Elaboration on guilt and shame instilled by the program

[starry-eyed pirate]

"...And I really think all the instilled guilt and shame is a huge deal too, cause before the program I never felt that way. I didn't have a "conscience". That was something they developed within me. And I learned how to feel guilty and ashamed. And I have been manipulated and enslaved by those ideas ever since..."

I've been reading Liftons book about brainwashing in China, and I've been struck by the way it seems to mirror my experience in $tr8.  Dragonfly, you were right. I shoulda red this a long time ago.  If only I hadn't been such a communist at the time.  Funny though, if ya don' min' my sayin the way of it all...my disillusion with America manifesting through a misplaced admiration for her enemies... Lenin was tenacious and something about him...intrigues me but, yeah, so that was tough for me.  The unresolveable conflict between ideals and the rest of it.

One of Liftons subjects...all hell, I'll get the book and look it up...Father Vechten, felt so guilty for the things he had done in the program, in the communist Chinese re-education program, for the way he had compromised his integrity, that when he was safely back in Rome(though I think he was Dutch, he was a Catholic priest) he wrecked his motorcycle and spent about 2 years recovering in a hospital...He told Lifton if he hadn't wrecked the bike then something else would've happened, like mental breakdown.

In $tr8 we were psychologically raped into submission and made to identify our shame and guilt.  If there wasn't enough shame and guilt in your heart then staff and group would help you to get it in there.   We were being indoctrinated with guilt and shame while simultaneously acting in ways which would carry guilty and shameful memories.

You know, I suppose there were some things I'd done in my past that I felt bad about.  That is true.  And if pressed under normal social conditions, I might have admitted to some shame or guilt.  God knows ' aint been no angel, but they want you to blow all your guilty shame up into such a huge deal and make like your the worst drug addled teenager to ever come down the pike, what a sad sack an all that...when really I just wanted to see what was behind all their threats an intimidation.  Cause you know when you start dropping out of high school everyone freaks out.  Everbody on the rez!...

In a way I was curious about what would happen if I disobeyed.  Well, I got in a lot of Trouble.  And in the end saw that all the flag waving, anthem singin and allegience swearin hadn't helped anybody be free.

So, I do take my share of the responsibility for gettin myself there, cause I wanted to know.  That doesn't excuse their behavior though, it just means I was right to be suspicious.  People who really believe in Freedom aren't manipulative and intimidating.  

Well, what I was tryin to say was that they give you the guilt and shame and since it wasn't based on anything real in the first place you can never really get rid of it until you know that it's just another $tr8 illusion. I guess what I'm tryin to point out, are the different ways they formed our guilt.  And thereby attached us to the chains they wanted us to carry.  There's the guilt for our behavior at the time and the guilt that was created around our pasts.  By the time you come out of the program you have enough programmed shame and guilt to hate who you are and who you've become, and yet you know it's not your fault but this awareness won' leave you alone and no matter what happens it's your fault, cause there are no excuses, there are no ways to cope, there's nothing you can say or do. That's all gone now and you can't carry the world when you've just spent the last 2 years of your life bein psychologically raped in a mind-control/mind rape cult.  

Anyway, sort of goin off some, there... :clown:... don' get me started... :roflmao: ...yes, well, anyaway. The part about the guy wreckin his bike just really struck me as a great metaphor for my own experience.  When you carry that much programmed guilt and shame around it's like you have to live up to it somehow or something, as if you need to earn it and make it real.  That is fucked.
 :peace:  :poison:

[heretik]

Thanks....I know not much of a response. Just more to study. I am not complaining.

[Woof-a-Doof]

Much of what you spoke of Pirate, strikes a cord. As you have drawn similarities from Liftons book, which is non-fiction...I have also drawn similarities from a book, George Orwells "1984" a tale of a dysutopian society. I found it to describe many actions against the human pysche, leaving long term psychological wounds.

The book of which you speak, whitch name escapes me at the moment <tis early>, I have actually held in my hand. As we were all in DC when I was able to briefly scan thru it, I sensed it held many explainations as to what took place while incarcerated. The "gathering" consumed much of my thoughts and attention as well and the intention of reading, what might be considered "Mandatory Reading", has simply eluded me.

Yearly, every January, I make it a point to read "1984", if only as a literary reminder of the mind fuck we endured. Now I am kinda scrambling for another read. Seems as I age, my appetite for explanation grows stronger and stronger. And so, if ya wouldnt mind mentioning the name of Liftons book once more...I have an impeccable memory, it's just painfully short.

Once I get back home this afernoon, I will post a page(s) that has "1984" in it's entirety. It may add a lil sumpin to Liftons efforts. Yes, I understand it is fiction, and can be easily swept aside as such. I will try and find the poignant desriptions of the main characters mindset, which clearly mirrors my own.

Much Peace
Continued Healing
P.P.P

[starry-eyed pirate]

Thanks Woof, I gotta get runnin but the title of Robert J.Liftons book is: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, A Study of Brainwashing In China.  1984 is also one a my favorites.  Whenever I see a cheap used paperback edition I pick it up so I can give it away later.

[Froderik]

So, I do take my share of the responsibility for gettin myself there, cause I wanted to know.  That doesn't excuse their behavior though, it just means I was right to be suspicious.  People who really believe in Freedom aren't manipulative and intimidating.  

Well, what I was tryin to say was that they give you the guilt and shame and since it wasn't based on anything real in the first place you can never really get rid of it until you know that it's just another $tr8 illusion. I guess what I'm tryin to point out, are the different ways they formed our guilt.  And thereby attached us to the chains they wanted us to carry.  There's the guilt for our behavior at the time and the guilt that was created around our pasts.  By the time you come out of the program you have enough programmed shame and guilt to hate who you are and who you've become, and yet you know it's not your fault but this awareness won' leave you alone and no matter what happens it's your fault, cause there are no excuses, there are no ways to cope, there's nothing you can say or do. That's all gone now and you can't carry the world when you've just spent the last 2 years of your life bein psychologically raped in a mind-control/mind rape cult.

I don't know about guilt and shame, but it sure felt weird when I got out of there..I felt like a stranger to everyone, in a strange world..I didn't complete the "aftercare," so i didn't have those MD folks to try to get through it with..(you know, wrap our brains around it with); I had my old balto friends, but it took a while for that 'displaced' feeling to go away.. it's still there sometimes, really.