dear mandii, i hardly know what to say. i'm really really sorry. i usually block how much hell and shame twi put me through. your experience was so frikkin real....
Dearest Mandii, thanks for your story. What a frightening situation from start to finish. So glad your good sense was still intact enough to get you out of there, Lord knows what would have happened to you if you hadn't. A coupla thoughts:
-- I think the "whistle-blower" tends to get attacked because, otherwise, the people she is reporting to would have to admit that they were part of the problem, in not seeing or fixing the problem a lot sooner. They don't want to feel ashamed, they don't want their jobs to be at stake, etc. "That the ministry be not blamed" could be the clarion call for Enron or any other organization that tried to hide their inadequacies.
-- I never worry about people who do not disclose their story in whole or in part. There are a lot of reasons why they might not, including, as you said, not wanting to relive the painful incident. I am sure others understand that as well, even if our curiosity might be pricked. So don't sweat it!
Jeez, what jerks TWI leaders were to allow someone like that on the WOW field! So often, they were in so far over their heads, and thought that they could make it work by waving a Bible and saying something they heard on a Sunday service tape.
awwwwww ((((((Mandii))))))))))))) Geeze what a night mare.... It is astonishing how they seem to use the same techniques .... shame... intimidation...blame....in reading your incident... I relived my own horrible experiences in a twi situation. I experienced the terror...the fear of being possessed...the fear of dying...the fear of being a disapointment to God....as in your story.
I too was put in a totally crazy situation in twi...I too was viewed as the *one with the problem* when I had a viscious leaders wife making my life a living hell....in a way home situation that had gone bad.....
I too remember leaving to go home.... ....assuming that I was to *die* ...but wanting to at least be around SOMEONE who cared for me..EVEN if they were rank unbelieving family members........It was not nearly as arduous a journey as yours (I had a car) ..but very bad never the less.....and after getting home the secret shame and guilt carried around only increased...
I remember the personal loathing I felt for having failed in my percieved responsibility.
I remember thinking that death was a preferable option than being thought of as evil... or worse yet maybe REALLY posessed. It took some really outstanding intervention to prevent me from finally succumbing to the shame.
(((Mandii))) When you finally DO share...lol you blow me away....
So much to say to you...but so tired...will finish tomorrow.
I am so sorry for what those Guys did to you in the name of God....those whom you trusted... YOU who were only trying to *give*.
Good Morning Mandi...I'm not much for doing such long a read, but...HOLY MOLY...I read your blurb...!!! Poor dear!!!
I think we had the same WOW brother!!!...mine was crazy too...I mean- real crazy!!! Thank God the limb leader saw it (and also the fact that my wow sister was having an affair with the other wow brother) and dispersed my family to other places...Actually, everyone but me was kicked off the field...they moved me to S.C. (where I was put with a nutcase wow sister who stole things from me)!!!!
Golly...haven't thought about them in a while...thanks for the memories ;)-->
Hey sometimes I wonder if I did the same...used the "word" to control situations when I saw people being unduly treated...I know I did...but, it was never in malice or like what you put up with.
((lifted)) Though you don`t post much these days...your heart and insight are much very apreciated when you do....I meant to acknowledge and thank you for you understanding and support earlier in this thread... Thanks!
Hi Rocky and thank you for your warm thoughts...:-) hey it might just might hit near the freezing mark here soon!!
Hi (((Wacky)))...that must have been some year but glad the guy in your area had the integrity to do something about it..had to have been rough for you though until the situation was dealt with though.
edited because of not being fully caffeinated yet and incapable of typing complete sentences under that condition ;-)
We had a crazy wow bro as well....sheeshe...maybe we kept passing the same one around....
We thought that loving our *little* guy was our responsibility and tried desperatly....
Though this one was never dangerous...He couldn`t get work...when my other bro wouldn`t accept a job unless they hired the problem too....he only lasted a week.......
He never pulled his weight...always carped and whined... he was so miserable...he made everyone else as well....
Every decision made as a family he had to argue....I had no idea the toll that it had taken....things JUST weren`t working...I knew as the family coordinator.....it was my fault...it was all do to my failings...so I decided my family was just better off without a lousey leader....what was I thinking...when I thought I could be one of God`s leaders????
