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Victims of Child Abuse Hotline

Victims of Child Abuse Hotline

Do you know a child who is being abused or molested?

If the crisis is now, please call 9-1-1!

Call the National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453)

Do not listen to any counsel that tells you to be silent. Everyone matters.

All calls are anonymous and toll-free. The hotline is staffed 24 hours daily with professional crisis counselors who utilize a database of thousands of emergency, social service and support resources.

The Childhelp hotline counselors can…

  • discuss signs and symptoms of abuse with you.
  • help you decide a course of action.
  • prepare you as to what to expect when reporting child abuse.
  • provide the number of the local reporting agency you should call.

Hotline counselors can look up the local reporting telephone number and give it to you. They can also stay on the phone line and make a 3-way call if you are nervous about doing it alone.

Law enforcement agencies (the police or sheriff’s departments) and child protective services are the ones who decide what will happen when there is child abuse. If a child is in immediate danger, however, counselors can call the local police to go to the child’s location if the hotline caller gives the address and the name of the child or teen who is being abused.

Other Hotlines

If you are in immediate danger call 9-1-1.

  • United States Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
    Spanish Language: 1-800-942-6908
    TDD: 1-800-787-3224

  • United States Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
  • Youth Crisis Hotline: 1-800-448-4663
  • National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: 1-800-843-5678
    TDD: 1-800-826-7653

  • United States Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-2433
  • Hotline For Parents Considering Abducting Their Children: 1-800-A WAY OUT
  • United States Missing Children Hotline: 1-800-235-3535
  • United States Elder Abuse Hotline: 1-866-363-4276
  • Find a Therapist: 1-800-865-0686
Ex JW Documentary: Losing My Religion

Ex JW Documentary: Losing My Religion

A trailer for the documentary Losing My Religion has been released to raise awareness (and funding). I am very pleased to be involved with this project.

View the Trailer.

Contact Stephan T. McGuire to contribute to this unique film. Please support this effort if you can.

Losing My Religion: In and Out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Organization

That knock on your door is meant to save your life! Daily, over 6,000,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses are being instructed that very soon, those who do not obey their exact teachings will be ferociously exterminated by God himself in Armageddon at the end of the ‘world’!

So who are these people? And what is it like to be one of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Losing My Religion is a soul-searching, interview-style film documenting the experiences and exoduses of Jehovah’s Witnesses as they leave behind family, friends, their acquired interpretation of “God”, and a very unique ‘fundamentalist reality’. Losing their religion, many who leave must undergo an often emotionally agonizing and dramatic transition into the once ‘forbidden’ world.

Jehovah’s Witnesses who ‘awaken’, who figure things out and leave; who permanently lose their religion, and speak up against the Watchtower Society, are in fact accused of being the absolute worst of all creation. Basically, the Watchtower Society’s stand is: You are either with us or against us.

Why Losing My Religion?

A deep conversation and intelligent study is needed on the effects of extreme fundamentalism in the world today. There are currently millions of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world who struggle with adjustment to their new lives. Billions of other people find their life purposes and identities almost solely through their religions, political persuasions, marriages and/or other relationships, their corporate careers, nationalism, the military, etc. Upon close examination, most of us are willing to throw out our own personal reasoning capabilities and deny our own personal experiences to be relieved of the oppressive burden of figuring out life ourselves. Why? What is happening?

The interviews in Losing My Religion will serve as a metaphor highlighting the disservice of extreme fundamentalist ideology and the triumph of the human spirit.

Losing My Religion will be a powerful journey into the life of the filmmaker, Stephan McGuire as documents the dilemmas of current Jehovah’s Witnesses, other ex- Jehovah’s Witnesses, solicit the opinions of cult specialists and psychologists who focus on identity and life purpose. So far we have been interviewing ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses, and already the dynamics of self-realization being revealed before the camera will make for a psychologically fascinating study. Once film production begins, we will want to document several Jehovah’s Witnesses as they are leaving the ‘truth’.

With a kaleidoscope of cutting edge style, highly informed specialists and provocative footage, Losing My Religion will be an experience of synergized story telling, deep healing and an exploration of our insatiable quest for real truth.

Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses and other experts on Identity and Life Purpose:

Links

Ex JW Meetup

Rick A Ross Institute

Silent Lambs– Protecting JW children from abuse

Watchers of the Watchtower World

A Common Bond

Dr Jerry Bergman

A tribute and a memorial to Jehovah’s Witnesses who have taken their own lives

Cult Busting information

Recovering ex Jehovah’s Witnesses Webring

Watchtower Whistle Blower

Lightbearer’s Escape from the Watchtower

Watchtower Exposure

Ivor Hope

Survivors of Abusive Religions Outreach & Self-help

12 Steps of Ex JW Theocratic Addiction and Religious Abuse

Ex Jehovah’s Witnesses Chat

In Depth Watchtower Survey

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses Helping One Another Outside the Watchtower

The Truth about Jehovah’s Witnesses

See also my JW-related links, helpful books, and the Forward You Ex-JWs webring.

If you need a little distancing humor, see the JW jokes.

TSHIRT JEHOVAHS WITNESS BAR CODE

Unconscious Mutterings 177

Unconscious Mutterings 177

Unconscious Mutterings

Weekly Unconscious Mutterings Meme – Week 177

I say … and you think … ?

  1. Newspaper :: Print
  2. Crucify :: “every rainy day”… or… “shiseido red” (see below)
  3. Sausage :: Ummm, Ummmm, let’s see… right… uh… Picasso?
  4. Handy :: Practical
  5. Cloak :: Dagger
  6. Drunk :: Sober
  7. Fuel :: Diatribe
  8. Caress :: Nibble
  9. Itch :: Scratch
  10. Vehicle :: Vector

“A high-brow is someone who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso.”
– A. P. Herbert

Muhammed My Friend

muhammad my friend
it’s time to tell the world
we both know it was a girl
back in bethlehem
and on that fateful day
when she was crucified
she wore shiseido red and we drank tea
by her side

sweet sweet
used to be so sweet to me

muhammad my friend
i’m getting very scared
teach me how to love my brothers
who don’t know the law
and what about the deal on that flying
trapeze got a peanut butter hand
but honey do drop in at the
dew drop inn

sweet sweet
between the boys and the bees

and moses i know
i know you’ve seen fire
but you’ve never seen fire
until you’ve seen pele blow
and i’ve never seen light
but i sure have seen gold
and gladys save a place for me
on your grapevine
till i get my own tv show

ashre ashre ashre ashre
and if i lose my cracker jacks at the
tidal wave i got a place
in the pope’s rubber robe

muhammed my friend
it’s time to tell the world
we both know it was a girl
back in bethlehem

Crucify

every finger in the room
is pointing at me
i wanna spit in their faces
then i get afraid what that could bring
i got a bowling ball in my stomach
i got a desert in my mouth
figures that my COURAGE
would choose to sell out now

i’ve been looking for a savior
in these dirty streets
looking for a savior
beneath these dirty sheets
i’ve been raising up my hands
drive another nail in
just what GOD needs
one more victim

why do we crucify ourselves
every day i crucify myself
nothing i do is good enough for you
crucify myself
every day
i crucify myself
and my HEART is sick of being
in chains

got a kick for a dog
beggin’ for LOVE
i gotta have my suffering
so that i can have my cross
i know a cat named easter
he says will you ever learn
you’re just an empty cage girl
if you kill the bird

i’ve been looking for a savior
in these dirty streets
looking for a savior
beneath these dirty sheets
i’ve been raising up my hands
drive another nail in
got enough GUILT to start
my own religion

why do we crucify ourselves
every day i crucify myself
nothing i do is good enough for you
crucify myself
every day i crucify myself
and my HEART is sick of being
in chains

please be
save me
i CRY

looking for a savior
in these dirty streets
looking for a savior
beneath these dirty sheets
i’ve been raising up my hands
drive another nail in
where are those angels
when you need them

why do we crucify ourselves
every day i crucify myself
nothing i do is good enough for you
crucify myself
every day i crucify myself
and my HEART is sick of being
in chains

why do we
crucify ourselves
everyday

never going back again
crucify myself
again you know
never going back again to
crucify myself
everyday

Sex in the City Quiz

Sex in the City Quiz

This is for Tina, who has no idea how our four friends would line up with “Sex in the City” characters. I still haven’t seen the show (have pity, I’m still on network television). So I took some quizzes. I’m not sure this resolves the question.

