I have definitely experienced the emotional detachment that you are describing after my experience with Mount Bachelor Academy. Poker face to the max, I realized after the first few days that I couldn't trust a single person I talked to in there. I saw people who were really good friends betraying each other right off the bat. That's the kind of rifts that attack therapy creates in people in a residential setting. There was always an unspoken understanding that we may be friends now, but in group it's another story. You're on your fucking own. I primarily watched my own back. I had a huge advantage going into it however, and that is my acting experience. I am as a result of my acting experience a good public speaker and fast on my feet.
After a few months it got to the point where I understood the the dynamics of how group worked so well that I was able to avoid trouble, mostly. It's really a very simple system. Someone is going to have the barrel of the attack gun pointed at them. If no one brings any requests to group, they can usually just harass someone on a self-study or who has bans or who is new. When that person gets defensive, yell at him until he or she agrees with the group. It's preferable if they start crying. If they are crying, inform them of their punishment and then when they get angry, yell at them some more. When emotions are running high, shift the target to someone else who will with the help of a few cues from the facilitator become the new object of all of the group malice that has been artificially created by this process. A good way to connect the two is by turning to the next victim and saying something like "And you! Aren't you his friend? Why haven't you been holding him accountable? You're supposed to be your brother's keeper. I think you're negative and underground." That would do it for just about anyone.
That's why especially if your friend was confronted, you pretty much had to join in. If you didn't, chances are you would be singled out next for not doing so. I had my friends turn on me, and I turned on my friends. I'm not fucking proud of it, but it happened. Before I was in the program I prided myself on being a loyal and trustworthy friend. I could honestly have said that I had never betrayed a friend. MBA will coerce you into denouncing your friends, your parents, your life, and your own self. This is one of the reasons that it is so scarring. A cult isn't something that just happens to you, it's something you participate in. I knew how evil and oppressive that system of control was but I was a part of it. Once that attack therapy gun is pointed at you, the only way to get it off is to agree in a convincing way. That last part is important. You have to make it look real to the staff facilitators (your fellow students will know that it's not real.) I have agreed with some absurdly ridiculous things.
When confronted, it is important that you act as if you are as a result of what is being said to you having some sort of an epiphany. But beware - epiphanies don't happen overnight. You're going to have to relate this epiphany to your earlier actions at the program, explaining how everything else has led up to this one moment of clarity that has been brought to you by the group. If you "own" whatever is being said to you, things will go a lot faster. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, truth is irrelevant. In fact, any disagreement that you express will serve as rationale to continue the verbal assault against you. If you are reading this and have never experienced the kind of group that I'm talking about, I can tell you honestly that it is hard to imagine how much a planned out and coordinated group attack on your emotional state can effect you, especially when your best friends are doing it. Keep in mind that the concept of personal privacy at MBA is very loose, and that most people know most other people's deepest and most personal issues (physical abuse, rape, molestation, etc.) They possess the tools to hurt you profoundly. It is seriously just best to agree with whatever they fucking say and move on.
But don't be obvious! Your anger towards the group for being so viciously attacked, and your own personal emotional pain, should be masked as self-hate. That way, you will be doing what they want (hating yourself enough so that you will change.) That is the ultimate goal of this whole process. So I learned early on that all I had to do was act like I hated myself for whatever the group was telling me, and then the process would be over quickly. I wasn't ever dropped a peer group because I realized the way things worked right away. It kept me alive, but I still feel a rift in my soul from disobeying that inherent aspect of humanity that wants to be kind, that wants to stand up for itself, that wants to show love and respect for family and friends instead of hate and anger.
