Excellent questions, Chas! I'll try to not write a book. :D
I started out excited about the things I was learning and shared with everyone whether they seemed interested or not. Then, I began noticing those who were avoiding me and, according to what I was taught, dismissed them as being not interested in THE truth.
Then, they became ignorant and wallowing in said ignorance. I detested them for rejecting the Word. I corrected people left and right - such as my boss who was showing off her brand new, beautiful cross necklace she got for Christmas. :blink: Not wise....
I became an outspoken total b1tch to be around. I argued with a co-worker about adultery being 'spiritual adultery' and having nothing to do with sex. :o
Paul Bro*ks used to always say that the more Word you knew the more black & white the world became. We believed him. You were one of "us" - a potential one of "us" - or a rejector of God. And were treated as such.
When I started evaluating things from WayDale, I realized how wrong I was and how un-Jesus like I was in my behavior. I was never raised to discriminate in any way shape or form. It had been an uncomfortable time for me to be judgemental, but I was trying so hard to do things "right". The conflict came when I really admired, respected and wanted to spend more time with those people TWI would expect me to shun.
I started hiding my friendships with these people - gay, Jewish, Baptists, poor people with no teeth, etc. I didn't want my husband to forbid me to see them. I went out of my way to make sure he didn't get to meet them. At work they called him my "probation officer" and I had to call to get "permission" to go out with them for drinks after work. Eventually, I just started lying to him about having to work late because he wouldn't let me go.
I took a new job and two men in my new department were - gasp - gay! My ex wanted me to quit my job! I refused and they are two of the most valuable friends I have. They've done more for me in the way of friendships than anyone in TWI ever did (except maybe my first HFCs).
Now? Now, I am not afraid to ask people what they think and what they believe. I'm not afraid to hear something that maybe I don't agree with right away. I listen first, ask questions and even if I don't agree, we still continue to be friends and don't judge each other on the basis of those things. What a concept!! What freedom!! What a bevy of friendships I've started building because of losing that part of my TWIt brain.
It may have been a slow process that took place during the five years I was trying to save my marriage and exit TWI. I can't say for sure. I know that once I was free from TWI and my overbearing husband, that it seemed to be a "snap" change back to who I was before TWI. Of course, that also meant that I was 25 emotionally in many, many ways.
It was just way more comfortable to take people at face value. To appreciate what uniqueness they had; how they made me feel (yes, feelings!) and what mutual admiration we had for each other. I'm much less lonely than I was in TWI and I think I can see the spectrum of people, situations and life more as a rainbow, if you will and so many things aren't black & white, but rather "different" and maybe interesting to me, but also maybe some things aren't necessarily "bad" or "black" - just not of interest or worth my time. I can see how others may love those things, but I don't hate them or cut them out of my life because of it.
I'm also very, very tolerant and accepting of the stupid things people do knowing what stupid things I did and how much I hurt people over the past 10 years. When I start getting cocky, I remember my mother crying telling me about how left out she was during my wedding planning and wedding itself. I remember my dad getting teared up about the major conflict they had when trying to decide whether it would be worth shelling out $10,000 minimum to have me kidnapped and "deprogrammed". They decided they didn't want to risk me getting so p1ssed about it that they lost me completely. They chose to have me in their life even if I was only partially there than to risk losing me forever. :(
No, I've done way more to harm people, especially those I love, than I think they could ever do to me. So who am I to judge anyone these days? (except maybe those who do continue to promote TWI doctrine, but only because I know how harmful and detrimental it is.)
Thanks for being so gracious Chaz--I am the someone that made the "know-it-all" comment. I am sorry--I should only have spoken for myself not others in that department. I am still "decompressing" as you put it and am rather ashamed of how I have acted while in twi. For me personally, I definitely thought I knew everything and had everything in its own good or bad, black or white box. I am just starting to realize how I was and how I had classified everything.
Please be patient with me! I haven't been out long and am just beginning in my re-evaluation of my beliefs/theology. I know I still have plenty of bad personality traits that were cultivated during my time in twi that were not there before. In all honesty I have a tendency right now to run fast if anything resembles twi because of my fear of being sucked in all over again.
I have found that there are plenty of Christians out there who do love God and some know more about Him than I do. :o
I have learned that things in life are not as cut and dry as twi said. I am sorry to have ever acted like a spoiled, demanding little brat in my prayer time with our Father. (Like I know more than He does about what I really need!) I am learning to trust Him to take care of the big picture instead of telling Him what to do all the time.
