How did you tell your children, spouse about the Seed?

[Anonymous]

I have posted a few times.

[GregFL]

Well, great to have you here.


Please think about picking a username and tell us a story!

[Anonymous]

I met my wife 5 yrs. after graduating from the Seed. When the topic of drug use eventualy came up i just explained that I had my fill of that life years before, and the story of drug rehab was discussed at some point, but no big deal. My kids know some of what went on way back then but never have asked for specifics. It's been 32 yrs. now,yes Greg, your era, and from Lakewood,but I never have had to answer any tough questions from anyone really, even the military let me in, and b
boot camp was worse than 1st phase.

Later fellow Seedlings...ha

[GregFL]

So I guess we know each other, eh?

I would love a chat. Send me a private message. The button is to the left in red.

Looking foward to it!

[GregFL]

I would agree with you on one point about boot camp. The abuse was greater, but there were differences...
First, you got your fill of food and sleep, even if you got in bed at nine and got up at daybreak.

second, you were older and there voluntarily.

Third, you were there for a set amount of time. You knew the day the torture would end, and you never had the threat of returning to boot camp held over you head.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, you had contact with and the support of your family. You could write them letters...they and you had a common goal..

these and other differences in my opinion made the experiance much different than the involuntary commitment to the seed.

[Antigen]

Yeah, I'd take 6 wks of boot camp over 2 years of daily mindfuck anyday.

The introduction of a Creator has done our independence no good.
--Gore Vidal, author

[NOT12NOW]

For years I just told people I had been in a drug rehab when I was 12.  
As I aged, and got farther away from the threat of being thrown back in, I realized that the seed was weird and started to tell stories about it, mostly for entertainment value.  I recognized that some of the things we did and believed there were off the chart, but I still bought the, Iwouldhavebeendeadinainsanasilumorprison, soft shoe.  It wasn?t until I was 25 and telling a friend about myself before the seed that I started to think about it more deeply.    I was saying, ?I was so weak there was nothing to me.?    She disagreed saying, ? any eleven year old girl who manages to keep a bunch of high school boys from having intercourse with her while she is stoned or drunk is not weak.?  I corrected her saying,?Oh, I was never stoned or drunk,? and would have just gone on talking from there but she stopped, stunned.  ?I always assumed from what you said that you were drug addicted back then,? she said.  She was so shocked that I began to wonder.  Thus I began considering the possibility that I may have been, among other things, miss diagnosed.  I guess all those years I was telling people Rasputin tales about the seed they assumed I was shooting up between my toes at 11.

My guy got it every step of the way with me. I told him pretty soon after we got together with out any fear that he would be freaked out.  He?s a peach.

That?s a good point about boot camp.  You know when it?s over. Even after I graduated it wasn?t safe for me to say anything negative about the seed or displease my parents until the seed left town.  Still, when I was in college, and there was a period of disagreement between us I became fearful that they where going to lock me up in a mental institution.  I thought at the time that it was a strange fear, but later it made sense.

On a related note I used to have this problem where I felt compelled to tell everyone everything, not specifically about the seed but a sort of full life confessional; it was particularly rough on people I had just met at parties.   My close friendships all had a tendency to be very intense, HONEST, processing-- then they would explode.  Until I was in my late twenties my friendships usually ended like breakups.  I had to learn to retain my autonomy socially.  I had to learn that not all problems could be solved with honest confrontation.  Some of this is my personality, I still enjoy saying things just over the line and I have a different sense of what is private than many people but I used to feel it was the only way to have real relationships, which was, I believe, a compulsion I learned at the seed.


When I explained my seedling past to my pug she tilted her head first to the right then the left and stared at me with her globe brown eyes? still not sure how to interpret that.  But I get the feeling she doesn?t judge me.

[ChrisL]

"I used to have this problem where I felt compelled to tell everyone everything, not specifically about the seed but a sort of full life confessional" My close friendships all had a tendency to be very intense, HONEST, processing-- then they would explode, usually ended like breakups. I had to learn to retain my autonomy socially."     Jesus can I relate, this one took me a looonnnggg time to figure out. And now just starting to date again after my 22 year marriage ended a little over a year ago I am having to re-learn this all over again, and you hit it right on the head Not12now, I also found it almost like a compulsion, when I started to realize it was not always the right way to handle things I had to almost force myself to hold my tongue. I finally had to realize that very few people have actually done any sort of work on self or self -examination and even fewer folks have done it with a halfway honest eye... I chased off (literally) three ladies because within the first few dates I felt like I had to relate my entire life experience(s), I never have been very good at that patience thing. You know what is even worse (& I can hear the come-downs already!!!) was learning HOW to play games again with the women that I am dating. You know... wait 2 days to call, always leave them wanting more, don't say too much about how you feel, play or act nonchalant, don't always say yes, be mysterious... YEAH I know it is a bunch of crap, BUT you know what? It works, unbelieveable but true. All the crap you see on Lifetime about women in the 40's wanting a "good man" who is touch with his feelings... it's a lie! So far from what I have experienced the succesful ladies in their 40's are busy with their careers or families or kids, etc...so far it has not left a lot of room for me, anyway Wah Wah Wah  :cry2:

[Anonymous]

If and when I've ever chosen to tell friends about my time at the Seed, I've explained that it was based on AA principles, only more confrontational.   Chris has a valid point, most people in the general population have not performed any type of self-examination so they don't understand, even the basic concept of a l2 step program.  I recently had to explain to someone what the basis for AA and Al-Anon are, at 34 she'd never heard of Al-Anon and didn't know what it was for or about, odd, I figured everyone knew about those kinds of programs.  

