I guess it depends who's eyes you look through. In our eyes, others are dysfunctional. In reality: Everybody comes from a dysfunctional family. I could find 1001 dysfunctional conditions in others, but then are we REALLY from a 'perfect' family? If we were, would we have joined a cult? Just remember that it is a grand illusion, because deep inside we are all the same!
I don't think my family was disfunctional, but I think I was pretty disfunctional when I got into TWI.
My parent were loving. They were pretty strict with me as a teen. I was a good kid, obedient.etc.
But then I went to a party college, several hours away.
I was a risk taker in my younger days and in my college years I was not very wise. I did lots of crazy things without much thought. Things I hope my kids never do!
For whatever reasons, I think I was more immature than alot of my peers. I didn't have to study very hard to get decent grades, which didn't help. My parents kept me on a strict budget in college, but I soon found waitress jobs for quick cash. Most of my friends had money and were just as wild as I was. We followed a local band around. We called ourselves the Road Dogs, because we traveled so much after this band. Wild times ensued.
Not too long before I got involved in TWI my boyfriend of several years and I broke up, it was a huge deal, we had tons of mutual friends etc. Everyone, including me, thought we would get married.
Just a couple months before my first Twig, ex boyfriend's younger brother, Shaun, a close friend, died in a car crash. He'd been a fun, handsome, kind hearted, life of the party kind of guy. The (Roman Catholic) wake and funeral were just awful. Many friends (and the ex of course )were there.
Afterward I felt numb for a long time, but I didn't have a clue I was depressed.Partying etc wasn't fun. We were all graduating from college, and the best job offer I got seemed like a strait jacket(teaching kindergarten in a tiny town in eastern Montana.)
So the wows I met that spring found someone unhappy with their life, grieving, in a transition. I was ready for the abundant life.
Soon after I married my wonderful bride, I took her out to California to meet my family.
[My mother had sent us a stack of photos of her favored relatives with names and notes on the back of each one. So Bonnie could use them as flash-cards.] Anyway when we got there, my family was having a big potluck dinner for the occasion, at my middle brother's house. I parked out front on the street and as we walked up the path, my brother came out of his house, stopped, blocking the path, pulled out his pistol, and while holding us there in place with his pistol; he questioned me to insure that I had fully briefed Bonnie about our family. [Years earlier when he had brought his bride home to meet the family, she did not speak. We had thought that she was mute. He had forbidden her to speak during her first six months around our family.] Only after repeated assurances that Bonnie was fully prepared to meet our family, did he lower his pistol and step out of the path, allowing us into his home.
After reading about your family Galen, my family is absolutely normal...almost June and Ward style :D-->
I think my upbringing was basically normal for the times. The only hang-up I have is the word "stupid". I think my father used that word too often. We have some infighting, but I think that's to be expected since there are 8 of us left and most of us are all stubborn and pig headed.
Signals, I'm not sure you can gauge family stability on whether you joined a cult. When I look back on the reasons I joined TWI they were honest. I wanted to understand the bible and know what God was all about. Of course, I know less now then I did before I joined :D-->
I don't think my family was disfunctional, but I think I was pretty disfunctional when I got into TWI.
My parent were loving. They were pretty strict with me as a teen. I was a good kid, obedient.etc.
So the wows I met that spring found someone unhappy with their life, grieving, in a transition. I was ready for the abundant life.
Okay, I wasn't a good kid. BUT, everything else sounds like my family and my situation.
signals, I guess dysfunction is a matter of perspective. Good point. However, some families are seriously dysfunctional while others are merely a little "off" or have a few eccentricities. ;)-->
Galen, your family sounds like a trip! You and Bonnie must be just delightful to be around and I can only imagine that there's never a boring day with your family.
gc, You make a good point. The words that ring in my ears from growing up are "common sense". My daddy used to always ask us if we had no common sense. LOL! I guess we didn't if he had to keep asking....
I agree that you can't use dysfunctional families as a measuring stick for cult involvement. I, too, was in a broken place in my life and searching for answers to life questions I was having and had been seeking answers to for a good two or three years. I hadn't found those answers anywhere else and the people in TWI that I met seemed to have those answers. I wanted to know the Bible as well as they did......little did I know they didn't really know the Bible so much as how to manipulate the scriptures to suit their end and to b.s. people...
Belle, I wasn't such a good kid either. I liked raising my son a lot better than I would have liked raising me Funny thing, I find my son and I to be very similar in a lot of ways.
