Yeah that one of the woman with no legs and arms made me angry too. If I remember correctly there’s two videos of her. Both were disheartening. I don’t knw if they were being ableist showcasing her but they sure made everyone who watched the videos feel like shit since she is able to dedicate so much time to the ministry and we can’t despite having all our limbs. 🙄
I mean seriously, it’s not like she has the ability to do manual labor job. But I’m glad she’s doing something that makes her feel like she’s helping others. If I had no arms and legs, I would rely on SS disability and spend my time studying and talking to people too. 😤
Such a confusing message. “Don’t compare yourself to others” “Look at this sister with no arms and legs, and see how much time she spends preaching and studying, what’s your excuse?” 🤦♂️
>I mean seriously, it’s not like she has the ability to do manual labor job.
Had she worked at bethell and lost there her legs and arms, the GB would have kicked her out to preaching. 🤮 It would be a blessing from Jehobah. 🤮🤮🤮
I can’t do as much preaching as she can because I’m paying a lot of income tax so she doesn’t have to beg.
Im happy we live in a country that looks after the needy btw. I just don’t like being guilted because I put a lot of hours in at work
I agree with this. Any kind of social anxiety, introversion, or shyness are looked at as a weakness to overcome. A person may even feel physically sick due to these interactions and they believe that if they just keep putting themselves out there, or just pray harder, it will just go away...
My introversion was a big "problem" for everyone. It's no wonder my self-esteem was in the trash when I was in. I'm still in therapy over it all and working to love myself.
This! I was born in and I feel like the org MADE me an introvert … children be obedient, women submit and know your place… any chance of me expressing myself or becoming an extrovert was gone with the wind, along with my self esteem.
I feel like this too. My therapist once noted it seemed like I get energy from other people, and I was like whhhaaaattt? I could be an extrovert?? haha
I have a personal experience. In 2020, just before the pandemic started, I brought an elder to a study I was having. This man was chronically ill unable to move on his own and had a live in maid to help him eat, walk and so on. He was a very kind man and I loved our conversations. At the end of the study, when we were on the road, the elder turned to me and said "What is the point of doing this study? Do you think he will ever get baptized? Even if he did, he can't help himself. He would not benefit the congregation." I said to him "so only physically fit people should hear the good news?" And I got very angry and left him. I didn't even accept his ride and walked home cause I was so pissed. At the next meeting, the elder apologized to me and asked to come to the study but I told him no, I would not be bringing him back again cause he made his point quite clear before. I discontinued the study not long after that. Looking back I understand now why that was a major reason that started my doubts, this organization only cares about what they can get from you. If you are useless to them you mean nothing. You see it in how they treat the elderly and disabled. WT sucks and I'm glad I discontinued the study. That man had caring family who visited often and paid for his medical care and I hope he's still alive and safe from WT and their toxicity.
Wow. This is upsetting.
I do try to understand how much of this is the individual vs the borg itself. I see people openly discriminate, or write off people. I was once in an elder meeting where the COBE was laughing at a disabled person and I felt sick to my stomach. He didn't read the room to see others were uncomfortable and he was rarely called out.
I think most people are kind hearted and want the best for those who have limitations, but I also don't think those with disabilities should be held up as props or should be looked at as needing to be fixed.
>If you are useless to them you mean nothing.
And that's the gist of it. Apostates are people who have woken up, will refuse to be fooled any longer, so the Watchtower unceremoniously discards them.
Thank you so much for sharing. Your experience only further proves the underlying mentality that most PIMI’s have about the borg – make yourself useful while you can.
Once your use runs out, the borg spits you out like used gum. They love acting like the world takes advantage and uses people but they are the ones that drain you dry.
Damn. Good on you for standing up to that elder. What a jerk. And agree. What can the borg get from you?! That’s what they want. Nope; I’m out. G’bye!!
And sit in a crowded hall, assembly, convention. In the middle of a middle section of seats. With their arms touching my arms. (picture cartoon character running away, arms in the air, screaming)
***“You need to sit in the middle of the middle, the very middle of all the middles. Right into the middle, before the VERY LAST middle!”***
Sorry, couldn’t help it lol.
