Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Mission Mountain School

Blaire Webbe RIP

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Anonymous:
Thank you so much for your response.  I cried.  I'm so torn up right now with all of this.  Really don't know what to do with myself but write that email, so I know that he'll probably write it off, but I can't just sit by and let it go.  Yeah, I'm definitely one of those people who gets arrested at protests...of this administration.  If I get blown off at least I can say that i tried and my conscious can be clear.  I love all of you so much and so deeply that I really don't give a shit how I'm perceived.  I refuse to be unheard, seriously, it's the least I can do for Blaire and everyone else I was there with, who has been there before, and who is there now.  I was a part of it, and I just can't be any more.  It's gone too far.

Anonymous:
The one above this one is from Liz, and so is this one - but I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to write that email to the guy you suggested.

katfish:
Also, Liz, I'm not sure your aware of this my space group I started- I hope to, in the near future, create a more comprehensive site w/ a friend of mine that attended another program (we both are part of 'A Start'- that's explained on the site) that deals with this issue, but for now my space will have to do.  Check it out...you're not at all alone in your sentiments.  And with enough people willing to be verbal I'm sure something good will come out of it...Thanks again for speaking your mind.

BTW, do you know if Blaire graduated teh program?  Can you tell us about how you saw her MMS experience, like how staff/students treated her?  I know what was e-mailed to me about her by a firend described poor treatment by staff and students who were there with her, but I was curious to hear your take on it. I know what the scapegoat thing is like at MMS, and how if you dont fit the mold you're verbally beat or physically worked until exhausted until you do- I have a picture in my mind what it must have been like for Blaire, but I don't know how accurate it is... And, how about your own experience (if you feel ok talking about it here).  *shrug* I'm nosy...

best- kat

http://groups.myspace.com/EndInstitutio ... ChildAbuse
[ This Message was edited by: katfish on 2005-11-20 14:58 ]

Anonymous:
Hey guys - it's Liz cermak from 01-03 of MMS.  I just sent this letter to John.  I promise to post his response.

John,
    I need to express some things to you about my experience at MMS, and I need you to respect me and not write me off.  First of all - I'm doing really well.  I just celebrated four years of sobriety on Aug. 30 of this year, and I've now been with my boyfriend for 2 years next month.  Life is beyond what I ever thought it could be.  So don't write me off as one of the "bad" alumni.
    Blaire's death has spurred me to really reflect on some of the methods employed at the school.  I'm desperately confused because I know that I would not be where I am today if I had not been put some where, but I also am aware that some of the rules and ways that we were treated are against the law.  No where, in any part of any legislation, are the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights taken away from citizens who are not convicted felons.  They were taken away from us while at MMS.
    The tactics used to influence psychological and social change in us were cruel.  I lost all sense of who I was John.  Every part of my personality that I liked got squashed because I was afraid they were bad and I'd get punished.  But the truth is that I am rebellious.  I am loud.  I like to express my sexuality in ways that make me feel good about myself.  I'm smart and sophisticated.  I like to do crazy things like dance in a fountain at a party.  I sponsor people.  I am sponsored.  I have worked the 12 steps as they are outlined in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  People describe me as being naturally high and drunk.  My nick name is Granola Barbie.  I am willing to get arrested for a cause I believe in, and there is nothing wrong with that.  You telling me that something was wrong with elements of my personality killed me inside.  Everything I knew and cherished about my spirit and soul was a "negative and old" behavior.  I'm not your perfect girl.  What do you get out of humiliating us?  Isn't there a better way to get Lauren Trick to see that she can be apart of the group than to make her run around us in a circle, repeating some line over and over while sobbing and struggling for breath outside in -15 degree weather?  Two people got severe frostbite while we were standing out there.  Lauren was crying, she was completely and incomprehensibly demoralized, and not as a result of the way that she was governing her life, but because of a personality trait - defect of character - that she didn't know better than to depend on.  We could have just given her hugs.  We could have just held her.  We could have celebrated who she was instead of telling her that she was bad.  Treated her like she had cancer rather than like she had leprosy.  
    And as for me, I remember a particular incidence where we did a 23-24 mile bike ride up the mountain with huge rocks that symbolized our "core issues."  I made it up to the top 5th, I think, and was really proud of myself for my accomplishment because I hadn't stopped to rest once since we started.  I hadn't stopped moving my legs.  I fell off my bike once because it hit a rock or something, but I jumped right back on and kept going.  That's how I define success - getting back up when you fall.  Yet when you asked those of us who had come all the way up without stopping to place our rocks toward the center of the circle (which I did), and then asked us all to share our experience, I mentioned falling and getting right back up.  You stopped me.  Told me to put the rock back in my lap because falling counted as stopping.  I had failed.  I couldn't put my rock up on the hill.  Obviously, because I had fallen and gotten right back up, I wasn't ready to let go of the issue my rock represented.  Right.
    WAKE UP.  How do you define success?  I'm actually really curious.  Anyway, just so you know, later on that summer we did the same bike ride without the rocks and I made it to the top without falling or stopping.  I did it perfect like you wanted me to.  So I went down and got my rock out of the ash where all of us who  had failed last time had thrown them, and I put it up on the hill with all the people who had succeeded last time.  Yet I felt guilty for doing that.  Do you understand how terrible it is to feel guilty about the most central aspects of your experiences of self, basic consciousness, reality, world view, moral code, emotional control, and personality?  To feel powerless while being subjected to intense and frequent actions/situations that undermine your confidence in yourself and your judgment?  This intense feeling of guilt I just described is the mark of an MMS alumni.  How can you be proud of that, let that continue, and meanwhile claim that you practice the 12 steps in your daily life?  Love and tolerance is our code.  