Well the corpes in the area found me a week or two later and convinced me to at least talk to the lc .... I couldn`t fathom what for...I mean *I* was the lousey leader...all of the problems were my fault....what did they care about some sub standard wow/leader/corpes wannabe.....
Now I have to tell you....it was with knees trembling that I stood before the lc`s wife...(the lc was out of town)....
She asked me maybe one question about my situation...I mean shoot years of ministry indoctrination ....I knew that I was the screw up.....
I mean ... I was the one who broke MY commitment...had left the field was living with an unbeliever....had turned my back on the ministry...*I* was the lowest of the low...there was more and worse...but will not go into it here....
Unbelievably...she skimmed right past that...no condemnation...no shame... and burrowed right to the source of the problem .......can`t even remember what gave her the clue that all was not well with the *little* wow bro...(the wows) never told anyone...but some how she got to asking questions....What do you MEAN he is only working 9 hours a week???? What the hell do you MEAN that it is from midnight til 2 am???? you mean YOU guys have been supporting him for the last three months??????? and various and other assundry questions...I was befuddled...mean here I was the one that needed to be struck down with the wrath of God...a pusilanimus puss worm that needed to be stepped on and squashed.......and here she kept asking about wow bro
Next thing I know...I was told by a controlled but very angry sounding LC`s wife......YOU go back to that branch and tell EVERYONE to be at a at the bc`s house tomorrow night at 7 pm....an EVERYBODY`D better be there....
Well shoot ..... she showes up...everyone fearfull of the wrath of the lcw....everyone knowing who was in trouble...(me for taking an unauthorised vacation 3 months into the wow year)....and she shows up....maybe she is going to shame me in front of everyone I thought...maybe cast out some demonsbefore she warns everyone to stay away...
She asked one question of the group at large ....and then zeroed in on wow bro....then asked question after question....and with every answere....she saw right past the whining I am doing the best I can feel so sorry for me......well inside of an hour she bought that boy a ticket home and had him on a bus that night.....she NEVER said anything about me...she had me resume my wow duties as if there had never been any question....everyone there was just agape....
Here *I* was the one that was slime...no mention no shame no condemnation...LC`s wife made known that I was in good standing...treated me with much love and respect in front of everyone.... she set the tone of love and respect for me that the rest of the corpes and consequently the rest of the believers followed...I am and will always be deeply gratefull...they picked me up hugged me and took away all of the hurt and shame....the condemnation....
Thing is...once she put her finger on it...we realised in deed what a difficult burden little *bro* had been...I mean shoot it was almost like a heavy cloud had been lifted...when we got home...we knew that she had truly seen things as they were....something we had not seen the bc`s had not seen...anyway..NT...if you ever read this...I will NEVER forget the love and support..... The year was really good after that....till a psycho app corpes guy mmanaged to run off ALL of the wows in his family with his crap....sigh we were given the oportunity to allow him to stay on the wow field by adopting him....well you know...we wanted to do the loving thing....well he made the last couple of months unpleasant...(he is the one who got rid of the kittens)
The saddest part is that you are still full of anger and bitterness and those who abused you are out having fun and probably havent even thought of you in many years.
Chwester........that is a rather foolish thing to say.........I like you...really I do...I spent 20 years thinking JUST the same way....however, you do not know me very well......
Your assumptions about me being bitter are wrong.....there is no need for your sorrow .....please it really doesn`t matter to me if they remember what they did or not...probably most have slapped labels on us to justify their behavior and assuage their evil conscious long since........however...*I* do rmembber ..vividly...I feel the loss....and so does God....hopefully they will be held accountable for the using the scriptures and God as their tools to gain trust and then hurt........if I remember my bible correctly...he takes a mighty dim view of those who do such things...I reckon unless they do some MAJOR repenting ( which consists of ever so much MORE than oh well too bad SOOOO sad...just get over it you whiner) they will be in mighty deep kimshee someday...hope I get to watch...I`ll take a center seat maybe even bring some pop corn and enjoy the show :-)
One can be quite angry over injustices suffered and NOT be consumed by bitterness.....it is a mighty small part of my life and who I am bro....
