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Gwen Shamblin 4: Lick the Fork


HerNameIsBuffy

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12 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

With the exception of private babysitting, those expectations are par for the course with every fundy-lite or evangelical church of which I'm familiar.

Yeah. Pretty much all the fundy and evangelical churches I attended ran that way, except for private babysitting. The churches didn't host weddings like Gwen does, but all other events members were pressured into helping out and looked down on if you didn't. I ended up on flower committees, decorating committees, nursery committees, Sunday School committees, leading a little kids group called Mission Friends, briefly on a bus ministry, and bunches more I can't remember. We were supposed to use God's gifts in the church so if you weren't doing something then you were not obeying God. I did not get on any music or cooking committee because I have no skills in those areas. 

I started in nursery at like 11/12.  Honestly I loved it because it got me out of the church service. 

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Gwen and RF have been on my mind since the first thread here. I struggled with and ED from age 11 through college. 

She is a dangerous influence. Her rhetoric is very similar to my eating disordered thoughts. I'm not surprised people in the church struggle with AN. Her daughter reminds me of women I met during inpatient treatment who later died from complications. Although, I do not know her, I hope someone in her life helps her get treatment before it is too late. Additionally, it is horrible that RF teaches relying solely on God Gwen for mental illness treatment. Eating disorder patients (myself included) often struggle to accept treatment. This belief is not helping anyone. I believe God gave of us brains to discover and create treatment for both physical and mental illness. 

I feel a lot of rage towards Gwen! She is like Anorexia personified. I ache for everyone in that cult, but especially vulnerable children with a genetic predisposition to eating disorders such as her grandchildren). 

Since I would not wish an ED on anyone, I hope Gwen also recovers, for everyone's sake. However, I also hope she realizes the damage her cult has done to thousands of people and lives with that guilt for the rest of her life.

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9 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Yeah. Pretty much all the fundy and evangelical churches I attended ran that way, except for private babysitting. The churches didn't host weddings like Gwen does, but all other events members were pressured into helping out and looked down on if you didn't. I ended up on flower committees, decorating committees, nursery committees, Sunday School committees, leading a little kids group called Mission Friends, briefly on a bus ministry, and bunches more I can't remember. We were supposed to use God's gifts in the church so if you weren't doing something then you were not obeying God. I did not get on any music or cooking committee because I have no skills in those areas. 

I started in nursery at like 11/12.  Honestly I loved it because it got me out of the church service. 

Sounds like we went to the same church growing up! Lol. We also picketed abortion clinics with the youth group(one of my biggest regrets by far). I babysat a lot outside of church but was always paid in some form. I lived in a very large military community and no one was wealthy at all. I remember in particular babysitting for a family and would get paid in Avon because the mom sold it. Which was just fine with me. But yes, mostly the "volunteering" we did was voluntary and to get out the the main service. 

I also remember when one of my best friends got pregnant, people wouldn't come to the wedding out of some kind of protest. That couple is still married to this day. 

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3 minutes ago, SJWaterford said:

I also remember when one of my best friends got pregnant, people wouldn't come to the wedding out of some kind of protest. That couple is still married to this day. 

They clearly weren't aware of the wisdom passed along by my raised fundy coverted to Catholic gramma:

"The first baby can come anytime, it's the rest of them that take 9 months."

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52 minutes ago, SJWaterford said:

Sounds like we went to the same church growing up! Lol. We also picketed abortion clinics with the youth group(one of my biggest regrets by far). I babysat a lot outside of church but was always paid in some form. I lived in a very large military community and no one was wealthy at all. I remember in particular babysitting for a family and would get paid in Avon because the mom sold it. Which was just fine with me. But yes, mostly the "volunteering" we did was voluntary and to get out the the main service. 

I also remember when one of my best friends got pregnant, people wouldn't come to the wedding out of some kind of protest. That couple is still married to this day. 

My (crappy) mother was the same way: an "unwed mother" was some sort of contaminating garbage, and we should all stay away. Sounds like you found a lot more happiness in the world that my mother ever did (or many people of your former congregation).