Pg. 96 of the Big Book-  
"Do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once.  Search out another alcoholic and try again.  You are sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer.  We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you.  If you leaves such a person alone, he may soon recover by himself.  To spend too much time on any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic an opportunity to live and be happy."

Why did you keep chasing Blaire?  Chasing someone and driving them down until they question every single thought and feeling is not helping them.  I had to get to the point where I accepted help on my own terms, John.  I was just lucky because I had that bottom before I came to MMS.  Most of the girls there were and are not ready.  Provide them with the opportunity to say whatever they want.  People need to discuss their anger and hatred, even towards you and/or the school.  If you prohibit that than you're really just doing the same thing as the dictators of the world on a small scale.  It's George Orwell's 1984 in the middle of Montana.  I had my sponsor on my resentment list just because as my sponsor she had authority over me.  The resentment doesn't make sense, but I feel it and therefore it is my reality.  Read Foucault - he's a genius French philosopher.  Not everyone fits into and agrees with your paradigm.  I'm glad it works for you, seriously, and I'd like to think you have good intentions.  I just wanted to tell you that the methods you are using are counterproductive and currently blowing up in your face.  If you want to help people you need to take some inventory of your methods.
    So thank you for your time.  I hope change starts to happen, and I do intend to become active in pursuing regulation and reforms for institutions like MMS.  Respect and reflect on my opinions John - I'm not a drugged out little kid any more, and I deserve to be treated like the adult I'm becoming.  

- Liz Cermak
[email protected]

katfish:
funny you should mention Foucalt- i recently wrote a paper drawing comparisons from John's domination and use of physical coercion, terror, space and time to control us.

Well written, liz.  awesome!

BTW, nothing against AA, but i think that there is something inherent in AA's methods- mostly the fear element, and the 'one way- only way' toward 'recovery' that allows John's (and other's) methods to flourish in our society.  Of course, he is not practicing tolerance as AA prescribes, though- he's practicing force.

An interesting stat I came across is that AA/NA and abstinence only programs work on about 10-12% of youth.  And most people, adults and kids alike, can use moderately, even after having used excessively at one point in their lives.  Of course, that's not everyone, but AA pushes  only abstinence and really is the most popular programs out there, so the reality is probably hidden from most problem drinkers/druggers. In very much the MMS way, they push the fear element, like you every touch a drink your inches away from ending up in jail, insane etc. so you must stop completely, and that's simply not the case for most.  For me, who was told by MMS I was an alchi and went to AA religoiusly after MMS, it instilled this idea (that began at MMS) that I was crazy and this total drunk, so when I relapsed I would not only beat myself up, but act the part and go insane- does that make sense?  I didn't realize that mostly people need to just deal with the issues that are forcing them to rely on booze/drugs to get through their lives.  Figuring out, 1. that I was never this out of control boozer who would never be able to handle a drink responsiblly and 2. that I have underlining issues to deal with, some of which came up from having had to endure John's mistreatment has been a huge relief in my life.  Huge!  I can't even tell you how much freer I feel from the chains of misinformation and fear.  That's not to say everyone, like you Liz, can drink moderatly again or AA does work for some, but it's just yet another thing that I found to mess with my own head that began at MMS and has since been studies and determinged to not be a very effective model to use on kids.

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