Seriously...One can detest evil wrought ........really it is ok....it`s apropriate!
Pretending it never happened .... hiding it ...feeling ashamed...for decades...thinking that it was all my fault...now THAT was unhealthy...
[This message was edited by rascal on January 24, 2004 at 22:31.]
"Seriously...One can detest evil wrought ........really it is ok....it`s apropriate!"
Not only is it appropriate...it is right. Injustices should anger us... that anger can lead to some pretty righteous and good actions, and 'never again' is one of them.
Besides, one should never mistake a passionate personality for being one full of bitterness and anger. Passionate people, like Rascal and myself, feel deeply (and I know there is a host of us here who are lie that and then others who aren't and that is okay). Whether it is good or bad, our makeup that GOD gave makes us like that, or our dna or whatever..we are special in our own way.
It is the confines of TWI and every other controlling cult like group that tries to get people to modify their personalities to fit one standard jello mold so that NOT only do we think the same, and believe the same but try to make us act and react the same.
Vive le difference...
okay, I don't speak french...but I think you know what I mean.
I have been thinking about how you are equating anger with bitterness in me, Chwester.....
You know.... if the scriptures tell us to *be angry and sin not*.....seems to me that it is something that we are capable of doing....there are ways and times to be angry and not sin..........
Also....I remember reading where Jesus got angry....seems like I read in the bible about how God got angry a time or two as well and wiped out most of the planet ......
Seriously...I am asking....can you show me scripturally , where it says that I cannot be angry when the situation warrents it?
[This message was edited by rascal on January 25, 2004 at 10:25.]
Geeze mandii...ain`t that the truth....I felt like in making myself fit in the twi jello mold...I had to pretend who I really was didn`t exist...
Dreams .... desires... opinions...all were repressed so that I could become more spiritual/pleasing to God...needing to fit the mold of a virtuous woman....
When we left....Mark and I had no idea WHO or WHAT we really were .....without the twi mold to define all of our boundaries...was mighty scarey at first......even uncomfortable having to rediscover WHO we really were after 15 years....
Lol...I guess some would say that I traded in the twi *virtuous woman* mold, for opinionated loud mouthed bi tch mode ...
I know what you mean, Rascal. When we left, we still acted like TWI zombies..always walking around with a smile on my face...some would ask what is wrong with that? Well, normal people don't smile all the time and it was not spontaneous but rather conditioned behavior...seriously...I was reprimanded more than once and by different leaders for not smiling enough.
I hated my teeth then, I didn't show them off.
All of our responses and body languaged was conditioned by TWI.
Oh and the virtuous woman crap....crap it is...I am stubborn as hell...really and been told that virtuous women were never stubborn, of course this was applied to me when I bucked leadership and what THEY wanted for my life as opposed to what I wanted for my life.
This is a problem I have with religion period...the way they try to make women over in the mode of those women who lived back in the veil times of the bible. Doesn't work. Different society, different norms and different side of the world.
Then religion, at least most of those that I have met, deny common human emotions and plaster them as sin, anger being chief on their list. Personally, I think religion, as a whole, fosters some very unhealthy and repressive mind sets in people and does more to harm people then help people. Especially when they make people afraid to have these emotions and cause a guilt trip for having them or a fear trip of being possessed of an anger/bitter/blah blah demon.
Wow mandii...*guilt trip for having these emotions....or fear trip of being posessed*...
That is so true...I wonder why twi and other destructive religions worked so earnestly to squash these feelings?
We were so schooled to think *only the word* that we totally ignored our own feelings ...our thoughts...our instincts...the voice of God..
It was like a filter on our brains...any thoughts of danger...of suspiscion...of self preservation....were filtered out by our fiercly held mindsets.
I remember getting exasperated with one fellow I adored in twi...in all of the years I knew him...in all of the conversations we had...in all of the letters he wrote...he could only spout out line after line of scripture....no feelings no emotions...no events...I kept wondering *Where`s poor George in there*??
But that was the ideal....just walking scripture spouting zombies with no contradictory thoughts or emotions to clutter things up.
