Dot Matrix

Jeff

It is nice to read how much you loved your grandpa. I am sorry for your loss.

Oh well, its Easter and I am looking for the death of the old me and the rebirth of the new me (or the real me). The gestation period was only about 30 years!!!!

Praise God!!!

Happy Easter!!!

The article above surely can be looked into and made into a bad "woman" or a cult --- as well.

How about the gal who pretends to like sports, doesn't mind you going golfing, likes wild sex, also enjoys junk food and after you are married, she Hates sports, sex, golf and junk food and said it all to get you -- same stuff, I could make the list longer to make the point, I am not saying that these few things = that. I am merely trying to say the article is about MEN - but woman can be just as awful.Women can steal the dreams out of a man's life as well. And same in a ministry, I mentioned in another thread and will bring it up here.

This is what I am learning with my counselor

Co-dependency is a treatable illness of lost selfhood. You are not born with it. It is learned behavior from things like being married to an alcoholic, bipolar, sociopath, etc. you learn the “egg shell” walk to avoid explosions, you learn to do certain things to get them to "love" you... etc.

Or like being in a cult: If you “submit” you are a “favorite son” if you question you are “the devil”. If you tithe you are “walking with God” if you are not “You are shunned and cold shouldered or yelled at” You hunger for their approval so you stop questioning…you just act in obedient servitude. They supply the drug “approval” and you supply the “worship” they need to function and crave. And when you are starving for them, they enjoy your hunger and the power to supply the “drug” or withhold it.

There are different stages of co-dependency:

The early stage, where we experiment, such as if we act a certain way TWI leadership or Sociopath responds with love. We are tasting the drug. We want that "good" stuff we saw, it made "me feel good about myself".

The middle stage we begin to not always get the response we want so we TRY to please our “source” even more. We now go up and down with their infrequent responses of kindness. We experience hurt and disappointment. Where did the "good feeling" go? What did "I do" to make them stop "loving" me? How can I modify MY behavior to get my "drug" (their approval - love)? We are addicted.

Advanced stage with the accumulation of pain and not understanding why we can’t re-experience the “good feelings,” the "source" supplied in the beginning, we can become neurotic in trying to get them to approve of us again. Other addictions spin off and it becomes a full on illness

Last stage known as “terminal”(but I still believe behavior modification will save you) we cannot get the “feeling back” we will not listen to our friends and family who suggest this “source” is unhealthy. Our mental health declines and well as physical health can decline.

Even here at Greasespot when person after person tells certain posters they need to wake up, it is like an intervention. We have seen many people delivered. We have seen a few where the “intervention” just does not work because they just do not get the “extent” of their addiction. They have not “hit bottom” or cannot see the fact that they are bottom dwellers as they are so engrained in protecting the “source” that their “lives” have shrunk and not expanded. In their small sphere of life the “source” has been protected, the drug is still available and the fact that their life has become "small" is lost on them and they do not see they were robbed of all they could and can be.

Biblically TARES among the wheat

Matthew 13:24-30

The Parable of the Weeds

24Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

27"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'

28" 'An enemy did this,' he replied.

"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'

29" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "

Matthew 13:36-43

The Parable of the Weeds Explained

36Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."

37He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

40"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

According to wikipedia:

Tare - Ryegrass (Lolium) is a genus of nine species of tufted grasses, family Poaceae.

Lolium temulentum

It usually grows in the same production zones as wheat and is considered a weed. The similarity between these two plants is so extensive that in some regions cockle is referred to as "false wheat." It bears a close resemblance to wheat until the ear appears. The ears on the real wheat are so heavy that it makes the entire plant droop downward, but the "false wheat", whose ears are light, stands up straight. It parasites wheat fields. The French word for darnel is "ivraie" (from Latin "ebriacus"), which expresses that weed's characteristic of making one feel poisoned with drunkenness.

I think the "tares" are the sociopaths and that God used symbolism to stand the ages to warn us.

Some books if you are interested:

Dr. Robert Hare, a recognized authority on psychopaths, has written a book for the lay person called "Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us," as well as a book on psychopaths in the workplace, "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work."

