A few months back I really wanted some kind of validation about my post-Seed experience. I wanted to know if the problems I have experienced over the years were common to others, or if perhaps, I was just a nut-ball. Problems like sleeplessness, body pain with no apparent physical cause, depressive episodes, compulsive behavior like ordering and counting, inability to form lasting attachments with other persons, and general fearfulness. I can honestly state that none of these problems existed before I was put into The Seed program at age 15. I was a happy, healthy, fairly well-adjusted person with friends, interests and ideas about my future.
I have kept all of this weirdness, as much as I could, to myself. Probably it really wasn?t a secret at all to anyone who knew me or cared. But I sure wasn?t going to make admissions or seek help because as far as I knew, the consequences would be dire? another treatment program of some kind or other. Afterall, under current theories, there is nothing that can?t be accomplished using the 12 steps. I did seek medical help back in 1994 from a doctor I trusted. He perscribed a course of anti-depressants and talk therapy. I took the drugs but refused the talk therapy.
Some here will say, yeah, you are just a nut ball so get over it. But despite that, I have not been deterred in my desire to locate something ? anything, that would tell me one way or the other where I was on the spectrum of human behavior and help me understand how I got so side-tracked.
I have spent as good bit of time the past few months searching the university medical school databases of psychiatric, psychological, and addictions/treatment publications looking for articles and/or studies that would identify, measure or somehow quantify the long term effects that behavior modification programming might have on persons who, for lack of a better term, had no pre-existing behavior problems that required modification.
But guess what ? I'm having zero luck. I won?t say emphatically that there are no such studies ?but I am sure not finding them.
Instead what I find is a vast quantity of information that proves behavior modification techniques produce results. So, I have only been able to confirm what we already know - this stuff works.
Unfortunately, just as you stated Greg, more often than not the users/facillitators have no freaking idea what it is they are doing. Nor, does it seem, that professionals in the field(physicians or lesser individuals)care or even consider the long-term effects of improper application and use of these techniques.
Obviously it's too late for so many of us 30 and 40+ year olds to have our experience "officially" documented and the long-term effects of the treatment modality measured.
Proof of any damage is only anecdotal at best. And with that, the loving supporters of the TC community merely tell me that perhaps I was that way to begin with, or, in other kind words, to get over it. Neither response though addresses the issue and both are especially galling because of the dismissive nature.
Maybe it?s time to call the experience what it is: Torture.
I have attached a link to some articles published by the Minnesota Medical Association. Read through the articles.
Certainly I am not advocating a position that lessens or belittles what happened to the victims that our society and government recognize as ?legitimate? or ?real? torture victims.
Instead, look to the coercive acts imposed on people and the damage caused to them.
Do any of the after-affects of torture look familiar to you? I see them described here in these pages all the time. I've lived them for years.
http://www.cvt.org/main.php/Research/JournalArticlesOn a more positive note, so many of my weird behaviors have dissipated and simply gone away once I began to understand the roots of my problems - that they started when I turned agaist myself, lied about myself to others and denied my true character so that I could get out of the Seed. I took those lies to heart and believed them for years. I especially want to note here that Marcwordsmith's article has been a god send in that respect. I think reading that really was a turning point for me.
I only got better when I stopped believing the lies and stopped "working the program".
I credit this forum, the moderators and and all of the participants with helping me overcome these problems. The knowledge shared, the understanding, kindness, compassion and yes, even the criticism that has come my way has been a lifesaver.
Thanks to you all.