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1 hour ago, SJWaterford said:

I also remember when one of my best friends got pregnant, people wouldn't come to the wedding out of some kind of protest. That couple is still married to this day. 

The first S. Baptist church that I actually belonged to, which was the one I joined in my middle teen years, was somewhat like that.  There was one couple in particular who had been married in another church but she was probably 6 or 7 months pregnant at the time, as soon as it was discovered that they had only been married a couple of months when their baby was born - they were ostracized by most of the older members of the church.  And it was discovered, by a particular busybody who loved to gossip.  I remembereing really mad at how this couple was treated, and so was my mom.  My mom made a point of getting up right before a service started one day, giving the older busybodies a very strong stare and then going up and hugging this couple.  I was very proud of my mom for that.  And it did help, although I don't think the couple stayed with that church much longer.  This was not a fundy S. Baptist, but I kind of think it's typical of many of them.

@HerNameIsBuffy, your grandmother nailed it!  What a delightful thing for her to say.

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21 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

They clearly weren't aware of the wisdom passed along by my raised fundy coverted to Catholic gramma:

"The first baby can come anytime, it's the rest of them that take 9 months."

Grandparents can be awesome. I still vividly remember talking about boyfriends with my Nana, who said to 16 yo me “Try before you buy dear, try before you buy”.

 

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Reading her daily devotionals is insane. There is nothing about healthy eating habits, learning to eat food that will keep you full for longer, it is all about spending all day waiting for your stomach to growl so you can eat tiny bites of food(any food, even junk food) where you take sips of water between each bite just enough so you are no longer feeling hungry and then you go back to waiting for the growl. 

 

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We are going to wait for the growl, and then we are going to get exactly what we want to eat and we are going to tell ourselves, “I can eat this every time I growl for the rest of my life. And thank You, God. I can have this all the rest of my living days.” You do not need to be afraid of a certain food. You can still chop it up into small units, sip between bites and use all the tips you learned in Weigh Down Basics so you can slow down; then you look for that Way of Escape.

The "growl"  sounds like a god she has invented that her entire life rotates around. RF folks and anyone who found this thread wanting to know more about this church, this is crazy. 

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You literally abandoned what you were doing before; you abandoned dieting, and you got in there and started finding the growl. You were so excited wait­ing on that growl. You were so focused on finding the growl and finding the full, that suddenly you looked up and you had lost weight, and it was the most exciting thing you had ever done in your life

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All I want you to focus on is the growl. The growl is God speaking to you. You can literally find God Almighty with a growl, and that is why you will want to wait.

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 A “growl” is the physical feeling of hunger. It can be acid on your stomach, but the more you are actually able to hear it, especially at the end of the day, the better off you are going to be. Try to really get to where you are not guessing it is hunger, you KNOW you are really hungry. There is going to be noth­ing like it, followed by getting up the next day and weighing less than you did the day before. It is so fun!

ETA: These are all from the daily devotionals she shares on facebook. The other thing I quoted from her FB page a couple pages back has appeared to have been removed. It was a post on her page but I don't see it anymore. 

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2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

The "growl"  sounds like a god she has invented that her entire life rotates around.

I was just going to say that she's made "the growl" an idol.(Don't tell Steve Maxwell!)

ETA:  And she's actually encouraging people to go to bed hungry?

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46 minutes ago, smittykins said:

I was just going to say that she's made "the growl" an idol.(Don't tell Steve Maxwell!)

ETA:  And she's actually encouraging people to go to bed hungry?

She has elevated getting hungry to some sort of almost transcendental thing where God is found in being hungry. It it is very unhealthy that she calls eating any food The Way of Escape. 

I've read a lot of devotionals in my time but Gwen's are the weirdest. Every single one seems to be some variation of "spend all your day thinking about getting hungry, eat a tiny bit and then go back to thinking about the next time you get hungry." 

