Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Seed Discussion Forum => Topic started by: Anonymous on April 09, 2006, 10:55:00 PM
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What affects me the most was the complete dominance, the inability to speak your mind, to talk to parents, to do anything voluntarily... did anyone have a moment where it all came to you, meaning you thought to yourself, 'holy ---, i'm fd? As if something in you was being annihalted ...it's hard to explain any other way- I don't know any of you began to buy into the program at any time- but i just knew I was going have to try my best to internally comply to their empty words becuase if I showed any outward signs of dissent or anger I was questioning the program and that was a very bad thing...meaning you're f---d up. In other owrds, I had to see some value, believe their was some worth in what I was doing...I was desperate to belive with so I wouldn't go crazy... DOes that make any sense at all to anyone???
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makes perfect sense to me. What doesn't make sense is why those words are quoted. Does this come from somewhere else, or are these your words anon?
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That has been copied from another conversation. I wanted to see if anybody over here would understand it.
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You would have to be smoking the same stuff to understand it. And, you would have to have had a sub-standard education.
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I don't know that a person would necessarily have to be smoking anything at all to get this.
It seems more like a reflection on self-preservation, or failure of self-preservation, if you will.
I going to take a wild shot here and guess that self-preservation is not such an uncommon event among persons who were put into behavior modification programs when there was nothing about them that needed modifying. Especially programs where the process of program "success" required one to wipe out or deny ones ture self.
I don't think that people who truly believe they were flawed individuals way back when and still believe that about themselves, could ever really understand. There is a deep sense of counfusion, shame, fear, maybe even desperation that comes with being required to abandon your sense of self and adopt a whole new set of values. Either that or you get to stay put on the first couple of rows or some freaking step category for some indetrminable period of time.
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On 2006-04-10 19:48:00, Anonymous wrote:
"You would have to be smoking the same stuff to understand it. And, you would have to have had a sub-standard education."
That's Programeze for "Fuck! I remember that moment! Shit! Can we please not talk about it? I only want to think about the trauma bonds and comforting simplistic world view I got from that wonderful, wonderful program and oh how I miss it all!"
So thanks :wave: There's only one party on Capital Hill and it's the bipartisan spending party.
Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste
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Marc Polonsky wrote about the same feeling:
http://www.insidersview.info/theseed.htm (http://www.insidersview.info/theseed.htm)
Pretty amazing. I had to read Marc's version to recapture the exact feeling.
"The one thing I remember distinctly about my first full day at the Seed was that the morning rap was on "conning." It was a horrifying and awakening experience for me because when people stood up and said things like "I thought I could con the Seed by just saying everything they wanted me to," I realized that the Seed was after a very different, more fundamental kind of change than I had thought. I was scared."
"But for some reason, the only point on which I did not eventually give way to Stan was that I was happy before I came to the Seed. This was enough to enrage him. He would demand, "What about those nights when you lied awake in bed, wishing things were different somehow because you knew you just didn't feel right?" and I would reply that there had been no such nights. And he would tell me what an asshole I was, and so on. It was in fact this very argument that, on the night before I was finally allowed to go home, led him to comment, "You've made some progress but you're not even in the same ballpark as being allowed to go home."
"But that progress I had made had already cost me dearly. I felt like I had betrayed my friends and my sister and that I was no longer the same person. Even if I were to be completely pulled off the program at that point, I could not go back to being the person I had been. I could no longer think clearly or reflect on things in the privacy of my own mind, the way I had used to. My mind was too cluttered and confused and reflexively frightened of being invaded. Stan [oldcomer]had always been asking, "What are you thinking?" when I had least expected it. This "What are you thinking?" ploy of Stan's had been very effective in breaking down my resistance and cutting me off from my internal resources."
"It took me well over a decade to understand what had happened to me, what the Seed had done to my psyche, and what I'd done to myself while I was in the Seed. I strongly suspect that my internal process was very similar to that of many other Seedlings, though I cannot speak for others.
In a nutshell, the Seed forced me to "mean things that were not true." Under the combined pressures of sleep deprivation, lack of privacy, and constant haranguing both at the Seed and in Stan's charge, I eventually, with my words, betrayed everything that was sacred to me at that time in my life. I felt that if my friends on the outside still had any good feelings for me, then I no longer deserved them.
The obvious question, though, is why did I have to mean it? Why couldn't I simply say what I was being forced to say, but hold the words more lightly? Why couldn't I, or anyone else for that matter, simply "con" the Seed?"
"The strategy I believe most Seedlings adopted (including me) was to try and persuade themselves that the Seed had to be right. Maintaining a consistent lie, a conscious subterfuge, under such stressful conditions was a tall order for an unsophisticated young teenager. Also, I saw other Seedlings getting "busted" for conning right and left in the group. (I have no idea how many of those accused of conning were actually deliberately conning, any more or less than the rest of us.)
I remember a moment of horror, on the evening of my seventh or eighth day, when I realized that I was unable to "think" any longer. I had lost the ability to retreat into the sanctuary of my own mind and think things through, because I had grown so accustomed to being intruded upon without a moment's notice. It was as if I'd had a sealed off room in my head that had previously been accessible only to myself, and now even I could not enter. (I think I may known even then, in my heart of hearts, that I would regain access to this room at some point in my life, but it would be a long time, much longer than I could accept at age 14.)
During my time with Stan, I put a great deal of energy into resisting him. I set up a psychic force field, as it were, between us. To keep from being devoured, I had to maintain a certain tension, a precarious balance between overt resistance and total surrender. So I emerged at last from his dominion with a certain meager sense of myself intact. But still, I felt horribly guilty and empty, as if I had been pillaged and broken.
At some point shortly after being allowed to go home, I was sitting in the large warehouse room, in the group, at the Seed, pondering how I still believed myself to be "different" from everyone else there, and wondering what good it did me to feel this way. I could see how it was causing me pain. I could not see how it would ever serve me. My fate, as far ahead as I could see, was locked. There was nothing for me but to be a Seedling. I might as well be one then, and wholeheartedly embrace whatever attendant rewards there were. There were some: I could feel a part of something larger than myself. I could be part of an (albeit self-proclaimed) elite. I could have friends, a community, an identity. Why hold out for some other ambiguous set of rewards that I had already sold myself out of anyway?
And here is where I made a strange decision. I decided to make myself a true Seedling. All the energy I had put into resisting Stan, I now directed at my own resistance. I now became my own primary oppressor, working to deny and even to change my genuine feelings. After all, I already felt that I had betrayed myself (and all of my friends), I was already lost; one step further would not make a difference. I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel.
In one sense this "strategy" worked brilliantly. I moved through the rest of the program very quickly. Perhaps it was only an extension, really, of what I'd been doing in the Seed all along up until then, nothing fundamentally different in kind. Whenever the tension between what I really thought and felt and what I was "supposed to" think and feel became too apparent and unbearable to me, I had to deny the conflict and push it out of mind. I was unable to "ride out" the discomfort of being divided. My choices were either to consciously live a lie, or start working internally against my own emotions. I didn't see myself as capable of the former."
I don't care if you thought the Seed was a great experience and you are a happy ex-Seedling, if you thought the Seed sucked, or if you are ambivalent. I believe that everyone went through a similar internal process, and Marc really captured it.
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yes, Marc did capture the experience.
So did you Wally. I felt many of the exact same things you did during those first couple weeks. I did not want to surrender myself to the seed, but I morphed over that time to someone who came to the realization that I had to in order to survive and get out the other side to freedom. It was a terrifying invasive process that I will never forget and never wish on another person.
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As the thread title goes, that's pretty much how went for all the children in the crowd.
Society usually looks down on parents who have subjected their children to the danger and disaster that results from a family membership in a cult. The children are viewed as innocent victims and the parents are the criminals, sometimes in the literal sense. An extreme but very realisitic example: Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple.
On the other hand, when parents voluntarily and willingly subject their children to cult teachings and forced membership, the children who reject the danger and disaster of the cult are reviled and turned away. That's what the message was from Art Barker and The Seed back to the parents.
Accept the dogma and deny themselves, or reject the dogma and risk total rejection by their family and their new society.
Yeah, all in all, most young kids were definitely fucked no matter how they chose.
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I once performed a slam poem in which I referenced The Seed, and it went like this:
Some people get raped on a floor or a bed
I got fucked in the head instead
By the way, I'm assuming it's okay to spell out profanity here (?)
My question tonight:
It seems most of us here--especially us nonanonymous regulars--all essentially agree about what happened and how completely horrible it was.
But what about the hundreds and hundreds of others? I don't know a single Seedling from my time (late '72-early '73). Most of them, in the years immediately following, acted like it had been no big deal and told me to get over it (in so many words). The guys I was hanging out with the most right after the program--also ex-Seedlings--were extremely scornful of how much I needed to still talk about The Seed a year or more after I graduated. They would say, "There goes Marc again with his favorite subject." And they'd roll their eyes. They'd be genuinely embarrassed if I brought up the subject with different people (especially girls), or if I even allowed myself to be drawn into conversation about the subject with people who hadn't been in The Seed.
Did anybody else experience anything like this? Did it feel like The Seed made a bigger dent in you than in anyone else? There was something extra humiliating about that for me. It was like a new humiliation laid on top of the whole humiliating experience of having had to go through The Seed.
I stopped hanging out with ex-Seedlings about the time I began eleventh grade; it was too painful, so I made new "druggie friends" who were a little kinder and more amazed at what I'd been through. But I knew the other ex Seedlings would be laughing if they knew how much I still talked about it, to these new friends.
I went to the University of Florida when I was 18, and I knew no former Seedlings there. At age 20 I moved to California by myself, largely to put some distance between myself and my family. So from 1976 or so, until 2002 when I discovered this forum, I had absolutely no contact with anyone who'd ever even heard of The Seed, let alone been there.
So again I ask, were we just the sensitive ones who took it too seriously? I'm sure people did con the Seed after all. Or at least they didn't take it so much to heart. Did they have some natural adaptation mechanism--something between allowing themselves to be brainwashed and putting up overt resistance--a survival skill that those of us drawn to this forum were somehow missing?
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I mean, wherever they are, all those other former Seedlings, it doesn't seem that they've googled The Seed and found this site.
Or if they have, they haven't felt a need to join the conversation.
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Alot of folks don't feel the same way you do.
Did you go to catholic school?
Alot of people that went to catholic school hated it too. Others thought the discipline was fine and accepted it.
What can I say.
I went to catholic school & the Seed and feel I benifited from both.
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Marc,
I too feel the need to think and talk about the Seed quite a lot, after keeping it buried for many, many years.
Why?
I don't know. From this forum, I have had contact with eight or nine seedlings from my era. Without naming anyone, here's a tally:
1 - female, was a newcomer when I was an oldcomer. Posted a few times here, was ambivalent but mostly negative about the Seed. Currently married with children and owns a very successful business. We emailed a few times, but her career takes priority.
2 - male, was a staff member when I came in. Posts here, we've talked on the phone and emailed. I think he was initially shocked when I had anything negative to say about the Seed, because he is one who feels it saved his life. We're in touch - I think he's a great guy, and we agree to disagree.
3 - female, was an oldcomer before me at a nother Seed branch, moved to Ft. Lauderdale when I was there - posted here a bit. We emailed quite actively, and she had been a long-term Seedling, and kept up with a lot of people. She is pretty open to both positive and negative Seed aspects, and feels that the biggest flaw was that the Seed kids by and large did not have children, even after they married. She cut off contact because she felt that it was living in the past. Married with children.
4 - male, newcomer with my brother before me, posts here regularly. Very anti-Seed, was a staff 'side-kick' for a long while, left about the same time I did. He, like me, went on to become an artist. We email from time to time.
5 - male, long-term Seedling, currently an academic. Struggled to find an identity post-Seed, came to terms with being gay, which was something the Seed had trouble with. Posts here on occasion, we've spoken, he's aware of good and bad effects. Still close to some Seedlings.
6 - male, was on the front row with me. Engineer. Posts here from time to time, we've emailed, he's pretty anti-Seed, but shares with me some good memories. Has kids and is married, sounds very happy.
