel like i'm finally becoming a woman and becoming the woman i always wanted to be. but if all that is coming out of a person's mouth is "whining" and "complaining" about abuse then most likely that's coming from deep unvoiced pain.
Robin Williams has a great line which sums up my thoughts on my time in TWI quite aptly. . . .I was violating my standards faster than I could lower them.
I hope I never get to the place where I am not at least a little "ticked off" . . . . and if that is what is meant by getting "over" it in the initial post. . . than I will pass. . . . LOL
I hope I never get to the place where I am not at least a little "ticked off" . . . . and if that is what is meant by getting "over" it in the initial post. . . than I will pass. . . . LOL
I don't think being a little ticked off is a bad thing. It's being consumed by being ticked off which is the bad thing.
I so agree that many good people got sucked in. . . . many who post here. The one thing I really like here is that I may be judged by what I write. . . but, I will never be judged for being in a cult. This is the only place I speak of it. . . or to people from here.
If it were only as simple as "bad choices". . . however, some made are irrevocable. . . and that might be the case anyway. . . but the reasoning I used borders on the insane. . . and that is a tough one to take. It really is. . .
Right now I have a group of young men and women meeting in my house. . . in a few days they are off to Moldova to bring aid to an orphan camp. They are doing this on their own initiative. . . they went last year too. They have raised nearly 70 Grand from car washes to sponsors, working hard all year for this trip. They are making a true difference in the lives of others. . . and ORPHANS on top of it!!
What did I do at that age? Went WOW and was a family dictator coordinator. Do you realize women girls were subtly encouraged to entice men to fellowship? What the heck was wrong with me?
What an ugly waste of time all of it was. It took me years to catch up on my education and I will be paying that puppy off forever. Retirement won't be a picnic unless I step it up a notch. . . I own a home, but hey. . . that was a fluke.
Too many years in that mess and too many years getting over it.
I own up to it to myself. . . but it still is what it is. . . an embarrassment. No, we actually DO hide it from people. Just too hard to explain. . . . and not your garden-variety youthful indiscretions.
But that is me. . . I am glad you can gain from it. . . you seem like a strong person. . . I try to remember the good people from it and the few good times.
alot of my initial time with my current therapist was spent wondering why i did what i did as an adult after having grown up the way i did and i felt i should have known better than to be taken in by yet another con man over and over again in relationships and wasting so much of my precious time and so much of my energy and doing such stupid and sometimes rude and even mean things and being not a person i liked very much. it took me awhile to understand that my choices and my actions were to be expected given the environments i had been in. most people live in a bubble of their own world and they think and live in that bubble without perceiving much outside of that bubble. it's really quite "normal" and it's what keeps most people "sane" in their own minds and it explains alot about how people can watch someone being robbed or something and just watch without doing anything and without it we'd all be bleeding hearts on street corners giving everything we had to every cause under the sun and freaking out over every newscast we heard or saw. but it also trains our thinking patterns and our decision making processes and if that bubble is part and parcel of an abusive system then we take on those thinking patterns and those decision making processes even if we think we know better or think we should have known better. i used to hate myself so much because when men i was in relationships with got violent with me i got violent back and i couldn't understand what made me any different from them until my current therapist showed me that there's a huge difference between defending myself and being a violent person and a huge difference between surviving an insane situation and being an insane person and a huge difference between making bad judgements and making the judgements that i felt were the only ones that would help me survive in the moment.
Robin Williams has a great line which sums up my thoughts on my time in TWI quite aptly. . . .I was violating my standards faster than I could lower them.
Very few people are immune to the tug. Very few join an organization with the idea that using and abusing is part of the dynamic. Some people have no idea what that looks like, while some people have a very different idea of what that looks like.
Now you know what it looks like to you.
Do you still walk into those situations? Even if you do walk in, do you stay longer than you know you should? If you are able to stay away or walk away, then your time in TWI taught you what you needed to know and do to keep yourself safe.
Very few people are immune to the tug. Very few join an organization with the idea that using and abusing is part of the dynamic. Some people have no idea what that looks like, while some people have a very different idea of what that looks like.
Now you know what it looks like to you.