My ex-husband was in the Seed and my kids generally know what we both did as teens and we left it at that.  However, we both missed the boat with them, they were both smoking pot under our noses and we didn't have a clue.  I think kids today are substantially sneakier than they were when we teens, plus they didn't go overboard, particularly like their father, and they both told me after they decided it wasn't for them.  Oddly they both felt guilty keeping such a secret from me and had to come clean and let me know.  My oldest tried it a few times and didn't like it at all, so he quit, and my youngest had a teacher who expressed disapproval and disappointment (wonder why she never called on that one, she called about everything else!!), that plus the military was good reason to quit for him.   Now drinking for them is something else, baby alcoholics in the making, hopefully time and maturity will fix that one, cause I certainly can't and won't try.  

Generally though, people once they find out that I'm an only child attribute everything they know or think they know about me, to me being an only child and in their mind that explains everything.  That and since we all wear different game faces for different people and places, no one really knows us but ourselves.

As an aside to Chris, I've found this dating thing to be weird too.  Flirting (game playing) in your 40s is odd and half the time if a man is flirting, I miss it, friends have had to knock me upside the head and tell me what's going on, probably some throw back to the Seed I'm sure.  As for flirting myself, truly odd, after having been married forever and now divorced.  Makes me want to pull the blankie up over my head and take a long nap.

[cleveland]

I agree with previous posters that after I left the Seed, I had this compulsion to confess. After a while though, I began to realize that I could pick and choose what I wanted to share about myself with others, but I still felt a little guilty about it. Actually, since I was still searching for answers and used to attend Al-Anon and ACOA, I began to hate the compulsive self-disclosure that is a part of those programs too. I began to hate hearing people identify as their problem - "Hi, I'm Mary and I am a compulsive eater and survivor of ritual abuse." It felt like false intimacy and victimhood and also, I started to question the dogma - so I would leave the meetings and stop and have a drink! (I realize that is not for everyone, but for me, moderation is the key).

As far as dating - Jeez, I know I was like a weird, anxious, sweaty mess at first. I remember telling some girl that I met about the Seed and I felt like a serial killer. Later I learned to be discreet, and also to have female friends that I could trust. (When I first left the Seed I 'fell in love' with the first girl who would talk to me!)

I did get married post-Seed to someone who was kind of nutty, but after ten years we divorced and I was dating again. I actually did some internet dating to build my confidence, since I am very awkward sometimes at the 'flirting' with a stranger part. Good luck, Chris!

See, I still want to disclose too much! It's an issue, I guess.

[GregFL]

On 2005-10-19 21:09:00, ChrisL wrote:

 it's a lie! So far from what I have experienced the succesful ladies in their 40's are busy with their careers or families or kids, etc...so far it has not left a lot of room for me, anyway Wah Wah Wah  :scared:  :skull:  :rofl:  :wink:

[Antigen]

It's about damned time, Greg! How long did you think you could string her along, anyway? LOL

Good luck to you both. I bet it'll work out just fine.

After all, who wouldn't prefer Middle Earth, unless they've been corrupted by a Ring of Power?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/elkins/elkins73.html' target='_new'>Jeff Elkins; Tolkien's Libertarian Vision

[shanlea]

I keep coming back to this site because it encapsulates so perfectly some of my issues from another TBS.  One problem I had was relating to people outside CEDU or ever feeling like I had deep friendships because we were so overexposed and bonded through highly intense, manipulative, contrived experiences that every other relationship seemed trite by comparison. I rarely thought anything was deep enough or "real" enough to merit my interest post-CEDU, but I never realized until now that my expectations were warped after that experience. How do you relate to "civilians" after you went through an emotional war of sorts with your peers in the program.  

When I married (to my now ex) six years ago, and I tried to tell him my experience, he looked at me like I had three heads... he had never heard of such a thing. He had the proverbial white picket fence life.  (The funny thing is, he is more fucked up than many, but you know what they say about normal people being people you just don't know very well.)

Anyway, dating for me always seemed kind of boring. I always wished I was the kind of girl who became easily infatuated (distracted) but most of the time, I would rather read a book then feign an interest in trite bullshit and regularity.  On the other hand, men who are more introspective and layered tend to be more complicated as well.

But Chris, it's not a lie. Most of my friends who dated the bad boys ended up marrying the nice guys and are happy to have come to their senses.

I've always been more a lightening strikes person, so I think all those dating rules are bullshit when you meet the right one at the right time. Why wait for two days if you don't want to? I've never had a serious relationship with someone where we both knew all those stupid rules don't qualify the minute we met. And I've never wasted my time if either one of us is half assed.

Anyway, there are many experiences in my life that in way, makes me feel a bit disconnected from people, but always yearning for something meaningful.  It's probably due to a confluence of factors, but I think one of them was attending CEDU.

[GregFL]

Me too Shanlea.  I have posted about this before, and it seems a common trait that we adults that attended these various synanon style programs have.

That is, we seem to expect too much from other people, we tend to tell people things about us they haven't earned the right to know, and when people dissapoint us over  things that to others just seem so common, we dismiss our friendships with them or tell them off in a way that seems extreme to them.

I have noticed this trait in adult seed and straight attendees, and it is not a normal way to socialize with people. Once I identified this trait in myself, I have worked to remove it, but it is admittedly hard.

[Antigen]

But it's not just Seedlings or just ppl who spent time in Synanon type groups. I've seen the same sort of thing in ppl who have an abusive, over controling family member or romantic interest.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
--George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright