Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Mission Mountain School => Topic started by: hannah on May 02, 2005, 08:27:00 PM
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When I was twelve I stated in a journal entry, ?I am not sure if I have a heart anymore.? I was so lost and in so much pain- When I was 15 I wrote after I was arrested and on probation- ?I sit here on my lonely bed in sympathetic silence waiting for change, love and happiness. When will things change into a fantastic path of choice is their anyone out there who cares I?m in the dark and I can?t see where I?m going a bright light here & there but fastly fades away like a poem.? ( Jan. 1998)
On May 15, 1998 I was sent to an assessment course and then shipped off to MMS. My family confused because they felt faulty unable to give me what I needed. They loved me undoubtedly, But they were incapapble of raising me. So they sent me to an institution where I could be raised.
I was told when I was 9 years old that my Mother had Huntingotns Disease ( a terminal, genetic, nuerological disease) I was also told that I had a 50% chance of inheriting the gene as well. Raised in a family with abuse, mental disease, alcoholism, I was definitely a nuerotic, lost child. I was taking care of my parents up until I left for Montana. And the only reason I survived those years was by drinking on a daily basis.
I could not stop drinking, I gave up on myself, you and god everyday, I sucked my Dad dry for everything he had left, I ignored the trembleing presence of my Mother and had her 6 feet under, and I diagnosed my self on a daily basis with everything in the books, including Huntingtons Disease.
"How Dark it is before the Dawn." Alcoholics Anonymous, (the Big Book)
I graduated from MMS in 2000. I will have 7 years of Sobriety on the 15th because I was loved for 2 years by people that genuinely cared about my best interest. I think that MMS has a lot of pros and alot of cons, like everything in life, there were some real negatives to my experience there, and some golden positive life changes that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Today I am a strong Women. Mission Mountain Shcool gave me a strong foundation to base my life on. I found myself with friends, I was helped in rebuilding my relationships with my family members, morals and values, and esteem.
I am a human living in a world, that is sometimesunkind . And MMS was an artificail institution that reflected both sides of the world not just the kind side. Life is life a process, and I get to live it, and feel eveything. I have anger about things still that happened years ago. The truth is that this website is posted with perceptions and feelings. I want to really pose to every one because I have had to do it myself what is your side of the street. I am not stupid, I went to MMS and I saw things that weren't okay but fucking A, I 'll walk outside my house right now and probable see lots of stuff that is "Not Okay."
I truely beleive that it is very important for everyone here to question their motives and their feelings, and their story. Life is not easy and I didn't get sent away to MMS because I needed a vacation. I saw no point to life any more and I wanted to die.
I deal with my life today and I owe a lot of that to my experience @ MMS. Life is not always attractive and in my life this has been the case a lot. I have been a care giver for my Mother since I graduated. This kind of unfairness happened in my life all the time, and the truth is that it happens for everyone. Life is filled with saddening, frightenting events, and love, joy and endless happiness as well, though nothing is gareenteed, even if you went to MMS.
To be honest, I have seen things in the last couple of years that blow John's Attack groups as you spoke on earlier that would blow that cooky concept right out of the water. John never attacked anybody. There was definate intimidation but hell I was intimidated by everything.
Life is life, and human beings are human beings, inevitable imperfect. Life has not gotten easier or harder because I went to MMS it=life never changed. The loving staff and girls @ MMS were the ones that taught me how to change.
I hope we can all find our truth and deal with it !
IT meaning LIFE!
Love and kindness
Hannah
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Hannah think you're post was pretty good, only thing I have to say is that when I look at the world and see that it's not ok I want to do what I can to make it ok.
No this existence is not utopian, but that's the human battle, isn't it. Trying to bring that which isn't perfect as close to perfection as possible. Right the wrongs in the world.
My confusion is how many girls have posted that appreciate MMS and see it as a life saver, acknowledge the problems with the program and can shrug and say but nothing's perfect. To me that is saying those wrongs were acceptable. Shit happens, yes, life's rough, but perhaps my standards for human behavior are a little higher than many posters here...I'm not sure. I expect improvement, when somethings not quite working right you tweak till it works and works well, not just satisfactory. I don't like settling for mediocrity. I wouldn't send my girls to a place that continously does things, as mentioned in other posts, and shrug while thinking, 'well, nothings perfect.'[ This Message was edited by: katfish on 2005-05-02 17:44 ]
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You had a lack of power over your children? And they we're out of control, so much that the situation was out of your hands? What would you do? One might feel hopeless, helpless, a failure, and you needed to take action quick because your baby girl was still somewhere out there and you couldn't take care of her. The truth is for me and my experience, life was much better @ MMS then in my family life. I was safer, I was feed, I was learning something different and I was feeling uncomfortable and still living life and deal with it while feeling uncomfortable and feeling what geniiune comfort really was. You could focus your attention on any family unit ( because that is what MMS is) even your own and apply these same feeling and perceptions that really aren't even valid because no one is using their name.
I have all due respect to feelings and perceptions. Though the truth remains ambigious. I have had my thoughts about MMS and questions the way things were set up there---I do that with everything? I doubt anything that I don't understand. Your goign to get people that had good experiences and people that had bad experiences. I am unclear what it is you intend to do with this information, or what you are able to do with it? --- Respectfully, Hannah
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Compared to what? -I want to know who you are and what you do and what kind of credetials you have?
I don't understand what the point of this is? And who are you I revealed my story my experience I want to hear yours?
This is not black or white. So I see it as unfair to just focus on there mistakes. Light needs to be shed on whatever is going on here, please help me to understand?
Respect
hannah
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Let me tell you why the MMS story is important to me. And, w/ that, yes, to me, it's "just" another story. But I think these stories are vitally important.
Your stories are unique in some ways, but also quite similar to other people's experience. Typically, the people who run TC style programs claim credit for having invented or adapted the method. That's simply not true. The basic attack therapy or confrontational group therapy or positive peer pressure.... by any name, is just the same.
The aspects of MMS that you ladies describe as having been helpful are not a part of that method. And that is extremely important to understand. In fact, from my perspective, that is the single most important thing to understand about this whole industry.
The method we're all describing in all these forums is often extremely effective in one regard; it very often produces Stockholm Syndrome. It causes some people to identify w/, to have great affection for and even near worship for people who treat them roughly. From a business point of view, it guarantees a certain ratio of dedicated supporters.
But that's not the only thing that drives the people who operate these places. Most of them are a bit narcissistic and need this sort of forced adulation from others. And a good many of them get off on the sadism of it all too, and do so w/ the approval of their own concience. So it becomes a self perpetuating delusion. And it effects many other people than just you, the girls you knew back then and the program operators.
Because the TC model has come to be accepted as good medicine, it's practiced and even publicly funded throughout the land. Never mind No Korea. Those poor souls have got their hands full, but so have we. But there is absolutely no basis for the pervasive believe that attacking someone's self concept and humiliating them in this way is anything but very harmful.
For all the same reasons why mothers had to make waves and be a pain in the butts of professionals to get the professionals to quit promoting baby formula as superior to breast milk, those of us who know something abuot the industry and the methods employed in it have an obligation to try and correct this error.
What the hey? Some mothers join the PTA, I host websites for former cult prisoners. Takes all kinds.
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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Hey Hannah,
Compared to what what?
Regarding to credentials, pressumably you would like to know my educational background? I have am working on my Ba in POLSC & SOCIO. I work with foster kids and as a counselor to 4th graders in a school in a not so nice area in Brookly...(and you guys think you had attitude- you haven't been around 4th graders in the 'hood- they're tough!)
I attended MMS when it first opened up, it was still co-ed when I arrived. This was in 1992-1994, I was 13. My dad was a very manipulative man and my mother was extremely unstable both were neglectful and I was an only child.
At 12 I had begun drinking, not often, but I was certainly using it to drown out my misery. I was sent to a non-theraputic school that I think some of you may have attended- Grier. At that time I began also to cut myself frequently and ultimately (superficially) slit my wrists during winter break- at the time I just new I was not wanting to live all that much, in retrospect I was ultimately reacting to lack of adult supervision and guidance in my life, lack of feeling valued or cared for at all. So then came MMS. With the techniques used at MMS I found myself not feeling comfortable to draw myself out, so I withdrew. Essentially I played dumb, not conscionsly really- just a defense machanism and regurgitated everything back at the staff. At the time what was popular with the staff was getting the kids to enter into a disassociative state and let them 'free write' to allow memories to reveal themselves. I played along with that giving what I now realize false memories. I really just did what i felt i had to do to get by. I did address some issues like with my folks, but nothing was really pressed that much. Nothing real anyway- nothing I felt that was real... Like I said, don't think the qualifications were there to help in this instance. It wasn't until my final month that I was given an IQ test and I was confronted with the results that were higher than anyone had expected...things became clear to the staff. By then I had been there almost 2 years and they let me graduate.
When I left MMS I went to boarding school, struggled with being gay, as I had at MMS (another problem I had that was experessed but I think they were not qualified to deal with as it was ignored). I was on honor roll for a bit, but things fell apart for me and I dropped out of school after 10th grade. I moved back in with my mom at 16 for the first time in many years. My mom had become a Jehovah Witness- that was too much to handle so I moved out and started doing coke and heroin. Got waaay out of control and again became very depressed, so moved out at 16 to NYC where I had a cousin. Got my own place, struggled with recovery, with work AA, depression, relationships and drinking when I got here. Got my GED, got into college, realizing AA not for me, (I disliked the implication that you need to continously be a part of the program to 'recover' and remain sober) started learning about alternatives to AA like 'smart recovery' (see smartrecovery.org ) and found myself slowly becoming more self reliant and better at developing relationships that are based on mutual respect- through trial and error mostly I figured out a great deal through my own dealings with different professors, work, school, volunteer work, etc. Learned many valuable lessons. In a nutshell that's about it- in my free time I play drums with a local jazz band, walk my dogs or hang out with my girlfriend of 6 years. And everything is perfect now- no j/k I'm happy with where I'm at though.
Additionally, I don't think it's unfair to focus on mistakes made by MMS, after all this is a forum to discuss MMS. they did some things that were damaging and the bottom line is that those things should be brought to light.[ This Message was edited by: katfish on 2005-10-05 16:54 ]
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:tup:
for u ginger
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Hannah...
Check your private messages.
I think were alot alike in the sence that MMS for both of us was better than any given day at home.
Please, Don't let Kat get to you. Shes been doing this for awhile. I feel your frustration.
I do however respect Kats ability to be stable in her feelings and response to others regarding the school.
Feel free to contact me...also read mine, and others response to many of these posts.
hope to hear from you.