My dad used to test me now and then, I guess to see if my brain was working ok. :D--> Once he asked me the difference between a bridge and an over pass, I flunked the test. To this day I never call an over pass a bridge! I have always figured it was because my dad never went further than the 3rd grade. Some of his siblings had a university degree and my mom had a 3 years of university. I was proud of him anyway. He ran his own business, and taught himself the working end of geometry because of the type of business he had, all on a 3rd grade education.
The gal that introduced me to TWI was my sister-in-law at the time. She was looking for the same things I was. I think there were more people truly seeking God and to understand what God wants from us than not. I think we got caught up in the "doing for...". Looking back though, I was trying to do it in my own strength, forgetting that the price was paid.
We have learned that we get along best with my family when we keep 3000 miles between us, and call them once or twice a year.
My mother has a computer [one of the grandkids gave it to her], but growing up during the depression she is afraid that turning it on will run up the electric bill. So she does not do e-mail.
My Father's current wife, does e-mail us about every week. She even came to Italy and visited us there. She trys hard to get him to like us.
I think we were a fairly ordinary family up until my dad decided to drop dead one day. He was only 50. That kinda threw us all for a loop.
It was several years later that I started hanging around with the girl who would eventually drag me to "twig", but it sure seems likely that not having a father figure around was at least marginally to blame for my being attracted to the cult of personality that was TWI.
My sisters delt with it differently. They both either got pregnant or married young (only to divorce a few years later). At least they weren't dense enough to follow after the cornfield pied piper, and wander off to nowhereland...
Nope, at 17 my family was totally disfunctional. My Dad had left his wife and 4 young children, she was totally unable to cope....it was a very shamefull thing back then, I knew that Daddy left to live with his girlfriend and naturally concluded that because he didn`t want to be with us... there was something very very wrong and unsavory about us or he wouldn`t have wanted to be away ....I loathed myself, my brother and sisters and mom disgausted me.... I just wished that we weren`t so bad that there was something so grossly wrong about us that our Daddy couldn`t stand us:-( My Mom just kind of crawled into a hole and pulled it in after her.....we basically were on our own....the only time I ever heard anything out of my mother was when I screwed up....now mind you she never gave me any help or guidance, I had to figure things out on my own....and then hang my head in shame while she berated me for what seemed like hours for making stupid choices...telling me that I *must have **** for brains* was about the closest she ever came to saying *I love you*.
Suffice it to say ....So I was definatly looking for love, guidance, something to make me feel important.
What better to fill the void than a cool instant *spiritual* family and to throw myself selflessly into the *spiritual* battle and strike some blows for God!! It made me feel wanted and noble.
There was a villain (satan) to focus my hate and blame all of our troubles and shortcomings on....shoot twi was tailor made for me.
Good thread Belle, I thought about it when I read that same line.....
I'm not sure what defines a dysfunctional family...
I prefer to look at some of the eccentricities of the families as free entertainment.
My husband's family, who is all from Greece, is the loudest, messiest, eat-ingest bunch I've ever met. I refer to them as "The Seagulls" - at holidays, they swoop in, eat all your food, leave **** all over the place, and fly out the door.
He has two spinster aunts who cuss like sailors in Greek and throw shoes at each other when they're mad (one is 81 years old, the other is 78). But, when you're down to your last dollar or need a lift or whatever - they're the ones there to dust you off and take care of you. And don't let anyone from outside the family try to pick someone in the family - that's grounds for war!
If that's what dysfunctional is, then I'll take it!
I'd say my family was mostly normal. Not June and Ward Cleaver, but not dysfunctional really....just more like Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck" kind of dysfunctional.
Now Belle, I thought that was "You might be a PARTIALLY CULTURED redneck" kind of dysfunctionality, heh heh.
I came from an educated, loving, stable as you could get family, but unfortunately, lost both parents at a rather early age- lost my father when I was twelve, and mother at seventeen. I guess this could be called dysfunctional at its worst.
I think both my brother and I went kind of bananas.. he sure was not old enough to provide any stability. At least I did not expect him to do so. We have always been close, but we are a lot closer after me exiting a twenty some relationship with TWI.
I was going to do the first post on this thread, but after starting several times and closing the window instead of posting, I decided to wait and see what everyone else would say.
I think that for those of us that are in our 50's, we did grow up in a marginally disfunctional envronment. Our parents had been children during the depression, teens during WWII and adults during Korea and Vietnam. They had a lot on their minds and sometimes being there to mentor and coach the kids was a low priority.
My dad's work kept him away from home most of the time. When he was home, it usually meant punishment for me, for some infraction my mom informed him of. My mom was the best with 0-5 year olds. Just the best. But she never really understood kids older than that.
