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How was your identity changed?


penworks
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We women were subjected to the same things discussed here on this thread, and, in other places in the Cafe. If you were married, you had something else added making it a double whammy. It was the S- word.........submit!

It's not supposed to be some terrible thing. I think you all know about this, we were taught it fairly often. Basically, it means that the wife gives deference to the husband in all things. They will discuss things, and if there is no agreement between the 2, the husband has the final say. We were also taught that whatever the husband said was to be taken as if it was law. He was the head over the woman just as Christ was the head of the church. That makes a lot of sense to me. The problem occurs when the husband really takes to this “submit” policy. For a time, I was in this situation and so my identity was that I was no better than a slave.

Old habits sometimes die hard. That was the situation with this. It took several years after we left until it began to resolve itself into a more normal husband-wife relationship.

Many husbands were negatively affected by this attitude as well. Suddenly, that guy who had been an easy going, compromising type of guy was expected to "grow a pair!" and be a domineering butt head. "Take Charge!" became the edict of the moment. Well, for many men, this sort of approach to marriage is contrary to their genuine personalities....or so a friend has told me.

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Many husbands were negatively affected by this attitude as well. Suddenly, that guy who had been an easy going, compromising type of guy was expected to "grow a pair!" and be a domineering butt head. "Take Charge!" became the edict of the moment. Well, for many men, this sort of approach to marriage is contrary to their genuine personalities....or so a friend has told me.

Yeah.....that's a better description than what I quipped as "...lorded over by the cult command."

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[/size]Basically, it means that the wife gives deference to the husband in all things. They will discuss things, and if there is no agreement between the 2, the husband has the final say.

....in twi, the husband gave deference to the next higher mog on the rung.

Of course, the husband-wife relationship [in twi] had multiple variable affecting this

depending on local/state leadership and one's place of ranking in the cult command chain.

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A greater problem than what was taught was what was modeled. Vic yelled at his wife, treated her like shiz, ran around on her with girls half his age, and built a little elitist swinger culture. Her overheard comment at his grave was he was a mean man.

My own father was a better Christian model of a husband.

But we looked to that idiot for guidance in those categories. He taught the class on it despite being personally unqualified due to his life.

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I had a nice, typically long post all ready to post and lost it somewhere in cyberspace! Gist was:

The entire "worldview" of male/female relationships, heterosexual premarital, marital, and extramarital sex, marriage, child rearing, family values, and how to live right according to da woid, indoctrinated into every corpse grad and eventually every twig coordinator in twit, was established according to Vic's paranoid narcissistic delusional, alcoholic sociopathy and personal sexual perversions. He was a misigynist. Therefore so was every male "leader" in his rotten tree. Therefore, every poor "submitting woman" was a victim of Vic's misogyny which was vicious and uncontrolled. Every husband was to be like vic. Every wife was to be like fotsie. Every dad was to be like vic. Mom's were incidental. Every "leader" was to be like vic. Every leader's wife was to be like Dotsie, ad infinitum.

So......there was a " double standard" alright. But, in REALITY.... there was NO moral, ethical, spiritual, "normal" standard for anything in all this other than Vic's alcoholic, delusional sociopathy. Sociopathy by definition, has no morals, knows no conscience, has no "good intent", and sustains no rational thought. Add to that mess, Vic's twisted sexual pathologies as a serial rapist and sexual predator and you have a real witches' brew of mental illness at the very core of every corpse grad's worldview. Not a pleasant picture imo.

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Add to that mess, Vic's twisted sexual pathologies as a serial rapist and sexual predator and you have a real witches' brew of mental illness at the very core of every corpse grad's worldview. Not a pleasant picture imo.

Victurd's "brew" of leadership training, ie the corps program, was an in-your-face indoctrination camp.

And....it's totally appropriate that THIS subject is being addressed in "your identity" thread.

BUT....as most all here know, the twisting pathologies in vic's demented world gained a worldview platform

after he hijacked b.g. leonard's class in 1953.....and launched into this "holy spirit" bonanza to gain a

foothold in the psyche of the young, naïve, searching, transient souls looking for solid ground to stand on.

In preparation for to learn the mysteries and mystique contained within vic's "advanced class".....one had

to submit to pseudo-doctrine on way tree, renewed mind, adversary attacks, and his crotch-grabbing sex class.

Looking back at all this sick perversion is gut-wrenching. Time and time again, I was this-close to walking

out......my gut instincts kept telling me to walk. And, the advanced class....with all those tangents on

the illuminati, Marxist minstrels, the myth of the six million, the thirteenth tribe, etc. had subliminal

messaging that had deep, strategic agendas other than "spiritual learning."

