u/PimoParadiseLost

Today my service group was writing letters at my house because it’s extremely hot outside (thankfully all I had to do was look up names and addresses). I overheard a conversation that caught my attention enough to post about it here, a mother talking about her situation with her disfellowshipped daughter.

For context, the daughter has been disfellowshipped for about 10 years, apparently from what I overheard she had a falling out and got divorced from her husband, she also had a seizure and either lost her job or financially relied on her ex husband (that part I don’t know, I just know currently she’s job hunting). She had nowhere else to go to except her parents house and thankfully they’re not cruel enough to let their sick homeless child fend for themselves so they let her stay with them while she job hunts and looks for a new place to live.

What really caught my attention is how this mother talked about this situation, there was no empathy, no love, just contempt and annoyance at her own daughter. I also can’t help but wonder if it weren’t for the slight change to disfellowshipping, would they have just let her fend for herself? This just goes to further show that JW love is completely conditional.

I really hope the daughter makes it through this situation.

Yesterday at the meeting during the book study when the question “What was the world like during the flood?” came up, I expected comments talking about how violent the world in the story was. Instead, the commenters talked about how people lived longer back then, how they were closer to perfection than we are today, how they were smarter, etc. Just glazing a time period that according to them was extremely violent and had to be destroyed. I was the only one who commented about how violent the world actually was in the story (I commented in order to keep up appearances). Isn’t it weird how I, a pimo, am the only one who pointed out that part of the story? Especially since the organization loves to make comparisons between that story and today. I don’t even believe Noah’s ark happened.

Also, side note. For the question “how do we know Noah’s ark really happened?” I love how the only answer someone gave was basically “the Bible said it happened” and that’s it. Because the story doesn’t hold up to even the tiniest bit of scrutiny.

This is admittedly a very small thing compared to the many other problems Witness culture has, but it’s something I noticed even as a believer. JW humor just isn’t funny. For the videos and talks I cringe at every joke, but the actual funny moments are when they’re trying to be serious. But as for interacting with the average witness it’s even worse. Their “humor” consists of telling me to “wake up” when I’m not saying anything and/or don’t have a fake smile on my face, or telling me I’m talking too much when I’m not saying much (JW’s really don’t understand introverts), or just pointing out something incredibly obvious, or just straight up dad jokes. I can’t tell you how many times all this has happened, and not just in my congregation but others I’ve visited. To quote DBZA Vegeta “that’s not funny, it’s never been funny, it’s never gonna be funny!” Jehovah’s Witnesses are the type of people who think Facebook memes are hilarious.

Now is this the biggest problem in the world? Obviously not, but it is incredibly annoying having to deal with this has a pimo and even as a pimi.

After today’s Watchtower, I’ve come to realize that they never actually changed their stance on additional education. They only changed it from a policy perspective, but the stigma and arguments against it are still the same. Let’s not forget that the convention right after that Governing Body update had an anti college video. At first I thought that was just because of poor timing and maybe the change was a last minute thing, but after seeing how many times they’ve reused the same arguments they reused in order to discourage people from getting additional education including this Watchtower, I’ve come to realize nothing actually changed. The only difference is that now they’re less honest about it.

I’m not even someone who likes college. I went in order to get a job, and I ended up wasting my time and the job I ended up getting had nothing to do with what I studied for. But that’s the difference between me and Watchtower. I’m completely honest about why I dislike college, they’re a bunch of snakes who have can’t be completely honest and just hate it for cult reasons.

Yesterday at the meeting during one of the questions, an old man in my congregation raised his hand and commented that when he was raising his first son, he wanted to touch something hot and he wouldn’t let him. Nothing unusual, right? Well, immediately after he admitted that he let his son touch this hot thing with his finger in order to teach him and his son got a blister from it. Everyone in the audience was laughing and the conductor made a joke about it immediately after. Meanwhile I can’t believe what I’m hearing, he’s admitting to doing something super fucked up and the audience was laughing actually like it’s not a big deal. What made it worse is that the son was at that meeting. Now I don’t know what his reaction was because he was in the bathroom when his dad made that comment, but I can’t help but wonder how he feels about that. Was he traumatized, embarrassed, or worse does he think it’s normal to do that to your own child?

