Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Gotta love Tori Amos. I hadn't listened to Little Earthquakes in about 13 years. Popped in the tape today, and saw/heard this song in a different light. Reminded me of some things. (The "angels" line is what did me in.  :cry2: )

I am hoping those heathens never used this as propheet music,  because then I will feel really stupid. I know that they changed some things around music-wise after my old and crusty era faded into obscurity.

Here's the mp3. Little scratchy, since it's from cassette: Crucify - Tori Amos[/color][/b]

Here are the lyrics.

Every finger in the room is pointed at me
I wanna spit in their faces
I get afraid of what that could bring
I got a bowling ball in my stomach
I got a desert in my mouth
Figures that my COURAGE would chose to sell out now

I've been searching for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands
Drive another nail in
Just what GOD needs
One more victim

Why do we
Crucify ourselves
Every day
I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself
And my HEART is sick of
Being in chains

Got a kick for a dog beggin' for LOVE
I gotta have my suffering
So that I can have my cross
I know a cat named Easter
He says you will never learn
You're just an empty cage, girl, if you kill the bird

I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands
Drive another nail in
Got enough GUILT to start
My own religion

Why do we
Crucify ourselves
Every day
I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself
And my HEART is sick of
Being in chains

Please save me
I CRY

I've been searching for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands
Drive another nail in
Where are those ANGELS?
When you need them?

Why do we
Crucify ourselves
Every day
I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself
And my HEART is sick of
Being in chains

Never going back again.[/i]

Seriously, is there more potential for an absolute train wreck of a relationship than having two survivors date?

I go back and forth on this. Really, I do. Sometimes I think it would be workable, other times, impossible. Not like I am going out of my way to find any one, particular type of person to date, survivor or otherwise (unless she is an artist/musician... then I'm all hers... especially if she happens to be an A/V geek and now plays drums for a totally pretentious, overrated, musicians' collective. oh wait, she has a boyfriend. never mind.)

I think that, as a survivor, it can probably be anywhere from 2-6 times more difficult than dating someone who was not one. This is all speculation, however, since I have never dated another survivor, and my previous relationships were pretty annoying and fucked up anyway.

One thing I have found interesting about any situation where a group of people are thrown together for an extended amount of time and all suffer the same systematic abuse, is that we all share that common experience, and as such, will feel a connection with those people, even if you never would have even considered being friends with them had  you met them in the real world and neither of you had survived a program.

So... when you reconnect with someone years later, what is there? The program. And there is a guarantee that you both will share at least some symptoms. I always have to give myself a narcissism check when I am talking with another survivor. Am I seeing them, or my reflection? (I mentioned that in the other thread.)

It's as if you know someone intimately, yet not at all. You trust them, but you don't.

Which brings me to why I think this is harder than your average relationship. You are hooking up with someone, who, for most intents and purposes, is about as much of a stranger to you as a person you go out with on a date for the first time, which is fine. This is normal. The  not-so-normal part is that despite the lack of real insight or connection you have with each other, you know how to really get under each other's skin, push each other's buttons, and exploit each other's vulnerabilities, because you have similar issues and symptoms as a result of that abuse. I'm sorry, but nobody gets those car keys until they have been with me for quite some time.

Do I really want to be with someone who possibly knew me when I was at my ugliest and my psyche was the most compromised? Would anyone want to be with someone who had that kind of knowledge? That's fucking blackmail material right there.

As for that arbitrary 2-6 range that I mentioned earlier, here is how I broke it down in my mind:

2x as difficult: Dating someone from a different program than your own
3x: Dating someone from the same program, but who attended a different campus or different era
4x: Dating someone from the same program, who attended when you did, but you either don't remember them well or you weren't that close.
5x: Dating someone from the same program, who attended when you did and you were close friends or in the same peer group.
6x: Dating someone form the same program, who attended when you did, you were possibly close, and there was an authority dynamic between you two. (older/younger student)

5x and 6x I think are pretty neck and neck, for the most part. I think it was the authority dynamic that put that scenario as potentially the hardest in my mind.