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.PdF "The mask of sanity"

T and O

The False wheat

OMG -- They do POISON us and when "drunk" nobody sees correctly! Or you can be addicted to the drunk feeling. Everything God has for us is so big --- even the strength of this parable. Huge!!!

It is horrible. I want the guys name to do a background check on him.

It goes to trial in May.

Thanks pls keep praying, I have never seen him afraid before.

The pastor said the tare looks like us -- is all around us and we do not notice them as they look like wheat.

I had previously thought they looked like weeds.

I think the look exactly like us "false wheat" is VERY very telling. Like God used symbolism that would stand through the ages because words like "sociopath" were not yet available.

I find it remarkable. So, therefore I remarked. ;) smile...

hi everyone. I guess i jut wanted to give an update on my friend. we still have talks every now and again but they are pretty stressful, and they mostly consist of her talking the whole time. i just want to tell her I can't take her seriously....especially when I ask her about weirwille and the ways history of sexual abuse and all she has to say is "i know it is not true". blah! I hate the walls that she has put up...that she probably doesn't even realize she has put up. i hate that she tells me I should not listen to "man" when she only listens to one man. she had uploaded all of pw's books onto my computer a long time ago before i knew what they were so i read through them time and again to understand what she believes...but honestly it is very hard for me to read them without getting angry because it is hard to read lie after lie. all he arguments and "rules of grammar" are weak and infuriating. sorry for that rant. but i guess if you have any advice or encouragment that would be great. i know i need to give this to God and that I have to stop thinking that I can fix this. but i feel i am not doing enough to help her and there is only so much time before she moves in with them.

Your heartfelt question led us on a great adventure that really crystallized some answers for you if you were listening, which I believe you were.

You saw the nutty application of the "defend" the Way at all costs, including their own "sanity", even when faced with a poster, who logically laid things out, from the perspective of one who has thoroughly known the abuse and tried to expose the illness.

You saw how the voice of an injured person was ignored in the heartless rants of a defender. You saw how one person, did not let her open heart go unnoticed, and told NEWLIFE how awful it was that in all of this she lay bleeding and unnoticed.

I explained some therapeutic things that have opened up that explanation to the ailments of what has happened, from my adventures in TWI and since.

I think this “ride” your heart felt post started is your answer.

If your friend is a “sell-out,” as you can see here, there is nothing you can do to help your friend. For even the facts and the truths of ones who “lived” the horror show and have EXPOSED it go unheeded. You heard a little voice say she was abused and ignored. (You shared the abuse stories and have been ignored) And I shared how a therapist and a Doctor explained the “wild ride” of this cult may have taken place in some of our lives.

The answer: you know your friend. We do not. We know the monster that took your friend. If your friend is like the one “sell-out” poster who never listens and refuses to believe anything is wrong—then your friend will never see. If your friend is like the poster who saw and tried to help others then that will eventually happen, if your friend is “stuck” in an addiction to not have to change, then they will have to "hit bottom". If and when your friend is READY to repair – God will direct him/her to his repair shop with open arms. And God will place your friend in a loving recovery program he knows will work for your friend. Pretty much, you have done all you can. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink.

IMO – Pray DorianGreen. Pray for your friend. I think your thread showed you much in the way in answers dear Dorian. Just MHO You are a GOOD friend and his/her success or failure is not on your shoulders -- you ARE a good friend no matter of the final outcome. (I say his/her so anyone reading can get help from your loving trying to help "her" heart)

(((Doriangreen)))

i know i need to give this to God and that I have to stop thinking that I can fix this.

Like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz --- you had your answer all along dear Dorian.

Kevlar- I LOVE the Camelot reference... WOW

Newlife - Sometimes the best thing to do in life is to walk away. I have been in the "repair" shop with God crafting me and removing the broken parts. Anyway, I had a wonderful successful friend and his wife coming to my home. I set out to "REPAIR" things so I would be presentable. I sewed the end of a ripped pillow, I sat with blankets the dogs chewed and tried to fix them in vain. I had throw rugs they had one too may accidents on that had been washed 2000 times that looked so beaten up it was reflective of how I felt. And suddenly, I realized I do not have to FIX everything. I can throw it out and get new stuff. So, I did. And you know it was a small step for man and a giant step for mankind... OOPS wrong line. It was a small thing to do with giant delivering side affects. Somehow, I became NEW as well....