I wonder if that is why emotions were so supressed? I wonder why they were considered so dangerous? Was there something to be feared? Is that why women who tended to be more emotional were squashed so mercilesly?
quote:((lifted)) Though you don`t post much these days...your heart and insight are much very apreciated when you do....I meant to acknowledge and thank you for you understanding and support earlier in this thread... Thanks!
I gave you my support because you have given, IMO, some of the most vivid testimony I have seen about wrongs done to someone in TWI (see "consensual sex in the way among singles" in archives), even if you seemed to recant it a little. And I don't like it when someone questions someone's testimony (not opinion) on what happened to them.
In contrary to what someone once told me privately, it is testimony that has value to me, not rhetoric, opinions, hearsay, or even well meaning second hand accounts of what happened to someone else. That person told me that if I didn't believe their telling of what happened to someone else, I probably wouldnt believe the person's firsthand account. I don't like that, either.
So, if someone speaks out about what happened to himself/herself...and especially if it is about something that is very personal, hurting, and hard to talk about...such as sexual abuse or forced abortions or something else that fits into this category...not just talking about what happened to someone else or a bunch of general others...then I owe that person my support.
In this case, I think Oldies was actually making a valid point, from his point of view. However, I also think he strayed off that into the grounds of talking about you (and others), without getting a vivid picture in his mind of himself in your place, that is, experiencing the same hurts you have testified to, and imagining if he could REALLY brush it off as if it were nothing.
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excathedra
dear mandii, i hardly know what to say. i'm really really sorry. i usually block how much hell and shame twi put me through. your experience was so frikkin real....
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shazdancer
Dearest Mandii, thanks for your story. What a frightening situation from start to finish. So glad your good sense was still intact enough to get you out of there, Lord knows what would have happened to you if you hadn't. A coupla thoughts:
-- I think the "whistle-blower" tends to get attacked because, otherwise, the people she is reporting to would have to admit that they were part of the problem, in not seeing or fixing the problem a lot sooner. They don't want to feel ashamed, they don't want their jobs to be at stake, etc. "That the ministry be not blamed" could be the clarion call for Enron or any other organization that tried to hide their inadequacies.
-- I never worry about people who do not disclose their story in whole or in part. There are a lot of reasons why they might not, including, as you said, not wanting to relive the painful incident. I am sure others understand that as well, even if our curiosity might be pricked. So don't sweat it!
Jeez, what jerks TWI leaders were to allow someone like that on the WOW field! So often, they were in so far over their heads, and thought that they could make it work by waving a Bible and saying something they heard on a Sunday service tape.
Regards,
Shaz
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rascal
awwwwww ((((((Mandii))))))))))))) Geeze what a night mare.... It is astonishing how they seem to use the same techniques .... shame... intimidation...blame....in reading your incident... I relived my own horrible experiences in a twi situation. I experienced the terror...the fear of being possessed...the fear of dying...the fear of being a disapointment to God....as in your story.
I too was put in a totally crazy situation in twi...I too was viewed as the *one with the problem* when I had a viscious leaders wife making my life a living hell....in a way home situation that had gone bad.....
I too remember leaving to go home.... ....assuming that I was to *die* ...but wanting to at least be around SOMEONE who cared for me..EVEN if they were rank unbelieving family members........It was not nearly as arduous a journey as yours (I had a car) ..but very bad never the less.....and after getting home the secret shame and guilt carried around only increased...
I remember the personal loathing I felt for having failed in my percieved responsibility.
I remember thinking that death was a preferable option than being thought of as evil... or worse yet maybe REALLY posessed. It took some really outstanding intervention to prevent me from finally succumbing to the shame.
(((Mandii))) When you finally DO share...lol you blow me away....
So much to say to you...but so tired...will finish tomorrow.
I am so sorry for what those Guys did to you in the name of God....those whom you trusted... YOU who were only trying to *give*.
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Oakspear
Holy Carp Mandii!
Thanks for baring your soul here. Couldn't have been easy.
Talk to you later
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice...but in practice there is
Oakspear
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Mandii
Thank you, everyone for your supportive and caring words.....it means a lot to me.
