Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: starry-eyed pirate on December 26, 2009, 11:55:43 AM
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Remember your first days in the program, before you understood what they were talking about, with the feelings and everything ?? I was in there about 3 weeks when I was called on to talk about my past. I stood up and began to talk about some incident. I exaggerated my shame and guilt and even tried to cry(sorry to disappoint, it's not easy to write) for the group, but I was confronted and accused of pushin out feelins or something and the staff told me I better get in touch with my feelings or something and I sat down and felt a ton of pressure and more forsaken and alone than I ever had until then.
What occurs to me now is the extreme pressure you were kept under in the hope that you would not only conform but also become "aware". The pressure to correctly analyze and articulate in specific words your deepest thoughts and emotions. If you were inspecific you would be told about it by some group member or staff and encouraged to put your general abstract thoughts into very specific words, which you could then be manipulated with.
There was a time before $tr8 when I was not so "aware" in words or "in my head" in words, as it were. But since $tr8 I've never left my head for long again. I mean, I was aware before $tr8 too, I always have been able to feel things; strong intuition. But I was never very articulate about the feelings, I just knew what they meant. I can remember when my consciousness shifted and I understood the $tr8 trip. It was sometime after I was returned from my 1st cop-out. So maybe I was there 3 months or so when I developed the ability to articulate the program mind back to the group. And I was good enough at it that from then on I avoided unexpected confrontation from the group. I became "aware". remember that ?? Do you remember when your mind changed and you could speak the language sincerely ??
That was a major development in my life. Most people out in the world don't function in such a conscious state. It's not practical. But with the words came beliefs and new illusions to confuse and distract. I really did turn inward about 3 months in and I've since had to deal with it. $tr8 turned me inward to "search myself" for what they wanted. I was under constant duress until I learned to think and speak in the way of the program. I had to develop the ability to dissect my own most inward beliefs and trace the root of my every conscious thought and know what to call it in order to avoid the group's wrath. I became adept over time.
What am I gettin at ...?? I'm not sure...but there is something in the way they made you confess your mind to them. The way they made you put it all into very specific words, they made you aware of yourself. Even if the program was misguided, the principals they applied were real. The way they trained you to focus on what you felt and how to articulate it. That was the transformation. The essence of the cult. Some doors of perception, once opened can never be closed again. Or is that the Chronic PTSD ??
Do you remember when you became overly obsessed with articulating the inner workings of your own psychology ?? Do you know what I'm talkin about ?? See what I'm sayin ??
Sting sings ..."...With words they try to jail ya..."... Right on Sting, says I.
Ugh. Such is life.... ::)...
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Head games? Living in constant fear of consequence, never knowing if our choice would zap us or reward us? Sitting in group having one thing I was thinking about to "relate" to a fellow POW and within a split second have 50 doubts as to its relevance or whatnot thus becoming confused to the point of "I hope they don't call on me." Nowadays I have to actually think hard on purpose, about this straight bullshit to talk about it anymore. Maybe that's a good thing. Has it run its course in me? Am I healed? Who knows? I would love to see you and all survivors prosper in the knowledge you have gained by continuing to analyze this diabolical subject matter, reporting your findings, sharing ideas... etc. Maybe they figured out a way to tantalize our ids with a false sense of success by making us yell things like "Coming Home!" or "Love ya Mom, Love ya Dad"... then as we progressed through the phases, got older/wiser, we figured out this was a load of horseshit but we didn't want to get started over so we had to once again fool ourselves into believing more of the horseshit they were feeding us. Like a sound engineer would manipulate a sound board, they manipulated our heads with this mindfucking nonsense. I don't know... carry on...
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Copy that Rambler. It was Bad magic. Right On Man.
When Miller Newton claims to be a neuro-psychologist or whatever it is he claims to be, I practically believe it, but it's like witches, they can use their knowledge for good or bad, and Miller is bad. The principles of psychology that he used against us in $tr8 can be channeled into many ways. I don't know if I ever met the man, or even in the same room, but I seem to have been under his influence none-the-less...Anyway, the destruction of the self-centered consciousness is a worthy goal but it has to be brought about in certain ways and not the way that Miller Newton-Father Cassian Newton and his apprentices, supporters and followers used. He is bad magic. May your trauma shine light. Namaste.