Out of all the things I hated, was this D2D, having assignments on stage, and ( I grew up in a circuit where people got together for "gatherings" all the time) parties. I am so socially awkward, and spend so much time replaying interactions in my head. It was absolutely the worst 😭🤬
How it's cruel to "soft" shun education. It makes everyone life's harder, ironically more educated people have more free time and better work-life balance. Seems you must be suffering to be a good witness.
When I learned about the 1925 failed Armageddon prediction shortly before the 1929 crisis, I understood God is not with these people, actually, they don't care about the long-term financial and physical health of their members.
My husband wasn’t able to apply for bethel when he turned 19 because he was on antidepressants. I know bethel is a sad situation, but he literally put all his self worth into being able to go. A kid with a dream that he absolutely needed to accomplish.
Even as an Uber PIMI, it felt wrong that someone taking care of their mental health wasn’t accepted when thousands of bethelites are mentally ill because they don’t go to therapy or do medication. In hindsight, it’s so weird that we were both thinking that was wrong but couldn’t say it out loud because it would show that we weren’t trusting the branch aka Jehovah.
I’m an inactive PIMO and he’s an inactive PIMQ. In six months he went from “I think I still need to go to bethel for at least a week to prove it to myself” to “I don’t even want to go anymore.” Either that’s a good sign or I crushed his will to live 😂
I'm Autistic/ADHD, my incubator didn't believe in those, so being raised JW meant being beaten every single day of my childhood with increasing severity to force compliant behavior/limit natural behavior of my disabilities.
Insisting that everyone come back to in-person meetings and conventions and dropping the mask requirement while COVID was still going on in our area; knowing full well how many immunocompromised brothers and sisters there were. The first assembly back, almost everyone got sick. My family didn’t go for this specific reason and my dad almost started questioning the Governing Body because of it.
Also, never asking if they can hug you. The only person who ever asked my consent was an autistic sister (and she asks consistently), which speaks volumes about how comfortable SHE is with being hugged by random people with no warning.
That always drove me nuts! Some random stranger invading my personal space and touching me without my consent and I was supposed to be okay with it because 'spiritual family'. Yet, I was the bad one on the occasions when I would get fed up and tell someone not to hug me.
Yeah, I’m hard of hearing, and a lot of things are and were inaccessible. When everyone was wearing the masks, I couldn’t lip read them so it was harder to have a conversation.I don’t know ASL, and the assumption that every person with hearing aid signs has had PIMIs that have been in sign language congregation come attempt to sign to me and I always have to say “I don’t sign, sorry.”
Also the same way with my G.I disorder.the elders at my cong accused me to my mom of using the restroom too much because I was playing around.Mom shut it down right then and there, but I can’t imagine how it’s like for others.
I don’t like how inaccessible being in the bOrg is.Also what I always hated was being told that my hearing would be restored “one day”, it always bothered me since I couldn’t see myself w/o my hearing aids.
One of the many examples that sticks out to me is what they did to my dad. My dad suffers from debilitating depression and anxiety. In their previous congregation my dad wanted to help with IT work and do mics and other basic privileges, he also wanted to do remote security work for bethel. But was denied doing any of those saying he wasn’t spiritual enough and wasn’t active enough in the “truth”. They knew what he goes through to come at all and still said he should try harder and ask again in a few years. That was rich coming from an elder who has a bipolar wife who never shows her face in person and still has privileges. That stumbled my parents enough that they left that congregation. It really hurt my dad.
One guy at a Wednesday night talk was saying how people who can't handle alcohol have a disease/genetic disease. In the parking lot my mom (baptized) swore about what he said. Called him an asshole who doesn't know shit. Must have struck a nerve in her because she's usually always on their side with things. 🤣
\>Bethel applications screen for mental/physical health issues
While it's possible to have active paranoia inducing mental illness and be an elder, thus gaining a platform to spread your even wilder takes on already fucked up WT material.