((((((((everybody)))))))))))))
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Rocky
{{{{{{{{Mandii}}}}}}}}
Boy don't you know it. And I hope it's not too cold there in NY.
I hope healing warmth is flowing your way in many ways.
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Lifted Up
Mandii dunno if you check your PTs much, so if you get a chance...
Just dont feel much like public posting these days.
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Wacky Funster
Good Morning Mandi...I'm not much for doing such long a read, but...HOLY MOLY...I read your blurb...!!! Poor dear!!!
I think we had the same WOW brother!!!...mine was crazy too...I mean- real crazy!!! Thank God the limb leader saw it (and also the fact that my wow sister was having an affair with the other wow brother) and dispersed my family to other places...Actually, everyone but me was kicked off the field...they moved me to S.C. (where I was put with a nutcase wow sister who stole things from me)!!!!
Golly...haven't thought about them in a while...thanks for the memories
;)-->
Hey sometimes I wonder if I did the same...used the "word" to control situations when I saw people being unduly treated...I know I did...but, it was never in malice or like what you put up with.
Glad you're on your road to recovery...
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rascal
((lifted)) Though you don`t post much these days...your heart and insight are much very apreciated when you do....I meant to acknowledge and thank you for you understanding and support earlier in this thread... Thanks!
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Shellon
Rascal
Please check your private topics.
Thanks
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Mandii
Hi Rocky and thank you for your warm thoughts...:-) hey it might just might hit near the freezing mark here soon!!
Hi (((Wacky)))...that must have been some year but glad the guy in your area had the integrity to do something about it..had to have been rough for you though until the situation was dealt with though.
edited because of not being fully caffeinated yet and incapable of typing complete sentences under that condition ;-)
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rascal
We had a crazy wow bro as well....sheeshe...maybe we kept passing the same one around....
We thought that loving our *little* guy was our responsibility and tried desperatly....
Though this one was never dangerous...He couldn`t get work...when my other bro wouldn`t accept a job unless they hired the problem too....he only lasted a week.......
He never pulled his weight...always carped and whined... he was so miserable...he made everyone else as well....
Every decision made as a family he had to argue....I had no idea the toll that it had taken....things JUST weren`t working...I knew as the family coordinator.....it was my fault...it was all do to my failings...so I decided my family was just better off without a lousey leader....what was I thinking...when I thought I could be one of God`s leaders????
Well the corpes in the area found me a week or two later and convinced me to at least talk to the lc .... I couldn`t fathom what for...I mean *I* was the lousey leader...all of the problems were my fault....what did they care about some sub standard wow/leader/corpes wannabe.....
Now I have to tell you....it was with knees trembling that I stood before the lc`s wife...(the lc was out of town)....
She asked me maybe one question about my situation...I mean shoot years of ministry indoctrination ....I knew that I was the screw up.....
I mean ... I was the one who broke MY commitment...had left the field was living with an unbeliever....had turned my back on the ministry...*I* was the lowest of the low...there was more and worse...but will not go into it here....
Unbelievably...she skimmed right past that...no condemnation...no shame... and burrowed right to the source of the problem .......can`t even remember what gave her the clue that all was not well with the *little* wow bro...(the wows) never told anyone...but some how she got to asking questions....What do you MEAN he is only working 9 hours a week???? What the hell do you MEAN that it is from midnight til 2 am???? you mean YOU guys have been supporting him for the last three months??????? and various and other assundry questions...I was befuddled...mean here I was the one that needed to be struck down with the wrath of God...a pusilanimus puss worm that needed to be stepped on and squashed.......and here she kept asking about wow bro
Next thing I know...I was told by a controlled but very angry sounding LC`s wife......YOU go back to that branch and tell EVERYONE to be at a at the bc`s house tomorrow night at 7 pm....an EVERYBODY`D better be there....
Well shoot ..... she showes up...everyone fearfull of the wrath of the lcw....everyone knowing who was in trouble...(me for taking an unauthorised vacation 3 months into the wow year)....and she shows up....maybe she is going to shame me in front of everyone I thought...maybe cast out some demonsbefore she warns everyone to stay away...
