I don't know why some feel sick to their stomach and others shrug and say, "Well, I had a good time."
Simple. No one here's shrugging and saying that, you keep inferring that in different ways and it's going to inevitably lead at least some of us to counter your insistience - I think what seems difficult for me to swallow in your posts Bolsh, is that you keep using broad, general references that - I have yet to see it being represented here on this thread.
The others you have to deal with - family, friends, relationships - I assume you have to maintain otherwise I'd lose the losers and get on with your own life. Family or not.
I don't know your deal though, so understand, I can't answer your questions on that count.
No one here's blowing you off or your problem's off and saying tough luck, "I had a good time".
The entire reference to "good times" has become a really stupid euphimism anyway, IMO. It hardly describes the whole of a productive life, but if it works for you fine. But since when did "good times" become a means of weighting anything worthwhile?
It reads like a way to minimize the points others are making here, myself included.
Point to note: for me, moi, this dude - I'm not preaching that I had "some" "good times" and that makes anything in your life less than good, acceptable. :unsure:
Every one has so many valid points and everyone has so many different feelings about TWI...
I guess for me I have made my own peace. I am where I am at because of choices I made.
I can look at all those choices and be horrified and live in anger and sadness because of bad things that happened or I can look at what was good and happy and find what is good in my life now.
I choose this, I have much to be thankful for.
Before you stop listening understand that I had to do this not only with TWI but with my own childhood. I had to stop and squarely face what the reality of my childhood was and also what my adulthood with my family was. ( My stepdad was an alcoholic... it was not pretty)
This was very hard.... but once having done it I found it a lot easier to sort out what was good and worth remembering in joy and what was bad...
I am still sorting TWI out...yes TWI was a con but thinking if you had good times they were bad... this is not healthy either.
When I went to counseling for my childhood I learned one important thing... you have to look at your life squarely in the face of it. Accept it for what it is... actually you have to embrace it. With out it you would be a different person.. Maybe better maybe worse but that is an if you will never know.
And spending all your time trying to forget about it or act like it didn't happen or that it was different than it was is exhausting.
Okay and one other thing I had to really come to grips with is that I had to stop expecting my parents to apologize for what they did to me. I wanted that so much and it never happened... and as time went by I came to realize that even if I had gotten the apology it would not have helped me heal.
Bolshie and brainfixed you are at the beginnings of an upward climb in your life. ((Hugs))
I wish there was a way to make the people you have to deal with understand the hurts you feel from the life that was chosen for you and any one else who is a child born into TWI.
Just remember... for them TWI was something they chose for their self.. and they don't stop to realize that you did not chose TWI you had no control over your life until you could leave as an adult.
The others you have to deal with - family, friends, relationships - I assume you have to maintain otherwise I'd lose the losers and get on with your own life. Family or not.
not sure how i feel about that
The entire reference to "good times" has become a really stupid euphimism anyway, IMO. It hardly describes the whole of a productive life, but if it works for you fine. But since when did "good times" become a means of weighting anything worthwhile?
well, what about horrible times ? enough to make you have nightmares through your life ? i don't think that's "stupid" -- and your part about a productive life or worthwhile life just doesn't make sense to me when discussing my own time in the way
oh, i don't know. it's hard for me to explain, but what your saying -- okay -- if it's about your productive and worthwhile life, fine....
How you feel about it is up to you, ex. I am taking about my life. Feel free to talk about yours. I can tell you one thing for sure for me - this is about as far from a 'good time' as anything I can think of - and largely unproductive. Sorry, all the talk about 'good times' didn't start with me or mine and it's stupid by my reckoning, at best a bad joke..
For me.
Not you or anyone else. Producticate as much as you need to.
I believe I witnessed some of the "good times" had by what I considered adults at the time. At the ROA, limb meetings, twigs, homes, weddings and such.
I have my memory of it. They (those who were there) have theirs.
