potato

outofdafog, voting is another thing twi soured for me. I was ordered to vote for bush by my FC. so I didn't vote, and kept my sin of not supporting twi's chosen candidate a secret so my ex wouldn't take me before the Holy Tribunal again. I have not voted since although it bothers me every year. maybe next year I'll be healed.

when martindale became a historical corn on christianity's baby toe, I started a process that brought me to the conclusion that whether I agree with the decision to be homosexual or not, I have no right to judge another's choice in sexual orientation, especially since I'm not privy to their life experience that brought them to make such a choice. I've also lately questioned whether there isn't more of a biological factor... not genetic, I don't believe genetics plays a role, but we're a heck of a lot more than a mess of dna and things sometimes run the way they do because of other triggers and stimuli. twi taught that everything is black and white, but I am fully aware that we are living in an age of grace. if we weren't, many of us would have been stoned to death already.

I was looking for my RHST book so I could do that, but it seems that when I moved last year I didn't bother to unpack it... guess I really had one foot out the door. I'll have to post as I read, because I'm so curious now I'm going to mark up the RHST book when I find it with page numbers from Stiles' book.

hahahahaha!! exxie, well done! now I'm going to be good old fashioned steakhouse fries so I can ask "where's the damned beef?"

because of the mentions Stiles has gotten on this board, I ordered a copy from amazon marketplace. it arrived a couple of days ago. best I can figure, it's a second edition published in 1951 or so. it's really, really eerie reading it. I keep feeling like, wow, he totally ripped that off from v.p. wierwille... but this material and the decade or so of teaching that predates the book came before v.p. wierwille claims to have been inspired by God to teach this material. it's just so... weird. the turns of phrase are all there. the practical teaching is all there. the letters included in the book could have been written by newly converted wayfers if the language indicating a home church affiliation was censored out. I know all this has been posted before, but I'm in a state of starry-eyed wonder tonight.

the business methodology of twi seems to have trickled down to lots of the "believer" businesses. some of the small-time businesses were fine, but the more lauded by twi leaders a business was, the more corrupt I'd suspect it to be just based on my experience with a business my ex and I worked for... low pay, no benefits, dangerous working conditions, barely scraped by for years, and we were "blessed" to be working for such a great man and godly company. ha. his employees were at the bottom of his list of concerns and were really nothing more than a means to his end of financial abundance.

well damn you RR, I had wiped that memory from my mind and you brought it back! gross!

if he's the good narcissist he seems to be, I'm sure that dwelling on the fact that *through no fault of his own* he's no longer is recognized (worshippied, feared) *as he deserves to be* will make this the best birthday he's ever had. narcissists love drama and negative energy is as good as positive... of course, it will only satisfy him if he has a/some good victim(s) to lay the drama on.

Groucho, I officially left in september, but I'd been in the process of disentangling myself for a few years. it was just hard to make the final break but I'm oh-so-glad I have. I do like myself better, I have to remind myself constantly though not to sweat the small stuff because I don't have leadership breathing down my neck anymore. my kids like me better now :)

it's been a much longer and tougher path to reassemble myself from recovered parts than it was for them to destroy me. the love was fake. the godly oversight may as well have come from the devil itself. because of all their so-called care for me, the more someone seems to care about me, the less I trust them. toughest thing ever to try to maintain relationships with normal people when I want to run screaming into the night if they seem even a little nice.

there are people in twi that I will hate until I die. 3 of them. for dismantling my sense of self so completely that I actually disappeared for years. and for the rest who stood by and watched and support the 3, I can forgive if I see genuine remorse. but those 3 people... I can't even speak about it, but they are bringers of death.

whoa, that is sinking pretty damned low. I'm so sick of twi threats to keep people quiet. that's why I love this board.

I'm not gonna flame either. all I was saying is he showed genuine kindness to me on a couple of occassions, so it seems there was heart there at one time. you don't get to the top unless you sell out, and he sold out. I just reconciled with a woman who was my best friend a few years back. leadership had almost destroyed our friendship along with my self esteem. our relationship was certainly damaged in the aftermath. she left twi a few years ago. once I made the decision to leave, I couldn't get it out of my mind that I wanted to talk to her so I left her a message and she called me back. we talked for 3 hours and healed the breach. the thing that touched me the most is that she had remorse over the incident that got leadership involved in the first place. I haven't seen that remorse very much. it's just the business of the day to run amok over people's hearts and then turn their backs. even if they feel remorse, they can never bring it up while they're on the inside. that's pretty sad.

I saw it and interpreted the fact that he moved so his daughter to finish high school as either being a shallow coverup for some deeper issue. funny how my reaction is different now than it was before the LCM incident, but now that I'm out I don't feel guilty for suspecting it's all spin. there sure isn't any substance. it's like when someone got fired at one of my jobs once, he'd abused everyone in the department then screamed at the manager, and all that was said was "he no longer works here".