Do you still walk into those situations? Even if you do walk in, do you stay longer than you know you should? If you are able to stay away or walk away, then your time in TWI taught you what you needed to know and do to keep yourself safe.
Boy that is true isn't it. . . we can spot it a mile away can't we?
I tend not to look inward too very often. . . unless inward and upward. Even though it was a waste of time. . . I try to take what I can from it. . . kind of like total immersion language courses . . . . only we majored in dis-function. We are now proficient in the language of the insane. I really think some of those leaders were actually nuts.
I have never regretted the good people I knew or the few good times I had. . . . that is a plus. . . .got the sweetest guy in the world out of the mess. . . but over all I give it low marks for productivity as a human being. LOL
It is what it is. . . and yes, I think I am a wiser person for it. I Just think I could have wised up by avoiding it all and keeping clear of those kinds of people in the first place.
People do. :)
I used to cringe when the kids would ask me how daddy and I met. . . . my answer was always. . . "In a club" which is somewhat true and just has a better ring than in a cult.
One of the ickiest moments I have had in the past few years is with a friend I went to bible study with. This woman is a hoot. We share the same name. . . look alike and have a blast together. . . went to a woman's retreat and laughed ourselves sick. She is a bit of a drinker and if you get a glass or two of Yellow Tail in her. . . she cuts loose. It is funny to see this little blonde tell a story.
One night she related a story of her college days. She started talking about TWI and how they used to try and get them off campus. . . because people actually fell for this group and their "classes".
I must have gone completely pale, but it made me realize I do have an odd past. . . and not one I am comfortable sharing. I never said a word. Good thing she was tipsy. . . she didn't notice. I really like this woman and admire her. . . as nice as she is. . . I would have gotten that "Oh" look. LOL
It is nice to have a place to speak of TWI and people to share it with. It really is. . . .
I have something to say to the "get over it" crowd. The scripture involved is I Thess 5:21 - "prove all things; hold fast that which is good".
In the time I have been around these forums, those defending abusive groups like TWI have brought this argument up, that this site and forums consist of people who don't want to "get over it" and just want to keep rehashing old issues and being bitter. TWI current members and leaders view those on this site consisting of people that "hate the ministry" or want to "stay hurt" or are "bitter".
Labeling people makes it easier to build prejudice, and prejudice is a great way to avoid contemplating the truth that a person or group of people bring up.
To fulfill the scripture above in I Thess 5:21, two actions are required:
1) Prove all things
2) Hold fast that which is good
Prove is a derivative of the greek dokimazo, which has common means of trial by fire, purification, and secular references to money changers who would not shave their coins and cheat their customers.
To prove all things, behavior that is contrary to God's Word, God's love, God's intent for His children need to be examined, tried by fire, weighed and balanced. For TWI's leadership, this is what TWI members do not do. Because of the "caste" system in TWI, leaders hold themselves beyond judgement except to their employers. The BOD answers to nobody. Atrocities are swept under the carpet, lies are told and upheld, people are burned and their good reputations impunged and slandered, and anyone with an opinion different than the leaders is eventually blackballed. That is simply not proving all things. Nothing is proven, tested, tried with respect to the behavior and actions of leaders who place themselves above God's people. TWI members develop a "pollyanna" mentality where they are just going to focus on the positive and hope that if they ignore the negative it will go away.
The second part of the verse is to hold fast that which is good - once things are proven and exposed and tried as in the first part of the verse, then one can assimilate the good into themselves and have it a beneficial part of them. Assimilating evil practices into one's self is not holding fast to that which is good.
Here is the rub, TWI supporters. YOU HAVE NOT PROVEN ALL THINGS, so you cannot hold fast to that which is good. The evil you knew about and supported, or learned about, that tarnishes your soul. It prevents honestly holding fast to the good because the evil was not confronted.
In one sense the whole existence of GreaseSpot is to prove all things. It is to expose the evil in TWI and offshoots, and confront it. As members aren't subject to punitive retribution here like they are in TWI and offshoots, they are free to share of their accounts of what happened to them (which people still question), expose evil, and confront it.
It is up to the responsibility of each member or poster on GreaseSpot to hold fast to that which is good. There are good experiences, people, scriptures, etc. that we encountered while in TWI. God desires us to integrate into our souls the good, while confronting the evil. Each person has to define for themselves what that means. You cannot judge for another soul which they are doing and say "get over it". The process has to be fulfilled for each person individually. It is a personal growth thing.
So to the pollyannas the message is "prove all things". To the hurt and bitter, after proving all things, the message is "hold fast that which is good". We all choose which message we need at the moment, and it can change depending on where we are at for the moment.
One night she related a story of her college days. She started talking about TWI and how they used to try and get them off campus. . . because people actually fell for this group and their "classes".
I must have gone completely pale, but it made me realize I do have an odd past. . . and not one I am comfortable sharing. I never said a word. Good thing she was tipsy. . . she didn't notice. I really like this woman and admire her. . . as nice as she is. . . I would have gotten that "Oh" look. LOL
My tendency would be to frame it a bit differently. I don't know if you read and listened to my spiel on "compensators" but there are rational and logical reasons for becoming involved in a cult or other highly legalistic church organizations, which has to do with the promise of greater rewards.
The "problem" is that you are still deeply ashamed of your choices. I have done some things that I'm not particularly proud of, and while I have been shaped by those choices, I am not defined by those choices. Furthermore, I don't let someone else define me by my choices.
When people do to me what your friend did, I actually enjoy telling them that it's me they're talking about. They are usually horrified. I know I am when I do it. Once someone commented about my pretty living room and I said it was my "Jehovah's Witness room." She told me she was a Jehovah's Witness. We had a good laugh over it, after I pulled my foot from my mouth.
The truth is that you were able to turn away and move in a different direction. A lot of people can't say that.
The "problem" is that you are still deeply ashamed of your choices. I have done some things that I'm not particularly proud of, and while I have been shaped by those choices, I am not defined by those choices. Furthermore, I don't let someone else define me by my choices.
Deep shame is highly overrated and against my religion. Abject humiliation is reserved for my stupidity.
The few times I have tried to relate my experience to those outside the land of cults. . . I got that "and you seemed so normal" look.
My kids were little when we left, but my daughter remembers certain people and fellowships. We always told her it was a bible group and left it at that. . . . but when she was 15 we went and picked her up at the airport. . . . . she had been in England for the summer. . . instead of "Hi Mom and Dad". . . "I missed you". . . it was "Uncle Rick said you guys were in a cult".
That was a fun ride home.
Liberating? No. . . I am still fighting with abject humiliation.
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Tzaia
My tendency would be to frame it a bit differently. I don't know if you read and listened to my spiel on "compensators" but there are rational and logical reasons for becoming involved in a cult or ot
Tzaia
Great insight, Chockfull
Tzaia
Very few people are immune to the tug. Very few join an organization with the idea that using and abusing is part of the dynamic. Some people have no idea what that looks like, while some people have
Ham
I just wonder.. why would (or in some cases could) one want to "get over" experiences that define their for lack of better words, existence?
Some people, this defined much of their existence.. others less, some practically nil..
my experience at a Junior college, and four year university in mid-life also define much of "me"..as well as the pains of adolescence.. parents.. loss of both parents before I could sufficiently "rebel"..
Marriage.. being a responsible adult, caring for family with children..
Divorce.. and the pains involved with that..
personally.. I wouldn't want to just "get over it". I think its a part of "me"..
maybe there will be more of "me" if I "keep truckin"..
I think just "getting over it" a cheap fix..
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Ham
we've begged, bargained for this existence.. why would one want to close their eyes and just "get over it"..
I'd say more, but I don't know if this is the right audience..
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brainfixed
it took me a long time to be able to even hear the words "look for the good" or "keep the good" or "surely some good happened so remember those good times" as geisha and a couple of others can tell you that even now i have a hard time with these words but how i look at things now is that the good was in me. my current therapist spent many months helping walk through situations and decipher what i was thinking and feeling and knowing what was right from wrong versus what others were putting out and were doing that was pure bs. when people have been abused for a long time their own inner voice cannot be heard by themselves except for the pain cries and fear screams. that's probably what's happening with this person and i'll bet if she can get with a good therapist that will help her find that voice of hers that was silenced so viciously when she knew that something was wrong and she knew she needed to be taken care of then she could probably also get the kind of therapy that helps a person nurture themselves into wholeness. that's the stage i am in now and it is really cool and i'm learning so much and i'm changing so much and i feel like i'm finally becoming a woman and becoming the woman i always wanted to be. but if all that is coming out of a person's mouth is "whining" and "complaining" about abuse then most likely that's coming from deep unvoiced pain.