So when I hear of the times and how they were "good", . . . I'm a little skeptical. Though maybe some did indeed have a good time.
But knowing now what it all was intended to plant, nourish, and grow into;
Did that energy of folks having a "good time" contribute to Wayworld? The dark side of twi, didn't it have it's base in the bright side? The "fun and excitement", so to speak, of the '70s set the stage for the '90s?
The "good times".. started (in my lifetime) in the fifties..I was too young to remember at the time..
then came the sixties. Sex, (some) good drugs, rock and roll
and the mob took it over..
then came the early seventies..
the opportunists made their move.. the vicster included..
same ploy.. try to analyse it, find some way to sell it..
then the eighties came. Many of us started experiencing the joys of family..
same thing happened..
nineties.. and further.. da way has run out of fuel.. no "good times" to harvest the benefits from..
all that's left are a few kids who should run like the wind.. far and as fast from new knoxville, or Auglaize county, as far and as fast as their vehicles, buses, or feet can take them.. and a few fossilized remains of "good times" from years past..
i tried to stop it from happening but it didn't work, but this discussion is focussing in on if the "good" times were "real" or not, and that isn't at all what i meant when i started the discussion, but what i meant and i think i expresed was to look at what was called "good" from the "bigger picture" perspective. this batting back and forth whether or not the "good" was "real" is not a discussion that is going to go anywhere because that's all perception and perception is reality to the perceiver, but what i was trying to get at was to broaden the perception and then maybe the understanding of how people were duped.
I think it all really is pretty simple. There always have been good times, bad times, indifferent times..
people in a blood sucking stinking cult can actually be happy at times..
I think da *ministry* just took the good, and stamped their filthy little copyrighted logo on it..
They just salted the mine with the lives of people who perhaps were genuinely happy.. or successful.. or rich.. same ploy as almost any other second rate wanabe organization..
Some relationships forged during Waydaze have actually endured the test of time. Genuine enough for me.
If I analyze ALL of my "good times" in light of being duped by an abusive group I am still giving them way too much authority.
I would venture to say that at the very least, some of us did not check our humanity at the cult door and had the capacity for genuine care and concern for others.
Yes, it was a cult, and an ugly one. But, while we were caught up in it. . . . we still lived our lives.
VP wasn't there at my baby showers or at the birth of my kids. . . didn't come to my wedding. Those are my memories and he doesn't have a place in them.
waysider, i think i've said it before that the "good times" were usually the hook that kept people around.
geisha779, this is not directed at you or your experiences, but it is in response to this statement of yours "VP wasn't there at my baby showers or at the birth of my kids. . . didn't come to my wedding. Those are my memories and he doesn't have a place in them.". the "dr" was not the cult because no one person can be that powerful, but it took everybody playing along to make the organization a cult whether anybody was a decent human being or not, and that does not mean that decent human beings were "bad", but it does mean that decent human beings played along with abundant sharing and tithing and running classes and witnessing and all the things that kept the organization growing and prospering regardless of the abusive system it was.
geisha779, this is not directed at you or your experiences, but it is in response to this statement of yours "VP wasn't there at my baby showers or at the birth of my kids. . . didn't come to my wedding. Those are my memories and he doesn't have a place in them.". the "dr" was not the cult because no one person can be that powerful, but it took everybody playing along to make the organization a cult whether anybody was a decent human being or not, and that does not mean that decent human beings were "bad", but it does mean that decent human beings played along with abundant sharing and tithing and running classes and witnessing and all the things that kept the organization growing and prospering regardless of the abusive system it was.
brainfixed, consider what happened ater VP died. It did not take long for the whole thing to fall apart and for thousands to walk away. . . . . groups like TWI are usually centered around one charismatic figure. When that figure dies and there is not someone as equally dynamic to step in and take over. . . the group falls apart.
That makes it VP's cult. He was that charasmatic figure. Look at what happened. LCM had to send out LOYALTY letters!!