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39 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

She has elevated getting hungry to some sort of almost transcendental thing where God is found in being hungry. It it is very unhealthy that she calls eating any food The Way of Escape. 

I've read a lot of devotionals in my time but Gwen's are the weirdest. Every single one seems to be some variation of "spend all your day thinking about getting hungry, eat a tiny bit and then go back to thinking about the next time you get hungry." 

Well, then it's working!  We just had dinner.  And now I am seriously in need of a snack after reading this!

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I was eating a snack while I read her devotionals. :laughing-jumpingpurple: I didn't wait till my stomach growled so I didn't find God in a bowl of strawberries. 

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At least you had healthy fruit!  I would’ve gone with the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups left over from Halloween.

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I've never had an eating disorder but grew up hating my curvy body and only recently made peace with it.

 

if I had grown up in Remnent Church, my self loathing would have been compounded by unbearable guilt. I felt enough guilt about listing to Bon Jovi and  wearing a bathing suit without a tee shirt at the beach.

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Can you imagine being a teenager in this cult and not only having to face a gaggle of mean girls picking on people’s weight but everyone justifying their cruelty in the name of God?

If a teenager gained weight and was bullied for it, the adults likely would justify it in the name of God and not see it as bullying. 

I have always been thin but in high school, I gained a bit of weight for awhile (it was for one year after taking a medication and it caused me to retain a lot of water weight) and my former “best friend” in my church youth group spread a rumor that I must have been pregnant and it got to the point where I had to shut it down by giving medical documentation to her and the youth group leader that proved I wasn’t. After that, this former “best friend” claimed it wasn’t her fault for wondering why I suddenly got “chubby”. I cannot even imagine how this scenario would’ve played out at Remnant...

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I am watching A&E's Scientology Aftermath shows and they are doing a special on Jehovah's Witnesses feautring Leah Remini & Mike Rinder talking with former members. I am shocked by how many similarities there are with disfellowshipping. 

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8 hours ago, Katzchen24 said:

Grandparents can be awesome. I still vividly remember talking about boyfriends with my Nana, who said to 16 yo me “Try before you buy dear, try before you buy”.

 

That was similar to what my mom said. "You don't buy a car without taking a test drive first."

Also, everyone should check out John Mulaney's routine about the expression "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free", because it's brilliant. 

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On 11/10/2018 at 6:02 PM, thoughtful said:

 

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Do you think she ever measures how much her hair weighs and adjusts her scales to take it into account?

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51 minutes ago, luv2laugh said:

I am watching A&E's Scientology Aftermath shows and they are doing a special on Jehovah's Witnesses feautring Leah Remini & Mike Rinder talking with former members. I am shocked by how many similarities there are with disfellowshipping. 

I kind of hope they do one on Gwen. It'd be interesting.

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I am surprised that the Main Stream Media has not already reached out to ex members of Gwen Shamblin's church because to be quite frank, I've never found a more bizarre type of "church" than Remnant. I honestly think that it is much more of an oddly fascinating and strange belief system than Scientology itself.

Gwen used to be in the news a lot for her "Weigh Down" book and was featured on the Tyra Show (OH how I miss the Tyra Show) & was interviewed by Matt Lauer but if I'm correct, this was before she started the Remnant church and quite went off "the deep end".

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9 hours ago, luv2laugh said:

I am surprised that the Main Stream Media has not already reached out to ex members of Gwen Shamblin's church because to be quite frank, I've never found a more bizarre type of "church" than Remnant. I honestly think that it is much more of an oddly fascinating and strange belief system than Scientology itself.

Gwen used to be in the news a lot for her "Weigh Down" book and was featured on the Tyra Show (OH how I miss the Tyra Show) & was interviewed by Matt Lauer but if I'm correct, this was before she started the Remnant church and quite went off "the deep end".

So remnant was started in the spring of 1999. The Tyra Show interview occurred in 2007 and the Matt Lauer interview occurred in 2008. Weigh Down lost a ton of interest around the 2000 time frame due to the trinity statement but it started regaining some popularity around 2007-2010 I believe. There were several good housekeeping magazine articles, the Tyra Show, two today show interviews, and I believe a few other things during that time. I remember them coming to the church to film for the Tyra Show. 

