Why Did You Leave TWI?

[excathedra]

yeah "maybe" it was. if he had just made a pass at me, i would have been much better off, dear JL

[Edi]

I left because of their view on sexual freedom and the abuse of power by Way Corps

[LornaDoone]

Oh that it were spring. I hear we may be facing another mass exodus in the spring. Oh joyous day. Maybe there is a light shining on some at headquarters. We shall see.

[frank123lol]

Lorna,It would be good if a bunch of innies "saw the light".

I left because I wanted to buy a house,though after lurking at greasespot I had had enough,

Why I stayed after all my friends were kicked out musta been way brain.

At the end though Mr.Al Li@@t taught and used How to win friends and influence people

His comment was" If you can not get along with anybody maybe it is you'

[Ham]

Frank, I think it was the same for most of us.. at least from what I read here.

Something of a real drastic nature was required before they lost their grip on us..

after a while, all the little compromises seem to finally add up.

[J0nny Ling0]

Well ExCath, I know your situation wasn't a "maybe". Sorry, wrong choice of a word. But, since I was pretty far from VP, and interacted with him only on "priviledged" occasions , my reason for leaving wasn't directly because of him. On the occasions I was around him, he treated me well. It was LCM's later on "breathing out threatenings and slaughter", his rantings and ravings, and then finally his ridiculous effort to regain control regardless of his unbiblical methods, that caused me to simply say; "I refuse to answer that ridiculous ultimatum, if "It Is Written" is supposed to be our motto, then "It Is Written" no longer exists here. let the chips fall where they may". And, even though my wife and I felt like "Mr. and Mrs. Mole" standing and blinking in the blinding yet life giving sunlight for the first time ever, we are thankful to have made that decision...

[excathedra]

and good for you and me !

i think about when craig being bonkers.... and even moreso after i left.....

and then i think about what a snake veepee was

much more clever than martindale. i'm kind of glad he picked him rather than someone like himself. who knows ? i might still be "in" (barf)

i also have to admit when geer got in the picture, that was too much for me, even though for 5 minutes i considered his reproof. kneejerk reaction i guess

[J0nny Ling0]

Damn girl! That picture of Rosalie freaked me out with your name next to it! Scary costume fore shore. You are twisted! :)

And yeah, LCM made it pretty easy for us, even though we had followed the CG thing for awhile after. Finally we dumped that whole thing too. Seemed like CG was really "mean" and unkind. What I liked about The Way was the Love that I found amongst my new found friends (which really did exist!), and when that became a thing of the past, we just became part of it's history...

Edited October 31, 2005 by Jonny Lingo

[Ham]

Dang Exie, is that the "new look"?

Yikes.. scare me.. :D

Edited November 4, 2005 by DooWap

[Ham]

Oh yeah, I forgot.. it IS halloween..

[outandabout]

Speaking of love, remember that guy in the 10th corps who used to walk around saying, "Where is the Love?"

It was a joke, but there really was a lot of truth to it! :lol:

[J0nny Ling0]

I was in the Tenth Corps, and I remember that. Was it George Cumella? It definitely seems as if it was one of our brothers from New York City...

In fact, he got eproved heavily for teaching about "heart". VPW had once said something like "I don't know kids, how do you teach "heart"? And so, one time on the top floor of the library, George used that statement by VPW as his opening statement, and proceeded to try and teach "heart". And man oh man did he get creamed royally for that one. I remember seeing him cornered against the back wall by the Corps Coordinators and being chewed up onside and down the other for trying to "out do VP and do something that VPW said couldn't be done....."

Sad sad sad...

p.s.

This was supposed to have been posted after and in response to Outandabouts comment. But for some reason it has appeared after the poll

Edited November 1, 2005 by Jonny Lingo

[A la prochaine]

Hello Jonny,

Nice to see you! Just to let you know...the poll shows up at the top of each page in this thread.

I voted Abuse from Way Corps.... but actually.... the real reason was WE GOT THROWN OUT...which I guess is being abused by Way Corps.

I'm saying Way Corps abuse.. because this wonderful Way Corps R*ndy G*nn told my husband to leave me after he had so lovingly told us we were NOT WELCOME AT THE WAY!!!

[J0nny Ling0]

Ginzo huh? He said to me; "You are stupid" on LEAD. At first it hurt, but then again, I just thought oh screw you. My first impression of him was that he was cool and down to earth. But, evidently not. Told your husband to leave you uh? Not very Biblical. Guess "It Is Written" was not his motto. A poor example of a Way Corps person....

And yes red haired French Babe, nice to see you too! And, I like the froggy...

With love,

"Jonny"

Edited November 4, 2005 by Jonny Lingo

[Digitalis]

This is why we left and what we felt happened in our lives. This is just in part for it is far to deep to cover in one post.

We left TWI because my family was in bondage. My children were being hurt. I was in bondage by TWI. Our lives were not lived but dictated. Our beliefs were dictated.

The more classes we took, the more responsibility, the deeper our enslavement.

The lingo changed over the years but the crap was the same and getting deeper.

It started out think for yourself, "know that you know that you know" . Later we felt it was simply just follow your orders from headquarters and our LC. Our twig, latter family fellowship was no longer self governing but dictated enslavement. Even though we coordinated it we noticed we weren't in charge of those people we knew most personally.

We were teaching three times a week in the end from tapes that we had not even had time to make our own. Had not had time to study for ourselves. I am ashamed but I feel we became mini me's for LCM or whomever was on the Sunday Service Video. Don't question the MOG just do as told. We found ourselves repeating the MOG after the years passed. Using the same inuendos. This is humiliating even to admit, but I must.

