If You Or A Loved One Have Been Forced To Attend A Regional Convention Of Jehovah's Wittnesses You May

At the DMV and have been waiting over an hour for my drivers test. The preemptive anxiety is killing me lol. Let's hope I pass!

my relationship with my mom is like. she traumatized me for life and now i can’t form and sustain relationships with other people but its ok because sometimes she makes me grilled cheese

Also graduations were big because they were the only excuse we had to give more elaborate presents. Plus my family would allow non witness family come to those events, it was nice.

Jehovah Christmas- a funny (and hypocritical) family tradition.

Now, I’d like to stress that no, we do not call this event ‘Jehovah Christmas’. While I think suggesting that name would get my sister to laugh- I doubt any of the devout family would be happy about it. Instead it is boringly called ‘The November Party’ but I want to suggest a different name.

This family tradition came about last year, before we locked down fully for COVID. It’s a two day event- one day for gifts, the next for food. With that in mind, it’s more of a Christmas / Thanksgiving combo than a unique tradition.

On the first day, the third Friday of every November, we each (8 of us total) get each other a gift, nothing extravagant but there is no hard price limit. We keep gift bags labeled with our names on a big table, and we all just put our gifts in the bags after wrapped. We all open them, taking turns taking a single gift out of your bag. The following day, my dad and grandma cook a big Thanksgiving-like spread. And then, for the one time a year we do this- we eat together at the big table.

This tradition was obviously born out of a desire to celebrate holidays without really celebrating them. I can’t remember who’s idea it was, though I can assure you it wasn’t mine. While I see the obvious hypocrisy here, I’m not going to bring that up and dash away the chance for my sister to experience that little bit of the holidays. Plus, I love it and wish they had done it when I was a kid.

Anyways, if you and your families had any fun traditions like that, please share them because I’d love to hear.

TW: Venting, Emotional Abuse

This time next year I should finally be able to escape my abusive parents and this cult. I'm doing well with my internship and it even got extended, so maybe it will lead to a job. My mom is the main abuser and so my dad and I would always vent to each other, we both wished we could leave. That's why what he said to me yesterday has made me unbelievably angry.

So if you get the job and they let you work remote, do you want to get a bigger place with the family?

Ever since I actually made it clear i would eventually move out he has struggled to accept it. Asking "are you sure you and your mom can never get along?" or "are you going to leave me all alone?" It was manipulative but I knew he was scared and in the past I always indulged their fantasy of me helping support them financially and living together. But for him to say that now, after me sharing my feelings to him frequently and knowing the pain living here brings me. For him to say that knowing we were outside simply because being in those 4 walls with her makes me panic...

I knew he was going to abandon me when I finally left Watchtower, but I still believed he was just my misguided dad. I felt pity, still kinda do. But after this I just can't excuse his behavior anymore. He really fucking sucks if he looks at all the trauma this family has caused me and goes "but is stealing your money still in the cards?"

I’m gonna start a league of evil aspec people; you are all invited to my evil lair to commit nefarious acts anytime

DBZ has possessed me and compelled me to bring you the lowest possible quality memes

thinking about anti-role models. people you look at like "well whatever i'm gonna be in life it's not gonna be that"

Years ago back when I worked in cubicle land, we were hiring junior software developers. They didn’t have to have a ton of experience, just a willingness to learn, and some demonstration of their software skills. Like: show me a program you wrote (any language) or a web site you designed. Anything.

And there was this one guy I talked with who seemed super sharp, but had virtually zero experience writing software. When it came time to do the show-n-tell part of the interview he whips out his laptop, brings up a website, and spins it around to show me what he made.

A website of tiny ceramic frogs.

Not for sale. Just… all these ceramic frogs, organized into categories. Frogs on bicycles, frogs with hats, frogs sitting on lily pads. It was a virtual museum of ceramic frogs in web form.

I scrolled through his online collection of frogs, slightly baffled.

“This is your website?” I asked finally.

“Yep!”

“You coded this yourself?” I popped into view-source mode and poked around some incredibly well-formatted, well-commented html. I nodded slowly. This guy was meticulous.

“Yep!”

“So… where’d all the frogs come from?”

“I made those too,” he says, beaming. 

And while I’m processing this he rummages in his bag and pulls out a little ceramic frog working at a computer terminal. He places it on the table before us, next to the laptop.

“And THIS one,” he says, “I made for you! As a thank you for the interview.”

It was adorable. I hired him on the spot. I mean, why not? Worst case he’d wash out in 90 days and we’d hire somebody else. He turned out to be one of the best developers on our team. 

And yes, his cubicle was loaded with ceramic frogs.

Okay but shout out to religious trauma/cult survivors who don't have the most talked about no-nuanced "I'm an atheist now" response to everything. There's definitely a sense that if you go from one state of believing in a god/religion to another that you're somehow weaker than other survivors or that you're trapped in a cycle, and whilst it is good to look for patterns found in your original religion, I don't think this is the case at all.

Like, if you worship another god now, if you found some other spiritual practice that's soothing, or if you just don't know what is out there and just kind of vaguely pray to anyone who might be out there, you're not delusional* or dictated only by your trauma. You're allowed to believe again, if you want to, in whatever helps you.

(* being delusional isn't a bad thing to be btw)