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

the seed indeed is all you need to get off the junk and the

(1/2) > >>

Jimmy Cusick:
Ah yes, those were the days. July1st 1974 and my life was about to change. I didnt fit into my world and the seed took me under there arms and loved me. I was such an oddball that I was completly alone, I had grown up in an alcoholic family and at age 15 I was taking any drugs I could get my hands on to kill the emotional pain. In the high school that I was going to there were 3 groups, the jocks, the nurds and the freaks. Im sorry to say that I was such an outcast I wasnt even accepted into the "freaks" (druggies). I was overwhelmed with fears and extremely low self-esteem and my parents were incapable of being present(emotionally) to help me. I was suicidal and my parents put me in a mental hospital and then  brought me to the seed in Ft. Lauderdale. The truth is the seed saved my life and I thank them for that. Its true that the seed was a "cult", Art Barker was a strange charachter and the seed had its problems. In retrospect we were brainwashed but maybe I needed it at the time. In my prior writings I put down the seed and in a few short months I have forgiven art and all the staff. My resentments have transformed into appreciation for the acceptance that I experienced for !4 months and 17 days in the big white seed on Highway 84. Its true that you went with the program or you got reamed but I had no values or principles and I sat in rap session after rap session after rap session talking about the same things over and over until it sank in. I really did feel like I wasnt alone anymore and felt like a part of a large group of special people that were going to change the world for the better. I rebounded and did well in school and stayed clean and sober for 5 years. Those were the best days of my life. As of now I have been unable to experience the spirituality that I discovered in my teenage years in the seed, thats because I am alone in a violent world where people dont care about each other. The seed was cool. The seed ruled my life and I am alive today  as a result

GregFL:
Jimmy, sorry to hear things are bad for you know.  As for forgiving Art and the Staff, that is certainly the right thing to do.  

I hate to think that you are feeling that alone right now that you long for the acceptance you had way back then, and if you need someone to talk to  you can email me at [email protected] with your phone number and I will call you.

cleveland:
Hey Jimmie, if I've learned anything it's that life is a process. I hope things work out for you. It's true, I gained from my Seed experience too, and I also came from a radically disfunctional family. The Seed was far from perfect but that's what life put on my path at that time. I don't think they had all the answers for me then and certainly not now, but we have to play the hand we're dealt and learn from it all. I have really enjoyed your posts and I hope you can connect with yourself and feel good about everything. Those of us from violent, abusive or crazy families will always have some tough times in our path but we learn and it can make us better too. Good luck and I hope you know that your postings here have contributed to my self-understanding and others I am sure too.

Tony Stark:
With the aide of psypatropics to keep my brain alive. I screwed up when I joined the Navy. Got a 3.8 grade average in communications school though. All on acid. I got it from my section leader. Now I wish I'd never been born. :smokin:
...it is worth discussing radical changes, not in the expectation that they will be adopted promptly but for two other reasons. One is to construct an ideal goal, so that incremental changes can be judged by whether they move the institutional structure toward or away from that ideal. The other reason is very different. It is so that if a crisis requiring or facilitating radical change does arise, alternatives will be available that have been carefully developed and fully explored."

Milton Friedman
--- End quote ---

Stripe:
It's a hard thing, what we are all trying to do.  Reconcile what we learned, for those who believe it was a positive experience - or were programmed with, for those who see the experience as less than positive ...Reconclie what we learned with our lives as we have lived them up to this point.  

I'm still tyring to understand the effect of those teachings on my choices. But I do know, without a doubt, I was never a worthless person - none of us were, no matter what a person did before they were sent through that door. And for sure, no one is worthless now. No soul that has ever existed is a worthless piece of shit, no matter what they did to themselves or someone else.    "Worthless, gonna die, never amount to anything ..." The common mantras for those who were strong and could resist or perhaps were hesitant to fully embrace the teachinhgs or comply.  Who wouldn't have problems from all tis?

Certainly I have friends I made there who, without it, their lives might have been worse. However, you can only have so much continous conflict, failure, insecureity or uncertainty before you have stop and look for the absolute root cause.  There are no inherently defective souls.

I think my life was worse because of what happened to me when I was there.  But I know each one of us struggles with this.  I surely don't know the answer.  I wish I could be normal and not have to bend my mind around these things now. But I do know I don't want the next thirty years to be like the last thiry years.  So, if I'm grateful for anything today, its to know that I'm not alone in this journey.  It doesn't matter to me what side of the issue a person is on, the fact is, it's a journey.

Maybe for folks who didn't have families, the positive aspects of honesty (not mantra but real honesty) and commitment helped them  to have what their parents and families couldn't give them.  I hope so.

But stil, there's that sense of sadness that seems to permiate my life - even in the face of my many successes.  

I guess in the end, Jimmy, you are not alone at all. Not alone at all.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page