Yes, people were duped. I was duped. In fact, I may have a broader concept of the cost than perhaps you do. . . I still believe in God and am a Christian. I think TWI robbed many people of a true relationship with Jesus. . . .it is an insidious cult. . . it was bible worship.
But, you wrote in your initial post that your good times only served to bind you closer to your abusers. I disagree. I still have relationships forged in TWI. My husband and his WOW brother. . . still care for each other. When they reconnected after a time. . . . there was real friendship there. They met in TWI. . . they were in two programs together . . . . Minutmen and then they were sent WOW together. That doesn't negate the bond. It is MORE than TWI.
Yes, we were part of TWI. . . ABS, classes, love-bombing, undersheparding, and all the rest. It is what it is. . . . but, many of us have years of our past tied up with it. Years. Which means that is it for the memories of our past. We have to come to terms with it in a healthy way. The good and the bad. Otherwise we can become quite angry and bitter.
My take anyway.
People who fall into cults are varied. It is not just the great unwashed masses. Educated, articulate, bright and capable people can get tricked. We are multi-faceted creatures.
It seems to me that to evaluate an entire portion of ones life in light of the abusive system of TWI is a way to continue giving them complete authority over a life lived.
That is not to say some of that is not healthy, but there comes a time in this process where you gotta give their power the final boot.
That is why I remember the important events in my past fondly as well as the people around me then. Those who were good people. :)
brainfixed, consider what happened ater VP died. It did not take long for the whole thing to fall apart and for thousands to walk away. . . . . groups like TWI are usually centered around one charismatic figure. When that figure dies and there is not someone as equally dynamic to step in and take over. . . the group falls apart.
That makes it VP's cult. Look at what happened. LCM had to send out LOYALTY letters!!
Yes, people were duped. I was duped. In fact, I may have a broader concept of the cost than perhaps you do. . . I still believe in God and am a Christian. I think TWI robbed many people of a true relationship with Jesus. . . .it is an insidious cult. . . it was bible worship.
But, you wrote in your initial post that your good times only served to bind you closer to your abusers. I disagree. I still have relationships forged in TWI. My husband and his WOW brother. . . still care for each other. When they reconnected after a time. . . . there was real friendship there. They met in TWI. . . they were in two programs together . . . . Minutmen and then they were sent WOW together. That doesn't negate the bond. It is MORE than TWI.
Yes, we were part of TWI. . . ABS, classes, love-bombing, undersheparding, and all the rest. It is what it is. . . . but, many of us have years of our past tied up with it. Years. Which means that is it for the memories of our past. We have to come to terms with it in a healthy way. The good and the bad. Otherwise we can become quite angry and bitter.
My take anyway.
People who fall into cults are varied. It is not just the great unwashed masses. Educated, articulate, bright and capable people can get tricked. We are multi-faceted creatures.
It seems to me that to evaluate an entire portion of ones life in light of the abusive system of TWI is a way to continue giving them complete authority over a life lived.
That is not to say some of that is not healthy, but there comes a time in this process where you gotta give their power the final boot.
That is why I remember the important events in my past fondly as well as the people around me then. Those who were good people. :)
Hope that clears it up.
it does help me a whole lot to better understand where you're coming from because it sets up a big difference between you having a choice about how your life in the way went and me never allowed that choice because i was a kid so what could i do about any of it, and i did try to tell the family court that i hated the way and why i hated the way and that i hated being with my mom because she forced me to be in the way with her but the way sent a lawyer and made themselves up to be a shining star of "godliness" and me to be a manipulative little cry baby that wanted to have to not obey my mother and they brought "witnesses" and everything about how much trouble i was for leadership in twig and in children's fellowship because i wouldn't obey, and how much trouble i caused between my brothers and sisters trying to talk to them about what was happening to us younger kids and causing trouble between my dad and my mom and making everybody come to court just because i didn't want to obey. it confuses and angers me terribly when people have the accounts of abuse right in front of them but then turn around and try to say it was all "isolated" and not a part of the whole and the "good times" override the truth of the matter, but now i see that that is not what you're saying so thank you for taking the time to put up a more detailed explanation because it does help me to understand and not be so angry.
