potato

no, but lcm did offer my ex-husband money to leave.

do staff people even pay into unemployment benefits?

I wonder, too, if "churches" can fire someone for not being the same religion? do they get to discriminate against people based on sex, ability, race, or religion? if they don't, then whoever it is that's thinking they'll be "let go" needs to make sure they can prove that the reason they were let go is because of their sex, ability, race or religion.

you can't quit a job and collect unemployment benefits.

oh, another trick employers use to get rid of inconvenient people is job elimination. if your job is eliminated and they don't offer another, then the eliminated person can get unemployment benefits.

when I left in late 2006 it was same old, same old. unless there has been a drastic overhaul, like retraining leaders to be real pastors, then it's the same crap.

oh yeah, it IS the same crap.

I got so much bad advice, including being told to do things that were outright illegal, that it's not even funny. take the advice of anyone in a leadership position then you'd better be prepared to go to jail because they neither educated themselves regarding their legal responsibilities to their flock nor do they check to make sure they're giving advice that won't get their flock in trouble in court.

good thing I knew the part of the law that kept me out of legal trouble, but the region coordinator himself BROKE THE LAW by failing to report domestic abuse that endangered a child.

hugs back to you, excie. you helped me heal. I'm so glad we're out!

twi almost killed me. it put me into a position of no hope. I found hope again when I looked outside of twi's system, which helped me get out of twi. I've been busy rebuilding my life and am finally at a beginning point of my life, where I was before I got trapped in their abusive system. I have things to look forward to now, and life is enjoyable in a way it never was when all I could do is try to survive the next leadership or spousal attack.

Sometimes "sitting on the fence" can offer the best seat in the house.

you're right! I never thought about it like that before. I do like it, the view is good.

In fairness to my friend, she does recognize that many of the things she was taught at TWI are faulty or misguided. She sees herself as being in a "transitional phase" in terms of her beliefs but says that it's hard to reject beliefs that have been ingrained into her for so long. And I can understand that.

I dealt with that by embracing spiritual agnosticism. it gives me plenty of time and space to accept the fact that I don't know a damned thing and that spiritual truth may exist but I might never find it but I can examine, question, challenge or consider whatever I want, whenever I want without having to make up my mind about anything.

some would label that being spiritually tepid or say I'm sitting on a fence, but frankly I don't really care.

another request for a good working definition of "truth" so I'll know it if I ever run across it.

yeah, I'm with you guys on the side effects. docs were giving me all kinds of stuff before they confirmed asperger's and most of it made me severely ill - affected my memory, I gained weight, I had convulsions, my intestines quit working... it took a while to get the doctors to listen but I kept at it and now I'm just on something short-acting for anxiety. that's all I can take, but it does work. it's a relief that I'm not taking drugs for things I don't have... it just took years to figure out because... well, I have asperger's and I bend too easily to authority :)

I figured out I have to be my own advocate and keep track of symptoms, especially when taking any medication, and if my doc won't listen, go find a new one.

you're lucky, Roy, to have good friends. I'm glad you have a friend going with you.

hey Roy, the Social Security Administration can't force you to submit to treatment, so they aren't assigning a mental health doctor to treat you. I think this is just an assessment. I had one with a psychiatrist. it was a little scary because I didn't know what to expect but she was very nice. she just had to independently establish that I have PTSD so I could get benefits, even though 2 other professionals had already determined that I have it.

if you don't go to the assessment, you could lose your benefits. please go!

hey Roy, the social security administration has to have you see a doctor for confirmation that your issues are ongoing, that's all. make sure you sign all releases of information they ask for so the appointed doctor knows everything about the things you're dealing with, including the stroke.

I'm on SSDI because of what was done to me by my ex and by other people in twi, plus I just found out I have Asperger's Syndrome, which complicates things for me and means I'll have to rely on disability longer than I hoped. even though my SSDI income is tiny, it's better than having nothing, which is what my ex left me and the kids to live on.

hang in there, Roy. it sounds like this is just a routine verification. I know it can feel like a lot of useless jumping through hoops, but they have to do it.

I don't think most people who took part in twi (after the fog) were "hooked", but some were.

