sociopath / borderline / narcissist

[try another castle]

The holy triumvirate of personality disorders.

A lot of us survivors suffer from, at the very least, tendencies of one or more of these. Years ago, I flew into a borderline rage and sliced my face up with a razor. (sounds worse than it really was, actually.). I will often have narcissistic thoughts along the lines of "I am the only one in this class who is having difficulty." "I am the only one who has these kinds of problems or feelings." Basically, anything that starts with "I am the only one." Other times, people turn into my reflection. Reflect back onto me. I'm reading you how you read me. me me me me me. Fortunately, I am getting much better about identifying these thought patterns and perceptions. Cognitive behavioral therapy is essential for my sanity.

And by the way, have you ever noticed that when us survivors get together and chat, we are constantly interrupting each other? (I think it's kind of cute, actually.) I often wonder if anyone is listening to anyone else! (My family is just as bad, we are a bunch of narcissists. We're essentially all sitting at the table talking to ourselves.)

I have been thinking about what is inherent in the program that would make us vulnerable to these particular disorders, and I have to consider the common factors that cross the span of all personality disorders.

A narcissist views another person as their mirror.

A  borderline views another person in a two dimensional sense. They are either "all good" or "all bad". On your good list, or on your shit list.

A sociopath views another person as an object who they can manipulate and control.

In all cases, other people are not viewed as people. They are viewed as an extension of yourself, and not in possession of their own sentience or autonomy. You don't have to have empathy, because they only exist in relation to you.

How would otherwise normal kids suddenly come to believe these things?

Our peers, friends, essentially anyone who wasn't us, had to become non-persons. Because continuing to view them as their own selves with their own feelings would make indicting them in raps, policing them, doing horrible things to them in propheets/workshops, and ratting on them pretty fucking unbearable.

Does anyone remember the rap exercise where we target someone sitting across the room and we just run our shit at them? Even though it has nothing to do with them? Instead, they are our mother, or child molester uncle, or our negative thinking. How fucking pathological is that? We had to use another human being as a fucking emotional dartboard. They stop being them, they are part of you.


Ginger and I have both commented that we are surprised there hasn't been a famous serial killer discovered yet who went to a TBS. I said "Just you wait. Serial pattens often take years to decipher by the authorities. I'm willing to bet that not only do we have one, we probably have several."

[Anonymous]

my god you're a scary freak

[try another castle]

my god you're a scary freak

You have no idea.


bwa ha

bwa ha

bwa ha... ha

[Anonymous]

dude, that was incredibly insightful.

narcissist, borderline, sociopath, very informative.  i have indeed been each of those for various amounts of time since i 'graduated'.    i didn't realize how sociopathic i have been, in fact.

i think you are right.  i think they were sociopaths and they trained us to think like sociopaths.

a lot of religions, christianity, gurus for example, also present the world as a reflection of one's self.  they say, 'what is happening to you is a resulf of something you have done, good or bad, it is something you deserve, some sort of retribution'  even self help says, 'you draw the people into your life that will abuse and hurt you because thats what you feel familiar with' but these to me just reinforce those ideas about people not being other people, they are just extentions of our own psyches.

philosophers still are unable to prove the existance of another, only the existance of self.

so i can see how easy it is to be confused, the only real evidence of these narcissistic, borderline, and sociopathic ideas and patters is actually having relationships, intimate ongoing relationships with other people.

but that is the one thing it seems they really got in me...  my boyfriend is the first person i have really trusted since then.  it took me 15 years to trust another person.  i even thought i trusted my parents (i always knew they made a mistake, and avoided telling them the truth about cedu because of how angry and sad it made them to hear about it, but my dad has a brain tumor and may not live much longer, so i lost it and had a nervous breakdown, and now my mom knows a lot more, and is really helping me...  i know not everyone here has parents that are behind them, and it makes me so angry i want to go to your parents' house and stick up for you.) but i didnt trust them at all.  

i had to learn that trust means telling people how you really feel even if it isn't in line with whatever ideal i am trying to live by at the time.

it means being honest, the way cedu taught us to be honest, and then raped us, but the same way a rape victim needs to learn to use that same genetalia to have sex with throughout the rest of their life, never being issues a new set or a way to wipe those memories off, its the same me that is being honest now as it was at cedu when they took my entire life and ran it through their machine and i came out grade A slut at the other end...  the same me that felt and lived the same life that they twisted and distorted in my mind to mean something it never meant.

and its still me only life.  i am still my only me.  this is still my only vagina.  so no wonder people kill themselves, but i am grateful that i am alive.  i do want to live and i do want to grow, you dumb ass hole mother fuckers, and i will, without your DAMNED sound track.  fuckers.  fucking mother fucking ass hole mother fuckers.  may they all forget their own names and accidentally spend the rest of their lives as servants of society.

