Twinky

At the time I was in, the Corps sponsorship actually was the "pocket money" paid to Corps each month. We got $30 to pay for personal stuff - stamps (to write to sponsors), stationery, laundry, candy, personal hygiene, etc, not to mention gifts/blessing others. There would have been a very small amount left over from what they returned to us and that would go towards the cost of food, housing us, heating the dorm, utilities, etc. I believe (not sure) that we had to find sponsorship of $1500 per block, 3 blocks a year = $4500. Less 12 x $30 = $3600 which gives $900 for other stuff. So actually there was no "profit" from Corps sponsorship. It was all the stuff you contributed afterwards that brought in the money: your own ABS and that of others that you recruited.

Okay - no separation. Yes, THW, they can use a litter tray and were very good when they first arrived. They shared one and I realised they needed one each when one poo'd in the bath. So there is one in the bath - which they both share... (huh?) - that is if they use the tray not the bath. I have moved the one under the stairs a bit to give a bit more room so maybe that will encourage her a bit. I wonder if this defecation in inappropriate places is a part of "marking" the territory, or just plain regression. If regression, perhaps I can pick up from where they regress to and things will come right. Twin human babies might be easier to deal with... Pond - born to show what giving birth is like ?????? Wild!!!!!

Thanks, folks, for your encouragement and funny stories. I really would prefer a "pet" cat before a year but only time will tell. Tiillie is still in the corner and Tallie is still under the sink unit. Looks from what you have all said that I am in for a very long haul. I spent a completely idle day on Sat, lay on my couch and read three (yes 3) novels. Late in the evening one emerged but only because nature called. She was terrified and completely froze when she saw me. She has since messed in her bed (which was in an area where she used to like to hide) and in the other bed. I have put the litter tray in the same area where the beds were and now she doesn't want to use that. There is also a litter tray in my bath and occasionally they use that and occasionally - the bath. (Definitely a case of opening the eyes before the morning shower - ugh.) Neither of them will play with things though Tillie pricked an ear when hearing a tinkling ball. Man, these two are so different from Twinkletoes (Twinky). He knocked on the door as a stray at age about 6 weeks. He is now 12 or 13. He has his daft moments and is scared of cars (why??) and has a mega voice on him (a touch of the Siamese, I think), had an irrational fear of men and fled from my partner every time until they got to live together and now he follows the partner around all the time (they both live in another country). He investigates everything. Twinkle is a bit of a bendy toy and you can position her on your lap and she will just stay like that. She is incurious but loves catching small critters. She squeaks rather than miaows but purrs well. Now the two new ones - care for nothing. But they do investigate the house when I am not there. Trying to escape, I think. Should I separate them - if I can catch either of them?? Or would the separation add to their anxiety levels? Pond your cat sounds amazing, LOL!

Thanks, folks, for continuing to add to the poll votes. It's really interesting that there is a large percentage of people who have been out for over 20 years. One person says he or she is still in and several others haven't been out for too long. Please note for anyone who hasn't voted yet that YOU CAN GIVE MORE THAN ONE RESPONSE TO SOME QUESTIONS (eg what did you do when you left) because people surely did many of those things, concurrently or consecutively). For myself, I don't feel half so alone or weird, knowing that so many of you have been through exactly the same things that I did.

Sorry wrong forum

Sorry wrong forum

Thanks, all, for your replies. I'm obviously in for a longer haul than I had expected. I've had them two weeks and have just started my third course of antibiotics. Tillie bit me badly on the first day (she escaped and I recaptured her; she fought like crazy). There is nothing of Twinkle in my house, she has never been here, and after all this time (8 months) I doubt my furniture smells much of her. I have tried the thing with catnip. Tillie perked up a bit but Tallie is not interested. I offer them kitty treats which are ignored and pushed away. I also tried with some Feliway which is supposed to give off calming scents but they ran away from that. I am not sure if it would be good to separate them and keep them in separate rooms, in case their fear is feeding the other's fear. Would they calm down if separated? (Do I want to risk another infection attempting that? I got them as a pair because the Cats Protection place thought that the slightly less scared one would be good for the terrified one.) Sometimes they huddle up together and sometimes they are at opposite ends of the room. Also I have wondered about borrowing a happy settled female cat from somebody to see if she would settle them. What do you think? Or might the bringing together cause more stress? Or the later separation from a loan "mother" cause more distress? I would hate for them to be cage cats forever or worse, put down; I want them to be whole and happy and able to come and go in my garden whenever they want. But it will be a long time before they are allowed out. Let 'em out now, they would be fox dinner tonight. Or maybe not. Thanks again.