7 - male, newcomer when I was an oldcomer, successful business owner. We've spoken and emailed, he struggled with the Seed hierarchy and leaving was hard, he does feel that it saved his life although he has been critical, that's his bottom line.
8 - long-term seedling, oldcomer when I was, we lived together then, he's had a long career in a technical field and stuck with the Seed for a long time. We emailed, but he didn't reply after I made a comment critical of the Seed. Nice guy, but I don't think he wants to have anything to do with me on that basis at present. Pro-Seed.
9 - female, oldcomer when I was, was forced out of the Seed for some infraction, VERY anti-Seed, has posted here, but not recently.
10 and 11 - these are two people who I didn't know, one posts here and has written eloquently on the Seed, is very anti-Seed; and another, who started emailing me but has stopped, was on staff in early Seed days and is very perceptive about the process of the group - essentially anti-Seed but mostly because he feels Art screwed up.
I've had contact with one or two others, but the above are the main ones. Looks like an even division - one each, very anti-Seed, one each, very pro, and the rest divided. These are the people who, at least for a while, wanted to talk about this experience and reconnect. I am aware that there are others, many many others, who would just rather not talk about it. I think because it confuses them, they are not ready to deal with ambivalent feelings, or perhaps anger, or other disturbing emotions. They prefer to remember vaguely that it was tough but they did it, and maybe they're better of for it, or maybe not, but the past is the past.
For whatever reason, I needed to dredge it all up and have a look at it...
W
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Yes Marc, I did feel I was more damaged by the Seed than my other friends. This also added to the feeling of isolation and despair over the loss of most of my friends and family. First it was the ridicule and scorn of the "druggies" when I became a seedling, then it was the silence and ostracation by the seedlings for speaking my mind (which I thought I had "earned" by becoming a graduate...stupid me), and then finally the loss of my family.
After this I moved to Ft Lauderdale and met a bunch of kids in my mother's apartment complex. I smoked with them and told them the stories,and they were all amazed. Soon the stories weren't pertinent anymore and I stopped talking about it. I drove by the seed once in a while and yelled "the seed sucks", and I ran into seedlings from time to time (maggie and Suzie, and then Art at Cranbrook), but mostly the Seed for me only existed as pain and anger I held inside. I would see Art on TV once in a while while he was running for congress, and I would just go ballistic, usually pointing and calling him names like "theres that muther fucker right there!" or something like that. Then I started seeing things about "the straight" and knowing that my father was involved in it, I just was overwhelmed by the scope of the whole thing. Once I saw a fundraiser being held by one of those shop at home networks for straight, and my stomach turned. I couldn't believe it was getting that big. My father and I were totally estranged during this time, and his actions were just unbelievable to me, that he would involve himself in the system of "treatment" that had chewed me up and spit me out. It felt like a personal attack on my self worth, to be frank.
To me it was a major mind fuck that I just couldn't get out of my mind. When I went to the university of florida I researched the seed in the library and found the "science" and "these are new times" articles and made exclamation marks beside the "branwashing" and other accusations. These articles were like treasure to me because it seemed that yes, someone out there beside me understood what I went thru. I kept them and still have them to this day, and every once in a while I would bring them out and read them.
Then I got married and told my ex wife. She didn't understand. In fact, thinking back, she would have made a perfect seed mom.
Meanwhile, when I would run into my former seedling "friends" from St Pete they had seemed to just have shedded the whole experience, didnt' want to talk about it, and it didn't seem to be affecting them one way or the other. I now believe this is false, but that is the attitude they would take. This also made me feel seperate and different.
So yes, I think some of us did take it harder than others. Kind of like some cats love being domesticated, and others will bolt for the door everytime it is left open. I think this describes some some of us, held captive and struggling to stay true to ourselves in a situation where it was impossible to do so.
This forum has been a wonderfull thing for me. I have been able to identify the anger, pain, and actual processes I was subjected to, and to put the pain and anger in the past. I have been able to make peace with people that don't agree with me on the subject and understand that other people had different experiences.
I hope others have gotten something similar out of it.
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Well I certainly have gotten a whole lot out of the forum, Greg, so, as always, thank you.
Thank you Greg and Walter for your thoughtful responses to my last post. It's interesting to me that the other post that came--the one by the person who "benefitted" from both Catholic School and The Seed--was anonymous. What's up with all these anonymous Seed cheerleaders? So strange.
In fact, one of the most unexpected things about this whole forum is the presence of people still loyal to The Seed, still saying that they are straight and The Seed saved them. (In the beginning of the forum, everyone was angry about The Seed, isn't that right, Greg?) There were only two Seedlings that I knew who did not, as far as I know, start using drugs again within a year or two. The vast majority of former Seedlings were using drugs again, but acting as if The Seed had been no big deal.
Greg, I can't imagine how gross it would feel that your father should get involved with Straight after the damage you sustained in The Seed. That's cool that you went to UF though. I bet we were there at the same time. I arrived in fall '76 and stayed through the fall '78 quarter and then moved to CA.
I can also relate to feeling overwhelmed when I first heard about Straight. Shortly after moving to CA I became very active in anti-nuclear political activism and met a lot of lovely people and I thought to myself, Well, this is all so much more important than the Seed anyway. Then, in 1986, I was on the cross-county Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament and I was reading the novel, "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K Dick, which had a fascist futuristic drug rehab in it. Another young man on the march saw me with the book, and he said, "Wow, you're reading that book? It's poignant as shit, man."
I said, "Well, I like it. I don't know if I'd call it poignant. But this drug rehab reminds me of an experience I myself had long ago . . ." and I told him about The Seed and his jaw dropped. He knew all about The Seed. He himself had been through Straight, and he was very very damaged. He told me all about Straight, how it had "blossomed" from The Seed, and about "motivating" and all the bizarre shit that went on, and how Straight was very very big right then. And I felt sick inside because I realized that the whole phenomenon was too much for me to face, even though I felt a responsibility to do something. Just the thought of trying to do anything filled me with such dread, I knew I couldn't be the one to start a survivors' movement against Straight/Seed or anything like that. I wanted somebody else to do it. And I guess, eventually, people like Ginger and Greg and Richard Bradbury and Maia Szalavitz did, albeit MUCH later than I could have imagined.