And, seemingly.....wierwille's pathological perversions and narcissistic longing for a legacy of consequence

gained a foothold thru indoctrinating corps who went forth to leaven the whole of twi.

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In the words of Princess Diana: "There were three of us in this marriage."

She meant, the other woman.

I mean: the nearest MoG / wannabe.

I wasn't married - but I did get engaged. My fiance and I would discuss something and agree on it; then the twig leader above him (my own immature Corps bro) would say something else and the fiance would do that - something quite different from what we'd agreed. If I said anything ("Why did you do that thing opposite from what we'd agreed?"), I was told to defer, to be meek to my fiance. Goodness knows what a marriage would have been like.

Nuff said. I'll get angry soon... :realmad:/>

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In the words of Princess Diana: "There were three of us in this marriage."

She meant, the other woman.

I mean: the nearest MoG / wannabe.

I wasn't married - but I did get engaged. My fiance and I would discuss something and agree on it; then the twig leader above him (my own immature Corps bro) would say something else and the fiance would do that - something quite different from what we'd agreed. If I said anything ("Why did you do that thing opposite from what we'd agreed?"), I was told to defer, to be meek to my fiance. Goodness knows what a marriage would have been like.

Nuff said. I'll get angry soon... realmad.gif/>

Sounds like cause for being thankful you didn't marry the bloke. ;)

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In the words of Princess Diana: "There were three of us in this marriage."

She meant, the other woman.

I mean: the nearest MoG / wannabe.

I wasn't married - but I did get engaged. My fiance and I would discuss something and agree on it; then the twig leader above him (my own immature Corps bro) would say something else and the fiance would do that - something quite different from what we'd agreed. If I said anything ("Why did you do that thing opposite from what we'd agreed?"), I was told to defer, to be meek to my fiance. Goodness knows what a marriage would have been like.

Nuff said. I'll get angry soon... :realmad:/>/>

goodness has nothing to do with it. you knew exactly what the marriage would have been like and bailed. smart girl. many were a lot stupider.

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Married women were not the same as single women in the eyes of God, evidently. Wierwille used a diagram to show where the married woman stood with God. He used a 90-degree triangle to illustrate God at the top corner and the line that dropped below it led to the husband. The bottom line of the triangle, from the husband, led over to the right where the wife was designated. So the idea was that the wife was off to the side. She "went through" the husband to get to God. But the slanted line from her up and over to God was "direct" too, only not as direct as the husband's. At least that was my understanding. Does anyone else remember this ridiculous-ness?

charlene my wife although i can't speak for her directly i can share she felt very lorded over in the way and yes due to the teachings the modeling and the BS. i was always pretty chill i guess if i was too much of a dbag she would have left me by now but we have kids and dogs and all that so i guess im all right. all i got to say is triangles on a chart never taught me how to live life and if i wanted a dishrag im sure i would have brought one on my list to bring into corpse. but yes all that stuff they taught on that was dumb as h3ll. if that aint about two equals then its one playing god and that's downright exhausting and people suck at it.

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chockfull, I didn't bail out, I was cast out (and then heaped with slander, of course). I hold nothing against my fiance; I held a lot against the interfering person whom I have since forgiven. We were all so Waybrained but I was the bottom of the heap, so I got the most kicking. You know how it was. Whatever happened was because the woman wasn't meek enough.

I still like my fiance (now 10+ years married to someone else) and think that if we'd been left alone to get on with life, we'd have been happy enough together. It seems that we actually have quite a lot of things in common that weren't clearly seen while we were involved with TWI. Unlikely ever to meet again, but if the opportunity arose, I'd fight anyone to try to keep his marriage safe from interference by others.

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chockfull, I didn't bail out, I was cast out (and then heaped with slander, of course). I hold nothing against my fiance; I held a lot against the interfering person whom I have since forgiven. We were all so Waybrained but I was the bottom of the heap, so I got the most kicking. You know how it was. Whatever happened was because the woman wasn't meek enough.

I still like my fiance (now 10+ years married to someone else) and think that if we'd been left alone to get on with life, we'd have been happy enough together. It seems that we actually have quite a lot of things in common that weren't clearly seen while we were involved with TWI. Unlikely ever to meet again, but if the opportunity arose, I'd fight anyone to try to keep his marriage safe from interference by others.

remarkably well adjusted stuff for a cult member ;) a lot of us here are stronger and smarter than we think. except for some of us where its the opposite ;)

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Sometimes, you can't tell until later that you've "dodged a bullet."

It seems like he would have been satisfactory or better,

but twi's intrusion into your relationship would have poisoned the thing

and made you both miserable.

