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Mission Mountain School / Positive MMS emperience
« on: June 01, 2005, 11:07:00 AM »
To all the girls
I just found this site and can truly say I was shocked and surprised by the negative experience some of you girls have had, I wish I knew who some of you were, maybe you can let me know who you are. I had a wonderful time at MMS, and I can honestly say some of the happiest memories of my life are from my time at MMS. I am now going to respond to some of the negative things posted here, please know that everything I say is my opinion derived from my personal experience and I have no wish to discredit anyone elses experience, be it good or bad.
I never felt John or Mike to be abusive, beligerent, arrogent I had to carry rocks around for a while, I found it helpfull in clarifying my personal issues. John and Mike were sometimes forcefull, but we as student were also often resistant, without a little gentle force how would be get in touch with the negative feelings and experiences that were holding us back and ruining our lives. As far as it being innappropriate to have the student do physical labor, I have never felt more accomplished than I did after I built a fence, or dug and built an outhouse, or cleared that damned lower field of daisys. Also, there is a line of thinking called Body psycotherepy, the idea is that we hold our emotions in our muscular skeletal system, and that by working those muscles we can get in touch with those emotions and release them. I know that all of us experienced at some point a emotional break or revelation after strenuous excersize.
I did not and do not have an eating disorder, and in my time at MMS, (I can truly say I believe I was the only one of you who was there with me that didn't.) I did not have a food plan because I did not need one. But I have seen what unchecked eating disorders do to women and think maybe you ladies need to take an honest look at yourself when it comes to your relationship with food.
I saw on one of the postings that someone questioned Mike and Debs ability to help troubled girls because their son commited suicide. If this is true I have nothing but sadness for them, and anger for the person who would post that information for all too see, and then to infer that it was their fault. There is obviously a lot of anger in ther person who posted that, but being cruel to some one who has experienced a tragedy is crossing the line. We, all of us who went to MMS, wether we had a positive or negative experience know that WE ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ACTIONS. The staff at MMS might not have always done the correct thing at the correct time, but who does? I am discusted that you could be so cruel and heartless to people who genuinly wanted to help you. The primary staff put in long hours ( do you think they want to be in group all night?) in an emotionally draining job, because they believe in saving girls who exausted their other chances for help. Please if you are the person who posted this, think about how you would feel if your child commited suicide and someone posted that information on a public forum and than insinuated it was your fault. PLEASE TAKE THIS DOWN NOW!!! That is private info and nobody's buisiness.
As far as the staff " making millions of dollars a year" I don't think you understand the amount of money it takes just to keep a schol like MMS running, the insurance, the food, the pay that all of the staff deserve, it is a demanding and difficult job, and they deserve to be paid appropriatly. Many of you don't remember this becuase you came along later, But when they started the school the staff had to live there, because the school was not bringing in enough money to pay themselves appropriate wages. A school like MMS takes a lot of money to run, a large portion of your tuition goes to keeping the school going. Mental health care is very expensive, I don't know if any of you are still in therepy, but I have to pay $150 and hour to see my psychiatrist. When you think about it $100,000 for an entire year is a steal of a deal!!
No matter what our experiences were, I would like to be in contact with all of you, we are all sisters really. If you have sad and difficult memories form MMS I am truly sad for you, as my experience was so wonderful. I found the primary staff, John, Colleen, Mike Deb and Gary to be careing, loving, accepting. I was surprised to see so many negative things said about John, who I see not as abusive or a megalomaniac, but as strong and honest. Very Honest, sometimes the truth can hurt. It seems like some of you are angry with John for telling you the truth about yourself that you did not and still do not want to hear. I know that I can always count on John to tell me exactly what he thinks, but I can also count on him to listen to me and respect me, even if I have a differing opinion. I want to here from all of you so please let me know how you are doing in your like now. I am living in Portland Oregon, if any onf you live nearby lets get together. I can not wait to se what you all have to say about what I have posted. Love to all Katie Harrison ( Wintermute now as I am married)
I just found this site and can truly say I was shocked and surprised by the negative experience some of you girls have had, I wish I knew who some of you were, maybe you can let me know who you are. I had a wonderful time at MMS, and I can honestly say some of the happiest memories of my life are from my time at MMS. I am now going to respond to some of the negative things posted here, please know that everything I say is my opinion derived from my personal experience and I have no wish to discredit anyone elses experience, be it good or bad.
I never felt John or Mike to be abusive, beligerent, arrogent I had to carry rocks around for a while, I found it helpfull in clarifying my personal issues. John and Mike were sometimes forcefull, but we as student were also often resistant, without a little gentle force how would be get in touch with the negative feelings and experiences that were holding us back and ruining our lives. As far as it being innappropriate to have the student do physical labor, I have never felt more accomplished than I did after I built a fence, or dug and built an outhouse, or cleared that damned lower field of daisys. Also, there is a line of thinking called Body psycotherepy, the idea is that we hold our emotions in our muscular skeletal system, and that by working those muscles we can get in touch with those emotions and release them. I know that all of us experienced at some point a emotional break or revelation after strenuous excersize.
I did not and do not have an eating disorder, and in my time at MMS, (I can truly say I believe I was the only one of you who was there with me that didn't.) I did not have a food plan because I did not need one. But I have seen what unchecked eating disorders do to women and think maybe you ladies need to take an honest look at yourself when it comes to your relationship with food.
I saw on one of the postings that someone questioned Mike and Debs ability to help troubled girls because their son commited suicide. If this is true I have nothing but sadness for them, and anger for the person who would post that information for all too see, and then to infer that it was their fault. There is obviously a lot of anger in ther person who posted that, but being cruel to some one who has experienced a tragedy is crossing the line. We, all of us who went to MMS, wether we had a positive or negative experience know that WE ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR ACTIONS. The staff at MMS might not have always done the correct thing at the correct time, but who does? I am discusted that you could be so cruel and heartless to people who genuinly wanted to help you. The primary staff put in long hours ( do you think they want to be in group all night?) in an emotionally draining job, because they believe in saving girls who exausted their other chances for help. Please if you are the person who posted this, think about how you would feel if your child commited suicide and someone posted that information on a public forum and than insinuated it was your fault. PLEASE TAKE THIS DOWN NOW!!! That is private info and nobody's buisiness.
As far as the staff " making millions of dollars a year" I don't think you understand the amount of money it takes just to keep a schol like MMS running, the insurance, the food, the pay that all of the staff deserve, it is a demanding and difficult job, and they deserve to be paid appropriatly. Many of you don't remember this becuase you came along later, But when they started the school the staff had to live there, because the school was not bringing in enough money to pay themselves appropriate wages. A school like MMS takes a lot of money to run, a large portion of your tuition goes to keeping the school going. Mental health care is very expensive, I don't know if any of you are still in therepy, but I have to pay $150 and hour to see my psychiatrist. When you think about it $100,000 for an entire year is a steal of a deal!!
No matter what our experiences were, I would like to be in contact with all of you, we are all sisters really. If you have sad and difficult memories form MMS I am truly sad for you, as my experience was so wonderful. I found the primary staff, John, Colleen, Mike Deb and Gary to be careing, loving, accepting. I was surprised to see so many negative things said about John, who I see not as abusive or a megalomaniac, but as strong and honest. Very Honest, sometimes the truth can hurt. It seems like some of you are angry with John for telling you the truth about yourself that you did not and still do not want to hear. I know that I can always count on John to tell me exactly what he thinks, but I can also count on him to listen to me and respect me, even if I have a differing opinion. I want to here from all of you so please let me know how you are doing in your like now. I am living in Portland Oregon, if any onf you live nearby lets get together. I can not wait to se what you all have to say about what I have posted. Love to all Katie Harrison ( Wintermute now as I am married)