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Yeah, Marc. I hear ya.
For most of my time in affiliation w/ the cult, I wasn't the kid in the program. I was the little sister. So I didn't fully understand what was going on when my older brothers and some of their friends went in. All of our real friends quit coming around and my mom told me, if she bothered to tell me anything, that this was way, way better! We have Seed love now! Well, little kids being little kids will accept whatever the tribe favors and play along as best as they can. But it bugged me. When my brothers came back home, they were busy.
Not that we ever had been the Brady Bunch or anything. But there was something different, missing, weird and deeply disturbing. Everybody said they loved me and each other and I said it back, but it was confusing as hell. Love ya? I don't even know ya'. And these loving people never did hang around very long or become a part of that get along I remembered. But that old druggie past was gone and, I was told in every possible way, we're better for it. So who was I to argue? I threw myself into it, following my family. But I never caught up. My tribe had gone somewhere wonderful and left me out and didn't seem to miss me at all, or even themselves.
It was spooky.
My dad always held onto some reservation about it all. But toward the end there around `82 or so, even he was pretty thoroughly brainwashed against me. More bitter still, unlike my mom, he never loved the cult. Always chaffed under the forced public intimacy and many, many other subtle and overt aspects of the whole thing. But he was it seemed, brainwashed pretty hard against me. That pretty nearly blew my mind. It left me jaded.
Funny thing. After two kidnapping attempts, an extradition, some weeks at a group home and a court date against my parents and some Straight ppl, I returned to Stone Mountain to my job at Arbey's. These folks had known me for, oh, maybe a month or so? And they noticed a change in me. My boss asked me what was wrong, why I was so angry and mean since coming back from Florida. I cried real tears. I hadn't had that kind of just normal friendship in so long, I was beginning to think it had all been my imagination.
And before you can get all rude, Lauderdale, no, this was nothing inapropriate. Just an old dude w/ kids of his own who enjoyed his job managing teenaged and college age employees just asking why I seemed so angry and unhappy. I just told him I had learned a lot on that trip.
What I learned is that no good deed ever goes unpunish. I had been carrying a torch for something that was, for all I could tell, long dead and buried and happily so as far as anyone else cared.
I wasn't broken and defeated by my time in Group. I held out, waiting for my liberty to go rejoin the human race. When it finally was over, it seemed as though no one noticed the passing of our elan vital.
So yeah, I do stick on this, stubournly. Whenever I hear someone gushing about how wonderful the Seed was, especially members of my own family, it comes accross as "Oh, I like you and me and everything much better this way!"
I don't know about the hundreds and hundreds of others. I think they're at WalMart right now doing their pre-shift LGAT session or arguing out whether to vote for the blue bellied Fabians or the red bellied Fabians, if they're even vaguely aware of the coming elections.
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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Eudora I wasn't thinking a rude thought...
I was actually feeling sorry for your messed up time.
Somehow my family that was totally fuc*** up in the 60's and 70's and all landed pretty well after alot of events occured.
In the 60's My mom was in and out of nut houses having nervous breakdowns and getting psyco analyzied. In my opinion, mostly because my grandfather remarried after my grandmothers death to someone the same age as my mother and the money no longer was going to her.
My dad was a drunk. A somewhat functioning one. He did go to AA and spent the last 25 years sober & happy before he died. By the way he was very very involved with AA. They divorced, remarried each other and divorced each other again.
One of my siblings went through the program and never stepped into the doors again. She's one of my closest friends today. My other 3 brothers never went through the program. I never thought they needed to. Especially the one thats ten years younger than me. I onced asked him about 20 years ago when he was 21 if he had ever even smoked pot. He replied "no I have never had a Marijuana cigarette". Since he said it like that I believed him.
I was away from my family for a number of years , years ago. That was probably the best all the way around for all of us.
Today my mother is 80 happier than she has ever been. (& not just because she out lived my father) (a little humor).
I just spent Easter with my entire family. We had a blast.
I honestly enjoy all of them and them me.
We really do love each other & it shows. I would do anything for any of them. They are family.
I think I honestly learned that from the Seed.
I'm grateful for my life and what I have.
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I can't deny that I went to the program looking for a sense of belonging and family, and in part, I got it. I went through the 'hazing' of being a newcomer, I learned the new seed vocabulary and behavior, and I did my best to fit in. I remembered, after reading Marc's account, how I felt when I betrayed my best 'pre-Seed' friend by essentially lying about him, calling him a druggie and saying that he didn't care about me. I loved this guy like a brother, and he was a casual pot smoker at worst. Once I crossed that bridge it was easy to try to totally yield to being 'straight.' And I still didn't know what being straight was - all I knew was that being straight was whatever Art and the Seed said it was.
Then I saw other people that I loved, go from being 100% Seedlings - people I admired and respected, some were on staff - to being persona non grata (Bob Ch***, Ray K., my brother - some were gone for good, some just 'started over' - but I was increasingly cynical. My new 'family' was as unpredictable as my old one in some ways.
When I left the Seed, I felt terribly ashamed and rarely talked about it. When I did, people acted as I expected - as if I had two heads or a hunchback. I felt it was further evidence of failure on my part.
Is some ways, I felt that my Seed experience had been positive. I did feel that I understood people much better than I had as a really naive, unhappy teenager. I also knew how to 'fake it til you make it' and act happy when I wasn't - valuable in social situations.
However I was plagued by insecurity, self-doubt and loneliness - since I felt them pre-Seed, I can't say that the Seed was a cause. But at any rate I did a lot of soul-searching after I left.
In some ways I felt total freedom - since I had already completely remade myself once, it was now easier to remake my life. That prepared my for big life changes - new jobs, careers, ending one marriage and starting another. I wonder, if I had never been in the Seed, would I be as resilient. And is that good or bad, or am I missing something I would have had if I had never been in the Seed?
