A good journalist will interview the people they need to and they will visit the places they feel they must go; read what they feel is pertinent or what takes them perhaps in a "different direction" from their departure in SERVICE (yes SERVICE) to a story....
Life effects ALL kinds of people; not just W.A.S.P.s (it cannot be READ another way, sorry) (White Anglo Saxon Protestants). The acronym itself is terribly inappropriate and very uncaring towards the rest of our human race.
There is no way to be "open" and "shut down" at the same time but "total open-ness" can lead to "madness" in some.
I have met "survivors" from the Elan program in the 70's and 80's and of them, only one articulate woman was Pro-Elan and she was she said "ambiguous" she simply couldn't say (think of this) that her father would have been better; as she said he was so physically abusive, so controlling, and her homelife so unbearable, she could deal with Elan, only NOT her guilt, her OWN CONSCIENCE at what she witnessed happen to OTHERS and CANNOT FORGET.
So, she says, it was hard to say "good or bad" but she knows it made her lose "college" and was earning a degree when she died in her early forties (some know her, and she chatted with me, we talked about "safe things" I think, her kids, my work, she was...like a friend, really) of pancreatic cancer.
At this date, another important witness/survivor has gone missing and it was heartwrenching. She called me, because she was scared of winding up "on the street" and if you see her work you'll realize she's a brilliant young artist; and yet, she says she has "lost time" from Elan (Prototype for what I read of Tranquility Bay...very very similar....ask Ginger, there is a "program" that's words change, but NOT "The Game" or "Concept" or whatever it is called...) "lost time" for her is PTSD amnesia; and worse.
I don't think it's easy to face; I think..it's NECESSARY that SOME DO so that the world can know.
I suggest anyone that has had SOMETHING to do with these groups begin to DISTANCE THEMSELVES from their LEADERS and their HELPERS and to speak to therapists specializing in the area..
Parents, and KIDS, you can learn A LOT on your own or with a group-- possibly here at Fornits, you can start a site, go to P.U.R.E. for the "testimonials" and read them, visit the Elan Survivor's Site by David Hirsh and READ the harrowing stories there!
Learn from your kids instead of being scared of them or for them who they are and what and accept it. That is today. Condemning makes a person shut down and only open up under "duress." Think abou this. A confession under stress is not even admissable (in the past) in our courts. That is because people aren't saying what they feel --they are PLEASING the one that is SCARING or OPPRESSING THEM... or trying and may even tell lies about themselves to please, sad as that is. Our justices don't allow this, thankfully.
Everyone NEEDS some PRIVACY. Even just a little bit.
It doesn't start with a group of controlling personalities... I promise!!! The person I am working with has been doing a graduate course in counselling and nowadays it's about "respecting client boundaries" and "listening." That is the opposite of what was offered evidentially and anecdotally (they were closed no?) at Tranquility Bay, Straights, Elan etc.
Don't tell me I do not know. I have been through some coercive programs myself; a Southern Baptist Church School that had given me early onset anxiety disorders (undiagnosed till I grew up), made me "antisocial" (yes, MADE ME, I am better now, not antisocial, but the anxiety is a lifelong misery sadly...like permanent PTSD which is common,I am finding)...helped me to be frightened, to dwell on life as full of PROBLEMS only our PASTOR seemed to have a handle on.
His world view was utterly upside down for me and unsettling my mind drained me of my soul. I had sleepless nights, cried myself to sleep, started sleeping in my closet with my sleeping bag like my early childhood blanket, and would NOT TELL MY MOM about the "abuse" the "coercion" which had me questioning my beliefs and scared my Mother would burn in hell...(in this instance)...not the same?
No and Yes. I learned to be unsettled, depressed, and to say different things than what I truly felt for "The group" that was going to be "saved." I promise. I didn't know what to do and I wanted to DIE but couldn't believe and do not in suicide.To this day, I have a "pronounced panic disorder."
Before then, I was mildly anxious but after I was sick with depression as well as anxiety, my phobias became manifold, I developed a fear of human touch, lost the ability to "love" for years functioning as a zombie with the words of the church always in my head like a hypnotic spell I was SCARED of breaking; scared of breaking the stream of "save me, make me go to heaven" in my head...which I repeated, repeated, repeated, unable to enjoy anything--fireworks, a carnival...this is what extreme brainwashing does, and it can do worse.
:skull:
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
--Thomas Paine