Thanks, he was in the hospital for 11 days. Got out. Now, I have not heard again, pls keep on praying

My Dad was ripped off by this guy he paid to do some construction for him. After 4 months he asked for his money back. The guy refused.

My father said he would "TELL EVERYONE YOU ARE A LIAR AND A CHEAT!!!!" And my father can yell!!!

The guy then handed him his money. And as my 82-year-old father looked down and put his money in his pocket, this man punched him in his face breaking his "bridge". My Dad is "Old School" and with stents in his heart and a hand, too crippled to form a complete fist, he punched him back causing him two kinda blackened eyes as he punched him in the nose area. My step-mother saw it all and when they left the guy said, "he was fine."

Long story short, my Dad thought it was a "wash" and did not press charges.

The other lying guy pressed them against my Dad saying my father beat him to a pulp to get his money back, then took the money leaving him unconscious on the floor. There were no other people there, now all of a sudden he has witnesses, friends of his who say they were there. Bearing false witness.

They arrested my 82-year-old father and threw him in jail.

He hired a criminal atty, for $10,000.00 as to hit someone over 65 it becomes a felony. Even though my Dad was older and was struck first.

He needs PRAYER. Big time.

Heavenly Father, we ask that the truth prevail and that my father is exonerated from all charges. We ask that the man who tried first to take his money, then who hit him first, be seen for the criminal he is. Give my father the physical strength to get through all of this. God protect him and get him through this trouble unscathed. In the name of Jesus Amen

Thanking all who pray in advance!

Like you, I WANTED Jesus. I was not into it for future stuff in heaven or money now. I wanted Jesus. I wanted the power of God in my life and to have a relationship with God.

Linda- GREAT story

T-

What a declaration of health!! I hope one day we can all post our "recovery" from all of this. A lot of childhood things led some of us to TWI and they capitolized on the cracks.

Whatever it takes in a journey to find "self" and health is so cool to read. Thank you. You apparently did not need the "drug" to get your own "high" so to speak. You walked away from the snare!! Great story!

I am in "recovery"

Not just a "cult" recovery but a choices I made in life which led me to a cult "recovery".

I am just exhausted from all the "dancing" I have done. I fought the "snare" and always thought I fought it from a position of outside the "snare". When I woke up, I realized part of my own illusion was I thought I was not caught "IN" the snare. I thought I was helping others get out. When indeed, in my case, I was caught as well. How did I recognize I was in a/the snare? My treatment THERE(TWI) led me to seek out their abusive treatment of me (hot/cold) in every subsequent relationship I had..... I had to recognize I was NOT on the ouside of the snare viewing those who were caught but I was caught, myself, with them. Just a little different trap designed personally for me -- just like each trap is a personal one as well as "standard" in many ways. I was doing the same dance over and over and did not even really KNOW it.

One day, one of the wonderful male posters here kept saying, "What do YOU want? Who are you?"

I had no answers. I was lost as my anchors were sources "outside" myself.

Now, I look within to see what I need to fix IN me and I look "up" to God for direction... Not to a man or organization to let me know what God wants from me -- I go to the "man" himself.

That is probably all I can share. I hope it helps some. This is as far as I am in my understanding and recovery.

(((Erkjohn)))

Ham... yeah... :)

Among other things to look at my therapist wants me to read the Townsend/Cloud book on Boundaries

If it helps anyone, praise God!

http://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-When-Take...r/dp/0310585902

http://www.treatment-centers.net/myblog/al-anon/index.html

http://www.amazon.ca/Boundaries-Cloud/dp/0...2731021-6837634

http://www.dtl.org/cults/article/dysfunctional.htm

http://www.cloudtownsend.com/

Posters:

I admit I have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. I admit I have been tricked and deceived. I am humbly before God asking for direction and healing -- I do not offer you -- YOUR healing. I offer you some of what I am learning about mine. May we each find our way to "health" and to those who are "there" congrats it was not a journey without struggle. I salute you!