[Anonymous]

Hard for me to imagine you as a sociopath, narcissist, or borderline, but I tend to be, believe it or not, a total Pollyanna about such things.

But I did want to say that reading your posts re-ignited a lot of feeling and anger in me.  When I first found Fornits in 2004, I was a stay at home Mom and grad student.  On the computer all the time, devouring this site like a gluttonous pig.... it was the first time, you see, in 17 years I ever found an outlet for this experience.

Then, like eating a big Thanksgiving dinner, I was over-sated. Took a long long break. I was done to the point of apathy.

Any way, checked in from time to time. And reading your posts was like getting my heart wrenched out. So fucking raw and candid. I mean there's rage, but so many of us go to rage rather than to the hurt place. That humiliated, helpless place.  Its courageous of you.

And reading Auntie Em, was  gratifying. To see an adult who gets it.... but hard, too, because you want to arrange a Mobile Guerrilla Task Force to get her niece out of the program... and I know, as aware as Auntie Em is, her niece will probably leave the place KoolAid laden, like we all were.

I just wish more parents made the connection. That they weren't so desperate they couldn't see ...  

I read one of our poster's parent's letters before she sent him away, and it was so upsetting to read not only the mind-set of a parent about to ship off her child, but the hope. The steadfast belief that this was the best, only option.  And 20 years later... what is the result? He's not here 'cause it was the most edifying experience of his life.

It just breaks my heart sometimes. And now I teach students the same age I was, and I wonder... what will happen to them, too. The independent minded ones? The creative spirits? The ones know one understands?

It just about killed me to find out two were being sent to TBSes. I tried to the greatest extent possible, without getting fired, to urge them to read all the web sites related.... knowing these programs were on the watch list. But with Jesus in its Mission Statement, it was all for naught.

[try another castle]

Hard for me to imagine you as a sociopath, narcissist, or borderline, but I tend to be, believe it or not, a total Pollyanna about such things.

Fortunately, my doctor, therapist and I agree that I have none of those disorders. However, I do exhibit tendencies. Everyone does, to some extent.

I sometimes wonder if the severity of our pathology is directly proportional to our transgressions against others while we were detained. It's one thing to be abused. When you are forced to take part in the abuse against another person, that fucks you up on a whole other level.

[Psianide]

Very insightful.

Yes, CEDU was quite adept at focusing our attention inward all the time and enforcing a solipsist  world view. Ex Cedu serial killers wouldn't surprise me either given the emphasis, although I tend to believe that a certain amount "nature" (ie heritable or developmental physiological abnormality) is necessary to produce one.

More commonly seen though, are ex-CEDU people who kill themselves, or overdose on drugs by accident.  My guess is that at most of us know at least one.  They used to talk a lot about this phenomenon when I was in... how some of us wouldn't be able to stay with our...(insert tool here)... and would inevitably die young.

Now I realize it was because the were programming us to become even more alienated from humanity than we were before.

[Anonymous]

why did they do this to us?

was it really just to make a buck?

a fucking buck.  our souls.  good trade.  14 years old.  lets eat them.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it was all just to make a buck. I think there are certain personalities that are so tweaked they need a heightened sense of power and importance to feel alive, validated, important...

Do you remember how many new staff came in, and had to be inducted the same way we were, except it was VOLUNTARY? They were empty inside and craved belonging, wanted to feel like they were part of something transcendently singular and special?  They wanted all of their senses engaged and heightened, seeking ONE TRUE THING. They wanted a guru, a philosophy, a way of life, vindication, and absolution...  

The Power Staff got off on being Master gurus, drunk on power, self importance, and a conviction that they were doing Something Important. But the Cave can only exist in insularity. That's what makes it "special." It is also crucial that Outside values/influences/and reality be shut out.

[dishdutyfugitive]

you hit it on the head.

[Anonymous]

yeah, we gotta do the movie.

[Psianide]

why did they do this to us?

was it really just to make a buck?

a fucking buck.  our souls.  good trade.  14 years old.  lets eat them.

In the case of the management (Mel, the brown schools, etc.) i think the answer is clearly yes. In the case of most of the staff, I think either power/sadistic pleasure, or delusional good intensions.

I went the houses of Glenn Sutton and Lori Rist  while I was in, and they certainly weren't living large, even as team leader and program director. All the money our parents pumped into that system went straight to the top.  