Sex


Which Sex In The City girl are you?

Samantha Jones
Scintillating Samantha is a successful PR exec who knows what she wants – and much of the time she gets it. She radiates confidence in everything she does – whether it’s landing a star client, getting a table at the trendiest restaurant or bedding the hottest guy in a room.


Take this quiz!

Which sex in the city character are you?

Charlotte

Personality Test Results

Sex and the City: The Four Women, the Four Elements

You scored 60% Carrie Your answers peg you as a Carrie-type, much influenced by the Air Sign qualities associated with Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Like confident Carrie, you’re curious and perceptive, always seeking answers and never satisfied with the superficial. An Air Sign influence can lead to indecision and an avoidance of tough issues, like with Carrie and her on-again, off-again attachment to Mr Big. Forward thinking, incredibly intelligent and witty, you exude quirky charm. You’d be utterly bored by someone who’s just a pretty face or a hot body – though you don’t mind looking and flirting. You’re more turned on by an equally smart and funny mate, someone who challenges your mind and makes you laugh. You love to talk, so you need a good listener who’s open to playful and eccentric ideas about love and lovemaking.

You scored 20% Charlotte You’re a romantic at heart, strongly influenced by the intuitive, profound and sometimes naive Water Signs – Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. You’re like a mother, a mystery and a poet all in one. Though on the surface you may seem innocent and all about seeking the good in people, beneath the surface, you hide secret yearnings for intimacy, for attachment and ideal love. You’re looking for a knight in shining armour, a soul mate, someone who will complete you and tether you to the earth when you get carried away with your fantasies. You’re super-sensitive, soaking up the moods of others; you’re free with your emotions, crying at commercials and sad movies. You also provide a shoulder to cry on and open arms for hugs. Be careful that you’re not so wide-eyed and trusting that you get taken in by some cunning wolf in sheep’s clothing.

You scored 10% Samantha You identify with Samantha’s bold and liberated Fire Sign qualities, characteristics associated with the Signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. You’re strong, audacious and larger than life – and you take what you want! Sometimes you can even be thoughtless and selfish, as you get so caught up in craving immediate gratification and excitement that you overlook someone else’s feelings. Your personal style probably reflects your desires: sleek, low-cut, revealing just a bit more than might be considered acceptable. Watch out that you don’t come on too strong, though. You could scare potential suitors off with all your drama. If you seek so much attention, the more basic qualities of the Fire Signs could be burned right out of the picture. Show less skin or cleavage and more of your creativity, your vibrant leadership skills and courageous generosity.

You scored 10% Miranda You chose many of the same answers that Earth Sign, like Miranda, the cynical but pragmatic lawyer, might have chosen. Like her, you don’t give your heart up to just anyone. She shies away from a relationship with Steve because he’s ‘just’ a bartender, not something more conventionally ambitious or stable. Those with powerful Earth Sign qualities – characteristics associated with Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn – are cautious in love and seek stability and status over nearly anything else. Earth Signs provide a steady, realistic attitude and they can bring order out of chaos. You’re incredibly sensual, and beneath that smart, expensive business suit of yours, you yearn for intimacy. But you are hesitant to give up your material needs, your career ambitions or your responsibilities for a passionate moment that might not turn out the way you’d hope.

Coupland’s Life After God (up to God?)

Coupland’s Life After God (up to God?)

I’m out of books to read. I’ve read everything I have, some things two or three times. Today I reread Douglas Coupland’s Life After God. These are the two passages that struck me, compellingly, again.

Our conversations are never easy, but as I — we — get older, we are all finding that our conversations must be spoken. A need burns inside us to share with others what we are feeling. Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic. It is as though the coolness that marked our youth is itself a type of retrovirus that can only leave you feeling empty. Full of holes.

–Douglas Coupland, Life After God (1994), p. 280

You know what people will probably think of when they think of these days a thousand years from now? They’ll look back upon them with awe and wonder. They’ll think of Stacey — or someone like Stacey — driving her convertible down the freeway, her hair flowing back in the wind. She’ll be wearing a bikini and she’ll be eating a birth control pill — and she’ll be on her way to buy real estate. That’s what I think people will remember about these times. The freedom. That there was a beautiful dream of freedom that propelled the life we lived.

–Douglas Coupland, Life After God (1994), p. 340

Life After God