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Tzaia
There were no "good" times. There were a few good people, but even my first visit - a branch meeting - was not what I would call "good". Overwhelming - yes. I was told it would cost at least a dollar
Linda Z
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, RumRunner. Without naming names, what are you talking about? You can give examples of behavior/types of posts without naming names. I'm really trying to und
potato
I'm glad vpw is dead.
Bolshevik
True, but you think the same way as people I have to deal with.
so I'm trying figure out why they do.
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socks
Simple. No one here's shrugging and saying that, you keep inferring that in different ways and it's going to inevitably lead at least some of us to counter your insistience - I think what seems difficult for me to swallow in your posts Bolsh, is that you keep using broad, general references that - I have yet to see it being represented here on this thread.
The others you have to deal with - family, friends, relationships - I assume you have to maintain otherwise I'd lose the losers and get on with your own life. Family or not.
I don't know your deal though, so understand, I can't answer your questions on that count.
No one here's blowing you off or your problem's off and saying tough luck, "I had a good time".
The entire reference to "good times" has become a really stupid euphimism anyway, IMO. It hardly describes the whole of a productive life, but if it works for you fine. But since when did "good times" become a means of weighting anything worthwhile?
It reads like a way to minimize the points others are making here, myself included.
Point to note: for me, moi, this dude - I'm not preaching that I had "some" "good times" and that makes anything in your life less than good, acceptable. :unsure:
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Bolshevik
I don't know when. It does means something to me and others I know.
It's hard not to use general references, or you'll say too much.
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leafytwiglet
Every one has so many valid points and everyone has so many different feelings about TWI...
I guess for me I have made my own peace. I am where I am at because of choices I made.
I can look at all those choices and be horrified and live in anger and sadness because of bad things that happened or I can look at what was good and happy and find what is good in my life now.
I choose this, I have much to be thankful for.
Before you stop listening understand that I had to do this not only with TWI but with my own childhood. I had to stop and squarely face what the reality of my childhood was and also what my adulthood with my family was. ( My stepdad was an alcoholic... it was not pretty)
This was very hard.... but once having done it I found it a lot easier to sort out what was good and worth remembering in joy and what was bad...
I am still sorting TWI out...yes TWI was a con but thinking if you had good times they were bad... this is not healthy either.
When I went to counseling for my childhood I learned one important thing... you have to look at your life squarely in the face of it. Accept it for what it is... actually you have to embrace it. With out it you would be a different person.. Maybe better maybe worse but that is an if you will never know.
And spending all your time trying to forget about it or act like it didn't happen or that it was different than it was is exhausting.
Okay and one other thing I had to really come to grips with is that I had to stop expecting my parents to apologize for what they did to me. I wanted that so much and it never happened... and as time went by I came to realize that even if I had gotten the apology it would not have helped me heal.
Bolshie and brainfixed you are at the beginnings of an upward climb in your life. ((Hugs))
I wish there was a way to make the people you have to deal with understand the hurts you feel from the life that was chosen for you and any one else who is a child born into TWI.
Just remember... for them TWI was something they chose for their self.. and they don't stop to realize that you did not chose TWI you had no control over your life until you could leave as an adult.
Maybe this will help you when you deal with them.
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excathedra
nice post leafy
socksie
not sure how i feel about that
well, what about horrible times ? enough to make you have nightmares through your life ? i don't think that's "stupid" -- and your part about a productive life or worthwhile life just doesn't make sense to me when discussing my own time in the way
oh, i don't know. it's hard for me to explain, but what your saying -- okay -- if it's about your productive and worthwhile life, fine....
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socks
How you feel about it is up to you, ex. I am taking about my life. Feel free to talk about yours. I can tell you one thing for sure for me - this is about as far from a 'good time' as anything I can think of - and largely unproductive. Sorry, all the talk about 'good times' didn't start with me or mine and it's stupid by my reckoning, at best a bad joke..
For me.
Not you or anyone else. Producticate as much as you need to.
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waysider
It's just a shame Ray Price never took "The Class".
Maybe he could have sung THIS at a Sunday Night Service.
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Bolshevik
I believe I witnessed some of the "good times" had by what I considered adults at the time. At the ROA, limb meetings, twigs, homes, weddings and such.
I have my memory of it. They (those who were there) have theirs.
So when I hear of the times and how they were "good", . . . I'm a little skeptical. Though maybe some did indeed have a good time.
But knowing now what it all was intended to plant, nourish, and grow into;
Did that energy of folks having a "good time" contribute to Wayworld? The dark side of twi, didn't it have it's base in the bright side? The "fun and excitement", so to speak, of the '70s set the stage for the '90s?
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Ham
The "good times".. started (in my lifetime) in the fifties..I was too young to remember at the time..
then came the sixties. Sex, (some) good drugs, rock and roll
and the mob took it over..
then came the early seventies..
the opportunists made their move.. the vicster included..
same ploy.. try to analyse it, find some way to sell it..
then the eighties came. Many of us started experiencing the joys of family..
same thing happened..
nineties.. and further.. da way has run out of fuel.. no "good times" to harvest the benefits from..
all that's left are a few kids who should run like the wind.. far and as fast from new knoxville, or Auglaize county, as far and as fast as their vehicles, buses, or feet can take them.. and a few fossilized remains of "good times" from years past..
just saying..
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Ham
eventually it will catch up I'm sure..
Student loans. Student over fifty. Whadda we do..
If I kick the bucket at say, fifty-five..
the department of education will find two loan officers. One a "saint".. obviously headed for heaven.. and another one.. a "devil" of sorts..
they will shoot both of them in the head.. after, of course.. giving them explicit instructions to collect from me..
sheesh.. they'll probably give them a whole list of us..
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Broken Arrow
[q
Edited by erkjohnLink to comment
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Broken Arrow
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Ham
Looks like I've made things go "tilt".. sowy..
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RumRunner
Tilt is good - keep posting
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excathedra
wow, are you mad at me ? you called me "ex"
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brainfixed
i tried to stop it from happening but it didn't work, but this discussion is focussing in on if the "good" times were "real" or not, and that isn't at all what i meant when i started the discussion, but what i meant and i think i expresed was to look at what was called "good" from the "bigger picture" perspective. this batting back and forth whether or not the "good" was "real" is not a discussion that is going to go anywhere because that's all perception and perception is reality to the perceiver, but what i was trying to get at was to broaden the perception and then maybe the understanding of how people were duped.
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Ham
I think it all really is pretty simple. There always have been good times, bad times, indifferent times..
people in a blood sucking stinking cult can actually be happy at times..
I think da *ministry* just took the good, and stamped their filthy little copyrighted logo on it..
They just salted the mine with the lives of people who perhaps were genuinely happy.. or successful.. or rich.. same ploy as almost any other second rate wanabe organization..
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waysider
If we say there were NEVER any good times, it's a bit like saying we kept going back for no apparent reason.
That's actually scarier when you think about it.
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geisha779
Some relationships forged during Waydaze have actually endured the test of time. Genuine enough for me.
If I analyze ALL of my "good times" in light of being duped by an abusive group I am still giving them way too much authority.
I would venture to say that at the very least, some of us did not check our humanity at the cult door and had the capacity for genuine care and concern for others.
Yes, it was a cult, and an ugly one. But, while we were caught up in it. . . . we still lived our lives.
VP wasn't there at my baby showers or at the birth of my kids. . . didn't come to my wedding. Those are my memories and he doesn't have a place in them.
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brainfixed
ham, i agree wholeheartedly.
waysider, i think i've said it before that the "good times" were usually the hook that kept people around.
geisha779, this is not directed at you or your experiences, but it is in response to this statement of yours "VP wasn't there at my baby showers or at the birth of my kids. . . didn't come to my wedding. Those are my memories and he doesn't have a place in them.". the "dr" was not the cult because no one person can be that powerful, but it took everybody playing along to make the organization a cult whether anybody was a decent human being or not, and that does not mean that decent human beings were "bad", but it does mean that decent human beings played along with abundant sharing and tithing and running classes and witnessing and all the things that kept the organization growing and prospering regardless of the abusive system it was.
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geisha779
brainfixed, consider what happened ater VP died. It did not take long for the whole thing to fall apart and for thousands to walk away. . . . . groups like TWI are usually centered around one charismatic figure. When that figure dies and there is not someone as equally dynamic to step in and take over. . . the group falls apart.
That makes it VP's cult. He was that charasmatic figure. Look at what happened. LCM had to send out LOYALTY letters!!
Yes, people were duped. I was duped. In fact, I may have a broader concept of the cost than perhaps you do. . . I still believe in God and am a Christian. I think TWI robbed many people of a true relationship with Jesus. . . .it is an insidious cult. . . it was bible worship.
But, you wrote in your initial post that your good times only served to bind you closer to your abusers. I disagree. I still have relationships forged in TWI. My husband and his WOW brother. . . still care for each other. When they reconnected after a time. . . . there was real friendship there. They met in TWI. . . they were in two programs together . . . . Minutmen and then they were sent WOW together. That doesn't negate the bond. It is MORE than TWI.
Yes, we were part of TWI. . . ABS, classes, love-bombing, undersheparding, and all the rest. It is what it is. . . . but, many of us have years of our past tied up with it. Years. Which means that is it for the memories of our past. We have to come to terms with it in a healthy way. The good and the bad. Otherwise we can become quite angry and bitter.
My take anyway.
People who fall into cults are varied. It is not just the great unwashed masses. Educated, articulate, bright and capable people can get tricked. We are multi-faceted creatures.
It seems to me that to evaluate an entire portion of ones life in light of the abusive system of TWI is a way to continue giving them complete authority over a life lived.
That is not to say some of that is not healthy, but there comes a time in this process where you gotta give their power the final boot.
That is why I remember the important events in my past fondly as well as the people around me then. Those who were good people. :)
Hope that clears it up.
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brainfixed
it does help me a whole lot to better understand where you're coming from because it sets up a big difference between you having a choice about how your life in the way went and me never allowed that choice because i was a kid so what could i do about any of it, and i did try to tell the family court that i hated the way and why i hated the way and that i hated being with my mom because she forced me to be in the way with her but the way sent a lawyer and made themselves up to be a shining star of "godliness" and me to be a manipulative little cry baby that wanted to have to not obey my mother and they brought "witnesses" and everything about how much trouble i was for leadership in twig and in children's fellowship because i wouldn't obey, and how much trouble i caused between my brothers and sisters trying to talk to them about what was happening to us younger kids and causing trouble between my dad and my mom and making everybody come to court just because i didn't want to obey. it confuses and angers me terribly when people have the accounts of abuse right in front of them but then turn around and try to say it was all "isolated" and not a part of the whole and the "good times" override the truth of the matter, but now i see that that is not what you're saying so thank you for taking the time to put up a more detailed explanation because it does help me to understand and not be so angry.
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Bolshevik
some would say lcm is really a good person.
it's just a matter of perspective. there's really no definition for "good".
people I consider liars and crooks, others consider good people. I guess both are true.
the exact same event could be good for one and bad for another. I guess both are true.
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Bolshevik
wow brainfixed
that sux!
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