She asked one question of the group at large ....and then zeroed in on wow bro....then asked question after question....and with every answere....she saw right past the whining I am doing the best I can feel so sorry for me......well inside of an hour she bought that boy a ticket home and had him on a bus that night.....she NEVER said anything about me...she had me resume my wow duties as if there had never been any question....everyone there was just agape....
Here *I* was the one that was slime...no mention no shame no condemnation...LC`s wife made known that I was in good standing...treated me with much love and respect in front of everyone.... she set the tone of love and respect for me that the rest of the corpes and consequently the rest of the believers followed...I am and will always be deeply gratefull...they picked me up hugged me and took away all of the hurt and shame....the condemnation....
Thing is...once she put her finger on it...we realised in deed what a difficult burden little *bro* had been...I mean shoot it was almost like a heavy cloud had been lifted...when we got home...we knew that she had truly seen things as they were....something we had not seen the bc`s had not seen...anyway..NT...if you ever read this...I will NEVER forget the love and support..... The year was really good after that....till a psycho app corpes guy mmanaged to run off ALL of the wows in his family with his crap....sigh we were given the oportunity to allow him to stay on the wow field by adopting him....well you know...we wanted to do the loving thing....well he made the last couple of months unpleasant...(he is the one who got rid of the kittens)
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Watered Garden
I have read this with rapidly sickening stomach. My experiences were so mild compared with some of you.
ExC, once again I apologize.
Mandii, I hope those creeps rot in hell for doing that to you.
Rascal, I don't know what to say.
WG
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chwester
Rascal,
The saddest part is that you are still full of anger and bitterness and those who abused you are out having fun and probably havent even thought of you in many years.
Why let them do this to you?
Proud to be an American
www.northpoint.org
www.anncoulter.org
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excathedra
no need my dearest WG
chwester sigh that was so comforting
?
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rascal
Chwester........that is a rather foolish thing to say.........I like you...really I do...I spent 20 years thinking JUST the same way....however, you do not know me very well......
Your assumptions about me being bitter are wrong.....there is no need for your sorrow .....please it really doesn`t matter to me if they remember what they did or not...probably most have slapped labels on us to justify their behavior and assuage their evil conscious long since........however...*I* do rmembber ..vividly...I feel the loss....and so does God....hopefully they will be held accountable for the using the scriptures and God as their tools to gain trust and then hurt........if I remember my bible correctly...he takes a mighty dim view of those who do such things...I reckon unless they do some MAJOR repenting ( which consists of ever so much MORE than oh well too bad SOOOO sad...just get over it you whiner) they will be in mighty deep kimshee someday...hope I get to watch...I`ll take a center seat maybe even bring some pop corn and enjoy the show :-)
One can be quite angry over injustices suffered and NOT be consumed by bitterness.....it is a mighty small part of my life and who I am bro....
Seriously...One can detest evil wrought ........really it is ok....it`s apropriate!
Pretending it never happened .... hiding it ...feeling ashamed...for decades...thinking that it was all my fault...now THAT was unhealthy...
[This message was edited by rascal on January 24, 2004 at 22:31.]
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ItsStillTheWord
Rascal, save a seat for me.
Amen.
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Mandii
Rascal said:
"Seriously...One can detest evil wrought ........really it is ok....it`s apropriate!"
Not only is it appropriate...it is right. Injustices should anger us... that anger can lead to some pretty righteous and good actions, and 'never again' is one of them.
Besides, one should never mistake a passionate personality for being one full of bitterness and anger. Passionate people, like Rascal and myself, feel deeply (and I know there is a host of us here who are lie that and then others who aren't and that is okay). Whether it is good or bad, our makeup that GOD gave makes us like that, or our dna or whatever..we are special in our own way.
It is the confines of TWI and every other controlling cult like group that tries to get people to modify their personalities to fit one standard jello mold so that NOT only do we think the same, and believe the same but try to make us act and react the same.
Vive le difference...
okay, I don't speak french...but I think you know what I mean.
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rascal
I have been thinking about how you are equating anger with bitterness in me, Chwester.....
You know.... if the scriptures tell us to *be angry and sin not*.....seems to me that it is something that we are capable of doing....there are ways and times to be angry and not sin..........