Someone on a recent thread said something about how when we were in TWI, we were know-it-alls, and how everything was so black and white to us. We were cocky, sure of ourselves, and no one could tell us any different. We had an answer for everything.
Do you think that type of statement, above, describes how you were - or even how you still are today?
(Please, answer for yourself, not others, k? smile.gif )
Of course I was. Everything was black and white. You either stood with God(twi) or you did not. Although I did question to myself if some things were right in twi. I figured I would grow and see it all one day as twi saw things. I stopped asking questions and took what they said with out question.
After leaving TWI, did you find that things weren't as monocromatic - black and white - as you thought?
That is the question that stumps me. I was out for 14 years before I came across Waydale. I still believed twi was the ministry of God. I still held those teachings in my mind as truth. I did not persue any other type of church because I still thought they were just plain wrong. It was not till Waydale that my mind freed up and I knew it was okay to think outside the box.
Did you begin to question the basis of your theology, including your judgement of others?
While in, as I stated above I thought I would grow into how twi saw things. After finding Waydale I was really set free to accept others for who they were. What a breath of fresh air.
If so, how long did it take for you to admit that maybe your beliefs/thinking could/should/did evolve in any way?
Very shortly after Waydale. Ummmmmm 5 or 6 hours of reading.
And, if so, at what point did you realize you had started to decompress or distance yourself from your TWI expereince?
When I read about the abuses that happened at twi. I have stated before that I always had a feeling that twi and its leaders were not as pure as they seemed to be but could never verify any of it while I was in. So when it was verified to me I had very little troube letting go.
Do you think that type of statement, above, describes how you were - or even how you still are today?
(Please, answer for yourself, not others, k? )
O heck yea, For all the Bs in TWI making fun of people who have all the answers, I slowly became one of those people. It's a horrible burden to carry around to know everything and have to know everything. I still have my moments where i think I know more than I actually do, or am convinced that i am right, but those are slowly fading away.
After leaving TWI, did you find that things weren't as monocromatic - black and white - as you thought?
Definitely, It was sort of scary at first to see the the colors go on having lived in a black and white world for so long, but over the course of time , and not alittle difficulty later I was able to adjust
Did you begin to question the basis of your theology, including your judgement of others?
I knew they were wrong or the whole thing wouldnt have caved in, it just took along time for it to develop for me mentally because I was pretty well indoctrinated and hesitant on which way to go.
If so, how long did it take for you to admit that maybe your beliefs/thinking could/should/did evolve in any way?
Not that long to admit it but i wasnt sure which direction to go for along time. There was no greasespot in those day, most of my "friends' were still in or had also just recently left way world so their was a stringency and an accepted form of how far you could reach outside that was also a hindrance to growing and changing. It wasnt until i started making friends outside, with people from all sorts of backgrounds that i could get a good grip on things and start in earnest to move forward and adapt the way i viewed things
And, if so, at what point did you realize you had started to decompress or distance yourself from your TWI expereince?
Eventually i started to develop other relationships and friendships with people that were outside of TWI and knew nothing about it. We kept religious contexts to a bare minimum unless something came up. I met some really interesting and good people who had very different ways of viewing and doing things than I did. many of them were obviously more right about things than i was..
I think turning the corner was when I started to listen ...
and see the world and people around me without the TWI filtering glasses on....
I had been out of TWI for about a year and a half. I was on the bus, heading for work, and I was reading a book, Sci-Fi i believe. UP pops this young man I didn't know waving a green card and his Bible, YELLING at me, You should be reading the Bible!! the Word is what you need to be immersed it. There he stood waving the bible in my face-until the driver told him to SIT !, (and it wasn't in a spiritual sense)
I was thoroughly shaken by the experience, I looked into that kids eyes and I can't even describe what I saw, fixation??, loss?? fear?? it was a terrible reminder of what TWI was and did
I'll just "ditto" what Belle said... My story and hers are extremely similar, and I went through almost identical stages of change, including my work situation being an open door for new ideas and self-esteem. I'd say my genuine questioning started about half-way through my corps training and grew at a very slow rate over the next 5 years. The amount of doubting/questioning started increasing over the next 5 years (the late 1990s). The "snap" came with the Allen lawsuit, and finding WayDale. Thank you, Paul!