(In some ways, I am replying to some PM's I got, in this public forum, so I may have things geared to a person who asked something more pointed then to the general reader -- although, I am merely sharing some "release" tools I got from understanding how giving your power to others actually works.)

I am relating to you some of what counseling has provided for ME. If you need more “you” specific help, then please go find help. If my general stuff can help you to “self” discovery then Praise God. I am in the "repair shop" myself understanding how I “danced” and why I "danced" to survive "sick" relationships. I am tearing apart my own life to discover WHY I gravitate to people who demand I "dance." ...HOW I get tricked into staying in the situations and how to avoid them in the future. Al-anon is very helpful as well as Celebrate Recovery if you cannot afford private therapy. I am fortunate that my Christian counselor stopped charging me a fee and has taken me on because as she stated, “I see something in you and I believe God wants me to continue seeing you until you find wellness.”

Not all things listed in any book/class/org are all me or YOU. They do not define all the “personal” journey, but I can apply the corporate thinking and flush out what being around “sick” people and organizations did to me. These things make the people orbiting around the “ill”--- ill themselves. They are crazy-makers. My goal is to find health, to repair and share my journey, as it may help others. My journey will never be exactly your journey but if we “share things” some may be beneficial – your job, should anyone decide to try a similar path as mine, is to discern out for yourself the “healing” you can apply in your own life and NOT apply the parts that do not apply --- That in itself is a portion of finding “self.”

http://www.addictionrecov.org/paradigm/P_PR_SP98/Lavick.html

This may help and some parts may apply to your understanding. Some were good for me to read. Some did not apply. But reading the "corporate" writings help me hewn out a personal victory... I did not try and make the unapplicable parts BE my problem because someone else said they might be -- this is a victory.

The middle stage we begin to not always get the response we want so we TRY to please our “source” even more. We now go up and down with their infrequent responses of kindness. We experience hurt and disappointment. Where did the "good feeling" go? What did "I do" to make them stop "loving" me? How can I modify MY behavior to get my "drug" (their approval - love)? We are addicted.

In the co-dependency there are two faces (and varying degrees) on the extreme end, I wanted to bring up, where some/few/many (whatever applies) of us are not as extrmeme in our co-dependency.

However:

Those who grab onto the “feel good” moment to preserve their “achievements and their grandiose identity”. You are addicted and cling to the “feel good” moment even though those moments are gone and mountains of truth have been provided for any reasonable person to become aware of the monster in the suit. You cling to the “up” moment and fight to stay there.

And those wrecked by them who cling to the identity of the victim. “They abused me therefore I get drunk all the time. They abused me therefore I hate God and anyone who mentions his lousy name. I am the way I am because of them.”

Yes, you were injured and they gave you MORE things to have to fight through and come back from. But to STAY there you are a sell out to the “down” they provided.

Either EXTREME is the violation of “self”.

The abused needs to GET HELP as they continue to flounder and with each “excessive drink” or “affair” to pretend you do not hurt. OR outburst against God or “all who believe” is the root of anger, frustration and STILL not having your power back. You want to become an atheist – fine. Do so on your terms not from a position of pain or anger. Do what YOU want after you recover “self.” (Again, this is not a one size fits all. It may apply to some and not to others. If it is not your shoe size, then by all means it is NOT your shoe.)

The victim gives it up by refusing to fight for health but rather gains an identity as the “icon of abuse” so they need the "abuse factor" to live on and on to have an excuse for their failures.

The “defender” of TWI, despite the reports of abuse and obvious detriment, because they need to preserve their identity of “once being something because they supported the answer, THE way, THE truth holding organization” etc, refuses to "SEE" and continues to defend.

You get the point.

Both are sick.