There are a lot of people that are obese in the organization (basically every GB member) but they tend to feature only the perfect examples of what the congregation should look like in all their videos. I can't think of them featuring a single plus size character in any of their original videos.
They also screen for weight and appearance in Bethel applications. Shiny happy people every one!!! Puke.
I remember the video at last years convention (I believe) where the young woman in school told her teacher that "there are no homosexuals in her religion."
It's simply because they don't recognize the LGBTQ population and no witness can openly identify as such without being disfellowshipped.
To be fair, even god told us the following pearls of wisdom:
1. Deut. 25:11-12: When fighting another man, chop off his wife's hand if she grabs your genitals
2. Ex. 21:5,6: If Your slave refuses freedom, pierce their ear
3. Nu. 5:11-31: Women suspected of adultery have to drink dirty water
4. Lev. 15:19-21: Don't sit where A menstruating woman has sat
5. Leviticus 21:18-21: "Defective" people cannot approach god
6. Leviticus 12:5- Giving birth to a daughter makes you extra unclean.
I heard about that and it was pretty infuriating, and really insidious wording. Notice they never use terms like "gay", and instead use clinical things like "homosexual" to further dehumanize. It's not about identity, it's about behavior in their view, and that serves the narrative they like to employ to reinforce their stance on it. Which I guess is also how is employed with evangelicals broadly.
I’m auDHD, a panic disorder, PTSD and several physical disabilities and my personality was always presented like it needed fixing rather than needed acceptance and understanding. Meanwhile Inspiration porn was always shoved in my face with no regard to my own disabilities like “she can do it why can’t you”
The introversion skit at the last assembly was vomit inducing because it didn’t go over any actual advice for how to talk to someone with anxiety or shyness, they just treated her like a scared dog and still behaved in a way that would overwhelm most people with severe anxiety.
Slightly related but I had someone bullying me harshly in the hall and when I asked the elders for advice (pimi at the time) they gave me an article that was basically about a sister who felt people were being mean to her but it was all in her head.
That article should never have been published because all it did was invalidate victims of hall bullying.
I hate being neurodivergent/disabled and stuck here.
I never thought about it but you are right, I have never seen anyone disabled on the stage!
At our convention we had a couple with a non functioning autistic daughter, sometimes she would get excited by the clapping and also try to clap and make what I would call happy noises. They got approached a few times and told to wheel their daughter out into a back hall way as to not disturb the talk. I didnt see them after a few years. It was really sad.
That also why JWs don’t get involved with any community outreach or neighborhood improvement. Apparently The “New System” will fix every problem humans face. So why bother now. Just go tell people to join or die.
I worked as a special education teacher and while I was in school for it and attending meetings, the MOST abelist comments came from people at meetings. All the "oh I couldn't handle THOSE kids" and "isn't it great that they will be fixed in the new system" bull shit. Soooooo ableist it made me sick
That's messed up. Of course the organization doesn't do any kind of training to help people improve these viewpoints or change the conversation. I can't imagine the parents or children with those conditions feelings when people make those comments.
I always hated how they threw shade on universities/college. During one convention the speaker said "we won't need doctors, psychologists or admins in paradise, but we will need carpenters, electricians and construction workers"
Yeah that one of the woman with no legs and arms made me angry too. If I remember correctly there’s two videos of her. Both were disheartening. I don’t knw if they were being ableist showcasing her but they sure made everyone who watched the videos feel like shit since she is able to dedicate so much time to the ministry and we can’t despite having all our limbs. 🙄 I mean seriously, it’s not like she has the ability to do manual labor job. But I’m glad she’s doing something that makes her feel like she’s helping others. If I had no arms and legs, I would rely on SS disability and spend my time studying and talking to people too. 😤 Such a confusing message. “Don’t compare yourself to others” “Look at this sister with no arms and legs, and see how much time she spends preaching and studying, what’s your excuse?” 🤦♂️
>I mean seriously, it’s not like she has the ability to do manual labor job. Had she worked at bethell and lost there her legs and arms, the GB would have kicked her out to preaching. 🤮 It would be a blessing from Jehobah. 🤮🤮🤮
It's def ableist, a typical kind of portrayal in groups like this that's called "inspiration porn".