So what do I make of it. They did the best they could with what they had and what the standards of the day were. We always had good food and warm clothes and working bikes.
Did I do better with my kid? Yeah, a lot better. But I only had one and they had 3. And I have an excellent memory and tried not to make too many of the same mistakes that I remembered them making.
When I think of my parents, I'm a little comforted by what I heard VPW once say: "If your parents are so bad, how come you turned out so good?"
"I think that for those of us that are in our 50's, we did grow up in a marginally disfunctional envronment. Our parents had been children during the depression, teens during WWII and adults during Korea and Vietnam. They had a lot on their minds and sometimes being there to mentor and coach the kids was a low priority."
That is a good point.
Both of sets of my Grandparents lost their farms during the dustbowl/depression. The "Grapes of Wrath" was the theme of their lifes for many years. My parents were early teens when it began, and they both came of 'age' as migrant farm workers. WWII helped a lot with ammo factorys employing everyone who was not asian. My elder siblings were the first generation to attend Public Grade schools, but they also traveled through out each summer picking berrys, grapes and nuts for a living. Two of my brothers were drafted during Vietnam.
"My dad's work kept him away from home most of the time. When he was home, it usually meant punishment for me, for some infraction my mom informed him of. My mom was the best with 0-5 year olds. Just the best. But she never really understood kids older than that."
My father worked construction and it was the entire focus of his life until the day he was served with his divorce. And yes that was largely his role in the home. My earliest memory is of being 'spanked' by him, using a shovel. But being on a farm, he more commonly used horse-whips, or a wooden block-and-tackle, or other various farm implements to beat the children with [at my mother's direction].
"So what do I make of it. They did the best they could with what they had and what the standards of the day were. We always had good food and warm clothes and working bikes."
True.
"Did I do better with my kid? Yeah, a lot better. But I only had one and they had 3. And I have an excellent memory and tried not to make too many of the same mistakes that I remembered them making."
Wow, good point. All four of my grandparents were each among sibling groups of 11 - 15. I am among 6 siblings. Bonnie and I had one and adopted one, so we will have raised 2.
"When I think of my parents, I'm a little comforted by what I heard VPW once say: "If your parents are so bad, how come you turned out so good?"
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signals
I guess it depends who's eyes you look through. In our eyes, others are dysfunctional. In reality: Everybody comes from a dysfunctional family. I could find 1001 dysfunctional conditions in others, but then are we REALLY from a 'perfect' family? If we were, would we have joined a cult? Just remember that it is a grand illusion, because deep inside we are all the same!
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Bramble
I don't think my family was disfunctional, but I think I was pretty disfunctional when I got into TWI.
My parent were loving. They were pretty strict with me as a teen. I was a good kid, obedient.etc.
But then I went to a party college, several hours away.
I was a risk taker in my younger days and in my college years I was not very wise. I did lots of crazy things without much thought. Things I hope my kids never do!
For whatever reasons, I think I was more immature than alot of my peers. I didn't have to study very hard to get decent grades, which didn't help. My parents kept me on a strict budget in college, but I soon found waitress jobs for quick cash. Most of my friends had money and were just as wild as I was. We followed a local band around. We called ourselves the Road Dogs, because we traveled so much after this band. Wild times ensued.
Not too long before I got involved in TWI my boyfriend of several years and I broke up, it was a huge deal, we had tons of mutual friends etc. Everyone, including me, thought we would get married.
Just a couple months before my first Twig, ex boyfriend's younger brother, Shaun, a close friend, died in a car crash. He'd been a fun, handsome, kind hearted, life of the party kind of guy. The (Roman Catholic) wake and funeral were just awful. Many friends (and the ex of course )were there.
Afterward I felt numb for a long time, but I didn't have a clue I was depressed.Partying etc wasn't fun. We were all graduating from college, and the best job offer I got seemed like a strait jacket(teaching kindergarten in a tiny town in eastern Montana.)
So the wows I met that spring found someone unhappy with their life, grieving, in a transition. I was ready for the abundant life.
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Galen
LOL
You guys are too much. :-)
Soon after I married my wonderful bride, I took her out to California to meet my family.
[My mother had sent us a stack of photos of her favored relatives with names and notes on the back of each one. So Bonnie could use them as flash-cards.] Anyway when we got there, my family was having a big potluck dinner for the occasion, at my middle brother's house. I parked out front on the street and as we walked up the path, my brother came out of his house, stopped, blocking the path, pulled out his pistol, and while holding us there in place with his pistol; he questioned me to insure that I had fully briefed Bonnie about our family. [Years earlier when he had brought his bride home to meet the family, she did not speak. We had thought that she was mute. He had forbidden her to speak during her first six months around our family.] Only after repeated assurances that Bonnie was fully prepared to meet our family, did he lower his pistol and step out of the path, allowing us into his home.