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Yes, starry-eyed pirate, I picked up on ' apprentice' in your post. I think that's a very key word when it comes to the title of your post and what could seem a certain appeal of these group sessions ( or @ least could' ve kept us somewhat entertained) to some of us held captive @ Str8. I was there in '83 (was 15), and, to this day I swear there were people there, ostensibly, as a part of group, that were actually what I thought, even then, as graduate students of some sort.
Whether these few were struggling w/ drug addiction or not I wouldn't/couldn't say. I do now realise that they spoke on certain psychological matters w/ some authority, and even remember the term 'cognitive dissonance' being spoke of in group by a few. That type of thing did have a certain sway over us I think and I remember hanging on certain such 'phasers' every word. They did command a certain amount of attention/respect in group and I remember thinking 'I could speak/act like that, if that's what it takes to get through my phases'.....anyway, whatever that's worth, I think you are on to something there.
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I'm tired of being tormented to hell, that's what I'm tired of.
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froderick,
No need to torment thyself, I mean...fuck it! That was the inevitable 'master plan' of places like Str8, wasn't it?
They taught us all about American political life in a speeded up 'crash course' anyway. We're lucky to've lived thru it, i think. We all did things to torment ourselves and others for and we would've learned all that anyway, eventually.
If Str8 knew/taught us nothing else, it was:
A) To Divide and Conquer
B) That Nothing ever really 'holds together'
Once We Realise That, There's Nowhere To Go But Up!
UNITE!
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Yes you are correct, Str8 had quite a racket going...
Anyone who doesn't realize this is WORSE THAN HITLER.
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I'm tired of being tormented to hell, that's what I'm tired of.
STOP!!!!!!!! NO MORE TORMENTING OF ANY KIND IT IS OVER, WE ARE FREE..... FREEEEEEEEEEEE.............WE MADE IT AND BY GODS GRACE AND GOOD FREINDS I CAN STAY THAT WAY. ONE THING I DO KNOW TODAY IF I"M SENT TO HELL ON EARTH, I CAN KEEP MOVING I DON'T HAVE TO STOP.
:rocker: :rocker: :rocker:
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(http://http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_t6ikLJ4YVos/RkasLszgNQI/AAAAAAAAAaM/qbuvxwgxP2I/s320/jim_jones.jpg)
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I've been thinking how really bad things happen to people, horrible things. And there is a person who goes through them and the person goes through abuse or tradgedy as an intact suffering person, and it's horrible...
I've been thinking how in Straight there was really nowhere for my personality to exist. My personality did not remain constant through the abuse. There was no refuge where at the end of the day I was still me, still my authentic self going through a horror. Getting out there was not a "constant me" to take refuge in, who had gone through those days....
To pick up and start over with my picture of reality, there was no real me anymore...
There was only disgust with the fact that I had allowed myself to adopt an artificial reality...
All my life since that realization, I have found myself recreating insane environments and the familiar sense of PSYCHO DOOM and chronic existential crisis...
What the fuck is this called? In the book of ways to be fucked up what is the name of this? I doubt there is much study about the effects of torturously imposing an institutional personality on a kid, calling abuse and torture love, removing the filters, boundaries and censors. What the fuck? Who in the fuck is going to dream this up and let such a person out in the world...trying to relate to the world by confessing weak feelings over the smell of beer...Holy HEll...
My whole life has been this trying to find something real, find some integrity in my self...
No sense of healthy comprimise, no personality to call my own...
Wow.....lots of great stuff in there Dragonfly. I've felt and said some of the same things for years now. We had no touchstone to reality inside. Then when we got out, be it by graduation, running, getting pulled....whatever.....what we had been taught to believe did not match reality in any way, shape or form. We were expected to continue our lives as "normal" adults, when our childhoods were stolen and our personalities confiscated and replaced with some conformist pod-person. I had no idea who I was or how I was supposed to live my life, let alone be responsible for two other little lives. Funny, both kids are now talking about writing about how Straight effected them.
I wish I had 'the' answer for you, but alas, as with most difficult things (like raising teenagers), there is no one answer. No panacea. We all have to somehow find our way thru the maze and the mess that they left us with. For me, it was research, research, research. I had to be able to connect the dots as to precisely how they did what they did to me. It was also knowing that I had at least 2 people that were in my corner and always would be (my husband and my mother). I can't imagine how much more difficult it would have been if I hadn't had them. It was also coming here (in the beginning) and having what I was feeling validated. I wasn't alone, I wasn't crazy and I wasn't a disgruntled "druggie" kid.