Some people are naturally narcissistic pricks who don't want to change, but want to be seen as well-meaning, altruistic and rare individuals. twi is a place where people can change their image of themselves, without really doing anything internally. these types of folks weren't hooked, they found what they were looking for.

yeah I was married to one of those. as long as he got praise, he was all in. when I decided to divorce him and wasn't around to make him look good in meetings (that was my main job, as he told me many times) his charm started to wear off and he left.

unfortunately it took me a few years to leave. I really care about Truth, Justice, and Human Dignity and I still felt like twi had cared about those things before lcm destroyed it, and I kept waiting for RR to make it right. after I showed up here at GSC and started reading I realized the twi I thought existed never did, and it was only because I initially learned to see it through the WoW's eyes and never stood up over inconsistencies but instead excused them that I ended up stuck in twi, self-delusional and altruistic over a non-existent system.

Oh My God!

He said to abandon your child!!!! So.. I wonder how many people down the road before that

were abandoned or given up because of whatever..that is sick sick sick.

I'm really starting to wonder if there are children buried out in the wilderness on the advice of twi's "leaders" because they were "devil possessed" by spirits of ADHD or autism or schizophrenia or bipolar or whatever. wouldn't surprise me at all at this point.

Woah - back up a minute...

He taped an apology? :blink:

An apology for what, exactly?

Just for his "one-time consensual affair" (gag) or for his behavior over many years? His misleading of people? His wresting of the scriptures? His instilling of fear in who knows how many? The mental / spiritual abuse he put so many through? The policy of "mark and avoid"?

...did I miss something?

And, of course, in spirit of this new openness and (what was it that Ric0 called it?) explanation - this apology is available on the TWI website, yes, so that all who were abused can listen?

it was the "apology" tape where he announced he was stepping down and RR was taking over. yes, it was only for the one-time consensual affair. no, it was not a real apology, it was smoke and mirror show.

however, it was less the tape itself and more the people's acceptance of it that bothered me. I could see the gears grinding in their heads to find a way to justify his behavior. I simply could not.

when LCM's apology tape was played and everyone around me excused his actions. I'd noticed weird behavior in some of the top leadership, almost like they couldn't stand having to put up with lesser beings, and I'd been verbally and emotionally abused to the point I didn't trust anyone anyway, and somehow it hit me that night that lies and excuses were the name of the game in twi.

it still took years to get out. I decided to give RR a chance to make things right. she didn't, so I eased myself out the door still fearing that I was putting my kids' lives at risk.

I have my own theories about the mcfadden family, which I'll keep to myself, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them kept on "payroll" for doing nothing for a long time.

I wish I knew then what I knew now, but at least now I can see some of it even though my education as to the specifics of these things is lacking.

eh, specifics be damned :D I drone on a bit sometimes.

at least we can see it now! I used to be so confused by by the mogfarts blaming everything on us. we're not the problem. they are! I'll take care of my own issues and let them live the miserable lives they've created for themselves.

freedom! it's a sweet, sweet thing.

The worst wiring problems in TWI IMO were with those close to Wierwille and tip-top leadership.

If I'm not mistaken I think sociopaths can not be treated.

you're correct, Jeff. cognitive therapy which can be very helpful to people with personality disorders are rarely successful simply because the person with antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy), narcissistic personality disorder or histrionic personality disorder simply can't see that they're the problem. to them, it's everyone else's fault, and everyone else is there solely to support their ego. it's usually more successful with borderline personalities. I'm not sure if that's because borderline doesn't effect the self-awareness part of the brain as severely or what. it's very successful for autistics and aspergerians because we actually do care about our interactions with others.

research has found some brain structure defects in sociopaths. pathological liars have different brain structure defects as well, so in effect they are indeed differently wired as well, but I can't think of any redeeming value in them.

Allowing your web server to index a directory of images -- especially ones you are so concerned about you prevent people from right-clicking on them -- is plain carelessness.

when I set up a site the first thing I do is lock down directories. generally one (and specifically I) wouldn't want random people going through hosted files.

I don't remember what I first "taught", but I learned fairly quickly that I should never, ever show a bit of real emotion or let on that I'm just a human being.

It is an embarrassment to American universities to award any degree at the completion of the Way Corps training.

ditto that.

http://theway.org/common/images/posters/en/

To make matters worse for them they allow their site to display the server banner and it allows subdirectory indexes to show. If someone where to decide to hack their site this info would get em off to a good start.

nice!

Ya, looks like it's just disabled on the theme poster at the bottom right. Still funny cause you can go get it out of your cached files. Perhaps they should disable the server from pushing it?....they would never take advice from a greaespot though.

yeah, it doesn't make much sense.

yeah the site looks better... just like a whited sepulcher.

but my right-click is not disabled. if anyone wanted that image they could just go to http://theway.org/common/images/posters/en/themeposter_0910_sm_en.jpg and copy it.