I really do think that it is more difficult for a lot of us to see that other person a lot of times. At least it is for me. I always have to remind myself "I see you. I hear you." Because seriously, I *want* to see them. I'm sick of looking at myself. I see my ugly mug in the bathroom mirror every day.

I certainly don't think it's impossible, just difficult. And like I said, what the hell do I know? I've never dated another survivor. I'm still pining after drummer girl. (well, not *as* much.)

I think it gets better when the conversations specific to the program have tapered off, and the majority of your conversations are about what kind of day you had, this killer movie you just saw, what's for dinner, or how much of an amazing fuck you were last night, darling.

Anyway, I have officially overthought this issue.


As such, I have come to the following conclusion:
Fuck it, life is short. If you make each other happy, then it's all good.


...because if there is one thing the program drilled into our brains... is that we could die tomorrow.

My dorm head and I laughed one time about how sometimes the only thing you had to look forward to at this god-forsaken place was dinner.

For the record, I personally recall that most of RMA's food was pretty decent. (It made you fart a lot, though.) I know that the running springs survivors complained a lot about the grease content in the food down there. As for the RMA kitchen.. for a crew of staff who were forbidden to use things like white flour and sugar, and were relegated to cooking a meal for 150-200 students every day, 3 times a day, on a wood-burning stove, they did a pretty good job. However, you can only cook so much food with those kinds of restrictions.

Anyway, I totally forgot that we used to run out of food at RMA. I still don't remember it. I'm just going off of friend testimony.

I remember hearing people from running springs talk about it in these forums, and I would say to myself "Oh, how strange. I don't think that ever happened at RMA." Then I would think about us rushing the line, and I couldn't remember why we did that. To get the best piece of food? To eat your firsts fast so you could get seconds?

Then I was reminded a few days ago that we ran out all the time, and that the kids who didn't get any food got rolls and butter, which is why people rushed the line and hoped they got called up first. And why the staff dropped that "scarcity" joke on us and allowed it to circulate among all of the students. And why people mooed like cows when another group went up to get their food.

This probably explains why one of  my most common recurring RMA dreams are dreams of running out of food. Normally I am late up to the meal, and all of the food is gone and the kitchen staff are clearing off the buffet table.

I honestly don't remember if I ever ended up going without a meal and getting stuck with rolls. I know that I skipped some meals, though, if I didn't like what they were serving.

So, anyway, I was thinking about some of my favorite and least favorite things I ate there:

Any saturday they had pancakes with the fruit topping was a good saturday, IMO. Just as long as there was no rhubarb, cause I hate that shit. Fucking mutant celery.

The bacon that was made from the slaughtered pigs at the farm was the best bacon I ever had. Most people couldn't bring themselves to eat it, and I was like "Good. More for me."

I also liked the rather average BLTs. For some reason, a BLT for dinner after a really lousy rap helped out a lot.

And I was huge fan of the curry chicken. I don't know why. The curry wasn't very hot or spicy, but I just loved it.

Those weird fucking egg things... they were like, in some sort of muffin cup type foodstuff, like, I think made out of cornmeal, and there was an egg in it. I can't remember in what state, i.e. softboiled or whatever. But anyway, they were totally vile. yech.

One of my least favorite things to eat there was when peanut butter and jelly bagels were put out as a meal. Does anyone else remember this? For a snack, I can understand, but for lunch? The only thing that was less palatable than those bagels was the peanut butter. I totally forgot about this arrangement until one of my run-out-of-food dreams reminded me of it. Especially the enormous bowls filled with peanut butter and jelly. I'm sorry, but PBJ doesn't belong on a bagel. Trust me, I used to live in New York. I know these things.

