Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum

Why Did YOU Stay Away?

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Anonymous:
Wow what a great question and some great responses.
I have not posted in a few weeks only because I have been so busy at work but, I always take a few minutes to read the posts.
I believe this question can actually go to the core or at least come close to the reason of why I post here on this site. I usually post as a Pro-Seed supported and look at my Seed years as an overall positive experience and look at that time with fond memories and great friendships that I forged during my six years at the Seed (1983-1989).  I still believe the Seed help me build a solid and well grounded foundation in which I needed to be well adjusted and have control of my life. I will admit that I only knew the Seed through my eyes. I was in my twenties and a full fledge drug addict with some serious criminal charges weighing heavy over me at the time. I did not want to question the Seed or take any risks as to put myself at the mercy of the court system. This was my primary motivating driving force at the time and I can only imagine how different what some young teenage scared kids perceptive could have been like.  
 
 I will be the first to admit that the Seed did have a dark side and the recognition of this was the primary reason why I decided to leave.  I will not blame or ever claim that the Seed imprisoned me, this I did to myself, through my lack of wanting to take responsibility for my life and for the failures in my actions before and during my stay at the Seed.

    The Seed taught valid lessons and were very sound lessons such: as self discipline, my responsibilities to those around me and my affect on the people around me, self love is proved through action, Attitude is key to one?s happiness, We make ourselves and define who we want to be, We are works in progress and I can go on and on with these lessons and these lessons are to this day what define me and make me proud of who I am and who I am becoming.

    My problem was still my own self weakness in which the power of the group manipulated and played with us as individuals or as we fit into the group. One of the first things taught at the Seed was how peer pressure dictated our actions but what was never discussed was how this same peer pressure still was used to mold us into someone else?s vision of what we should be and how we should live our lives. Sometimes I would like to believe these things were born out of good intentions not born from selfness or blind ambition. At first I could and still understand the logic of being away from the so call world but what the Seed refused to do was to allow people to truly be rejoined into a normal world.

I think Libby resented the years she put into the Seed as she watched other people walk back into a world that was not as evil as was professed. People actually survived and prospered and did not forget who they were. Libby actually told me that if someone had left the Seed I no longer needed to consider that person as my friend and I remember this sounded so wrong and cold hearted to me.  I remember during one of football games at the beach how Bob W. lost his temper with Art cause Art was pissed off that Bob?s team actually out played his team. Bob finally held back and apologized as to bear witness to all the proper chain of command in the respect that should be given. I remember thinking could this be a crack in the wall? I quickly reminded myself as to not look for any type of justification shake it off and fall back into the line.
The Seed after a while smothered me and stunted the growth I needed to do for myself on my own. On one occasion I went back to visit and heard someone  talking about how what pieces of shit we were without Art, I remember thinking how wrong this person was and decided to walk away and never come back. . Art was man not a God and I remember the hypocrisy of how people constantly gave their praises to King Art. In spite of these gut feelings I stayed and kept the façade up. Why because it was easy and convenient not fight my instilled fears of the world and not speak my mind against what I saw as unfair. In other words it was my own lack of balls to stand up and speak the awful truth I?d rather blend in and avoid any type of dangerous attention. So who?s fault was that? I can only blame my own weakness and lack of gumption to define and place myself in the position I wanted to be at. In truth I did nor want to be one of Art?s favorites because of the attention and work that would have brought down on me. In truth I settled and once I settled I stopped moving forward. I begin to feel frustration and a complete lack of progress with all the aspects of my life this sparked incidents of my infamous temper. Finally, when staff realized this because I could no longer conceal my frustrations inside of me I was polity asked to pack my bags and go home.  I could not have felt any more relief when this happened so I gladly complied and went back home to try myself out in some kind of new life.
In retrospect going home was the best thing that happened to me now I was forced to grow by really applying and testing what I stood for and how much resolve was I willing to apply. No other Seed person there to encourage me on or chew me out when I needed a kick in the pants. I got what I wanted most and that was my true absolute freedom and as I received it I discovered what a double edge sword this really was. One of the great flaws of the Seed was that it was all to willing to take you in and take care of make your decisions for you so that you could basically hide from the world at the Seed. Why the Seed did this can be debated forever.  
  I post here not scorn or judge but to look for answers so that I grow and develop as a person and as I was taught to become a better man, too bad so many of us did not recognize our own short comings and allowed them to flourish stagnating and eating away at us. For the long timers that stayed at the Seed this resulted with the implosion of the last core group leaving many people alone and devastated.
After much thought on this subject and on the reasons why I stayed and eventually left the Seed it is becoming more apparent that I always could and had control of my life. It just depended on what I wanted to do with myself and to blame the Seed or peoples manipulation of me during my stay there would only be distortion of the truth. Shit I?ll lie to someone but the one thing I can not do is lie to myself because once I start believing my own lies than I will really be walking on dangerous ground.
Did the Seed manipulate? Yes to a degree.  Was the Seed full of human flaw? Of course it was but to sit here and cry the blues about how the Seed fucked me up that would just be side stepping the issue that in truth I always was acting out of my own free will.  I stayed caused I wanted to and left because I wanted to.

Antigen:
Great posts!

Anon, it's useful to figure out how to deal w/ any situation life hands you, regardless of your own degree of responsibility in having created it. It's just a matter of "well, here I am now, so what do I do about it?" And I think you did the healthiest thing.

But I don't think you can or should think of it as all your fault. It's not asif you're the only sucker to ever get run around by this crowd. By "this crowd" I mean those individuals we knew back when as well as all the other, similar treatment cults.