Mel might have had his own dilusional christ complex (he was a cult member after all) but I think its more likely that he just wanted to play god, run a lot of peoples world view, and make lots of money in the process. What I can't figure is how he kept the staff brainwashed enough to stay loyal to him.

But I never met Mel or saw anyone intereract with him so this is all legend to me.

[Anonymous]

i met mel, he was the emptiest man i ever met, i never saw anyone so pitiful. i wanted to hate him and could only pity him.  very uneasy memory.

[dishdutyfugitive]

I saw him roll through RMA campus around 89'.

I've already posted in great detail about what a douche bag he was.

[try another castle]

Something that just hit me. One of the most obscure and difficult Summit "tools" for me to wrap my brain around was the saying "I am responsible for what I see." I was like "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?  Does that mean that if someone fucks up in front of me, that is somehow my responsibility? Does it mean that I am responsible for my own perceptions?" Oh, shit, I just saw a person get run over by a car, it's my fault I saw that. So I thought about it more, and it fits right into CEDU's solipsist viewpoint. What you see is a result of you and you alone. It is a reflection of you.

The other one I had problems with was the saying "End results equal original intentions." I kept asking Carmen what this meant, and instead of explaining it to me, she just kept repeating it back to me, s.l.o.w.l.y., as if I was some retard who would be able to grasp the meaning if it was just repeated to me over and over. As IF anyone had control over the consequences and effects of every single action they take. "Well, if this happened, it was obviously because you wanted it to." I am sure this goes over real well with rape survivors. And again, it feeds into solipsism. It's your world, and only you can control it. If it happened, it's because you wished it so.

I saw him roll through RMA campus around 89'.

I've already posted in great detail about what a douche bag he was.

Yeah, in that fucking jaguar of his, with his coke-head wife Brigette. I remember she came up and hugged me while I was out building that ridiculous rock wall when I was on my full-time punishment in voyageurs. I had no idea who she was, and I kind of freaked out, since we weren't supposed to hug, smile, sing, or laugh on full-times. I was thinking to myself "who the fuck are you, and why are you getting me dirty? Now I'm going to have to cop to this." She said "It's okay, I am allowed to hug you."

Jeez, those two. The loser square gamers who were so starving to belong to something, they voluntarily checked themselves into a drug rehab cult, even though they didn't have any substance abuse problems at the time. One of these days we will find out what the fuck that was all about. All I know was that the Synanon square gamers got a much harder time than the regular gamers, because they really didn't "need" to be there. I honestly don't know for certain if they *were* square gamers, since nobody can seem to get a straight story about what role they both played at synanon. I just remember someone from the old guard coming into the forum and talking about it. Don't  bother looking, the search function is hosed.

I came up with a limerick about Mel when I was there. It was right after the tuition had been raised, and some of the parents had apparently let the kids know about it, so that info spread around school like wildfire. The only thing that seemed to spread just as fast was my limerick. The day after I said it to about seven people in a van on the way home from a day trip, pretty much everyone in the school knew about it.

There once was a guy named Mel
Whose jaguar was being shot to hell
So he raised the tuition
Without the parent's permission
And now his jaguar's doing very well

Needless to say, I got talked to in a rap about it. By Caroline. She didn't even raise her voice, which surprised the hell out of me. She just shamed me with a few sentences about how it was surprising that I would make a joke like that, since I was friends with his daughter, Stacy. With Caroline, that is an official rap pass.

I was lucky in that Caroline really didn't fuck with me too much after voyageurs. Not sure why, but I'm certainly not complaining. If I were to speculate, I think it was because 1. She really wasn't too fond of me, and 2. Stacy kind of took me under her wing when I moved up to Discovery, and if there was one staff Caroline did NOT fuck with, it was Stacy. I dunno if she was intimidated by her, but I rarely, if ever, saw those two interact. They were never in a family together, they never ran a propheet together, and I don't think they ever ran a rap together as power/support. Probably because neither would even think of playing second fiddle to the other. They were both alpha dogs, so they stayed clear of each other. You have your kids and I'll have mine.

One huge thing that really bugs me about Stacy is that in my opinion, she was probably one of the most intelligent staff there. I mean, really, she should have known better. Dana, too. They were both pretty fucking sharp. I'm not even willing to give her clearance because she grew up with that pusbag of a human for a father. (If memory serves, she lived with her mother for the most part while she was growing up.) She just seemed smart enough to transcend all of that shit. I remember by the time I graduated in Dec. 89, it was right when she got married, and took some time off from the school (at least that was how I remembered it). At that point, she seemed somewhat disillusioned by the program. But she came back, and eventually headed up ascent, which was probably one of the most abusive aspects of the 90s era Idaho schools.