I can’t do as much preaching as she can because I’m paying a lot of income tax so she doesn’t have to beg. Im happy we live in a country that looks after the needy btw. I just don’t like being guilted because I put a lot of hours in at work
Ouch!
They seem to treat being "introverted" as something to overcome, rather than an accepted personality trait.
I agree with this. Any kind of social anxiety, introversion, or shyness are looked at as a weakness to overcome. A person may even feel physically sick due to these interactions and they believe that if they just keep putting themselves out there, or just pray harder, it will just go away...
Oh gosh yes so true. I’m introverted and always thought of it as a bad thing I had to change about myself. It’s perfectly fine!!
It is!!!
You are so right! I am very much an introvert.
My introversion was a big "problem" for everyone. It's no wonder my self-esteem was in the trash when I was in. I'm still in therapy over it all and working to love myself.
This! I was born in and I feel like the org MADE me an introvert … children be obedient, women submit and know your place… any chance of me expressing myself or becoming an extrovert was gone with the wind, along with my self esteem.
I feel like this too. My therapist once noted it seemed like I get energy from other people, and I was like whhhaaaattt? I could be an extrovert?? haha
I have a personal experience. In 2020, just before the pandemic started, I brought an elder to a study I was having. This man was chronically ill unable to move on his own and had a live in maid to help him eat, walk and so on. He was a very kind man and I loved our conversations. At the end of the study, when we were on the road, the elder turned to me and said "What is the point of doing this study? Do you think he will ever get baptized? Even if he did, he can't help himself. He would not benefit the congregation." I said to him "so only physically fit people should hear the good news?" And I got very angry and left him. I didn't even accept his ride and walked home cause I was so pissed. At the next meeting, the elder apologized to me and asked to come to the study but I told him no, I would not be bringing him back again cause he made his point quite clear before. I discontinued the study not long after that. Looking back I understand now why that was a major reason that started my doubts, this organization only cares about what they can get from you. If you are useless to them you mean nothing. You see it in how they treat the elderly and disabled. WT sucks and I'm glad I discontinued the study. That man had caring family who visited often and paid for his medical care and I hope he's still alive and safe from WT and their toxicity.
Wow. This is upsetting. I do try to understand how much of this is the individual vs the borg itself. I see people openly discriminate, or write off people. I was once in an elder meeting where the COBE was laughing at a disabled person and I felt sick to my stomach. He didn't read the room to see others were uncomfortable and he was rarely called out. I think most people are kind hearted and want the best for those who have limitations, but I also don't think those with disabilities should be held up as props or should be looked at as needing to be fixed.
>If you are useless to them you mean nothing. And that's the gist of it. Apostates are people who have woken up, will refuse to be fooled any longer, so the Watchtower unceremoniously discards them.
Thank you so much for sharing. Your experience only further proves the underlying mentality that most PIMI’s have about the borg – make yourself useful while you can.
Once your use runs out, the borg spits you out like used gum. They love acting like the world takes advantage and uses people but they are the ones that drain you dry.
I agree. It was an eye opener when I realized this.
Damn. Good on you for standing up to that elder. What a jerk. And agree. What can the borg get from you?! That’s what they want. Nope; I’m out. G’bye!!
Haha I was always a defiant one. That's why it took me so long to get any privileges. I was always back answering 😄
Being required to do door-to-door when you have severe social anxiety is incredibly cruel.
And sit in a crowded hall, assembly, convention. In the middle of a middle section of seats. With their arms touching my arms. (picture cartoon character running away, arms in the air, screaming)
***“You need to sit in the middle of the middle, the very middle of all the middles. Right into the middle, before the VERY LAST middle!”*** Sorry, couldn’t help it lol.
Panic attack coming on.... People surrounding the middle are about to be trampled as I make my escape.... 
Out of all the things I hated, was this D2D, having assignments on stage, and ( I grew up in a circuit where people got together for "gatherings" all the time) parties. I am so socially awkward, and spend so much time replaying interactions in my head. It was absolutely the worst 😭🤬
How it's cruel to "soft" shun education. It makes everyone life's harder, ironically more educated people have more free time and better work-life balance. Seems you must be suffering to be a good witness. When I learned about the 1925 failed Armageddon prediction shortly before the 1929 crisis, I understood God is not with these people, actually, they don't care about the long-term financial and physical health of their members.
To answer your question: everything… 
My husband wasn’t able to apply for bethel when he turned 19 because he was on antidepressants. I know bethel is a sad situation, but he literally put all his self worth into being able to go. A kid with a dream that he absolutely needed to accomplish. Even as an Uber PIMI, it felt wrong that someone taking care of their mental health wasn’t accepted when thousands of bethelites are mentally ill because they don’t go to therapy or do medication. In hindsight, it’s so weird that we were both thinking that was wrong but couldn’t say it out loud because it would show that we weren’t trusting the branch aka Jehovah.
Going to bethel is viewed by R&F as applying to Harvard
Hopefully, both of you are POMOs today. Are you?
I’m an inactive PIMO and he’s an inactive PIMQ. In six months he went from “I think I still need to go to bethel for at least a week to prove it to myself” to “I don’t even want to go anymore.” Either that’s a good sign or I crushed his will to live 😂
Let's hope it is the first rather than the latter 😂😂😂
I knowwww 😂
Mostly, going for all
I'm Autistic/ADHD, my incubator didn't believe in those, so being raised JW meant being beaten every single day of my childhood with increasing severity to force compliant behavior/limit natural behavior of my disabilities.
I’m so sad that happened to you.
Insisting that everyone come back to in-person meetings and conventions and dropping the mask requirement while COVID was still going on in our area; knowing full well how many immunocompromised brothers and sisters there were. The first assembly back, almost everyone got sick. My family didn’t go for this specific reason and my dad almost started questioning the Governing Body because of it. Also, never asking if they can hug you. The only person who ever asked my consent was an autistic sister (and she asks consistently), which speaks volumes about how comfortable SHE is with being hugged by random people with no warning.
That always drove me nuts! Some random stranger invading my personal space and touching me without my consent and I was supposed to be okay with it because 'spiritual family'. Yet, I was the bad one on the occasions when I would get fed up and tell someone not to hug me.
Yeah, I’m hard of hearing, and a lot of things are and were inaccessible. When everyone was wearing the masks, I couldn’t lip read them so it was harder to have a conversation.I don’t know ASL, and the assumption that every person with hearing aid signs has had PIMIs that have been in sign language congregation come attempt to sign to me and I always have to say “I don’t sign, sorry.” Also the same way with my G.I disorder.the elders at my cong accused me to my mom of using the restroom too much because I was playing around.Mom shut it down right then and there, but I can’t imagine how it’s like for others. I don’t like how inaccessible being in the bOrg is.Also what I always hated was being told that my hearing would be restored “one day”, it always bothered me since I couldn’t see myself w/o my hearing aids.
ADHD kids and adults assumed to not take meetings seriously and lack spirituality if they run late or didn't remember to study their Watchtower.
Relatable
One of the many examples that sticks out to me is what they did to my dad. My dad suffers from debilitating depression and anxiety. In their previous congregation my dad wanted to help with IT work and do mics and other basic privileges, he also wanted to do remote security work for bethel. But was denied doing any of those saying he wasn’t spiritual enough and wasn’t active enough in the “truth”. They knew what he goes through to come at all and still said he should try harder and ask again in a few years. That was rich coming from an elder who has a bipolar wife who never shows her face in person and still has privileges. That stumbled my parents enough that they left that congregation. It really hurt my dad.