I don't know. Like Lauderdale, I am a happy, loving, person today. And maybe I'm just lucky to be able to say so.
w[ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2006-04-19 12:43 ]
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Well, we all have weird and troubled stories, I think, but I give the prize to Ginger. Most of our families were sucked up to some degree into a cult; Ginger's family WAS a cult! Actually, it's amazing, Ginger, what you've done--giving us this forum, and giving everyone all the survivor forums--as a way of responding to your intensely weird, cult-drug-rehab-suffused childhood. Talk about turning weakness into strength! I mean . . . thank you.
Walter, I understand your ambivalence, because you're a happy person now and wouldn't change anything. My suspicion is that the reason you're happy now is because you're a kind, honest, open-hearted, intelligent, naturally self-aware person who, one way or another, was going to do the soul searching necessary to find peace and clarity in life, with or without an ordeal like The Seed.
For myself, when people ask me, I put it like this: I wouldn't trade the life I have now for any hypothetical alternative life I might have had if I could have avoided the Seed.
But at the same time, if the clock was turned back to 1972 and I was fourteen years old again, and some god-like entity told me that I could go through the Seed again and live the life I've lived, with the wonderful adulthood I've had and all the blessings in my life today, OR skip the Seed and take my chances, I would skip The Seed and take my chances.
I interviewed Maia Szalavitz by phone in early March, and I submitted the interview to THE SUN magazine, for possible publication. Don't know yet if they'll use it, but I am going to take a little liberty here and quote a relevant portion of it. Speaking of all the "tough love" programs in aggregate, she said this:
"Based on my observations, the people who seemed to get the least damaged were those who basically said 'This is fucked up, and I?m just gonna fake it until I make it.' Another subgroup of people who did reasonably well were those who genuinely did have big drug problems. They didn?t have to make up a lot of false confessions, and they could believe they were being helped. The people who did absolutely the worst were those who really didn?t have much of a problem going in, but who had to make up stuff, and who resisted doing so, and therefore got the most punished."
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Thanks, Lauderdale. It honestly does mean a lot to me for you to respect my side of things.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys
--P.J. O'Rourke
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I think Maria might have oversimplified that. What about the mentally ill or insecure kid that was emotionally thrashed on a regular basis? Or the people's whose families all joined in and then rejected them for their non compliance? How about someone deeply in love who had to reject his/her partner in order to gain freedom? Or those 16 year olds that choose a homeless life on the run over lockdown in the seed?
It wasn't only seedlings that were hurt, either. Imagine those parents and siblings of seedlings that got rejected for years and years because their adult kids disappeared into the "seed family". Imagine the heartbreak of these people.
For every success story, there is an alternative scorched earth scenario. Some people just got chewed up by the 'love' of the Seed in ways that I still don't think those pro-seedlings really really get it.
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That's an interesting question - what would my life be like, if I had never entered the Seed.
Well, based upon Maia's interview, I was one of the kids that would have been most damaged - a non-drug addicted, long-term Seed resident.
I also had some serious emotional issues. Like many of us, I came from a deeply damaged family environment. A very unhappy, alcoholic, divorced, messed up environment. I turned a lot of my pain inward, and became depressed, anxious and socially withdrawn. What I had would now be called Social Phobia, but there was no diagnosis like that then.
There are more opportunities for someone who is suffering today, to connect with others and to learn about issues, via the internet. An unhappy 17 year old today can find a lot more support then I had, I think. Of course, there are just as many quacks and false prophets around, too.
So, if I could have found a happy family-type environment, based upon friendship, AND found help with the overwhelming feelings of panic and shame that were choking off my sense of happiness with life, then YES - I would have loved to have spent seven years more productively, going to school, making friends, exploring careers. As it was, I had to jump back into life at (it felt old then) at 26 years, and scramble to 'do' life again. My Seed years were pretty much a dead end - although I have reconnected with a few of my friends through this forum, it's 20 years later and we aren't connected in the same way that my wife is with her college friends, who are life-long friends. I don't have any lifelong friends, and my family life has that 7 year gap that might never be bridged.
So - what a question.
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You guys listening to or watching this?
http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=2775 (http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=2775)In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn?t speak up because I wasn?t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn?t speak up because I wasn?t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn?t speak up because I wasn?t a trade unionist. Then they came for Catholics, and I didn?t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
--Protestant minister Martin Neimoller
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On 2006-04-20 08:22:00, cleveland wrote:
it's 20 years later and we aren't connected in the same way that my wife is with her college friends, who are life-long friends. I don't have any lifelong friends, and my family life has that 7 year gap that might never be bridged.
Me too. I have found a couple of really good friends who I "went to school with". But having that particular dark chapter in common, all that dark matter is a part of the get along. Still, better than being lonely; probably valuable and wonderful in equal preportion to the dark stuff.
A fundamentalist Christian President who claims God told him to invade Iraq ? an act that killed more than 150,000 civilians, mostly women and children ? is not that much different from a fundamentalist Islamic fanatic who claims it is the will of Allah that he send young men to America to crash airliners into office buildings and kill 3,000 plus.
DOUG THOMPSON
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Well Ginger, in all situations there is good. Had we not been childhood victoms of this treatment modality, we would not be friends today. It is nice to have someone just to call once in a while and shoot the bull with.
So, I guess in a way the Seed gave me Ginger. This is one thing I guess I can thank the Seed for.
Thanks Art!
:grin:
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Hey! I did listen to the Cato Institute forum today, with Maia Szalavitz and Walter's brother, Evan Wright. Good show! I thought they were both excellent.
Some of what Evan had to say was particularly interesting. Boxing matches in The Seed?? OY! Art leading the group in original songs, with a ukelele? Dear GOD, now THAT is torture! "Homo Superious"? Well, during my time, they talked of Seedlings as "superior human beings" but we didn't have an actual anthropological term for it yet!
Whew! Things really did get more and more twisted, didn't they? I had no idea.
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Hey Marc you sound like you are pretty high up on your own podium. What floor are you on? Sounds like the penthouse. ::birthday:: ::blushing:: ::bigmouth::
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You go, bro!
Man, I am proud of my brother.
I am glad that Maia has written this book, and glad that he has been able to appear with her at this event.
