Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Mission Mountain School

About girls discrediting those with negative experiences

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Anonymous:
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.

Anonymous:
Perhaps some of that is correct, but in reading I have also seen posts by girls who did have a bad experience, but because they think everyone should have their right to their own opinion they were labeled "supporters of the school". It's the things like that that baffle me and make me mention generalizations. You don't know who had to do what at MMS, and to assume just because someone doesn't feel attacked by others opinions that they had an easy time and didn't have to sleep in the snow or be forced to tell lies is just absurd. I see people here assuming every girl who said that MMS helped them was one of the "favorites" or one of the girls who ratted people out. That just isn't the facts. I know of atleast 2 girls on this forum who did have it hard, were picked on by John, and given mean punishments. Just as no one has the right to say someone who feels they had it bad and are hurt by it is wrong and/or insensitive towards other feelings, no one has the right to say that because someone says that MMS helped them that they had an easy ride there and are insensitive. If you really open your mind up here and think about it you'll see both sides are true.

Anonymous:
"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."
************************************************

This observation really hit home for me. At this very moment there is a precious child at MMS who was experiencing the same treatment from her parents. She was blamed for all the discord in the family, but instead of taking it quietly,  she fought back, hence the banishment to MMS. I constantly wonder which is worse, being abused at home or in an institution. Is she better off being tortured by John Mercer or her stepfather? Mocked and ratted on by fellow students or her siblings? These questions have truly haunted me 24/7, for more than 9 months, and I am no closer to an answer than day one.

katfish:

--- Quote ---On 2005-05-21 03:29:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Perhaps some of that is correct, but in reading I have also seen posts by girls who did have a bad experience, but because they think everyone should have their right to their own opinion they were labeled "supporters of the school". It's the things like that that baffle me and make me mention generalizations. You don't know who had to do what at MMS, and to assume just because someone doesn't feel attacked by others opinions that they had an easy time and didn't have to sleep in the snow or be forced to tell lies is just absurd. I see people here assuming every girl who said that MMS helped them was one of the "favorites" or one of the girls who ratted people out. That just isn't the facts. I know of atleast 2 girls on this forum who did have it hard, were picked on by John, and given mean punishments. Just as no one has the right to say someone who feels they had it bad and are hurt by it is wrong and/or insensitive towards other feelings, no one has the right to say that because someone says that MMS helped them that they had an easy ride there and are insensitive. If you really open your mind up here and think about it you'll see both sides are true."

--- End quote ---


I don't think that you necessarily have to have been treated well by John (don't think anyone really was- maybe some better than others, but never fair) to be open to the positive side of MMS.  The point is that at some point everyone witnessed one or another treated badly at MMS- to deny that is absurd and beyond reason, especially when being many girls have been driving that point home from the get go on this forum- and if girls with positive experiences didn't realize it was harmful then, they sure as hell see it now.

I'll be a first to admit that I have no clear understanding how girls can deny harm was done, even if not to them directly or that the harm turned helpful somehow, but I don't deny girls that had good experinces their experience.  What I do point out continously are the contradictions to what they say in my experience and what I've seen in others- where others, myself included are saying good for you, but very bad for us, here's why and do you understand?  Granted their welcome to do the same, but when the response turns hostile, and becomes about us and blaming us for MMS's prgram errors, that's when I begin to wonder how this inability to recognize that harm and how that loyalty to MMS can cloud these girls basic human empathy and compassion.

I suppose you're referring to MG when you say that girls are being hard on girls that may have had it equally as hard and may even have the same opinion but have been labeled supporters of the school?  Not sure where that happened, I didn't see that.  MG was confusing me, personally, I didn't understand what she was saying and who she was saying whatever she was saying to.  I was confused by her posts.

Ultimately, some girls can be treated badly and believe it was in their own best interest and that they benifitted from it in the long run- to each his own, really that's their business to determine- that's perfectly fine, I think- but it doesn't change anything.  That's their truth, no one denies that- so the hope is to that they will cease to deny ours. As stated above, there was damage done to other girls who may have received equal or harsher treatment as girls who say they found MMS helpful, but when a girl or many girls express that damage has been done to them and is attacked b/c of it- I am appalled.  As I've said in other posts as well, the lack of basic human compassion from the radical-pro MMSer's  (no the ones I speak to on a personal level who are able to recognize both despite the fact they found MMS helpful) is astounding to me, forget about validating the experiences, just basic human compassion would suffice.  The fact that it was sorly lacking is very disturbing.

kat

Anonymous:
Me thinks it good Melissa G didn't feel attacked by the pro-MMS rally- but she never posted anything personal that was attacked, far as I can tell.  She wouldn't have any reason to be defensive.

Most felt attacked because the most- not all- pro MMS posts attacked the girls felt mms negative at the beggining of this soirre- waaaaay back, about a month ago.  Think that defensiveness was carried along, maybe unwittingly and perhaps uneccesarily, but understandably considering the hostility that met their stories of abuse from beggining.

If you don't get it, I'm sorry, I can't help you then- think been explained pretty clearly and intelligently.  If it's the case that you still dont understand then I don't think you want to get it and prefer to hold on to your preconceived notions about what's really going on here.

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