potato

I'm very interested in finding out what the "oversight" you mention consisted of. I remember feeling dogged, between my ex-husband talking about me behind my back with the hfc and their personal oversight through 2003. I couldn't imagine them having the time to personally oversee almost every aspect of the lives of every person in the fellowship, but I keep hearing things that make me believe that was in fact what they were directed to do, and I wasn't getting as much personal attention as I thought I was. what exactly was expected of hfc in their "oversight" of the regular folks?

I remember being required to be at fellowship 3x/week, as directed by LCM. it was not optional. no time off for illness, either. my baby was sick and I had to take him and sit in the hall while he cried so I wouldn't distract everyone from "receiving the Word".

the detailed oversight persisted for a long time.... prior to LCM falling from grace there were weekly reports, no outsider friends, I even got confronted for trying to get pregnant when we were in debt and being told I had no business trying to have a baby. afterward LCM, it lightened up some and one of the families was allowed to take in her unbelieving mother instead of putting her in a home, but there was a lot of grumbling from the hfc about her decision, and about other people... he did a lot of criticizing of people's decisions behind their backs to everyone in the group and actively worked to convince people not to make their own decisions. I think he badmouthed people to make everyone suspicious of each other so no one trusted each other.... another method of control.

maximum conditioning in a fraction of the time it normally would take if you resorted to torture alone.

"schedules" This thing really got on my nerves! You were supposed to keep an "up to minute"

schedule, and if anything did come up not on your schedule, well you didn't do it!

I have a feeling that the area I lived was as bad as any root location or corps-heavy area. I was required to submit a weekly schedule to my FC (just me, not anyone else, because of how "dangerous" I was). I was even told that I started preparing dinner too early and that I needed to adjust my schedule because I was wasting time. never mind that I like gourmet food cooked from fresh ingredients and sometimes cooked some things that had to be in the oven for an hour!

Here's another:

Reporting Back

If we ever did anything out of sight of our FC, we were to report back. If we went out of town for even a day, we had to report in when we got back. if we were doing anything significant that they weren't involved in, we had to report back and let them know we were "safe" (i.e. hadn't been tricked out of the Word by the adversary). any task they gave us required reporting back, especially any of those lovely things they presented as a "decision".

now that I think about it, there was a pretty good chunk of time when everyone was required to submit written weekly reports. one report per married couple.

Interestingly enough, I have another in the post, I just realized:

Weakness.

ick. I can't go on, but I'm sure you all can fill in the blanks on that one.

I gave this a lot of thought today and came up with 3 biggies for me:

Wrong

"you're wrong", "your thinking is wrong" = any action, desire, idea, thought, inspiration that you can't line up with TWI doctrine for your leadership. The desire to do anything, to live somewhere, travel, join an activity to make friends, was suspect unless it could be justified in some way. there had to be some "spiritual" advantage (it couldn't just be because it was fun or I wanted to). Any thought or act was under suspicion, and if you could not show a good reason, you were wrong if leadership felt like you were.

Decide

"make a decision", "decide to live for God", blah blah etc. = you have 2 choices, do the Word (TWI doctrine or anything your FC on up approves of) or do what's wrong. that's the choice we're given, and we have to make a decision. bleah!!!

In the Word

"stay in the Word" = go to fellowship, submit to leadership, study the Word (approved topics, because if you have weakness in your life, you're not making the "right" Word your own) daily. lots of guilt motivation to crack open the bible every day as a supporting source when "working" Way mag, STS tapes, and what you hear in fellowship. if you're not "in the Word" you're out of step with God's will. being "in the Word" requires going to an approved fellowship, no one can be out on their own or they're easy prey for "the adversary". not "in the Word" = "out of fellowship" = easy prey for "the adversary" = your a$$ is grass.

"loaded language thought control"

I've been reading up on loaded language. it's one of the things that showed me that TWI is indeed a cult.

I regularly have reactions of guilt, fear, and yes, the desire to vomit during normal conversations with people, expecially my kids. I have to work really hard not to panic, and especially not to correct every little thing that my kids talk about.... why? because they aren't saying anything wrong! I have so much fear of the appearance of evil because of TWI and my ex husband that I was a nervous wreck for years.

I'll try to keep track of my reactions and post the responsible words and phrases here.

I can't really talk to my husband because he beat me up a week ago!!! I filed a injunction against him. I do see what you are saying, I will try to forgive all of them so I can have freedom in my own mind.

pinklady, I'm in your shoes as well although my spouse didn't hurt me physically quite like that (he did throw a fit and hurt me and my baby)

the thing about abuse and outfits like the way is this: it's crap to tell someone they have to forgive. you don't. when I realized it was ok to get mad as heck over what my then-husband did to us, it helped me get my life back. now I'm angry at TWI for helping him do what he did and for basically egging him on. forgive? no way. not yet. you need to take care of you and your kids and damn the forgiveneess for now. that will come later on in your path to wholeness. don't worry about it for now, if you need it you'll get there later.

what he did was wrong and evil. love yourself. love your kids. love God. you don't need to work toward compassion for those that did this to you. work the other stuff first.

I had a lot of guilt, and I blamed myself because I thought I made the bad things happen with my unbelief. being victimized is enough to recover from for now.