Waysider:

The peace between us was never gone or in jeopardy. Bless

"Many of those people

Waysider I agree that not all people were smart. But many were. I had many people tell me something wasn't right, or they wanted to get an education rather than go WOW or whatever and they were considered "trip outs." Some of the corps who did not come back, not due to finances, but they "fell in love" on the field and wanted to get married. They saw a more productive life than life in TWI and they were told he who vows a vow... Or whatever, many had valid reasons for not letting an "organization" control them. Several friends of mine left after they were introduced to the its okay to sleep with leadership. OR you were called to bless a man of God sexually... crap. They were smart. Really, it was unreasonable for me to stay once vpw tried to get me. But not knowing all the stuff, like provided through Paw's Greasespot, I fought for the "good" to come back. Being completely tricked into thinking there was GOOD in there that could be revived.

Some, of course, were not. Thus the purple cow...

If you-know-who were here he'd have us fighting over define "many". All relative to your journey with TWI, I guess.

I do not want to get too specific for there will always be a detail that doesn't apply to the journey "you" took. But the groundwork for independent deliverance is my goal here.

I am still in the repair shop myself.

Even here at Greasespot when person after person tells certain posters they need to wake up, it is like an intervention. We have seen many people delivered. We have seen a few where the “intervention” just does not work because they just do not get the “extent” of their addiction. They have not “hit bottom” or cannot see the fact that they are bottom dwellers as they are so engrained in protecting the “source” that their “lives” have shrunk and not expanded. In their small sphere of life the “source” has been protected, the drug is still available and the fact that their life has become small is lost on them and they do not see they were robbed of all they could and can be.

May I add, without all TWI made them feel at one time, they loose their identity and feel like nothing. There is the lie. TWI/sociopaths steal your identity they do not provide it.

It is like the 55-year-old guy who keeps talking about the "game" they played where they did the winning MOVE in high school. That was the best it ever got for them. Their identity was so defined by their victory in sports they cannot or will not look at their own current life and strive towards current victory. When they feel crappy they revisit the feel good moment 36 years ago and they feel better.

We need to get on with our lives, those who have not, we can take the feel good moment of PFAL and credit BG Leonard, and build on it. We were never suppose to stop there defending that "moment" in time as the reason they live. IT is such a trick. And those tricked were probably just kids looking for Jesus like us -- but they cannot get out of it because the reality --- that the reality was a woven lie -- is just too much. It is as if the 55-year-old guy gets word someone taped his "moment" and when looking at it again -- the other team actually won because he did something wrong. He will fight to death defending his "game" and the day he won it for his team. It takes some big meek people to look at it and say, "I was wrong." At that moment all/much of what we stood on falls apart and we need to build a "new floor" to stand on. It takes a little work. It is easier for some to self-deceive than to do the work. It is a shame and they might be among the largest and saddest loss we gave to TWI. --- What they could have been.... What we could have been...

So, let us say this is what I will be now!! (And recover, we can ask for God to restore that which the locust have eaten)

And the practical application is simple and yet a BIG struggle once you have given your power away.

Healing:

Know where to place a "period" at the end of a sentence.

The developing co-dependent will say, "He makes me feel good about myself"

Learn to say, "He makes me feel good."

The responsibility of feeling GOOD "about yourself" lies within YOU and your own power/own walk with God.

When you begin to be uncomfortable and are having bells and whistles -- do not talk yourself out of them. They are tools placed there by God to keep us out of the soup.

A small example:

On the WOW field I had 3 girls in my "family". One night one of the girls drove to a meeting and when she went to PARK the car, she was uncomfortable with the spot she chose. The other girls said, "Oh leave the car here, come on, who cares?"

I said, "IF YOU are not comfortable parking here then don't. If anything happens THEY are not going to be responsible. YOU will be."

Do not let their words turn off your HEALTHY switches.

She moved the car and the next morning the car that DID park there was hit.

Now, you cannot go the other way where you allow healthy signals to become obsessive/compulsive either.

I am speaking of a healthy walk of freedom. We cannot control everything, we can control ourselves and how we handle things thrown at us. If someone wants to take away your POWER. GET OUT!!