I have just acquired from Cats Protection two 14 month old cats. They are from the same litter. They were born in captivity – their (domesticated) mother was brought in as uncontrollable and gave birth to a litter of 6 a couple of days later. Four of the kittens were re-homed at about 3 months and are nice affectionate cats, but the mother cat viciously protected the remaining two and they have never been handled. Mother has now been re-homed successfully and is a nice affectionate cat. The kittens however are real scaredy-pants. They hide in or under anything they can. One’s favourite place is in a corner behind a cabinet. I can see her (Tillie) but not easily reach her. A radiator hangs on the wall and if I try to touch her she squeezes under it and is almost inaccessible. She is in utter terror if touched. The other (Tallie) is also skittish but a bit more submissive. She lives in or under the sink unit. She can be stroked on her head and back but doesn’t like it and as soon as possible departs the area. She took an entire flight of 14 or more stairs at a single bound the other day, so keen was she to escape being touched. Neither makes any sound and if you look at them they just stare back, completely unblinking, eyes wide. They can stare in terror for 20 mins or more. These animals have never been hurt, injured (except spayed), threatened or maltreated in any way except by their own mother, who has taught them completely irrational fear. I feed them x2 a day and empty their litter trays. It would be nice to have a little more “fellowship” with them. In our mighty history of abuse here at the Café, does anyone have any suggestions of dealing with feline abuse? At the moment, I make sure they know that I know where they are, talk to them (get them used to my voice), touch Tallie if she will let me, and generally try to be non-threatening. But I feel if I don’t handle them they will never get used to it. Suggestions greatly welcomed. (PS Twinkle my other cat who went missing is now resident with my mother, who doesn’t want any more cats because they are too much of a tie. Hahaha. She loves Twinkle too much and was desperately miserable when Twinkle went missing.)

Actually I DID put mine on my CV. I thought about it really carefully and decided my CV looked a bit skinny (especially in the "lost years" after they kicked me out and before I came to my senses). I do believe that's what got me the interview for the job where I am now, with a Christian person in charge of the office. But in between times, he had obviously checked out TWI and before making me the job offer asked what |I thought of The Way now. I think my answer was quite sufficient to convince him I wuldn't be having anything to do with that weird organization any more and he promptly offered me the job. I don't have the paper any more and was told to send it back to HQ which I did. Was that right or wrong? Was so confused then I really didn't know which way was up. I am not sure if it will be going on my next CV.

Welcome back, Man, and who knows, you might meet some new friends too! Glad you "woke up" and now that you are awake, it truly is your choice to believe what you want, and get the benefits/consequences either way. You are welcome here whatever your views. Try starting a thread on "social control" and see what responses you get. Could be interesting.

Yes, and added to which, the class might well be run by WoWs who themselves only took the class last year and may not know much other stuff about the Bible and certainly weren't able to answer questions posed by Christians who had been around (in other churches) for many years. My mum took PFAL and talked with the class coord privately thereafter with some queries. He threw her out. She was a disruptive influence or some such - she's never given me a blow by blow account of their conversation but she dislikes him immensely.

"Model number" !!!!! WD: Thanks for starting this alternative thread.

Rascal: I'm sorry you were ill-treated as a mere spouse-corps wife. You got a double whammy. Partly because you are "only" a woman and partly because you were "only" spouse Corps. Of course it was right you had to leave when your spritually tricked out husband left (you can see my tongue in my cheek, right?) (spit, spit, at that sort of attitude). No women were treated as equal partners in their marriages (or other significant relationships). In this you were (unfortunately) not discriminated against. Everyone, please: Can I remind posters that the purpose of this thread is to consider who comes here to the Cafe and not to debate treatment of spouse Corps. That is a significant point that perhaps should be discussed - maybe someone would like to start another thread? (Mods, feel free to lift some of this thread to start a new one!) Thanks, folks for continuing to vote in the poll. There are some interesting results that I hadn't quite expected.

Now if they'd shown that as a preface to Session 1 of PFAL...

Okay, let's try and keep this on track. For the avoidance of doubt, I see Spouse Corps as Corps. So tick that box. Unless you prefer to tick some other box. It's how you see yourself.