I see google analytics is analyzing traffic, too.

i like using "differently wired" in this discussion because that's really it in a nutshell, isn't it? isn't it the differently wired that the way international abuses the most? from the stories on here alone about how h.a. and others would hunt for just the right victims for vpw, how we were all taught to pick out specific people to "witness" into taking pfal or going wow or whatever, or look at what the way international described as the "ideal" corps people. the way international always has been looking for victims and typically victims are those that have spent most of their lives knowing they were different from others and they have felt that difference in negative ways, so the way international comes in like saviors and makes those differences into "gifts" only to use those "gifts" as a means to the ends of worse torment than people knew before the way international.

I like the term "differently wired" so much better than "disabled" or "disordered" :) ("freak" also doesn't bother me when it's coming from friendlies when I've done or said something strange).

you are so right about twi hunting down people who don't feel like they fit in. it's really common for people with ADD, AS, HFA or anxiety disorders to feel like we don't really belong anywhere because our quirks often make us outsiders. twi uses that to suck people in, make us feel like we're ok just the way we are, then suddenly we're not ok because of THIS. so we change THIS then suddenly THAT isn't ok. so we change THAT. suddenly one day after being in twi for years, I realized I didn't feel like a person at all.

interesting site, leafytwiglet. we have so many food intolerances it's not even funny, and wheat is one of them. I also have IBS and fibromyalgia, and I suspect they're connected to the AS somehow (i.e. caused by the same thing, maybe, whether the cause is genetic or viral).

I don't think autism is curable, since once a brain has developed it's not going to change substantially, but I certainly believe that many of the accompanying symptoms can be managed or even eliminated by getting enough sleep, eating well (which for us means as milk and gluten free as possible), and being allowed to work in a more solitary setting, which I think would help autistic people function at a much higher level.

insomnia is another part of the AS puzzle and I know when I don't sleep I have intense sensory issues and stress. if I could solve that part of the puzzle my life would be much better... remember when vpw said all you need is SIT for sleep problems? well that never worked for me. I have to take drugs to function in a day person world, otherwise I revert to a much later wake/sleep cycle, which of course got me in endless trouble in twi since everyone is supposed to be able to control everything their body does.

your friend's website is right about bad advice. people will tell us all kinds of things we should do... I was even told my kid would grow up to be a criminal and it would be my fault. I have a book's worth of other bad advice given to me for my sake and my kid's, and that's not even counting the volumes that could be written about what I got in twi.

I look forward to a time when health care professionals and educators understand neurological problems better, so that kids (and adults) don't even need to deal with the issues brought about by non-acceptance if not downright hostility.

the way I look at it, I'll always be reserved, analytical, introspective, and a loner and those aren't personality flaws or a disorder, but it would be nice to be able to sleep and not have sensory issues. those are problems. maybe science will discover some solutions someday.

potato, my love, one word you said..... determination. There is no power on earth that can stop a mama's determination for her children.

I can hardly begin to tell you how your post touched me and how I can relate to so much of it, specifically, the control in the home.

Keep at it girlfriend!!! I am in your corner!!

Kimberly

thank you Kimberly :)

Sorry you went through all that, Potato.

It still astounds me how deep the abuse went. Going to Greasespot has made me see that what I went through was just a part of the whole picture, that so many of us suffered.

What a hell hole.

thanks, and yes twi is surely a hell hole. the longer I'm out and the healthier I get the more I can see that the depth of the hole far exceeds anything I could have imagined.

I am so thankful that TWI isn't a part of my kids' lives. I had left TWI before they were born. Parenting under those "rules" - wooden spoon, etc., - would never work for a child like my youngest. Part of the ODD is that if you do spank or maybe slap their hands, then they retaliate - it turns into a one-upsman thing. Not the kind of contest you want to get into with a child you can't reason with or can understand right from wrong. Discipline is a whole new art. We use a combination of sign/verbal/pictures with the youngest and one thing that will stop him in his tracks is a frown on my face. Don't know why, but it works. He would have certainly been labeled 'possessed' by TWI but we know he's not. As you put it - he's wired differently. In-your-face confrontation/correction just DOES NOT work those kids or people.

twi was all about forcing square pegs to pretend to be round so they could force themselves into round holes that were far, far too small. I have no doubt they'd pronounce me and my kids possessed, although they coddled and petted my ex, who very likely has a personality disorder and is far sicker in the head than I could ever imagine being.

twi values the wrong things in people.