If someone fucked a patch of dirt hot and heavy for about a day, then mixed it with water, and held it over a slow burning fire for a decade, it would probably taste pretty close to what eventually became known as "cowboy coffee". fuck that stuff was awful. And no sugar to sweeten it, either. Only honey. Is it just me, or were we not allowed to put milk in our coffee, either? I don't remember ever using any, and I like my coffee really blonde, so that doesn't make any sense at all.


Also, I still to this day refuse to eat honey nut cheerios. I just can NOT stand the way those things taste.

Not a big fan of screaming yellow zonkers, either. (oh,  yes, the sunday commissary. Didn't you just love that arrangement? School gives you a dollar. You give it back to the school in exchange for candy.)

My friend and I were laughing about those iced animal cookies that they sold at the pink lion that everyone was so crazy about. I  had a big assed bag in my footlocker as well. God, one of the best privileges about being in upper school was going out and buying real food, like instant coffee, ramen, animal cookies, and my absolute favorite, nestle quick chocolate milk mix.


Anyway, share your food stories. Especially if they have to do with running out, because I want to hear more about this, since I don't remember it.

The holy triumvirate of personality disorders.

A lot of us survivors suffer from, at the very least, tendencies of one or more of these. Years ago, I flew into a borderline rage and sliced my face up with a razor. (sounds worse than it really was, actually.). I will often have narcissistic thoughts along the lines of "I am the only one in this class who is having difficulty." "I am the only one who has these kinds of problems or feelings." Basically, anything that starts with "I am the only one." Other times, people turn into my reflection. Reflect back onto me. I'm reading you how you read me. me me me me me. Fortunately, I am getting much better about identifying these thought patterns and perceptions. Cognitive behavioral therapy is essential for my sanity.

And by the way, have you ever noticed that when us survivors get together and chat, we are constantly interrupting each other? (I think it's kind of cute, actually.) I often wonder if anyone is listening to anyone else! (My family is just as bad, we are a bunch of narcissists. We're essentially all sitting at the table talking to ourselves.)

I have been thinking about what is inherent in the program that would make us vulnerable to these particular disorders, and I have to consider the common factors that cross the span of all personality disorders.

A narcissist views another person as their mirror.

A  borderline views another person in a two dimensional sense. They are either "all good" or "all bad". On your good list, or on your shit list.

A sociopath views another person as an object who they can manipulate and control.

In all cases, other people are not viewed as people. They are viewed as an extension of yourself, and not in possession of their own sentience or autonomy. You don't have to have empathy, because they only exist in relation to you.

How would otherwise normal kids suddenly come to believe these things?

Our peers, friends, essentially anyone who wasn't us, had to become non-persons. Because continuing to view them as their own selves with their own feelings would make indicting them in raps, policing them, doing horrible things to them in propheets/workshops, and ratting on them pretty fucking unbearable.

Does anyone remember the rap exercise where we target someone sitting across the room and we just run our shit at them? Even though it has nothing to do with them? Instead, they are our mother, or child molester uncle, or our negative thinking. How fucking pathological is that? We had to use another human being as a fucking emotional dartboard. They stop being them, they are part of you.


Ginger and I have both commented that we are surprised there hasn't been a famous serial killer discovered yet who went to a TBS. I said "Just you wait. Serial pattens often take years to decipher by the authorities. I'm willing to bet that not only do we have one, we probably have several."

I've talked about this with survivors before, but I don't think I ever posted anything about it in a thread. I talked about it again last night with someone, and I figured I should probably post my philosophy about the lifespan of trauma and transcending your own suffering.

Some of us feel that trauma will never leave. Others feel ashamed because we think it should be gone already. Others just deny there still might be an issue. Some of us have felt all three at some point in our post-program lives.



Trauma is plutonium.

From the minute the traumatic experience ceases, the clock is ticking.

Every time you have an epiphany, every time you transcend a demon, every time you understand something you didn't before, it halves itself.