My son once asked me why his father (die-hard twi-let) would get so angry about some subjects. And I told him that if there was a paved road going through life, his dad saw the road divided right down the middle with solid white on one side, and solid black on the other, with a fence dividing them. In his mind, you were either on the white (right) side of a subject or on the black (wrong) side. You could not really straddle the middle because there was a clear separation (the fence). And once you knew what was on the white and what was on the black, there was no point in even discussing an issue. It was settled. I told my son that this perspective is what makes his dad feel in control of his own life, and comfortable with the world around him. And that if he understood that about his dad, he could get along better when these subjects came up.
I went on to tell him that while I once looked at things that way, I now see a road with a thin strip of white on one edge of the road, and a thin strip of black on the other edge, with the whole rest of the road appearing gray; no fences in between. I told him that some things were absolutely wrong, no matter what. And some things were absolutely right, no matter what. But that most things in life needed to be judged by the individual circumstances. Therefore what is right in one situation may be totally wrong in another. It's not that there is no right or wrong, but that when you put all the individual blacks and whites (of all those individual decisions) together, it appears from a distance to be gray, which makes it easy for short-sighted people to say that the gray area is a sea of indecision and "anything goes" lawlessness.
I told him that in my opinion it takes more effort to live in the "gray" world, because you have to look closely at each situation, think about all the issues, and make a decision for each and every thing. The solid black/white view is easier because you make one decision for one issue across the board and you are done. And if there are negative consequences, it's not your responsibility because you were on the white side. You did the "right" thing. Period.
To paraphrase Albus Dumbledoor: The time has come when we must all choose between what is right, and what is easy.
I've posted this before, but this thread about "decompression" might be a good place to repeat it.
The day after I was booted (M&A) from twi, I was leaving my house and I walked out into the neighborhood street where my car was parked, and I stopped dead in my tracks... I looked down the road, and followed the trees upward with my eyes, and saw the sky, and I actually felt the lid coming off the box that I had been living in... it was like the world itself went through the physical transformation of becoming bigger, and I felt that change go right through me!
I hadn't even been thinking about the ministry, or having been booted, when it happened. I was just running out to get groceries or something and BOOM. I know that sounds strange, but the only way I can explain it is that it was such an instantaneous emotional awakening to that fact that my world had been so small for so many years, and that I was no longer confined to that box, that I felt it physically. I will never forget that sensation.
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Belle
Excellent questions, Chas! I'll try to not write a book. :D
I started out excited about the things I was learning and shared with everyone whether they seemed interested or not. Then, I began noticing those who were avoiding me and, according to what I was taught, dismissed them as being not interested in THE truth.
Then, they became ignorant and wallowing in said ignorance. I detested them for rejecting the Word. I corrected people left and right - such as my boss who was showing off her brand new, beautiful cross necklace she got for Christmas. :blink: Not wise....
I became an outspoken total b1tch to be around. I argued with a co-worker about adultery being 'spiritual adultery' and having nothing to do with sex. :o
Paul Bro*ks used to always say that the more Word you knew the more black & white the world became. We believed him. You were one of "us" - a potential one of "us" - or a rejector of God. And were treated as such.
When I started evaluating things from WayDale, I realized how wrong I was and how un-Jesus like I was in my behavior. I was never raised to discriminate in any way shape or form. It had been an uncomfortable time for me to be judgemental, but I was trying so hard to do things "right". The conflict came when I really admired, respected and wanted to spend more time with those people TWI would expect me to shun.
I started hiding my friendships with these people - gay, Jewish, Baptists, poor people with no teeth, etc. I didn't want my husband to forbid me to see them. I went out of my way to make sure he didn't get to meet them. At work they called him my "probation officer" and I had to call to get "permission" to go out with them for drinks after work. Eventually, I just started lying to him about having to work late because he wouldn't let me go.
I took a new job and two men in my new department were - gasp - gay! My ex wanted me to quit my job! I refused and they are two of the most valuable friends I have. They've done more for me in the way of friendships than anyone in TWI ever did (except maybe my first HFCs).
Now? Now, I am not afraid to ask people what they think and what they believe. I'm not afraid to hear something that maybe I don't agree with right away. I listen first, ask questions and even if I don't agree, we still continue to be friends and don't judge each other on the basis of those things. What a concept!! What freedom!! What a bevy of friendships I've started building because of losing that part of my TWIt brain.
It may have been a slow process that took place during the five years I was trying to save my marriage and exit TWI. I can't say for sure. I know that once I was free from TWI and my overbearing husband, that it seemed to be a "snap" change back to who I was before TWI. Of course, that also meant that I was 25 emotionally in many, many ways.
