Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum
Fresh blood
Anonymous:
Looking back on what I?ve written so far, I?d like to elaborate on two points about the 90's:
1) I really have nothing against anyone who made money in the group, just as I?m sure much of corporate America would have little problem with the ?business as usual? mentality, even if perhaps business tactics were probably not always Kosher. Actually, all the business politics of the 90?s were not my thing since, once again, I was not in the ?stew.? As far as I was concerned, those problems that did emerge as a result of business, were really the "business" of those involved in business themselves.
2) The second item I would like to clarify is simply that I lost my ?objectivity,? on the last few lines of my post, so I will retract the last part of my post, at this time and look for more accurate words to discuss the powerlessness associated with listening to others for over 20 years when it comes to personal lifelong decisions (Thank God, I often listened with a deaf ear, especially the last years).
(to be continued)
Anonymous:
Now to move on . . .by the 90?s, I really believed that these were my friends for life. I was wrong. During all those years, I had gained the ?illusion? of confidence since in robot-style I had accomplished outside successes, but deep inside I was a little boy that had never grown up enough to simply say, ?No. I don?t agree with you.? And I do mean that I could not stand up to the ?inner core.? So then, ?Why was I still around the group to the end ?? The answer for me is very simple. I was afraid to say to staff, ?I do not want to live around you people. I want to live on my own.? Fear, fear, and more fear . . . It has been only in the past several years that I have been happy on my own. The 90?s for me was a time where I could taste the freedom that I had so longed for all those years, but it took a decade to even start my own journey.
Yes, there were positive aspects of the experience, but I sold out my sense of self for over 20 years. Did the seed save me from total destruction? I really don?t know how to answer that except to say that in the 80?s a few people I knew died of AIDS and drugs. Could it have happened to me if the Seed had not come along? Possibly, and if that is the case there is a part of me that is grateful as I appreciate others in my life that have had an impact on who I am, but I totally disagree with the conditional love style promoted at that place. It is so ingrained in the ?Do or Die? culture many promoted (including myself at the beginning) that to this day some believe that you should not forgive those that have stood up to you as if they had betrayed you. The funny part, is that the unwillingness to forgive others and understand different points of view were two of the most damaging consequences of the ?brainwashing.? Recently, I woke up and it occurred to me how ?well? they trained me to criticize and judge others without really looking in the mirror myself. Wow!! The scary part was believing that there was this ?truth? or ?justification? to not forgiving others, especially to hold grudges to the grave.
I do not want to be that person that is afraid of what THEY think. It just doesn?t work for me anymore. I realized that the last days of the seed taught me lessons about myself . . .how I had allowed myself to be ?conned? that there is a hierarchy of human beings, that some really are better than others, that some are so strong that they don?t need to be loved or they don?t need to cry or desperately seek shelter when they feel alone. I was supposed to be O.K. the whole time, and now I realize that I am me, the me that I was not for years and years because I did not fit into the mold that others insisted I fit into . . .
I can see too how I was like some of you, especially the artists, who can see beauty in so much around us, but that did not count since (as it has been reported) it meant you were not good enough. . .It seemed like centuries went by and lived in fear of letting the group know that I was gay. Wow! That was a big one since only very few were interested in really listening to my story, that part of the story. I always wondered what type of ?therapy? I was being exposed to that did not embrace talking about everything about me since I was told that I really shouldn?t bring that up in the group or if I did it was to be brought up in the context of that ?IF it weren?t for The Seed? I would have ended up being gay . . .but the truth is that because I was not what others in power really accepted as good enough when it came to masculine stuff, then I was not good enough, tough enough to be part of the inner core, essentially I was not smart enough either, of course. (to be continued)
Antigen:
Welcome Anon,
We almost wound up in the same soup together (though I doubt I would have stayed) I'm really not sure why my mom sent me to Straight instead of the Seed, but she did it in 1980. So I'm guessing we're about the same age and from the same area. And I spent most of the last 20 years living in and around Ft. Lauderdale, often wondering what the hell was going on w/ The Seed.
I once ran into a couple of seedlings at a doughnut shop. They were buying around 4 dozen doughnuts, I think, and that's the clearest idea I had of how many people were still in there.
I'm starting to get an idea of what life in The Seed post `70's must have been like. At the same time, I've gotten to know a few people who's entire families were very much pro Straigt, long after they all graduated or whatever. Some of these people to this day, 20 years and more later, still have that to deal w/ from their families.
A good friend pointed out not long ago that one valid category or variation on the TC theme is whether they focus more on controling the client or the family. I think The Seed focused a lot on the client, even discouraging family contact. Straight did it a little differently. Us kids just had to suck it up and go along because they had such a firm hold on our parents. Very few former Straightlings are really pro-program today, though some are ambivalent.
Anyway, welcome, glad you happened along here and I look forward to learning more from you.
If you ask the Government for the right to assemble you deserve to be told no .
--Jim Lesczynski, Manhattan LP chair, on "unorganized" gathering @ Central Park
--- End quote ---
cleveland:
Anon - I am so proud of you my friend for being yourself. Even after all of these years. Since at the Seed we needed to conform at any cost, it was difficult enough to deal with 'normal' heterosexuality, but to be at the Seed and know that you are gay? And not be able to talk about it, much less except yourself? I can imagine that this caused a lot of pain. As for me, since I don't fit that 'good at sports, tough-guy' mold either that was the standard endorsed by the Seed (and my whole school experience up to college)I can totally sympathize. So I too wondered, how come I am not good enough? And you must have too. All of those years.
marshall:
Anon, thanks bunches for your info on the seed circa 90's. BTW, my reference to being amish wasn't related to the financial aspect but rather towards the rigid division of male / female roles. (women expected to sew, cook, clean and men expected to do work such as carpentry or automotive...such as cleveland described.) Staff or inner core being wealthy is also really at odds with my experience in the 70's. Group staff lived very simply and received only a small stipend as I recall....or at least that's what we were told.
So what may have started with misguided idealism ended up being all about money? That figures. This seems to happen over and over in our society. But, if I understand you all correctly, the later seed was at least all voluntary, so no-one was coerced into joining or staying. The whole enterprise just strikes me as sad and pathetic now. The evolution of the seed in many ways parallels that of the synanon organization, though it never prgressed to a full-blown religion. The turning inwards or imploding into itself...where members never really leave their program, is very similar.
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