In the same way that plutonium has a half-life, so does trauma. It never completely goes away, only (hopefully) gets to a manageable level where there is minimal toxicity and you are able to be a high-functioning human being again.

How to do this? Well, what happens when a reactor has a meltdown? Remember Chernobyl? They encased it in concrete and evacuated the area. The concrete is not a repression of the trauma, rather, it is an acknowledgment of its danger. Trauma must be respected for the poison that it is, but at the same time, you can't succumb to it.

That is what the concrete is... and the evacuation... damage control. And, despite the fact that there is a highly radioactive reactor contained within cement, its nuclear pile is constantly depleting... becoming half of what it once was.

But it doesn't stop there. Chernobyl is visited (I believe) by scientists. To take readings. Re-asses the damage. Determine what stage the pile is at.

One woman from Kiev defiantly drives her motorcycle through Chernobyl  on a regular basis, without protective gear, taking photographs that she puts online. She did this for years. As of yet, she has no signs of radiation poisoning or cancer. She documents the damage, bravely.

This is what we must do in order to heal. Get on our motorcycle and document the damage, knowing that if we do so, our well being, both physical and mental, will be taken care of.

It is an empty-handed leap into the void.

Repressing it, denying it, that is like leaving the reactor wide open to the elements, as if it weren't even there, allowing it to contaminate everything around it. It will still have a half life, but so will everything else, and that's when you start growing extra thumbs and maybe an additional eye or two. Kind of like the ultra-sadistic staff who went through the exact same program when they were teens. They were turned into monsters, mutants,  by the poison. They are permanently damaged.

I would say they deserve pity,  but some transgressions are unforgivable. I really don't have a whole lot of compassion for a post-apocalyptic zombie who  tried to eat my friend's brain, you know?

So, the trauma must be respected, but also know that it is dying, every day that you draw breath. Sooner or later, it will not have the burn it once did.  Maybe pangs, mild hauntings, discomfort when triggered, but you won't be critical anymore.



There is a good reason why what people go through after a traumatic experience is called "fallout".  

There I was, trying to locate my God Ween Satan tape, and it was just sitting there, on top of my shelf of cassettes, collecting what appeared to be about twelve years worth of dust.

So I says to myself, I says: "Holy shit, this is too good, I gotta pop this fucker in and see what's on it."

So here it is, the track list for the RMA graduation tape: circa 1989. (I know some of you have asked about this in the past.)

1. A Place for Us - Yentl Jew

2. The Greatest Love of All - Some guy, not Whitney

3. He Ain't Heavy - Neil Diamond

4. To Dream the Impossible Dream - whoever the guy was in the original broadway production of Man of La Mancha

5. I Want To Live - Someone who obviously didn't want to live *too* much, or he wouldn't have gone jaunting off in his poorly modified experimental airplane.

6. A Little Good News - Anne Murray

7. My Corner of the Sky - the guy from Pippin

8. I Am I Said - Neil Diamond

9. Imagine - pompous, arrogant fucking hippie John Lennon

10. I've Been This Way Before - Neil Diamond

11. The fantastic voyage song. ("Gonna exchange my things for precious wings and fly".. that one) Does anyone know what the title of this fucker is, or who sings it? I googled parts of the lyrics and didn't come up with SHIT, which is unheard of in this day and age of the interwebs. Not like I care one way or the other who it is, but I am a FUCKING COMPLETIONIST, and it drives me crazy that I don't have this for the track list.

12. The Rose - Bette Midler

13. Chariots of Fire - Vangelis

14. Gonna Fly Now (Rocky's Theme) - Bill Conti

15. Fame - Irene Cara

16. Pachelbel's Canon (graduation song) - Johann Pachelbel (duh)

17. One Moment In Time - okay, now Whitney.. crack is wack, yo.

18. "Your" song, whatever that is. The one they played in the summit when they rocked you like an infant. Mine was "Forever Young" by Joan Baez

19. Chariots of Fire... again? Not sure why that is... but it's on there twice.

and no, listening to it does not freak me out. It's just stupid.

Okay, well, listening to "Gonna Fly Now" made me a little queasy.


Now I am off to listen to Ween. Big black betty... little spanish eddie.

Had to look in my summit notebook today regarding a reference for the CEDU lingo section in the wiki, and it occurred to me, I have the frickin chronology in here. Or at least, a very basic skeleton of it. I know that we all have kind of tried to put our heads together in the past to remember what happened where. So here is what I have written:

First Day:
Rocking baby (my note: not sure what this is, since the rocking exercise comes later in the workshop), what you want out of workshop, trust you, don't trust you, don't know if I trust you, trust myself/don't trust myself, buddies, red & green game.

Second Day:
Dance. Go back through agreements (assignments, agreements, etc.) Junkyard. Results of kept and broken agreements. (trapped & clean). Read how we are going to sabotage this workshop. Diads. "They made me" "I have to". Giver/Taker votes. Lifeboat exercise. If this were real, how would you behave? How do you exclude people?

Third Day:
Dance. Mingle. (feedback on why we gave our votes.) Sharing. Write epitaph. Funeral. Circle w/Candles. Slapping. Rocking. Diads "hate" & "fear". Conversations w/parents. Mommy/Daddy.

Fourth Day:
Dance. Sharing. Balloons. Contracts. 4th key.

Fifth Day:
Party. Get your stretches. Do Party. Solo stretch.

Sixth Day:
Walk on the wild side. Trip to Spokane. Blessings feast. Dance of life. Wrapup, with graduation.


Tools:

Within the seed of a rose lives the idea of total perfection.

They may be giants.

Love is letting go of fear.

Peace of mind is my single goal!

Forgiveness is my single function!

Win - win! What if no one is out to get me?

All resistance must go! Surrender! (my note:   )

Total and complete acceptance within agreements

Stop! Look! Choose!

I am responsible for what I see!

I am never upset for the reason I think I am.

If not now, when?

Automatics: the numbers we run

Forces of light are life... these are in acceptance.

Here and now! Past is past!

Handle it!

Get on with your life!

(my note: notice how the last three tools are almost always something a pro-CEDU survivor says to us in the forums?)

If you win, then you are right, if you are right, then you have power, if you have power, then you have control, and if you have control, then you feel safe.

Teach only love, for that is what you are.

All that I give, I give to myself.

They are giants.



False beliefs: (balloons)
Sex
Money
Power
Love
Image
Religion
Death

Love, strength, weakness, anger... which neighborhood do you live in?

Hope this helps.

...now that I have your attention.

Okay, okay, they weren't *total* bullshit... BUT, I would HOPE that they weren't the best friendships you ever had. Please don't tell me that, because, unless you graduated three years ago or less, that totally sucks.

Someone in another thread mentioned this. We felt close to each other because we all went through the same trauma. At the same time, we had to betray each other on a regular basis, because we either didn't want to get caught ourselves, or we sincerely believed in the program and thought we were doing it for our peer's own good. Granted, I am talking about from my era, where the student gestapo was in full force, as opposed to the 90s when things started to loosen up a little bit. We really did police ourselves quite well.

I'm sorry, but I could never sustain a friendship that has that kind of history. The reason Idaho and I get along so well is that despite the fact that we were there at the same time, we really didn't pay much attention to each other, and we weren't friends, so there isn't any history, for the most part.

So, here's part of the reason why I am starting this thread. I had a memory come back to me, which, IMO, sums up perfectly how the friendship dynamic worked at that place.