It was just way more comfortable to take people at face value. To appreciate what uniqueness they had; how they made me feel (yes, feelings!) and what mutual admiration we had for each other. I'm much less lonely than I was in TWI and I think I can see the spectrum of people, situations and life more as a rainbow, if you will and so many things aren't black & white, but rather "different" and maybe interesting to me, but also maybe some things aren't necessarily "bad" or "black" - just not of interest or worth my time. I can see how others may love those things, but I don't hate them or cut them out of my life because of it.
I'm also very, very tolerant and accepting of the stupid things people do knowing what stupid things I did and how much I hurt people over the past 10 years. When I start getting cocky, I remember my mother crying telling me about how left out she was during my wedding planning and wedding itself. I remember my dad getting teared up about the major conflict they had when trying to decide whether it would be worth shelling out $10,000 minimum to have me kidnapped and "deprogrammed". They decided they didn't want to risk me getting so p1ssed about it that they lost me completely. They chose to have me in their life even if I was only partially there than to risk losing me forever. :(
No, I've done way more to harm people, especially those I love, than I think they could ever do to me. So who am I to judge anyone these days? (except maybe those who do continue to promote TWI doctrine, but only because I know how harmful and detrimental it is.)
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penguin
Thanks for being so gracious Chaz--I am the someone that made the "know-it-all" comment. I am sorry--I should only have spoken for myself not others in that department. I am still "decompressing" as you put it and am rather ashamed of how I have acted while in twi. For me personally, I definitely thought I knew everything and had everything in its own good or bad, black or white box. I am just starting to realize how I was and how I had classified everything.
Please be patient with me! I haven't been out long and am just beginning in my re-evaluation of my beliefs/theology. I know I still have plenty of bad personality traits that were cultivated during my time in twi that were not there before. In all honesty I have a tendency right now to run fast if anything resembles twi because of my fear of being sucked in all over again.
I have found that there are plenty of Christians out there who do love God and some know more about Him than I do. :o
I have learned that things in life are not as cut and dry as twi said. I am sorry to have ever acted like a spoiled, demanding little brat in my prayer time with our Father. (Like I know more than He does about what I really need!) I am learning to trust Him to take care of the big picture instead of telling Him what to do all the time.
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justloafing
Someone on a recent thread said something about how when we were in TWI, we were know-it-alls, and how everything was so black and white to us. We were cocky, sure of ourselves, and no one could tell us any different. We had an answer for everything.
Do you think that type of statement, above, describes how you were - or even how you still are today?
(Please, answer for yourself, not others, k? smile.gif )
Of course I was. Everything was black and white. You either stood with God(twi) or you did not. Although I did question to myself if some things were right in twi. I figured I would grow and see it all one day as twi saw things. I stopped asking questions and took what they said with out question.
After leaving TWI, did you find that things weren't as monocromatic - black and white - as you thought?
That is the question that stumps me. I was out for 14 years before I came across Waydale. I still believed twi was the ministry of God. I still held those teachings in my mind as truth. I did not persue any other type of church because I still thought they were just plain wrong. It was not till Waydale that my mind freed up and I knew it was okay to think outside the box.
Did you begin to question the basis of your theology, including your judgement of others?
While in, as I stated above I thought I would grow into how twi saw things. After finding Waydale I was really set free to accept others for who they were. What a breath of fresh air.
If so, how long did it take for you to admit that maybe your beliefs/thinking could/should/did evolve in any way?
Very shortly after Waydale. Ummmmmm 5 or 6 hours of reading.
And, if so, at what point did you realize you had started to decompress or distance yourself from your TWI expereince?
When I read about the abuses that happened at twi. I have stated before that I always had a feeling that twi and its leaders were not as pure as they seemed to be but could never verify any of it while I was in. So when it was verified to me I had very little troube letting go.
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mstar1
O heck yea, For all the Bs in TWI making fun of people who have all the answers, I slowly became one of those people. It's a horrible burden to carry around to know everything and have to know everything. I still have my moments where i think I know more than I actually do, or am convinced that i am right, but those are slowly fading away.
After leaving TWI, did you find that things weren't as monocromatic - black and white - as you thought?
Definitely, It was sort of scary at first to see the the colors go on having lived in a black and white world for so long, but over the course of time , and not alittle difficulty later I was able to adjust
Did you begin to question the basis of your theology, including your judgement of others?
I knew they were wrong or the whole thing wouldnt have caved in, it just took along time for it to develop for me mentally because I was pretty well indoctrinated and hesitant on which way to go.
If so, how long did it take for you to admit that maybe your beliefs/thinking could/should/did evolve in any way?