When the gregarious, confident man begins to leak the monster inside -- run. You cannot FIX him, there is a monster, you are not crazy.

Many of those people who "tripped out" of TWI probably saw the monster. They were the smart ones to leave.

We, who stayed to FIX it, although courageous, only hurt ourselves. You cannot fix a sociopath or a counterfeit society and stay "genuine". You begin to compromise. You allow "self" to be stolen and replaced by blind obedience. You can have a sense of “self” powered by God. You cannot have a sense of “self” powered by a cancer cell of a human being or an organization --- they will feed on “self” until nothing is left.

Know how to take a person and place them in one chair and their behavior in another.

Know when someone GOES OFF on you - most times it is about them. You KNOW if you did something wrong.

If you did not DO something wrong do not let their words ride into your soul.

YA know, "You worthless piece of crap, you will never amount to anything. YOU BLEW IT!" Those messages are about THEM not about you -- unless you burned their house down or something and still the words need to be adjusted and you need help-- not be told you will NEVER amount to anything.

I think you see where I am going...

That is why the unconditional love of God is so amazing.

Only read the next sentence, then close your eyes and answer before continuing:

BE HONEST

Describe how you feel about God RIGHT now... THEN, read on...

I, at first said, he is never there when I really need him, when I call to hear him he can be silent, I do not understand him and I feel he is hot and cold at times.

She said you described your "earthly" father. Many of you just did as well. We need to separate the two fathers. And even though my earthly father did his BEST it is not the standard of love the heavenly father has for us. Our earthly fathers have cracks in them, hurts, wounds, and bad choices -- they are men. OUR GOD does not have those cracks - it is safe to love him -- the REAL him not the manufactured counterfeit HIM TWI presented -- with the give you something with the left hand and smack the crap out of you for taking it with the right hand -- kind of crap. That message breeds insanity, not safety.

Here is an exercise:

Put TWI in one chair and God in the other and tell me about each. tell me the differences. We, cult kids, need to separate them.

I am ripvanwinkle who awoke from a LOOOOOOONG nap.

(((Waysider)))

Thanks Dot for your additional post.

And isn't it true that most addicts won't get help till they hit bottom??? When it really stops working for them...

I hope this helps. I am in the "repair" shop myself. Learning how to dance to my own music and not perform for someone else to "keep the peace"

This is what I am learning with my counselor

Co-dependency is a treatable illness of lost selfhood. You are not born with it. It is learned behavior from things like being married to an alcoholic, bipolar, sociopath, etc. you learn the “egg shell” walk to avoid explosions, you learn to do certain things to get them to "love" you... etc.

Or like being in a cult: If you “submit” you are a “favorite son” if you question you are “the devil”. If you tithe you are “walking with God” if you are not “You are shunned and cold shouldered or yelled at” You hunger for their approval so you stop questioning…you just act in obedient servitude. They supply the drug “approval” and you supply the “worship” they need to function and crave. And when you are starving for them, they enjoy your hunger and the power to supply the “drug” or withhold it.

There are different stages of co-dependency:

The early stage, where we experiment, such as if we act a certain way TWI leadership or Sociopath responds with love. We are tasting the drug. We want that "good" stuff we saw, it made "me feel good about myself".

The middle stage we begin to not always get the response we want so we TRY to please our “source” even more. We now go up and down with their infrequent responses of kindness. We experience hurt and disappointment. Where did the "good feeling" go? What did "I do" to make them stop "loving" me? How can I modify MY behavior to get my "drug" (their approval - love)? We are addicted.

Advanced stage with the accumulation of pain and not understanding why we can’t re-experience the “good feelings,” the "source" supplied in the beginning, we can become neurotic in trying to get them to approve of us again. Other addictions spin off and it becomes a full on illness

Last stage known as “terminal”(but I still believe behavior modification will save you) we cannot get the “feeling back” we will not listen to our friends and family who suggest this “source” is unhealthy. Our mental health declines and well as physical health can decline.

Even here at Greasespot when person after person tells certain posters they need to wake up, it is like an intervention. We have seen many people delivered. We have seen a few where the “intervention” just does not work because they just do not get the “extent” of their addiction. They have not “hit bottom” or cannot see the fact that they are bottom dwellers as they are so engrained in protecting the “source” that their “lives” have shrunk and not expanded. In their small sphere of life the “source” has been protected, the drug is still available and the fact that their life has become small is lost on them and they do not see they were robbed of all they could and can be.

My concern is Newlife that you have “danced” for this woman and listened to her to the end that you performed things you would have never done simply because she told you to do it. In some way you wanted to please her and the ministry she represented.

My point is, the learned behavior of co-dependency, even though a learned illness, is pervasive. I am going to use the word “you” in a general sense. For instance, you get involved with a cult, you wind up married to an alcoholic, you divorce and wind up in yet another situation requiring you to “dance”.

Please make sure you are free, healthy and "up for it" Newlife then do what you want to do. May God bless and keep you.

(((newlife))) Thanks for your story

Twinky to add:

In a co-dependent relationship with a sociopath, the sociopath becomes the drug – say heroine. At first, it is a feel good thing that takes away your pain and makes you feel great. You do not look at it like a life ruining addiction. But soon after tasting that “good feeling” you HAVE to have it. All logic aside – you have to have it, you have to protect your “source”. Their words are the drug. And we, "the broken” need our fix. Their words fix(ed) us – then, like any drug, it rips us apart – but it is hard to let go. Some are able to go cold turkey and get away. Others are on methodone, they need the "words" of a therapist or real minister to help them find their way from the addiction. While others, the saddest of the sad, never break free and they die in their addiction. Sociopaths THEMSELVES become your addiction.

The pusher pushes, "I have the answer." The "Christian" sociopath slips us to the left and right of God, becoming the answer and becoming a drug. The addict, breaks the addiction, gets help to break the addiction, or stays addicted.

Who among us doesn’t want to live a good life, make a difference, walk with God and have the answers to a questioning hungry “nation.” Who didn’t want their life to count for something? OR to be special or do special things? Or more harmony in the home? Much of this is innate and the “counterfeits tap into our needs” and they shift us in our thinking to being the supplier of those needs waltzing us away from Christ centeredness into blind loyalty.

The answer is not TWI, PFAL, or fighting here. It is God. It is Jesus and LOVE.

Sociopaths know they are a drug and it gives them power -- we become addicted to the "feel good message" or "winning them/it back" when we do not get "it", we overlook abuse and truth.. We need the drug. They KNOW they are the drug we do not always know we are the addicts.

“The hook is the sometimes good stuff (at least, it sounds good, to the unitiated, until they have time to consider it) stuff. It's bait. Set out to entrap the loyal, as Dot says. Once the bait is taken, then the victim is slowly, oh so slowly, reeled in. As VPW said in PFAL, even the Devil knows the Word. There's just enough "word" to deceive.”

Yep!

No self respecting fish goes after an empty hook.

the founding mission of this website has always been to the tell other side of TWI's sordid story.........rosie, geer, ces/stfi, cffm, whitedove, and various other offshoots are doing a fine job playing the same OLD TWI song, promoting their deviant, gnostic forms of something they insist is the real christianity.........you know.......the one that's been missing since the first century??...........imo, that does a serious disservice to folks like dorian, and many others who bounce through these cyber-doors because they're tired of being told by one twi-apologist or another, to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"............regardless of your religious beliefs, helping people is as important as helping dogs, isn't it whitedove?..............or is it always all about you???..................peace.

AMEN!

However, as much nauseam as WD has created for me through the years, He did have a right to ask where Dotty stated it. My first inclination was to go hunt down a book and read it, as I do not recall seeing it either.

But it is the way he asks.

Could you have just said, “Anyone know where it is I would like to read it.”

Those who continue to defend VPW; This is not an attack on you but an explanation as to why each time you enter a thread almost nobody is happy to see you, you add nothing to the conversation, you cause destruction and mayhem and people have gone from liking you to reviling you. Even on the other extreme of normal you seem to travel miles past it. However, it is a great example of being “sold out” to a “cause”, which has PROVEN flawed. You have become living examples of why people SHOULD reexamine all they learned in TWI, you give fuel to the engine of why people should LEAVE them. YOU have become some of the BEST examples of the harm they have caused, and sadly you do not even know it.

To all posters so I do not make this about one/two poster(s):

TWI made most of us, or tapped into what was there, Co-dependence. The WORD stinks but the meaning is what allows the sociopath to continue to have "followers" long after they should have reasonably walked away. Many walk. Some “wake-up” and walk. But when a person will hold onto vapid nothingness-- it gets into following “right or wrong” and those of you who do that actually PROVE cult mentality.

The cult provided a “truth” a “home” and "answers". We had bonding and love. We became people with the answers in a crazy mixed up world. It felt great!!! Who would not want that?

The first time we are diced and sliced we can think it a fluke. The time we turn a blind eye to sexual promiscuity and rape we need to ask what we are thinking. And if person after person says it happened and tells you -- and we REFUSE to believe it, it becomes a form of mental illness. You are dependent on TWI to keep that wonderful (feeling) identity they crafted for you in order to “be someone” Your identity becomes wrapped up in who they think you are, and who they said you are, and who they say you will be. Their co-dependence is derived from being able to target these “loyal” fans and steal their power… their lives… like a cancer cell robs a healthy cell of it life then making the healthy cell sick.

Most healthy people WALK away from repeated mistreatment. Some heroes have courage and try to fix it giving it their best shot, but they soon recognize that which they are trying to fix is “real” or it is not “real”. In TWI, it is a tare among the wheat. I never understood that thinking it was an obvious "weed". But a tare looks just like a wheat and they grow among us and the only way to know if they are a wheat or a tare is when you open the tare – it is empty.

TWI was opened and it was empty. TWI “mimicked” the ministries of other good men in order to hide among us unnoticed and trying to look like a Christian organization. That is sociopathic tendencies. It is deceiving spirits, it is the counterfeit, it is the opposite of good it is evil. We were “set-up” and it is hard to look at, believe and/or admit.

To come here time and time again and have the clouds moved from your eyes and yet “you” choose to follow the clouds is an “illness.” Any reasonable person would eventually SEE not choose to follow the clouds in a preferred blindness.

I was in the same cult as the rest of you. I suffer similar cracks in my make-up. I have tendencies to fight for the underdog, to not give up, to be brave and loyal… But with that type of core you need to always evaluate WHERE you place and with WHOM you put your loyalty or you do wind up in a clinically named illness of “co-dependency”.

Sociopaths are addicting when they lay it on, it feels GREAT. And when they rip out your soul you have further to fall because the high was so up there. Instinctively, you try to hold on by making “the good” happen again. But what if the good was never really there? What if it was “created” as the snare of snares? To catch the most loyal of people in its net. And the most fiercely loyal stay tangled in its net – screaming defense of its very capturers as they dangle above ground with no safe footing but in a tortured state of trying to “recreate” the "feel good time" of the past --- and that also was a created illusion.

Then, the victim becomes ill themselves.

To me VPW was a brilliant sociopath collecting the sweetest people he could-- to devour them. The sweeter we were the more tasty the treat. He was a tare who collected wheat to keep them from being all they could be. He was a wolf lying among us garbed in sheep’s attire.

Defenders, with you fierce tenacity, why aren’t you out teaching to the tens of thousands in China, or fixing the heartland of its drug problems, with your relentless energy and loyalty to “Christ” your ministry could have been great. And you do not see that to be here fighting to preserve VPW in some way, is as good as it got for you? You are in the net. You were called to more. Let a God who loves you show you what that is, take your eyes off the saving of a lost cause and look at how many hollow faces are in need of Christ… take your energy and go do what you were meant to do… I do not imagine this is it… You are better than this, God is bigger than this….

Edited for commas and a typo

I also held a sobbing Mrs. W's hand as she sobbed and sobbed when I told her I KNEW what her husband was doing and it was WRONG.