 

ETA: I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if media has reached out to former members. Unfortunately, Gwen has always had a lot of money and has threatened lawsuits before on the grounds of “slander” and “defamation”. While I highly doubt she would win such a lawsuit, to be honest, not many people have the money/time/resources to fight her. It’s very unfortunate. 

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I waited for a while, since I didn't want to be that person who whines about their question not being answered, :my_blush: but I wanted to make sure people knew that my questions weren't rhetorical or sarcastic. I am genuinely curious.

How does Gwen expect RF to people handle family meals, and how do they handle them? 

Does anyone ever say "dinner is served" and, if so, do people actually respond to it by sitting down at the table? Are family members expected to sit with everyone and not eat if they are not feeling the growl, or do people just graze all day long individually?

 

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1 minute ago, thoughtful said:

I waited for a while, since I didn't want to be that person who whines about their question not being answered, :my_blush: but I wanted to make sure people knew that my questions weren't rhetorical or sarcastic. I am genuinely curious.

How does Gwen expect RF to people handle family meals, and how do they handle them? 

Does anyone ever say "dinner is served" and, if so, do people actually respond to it by sitting down at the table? Are family members expected to sit with everyone and not eat if they are not feeling the growl, or do people just graze all day long individually?

 

Really depends on the family. I knew some families who rarely had a dinner together and the family members grazed all day. Others had meals at certain times and if you happened to not be hungry, you just didn’t eat but would normally sit at the table. Some families would even read the weigh down daily devotional or some weigh down material at dinner because it was a time when the whole family was together...

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Thank you, @RFsurvivor.

It's no surprise that it would vary from one family to another -- pretty much what I figured, but I didn't want to assume.

Continuing to have a daily sit-down dinner while in RF sounds like yet another potential source of stress and guilt. I can imagine the struggle of not feeling the growl yet, but sitting there looking at and smelling food (and possibly listening to WD text). Or lying about feeling the growl and then feeling guilt for eating. Or being a family member who felt the growl, and is eating while beloved family members are sitting there not eating. Not to mention being so focused on all of the permutations of eating/not eating/waiting for the growl/when to stop that nobody can make normal, pleasant conversation.

Do you know if Gwen has a policy or opinion about people still having a sit-down dinner with their immediate family?

In general, does she care (or make a show of caring) about family togetherness and unity (for other families, that is -- it's pretty clear that there are spoken and unspoken rules, ties and loyalty tests for hers)? 

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"All I want you to focus on is the growl. The growl is God speaking to you. You can literally find God Almighty with a growl, and that is why you will want to wait"

People who are starving can have both auditory and visual hallucinations. It doesn't seem like a stretch to think that an RF member who sees god because they are literally starving would be held up as an example of the power of the growl. And by extension, if you truly believe that god almighty exsists in the growl, wouldn't dying of starvation make you a martyr for the faith, someone who transcended their physical form?

I feel like I'm really overstepping here and yet at the same time not. The level of fanaticism in the RF church makes anything a possibility, especially given that someone has died following these "teachings".

Here's an abstract on a medical page about starvation and hallucinations. Bolding is mine. I can link the page if anyone cares.

Spoiler

A 19-year-old female presented with acute onset of bizarre behavior, confusion, auditory hallucinations, and delusions after two weeks on a 100 kcal/day diet. She had a normal neurological examination. Urinalysis showed ketones 4+. She had elevated antinuclear antibody (ANA) (320) and positive heterozygous factor V Leiden mutation. Magnetic resonance imaging brain scan showed hyperintensity in the ventroanterior nucleus of the left thalamus. Ventroanterior thalamic stroke has been associated with personality changes. This is the first case of starvation-induced thalamic psychosis in the setting of factor V Leiden mutation and elevated ANA. The patient improved with risperidone in one month.

 

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