Not that long to admit it but i wasnt sure which direction to go for along time. There was no greasespot in those day, most of my "friends' were still in or had also just recently left way world so their was a stringency and an accepted form of how far you could reach outside that was also a hindrance to growing and changing. It wasnt until i started making friends outside, with people from all sorts of backgrounds that i could get a good grip on things and start in earnest to move forward and adapt the way i viewed things
And, if so, at what point did you realize you had started to decompress or distance yourself from your TWI expereince?
Eventually i started to develop other relationships and friendships with people that were outside of TWI and knew nothing about it. We kept religious contexts to a bare minimum unless something came up. I met some really interesting and good people who had very different ways of viewing and doing things than I did. many of them were obviously more right about things than i was..
I think turning the corner was when I started to listen ...
and see the world and people around me without the TWI filtering glasses on....
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templelady
True story
I had been out of TWI for about a year and a half. I was on the bus, heading for work, and I was reading a book, Sci-Fi i believe. UP pops this young man I didn't know waving a green card and his Bible, YELLING at me, You should be reading the Bible!! the Word is what you need to be immersed it. There he stood waving the bible in my face-until the driver told him to SIT !, (and it wasn't in a spiritual sense)
I was thoroughly shaken by the experience, I looked into that kids eyes and I can't even describe what I saw, fixation??, loss?? fear?? it was a terrible reminder of what TWI was and did
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Rejoice
I no longer believe it is my responsibility to convert anyone.
I no longer argue about God, the Word, or Jesus.
I've stopped "witnessing with a purpose" as in-----purposely accosting someone in a park.
My greatest witness to men is my life and my heart for others.
Bear in mind that at times, this includes my short comings, my human nature, and my faux pas---and that's ok.
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TheHighWay
I'll just "ditto" what Belle said... My story and hers are extremely similar, and I went through almost identical stages of change, including my work situation being an open door for new ideas and self-esteem. I'd say my genuine questioning started about half-way through my corps training and grew at a very slow rate over the next 5 years. The amount of doubting/questioning started increasing over the next 5 years (the late 1990s). The "snap" came with the Allen lawsuit, and finding WayDale. Thank you, Paul!
My son once asked me why his father (die-hard twi-let) would get so angry about some subjects. And I told him that if there was a paved road going through life, his dad saw the road divided right down the middle with solid white on one side, and solid black on the other, with a fence dividing them. In his mind, you were either on the white (right) side of a subject or on the black (wrong) side. You could not really straddle the middle because there was a clear separation (the fence). And once you knew what was on the white and what was on the black, there was no point in even discussing an issue. It was settled. I told my son that this perspective is what makes his dad feel in control of his own life, and comfortable with the world around him. And that if he understood that about his dad, he could get along better when these subjects came up.
I went on to tell him that while I once looked at things that way, I now see a road with a thin strip of white on one edge of the road, and a thin strip of black on the other edge, with the whole rest of the road appearing gray; no fences in between. I told him that some things were absolutely wrong, no matter what. And some things were absolutely right, no matter what. But that most things in life needed to be judged by the individual circumstances. Therefore what is right in one situation may be totally wrong in another. It's not that there is no right or wrong, but that when you put all the individual blacks and whites (of all those individual decisions) together, it appears from a distance to be gray, which makes it easy for short-sighted people to say that the gray area is a sea of indecision and "anything goes" lawlessness.
I told him that in my opinion it takes more effort to live in the "gray" world, because you have to look closely at each situation, think about all the issues, and make a decision for each and every thing. The solid black/white view is easier because you make one decision for one issue across the board and you are done. And if there are negative consequences, it's not your responsibility because you were on the white side. You did the "right" thing. Period.
To paraphrase Albus Dumbledoor: The time has come when we must all choose between what is right, and what is easy.
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TheHighWay
I've posted this before, but this thread about "decompression" might be a good place to repeat it.
The day after I was booted (M&A) from twi, I was leaving my house and I walked out into the neighborhood street where my car was parked, and I stopped dead in my tracks... I looked down the road, and followed the trees upward with my eyes, and saw the sky, and I actually felt the lid coming off the box that I had been living in... it was like the world itself went through the physical transformation of becoming bigger, and I felt that change go right through me!
I hadn't even been thinking about the ministry, or having been booted, when it happened. I was just running out to get groceries or something and BOOM. I know that sounds strange, but the only way I can explain it is that it was such an instantaneous emotional awakening to that fact that my world had been so small for so many years, and that I was no longer confined to that box, that I felt it physically. I will never forget that sensation.
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