u/Glad-Emergency6121

I'll tell you an absolute experience is community servers for JWs on the messaging app Discord. Drama every other day. My PIMI sister was in some JW Discord servers and kept getting harassed by horny brothers with no boundaries. There was always explosive drama over situations that just shouldn't matter (I can't even remember specific examples because it was so full of nothing and happening so frequently). It was stressing her out bad.

One adult "brother" flirted with a girl in a server without bothering to look at her age first and then it was pointed out to him that she was a minor and he got awkward. But then he kept "jokingly" flirting with her in the server after that, calling her a "cute red-headed Asian" (she was white and told him she was but he still kept joking about her being Asian because she looked kinda like a big-eyed anime girl to him, I guess).

My sister was so mad and talked to the mods about him and gave proof of him flirting and they wouldn't ban him. They'd say he's just joking and then say stuff like "I'm staying neutral in this. If you think this is bad, just leave it in Jehovah's hands" (which neutrality in the religion applies to political neutrality, not interpersonal conflicts)

They haven't been reported just because my sister couldn't fucking figure out how to report users and a server even though I gave her instructions and she wouldn't let me touch her device long enough to do it for her (she was always paranoid about me using her devices). And I couldn't report them myself since I wasn't in the server and didn't have those people on my friends list

But yeah, JW Discord exists. The servers out there often come in two different flavors:

1. Ones run by sisters that are uwu soft pastel kawaii aesthetics, fake toxic positivity everywhere and no one is allowed to start fights ever, even if there's an actual problem
2. Ones run by brothers that are elite tech gamer dudebro in aesthetic and everyone's just so openly mean to each other and okay with it

This is coming from someone who is aspec. They think this just because it's considered an LGBTQ+ label. Which is still strange to me as I would think they would consider it a "conscience matter" at the very least since asexuality doesn't really determine what gender you're attracted to. It just determines whether you're able to experience sexual attraction or not.

If asexuality were not considered an LGBTQ+ label, I think PIMIs would push others to be asexual. This is because being aspec means you're less susceptible to lustful thoughts, you may have little or none at all. Not that asexuality is to be equated to purity and innocence, but I think if PIMIs were accepting of it, they would weaponize it and make it out to be a form of purity.

Not everyone is straight, not everyone is bi, not everyone is gay. But everyone IS somewhere on the spectrum between allosexual and asexual, it's unavoidable. It's pointless to shame allosexuals for having lustful thoughts, and it's pointless to shame asexuals for having little to no lustful thoughts just because the LGBTQ+ community defines asexuals as a minority compared to allosexuals.

This is yet another logical fallacy to add to the massive burning pile of trash that is JW "rules". You'll get punished for being allosexual and experiencing normal amounts of lust, but you'll also get punished for being asexual and feeling little to no lust.

The GB has not even addressed asexuality in the publications. Look up "asexual" in the borg's WOL and the only results are related to asexual reproduction in biology. Yet it's getting rules made up about it and still being treated as a sin by local PIMIs and elders

POMO here. Did anyone else see a lot of PIMIs believe that pets would have to be abandoned when the Great Tribulation starts?

I'm seeing people on this sub talk about PIMIs abandoning pets in favor of serving at Bethel and doing more for the organization, but I'm not seeing anything about this.

So many people in my congregation talked about how pets would have to be abandoned when the Great Tribulation starts. I never saw anyone abandon pets over this belief. But there were many who refused to get a pet because "the end is just around the corner" and they don't want to have to abandon a pet when it starts. People who already had pets would swear not to get another pet again "in this system" when their current pet dies, so they won't have to abandon it.

One woman in my congregation had a son who wanted a pet dog. She resisted for a long time, telling him they shouldn't get one with the end being so close. She eventually caved in and adopted two dogs from a shelter when her son said "wouldn't Jehovah want us to give a dog a good life before the end comes?"

This conversation was very commonplace in my congregation. There weren't many pet owners. There were a few dog owners who would constantly talk about their dogs like they were burdens and regularly remark about how they'll have to abandon them at the Great Tribulation (almost like they wanted an excuse to abandon their dogs...).

I often felt like I was the only person who genuinely loved my pets. I have two cats. One time an elder called me to give encouragement because I was going through a lot. I lightheartedly said during the call "yeah, I don't know what I'd do without my cat" (I only had one at the time) and the elder just went silent for a good few seconds before very awkwardly saying "I'm sorry to hear that" like he felt bad that I felt so attached to my cat. He acted like that remark was some lonely cry for help and not an expression of love and appreciation for my cat.

TL;DR: Did anyone else hear a lot of PIMIs say that petowners would have to abandon their pets when the Great Tribulation starts?

One of my headmates has barely been able to function. When he thinks of his current state, he thinks to himself that he feels like he is dying. When I ask him how he is doing, he tells me "I feel like I'm fading"

A lot has been going on recently where I, the host, cannot rely on my headmates a lot, especially this one. He's been unable to function through all the stressful things happening to us. So I've been fulfilling a lot of things he does in his role, and it's getting to where it's just natural for me to do them instead of him.

He doesn't know what he could do now to help me since I'm learning to naturally handle things he can do in the way that he would. So he's just been stuck, he was frequently worrying about finding other ways to help me, but he couldn't find anything he's equipped to handle.

He's finally just given up trying to find purpose and he's possibly giving up his existence because he's just stopped trying to compensate, he's only able to talk about "fading" now. He keeps crying about it because he's very attached to me and he feels like parting with me (possibly forever) is inevitable, and he thinks he's letting me down if he's unable to exist anymore.

I keep reminding him I love him and I appreciate all he's done for me throughout the years, and that he won't be letting me down if he feels that he must change or fade in some way.

I've had headmates briefly express before that they feel like they're "fading" or "dying" like this, but this headmate feels it very strongly. He's been feeling it for weeks now, and it's getting hard to communicate with him because his presence feels very weak and it takes a hot minute to find him in the headspace, almost like he keeps flickering in and out of existence.

Any ideas on what might be going on here, or what I could do to help him through his grief?

What can I do?

I ran away from a domestic abuse situation in April. I haven't been able to pay my credit cards due to homelessness throughout April, and I'm not able to pay them this month either because of moving into an apartment and things going rough financially as I try to stabilize.

None of my credit card companies are offering hardship programs or fee waiving when I explain my situation to them and tell them that I'll be able to pay again starting June. I've always been consistent in my payments and I had a good credit score at the time I left. None of these companies are going to budge and give me some leeway though despite that.

These cards will be expecting me to do minimum payments of at least $80 each because of this. I really can't do this, I'm disabled and only living on $1000 per month from SSI.

Again, I've tried calling the companies. Absolutely none of them will not just let me have hardship programs or waived fees even if I thoroughly explain my situation and explain that I'm disabled and can't work, and even if I answer yes to several of their questions, such as ones asking if I have to cut back on necessities like food in order to make end's meet.

My PIMI family never allowed Mother's Day or Father's Day celebrations.

Unfortunately, my mother passed away 3 years ago while I was PIMI and I never got to celebrate Mother's Day with her. Since I was unable to wish her a happy Mother's Day, I decided to wish one to my two aunts.

My aunts are the ones in my life who have acted more like mothers to me than anyone has in the years after my mother's passing. I'm grateful for them and thought I'd express my appreciation for them yesterday.

My mom seemed to be trying to get out of the organization in the months leading up to her death, so I'm sure I would have gotten to celebrate Mother's Day with her if she didn't pass away. I know she would want me to enjoy Mother's Day with someone if not her.

I just got AT&T All-Fi. Before anyone tries suggesting that I just switch my ISP, I should mention that AT&T is the most reliable ISP in my area. There's only one other ISP here and they have huge outages like every week for multiple days straight according to their customers, which is why I went with AT&T. All-Fi was the only wi-fi option of theirs that is compatible with my location.

It runs really great with every website I've been on so far. I haven't had problems with it, except for when I try accessing Tumblr.

My network will load Tumblr, but all it will load is its blue background. It won't load any site assets, no posts, no images, no text, nothing. It will load everything, though very slowly, if I close and restart my browser (Vivaldi). But even then, once it works, it will only function for about 5 minutes before it stops loading anything again and makes me have to close and restart my browser again.

I've tried clearing my cache and restarting my laptop entirely. Is there anything else I could do to try fixing this? Again, All-Fi is only doing this to Tumblr specifically so far. Every other site I've been to and app I've used has loaded quickly and smoothly without eventually malfunctioning like it does with Tumblr.

I'm 29, FtM. I've known this friend since I was 14. We were close and seemingly unbreakable until about 5-ish years ago when things started getting unsteady.