Interesting point he makes, about how in AA, you have to 'hit bottom' before you can accept help. In coercive therapies, whether it's a boot camp, drug rehab, or christian school, they want to force the hitting bottom part. I mean, it's what they've been doing in the military forever, but to go through this for its own sake...and there are a lot of ex-military out there who don't adjust well to life outside of the military structure.
Fascinating.
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I read this on another thread regarding a christian academy, and I think it speaks to how shame, power and control can corrupt these schools and treatment centers. She writes so well; I wish her the best:
"Hey, all. I went to VCA in year 2002. I am now 18. My name Is Rachel Haygood. I am sure you remember if you went the same year I did. I was odd, that's for sure. Hehe.
I would like to tell about a choice few of my experiences at Victory Christian Academy.
My first day at VCA, my father had paid my uncle and cousin I had never met to pick me up from a mental facility in Orlando, Fl and transport me to VCA. I was a cutter, had severe emotional issues from past abuse at home and at school. I was also suicidal. I had been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder over 6 times by different doctors. I was on paxil at the time. I was also ADD, and had a hard time in school. I had always been very intelligent and creative child, but needed a different approach on learning considering I learn differently from most people.
My Uncle and cousin sat on either side of me in their truck the entire way to Jay, Fl, where the school was located. Their doors were locked at all times, and when we pulled over to a rest stop they waited outside the bathroom for me. You would have thought they were taking me to prison. I didn't know where I was going. My mom had sent me a letter telling me they had found a nice, christian place for me to live with people who would get me on track. I did't know what to think. When i arrived at VCA, my uncle hugged me and left me with these people. The grounds were nice and well manicured. There was a big house-looking building.There were flowers. Little did I know it was the girls who were forced to keep up the entire place like slaves. The people there stared at me. Some of the younger girls seemed to look in envy at my pants. I wore a pair of my cousin's old kaki cargos. I then noticed what everyone was wearing. they wore these masculine-looking shorts that were baggy and came down to their knees. Some of the women who seemed older and in charge told me to come with them. They seemed, calm, and expressionless. They surrounded me and weren't at all phased by my fear and confusion of being dropped off at a cultic- seeming place where I was supposed to do what I was told with little explanation of where I was and who they were. They took me to a room and told me to undress in front of them. I refused. i was terrifed and they were all staring at me. Ms Charity and Ms Betty told me if I didn't undress immediately so I could shower they would make me shower by undressing me by force and throwing me in. I backed away and they grabbed me. It was so scary to me that I can't even recall all of it. I know my eyes were closed most of the time. They called in Brother John Kissel, who is male, and helped them hold me down and take off my clothes, then dump me in the shower and turn it on cold.I don't know if you can imagine being molested in that fashion by one, complete strangers, and two, someone of the opposite sex. But it caused me a lot of emotional problems in the future.
I was told if I didn't get saved, I would never go home. This is how they would manipulate us. No one got "saved". Girls were terrified. And they wanted to be cared for. Most of the girls there had been abandoned already by their parents, and they felt they only had their captors, being VCA staff to bond with and trust. They made many of us believe we wouldn't make it in the outside world, saying we needed them and the school to survive.Many girls got to a point that they were sick of being locked in the "Get-Right Room" For having their own beleifs or religions, or not going along with the brainwashing in the school. They were sick of being denied simple things like candy after meals, or soda on friday, or even their medications because they were a "sinner". I remember when I was denied my medication because I was "Misbehaving" by not walking fast enough for the girl who was watching me. Katherine Tillet was by buddier and was given permission to put her hands on me and push me whenever she wanted to, if I wasn't walking fast enough for her, or if I didn't get out of bed fast enough in the morning, she could drag me out by my hair. I remember being dragged by my arm down two flights of stairs by Ms Katie.Kathering was rough and took pleasure in the power she had been given by the staff. She would flatter them, suck up, lie, do anything to make them give her approval. They understood her grovelling, and even made fun of her behind her back for it. It was really sad. But she never saw it. Katherine got permission to punish me for swearing by making me lie in a thin gown with not even a sheet on the hard, dorm floor and with not even a pillow for three nights.Girls who had been in the school for much longer had no pity, most of them. Some liked watching new girls go through that; some laughed at me when they walked by. I was very cold, and got no sleep, as is to be expected.
I went on about only a few of the physical abuse situations I encountered. Now I will tell about some emotional abuse.
Daily, either Brother Palmer or Brother Brown would scream at us during chapel, telling us we were "dirty, discusting pigs and whores" and that we were "going to hell" and that if we were homosexual God hated us more than anything else. I remember one time when Brother Palmer took a poor girl, Amy F., and had her sit in front of the chapel, facing the entire room. He told her she had slept with her boyfriend back home, and that she was worthless and sick. He screamed at her and about her, cutting her down until she cried violently.She cried until her entire face was red with tears. He was mad at her because she was caught talking about things besides God, and her parents. We weren't allowed to talk about radio, movies, friends, games, TV, bands of any kind,music exept for hymns, and we couldn't even say the word 'Pants" Because good women didn't wear pants in their opinion, and they were a sign of a rebellios women who didn't follow after her husband like a stupid sheep. Ironically, they taught us to be housewives, have kids, and worship our husbands, when the women there did none of this. they weren't humble, they weren't a crown to their husbands; instead, they were overly-bold and controlling women-staff. They were manipulative to the men, and then told us differently. Ms Betty always told me that the husband would come first. That we were to work for the men and let them make all the choices and decisions in all matters; that we had no say. She claimed to be a humble and meek wife, always respecting her husband and being by his side. Ms Betty was loud, controlling, nosy, talked all the time, loved to intimidate girls and make herself look like someone to be afraid of.She would make sure she got her way,all the time. I never saw God in her. One time Brother Brown was preaching chapel on homosexuality. He said that if we thought it was wrong and they were going to hell,to stand up in chapel. The girls that didn't stand up, he made other girls yell at and put down, and make fun of. It was cruel, sick, and satanic in my opinion. He was very intimidating when he wanted to be. He would scream. He had a very loud voice, and quite a temper.It was like one big mind-bubble. It was trance they had you in. And if anyone broke that trance of belief, they would be silence, one way or another. They wouldn't let you voice your thoughts. They would go through my things periodically and throw my writings (poems, stories) away because I wasn't "writing about scripture". We had no privacy at the school, no way to contact anyone or anything from the outside world. It was all forbidden, and "Worldly". You were not permitted to make friends. If you did, they would put you on separation, where you would have to wear a pink shirt every day. Girls who were a suspect of talking about things that weren't VCA subjects, like God, Bible, how much you loved VCA and how it helped you, etc, were put on the pink shirt rule, and were looked down upon and ridiculed by other girls. No one wanted to talk to you because you were "bad" and it would make them look bad if they were too nice to you.It was hard having few friends and people to rely on and talk to.I know for a fact many VCA girls begged God every night to show their ignorant parents what was really going on at the school. You may have gotten closer to God there, but it wasn't because of their torture and cultic practices. It was because of the pain of being left with people who acted nice and civil in front on your parents, sane, even. And when they left, the real horrors began.Many girls grew to hate God because this was the only thing they knew of him. They actually thought these fanatics refelected our loving God. These people are tools or satan because they drive people from how God really is, making them think God must be hateful, because they claim God is on their side.Of course girls will be turned away.This is so damaging. I remember watching a girl being forced to eat her own vomit because she couldnt finish her food. It was horroble to watch.Many of us wanted to fight back, and many of us did. But it never lasted for long. They always won. If you tried to stand up for another girl in the school, you would be given the same punishment as her, basically.