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Ham
I don't know if it just keeps happening, one lifetime after another.. until we are some kind of homogenized cosmic chicken soup or something..
vewy sarey. Vewy, vewy scarey.
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brainfixed
cosmically speaking none of this exists.
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Bluzeman
Oh, you knew my twig leader too!
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geisha779
Sadly, I probably was your twig leader. :)
Tzaia,
Robin Williams has a great line which sums up my thoughts on my time in TWI quite aptly. . . . I was violating my standards faster than I could lower them.
I hope I never get to the place where I am not at least a little "ticked off" . . . . and if that is what is meant by getting "over" it in the initial post. . . than I will pass. . . . LOL
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Tzaia
I don't think being a little ticked off is a bad thing. It's being consumed by being ticked off which is the bad thing.
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Tzaia
I know exactly what you are talking about, and you're right about the audience.
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brainfixed
alot of my initial time with my current therapist was spent wondering why i did what i did as an adult after having grown up the way i did and i felt i should have known better than to be taken in by yet another con man over and over again in relationships and wasting so much of my precious time and so much of my energy and doing such stupid and sometimes rude and even mean things and being not a person i liked very much. it took me awhile to understand that my choices and my actions were to be expected given the environments i had been in. most people live in a bubble of their own world and they think and live in that bubble without perceiving much outside of that bubble. it's really quite "normal" and it's what keeps most people "sane" in their own minds and it explains alot about how people can watch someone being robbed or something and just watch without doing anything and without it we'd all be bleeding hearts on street corners giving everything we had to every cause under the sun and freaking out over every newscast we heard or saw. but it also trains our thinking patterns and our decision making processes and if that bubble is part and parcel of an abusive system then we take on those thinking patterns and those decision making processes even if we think we know better or think we should have known better. i used to hate myself so much because when men i was in relationships with got violent with me i got violent back and i couldn't understand what made me any different from them until my current therapist showed me that there's a huge difference between defending myself and being a violent person and a huge difference between surviving an insane situation and being an insane person and a huge difference between making bad judgements and making the judgements that i felt were the only ones that would help me survive in the moment.
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Tzaia
Very few people are immune to the tug. Very few join an organization with the idea that using and abusing is part of the dynamic. Some people have no idea what that looks like, while some people have a very different idea of what that looks like.
Now you know what it looks like to you.
Do you still walk into those situations? Even if you do walk in, do you stay longer than you know you should? If you are able to stay away or walk away, then your time in TWI taught you what you needed to know and do to keep yourself safe.
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geisha779
Boy that is true isn't it. . . we can spot it a mile away can't we?
I tend not to look inward too very often. . . unless inward and upward. Even though it was a waste of time. . . I try to take what I can from it. . . kind of like total immersion language courses . . . . only we majored in dis-function. We are now proficient in the language of the insane. I really think some of those leaders were actually nuts.
I have never regretted the good people I knew or the few good times I had. . . . that is a plus. . . .got the sweetest guy in the world out of the mess. . . but over all I give it low marks for productivity as a human being. LOL
It is what it is. . . and yes, I think I am a wiser person for it. I Just think I could have wised up by avoiding it all and keeping clear of those kinds of people in the first place.
People do. :)
I used to cringe when the kids would ask me how daddy and I met. . . . my answer was always. . . "In a club" which is somewhat true and just has a better ring than in a cult.
One of the ickiest moments I have had in the past few years is with a friend I went to bible study with. This woman is a hoot. We share the same name. . . look alike and have a blast together. . . went to a woman's retreat and laughed ourselves sick. She is a bit of a drinker and if you get a glass or two of Yellow Tail in her. . . she cuts loose. It is funny to see this little blonde tell a story.
One night she related a story of her college days. She started talking about TWI and how they used to try and get them off campus. . . because people actually fell for this group and their "classes".
