Counter-reactions in propheets/raps?

[Anonymous]

Has anyone in a CEDU-based program ever done the exact opposite of what was expected?

For example, during the "I want to live" bullshit, has anyone started screaming in the middle of it "KILL ME, KILL ME NOW"?

[Awake]

That was not my experience. The only acceptable actions were either compliance or pseudo-compliance. I recall people not participating, they were called out for it until they participated "fully" or to what the staff considered acceptable. I do remember once after another peer group went through some propheet, immediately afterward the staff announced that one kid did not accept the program and had to be dropped a peer group.

This brings up a question I was wondering  for all of you. Did you tell the truth or did you lie? I was thinking about it and as I recall it there was a very strict policy to remove anyone (via Ascent or to another program) who did not either comply or "pretend" to comply to the "agreements", even when it involved disclosures on the most personal level.

Personally I did not lie, but I did continually embellish (with each re-telling) on the  degree to which I felt badly, or guilty, for those things. Moreso, I think eventually I couldn't really tell how bad I felt about them and questioned myself about whether I felt bad enough about those things. As much as I think I tried resisting that shit, I do recall being sort of confused as to whether I should be feeling a certain way or not. And the times I don't remember feeling like that, I was basically in pseudo-compliace, meaning that I was just giving the answers I thought the staff, program etc. wanted. I also, to this day, have convinced myself that other are much more capable of faking emotions than I am. I definitely have questioned whether people are being genuine or not especially in an emotional context.

So that is my question. Did you lie or tell the truth? Including any embellishments or distortions of your real feelings about what you participated in. In writing assingnments, telling your story, propheets, raps, disclosures etc.

[Anonymous]

I lied, and never accepted any of it.  Really, I never did.  I knew the game, and played along.  Which, was easier then getting yelled at.

 :nods:

[try another castle]

Nothing that blatant. Most things done were more subtle, and speaking for myself, I wasn't nearly brave enough to do anything that might warrant more screaming at me, nor smart enough to do something that would just stupefy them because it was so outrageous or nonsequitor.

For instance, one kid in my peer group spit into his hands in the brothers keeper so the staff would think he was crying and running his shit.

One of the kids refused to agree to the agreements at the beginning of the summit because of the "no violence unless otherwise instructed" rule. We all had to pressure him to acquiesce so we could continue. (I know for myself, the possibility of actual physical violence happening in the workshop actually encouraged me. There were lots of people in my peer group I secretly wanted to kill, and the idea of treating them like an IWTL pillow, with staff's approval, made me all warm and glowy inside.)

I know that a lot of us in the dorms would have discussions about fun things to do that would be completely inappropriate and leave a lot of people nonplussed.

One of my favorite was the notion of pulling up the entire house to "please be quiet and stop going so fast" while the entire house was totally silent already. And I think a lot of those ideas were along those lines: doing something that is condoned and encouraged at the school, but doing it at an inappropriate time.

Anyone remember those pull-ups? It would be hang out time, and if it got too noisy, some fucking goody two shoes would stand up and pull up the whole house. "Yeah, its going really fast in here, and I would like people to quiet down, please." Im pretty sure I did that a few times.

[wild thing]

In my Summit a staff member refused to give out you die votes on the stupid ship and had everybody live!  Loved it!

[RMA Survivor]

I would have to say I lied in all of them.  I wasn't really all that messed up when I got there having only missed homework assignments enough times to piss my parents off.  So I always had virtually nothing to cop out to.  

The propheets and workshops were all so bizarre I found it difficult to participate because little of it made sense from the standpoint of asking myself "How is this going to ever help me?"  The Truth felt like a CIA interrogation session and made me extremely uncomfortable having to listen to people telling the most horrible stories, some of them so disgusting I was ready to throw up.

The Childrens felt contrived.  I can accept that our childhood was supposed to be a time of innocence and happiness and that we might long for those days, and I can see a bridge between adult-hood and a desire to sometimes act like a child.  But that concept could have been explained in ten minutes.  No need for a 24 hours sleep deprivation.

The I want to live had problems.  A buddy of mine was finally feeling good about himself.  He was close to life probably for the first time in his life.  Yet he was forced to get up against death, fighting to get there when he didn't want to be.  And I felt like I too was far closer to life having done nothing in my life to suggest was on a path to dying young.  So clearly we had to lie to please.  This goes back to the concept that we were all made to constantly feel equally bad about ourselves, even when compared to kids who really had serious problems, long histories of abuses.  

I had a big problem with the Summit for the reasons described in the earlier post.  I would not agree to the violence rule.  I held out for hours, but another staff named Chuck Selent also held out because of something related to not eating anything not given to us.  He was on a very expensive vitamin supplement regimen he refused to stop just for the workshop.  He was ready to walk out.  So they ignored my refusal to agree to the violence rule and I basically got away with it.  I never did agree.  Then came the life boat exercise and I made up an excuse why the first three people in the circle were the three people who got life boats.  Had I been given twenty, I would have given out twenty.  And the storyline was BS.  We were supposed to be within twenty miles of shore. So I looked at it intellectually. Having been a strong swimmer all my life, I knew I could swim twenty miles and survive.  So giving out all my boats seemed realistic.  

What I do remember specifically lying about were parts of my Ishi and I think the Summit.  On the Ishi I fabricated a story of having seen a Falcon land on a branch near me, and that it didn't fly away for more than an hour, so I said my Ishi name was Trusting Falcon.  There was no Falcon.  I used the Ishi to catch up on sleep.  During what I think was the Summit, they drive you to Spokane, Washington and make you wander around looking for some total stranger to do a kind deed for.  They gave you some money and off you went.  I took off, made sure I wasn't followed, spent the money at Burger King, and went to a Museum and looked at artwork.  Came back and said I helped a bicyclist who had fallen by giving him first aid and bottle of soda.  Technically it was a true story.  But it happened before I went to RMA.  

But I always had to lie in raps and propheets because I never really did anything wrong.  I shoplifted about 400 Star Wars figures when I was 9 years old back in 1977, so I could have scenes of hundreds of Storm Troopers standing around in formation.  Then I stole Rebel Soldiers so I could have huge battles.  Past that... I had to lie to keep it so I wouldn't get talked to for having nothing really bad to say about myself.  And I never actually felt bad about the shoplifting.  I went on a spree at age 9, most kids steal something at some point in their childhood, and back then what I stole was cool and we had a blast playing with them and I earned some popularity points because I had such a vast collection.  I could have retired by now selling those things.  I guess I feel bad about not keeping them.  They would brighten up my bedroom.  

I guess what pisses me off is that before RMA and after RMA, I never really lied much if at all.  Never had the need.  RMA forced me to make lying a regular part of my life for two years, to hide my true feelings, my true thoughts, and act differently than who I am.