The person who started this post has not done her homework, in my opinion. There are some 700 posts here now, check them out and you will find your answers. They are most definitely out there. It seems this new topic is just another place to start the cycle again of arguing the points.
I've been reading posts on this forum for quite some time and honestly, some of you really are insensitive and the sad part is you can't see it. Others see it, even strangers who pop on to see what's going on here. Yet you can't. Why? Maybe it stems from what you learned at MMS, who knows.
So just go read, look around here, you'll see why these girls who have had bad experiences have felt victimized and attacked here on this forum. The sad part is that some of the girls attacking them here could very well be some of the very same girls who ratted them out at MMS. Feel good, girls? You really should be ashamed of yourselves. Others, not just me, see it and speak about it. Strangers, people with experience and knowledge. Maybe you should listen a little and stop being so wrapped up in being right and start being a bit more compassionate.
I see no point for these questions, again, if you're really interested go read.
Something worth considering. I have a friend who I care very much about. She's been abused and a victim. She was the scapegoat in her family. Know what that is? Basically, her brothers and sister were treated decently and fairly, most of the time, and she was treated like dirt and like shit, all of the time. She was her father's target and her mother did not defend her for fear of starting a fight with this abusive man. So she was silenced and watched him systematically destroy my friend for life, really.
She is 60 years old. To this day she sufferes from his abuses (none were physical or sexual in nature - all psychological.) She still finds herself needing therapy on and off to deal with the issues. For she lost her entire family over this ordeal.
Here's why. Her sibblings have rubbed this in her face their entire life, even into adulthood. They make her feel they were better than her simply by saying how wonderful family life was round her. For her family life sucked and worse. For her it was pure living hell. For her it was torment. For her it was like torture, mental and emotional torture. Never was she treated with respect, never was she treated fairly.
The straw that broke the camel's back with her sister, the last person she talked to in her family? She would not stop saying how wonderful her parents had been with her daughter and with her. I remember the look I saw in my friend's eyes while she spoke. She just swallowed it time and time again. Then we would talk and each time she'd end up back in therapy.
Finally, one day it was too much and she severed ties with her. She has no family left now. But she has me. Someone who loves her for who she is, someone who sees her as an accomplished and strong woman, despite the deep truths I know about her past. For this woman is a powerful and beautiful woman. She has a bachelor's degree, she was the head of a huge department in a large corporation, she is a wonderful writer and photographer, and she is a wonderful and true friend.
My point being that when I hear you people on this forum continue to do what you are doing here, again, basically discrediting that others had horrible experiences, coming here telling them it couldn't be that bad or that they are weak in some way, it reminds me all to well of those times when I saw my friend swallow hard and just suck it up. Why should she have to do that? She should not.
Your words make these ladies feel like this. It would be nice if you would be open enough to see it. It's very real. The pain of the abuse for them is there and has not gone away, and may never go away on some levels. You people who claim to have had good experiences obviously have no idea what it was really like for those who were John's or other's targets.
And for those who didn't spend 8 months building fences without a shower, without sharing a meal with others, sleeping out in a cold tent alone with the wolves, well, where do you feel you have the right to judge someone who really had to live this. Get real. You are living in a fantasy world.
You would not be singing the praises of MMS if it had been you who went through this. And anyone who wants to say this is not true can think again because there were plenty of witnesses who saw this happen. That's the good thing here. Witnesses abound and come forward in time of need!
This is only one story. Here's another one for you. How about being forced to write your sexual history when you never even had sex before? What the hell would you write at age 13 or 14? Damn, at that age I didn't even know what it really was. John didn't believe girls who wrote little and threatened them to write more. One girl was told "see the girl up there in the boots shoveling shit? She's been up there for a long time. Want to be next? Come up with a better response or you'll be next." So this girl started making things up. Sadly she wrote some things that were not true just to appease him. Then, he sent those things to her parents and embarassed her.
And what about another girl who was forced to write about her drug history? She'd never done drugs and barely knew anything about them. Except what she learned at MMS. So she started making up a bunch of stories about the drugs she'd taken. And immediately that was faxed to her parents. So a girl who was supposed to be in there for 6 months ended up in there for 3 years once her parents realized what a fuck-up she really was. But really she wasn't - she made it up to avoid abuse from John.
Wow, get real here. The stories are pretty much endless.