(If he was dysfunctional, he might have ENJOYED the harmful power dynamic

they pushed because he would have someone to bark orders to.

That certainly was one motivator for vpw.)

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remarkably well adjusted stuff for a cult member wink.gif a lot of us here are stronger and smarter than we think. except for some of us where its the opposite wink.gif

Thanks, Chockfull. It's taken a lot of work to get to where I am now. After I got M&A'd I spent ten years down the bottom of a deep dark miserable well, unable to face life, people, anything and anyone. The lost years, I call that time.

Then, extreme misery compelled me to act and I was going to crawl over broken glass or whatever, to get back to TWI. Instead, I got waylaid by GSC. And I started to heal, started to recover my thinking capacity, started to feel the warmth of God's love. Lots of miraculous things happened to me then. Like God was showering me with all that love and those gifts that I'd been hiding from before, when I was down that well. He found me a church where there was space to just be, gentle kind people, great teaching... People, strangers, befriended me and made space for me in their lives and in their homes. :knuddel:/> I said weird cult-head things :redface:/>, got strange looks :blink:/>, but nobody tore my head off for not group-thinking. :rolleyes:/> My pre-TWI friends and family welcomed "me" back. :eusa_clap:/>

Long-term, I don't think my "identity" - my core being - has changed except to get back to where it was, the person I used to be before TWI got its hooks into me - but my "identity" is deeper and richer and with more to give now. More compassion and understanding for underprivileged and beaten-down people. And a lot more peace of heart.

Still some big confusions; maybe everyone has those? None of us really has all the answers!

Life is very good :dance:/>.

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I've been struggling how to respond to this question ever since the thread was first posted...

The identity I thought I was building for myself was totally destroyed in the fall of 1971, when I was 22 years old in the Nuclear Navy. For two-and-a-half years, I had been identifying myself as my fiance's soon-to-be-husband. The reason I was in the Nuclear Power Program was to acquire a marketable skill in order to support her. When she rejected me, I lost my identity. I didn't know how to make any decisions because I didn't know who I was. I found myself in the position of continuing to be a sailor whether I liked it or not, so I decided to be Popeye, and that's what I did for the next few years.

In 1973 I went over the hump... that is, my enlistment was half over, and I began to think about getting out. I looked around me and saw fellows, bound and determined to leave the Navy, but 30 days after their discharges, they'd be back in. They didn't know how to be anything but sailors. They didn't know how to think like civilians anymore. I swore that wasn't going to happen to me, so in 1974 I set out on a deliberate course to re-learn how to think like a civilian BEFORE my discharge date. That was when I started consciously picking things to do that would re-shape my identity!

I joined the Alternate Recreational Realities Group of Hawaii (ARRGH!), a civilian wargame group that met at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. I joined two other civilian groups whose memberships partially overlapped with ARRGH!'s, a local proto- (VERY proto-) chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism, that engaged in live-action medieval martial arts/roleplaying, and the local chapter of the Mythopoeic Society, a sci-fi/fantasy monthly book club. When I had been in boot camp, I knew they were tearing down parts of my identity to replace them with things that would turn me into a sailor, and I consciously went along with the process to minimize friction. After 1973, I used the knowledge I had learned about how to fiddle with my identity to take my experiences with my new-found civilian friends and use them to re-civilianize my identity. During that time, I was also introduced to that identity-machine par excellence, Dungeons & Dragons!

In '76 I got out of the Navy and did okay. I had a lot of adventures on San Francisco Bay, but in 1979 I found everything I was pursuing out there coming to a dead end, and I moved back to Muncie, IN, to go to school at Ball State with my brother. I felt sad about leaving all my friends in Baghdad by the Bay, so I made up an affirmation. Whenever I started to feel sad, I would repeat to myself "The people who I need to have come into my life are coming into my life right now!" until I didn't feel sad anymore. And I watched for those people to appear. That was when I got witnessed to, but I didn't jump right into this twig/way thing. I had brushes with all kinds of cults in Honolulu and San Francisco, including the Hare Krishnas, Scientology and Synanon, as well as some small locally-grown groups whose names are well and truly forgotten. For a time, I lived in a boarding house in San Fransico, and we residents often discussed the cult recruiters we would encounter on the streets, and how their groups operated.

I tested these way people. I would deliberately fail to show up when I told them I would, just to see if their attitude toward me would change. Sometimes I would show up when I told them I wouldn't, to find out if they were doing something differently when I wasn't there. I tested them for about a year before I gave in to their gentle pressure and signed the green card. It wasn't until a long time later that I realized there were no Corps in that fellowship. If there had been, I would probably have been put off by Corps attitudes and behavior.