This friend was going through a lot of dating and relationships and the more I saw her interacting romantically with others, the more I started feeling romantically towards her, because the things she expressed that she wanted out of her relationships that she couldn't get were things that were natural to me and I thought maybe we could work romantically. So my feelings for her built up the past 3 years and I wasn't saying anything since she was going after some guys. But in March, I decided to express how I feel. I was questioning my gender but still saying I was a woman at the time and figured maybe that wouldn't affect anything because she has expressed before that she's attracted to women. She didn't reciprocate and told me it's because I'm too unstable for a relationship.

I would've been okay with the rejection if she didn't tell me that's why I wasn't attractive to her. She's been attracted to many unstable men. I was moving to my own place and seeking therapy, the men she liked are grown men and they choose to stay with their parents and they refuse to accept that they need therapy. So I was upset that the things that don't stop her from being attracted to these guys was somehow a dealbreaker for me even when I was actively making efforts to do better.

In April, she talked about how she still talks to her situationship and how she still has romantic feelings for him. She would try being alone with him in voice calls so she could get some semblance of romantic attention from him. He has a girlfriend and hasn't been showing this friend romantic attention, but she wants to be alone with him and get positive attention that feels anything like a romantic interaction.

This situationship of hers has repeatedly put her down, insulted her, humiliated her, and abandoned her repeatedly several times a year for about the past 5 years. Each time, she yearns for him and lets him go without consequence and just misses him and feels sad over him each time. This is where things get messy for my feelings on my end.

I felt anger towards her situationship for breaking her heart repeatedly for years and always getting away with it. I always got angry at him for doing this, even before I developed romantic feelings for my friend. I was also mad at my friend because she treats him so lovingly throughout his tantrums, even when they're keeping their relationship platonic. But anytime I'm upset about anything, my friend would scold me for it and tell me I need to get better at communication and would lecture me on what I should do instead of get upset. I felt like it wasn't fair that this guy who keeps breaking her heart gets treated with more patience and unconditional love, even in a platonic relationship, than her best friend of 15 years who never left her side. I noticed this was the case with anyone she saw as a potential partner. She's primarily attracted to cisgender men and I noticed she would want to hang out with them a lot more than me. She would also be more likely to show them patience and unconditional love too.

This part I am not proud of and I do not justify it. My friend's situationship broke her heart again, and my friend isolated herself and wouldn't talk to me. I finally got fed up seeing this happen repeatedly for years. I contacted her situationship and aggressively began cussing him out and I tried dragging the admin of the group chat into it to get them to realize what he's doing to my friend and ban him. I wanted her situationship to be humiliated and to deal with consequences for once. I wanted him to feel hurt the way he hurts my friend repeatedly for once. I was banned from the group and my friend found out and she said I broke her trust by doing that. I had been holding back from doing something stupid like this for 5 years and I couldn't do it anymore.

I explained my thought process behind everything to her. I told her about how much it hurts me to see her hurt by someone like that repeatedly and he just gets away with it and lives his best life each time. I tried apologizing and I told her how I understand I messed up and that what I did wasn't okay and how horrible I felt that I hurt her too. She said nothing about how I felt and just talked about how she felt. She stopped talking to me, saying she needed space before reconciling. I fully realized that I'm just not gonna get the same unconditional love in a platonic relationship that any of her cis male friends get, so I just decided to take the loss and accept that and accept that she's not gonna forgive me for this. So I messaged her and told her not to worry about me and that I'm probably not gonna be able to be as close friends with her as I want because I'm not a cis man. She got furious when I said that and told me that I'm so lost in my romantic feelings that I'm mischaracterizing her, that she doesn't owe me a romantic relationship, that I violated a boundary by messaging her (I was messaging her just to let her know I'm done and I wasn't going to talk more) and she blocked me immediately.

I would like to note that I noticed the favoritism towards her cis male friends even before I developed romantic feelings. I just wanted the same respect that her cis male friends got. I didn't feel entitled to a relationship with her, I just thought I deserved a level of platonic love and respect that her cis male friends get since I was a loyal friend for 15 years, much longer than any of them.

I also saw immediately after I crashed out and attacked her situationship, she changed her bio online to just say "a decadent creature" and nothing more. I don't understand why she would do that. We're my unrequited feelings just stroking her ego?