Thank you, "Spouse Corps/child in Family Corps" would have been a good addition. Life could be very unfair for such spouses. There are also horror stories from plenty of WC kids here who were affected by their parents' decisions to enter the WC. Non Corps spouses were encouraged to participate in the program and the spouse was often given a job on staff (usually at the same location but there were times when they would be at separate campuses for a month or two). Around my time in rez (early 90s) came the ban on marrying non-Corps and shortly thereafter BOTH of them were required to repeat the Corps program. If either was deemed not up to standard, they both had to leave. One grad of about WC10 or 12 was in with his spouse and she had suuuch a hard time and they both got asked to leave. She had been a good loyal supporter of her husband but simply couldn't cope with the extreme demands of in rez. A good couple was lost there. (Or maybe, was given the opportunity to get found (wry smile).) I must admit I was a little envious of in rez couples having their own room (oh, some space!!) and the opportunity for a few shreds of normal life. You could be right, especially since the highest ranking is "servant" of all. Maybe I'm showing a little Waybrain... Thanks, all, for your responses, please add your own votes if you have not already done so.

Clearly passionate about Scientology, but what exactly does he believe or his belief achieve except to "wanna help" in some vague undefined way? Looks just like some almighty ego kick to me, "I have the answers". When is the next bus outta here? To anywhere?

Spectrum: Wouldn't you have more respect for a research ministry if it actually DID research and also considered the works of other respected theologians/authors? Allowed those authors credit for what work was used/built on (like JE Stiles)? The reason we were discouraged from reading other authors' work is because we would find out the sources of the "research" already done by TWI. But never mind that: Let's consider their view of fellowship. There are many wonderful Christian people that you can meet every day. Can TWI members "fellowship" with them? No way, those Christian people must be possessed. In his eartly ministry JC didn't demand that people hung around with him all the time. In the post-Pentecost period the early Christians didn't make such a demand, either. In later years TWI has done all it can to restrict who can fellowship with whom. In the prison that is TWI, the phrase "cell group" takes on a whole new dimension. How convenient to disregard scriptures like Rom 12:16-18. I leave you to check these for yourself, since you like research.

Ah, Ex, sure you didn't screw up too badly. Some of the sections allow more than one answer, including, "what you did for TWI" and "what you did after TWI." Thanks for everyone's responses, let's see a few more, please! :) :) :)

Well I don't know if this is quite "personality," but on several occasions I followed the example of what was done by others (one in particular) (being a follower of my local leader, y'know), only to have THAT SAME PERSON come back at me and tell me how much I was off the word. Does that add to mental confuson, or what? He simply loved reaming me (and women generally) for doing things he allowed for himself. Got worse just before THAT SAME PERSON threw me out because I just wasn't good enough for him.

MA Vet! Too funny, T-Bone!! but I don't think I'd join you with your other T shirt unless you changed the wording to "TWI's possessed all the time". Well, even that's not fair. Can I have one that says, "Possession of the Lord Jesus Christ" (since I was purchased by his blood)?

Me too me too me too! Maybe if GSC ever gets closed down like Waydale did we could call ourselves the Marked and Avoided. Or Avoiders.

Thanks, all, for your replies so far. I think if I were to start this again I would add another button, "Did you leave pre- or post-PoP?" but too late for that now. Perhaps that can be considered later. Results so far on 66 votes are that 54% of us have had Corps involvement (though didn't necesarily graduate) and 64% of us have been out for over 15 years, which gives some idea of the insidious nature of TWI teachings. The subtle way of inviting someone to "take a break" as a subterfuge for throwing them out has also been raised in several posts. Whether anyone was received back with open arms after such a break is debatable. (I myself was invited to "take a break" and when I returned after 6 months met even more vile treatment than before. I doubt there was ever any intention to do let me back - it was just someone on a jolly to administer more humiliation.) Well done those of you who "took a break" and made it permanent. I think I'd call that being thrown out, rather than leaving volutarily, but it's whatever you feel is appropriate. Looking forward to more responses. Twinky (edited cos I can't type today, hurt my index finger)

In case anyone thinks I've not voted - I did, but made an amendment to the poll and it won't let me vote again.

Folks, it might be interesting to find out a bit about who comes to the Cafe so if you're willing, let's ask the questions. If I missed out a relevant category, apologies, tick other and tell us about it below.