I don't think it's a distortion of the truth to blame the Seed or peoples manipulation. I think it's a valid aspect of the truth. It would be a distortion to pretend otherwise.

And I don't know where you get the idea anybody's lives are fucked up or that anybody's blaming the Seed for it. Well, actually I have a guess. I think the idea has been stated as hard fact so often around here that it's just accepted as such by some.

In my view, the stepcult has done a lot of damage to my family. To some extent, that was true before the Seed. But the Seed gave my mother a bludgeon where her dad had only the political currency in our family to provide her a snowball.

So what did I do? I did what you did. I walked away. Well, it was a little more complicated than that. I planned and executed an escape, sought help from one of my brothers, went to court and then, just one more intake interview and I was finally free!

And my life's not fucked up. In fact, I'm the only one in the family still w/ the same spouse for nearly 20 years, buying a house, going to soccer games, driving a mini van. Ok, so it does have a bumper sticker that says "Doing my part to piss off the Religious Right". But I remain a soccer mom in a mini van. And happy at it, too. I won't discuss the details, even to settle an argument, because that's personal info about my minor kids and just not appropriate for public fare.

And it's extremely relavent and worth discussing all these years later. While we have all been not discussing the bad side of things, an entire industry has grown up based on the Synanon model.

The Seed was just one little tiny part of that. Right now, politicians and business men are responding to the false perception that juvenile delenquency is steadily on the rise, threatening the future of the nation while Synanon/Stepcraft based treatment is a safe and effective cure for it. They won't even prosecute over deaths in these places most of the time. They don't find the proven cases of hog tying, rapes, medical neglect or other forms of overt child abuse anywhere near as compelling as the "teenager as brutal monster" myth. Can you believe Narconon was providing substance abuse prevention in California public highschools for years before anyone even noticed? Is that a panic response to a non-issue or what?

I think that's bass ackward and it's time those of us who have experience w/ this industry start getting the truth out.

I think a more level headed response the youth problem would be to attend a highschool or college reunion at least once in 10 years. No better remedy to the myths about kids ta day than to spend a weeking w/ everyone who knew you before, during and after your disco year.

All religions have been made by men.
--Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor
--- End quote ---


_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed Chicklett `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
   10/80 - 10/82
Apostate 10/82 -
Anonymity Anonymous

GregFL:
a hard right, then an uppercut.

Two great posts back to back!

 :grin:

jgar:
During the early 80?s the group was much smaller and was divided into two basic divisions. The first group consisted of what I would refer to as the core group these people had been around for years from the early or mid 70?s?? they walked the walk and talked the talk?. The Seed was their life they professed lived breath and slept the Seed philosophy all with the underlying idealism that what was being done at the Seed was the most important thing in the world. People?s lives were being saved by the raps and by the collective example of the old comers. This group had more influence and power due to their experience and time dealing with the politics of the day to day affairs of the group. Most people in this group were the ones that remained until the end.
 
The second group consisted of the newer people who were either recent graduates or people still on their programs. People that went through the program during the 80?s usually once they graduated stuck around for a short period of time and than resumed back to their lives. In the 80?s the group was older most people were in their 20?s or 30?s and most had been around the block once or twice. Some minors still came in but they were few and far between and thank God for that, I always looked at the minors as a major pain in the ass.
   
Since the group was much smaller every one kind of fell into their niche and had their own persona that they would be known for. Some people related very well and were very articulate in the group others were the funny one?s etc. Under the pretense of helping or being part of the good to help people get their lives together was the single most important theme and this was reflected with our attitudes to be all giving, all dedicated and lead by example. For the most part  what was preached was that a job was just a method of making just enough money to be able to do the most important work and that was to save lives.  
   One thing that sticks out in my mind was how the importance of developing close bonds were stress and talked about we were one big family and any person from the Seed was considered special and treated with the up most love and respect (I always related to it as if we were kind of a secret society).  With in this however was a certain distance that was kept between the guys and the girls although we shared great friendships and love, a formal relationship had to be blessed by Staff and of course Art.  (So much for the technical aspects of the Seed).

The emotional aspects were much more complicated and with this being said in a very general and superficial way I can only explain while only able to capture very little of the emotion that I felt at the time. I find it very hard to relate to a Seed that was harsh and unbending and can only conclude that was a Seed of a bygone era. A Seed in its infancy along with a very young staff and group.  
I mostly remember being killed with love by everyone around me. A camaraderie between people I have yet to experience again. When I related in the group being showered with I love you?s. When a new comer came to live at the house how everyone pulled together to help that person out. I remember a very close nit friendship that develop between myself and my original old comers. A genuine happiness to see or spend time with someone else from the Seed. Being able to work with other people from the Seed was to me very Important. It seamed to me that people took the time to get to know me and I took time to get to know the people around me. A never ending collective of experience and knowledge to draw from for guidance and I can go on and on.
 Even though I have criticized some staff or their methodology I still liked and trusted Staff.   They did not always make the right decisions but I felt their heart was in the right place. As for Art Baker although I kept my distance I never felt he was out to use me or anyone for that matter. On many occasions he opened the door for me to be close to him and it was I who shied away.

   The reason I post these things in this particular post is to stress what made it so difficult to leave the Seed. To walk away was probably one of the most difficult decisions I ever had to make.

Antigen:
Ok, so then why would you not stay in touch w/ all those very close, well loved and supportive friends after you left?


I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religion than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
--Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist
--- End quote ---

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