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

Impact on my family

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Ft. Lauderdale:
I never once heard that one.(the song)

Sometimes I really wonder if we were at the same place.

My younger brothers actually had good attitudes. No one ever pressured me or them to come in.  

One of my brothers actually punched another kid (when he was 12) That told him the seed sucks & so does your brother.  I think because I was nice to my brother and he knew good things were happening with me.  (this was my motorcycle Brother for Greg's benefit)

It could have been the period that I came in.

Jimmy Cusick:
I can already hear Gregg and Ginger jumping all over me for saying that the seed helped my family. Ouch!!!
My mom died 4 years ago, before she did we talked about the seed and my Mom told me that she had come down to visit with me and I wouldnt talk to her very much. That hurts. Remember the seed would call our parents assholes and suggested that we minimized our time with them. God, I wish I had another chance to talk to my Mom

My parents fought every day of their marriage for 47 years, they would have been better off divorcing but they were "good catholics" and hung in there until the end. In 1974 when I went to the seed, my father was a newly recovering alcoholic (Today he is sober 32 years)and my mother fought depression. I was the scape goat in the family, all of my parents incompetence focused on ME and my problems. I was a trouble maker and had been since I was a toddling, when drugs came along at age 13 or 14 I jumped on the suburban bandwagon and smoked pot to relieve my mental frustration with my family. My parents saw my drug experimenting as the root of all my problems when in fact it provided me a shelter from a severe depression which was brought on by my family's dysfunction and my inability to interact with potential friends. To this day I have no idea how my parents scraped up the money to send me to the seed. My Mom rented a trailer in Ft. Lauderdale for a few months and I spent very little time with her. Once again the seed saved my ass and I bounced out of my depression, became drug free and I actually resembled a human being. In other words I was accepted by my 3 sisters as a recovered drug user that had sparkling eyes and was part of the family(however dysfunctional it was). The good things that happened in our family was a result of my father being sober and recovering and my new attitude which I recieved from the seed in Florida.

Some things have occurred which I will not discuss that really fragmented my family to the core.

But from July 1st. 1974 until the summer of 79 when I started drinking and using again my family was really cool, really dysfunctional and pretty much together and loving(to whatever degree was possible).

Did the seed hurt families? Not mine. I saw tremendous improvements in the families with whom I was involved. Remember the purpose of the seed was to help the individual not to re-create perfect families.

I want to say more but dont have time.

More later , Jimmy

cleveland:
Maybe it's too simple to say, "the Seed destroyed my family" as I did in an earlier post. My family had TONS of problems, and the drinking my parents did was to cover up their own frustration and unhappiness (and for my mother, manic deptression I believe). My brother, sister and I were very close as is the case in a lot of dysfuntional families. When my brother left for the Seed, he came back and I thought by joining the Seed, not only would I be happy but I would save my family too. And it probably was a good thing to give me a 'time out' from my family situation, but 6 months down the road I wish I was given tools to work with my family. Instead, I was told, 'your parents are crazy, maybe you should have as little to do with them as possible' and I bought it. My parents WERE crazy. And as for my sister, I still feel so guilty about shunning her during her really difficult years, from 17 to 24 or so, I had NOTHING to do with her outside of the one conversation where I told her if she didn't 'get straight' I'd have nothing to do with her. She was a first-year college student! Just a kid. I wish I could have a 'do-over' for that one.

Out of the Seed staff I knew, none of them had a good relationship with their parents or siblings: Lybbi, Cookie, Bob W., Ginger, Kenny, Evy, Laura, Cliff - I don't remember any of them saying anything but the minimal about family (unless they had a sibling in the Seed), except to dismiss them. The phrase usually went something like:

"Well, may parents are crazy. But in the other hand, they did the best they could - I was certainly no treat for them. But they do their thing and I do mine - the best thing I can do for them is be straight. And as for my brother and sister, I wish they would get straight too, but at least I'm being a good example. For me, I really choose not to see them too much - they're my 'biological family,' the Seed is my 'Family of Choice.' This is where I belong."

Art never talked about his family either, except to say his mom had raised him and they were poor. That's it. So it was a culture of people who, for the most part, had rejected thier families.

_________________
Wally Gator[ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2005-01-10 10:52 ]

GregFL:
No one is jumping on you for anything Jimmy.

Outside program dogma, we call this a discussion. Think of it as an intellectual disagreement.

GregFL:
Jimmy wrote:"Remember the seed would call our parents assholes and suggested that we minimized our time with them."

Also, told us not to discuss with them what went on inside the group, that they would never get it or understand.

More of the us and them cultic mentality..

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