I believe I mentioned in another thread a long time ago about one of my experiences in my truth propheet. First off, I am the baby of the peer group, and I get put into the truth a week after I get there. I literally only have two raps before I go in. Secondly, I already identified as a dyke when I got there, and had no qualms about being out and proud and quite obnoxious. (and yes, I am a guy now, for people who haven't caught up.) So, during the rap in the truth, Caroline is across from me, she points at me, with her ears and face turning bright red, and screams at the top of her voice "Don't you fuck with my girls!!" I remember being horrified. I mean, she sincerely looked pissed and hateful, as opposed to being someone who was putting on an act to try to freak me out.

Anyway, that was my first traumatic experience at that school.

So, rewind a bit and go to my first day there. Two female students come out to greet me and give me a tour. They are holding hands, and their smiles seem.... weird. One of the students, C, was actually graduating a week later, but she was, I believe, chosen to tour me and take me in, since she also was into wicca when she first got to RMA, and I believe swung both ways in her "prior" life, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, despite the fact that I am completely freaked out by this fresh hell that I have experienced over the past two days, what with my parents lying to me to get me up to the school, and not being able to say goodbye to any of my friends at home, and going through relocation shock and placement for the second time in my life, C is a comforting presence. She was sweet, easygoing, down to earth, light-hearted, and I didn't feel as stressed out when I was around her.

I also felt comfortable talking with her about being a queer teen, since the other kids at the school were visibly uncomfortable about the whole idea of some dyke making waves. She was totally laid back about it, and we joked around and laughed. Apparently, during our conversation, I jokingly said "I want a woman." which she thought was very funny and she repeated it back to me later, indicating how humorous she found it.

That was the memory that flitted through my brain today... which triggered something else... a piece of that memory from the truth...

Up until today, all I remembered from that rap was Caroline saying "Don't you fuck with my girls!"

Well, earlier this afternoon, I remembered what she said just prior to that.
"You think you're a witch. You think you're a dyke. 'I want a woman.' Don't you fuck with my girls!"

Despite the fact it was common knowledge at the school already (in the short week I had been there) that I was a dyke, the only person I had ever said "I want a woman" to was C.

She ratted on me. The first person I trusted at that place turned me in to the screws, and inadvertently contributed to one of my first horrific experiences there.

I connected the dots the minute Caroline said this to me, and my brain processed the information and had made its decision before I even realized what had happened. Instead of being angry or hurt, I was met with a cold realization that I couldn't trust anyone at this place, and that truly frightened me. My brain said "survival mode" and shut down all unnecessary functions, and that's pretty much how I went through my 2.5 years there.

C got me out of the truth, and I was thrilled to see her. I never even allowed myself to remember the fact that she contributed to that, and that decision to forget happened almost immediately after I realized the betrayal. Like I said, survival mode.

The fucked up thing about all of this is... C did something without thinking, and it was something that was quite contrary to her overall personality, despite the fact that said personality was currently compromised by the program. I'm sorry, but if she had her wits about her, she would never have done that, especially if she had thought it through to the obvious and inevitable result... that it would get my asshole a new neighbor courtesy of Caroline.

I didn't know her all *that* well, but I think I got enough of an impression of her personality to be able to make that judgement.

And this is my point, we were all, to some degree or another... compromised by the program. We did things to our so called friends that in the real world is considered disloyal and insensitive. How can you build a friendship off of that kind of past?

I will say that I am proud of the fact that, if I remember correctly, I NEVER ratted on anyone at that fucking school. Sure, I pulled students up, and got into a HUGE fight in the house with my little sister about the fact that she needs to make her bed, and I would request people for raps, but I don't ever recall going to a staff member to give them the dish on another student. If I tried to pull someone up and they didn't listen, I'd let it go, and feel totally horrible and stupid about it, because I hated doing that kind of shit anyway.

I really don't have any super strong feelings about this memory. I mean, I'm not pissed or anything. It's more like a "Wow. I totally forgot about that... Hmm... fascinating."


So... seriously, for people out there who say that their CEDU friendships were the best ones they've ever had (and I know these people exist because I've read their posts.) please please please get some new friends.