Hold fast to whatever good you have in your life.....it's worth it, whatever it is. Revisit some things that made you happy before Straight (music, movies, books etc.) and see if that sparks any of your old sense of self. And know that you're not alone. PM me if ya wanna talk further.
Peace :peace:
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Interesting thread. I found this same disconnect with CEDU peers. The may have graduated the program glowing in the Kool Aid high but were seriously disconnected when they went back out into the world. So many struggled mightily in every facet. Just making sense of the world, relationships... could not fit in college,etc.
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We had no touchstone to reality inside.
Talk about yourself, Anne...
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Hold fast to whatever good you have in your life.....it's worth it, whatever it is. Revisit some things that made you happy before Straight (music, movies, books etc.) and see if that sparks any of your old sense of self.
I've found both of these things to be extremely helpful! :jamin: :rasta: :nods:
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and even remember the term 'cognitive dissonance' being spoke of in group by a few.
IIRC, that came out of Newton's Rational Self Analysis crap. Newton's? I can't remember who came up with us taking the RSA courses when we got onto higher phases.
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and even remember the term 'cognitive dissonance' being spoke of in group by a few.
IIRC, that came out of Newton's Rational Self Analysis crap. Newton's?
The phrase goes back further than that:
[The book] Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism popularized the term "thought-terminating cliché". A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Re ... f_Totalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism)
The most famous case in the early study of cognitive dissonance was described by Leon Festinger and others in the book When Prophecy Fails.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails) (1956)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)
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All the RSA/RBT gooble was brought into str8 by one George Ross, during the Morgan Yacht years.It was a huge part of Ross' schtick,prolly still is, shit goes back to Albert Ellis,Maxie Maultsby,ect.....Pre-dates str8 . A lot of the "rational recovery" stuff that Hazelden uses is based on it.
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I knew it went further back than Straight, but wasn't sure who brought it into Straight. Thanks.
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You got to comprimise and buy in to some degree, just to bond with the tribe, to belong. I can't seem to believe in anything or comprimise with out a sense of being smashed open and violated...
For what it's worth, you know we're always here for you. :peace:
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It was definitely "Doctor" George Ross who introduced RSA to Straight.He first wanted to teach it to the entire group,but changed on that when 1st phasers were totally unresponsive.Being certified by some organization in Kentucky to teach this "program" is what got him in the the door at Straight.Some useful concepts that will always remind me of that quack unfortunately.I remember first hearing about "cognitive dissonance" from Dr.Wayne Dyer in "Your Erroneous Zones",a book Helen"Batshit" Petermann allowed me to read on First Phase.If the certifiers of RSA instruction knew that Ross would use them to this end,would have they certified him?Who knows.
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what? yellin hellen let somebody read? holy ratshit,batman :rofl:
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aSam Kinison wrote;
"I remember first hearing about "cognitive dissonance" from Dr.Wayne Dyer in "Your Erroneous Zones",a book Helen"Batshit" Petermann allowed me to read on First Phase."
Isn't he that third eye whackjob that's always begging for money on PBS? What goobledy gook. he sounds like a scientologist.
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thanks Anne,
helps to know folks read these things...
I'm so used to being alone with it. When I talk I tend to reveal my whole interior, so I pretty much isolate when I'm hurting...
There are so many abuses and horrible things in the world, much worse than straight, I guess. But there is a naturally changing, and authentic ego going through it. Something bad happened to "me". Not "something bad happened and the me I was , was eventually devestated completely and replaced with a plastic mask and and a tape recording...
When prisoners got out of the Communist Brainwash Camps, they pretty much knew right away they had been imprisoned and were now out. And when you go through most abuses, they are universally recognised as bad. Straight was so insidious, how we had to meld with the world, but stay outside it. Then to be having breakdowns, I pretty quickly realized folks have no way to imagine the reality I was trying to describe. So the truth about my sense of myself I've kept in isolation...
I know I'm not real clear now, but there are so many things hitting me now. When the shit hits the fan I resort to a primitive emotional survival mode, which reminds me of a hyserical phaser, all dis-associated, and absolute in the wrongness of the moment. Urgently trying to share my feelings, for fear of being started over or confronted or of psychological desintegration...
I'll watch myself react this way and identify it as a programmed emotional response and know it's hurtful, and still be doing it...
Where are my fucking steps when I need them, I'm forever in review, on dime therapy and writing desperate MI's...
I just can't deal with my feelings. Sometimes I wish I had just met a nice 12 step girl and never known that my personality was artifical. I'd rather be oblivious to my lack of integrity, and believe in something. You got to be able to buy into some kind of comfortable picture of reality, and just leave it alone...
Always picking at it to see if it's real. I don't trust a damn thought in my head or person alive...
You got to comprimise and buy in to some degree, just to bond with the tribe, to belong. I can't seem to believe in anything or comprimise with out a sense of being smashed open and violated...
I'm sick of being tormented to Hell, that's what I'm sick of
//bump\
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thanks Anne,
helps to know folks read these things...
I'm so used to being alone with it. When I talk I tend to reveal my whole interior, so I pretty much isolate when I'm hurting...
There are so many abuses and horrible things in the world, much worse than straight, I guess. But there is a naturally changing, and authentic ego going through it. Something bad happened to "me". Not "something bad happened and the me I was , was eventually devestated completely and replaced with a plastic mask and and a tape recording...
When prisoners got out of the Communist Brainwash Camps, they pretty much knew right away they had been imprisoned and were now out. And when you go through most abuses, they are universally recognised as bad. Straight was so insidious, how we had to meld with the world, but stay outside it. Then to be having breakdowns, I pretty quickly realized folks have no way to imagine the reality I was trying to describe. So the truth about my sense of myself I've kept in isolation...
I know I'm not real clear now, but there are so many things hitting me now. When the shit hits the fan I resort to a primitive emotional survival mode, which reminds me of a hyserical phaser, all dis-associated, and absolute in the wrongness of the moment. Urgently trying to share my feelings, for fear of being started over or confronted or of psychological desintegration...
I'll watch myself react this way and identify it as a programmed emotional response and know it's hurtful, and still be doing it...
Where are my fucking steps when I need them, I'm forever in review, on dime therapy and writing desperate MI's...
I just can't deal with my feelings. Sometimes I wish I had just met a nice 12 step girl and never known that my personality was artifical. I'd rather be oblivious to my lack of integrity, and believe in something. You got to be able to buy into some kind of comfortable picture of reality, and just leave it alone...
Always picking at it to see if it's real. I don't trust a damn thought in my head or person alive...
You got to comprimise and buy in to some degree, just to bond with the tribe, to belong. I can't seem to believe in anything or comprimise with out a sense of being smashed open and violated...
I'm sick of being tormented to Hell, that's what I'm sick of
This explains it better then I have heard to date. My life after......Fuck!!!!!!!
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helps to know folks read these things...
I'm so used to being alone with it. When I talk I tend to reveal my whole interior, so I pretty much isolate when I'm hurting...
There are so many abuses and horrible things in the world, much worse than straight, I guess. But there is a naturally changing, and authentic ego going through it. Something bad happened to "me". Not "something bad happened and the me I was , was eventually devestated completely and replaced with a plastic mask and and a tape recording...
When prisoners got out of the Communist Brainwash Camps, they pretty much knew right away they had been imprisoned and were now out. And when you go through most abuses, they are universally recognised as bad. Straight was so insidious, how we had to meld with the world, but stay outside it. Then to be having breakdowns, I pretty quickly realized folks have no way to imagine the reality I was trying to describe. So the truth about my sense of myself I've kept in isolation...
I know I'm not real clear now, but there are so many things hitting me now. When the shit hits the fan I resort to a primitive emotional survival mode, which reminds me of a hyserical phaser, all dis-associated, and absolute in the wrongness of the moment. Urgently trying to share my feelings, for fear of being started over or confronted or of psychological desintegration...
I'll watch myself react this way and identify it as a programmed emotional response and know it's hurtful, and still be doing it...
Where are my fucking steps when I need them, I'm forever in review, on dime therapy and writing desperate MI's...
I just can't deal with my feelings. Sometimes I wish I had just met a nice 12 step girl and never known that my personality was artifical. I'd rather be oblivious to my lack of integrity, and believe in something. You got to be able to buy into some kind of comfortable picture of reality, and just leave it alone...
Always picking at it to see if it's real. I don't trust a damn thought in my head or person alive...
You got to comprimise and buy in to some degree, just to bond with the tribe, to belong. I can't seem to believe in anything or comprimise with out a sense of being smashed open and violated...
I'm sick of being tormented to Hell, that's what I'm sick of
:notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: