Bramble

I lost both my parents after leaving TWI, and I was thankful--not for losing them to terminal illnesses, but that we were out of TWI and didn't have to hear their cruel blame and shame spiel at that time.

Sad, too, so many of the wafers are in or entering the golden years when it is not unknown to lose a spouse. What a horrible time to come down on someone and look for fault to prove their ugly doctrine.

Since my oldest is in the hospital after having major surgery yesterday and my youngest is ill with something intestinal as well as something we're not completely sure of yet, I'm reminded of dealing with medical issues in TWI.

So much easier, now, to just take care of things and not have to just believe God or TWI's guilt laden bullshi+ and never know for sure if I'm doing what's right for my child; taking a shot and hoping, then of course facing the consequences of my inaction, bad choices cuz I listened to the wrong person, or faced my self in the mirror when my child was still sick after I'd wasted days following silliness. For me that nonsense started off quickly when my oldest was a year old; my inaction almost killed her and you think TWI would have backed me up or visited me in prison?

I know my child, period, amen, the end.

Now I can act accordingly, freely, confidently. And I don't have to wait for some one's permission or stupid opinion about a kid they've never met, don't know like I do or has lumped into some pile of "my kid had that and.........."

While in TWI, that was always my biggest pain. I'm the mom and it's my job and my responsibility to know what she needs. And I do.

I'm sorry about your health issues, but i agree--TWI made any health issue worse! The reproof/guilt inducing, where did you blow it crap. No support, help or compassion.

One of my kids had double ear infections, strep throat and a slight case of pneumonia following a case of flu. We were of course thoroughly reamed about the flu...so when kid got even sicker we didn't say a word. No loving household believers praying for our kid to get well. I figured it would wreck my 'believing' to go through another reaming.

Kid got well, and later after we left TWi, kid got tonsils removed and has rarely been ill since then.

I think the info posted by Jeff could be really helpful for someone who might be trying to get out of a a TWI group now.

My kids were in early elementary school when we left, children's fellowship had been abandoned a couple years before, and though we never talked about it back then, hubby and I were uncomfortable about how our children were treated in the fellowship as if they were horrible behavior problems, while in fact they were well behaved then and now. Sitting on the floor( like STAYAWAY mentioned) and listening to a rehash of LCM's latest tape--gack, it was hard for the adults!

About year after we left TWI we took the kids to Hubby's mom's Methodist church(an attempt to rebuild a relationship, too) which had a wonderful children's progam, and it was a big church where we could kind of blend in with the crowd and process on our own. WHile hubby and I are not church goers, our kids are still off and on involved in the Methodist church teen progam, which ahs a summer camp/theater experience for teens we contribute to.

The biggest issue we have had with TWI child rearing is that all our kids needed to be perfect in their own eyes. This caused tears and stress in elementary school but seems to have relaxed now. I'm hopeful they have a better balance in acheiving their best vs crashing when something doesn't go well. Competitive activities actually seemed to help, because sometimes you win or a team mate they admire does, sometimes you lose, and losing isn't the end of the world.

Assuming that a secession could be achieved non-violently, the upsides would be not having to pay huge federal taxes to bail out failures like California, freedom to determine our own energy policy, and to determine education and health care policies that best fit our constituents (things that the federal government has no business doing), among others. What may come as a surprise to many people is tht Texas isn't just an energy economy; we have a large agrarian base, as well, so we'd be in a good position to be, if not self-sustaining, then sustainable by trade with other countries (including the 49 United States). :)

It would be particularly sweet if we could "nationalize" the military bases here and not have to develop our own military from scratch, but I think Washington would object. ;)

Since Medicare is paid largely by the states, anyway, that wouldn't change much; and we wouldn't have to subsidize Nebraska, etc.

Although I'm not happy that Gov. Perry did accept some Obamamoney, it was a small amount, used to pay for educational supplies. Most Obamamoney offered had strings attached (set up entitlements that had to go on after the Obamamoney went away, etc.); this was refused.

George

I think there could be trade difficulties for many years with the '49'. And do you really think it could be done without violence? And where would TExas get an army and armory except by stealing from US?

But you could set up a Bush dynasty,no one to stop it. SOunds like a quick jump into third world to me.

"Animal Farm" will hit some TWI nrves, too.

Unless someone's ideas about god are dangerous to others, I don't see much reason to get too excited about what someone else believes or doesn't believe. Their different belief does not change what you know or have experienced, does it? And you can't make someone else feel or experience what you feel, though you can try to express it.

It's a big wide world full of many different beliefs. If someone is trying to make you feel bad or wrong about what you believe, then why engage them? You are not going to change them, they will change themselves perhaps. That is their problem. Find some place and people you can enjoy.

Ahhh, congrats!

Looks like the book issue extended beyond my branch.

Odd that any movie was okay, I guess because there was a potential for witnessing. I even went to bridal showers where porn was shown, not a twitch from leadership.

And there were always plenty of Way materials to study or 'retemorize.'

Telling people what they could do in their own homes was so controlling, but then I was in TWI when leadership thought they should inspect your sock drawers and medicine cabinets to see if you were spiritually 'off.'

I have small house and don't want more bookshelves, so I've been buying popular fiction( most anything I would buy in paperback) in ebook for the past three years or so. I read on a pda or my netbook(want a sony ereader)--but my 8 gig flash drive still has plenty of room for storage, plus the net book uses an SD card. Love the storage! 3oo books, no space on shelves.

Also enjoy free cycle--when I have a box to give away, people drive to my house and haul them away.

I came from a family of bookworms. All my siblings read, they still read. Makes finding gifts real easy. After I got involved with TWI I was always busy, but I still had a paperback tucked in my purse or books stacked next to my bed. Later when I was a stay at home mom I was a regular library patron and yard sale/used book store patron too.

I quickly learned to hide my stacks of books. LCM occassionally read a mystery, and then everyone would go get THAT mystery. It was as if they were afraid to pick out their own reading material.

A woman in our branch in the late eighties got reproved for the paperbacks in her living room. She was disabled and reading was something she did in her long hours alone in her house, but that did not matter. Believers cleaned her house(she paid them) so her home was not her own. She left TWI, I hope she has her stacks of books handy.

Years later one of my kids received an award for reading the most books in their class ( these were read outloud). They gave kid a plaque which we took to fellowship to celebrate this accomplishment. Big whoop. I guess a 6 year old should be accomplished in other areas(we had the only little kids in that fellowship, most were never parents or kids were grown).

Was it just my area that had this attitude? Did other encounter it in their areas?

In TWI-think, airing dirty laundry is worse than producing dirty laundry. The True Believers with the greatest truth about God since the first century church must appear perfect, especially to outsiders. You can do atrocious things to your fellow believers with out repercursion--unless someone blabs. It is the acknowledgement and speaking up that is truly evil in their warped minds.

Sounds like a troll or a troll--at--heart, Jeff. You do have a life, you are moving on and overcoming terrible loss. Plus your posts could very well reach someone who needs to make a decision about joining a group or continuing with a group like you were in.

Robertson speaks of Haiti but I think he is subtilly telling his congregation/followers, " See what happend to the unfaithful not-like-me(s)? Gruesome death and tragedy to their families. Hell on Earth. They deserved this with their wrong faith."

Fear motivation.

Maybe donations have slipped in the bad economy.

My opinion about leaders in TWi--it was a perfect position for bullies. They knew deep inside that their behavior wouldn't fly in the real world--people would call them on it in the workplace etc. But in TWI the peasants had no voice, unless they were lucky to be related or good friends of a big wig ministry person. So if a leader made it their business to drive some poor believer out of TWI, there was no one who would question them. And the lock box kept everything nice and tidy.

I did get lucky(ha!) with the kids. Donna Martindale made a tape about child rearing and mentioned kid's bedtimes. That tape was taken like the absolute infexible Word o God in my area, so my kids quit going to fellowship since they had to be in bed early! So we only took they to the occasional fellowship or branch meeting our last couple of years IN.

I did hear from an innie(might have been a year or year and a half ago) that things were so 'sweet'. I didn't ask what that meant, but I assumed it meant there was less reproof and people weren't being kicked out or put on Leaves of absence, etc, which was they way things were when we left.

BUT the two leaders who caused us so much grief are still in, and still leaders. I wouldn't trust them as counselors or advisers, nor would I want them influencing my children.

I suspect that leaders are still to be obeyed.

Interesting. I'll be starting allergy testing in February to try and get a grip on asthma which has been out of control for several months. Also have bouts of excema etc, and arthritis in knees, but pain comes aand goes.

We already know about some food allergies, all tree related(have lot of tree allergies). Will be good to find out.

...he was the devil spirit hidden in your dust bunnies

The stress we lived under those last years could not be healthy. And what about some of our leaders? I'm pretty sure we were dealing with a mental illness with one of our leaders--and we were supposed to obey these guys. Just agreeing mentally that you should be obeying these guys is mentally unhealthy and dangerous.

Why would an adult need to obey a church leader in matters that involve personal, private life?

When I think back to our last few years IN...stress, anxiety, constant 'failure', working to find excuses to keep the kids away from the fellowship, never able to keep up with all the ministry busywork(listening to SStapes as a couple, then separately to 'work' it), knowing you're about one issue from getting the boot, knowing your leadership is watching to find that one issue, the vanishing of ministry 'friends', who have picked up that you are out of favor and they don't want to get close lest they too get out of favor', the friendly chit chat after fellowship that is really not friendly and is looking for a weakness or a reason to accuse...we're lucky we didn't have strokes.

My husband and I took a 3 week vacation to visit family in another area in the country. The contrast was huge. Real people, genuinely glad to see you, not looking for trouble but celebrating a visit from family not seen for a few years. A million small kindnesses they didn't even notice they are doing, because that is how they always lived. Laughter when all the little kids moved the modualr furniture into a circle in the den and were found marching round the circle on the furniture, Grandpa piling a bunch of scrap wood on his deck so the little kids could play blocks.

Returning to reproof etc...that's when we left. Finally figured out something was really wrong with God's one true household.

This was the first Christmas without my brother in law, who died suddenly at the age of 47 last spring. Very quiet and low key, normally my sis has about 40 peopel over for dinner but this year it was just immediate family.

My one year old great neice got way too spoiled but brought much joy. It was cold, half the time all the dogs were in the house and it got chaotic now and then. My 86 year old aunt drove 5 hours by herself on winter highways and gave me a quilt he mother made her for a wedding present in the 1940's.

My mother died right before CHristmas a few years ago, and my dad died right after Christmas a year before her so it is a time of memories for my family.

It was nice to be together, the teens played wii until their arms hurt.

Emotionally it was alot more complicated than the Christmases when everyone was with us.

Vows made to a TWI program were sacred and carried huge consequences if broken because they were made to GOD, but ordinary vows like marriage or child support were not nearly so important and could be broken--sometimes leadersh1+ even counseled divorce or giving up child custody to get out of the payments, so you could do a ministry program.

Family wasn't nearly as important as a ministry program! God not being all that interested in family or childrearing, but in winning converts.

I'really thankful my marriage is nothing like my wow year. No ranting leadersh1+, no wondering how to pay next months rent, no hearing how wow sis and I should do all the houseold chores as prep for marriage and let the guys be men of God...aka lazy order spewing machines...

I'll drink to that! Come on has anyone ever seen the X-Files or The fringe tv series? Come on opps I am getting dizzy! (hicup)Its a conspiracy I am telling you! the government hiding the truth! come on people ROSWELL, ROSWELL, ROSWELL! LOL! Some one had to say it!

Well, it probably has to do with Dec 21, 2012. A trial run of the Planet X evil lizard aliens who will invade earth and eat us all, thereby changing Life As We Know It Forever. That spiral beam is how they travel, of course.

They were just practicing for the Big Day.

I found that friendship in TWI was pretty shallow in the end. Friends were expected to reveal dirt about other friends to the leadership or be in trouble themselves, so it was easier to just not know too much.

The three plus meetings a week were not intimate friend meets, everyone wore their perfect faithful believer suit and conversation was constrained to ministry-speak. There was little time outside the schedule to just hang out or do something pleasant with a friend. Moms of young children did try, but TWi was absolutly unsupportive and stressful for young families so friendship wasn't really the issue, survival was. And you certainly didn't reveal any problem you had with TWI!

Somewhere along the TWI way we (I know, not everyone, but the ones so greatly affected) lost our--or did not have-- the skill to go to our god ourselves. Instead we filtered our beliefs through authorities who spoke with confidence an surety. And they chided us, treated us like naughty children or good children. Instead of growing into maturity, I think in many ways we stayed stuck in a late adolesence and tried to deal with very complex issues with out the skills or maturity such things needed.

The big bad wolf did decieve, was strong and evil, yet Little Red Ridinghood ultimately defeated him. With some help.

I work for a private business with key stroke security. I can only read newspapers online, and cannot sign in to any site or forum. Forbidden. Can't even sign into my bank account.

I had complications from the swine flu( which I got in October), and am finally going back to work. Very nasty if you have other lung conditions, so I urge you to get a shot if you are at risk, or at least start the antivirals if you do get it. I did not, thinking my lung condition so much improved. Huh. Stupid on my part and I payed for it. I'll probably not be breathing right for months.:(