:-)
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GeorgeStGeorge
ROFLMAO!!
I was going to mention some family strife, but Galen's got it trumped!
:D--> 
:D-->
George
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gc
After reading about your family Galen, my family is absolutely normal...almost June and Ward style
:D-->
I think my upbringing was basically normal for the times. The only hang-up I have is the word "stupid". I think my father used that word too often. We have some infighting, but I think that's to be expected since there are 8 of us left and most of us are all stubborn and pig headed.
Signals, I'm not sure you can gauge family stability on whether you joined a cult. When I look back on the reasons I joined TWI they were honest. I wanted to understand the bible and know what God was all about. Of course, I know less now then I did before I joined
:D-->
gc
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Belle
Okay, I wasn't a good kid.
BUT, everything else sounds like my family and my situation.
signals, I guess dysfunction is a matter of perspective. Good point. However, some families are seriously dysfunctional while others are merely a little "off" or have a few eccentricities.
;)-->
Galen, your family sounds like a trip! You and Bonnie must be just delightful to be around and I can only imagine that there's never a boring day with your family.
gc, You make a good point. The words that ring in my ears from growing up are "common sense". My daddy used to always ask us if we had no common sense. LOL! I guess we didn't if he had to keep asking....
I agree that you can't use dysfunctional families as a measuring stick for cult involvement. I, too, was in a broken place in my life and searching for answers to life questions I was having and had been seeking answers to for a good two or three years. I hadn't found those answers anywhere else and the people in TWI that I met seemed to have those answers. I wanted to know the Bible as well as they did......little did I know they didn't really know the Bible so much as how to manipulate the scriptures to suit their end and to b.s. people...
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gc
Belle, I wasn't such a good kid either. I liked raising my son a lot better than I would have liked raising me
Funny thing, I find my son and I to be very similar in a lot of ways.
My dad used to test me now and then, I guess to see if my brain was working ok.
:D--> Once he asked me the difference between a bridge and an over pass, I flunked the test. To this day I never call an over pass a bridge! I have always figured it was because my dad never went further than the 3rd grade. Some of his siblings had a university degree and my mom had a 3 years of university. I was proud of him anyway. He ran his own business, and taught himself the working end of geometry because of the type of business he had, all on a 3rd grade education.
The gal that introduced me to TWI was my sister-in-law at the time. She was looking for the same things I was. I think there were more people truly seeking God and to understand what God wants from us than not. I think we got caught up in the "doing for...". Looking back though, I was trying to do it in my own strength, forgetting that the price was paid.
gc
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Galen
Thanks all.
We have learned that we get along best with my family when we keep 3000 miles between us, and call them once or twice a year.
My mother has a computer [one of the grandkids gave it to her], but growing up during the depression she is afraid that turning it on will run up the electric bill. So she does not do e-mail.
My Father's current wife, does e-mail us about every week. She even came to Italy and visited us there. She trys hard to get him to like us.
:-)
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George Aar
I think we were a fairly ordinary family up until my dad decided to drop dead one day. He was only 50. That kinda threw us all for a loop.
It was several years later that I started hanging around with the girl who would eventually drag me to "twig", but it sure seems likely that not having a father figure around was at least marginally to blame for my being attracted to the cult of personality that was TWI.
My sisters delt with it differently. They both either got pregnant or married young (only to divorce a few years later). At least they weren't dense enough to follow after the cornfield pied piper, and wander off to nowhereland...
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rascal
Nope, at 17 my family was totally disfunctional. My Dad had left his wife and 4 young children, she was totally unable to cope....it was a very shamefull thing back then, I knew that Daddy left to live with his girlfriend and naturally concluded that because he didn`t want to be with us... there was something very very wrong and unsavory about us or he wouldn`t have wanted to be away ....I loathed myself, my brother and sisters and mom disgausted me.... I just wished that we weren`t so bad that there was something so grossly wrong about us that our Daddy couldn`t stand us:-( My Mom just kind of crawled into a hole and pulled it in after her.....we basically were on our own....the only time I ever heard anything out of my mother was when I screwed up....now mind you she never gave me any help or guidance, I had to figure things out on my own....and then hang my head in shame while she berated me for what seemed like hours for making stupid choices...telling me that I *must have **** for brains* was about the closest she ever came to saying *I love you*.
Suffice it to say ....So I was definatly looking for love, guidance, something to make me feel important.
