CEDU should make amends

[blownawaytheidahoway]

Why is it that people say that the more time that has passed between exiting CEDU ed. and the present is equal to how "over it" we should be?

I think it works in the opposite way. For example, I have noticed in my observations of the quite elderly that there seems to be an increased interest in religious scripture. Naturally as one gets realistically close to death, one feels the need to read up on what thousands of years of spirituality has to say on the subject. In this way I now feel as I get closer to slaying the dragon inside of my mind labled CEDU, a dragon with a million scales covering it. Each peice of armor has "I can't", or "You Suck", or "Failure" inscribed on it. I find that the dragon grows larger as I grow closer. It takes up more room inside me than I ever really knew. There were times within my first year of leaving RMA that I suspected what I was going through was singular to people who had experienced what I went through. But I got lost trying to catch up and relearn how communication and relationships worked, were founded and continued outside of the CEDU model. I was thankfully distracted for TEN YEARS.
But why was I so emotional all the time? Had I forgotten that first year or so being "out" of RMA. A friggin' basket case, an emotional mass with the same metaphorical reaction of silly putty to newspaper. Tears and anger, and confusion and sadness, battled with shame and self hatred...I needed raps. I needed to hear what a dick I was, and be in the hotspot and finally to express my negativity. I needed to punch things and scream! I was pissed and very scared/alone. Why, it was like I felt when I first arrived at CEDU. The whole first 6mos- year.
     Do you honestly believe that CEDU ed builds your 'positivity' up? WHY would I miss the abusive raps? To hear again what was wrong with me. To hear again how hopeless I was and how I would be a crumpled defeated mass without RMA? I had gotten so used to it at RMA, I created my own tape to play the constant screaming of my thinking whether I was feeling 'good' or 'bad'. If I was feeling good, bad was not far behind with a flaming paper bag full of shit...
    Now, I know it's killing me. Literally thousands of messages have been playing in my head since RMA. At first there were some very arrogant ones about how noone knew anything about LIFE. About why they do what they do. I was so smart, so sure of my knowledge that these unenlightened hairless monkeys knew nothing of their reactions to jobs, family, love, fear, and 'agreement'. But it didn't last, because I didn't have the program anymore...all I had the expectation that I had been miraculously lifted up to fly!!!
It was bullshit. As soon as I understood CEDU's positive messages about how strong and FREE we were, my wings would be clipped with more psychological mumbo jumbo. More breaking down and more FEEL BAD mojo. There, there was a culture on inexpectation. You get used to your stomach flipping every MonWedFri at 1pm. Time to face the firing squad! And don't you people remember the unexpected rewards! Like I said before, I didn't really realize how screwed up the whole thing was... It didn't take long to be more of an asshole than I was before going to CEDU to try to cover up some of this new found abandonment. This new facade, and vision of the future that CEDU trys to endure. I had been lifted up where I thought was proud and beautiful, only to find that I was chipped, mangy, and very, very, alone.

[Anonymous]

Exactly - and so well said

[mikehunt]

and you're more "over it" now than you were when you first got out, right?

[blownawaytheidahoway]

On 2004-11-16 12:40:00, mikehunt wrote:

"and you're more "over it" now than you were when you first got out, right?


"

How could I have given you that impression?
The more time that passes, the more I can attribute certain experiences to reacting to my CEDU identity.
I'm just trying to purge this and it seems that the more I understand about method and reaction the more I can rewire myself for happiness and control. I'm trying to feel better about the experience. I know there is a silver lining to this pounding pillow. Maybe I can beat it out.

[mikehunt]

what's your definition of getting "over" something?
read your last 2 paragraphs again... perhaps you'll see what i'm talking about.
it sounds like you were wrapped up in yourself and your masochistic inclinations (thanks to cedu) and that you gradually pulled yourself out of it... not that you've necessarily completed this task, but it's clearly something you've recognized and tried to combat.
you had an existential dilemma and consequently rejected what you'd previously accepted and believed to be true.
acknowledgement is the first step of such progression.
you then set out on a path to find something new, and the further you walk down that path, the further you are from cedu and that mentality.... also, the further you get from the source, you more you're prone to realize the parts of yourself that are still coherent with it.  you can then renounce them too to liberate yourself.
if that's not getting "over it", then i'm not really sure what is.
(by the way, i think you're expecting that you should be completely "over it" at this point, hence your statement about "being over it"... i think that you're focusing too much on the end result and not enough on your progress.  well, you usually don't just wake up one morning like "ok, i'm over it now"; it's something you work toward... it's a process.  when we get too wrapped up in where we should be, we lose touch with where we actually are and what's really important, and consequently, we end up hating our lives... life is much more beautiful when you're fulfilled by the present moment rather than reaching toward the future.
also, take into consideration that everybody is on a different path, and so your progress looks a lot different from anybody else's.)
_________________
laura solomon[ This Message was edited by: mikehunt on 2004-11-16 13:49 ]

[Anonymous]

:skull:  :skull:  :skull:
 :tup:  :tup:  :tup:

[blownawaytheidahoway]

Tinker worse than ancient Egyptians did brain surgery. What do you think will happen if you put troubled kids from predominently affluent families in with men and women from bizarre backgrounds who were paid to make these depressed or spoiled kids with self confidence problems feel worse about themselves? Do you really believe that these "counselors" felt good about themselves? Did my parents think I was getting assisted by these people in issues in BUILDING self confidence and independance? YES. Instead they often send a extra ordinarily self assured, and at least independant kid off, and years later he is need of the same kind of structured environment...or the opposite. All I know for sure is when I was there the "counselors" had no trainging other than the program itself and it's influence done by older staffers. The few that appeared to have a degree in pschology either left soon after starting work, or thought that this fanatical approach to regression was the be all of every problem. It was crank. CEDU therapy dinkered with the most essential parts of our ego- super ego. If Wilhelm Reich were alive he'd be all over this shit. We have no organization to study the effects of our therapy. And it would be impossible anyway to do that kind of specific research, but I'll bet my last dollar that you can prove that Raps/Propheets handled the way they were done until WWASP bought CEDU (and afterwords, I'd venture too) that it did NO good, and in MOST cases, "CEDU therapy" done by non counselors DID more HARM!