This was child abuse, and it’s not okay. But unfortunately child abuse is normalized in this cult’s culture.

So I just got done reading this weeks Watchtower and oh my god is this article terrible. It’s about “Bible Principles”, and it reads like it was written by some boomer who has just discovered the internet, R rated movies and M Rated Video Games for the first time and wants to get rid of them because “it wasn’t like that back in my day and it’s against God.”

The problem with “Bible Principles” is that they are whatever the fuck the Governing Body says they are. “You must not murder” means you can’t even be angry with someone even in your thoughts. You have to control your thoughts, “don’t commit a thought crime or else you’ll do bad things.” It’s just a big slippery slope fallacy.

And there’s how they say these rules “dignify us” and that “Jehovah treats us like adults.” How is making a bunch of rules and having thought crimes dignifying anyone or treating them like an adult?

I hate service, I have the exact opposite type of personality for service. It makes me miserable every time I even think about doing it. So I try to avoid going in service as much as possible. I do everything else regularly, meetings, family worship, conventions, assembly’s, assignments, etc, everything to keep up appearances until I can leave. But because I’m slacking in this one part of the hamster wheel my dad got mad at me today. By the way, no one else showed up at my house for service (my group meets at my family’s house and today my parents left this morning to do something) except for one person who immediately left once he saw no one else but me.

Nothing is ever good enough for this cult. You could be doing everything else, but if you’re lacking in just one area they either get mad at you or guilt trip you. You have to give EVERYTHING to the organization.

After today’s Watchtower, I’m once again reminded of how fucked up JW relationships are. You’re supposed to view your partner as your “best friend”, yet women are supposed to submit to men and both’s relationship with each other comes secondary to “Jehovah” (really the Governing Body).

They have a very “one size fits all” mentality, but that’s not how relationships work. I’m a straight man, and I’m not a natural leader or “head”. My dream woman is someone who is strong and dominant. I’m the opposite of what a JW Man is supposed to be, and my ideal relationship dynamic is pretty much the opposite of what JW relationships are. I realized that even before I woke up, and it always made me feel like there was something wrong with me, like I was an anomaly. It’s only after I woke up I realized that JW relationships were the ones that were actually wrong and that simplifying relationship dynamics into just one thing is really stupid.

So I’ve always had a thing for tomboys, even before I realized I was a femboy. I don’t know if there’s some phycological reason like because we both are the opposites of our gender stereotypes and opposites attract or something, but that’s just my type. I’m curious how many of you also like tomboys.

For those of you who don’t know, VenturianTale was a YouTube channel where four siblings (2 boys and 2 girls) played video games together, mostly GMod. I was a big fan as a kid, but I stopped watching them after a few years because my interests changed from mostly current ish games to mostly retro games. One day after I had woken up I was feeling nostalgic for a lot of those old YouTubers I watched and wondered what happened to them. This included VenturianTale, so I looked them up and discovered that a few years before I woke up they had disbanded and quit, and I was shocked to discover why.

It turned out the siblings had grown up in a very sheltered Christian conservative household with very harmful beliefs. The sisters left while the brothers were told to shun their sisters by their parents. One of the sisters made a nearly hour long video talking about her experience, so I’d recommend watching that video if you want to learn more. All this time I was watching them while being brainwashed by a Christian cult, they were was well.

Now the VenturianTale siblings weren’t JW’s but their story being raised by their parents shares some striking similarities, such as their views on women, the way they were sheltered from the outside world, to shunning once someone no longer believes. Having learned the truth about the channel, I felt a verity of emotions, but mostly it made me feel like I wasn’t alone.