What better to fill the void than a cool instant *spiritual* family and to throw myself selflessly into the *spiritual* battle and strike some blows for God!! It made me feel wanted and noble.
There was a villain (satan) to focus my hate and blame all of our troubles and shortcomings on....shoot twi was tailor made for me.
Good thread Belle, I thought about it when I read that same line.....
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ChasUFarley
I'm not sure what defines a dysfunctional family...
I prefer to look at some of the eccentricities of the families as free entertainment.
My husband's family, who is all from Greece, is the loudest, messiest, eat-ingest bunch I've ever met. I refer to them as "The Seagulls" - at holidays, they swoop in, eat all your food, leave **** all over the place, and fly out the door.
He has two spinster aunts who cuss like sailors in Greek and throw shoes at each other when they're mad (one is 81 years old, the other is 78). But, when you're down to your last dollar or need a lift or whatever - they're the ones there to dust you off and take care of you. And don't let anyone from outside the family try to pick someone in the family - that's grounds for war!
If that's what dysfunctional is, then I'll take it!
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Ham
Now Belle, I thought that was "You might be a PARTIALLY CULTURED redneck" kind of dysfunctionality, heh heh.
I came from an educated, loving, stable as you could get family, but unfortunately, lost both parents at a rather early age- lost my father when I was twelve, and mother at seventeen. I guess this could be called dysfunctional at its worst.
I think both my brother and I went kind of bananas.. he sure was not old enough to provide any stability. At least I did not expect him to do so. We have always been close, but we are a lot closer after me exiting a twenty some relationship with TWI.
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jardinero
I'll second that, Shell!
J.
-->
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DaddyHoundog
Belle,
Mine was Dys.
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Jim
I was going to do the first post on this thread, but after starting several times and closing the window instead of posting, I decided to wait and see what everyone else would say.
I think that for those of us that are in our 50's, we did grow up in a marginally disfunctional envronment. Our parents had been children during the depression, teens during WWII and adults during Korea and Vietnam. They had a lot on their minds and sometimes being there to mentor and coach the kids was a low priority.
My dad's work kept him away from home most of the time. When he was home, it usually meant punishment for me, for some infraction my mom informed him of. My mom was the best with 0-5 year olds. Just the best. But she never really understood kids older than that.
So what do I make of it. They did the best they could with what they had and what the standards of the day were. We always had good food and warm clothes and working bikes.
Did I do better with my kid? Yeah, a lot better. But I only had one and they had 3. And I have an excellent memory and tried not to make too many of the same mistakes that I remembered them making.
When I think of my parents, I'm a little comforted by what I heard VPW once say: "If your parents are so bad, how come you turned out so good?"
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Galen
Jim:
"I think that for those of us that are in our 50's, we did grow up in a marginally disfunctional envronment. Our parents had been children during the depression, teens during WWII and adults during Korea and Vietnam. They had a lot on their minds and sometimes being there to mentor and coach the kids was a low priority."
That is a good point.
Both of sets of my Grandparents lost their farms during the dustbowl/depression. The "Grapes of Wrath" was the theme of their lifes for many years. My parents were early teens when it began, and they both came of 'age' as migrant farm workers. WWII helped a lot with ammo factorys employing everyone who was not asian. My elder siblings were the first generation to attend Public Grade schools, but they also traveled through out each summer picking berrys, grapes and nuts for a living. Two of my brothers were drafted during Vietnam.
"My dad's work kept him away from home most of the time. When he was home, it usually meant punishment for me, for some infraction my mom informed him of. My mom was the best with 0-5 year olds. Just the best. But she never really understood kids older than that."
My father worked construction and it was the entire focus of his life until the day he was served with his divorce. And yes that was largely his role in the home. My earliest memory is of being 'spanked' by him, using a shovel. But being on a farm, he more commonly used horse-whips, or a wooden block-and-tackle, or other various farm implements to beat the children with [at my mother's direction].
"So what do I make of it. They did the best they could with what they had and what the standards of the day were. We always had good food and warm clothes and working bikes."
True.
"Did I do better with my kid? Yeah, a lot better. But I only had one and they had 3. And I have an excellent memory and tried not to make too many of the same mistakes that I remembered them making."
Wow, good point. All four of my grandparents were each among sibling groups of 11 - 15. I am among 6 siblings. Bonnie and I had one and adopted one, so we will have raised 2.
"When I think of my parents, I'm a little comforted by what I heard VPW once say: "If your parents are so bad, how come you turned out so good?"
By G-d's Grace.
:-)
Very good points Jim.
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