Yelling and screaming at kids with ranging behavioral issues to do nothing but exact auto-emotional responses for the satisfaction/ideology of the "counselor" is the most absurd part of the program.

And they wolloped me...but I got mad words and logic to their emotional mumbo jumbo. My passion is resolute. They dinkered and had NO FUCKING IDEA what they were doing. SUICIDES are inevitable for some people BECAUSE of RMA or leaving RMA. Let's not forget about all those kids rma tried to 'help'. Where the fuck did they wind up? better or worse? again, the questions abound. But surely as day melts to night RMA is/was an ingredient in their lives.

[Anonymous]

bump

[dishdutyfugitive]

Recently it's become very clear to me that 1 of the harmful ways CEDU 'therapy' fucked me up is by forcing us to internalize everything. This instills the "concept of being broken and needing to be fixed" (every M/W/F). I look back over the last 20 years and realize that I approach most (interpersonal conflict) situations in the following manner: "I immediately assume I'm at fault for whatever is wrong and it's my responsibility to fix it".

[blownawaytheidahoway]

Recently it's become very clear to me that 1 of the harmful ways CEDU 'therapy' fucked me up is by forcing us to internalize everything. This instills the "concept of being broken and needing to be fixed" (every M/W/F). I look back over the last 20 years and realize that I approach most (interpersonal conflict) situations in the following manner: "I immediately assume I'm at fault for whatever is wrong and it's my responsibility to fix it".

I can relate. As a teen a certain amount of self- absorption is healthy in learning to associate correctly emotions, vocal clues, facial expressions, the limits of what is said in "normal everyday" conversation among other things. CEDU created very deep and immediate auto responses to insecurities. The ability to filter and recognize boundaries becomes permanently clouded due to the formation of these "not so natural" pathways.

As I read more about the adolescent mind the more I realize how detrimental our "education" was.

[dishdutyfugitive]

Just think about it - it's monday at 12:30. What's the only thing on your mind.

Absolute fucking dread and fear for the moment between 1 and 5pm that you get your ass handed to you by a bunch of psychotic, unlicensed degenerates and brainwashed teenagers.

In this scenario you can only assume there is something 'wrong' with you. Why do you deserve to be yelled at and pummeled every M/W/F?

If 2 1/2 years of that doesn't freak you the fuck out I don't know what will.

[Anonymous]

it is so nice to hear this.  yeah, we get addicted to raps.  that definitely happens.

you needed to be in raps when u got out, in that you experienced an ongoing sense of this is missing and i 'need' it, clearly you needed the opposite, because your brain had been wired to beleive that the act of doing work in raps was what qualified you to have access to social interaction.  

they taught us this through action, not words.

why do we get addicted to these kinds of social processes?  because that is the biological function upon which all of society and culture has been built, and like a kid with a loaded gun, these fuckers stumbled upon their power when they pull the trigger, and shot the shit out of their own brains and all of us and every staff they touched.

we are all just humans. no different.  you and i are no different than mel wasserman or rudy benz.  we are luckily enough to be the ones who learned the lesson, and not the ones who tested the boundary, it is far harder to grow out of and realize your wrongness from being the one who decided to try something different and having it go horribly wrong and then you clung to it from the rush you got, than being the one who got the shit beat out of them by the guy with the rush and then getting a rush from copying him.

i copied them.  i became the ass hole they wanted me to become but that is not the ass hole i am.

rudy benz has his own demons and as a christian i feel it important that my thoughts towards him continue to hope for his peace and healing so that he can find a way to stop abusing people.  but i can't talk to him.  i don't have any desire to ever talk to that person ever again.  thats the closest i have ever come to hating anyone

[stina]

Recently it's become very clear to me that 1 of the harmful ways CEDU 'therapy' fucked me up is by forcing us to internalize everything. This instills the "concept of being broken and needing to be fixed" (every M/W/F). I look back over the last 20 years and realize that I approach most (interpersonal conflict) situations in the following manner: "I immediately assume I'm at fault for whatever is wrong and it's my responsibility to fix it".

God I hear this in a big way. Talk about a mindfuck. I have a hard time, not standing up for myself necessarily, but calling people out when I know I'm right...it's like there's small nagging voice in my head telling me to just suck it up and deal, that it'll get turned back around somehow. Now the untrained eye may not see this, and neither did I until I started checking out these forums and paying attention, but does that not perfectly encapsulate a rap?

Your first instinct is to fight for what you know is right, but that eventually gets replaced by the instinct to just get through it with the least amount of conflict possible. Damn.

[Anonymous]

I think the opposite is true with me... I call people out when I should probably keep quiet and let things work themselves out. I can be very unnecessarily confrontational at times, which is a "skill" I believe I aquired at RMA.

[stina]

I used to go aggressive...my first few weeks there I would challenge and react, eventually it just became finding the path of least resistance. I even made shit up once or twice just so it would be over quicker. It got to the point where there was nowhere left to retreat, those black plastic chairs didn't provide much in the way of a cave. Plus, a heated exchange with one person and a heated exchange with a bunch of people who've moved across the circle to join said heated exchange are completely different animals.

I guess that just shows that people cope and adjust in different ways.