Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum
Fresh blood
Antigen:
--- Quote ---On 2005-01-23 18:08:00, Anonymous wrote:
seeing shelly limp back to the group, bruised and shaken after a beating in the office from her parents
--- End quote ---
This really pisses me off! Sorry, I've been reading Seed stuff and remembering those days and now I'm talking the talk. I hate when that happens.
But this does just rip it!
When I was a little kid coming up, The Seed was like our church and Libby was an elder. She told her story, Art told her story, the story became legend and is ingrained in my mind.
The story was that Libby was a thousand dollar a day (in 1970 dollars, mind you) heroin addict. Her parents had NO clue, till after her intake and open meeting talks and such. And yet, somehow, she landed up on the doorstep of The Seed. And we (I really thought of it like that when I was little) took her in, straightened her up and now all was flowers and butterflies for Art's adopted daughter, Libbi.
The parents had not supported her in her heroic effort to get straight. That's why Art had adopted her after she came of age. I don't even know if there's a legal instument to adopt an adult in Florida, but that's how the story goes and no one I would talk to or listen to would ever dream of questioning that.
Poor Libbi, abandoned by her cruel, selfish, idiot (millionaire) parents. What astounding luck for her that good old Art was willing to take her in.
I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that Art, Shelly or John or one of their cohorts spent a bit of time talking Libbi's dad into giving that beating.
What a fucked up bunch of people they were!
Libbi, on the off chance that you're reading this, as recently as about 3 years ago, I heard it through the grapevine that your real family would really like to hear from you. Please call them before they all kick off and the opportunity is lost forever.
If there's a worse idea going than locking people up for drug use, it's probably locking them up in close proximity to some tyranical altruist who wants to 'help' them with a problem that probably doesn't exist
-- Ginger Warbis
having had about all the help I can stand!
--- End quote ---
GregFL:
anon, everyone of those memories are with me too because as you know, we witnessed them together. Thank you for posting that.
Ginger, it wasn't libby but a kid in our school, one of several during my time, that took one of those staff endorsed parent beatings in the backrooms of the st pete seed.
It really did happen...those are memories that have never faded over the years.
rjfro22:
The Seed saved my life, I have a great respect for Art and many of the staff members. I am grateful, I never felt brain washed, I knew what I needed and what I didn't and learned to act as if .. I had some rough times, but I truly needed what the Seed offered me. I also never really allowed myself to get to close to anyone at the Seed , But I listened and every now and them I heard what I needed. We see things from our own experiences and some remember mostly the bad and others remember the good. We should not refer to anyone on either side as rejects.
::boohoo:: ::boohoo:: ::
Jupiter Survivor:
I do remember Cookie coming in after me. I remember she was really sweet (until she made staff) and very pretty and felt bad for her. I thought it was right before my 14th birthday, but considering that until the past week remembered that I didn't smoke pot until after I left the seed, who knows. Could have been my 15th birthday, I will ask my one Aunt about the timeframe, she is one of the only ones in my family that believed me when I told her that the Seed was a really VERY bad time for me. I do know Cookie made staff while I was in the program. My mother to this day thinks she did the right thing. My little brother thinks it was good too, of course, this is the guy who has used so much cocaine that he doesn't even have a functioning nose!
I wasn't staff, probably because I was young and didn't have a dramatic enough story to tell or a family with big bucks or connections or was just mostly invisible to them. Everybody that came in after me graduated, and I mean everybody. There was a large gap in time that is still so fuzzy for me. I do remember after I was there a while we were asked to come up with a name for the new newsletter that they were going to write. I came up with the name Straight from the Seed, having no clue about the rivalry with Straight. I remember someone giving the Seed a truckload of broken marble that they laid in the "inner sanctum" upstairs. I think Libby was adopted by Art while I was there, but that is a little fuzzy too.
When I first found this forum some time ago, I was so pissed off, but after I moved and started reading it again, more things started coming back. It is so strange, I really don't know how I survived it at all.
I talked with my oldest daughter last night (who is a psych major at FAU) about the Seed, but even as close as we are, it is still hard to explain it to someone that wasn't there. She could in a way since she 2 years ago had to deal with a different type of cult from my ex's family. It was a so-called Christian cult in Tamarac area. Cults all have the same criteria, isolate your victims for the outside world, treat them like crap while in the next breath tell them you love them, and tell them that "they" are the only true way. Shit, they are buying up land in Alabama and food and water in special bins to survive the "last days." That is a story almost as bizarre as the Seed. Thank God, she has a mind of her own and knows better than to follow someone blindly.
Thanks to all for the kind words, it was therapeutic for me to even write what I did. It is amazing to me what the human mind will block for the sake of survival. Knowing I was not alone in my feeling about the Seed is....well..let's just say, you will never know what that means to me.
Anonymous:
--- Quote ---
When I was a little kid coming up, The Seed was like our church and Libby was an elder. She told her story, Art told her story, the story became legend and is ingrained in my mind.
Not any more Ginger. Lybbi has nothing to do with Art and Selly, and they have nothing to do with her. Antigen, you are quite behind the times in terms of the story's ending.
--- End quote ---
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