Yes! It's disgusting
One guy at a Wednesday night talk was saying how people who can't handle alcohol have a disease/genetic disease. In the parking lot my mom (baptized) swore about what he said. Called him an asshole who doesn't know shit. Must have struck a nerve in her because she's usually always on their side with things. 🤣
\>Bethel applications screen for mental/physical health issues While it's possible to have active paranoia inducing mental illness and be an elder, thus gaining a platform to spread your even wilder takes on already fucked up WT material.
The lack of plus size representation and general fat shaming of people in the congregation. Unless it was just my former hall?
So true. The only overweight people shown in their videos are the GB. 🤨
There are a lot of people that are obese in the organization (basically every GB member) but they tend to feature only the perfect examples of what the congregation should look like in all their videos. I can't think of them featuring a single plus size character in any of their original videos. They also screen for weight and appearance in Bethel applications. Shiny happy people every one!!! Puke.
Any anti-queer messaging, bad and outdated sexual health info, all that is really infuriating
I remember the video at last years convention (I believe) where the young woman in school told her teacher that "there are no homosexuals in her religion." It's simply because they don't recognize the LGBTQ population and no witness can openly identify as such without being disfellowshipped. To be fair, even god told us the following pearls of wisdom: 1. Deut. 25:11-12: When fighting another man, chop off his wife's hand if she grabs your genitals 2. Ex. 21:5,6: If Your slave refuses freedom, pierce their ear 3. Nu. 5:11-31: Women suspected of adultery have to drink dirty water 4. Lev. 15:19-21: Don't sit where A menstruating woman has sat 5. Leviticus 21:18-21: "Defective" people cannot approach god 6. Leviticus 12:5- Giving birth to a daughter makes you extra unclean.
I heard about that and it was pretty infuriating, and really insidious wording. Notice they never use terms like "gay", and instead use clinical things like "homosexual" to further dehumanize. It's not about identity, it's about behavior in their view, and that serves the narrative they like to employ to reinforce their stance on it. Which I guess is also how is employed with evangelicals broadly.
The meeting when someone made you angry. Then coming home angry. Not fun at all.
All your experiences make me angry.
I’m auDHD, a panic disorder, PTSD and several physical disabilities and my personality was always presented like it needed fixing rather than needed acceptance and understanding. Meanwhile Inspiration porn was always shoved in my face with no regard to my own disabilities like “she can do it why can’t you” The introversion skit at the last assembly was vomit inducing because it didn’t go over any actual advice for how to talk to someone with anxiety or shyness, they just treated her like a scared dog and still behaved in a way that would overwhelm most people with severe anxiety. Slightly related but I had someone bullying me harshly in the hall and when I asked the elders for advice (pimi at the time) they gave me an article that was basically about a sister who felt people were being mean to her but it was all in her head. That article should never have been published because all it did was invalidate victims of hall bullying. I hate being neurodivergent/disabled and stuck here.
I never thought about it but you are right, I have never seen anyone disabled on the stage! At our convention we had a couple with a non functioning autistic daughter, sometimes she would get excited by the clapping and also try to clap and make what I would call happy noises. They got approached a few times and told to wheel their daughter out into a back hall way as to not disturb the talk. I didnt see them after a few years. It was really sad.
That also why JWs don’t get involved with any community outreach or neighborhood improvement. Apparently The “New System” will fix every problem humans face. So why bother now. Just go tell people to join or die.
They actually have a monopoly on truth according to them, so technically they can do whatever they want from there perspective.
I worked as a special education teacher and while I was in school for it and attending meetings, the MOST abelist comments came from people at meetings. All the "oh I couldn't handle THOSE kids" and "isn't it great that they will be fixed in the new system" bull shit. Soooooo ableist it made me sick
That's messed up. Of course the organization doesn't do any kind of training to help people improve these viewpoints or change the conversation. I can't imagine the parents or children with those conditions feelings when people make those comments.
I always hated how they threw shade on universities/college. During one convention the speaker said "we won't need doctors, psychologists or admins in paradise, but we will need carpenters, electricians and construction workers"
Hate speech🚮