Also....I remember reading where Jesus got angry....seems like I read in the bible about how God got angry a time or two as well and wiped out most of the planet ......
Seriously...I am asking....can you show me scripturally , where it says that I cannot be angry when the situation warrents it?
[This message was edited by rascal on January 25, 2004 at 10:25.]
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rascal
Geeze mandii...ain`t that the truth....I felt like in making myself fit in the twi jello mold...I had to pretend who I really was didn`t exist...
Dreams .... desires... opinions...all were repressed so that I could become more spiritual/pleasing to God...needing to fit the mold of a virtuous woman....
When we left....Mark and I had no idea WHO or WHAT we really were .....without the twi mold to define all of our boundaries...was mighty scarey at first......even uncomfortable having to rediscover WHO we really were after 15 years....
Lol...I guess some would say that I traded in the twi *virtuous woman* mold, for opinionated loud mouthed bi tch mode ...
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Mandii
I know what you mean, Rascal. When we left, we still acted like TWI zombies..always walking around with a smile on my face...some would ask what is wrong with that? Well, normal people don't smile all the time and it was not spontaneous but rather conditioned behavior...seriously...I was reprimanded more than once and by different leaders for not smiling enough.
I hated my teeth then, I didn't show them off.
All of our responses and body languaged was conditioned by TWI.
Oh and the virtuous woman crap....crap it is...I am stubborn as hell...really and been told that virtuous women were never stubborn, of course this was applied to me when I bucked leadership and what THEY wanted for my life as opposed to what I wanted for my life.
This is a problem I have with religion period...the way they try to make women over in the mode of those women who lived back in the veil times of the bible. Doesn't work. Different society, different norms and different side of the world.
Then religion, at least most of those that I have met, deny common human emotions and plaster them as sin, anger being chief on their list. Personally, I think religion, as a whole, fosters some very unhealthy and repressive mind sets in people and does more to harm people then help people. Especially when they make people afraid to have these emotions and cause a guilt trip for having them or a fear trip of being possessed of an anger/bitter/blah blah demon.
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rascal
Wow mandii...*guilt trip for having these emotions....or fear trip of being posessed*...
That is so true...I wonder why twi and other destructive religions worked so earnestly to squash these feelings?
We were so schooled to think *only the word* that we totally ignored our own feelings ...our thoughts...our instincts...the voice of God..
It was like a filter on our brains...any thoughts of danger...of suspiscion...of self preservation....were filtered out by our fiercly held mindsets.
I remember getting exasperated with one fellow I adored in twi...in all of the years I knew him...in all of the conversations we had...in all of the letters he wrote...he could only spout out line after line of scripture....no feelings no emotions...no events...I kept wondering *Where`s poor George in there*??
But that was the ideal....just walking scripture spouting zombies with no contradictory thoughts or emotions to clutter things up.
I wonder if that is why emotions were so supressed? I wonder why they were considered so dangerous? Was there something to be feared? Is that why women who tended to be more emotional were squashed so mercilesly?
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Lifted Up
Rascal posted...
I gave you my support because you have given, IMO, some of the most vivid testimony I have seen about wrongs done to someone in TWI (see "consensual sex in the way among singles" in archives), even if you seemed to recant it a little. And I don't like it when someone questions someone's testimony (not opinion) on what happened to them.
In contrary to what someone once told me privately, it is testimony that has value to me, not rhetoric, opinions, hearsay, or even well meaning second hand accounts of what happened to someone else. That person told me that if I didn't believe their telling of what happened to someone else, I probably wouldnt believe the person's firsthand account. I don't like that, either.
So, if someone speaks out about what happened to himself/herself...and especially if it is about something that is very personal, hurting, and hard to talk about...such as sexual abuse or forced abortions or something else that fits into this category...not just talking about what happened to someone else or a bunch of general others...then I owe that person my support.
In this case, I think Oldies was actually making a valid point, from his point of view. However, I also think he strayed off that into the grounds of talking about you (and others), without getting a vivid picture in his mind of himself in your place, that is, experiencing the same hurts you have testified to, and imagining if he could REALLY brush it off as if it were nothing.
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