I must have gone completely pale, but it made me realize I do have an odd past. . . and not one I am comfortable sharing. I never said a word. Good thing she was tipsy. . . she didn't notice. I really like this woman and admire her. . . as nice as she is. . . I would have gotten that "Oh" look. LOL
It is nice to have a place to speak of TWI and people to share it with. It really is. . . .
Edited by geisha779Link to comment
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chockfull
I have something to say to the "get over it" crowd. The scripture involved is I Thess 5:21 - "prove all things; hold fast that which is good".
In the time I have been around these forums, those defending abusive groups like TWI have brought this argument up, that this site and forums consist of people who don't want to "get over it" and just want to keep rehashing old issues and being bitter. TWI current members and leaders view those on this site consisting of people that "hate the ministry" or want to "stay hurt" or are "bitter".
Labeling people makes it easier to build prejudice, and prejudice is a great way to avoid contemplating the truth that a person or group of people bring up.
To fulfill the scripture above in I Thess 5:21, two actions are required:
1) Prove all things
2) Hold fast that which is good
Prove is a derivative of the greek dokimazo, which has common means of trial by fire, purification, and secular references to money changers who would not shave their coins and cheat their customers.
To prove all things, behavior that is contrary to God's Word, God's love, God's intent for His children need to be examined, tried by fire, weighed and balanced. For TWI's leadership, this is what TWI members do not do. Because of the "caste" system in TWI, leaders hold themselves beyond judgement except to their employers. The BOD answers to nobody. Atrocities are swept under the carpet, lies are told and upheld, people are burned and their good reputations impunged and slandered, and anyone with an opinion different than the leaders is eventually blackballed. That is simply not proving all things. Nothing is proven, tested, tried with respect to the behavior and actions of leaders who place themselves above God's people. TWI members develop a "pollyanna" mentality where they are just going to focus on the positive and hope that if they ignore the negative it will go away.
The second part of the verse is to hold fast that which is good - once things are proven and exposed and tried as in the first part of the verse, then one can assimilate the good into themselves and have it a beneficial part of them. Assimilating evil practices into one's self is not holding fast to that which is good.
Here is the rub, TWI supporters. YOU HAVE NOT PROVEN ALL THINGS, so you cannot hold fast to that which is good. The evil you knew about and supported, or learned about, that tarnishes your soul. It prevents honestly holding fast to the good because the evil was not confronted.
In one sense the whole existence of GreaseSpot is to prove all things. It is to expose the evil in TWI and offshoots, and confront it. As members aren't subject to punitive retribution here like they are in TWI and offshoots, they are free to share of their accounts of what happened to them (which people still question), expose evil, and confront it.
It is up to the responsibility of each member or poster on GreaseSpot to hold fast to that which is good. There are good experiences, people, scriptures, etc. that we encountered while in TWI. God desires us to integrate into our souls the good, while confronting the evil. Each person has to define for themselves what that means. You cannot judge for another soul which they are doing and say "get over it". The process has to be fulfilled for each person individually. It is a personal growth thing.
So to the pollyannas the message is "prove all things". To the hurt and bitter, after proving all things, the message is "hold fast that which is good". We all choose which message we need at the moment, and it can change depending on where we are at for the moment.
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Tzaia
My tendency would be to frame it a bit differently. I don't know if you read and listened to my spiel on "compensators" but there are rational and logical reasons for becoming involved in a cult or other highly legalistic church organizations, which has to do with the promise of greater rewards.
The "problem" is that you are still deeply ashamed of your choices. I have done some things that I'm not particularly proud of, and while I have been shaped by those choices, I am not defined by those choices. Furthermore, I don't let someone else define me by my choices.
When people do to me what your friend did, I actually enjoy telling them that it's me they're talking about. They are usually horrified. I know I am when I do it. Once someone commented about my pretty living room and I said it was my "Jehovah's Witness room." She told me she was a Jehovah's Witness. We had a good laugh over it, after I pulled my foot from my mouth.
The truth is that you were able to turn away and move in a different direction. A lot of people can't say that.
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Tzaia
Great insight, Chockfull
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geisha779
Deep shame is highly overrated and against my religion.
Abject humiliation is reserved for my stupidity.
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cheranne
Been there too!
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