I knew this was wrong but things were moving so fastly, it felt as if I were on a merry-go-round and the bully pushing it wouldn't stop. I was getting sick and needed to puke. I had to stop. I had to get off. Had to do the right thing in my heart. We visited people who had been marked and avoided, had to find the truth, had to help.

This sent my family thru the ringer. We were ostricized in front of our peers, accused of things we had not even done, words twisted and perverted into lies. Accused of questioning the MOG which I did do, but how dare I, who the He!! was I?

Well my husband and I truly believe if one sheep is lost, it needed to be found. We had a responsibility to do all we could to find them and bring them back into the fold.

We finally came to the belief that TWI was not the fold that God had intended at least not in our area. We would no longer teach, repeat the inuendos of the day or enslave Gods children. We walked away humilated in front of our peers. We knew this would happen because we had been on the other side of the table. Sometimes I wonder why we even went to that meeting, we had already decided to walk away before we were given the choice to conform or walk.

Gods kids deserved to be free of fear and we were not going to be the ones who helped them live in fear of speaking their mind because their words would be twisted and perverted. We would no longer believe accusations that were unfounded or be part of trying to put cases against people who might possibly disable TWI.

We made a free will choice to be FREE and no longer be afraid for ourselves, or afraid for our brothers and sisters in Christ because of our involvement. We truly wanted to help our brothers and sisters in Christ and our choice to leave and not conform I would like to believe sent a bigger message than our staying.

We left for all the above and so much more. What once I believed beautiful became an ugly beast that reared its head, bared its teeth and growled like a true beast.

We are sorry to those lives we assisted in invading, and did it so ignorantly because we believed that only the goodness of trying to help them was at stake. We now know they knew things we didn't. There was no excuse for our ignorance we should have seen through what I now truly whole heartedly believe was manipulation for other reasons than the word.

I am glad we are no longer part of TWI.

Digi

[Bolshevik]

I "left" because of the rank and file. They work hard at their lies.

You expect lies from leadership like you would any world leader. That is not as disappointing.

[Twinky]

"Left TWI" - now that's an interesting concept. One raised in the early part of this thread.

There are some "innies" who have left TWI in their hearts but continue to stick around because their spouse, or sometimes their kids or parents, are still there. Have they left?

And there are some people who have been "out" for a long time, but they still espouse the principal facts of the doctrine. They defend it in these threads. Have they left?

And there are those who were kicked out and feel bad, humiliated, guilty, ashamed, or are still hurting. They think the organization is fine but they are at fault. They might want to go back, if they're good enough, or eat enough humble pie, or they simply can't settle in mainstream churches. Have they left?

At what point do you "leave"?

For me, I probably "left" after I'd discovered the Cafe, when I read all the horror stories of the abuse and realized that what had happened to me was simply a part of the modus operandi and very little to do with me personally. But they'd booted me over a decade earlier and self-condemnation had left me miserable but still Waybrained.

[Linda Z]

Twinky, I'm glad you found answers here that helped you get past what happened to you. Your getting tossed out was clearly twi's loss and your gain!

I have great sympathy for those who were kicked out of twi before they were ready to leave. I can't imagine how much harder that would have been than walking away voluntarily.

[Bolshevik]

. . . I can't imagine how much harder that would have been than walking away voluntarily.

eh

[excathedra]

i see your point

[JustThinking]

I would have to say too much legalism and the other biggie was BOREDOM !! Actually one other thing, I got so tired of trying to fit the "TWI mould" there was no more freedom to be yourself and just be accepted for who you were, it was starting to become like the "Steptford Wives" Everyone was starting to "look" the same. I woke up one day and came to the realization that I could no longer live out the rest of my life being involved with this outfit so that was the end of it for me.

Cowgirl

OMG, yes! And... Way management pretending like it was all so exciting. Ugh! Reading a Way Rag article and pretending you were teaching. Literally, reading an article word-by-word. BOOOORRRINNNGGGGGG!!!!!! Dragging everyone to the mall an hour before it closed and harassing people who were just trying to get home. Thankfully, no one had a can of mace. ;-)

My girlfriend came once and said "your friends are really weird! Why would you EVER hang out with them?"

Unlike some here, people in our twig/household fellowship were actually very nice. It was just so obviously a dead organization.

JT

[Kit Sober]

I was kicked out.

I didn't believe anything of the wickedness of vpw.

lcm's ranting and the general going to cruelty of twi people was horrible to me, but I thought that God had twi in His hand and would fix these things.

I might still be there if lcm hadn't kicked me out, for which I am eternally thankful.

[cheranne]

[Keith]

Didn't vote because it didn't give me the option of choosing more than one reason. I left once in in the late 70's and came back in the early 90's and left very, very quickly.

[tagalong]

None of the answers fit me. I took a vacation (temp to Perm, I guess). I never really "left". I do not think I would fit if I did come back. I am very liberal in my political views and very libertarian in my attitude. I believe in freedom. I believe there is a lot of freedom in Christ Jesus. The question is when does freedom become an "occasion to the flesh". That is the tough question that each of us must decide. I am still a believer. It is just hard to find a "church". I think there are very loving people in a lot of churches and countless many genuine believers many of whom have never even heard of the Way International. I mean really! How well known is New Knoxville, OH??? Do they have an NFL football team? Any major NASCAR or Indy racing league events? Do I need to go on? I trust you get my point.

Give me Romans 10:9 and as much truth of God's Word as I can get and a loving environment with supportive believers (who edify me and help me) give me that and I can really rock!!!

Edited June 19, 2009 by tagalong