I truly hope Harve will see the light. he blessed me big time on a couple of occassions when I was suffering from a physical infirmity, and he always seemed like a really genuine believer when I interacted with him in the early 90s. the BOT never seemed like a good fit for him in my mind. only if he sold his soul.

AAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!! that's load language, for sure. I'm glad you posted that Lori, so I could feel all the awful, guilty and confusing emotions that go with that term. I'm weeding that crap out of my response system RIGHT NOW. I will not ever use the words "not standing" to describe anyone!!! if I EVER hear anyone on the inside utter those words (and I'm sure I will because I plan to keep in touch with 2 people who will probably say it, God bless their souls) I will make sure to point out how horrible a thing it is to say something like that about someone because it's an UTTER UNTRUTH!!!! IN OR OUT OF TWI HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STANDING!!!!

is it thinking evil to call a spade a spade?

attack gypsy, I went wow in the early 90's and it was pretty much like that. c@rm3n br0w^ shoved way corps down my (now ex) husband's throat so often he decided we should go into the corps. my WOW family got yelled at and dictated too constantly by a lazy WOW branch coordinator (corps) who couldn't get himself a job. to top it off, I almost didn't get pinned because my husband broke a rule on the way to the RoA. he screwed up and I was going to share the consequences because, you know, it wouldn't be fair for a wife to be recognized for her year if the husband blew it for them. my husband's decision to go in the corps was the beginning of the worst years of my life, even though he got us kicked out pretty quickly. you were smart to reject the "opportunity" to go in the corps.

I don't know. it seems like there are common abuses committed by some of these groups that we can support each other through regardless of which cult committed the abuse. for that reason, I say no separation. the only reason I can see for separating them is to avoid the confusion I'm susceptible to at times when trying to figure out if it was TWI or some other outfit who committed the outrages, plus some of the doctrines are so different... so we'd need a twi-survivors group, a geerites survivors group, and so on because although some of the abuses are identical, the group tactics might be very specific to the group. I'm really tired so that might not have made sense :)

Joseph, I couldn't read your posts because I find I have little time for novels (no offence) but I did want to say that I can totally relate to the feeling of shame over dreaming. I don't run from my dreams anymore and that is probably what has helped me disentangle myself from TWI as quickly as I have. I never dream unless I'm hiding from something. I had two dreams in one night last week that were rich in symbolism (my brain picks some weird symbols, which would freak me out if I were to take them literally). whenever I have a dream that vivid, I don't ignore it (not now, not that I've lost the shame taught me in TWI). my two dreams... first a girl, attacked by a huge (dog-sized) reddish rat. I had to come to her rescue. second, a boy taken advantage of by a sexual predator... in the second dream, I looked for help elsewhere and none was forthcoming, so I took action to protect the boy. the meanings are obvious to me, because of my own actions in my dreams, plus the rat and the sexual predator looked strikingly similar to a man in TWI who symbolizes all that is legalistic and ignorant in that organization. I could have woke up going, yuck! nightmares! but I woke up asking myself what am I trying to tell myself that my very armored and distrustful brain won't listen to? it's possible that I do some random processing in my sleep, but these types of dreams are really different. they are in color, they stick, and they usually wake me up because I have some soul-searching to do.

I remember the "sell-out" teachings too... wasn't that part of AOTS? at least that planted the seed (haha, I made a joke) for me right at my introduction to TWI to distrust successful people and eventually to avoid excelling at anything myself lest I be overtaken by pride.

the salt covenant always seemed kind of weird to me. if eating salt together was a figurative reference to the deeper meaning behind breaking bread together, then didn't simply eating together imply the same commitment? I was discussing this with someone at work last week: in some cultures, eating at the same table is an act of intimacy. here (in my experience anyway) eating off the same plate or giving someone a bite of my sandwich is intimate. this came up because he was telling a story about a guy who got upset about his girlfriend eating off of his plate, so my co-worker called him on the carpet about where else her mouth has been so share his stupid french fries because you can't expect some benefits without giving some yourself. I wish I could quote the exact language but I'm sure it would offend. it was very funny, however, and started the discussion of intimacy and food. our custom of the bride and groom feeding each other cake is the same thing as sharing salt.

well, thanks to whoever put the throttle on. the baiting posts were getting tiresome. allan, here's a suggestion... why not just say what you mean instead of playing games? I found out it's not a sin to be angry, thank God. why not just be honest about how you feel and quit attacking people? people disagree with you, so what. just because they disagree doen't mean they're insulting you either. I discovered recently I don't have to talk to twits anymore. why would I want to? so I don't. you don't have to talk to people here if you don't want to. if you do want to, it's a bit immature to attack them for not agreeing with you. I do have one question for you, because I keep hoping you'll post something that will change my mind about wanting to block you, and that is: WHY ARE YOU HERE? sign me, potato <=== NOT waiting for some idiotic definition of tiddly winks because it's completely irrelevant.

boy am I glad I got out before that came down (or up) the tree. I don't need another required book purchase.

"He was apparently obsessed with office supplies." my entire tenure with the way international suddenly makes sense.