Ok to clear up the confusion on where I stand on MMS the reality is that I think there are good and bad things about MMS.
Pro... made good friends
Con... had to be "friends" with people whom you didn't particularly like.
Pro... we were forced to work hard to estabish good work ethics.
Con... it sucked, we got hungry, and we were sometimes cold.
Pro... we got help for specific issues that plagued us
Con... we had to bear extra issues (like addictions) for the greater good of the group.
Pro... honesty within friendships
Con... sometimes you had to rat them out
Now I could go on like this forever, but that would be a little excessive and boring to read I'm sure.
Basically some stuff sucked there, maybe it can be changed, but they run the risk of lowering their productivity of helping the girls. I don't agree with all the phase stuff that was implamented to make you like an MMS robot, but I do agree with the intention of the program. Picking on silly things that may have happened once while I was there just seems like another one of those stupid american things. No offense, but political correctness is incedibly important here, and anything that sets someone off their rocker creates a whole revolution. Anyway, I'm having a hard time articulating what I really mean by that, but regardless, it doesn't all seem like that big of a deal to me.
If you think the program was abusive, it is clear it wasn't the right place for you. In all honesty and sincerity if you are claiming that MMS has scarred you for life and you have been permanently traumantized by it, you definatly needed a place that could help you more emotionally. I'm not saying that to be mean or spiteful or anything to the same likeness, it is the truth. The stuff that went on at MMS was hard at times, and maybe there were times when innapropriate things occured, but they were few and far between. It is hard to walk the thin line between abuse and athority when dealing with emotionally troubled teens. If you really feel that hurt by MMS that it has ruined your life, you must have many current issues still controling your life and you should have gone to a more intensley theraputic program with less emphasis on self discovery and spirituality. Perhaps this isn't the case though, and you are fighting because you are angry and don't want other girls to go through what you did. Totally valid.
a·buse P Pronunciation Key (-byz)
tr.v. a·bused, a·bus·ing, a·bus·es
To use wrongly or improperly; misuse: abuse alcohol; abuse a privilege.
To hurt or injure by maltreatment; ill-use.
To force sexual activity on; rape or molest.
To assail with contemptuous, coarse, or insulting words; revile.
Obsolete. To deceive or trick.
Just thought I might throw that in there. People were never hit or molested at MMS. Food was never taken away as punishment (it may have changed because of the environment). Holding our pee was an issue of respect, taken too far sometimes, but not constituting a lawsuit. Girls were yelled at, but only with the hopes of helping them, or out of anger that any human would feel if they were upset by something we did. My ed consultant yelled at me and told me I was a three year old, am I going to sue him for abuse?
Yes, we did lead most of our time there in fear of getting in trouble, and I DON'T THINK THAT'S RIGHT, but it's NOT abuse. Yes, John was late a lot and made us wait for silly amounts of time but that's not abuse.
Look, MMS has tons of flaws. Where there is a good point, there is a bad point to combat it and that's just the way it is. There were quite a few things that really sucked about the school, but we got to play soccer and ski and learn and make friends. Emotionally MMS helped me grow up, learn how to deal with difficult people, have patience, and most of all, be understanding. I had to be an addict at the same time, say stuff about my friends that I didn't want to, but at the time I thought would help them. I had to eat fucking tomatoes and I hated that the most of all. When you look at it like that it all seems to slide into perspective. HOWEVER, this was my experience and I speak for the people that were there while I was (on a factual level of what I witnessed). I have heard "horror" stories from when people had to go on personal interventions and things like that. I'm sorry to the poeple that had to do that, but the school doesn't do things like that anymore (at least during my time there).
On a side note to Anon: I did come during the end of that intervention but (lucky me!) I got to stay through two other interventions while I was there. One was a "retreat" of sorts when we remodeled or refurnished the campus. We took everything out of the rooms and repainted the cabins inside, re wall papered them. It was about cleaning up our lives. Each night we slept down in the group house together. It wasn't for fun, it was a punishment because a bunch of people were depressed and being stupid by bringing other people down but John brought us all flowers and each a single rose afterwards to "bring the color and life back to the campus" because we had worked so hard. It was quite sweet. Anyway, the other intervention was the shittiest thing in the world and could be the only thing that we did while I was there that even comes close to abuse. We went on intervention in the winter (-13 degrees at some points), slept in tents, cleared brush and made gigantic burn piles all day. Then we would move the burn pile somewehere else etc. We got really hungry so we got extra food. It was no longer a ladel of ravioli, but like a ladel and a half. We got two rolls and salad. It wasn't so bad. I did have freezing feet at some points and lost the feeling in my toes a lot. Thank god it was a huge motivator for people to get back on track. Anyway, we almost didn't get to go on our home visits, but then people pulled through in time for us to go and I was so happy I got to go home and get away from that intervention. When I came back three weeks later they were back on campus. That whole thing was the absolute worst experience that I had while I was there, but in all reality some of the girls really deserved it because they were being entitled, bratty, pieces of crap that needed a wake up call. It worked though. Anyway... I HAVE experienced a very shitty intervention. Still doesn't mean I think it was abuse, but I do think it could have been done an alternate way. Who Knows maybe it couldn't have.
So I can't think of anything else to say other than we all need to stop generalizing. I had a curfew when I came back from MMS and I had to be home by ten thirty. I came home really late once because I was having a really bad day and I popped a tire etc. etc. My mom always brought that up when she would talk to me about being late. I was barely ever late but she would always say "You are always late!" I hated that because it wasn't true that I was always late. One thing can come back and bite you in the ass, but it doesn't actually mean it happens all the time. Maybe MMS has made a few mistakes and made a few girl's lives crappy, but don't say that everything is bad just because one thing was. I was genuinly happy while I was there. It's so immature and pointless to pick on this stuff. Where do you guys think you're going to go with this all anyway? The lawsuit? Is that really going to make you happy?
Think about it....