If you wrote things to your parents that the staff didn't want them to know about,they would sometimes blot it out with white out or black permanent marker if they thought it would be taken as truth. But If what was going on at the school was being expressed to the parents in letters, the staff would explain to the parents the girls were lying and just wanted to get away from their problems.They would leave it there in the letters to make you look bad. They told the parents that if they took their child out of the school before their year, things would never be successful between them and their child. It was their way of getting more money.
The staff always chose favorites with the girls. It was really wrong because there were some girls who were naturally more dull, or less pretty than other girls, or were less likely to suck up. These girls were ignored and were only given attention when the girls called their name, or had a question about a rule or something.But besides that, they never helped them with their problems, talked about working through problems that got them to VCA in the first place, or anything. There were certain girls they would pick to hug and spend time with. They would only hug certain girls, and others who desperately wanted attention might have tried to hug a staff member and been reprimanded for it in front of the pet girl. It was twisted. Of course that girl would get it in her head that she was special and would treat the other girls in a mean and rude manner. This was tolerated because she was a favorite.
If a girl was sick, oftentimes the staff would say she was faking it and make her carry around a trashcan to school and everything when she vomited. It was sad to watch because you would many times, see that a girl really WAS sick and had a fever, but they didn't care. The school system was a joke. The staff knew little about school, and how to teach. A lot of the time they didn't even know the workbooks, themseleves. It was just another situation where no one was qualfied. I was suicidal. I had depression. Was I given therapy? No. Was anyone? No. According to them, medicine was for weak people who didn't trust God. We were made fun of almost daily by the staff for taking meds for legitamate reasons. Our parents had sent us the meds and requested us be given them. This is the only reason they gave them to us. Even then,they would use it against you, as I said before, as a tool of manipulation. I failed school utterly at VCA. Some girls did good working for hours and hours in cramped cubicles with no breaks. I didn't. I left VCA so behind in my schooling due to their failure to teach me and help me with my subjects, I couldn't return to public schools. I had to be homeschooled until my graduation. They said school didn't matter, anyways, and that we should be focusing on out daily chores and bible, more than anything,anyways. I left VCA with more emotional problems than I had when I went in. Thankfully, I have been able to work through them. I care about these girls, and want them out of there for good.
If you are a parent and are thinking about sending your child to a place like this, please think twice about it-LOOK INTO THE PROGRAM. If a place tells you you can only visit your child at certain times, like, for an example, you can't see your child for 3 months straight, there is a problem. I want you to be able to contact your child whenever you feel the need, and not be manipulated by the people who run it. I want you to be able to write and recieve letters from your child without them being read. It's privacy anyone deserves. Think for yourself. I am sure it's hard to have a kid who doesn't connect with you, maybe doesn't listen to you, maybe is experiencing some really bad things at school, home, with a boyfriend, or maybe experienced sexual molestation. I spoke with many girls at VCA who had been sexually molested. You would be suprised at how many of their parents overlooked this and just sent them away thinking they were bad. Maybe you have no relationship with your kid, and you think sending them away to a psyco- cult commune where they are treated like animals and not even given the right POW'S have when they have their little fucking prayer mats to pray to Allah on 1000 times a day. At least they are given the right to think about which god they want to pray to. At least they are being respected enough to have a right to think. And these people are the types that jump in airplanes and blow up trade centers. It's only right. And look what is happening to our childen in our own country. These staff members are unqualified, there is no doctor on campus, there is nothing safe about the place. They will hire anyone as staff without background checks. These places are not accountable to ANYONE. You never know what they are able to do to your child.Think first.Don't be another rash parent and give your child to these dangerous people. A lot of parents meant well, and now their daughers are sluts and strippers on the streets and are dying from meth and heroin. These places take girls with potential and destroy them emotionally and spirtually. They don't help.If any of you have gone to VCA and need to talk or just have questions in general, feel free to IM me anytime. OrnaDuyessa.(AIM SN)
~Rae"
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I think that hitting a personal bottom had a lot to do with ones reaction to the program.
I figured I had screwed up pretty badly before I went in, so I was open to another path - Someone who didn't feel their life was a mess would fight it tooth and nail.
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Can I get an amen for the VCA?
I knew a girl who got into a "christian" organization when I was in school (UF) - I had told her about my experience at the seed and she asked me what I thought of this group. I went to one meeting and had so many alarm bells going off I left after about 20 minutes and told her to leave and never look back.
Took her a few weeks and she let me know that it was worse than I thought.
I think christian is more a trademark than a religion in many circles.
I wish I could say "I had no idea it was that bad" or some other platitude.
what kind of gun would Jesus carry?