So... during the time I was involved with TWI I was sometimes aware of what was happening with my identity, and sometimes I wasn't paying enough attention.

There was a thing that happened to me on L.E.A.D. that had a powerful effect on my identity, but it was the Lord who pulled it off, and not the organization or doctrine of TWI. One day I got up before anybody else in my L.E.A.D. twig's camping area, and I barfed. Later, breakfast got cooked, and after eating a few bites, I barfed again. We went hiking to the wall we were going to climb and I started to feel sick again so my coordinator had me drink about a quart of slippery elm. Oddly enough, I stopped barfing after that. We got to the wall, and I did a couple of easy climbs. My coordinator came over and told me I wouldn't have to do the hard climb (about 75 feet) since I wasn't feeling well. I decided to do the hard climb anyway.

I did very well. Even when I stopped to rest, I was continuing to look above me to find the next hand and foot holds, focused on the climb. I had seen other people break down and swear or cry in the middle of their climbs, but I never felt like that. As we used to say in submarine escape training "I FEEL FINE!" I got to the top and took my place to help handle the rope for the next climber coming up (I forget the technical name for the position), and as I sat there taking up the slack, I felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment and failure. Why did I break down AFTER the trial was past?

I spent about a year trying to figure that out. First, I put the feelings into words... "if I can win at climbing these rocks, why can't I win at the bigger issues of life?" I realized that I had identified myself as a loser when my fiance rejected me. But how could I change THAT identity? I couldn't get her back, and if I could, I would have wasted all those years (about 15). One day, as I was contemplating the statement "Jesus Christ is my complete substitute for sin and for the consequences of sin," I realized that Jesus Christ had been rejected by his fiance, too, but that didn't make him a loser! Israel was Christ's bride, and he was rejected by her. After Peter had denied Jesus three times, and their eyes met, Jesus felt every bit of the sorrow and humiliation that ANYBODY has ever felt being rejected by a loved one. And yet he did not become a loser. In the flesh of Steve Lortz, my identity was as a loser, but in Christ, my identity might not be that of an all-conquering superhero, but it isn't as a loser anymore. The Lord gave me Elizabeth for a wife, and we have been married 24 years, come November second. Has our marriage been what I imagined marriage to be when I was in my late-teens and early-twenties? NO! It has been much better than I ever imagined.

Speaking of being an all-conquering superhero, as I've been contemplating this thread, I've asked myself, what WAS the identity I took away from PFAL? I think I'd have to say, "I'm a son of God with power." That can be a useful thing, as long as we don't think more highly of ourselves than we ought, like it says in Romans 12:3, another verse Wierwille turned on its head. But that identity can get WAY out of hand without much encouragement.

For several years, I've been wondering why certain people are SO COMMITTED to Wierwille's errors regarding the mystery. The other day, I saw a video where John Lynn was promoting the latest iteration of his never ending cycle of classes. He was standing in front of a chart listing the "administrations" and explaining that Adam was a Gentile, as if this were a revelation to rock the foundations of a person's understanding of the Bible. I thought, "That's so ho-hum... what's the big deal with that to John Lynn?"

I thought, "Well, I've been in seminary far to long now (primarily due to health problem delays)... what have I learned about Adam?" And then it struck me, in the Bible Adam is the prototypical HUMAN BEING designed, made, formed and created by the LORD God Almighty, Creator of the heavens and the earth! Adam was the greatest human being who ever lived with the sole exception of Jesus Christ! By teaching that there are three types of people on the earth, Jews, Gentiles and the Church of God, Wierwille was teaching that Christians are the ONLY people who are fully HUMAN. Wierwille said that only Christians are composed of the whole three parts, body, soul and spirit. Christians are the only people who are fully human, and followers The Way International are the only Christians who KNOW THAT THEY KNOW THAT THEY KNOW they are fully human. Every body outside of TWI is functionally less than human.

How's THAT for an identity kicker!?!

We've all still got a lot of deep doo-doo to flush out of us!!!!!

Speaking of manipulating identity, I think the primary tool for doing that in TWI was the artificial language we used to distinguish ourselves from outsiders.

Love,

Steve

Edited by Steve Lortz
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Thanks, Chockfull. It's taken a lot of work to get to where I am now. After I got M&A'd I spent ten years down the bottom of a deep dark miserable well, unable to face life, people, anything and anyone. The lost years, I call that time.

Then, extreme misery compelled me to act and I was going to crawl over broken glass or whatever, to get back to TWI. Instead, I got waylaid by GSC. And I started to heal, started to recover my thinking capacity, started to feel the warmth of God's love. Lots of miraculous things happened to me then. Like God was showering me with all that love and those gifts that I'd been hiding from before, when I was down that well. He found me a church where there was space to just be, gentle kind people, great teaching... People, strangers, befriended me and made space for me in their lives and in their homes. :knuddel:/>/> I said weird cult-head things :redface:/>/>, got strange looks :blink:/>/>, but nobody tore my head off for not group-thinking. :rolleyes:/>/> My pre-TWI friends and family welcomed "me" back. :eusa_clap:/>/>

Long-term, I don't think my "identity" - my core being - has changed except to get back to where it was, the person I used to be before TWI got its hooks into me - but my "identity" is deeper and richer and with more to give now. More compassion and understanding for underprivileged and beaten-down people. And a lot more peace of heart.

Still some big confusions; maybe everyone has those? None of us really has all the answers!

Life is very good :dance:/>/>.

Oh man, this made me weep. So happy to be here with such a brave person as yourself...and so many others.

Cheers to you,

Pen

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Steve mentioned the problem of "the artificial language we used to distinguish ourselves from outsiders."

I like that point.

Identify that artificial language (I call jargon) and you're half way out of TWI. The other half of the way out is to break the habits (behavior) that issued from that false identity built by the jargon. Like a house of cards, one flick of the finger and it all begins to fall.

Also kick the habit or the compulsive feeling that you have to preach that artificial language. At this point, I'm referring to the evangelism of offshoot TWI folks who have not stopped to examine their jargon. What would happen if they just sat down and thought about the implications of what they are perpetrating? Does it promote bigotry or expose it?

I know many TWI offshoot leaders from way back. If any of you are reading this, may I suggest taking some time off from promoting second-hand stuff from TWI and quietly examining what it means. Ask yourself, is this the kind of world I want to be a part of...one that pits people against each other using religious beliefs?

Anyhow, perfectly happy people run the offshoots, and they feel they are fulfilling what they're supposed to do on the planet. But maybe, just maybe they might admit to a tiny doubt about that. Maybe they'll ask themselves, What's the worst that can happen if one of those teeny doubts turns out to be true? Change is possible. But like getting old, it ain't for sissies.

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Still some big confusions; maybe everyone has those? None of us really has all the answers!

you mean like me at times being a complete basket case in a regular church? correct. i have like these waves of irrational fear that someone is going to use me and manipulate me. they don't last and they go away but man.

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Thank you, Charlene.

Chockfull, when I first started attending my parent church, I daringly walked out a few times if I didn't like what was being said or sung. Because I could! Condemnation? None!! Also, I deliberately turned up late - because I could. Condemnation?? None!! I understand your irrational fear when perhaps a phrase or particular word is used.

Heh, heh, funny story: about 15 or so years after I'd been M&A and when I was first tenatively starting to heal and get to know God again, my Mum asked me to go with her to a Christmas carol concert put on by the Salvation Army. I wasn't keen on the concert but did want to accompany her. It was all okay until the MC said, "And now the Corps will sing to us," and my jaw dropped, a pang went through me, it felt as though my very long hair was standing on end, and my body went into fight/ flight mode.

I'm wary of people who try to guilt me into doing anything, but haven't met that at any time in my church experiences here. Only openness and acceptance.

I was thinking more of doctrinal points where I don't fully understand, or where mine differs from more mainstream Christians. As I've met and worked alongside people from other churches and denominations, I find we're often a bit different and it doesn't matter. Where we all speak with the same voice is where we love God, the Lord Jesus, and enjoy working in and out from grace. I don't raise controversial points (Trinity) because actually it simply doesn't matter.

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The biggest way that my identity changed was the tendency to be arrogantly sure of my own opinion (even if "my" opinion was really a second-hand opinion gotten from someone else). When I left The Way I thought I left behind this "I know that I know that I know" crap, but it took me a while to shed that mindset. I also had absorbed some of the Way model of how to be a leader, i.e. yelling and humiliating people. As a middle manager, I was pretty ineffectual applying this method in the real world. This also took a while to change.

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The biggest way that my identity changed was the tendency to be arrogantly sure of my own opinion (even if "my" opinion was really a second-hand opinion gotten from someone else). When I left The Way I thought I left behind this "I know that I know that I know" crap, but it took me a while to shed that mindset. I also had absorbed some of the Way model of how to be a leader, i.e. yelling and humiliating people. As a middle manager, I was pretty ineffectual applying this method in the real world. This also took a while to change.

Me, too. I'm still working on it.

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