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First, there was no violence at VCA.. Never happened. The Gospel was the ideal, not the staff members. Love thy neighbor, forgiveness, prayerful appreciation, these were the ideals. The inability (or unwillingness) to separate personalities and methodology from what VCA offered was never a problem for me. Personally, I had no problem coming down on those whose disruptive personalities were defined by sinfulness, blasphemy, or lack of respect for the bible. I had a very low tolerance for sinful behavior. That hasn?t changed. Sin always carries a consequence.
Terms like ?survivors? used to portray faux heroism for enduring an ordeal, the suffering experienced for being denied simple things like candy after meals, or soda on friday, or their medications because they were sinners, sleeping in uncomfortable conditions, comparing the experience to Guantanamo facilities speaks volumes about who you are, and is reflective of the pagan, sinful mind set you still carry, and your ridiculously exaggerated sense of self-importance. This isn?t just your problem, it seems to be a common and acceptable malady in today?s America. Those who got saved and wanted to learn scripture, did.
Those who didn?t, evidently, are at that web site. If you're feeling suicidal or depressed because of your experience at VCA, get over it.
Ex-staff VCA???
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And who are you to speak for God and Jesus, who preached love? Your judgemental, arrogant, willful words, meant to wound and to, yes, 'lord' it over those you hold in contempt, tell me why today I do not wish to be 'your' kind of Christian.
Yucky!!!
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Isn't it weird how the meanest posts around here are always anonymous? Guess those are the true Seedlings, protecting their anonymity to the end.
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Marc thats not nice either.
Thou sounds like thou's panties are getting in a wad.
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ah, I see. "Anonymous" was referencing an old John Underwood post above. It was verbatim what John U wrote in an old thread he initiated entitled "Some Insights" but substituting VCA for The Seed.
Well, whatever floats your boat there, Anon. Got any more kind words for me? Seems like you've been practicing those old Seed chops. Maybe you never stopped.
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ANON WROTE:
Personally, I had no problem coming down on those whose disruptive personalities were defined by sinfulness, blasphemy, or lack of respect for the bible. I had a very low tolerance for sinful behavior. That hasn?t changed. Sin always carries a consequence.
*************************************************
Out of respect for all persons of faith, I have read but not commented. But in the face of the blatant ignorance displayed above, I can only add this:
Ignorance carries a consequence as well.
You are right Marc, this is the same mindset as the seed, just a different set of buzz-words, but still just as offensive. Check John Underwood's comments on the SDF from last year.
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You know, come to think of it, an earlier anon post in this thread, in which Anon wrote that s/he benefitted from both Catholic School and The Seed, DID sound a whole lot like John Underwood. The voice of it, I mean, and the faux cavalier attitude.
And then, above, the nasty anonymous VCA-related post uses much of the exact same language that John U used in a much earlier post to this forum, in the original "Some Insights" thread.
So, one of three things is happening. Either John U is back and posting anonymously (wouldn't put it past him), or some other dippo is purposely imitating John U to get us to think so, or a little of both.
[ This Message was edited by: marcwordsmith on 2006-04-21 14:09 ]
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I was going to vote for the "some other dippo" but I suppose he could be leading a double secret life as a naughty catholic school girl on the web. Weird things happen, even in the best of homes and families.
And you guys thought my Frank Zappa picture was just totally irrelevant. [ This Message was edited by: Stripe on 2006-04-21 14:32 ]
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I am pretty sure it isn't John. The address is coming from Albany NY. However, it seems the language is directly lifted from John's posts.
Hmm...a troll? A program like strange coincidence?
I would say one or the other, but not John.
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Wow, I've been punked. Pretty clever to lift John's words and substitute christian/VCA - but what's the point?
Rae's post was so sincere and heartfelt, it seems really rank to riff on it like that...
w
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On 2006-04-20 17:42:00, GregFL wrote:
"Well Ginger, in all situations there is good. Had we not been childhood victoms of this treatment modality, we would not be friends today. It is nice to have someone just to call once in a while and shoot the bull with.
So, I guess in a way the Seed gave me Ginger. This is one thing I guess I can thank the Seed for.
Thanks Art!
:grin: "
That's about the sweetest thing I've seen. I'm thankful for finding you too.
There's another treasure I've gotten from all of this, too. It's not one everybody would want. In fact, many people who got it take pills or therapy to try and make it go away.
The Program is a potent slice of something toxic that's creeping slowly but steadily into broader society. I got a keen scent of it along w/ a healthy alergy to it. Without that, I'd probably be taking pills to make that all go down painlessly because I wouldn't be able to name it or address it.
We ought to be grateful that our government monopoly schools are such a failure. If today's 18 year olds could do arithmetic, they'd be out buying enough rope to hang everybody over 40.
--Alan Handleman on Social Security
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On 2006-04-19 07:35:00, cleveland wrote:
"Marc,
I too feel the need to think and talk about the Seed quite a lot, after keeping it buried for many, many years.
These are the people who, at least for a while, wanted to talk about this experience and reconnect. I am aware that there are others, many many others, who would just rather not talk about it. I think because it confuses them, they are not ready to deal with ambivalent feelings, or perhaps anger, or other disturbing emotions. They prefer to remember vaguely that it was tough but they did it, and maybe they're better of for it, or maybe not, but the past is the past.
For whatever reason, I needed to dredge it all up and have a look at it...
W"
You really captured my feelings with the above. I came here looking to connect with past seedlings and thinking that overall my experience wasn't all that bad. But the truth is really a bit more complex than that. Being able to look at it in an open-minded way has brought out the fact that my feelings are much more ambivalent than I originally thought. That ambivalence or to put it another way not really being able to make up my mind about how I really feel was the genesis of this sick feeling I sometimes get in the pit of my stomach when I come here. The realization that my occasional lack of confidence in regard to my own core feelings may be the result of what happened to me at the seed is disturbing to say the least. I stopped coming here for a little while because of it. Thanks for capturing so well what many of us go through in attempting to resolve our experiences there.
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Eudora.
I thought you were going to say you needed to start taking penicillin :scared: