#breakingcodesilence

this is what brainwashing is. it's not about wiping someone's mind. it's not about controlling them like a puppet. it's not about making their eyes glaze over so they're just a zombie. putty in your hands. no brainwashing is a teaching process. it's shaping someones mind. it's controlling their environment and thoughts behaviors opinions existence until they can be controlled. not because they don't have a mind of their own but because their mind agrees. because that's all they know now. i knew about those other programs. my peers within the program had their own stories of worse ones. getting frostbite in the woods. permanent injuries from carrying packs that were far too heavy and didn't fit their tiny bodies right. not being allowed to so much as look at anyone else let alone talk to them or god forbid touch them. for three months straight. i heard about programs like that.

i didn't realize being forced to sit at a table in complete silence and being made to ask for permission to get up for anything as small as going to the bathroom. while everyone else around me could talk and move as they pleased. i didn't realize that was abuse too. because i wasn't on a "silent table" (the name for that punishment) when i was at school. only when i was as the house. because i was on a silent table for a reason. i still hadn't finished a monumental assignment so i was put on a silent table to finish it. it was my own fault. i didn't realize it was abuse. because i knew the rules and i broke them. and they didn't hit me. they didn't kill me. i didn't realize it was abuse when i was alienated from my peers for a day because i wouldn't take my meds from a staff member that i fully believed would be willing to give me the wrong ones. i didn't realize it was abuse because other people had and are still having it worse than i ever did.

i didn't realize it was abuse because, as much as it may sound awful to you, it was normal for me. the punishments i got were because i broke the rules. i still can't bring myself to use the word "refuse" in the context of my own actions and choices. did i ever think i was being treated unfairly. oh yeah for sure. i had a staff member lie and say that i had gotten physical with them. that i'd hit them when they were attempting to wake me up. i didn't. but i had no other witnesses and a staffs word meant far more than mine. so i got punished for it. and would you believe this happened twice. the second time was the same reason i was unwilling to take meds from a staff member. she lied about me. got me in tons of trouble. and i didn't feel safe taking my meds from a woman who would do such a thing to me. i said i'd take them if someone else would administer them. it took about an hour for that to happen. i got punished for that hour of refusal. so yeah. i wasn't treated fairly. many such cases etc etc. but i didn't realize the whole thing was abusive. i just thought certain staff were evil to their core (i still think this about those staff btw). i didn't think the program itself was bad. i didn't know. i didn't know. i didn't know. do you think all the kids who've died have known. why they were killed. i wonder how many of them thought it was their fault.

i almost got gooned to a place in hawaii. they told me i could go willingly with them or unwilling with a "transport service." i chose the third option. but even that program is a light sentence. it even has a mocking nickname among treatment kids because it's notorious for being easy compared to other places. my parents only know my tti facility was bad because telling them was the only thing that was gonna get me out of going to another one. if i hadn't told them. do you think they would've figured it out on their own. would they have been guilty for sending me there. they are now. i relish in that guilt. sometimes i like to twist the knife a little. remind them that i'm broken and it's their fault. just so i can see that guilt surface. maybe that's mean. i don't really care. they stopped being human to me the moment i realized they should have known better. that it was abuse from the very start. that even dressed up in pretty words it was still abusive. do you think they would've realized? if i'd died there? do you think they would know it was their fault? do you think i would have gotten justice in my posthumous existence?

i don't think so. i think they only know because i told them. and i think i only told them because i knew full well i was in danger.

my tti facility held me for two years, five months, and one day. and i didn't die. an unnamed twelve year old boy in north carolina was held for one day. and then he was murdered. a boy in the woods. with neither face nor name. was kidnapped and held for just one day before being killed.

i don't consider him luckier than me. i lived. but i consider him lucky among the murdered. because he didn't live long enough. he only made it through one day

do you think he'll get justice?

TW: References to child pornography, conversion therapy, homophobia, masturbation, and sex.

I would love nothing more than to preserve my admiration for the program, if only for the reason that it would be easier to do so, but after years of being deceived, I find it utterly absurd to disregard any contempt on the basis of the misplaced gratitude that it saved my life. While the program undoubtedly contributed to my success in a number of ways, it has nevertheless become clear that I’ve walked away with trauma that, even after all of this time, I fail to wholly understand. What I do know, however, is that my disillusionment with enthusiastic sobriety is heavily rooted in how I was treated, as the people who claimed to love me evidently made it their mission to eradicate who I was and, likewise, transform me into a duller, lesser version of themselves. I will never know who I could’ve been had they honored the parts of myself that needed nurturing, only who I am today and the damage I’ve since been left with.

From the moment I joined the program, I knew exactly what its expectations were. It was made abundantly clear throughout the treatment process, where I was bombarded with endless conversations about what it meant to be a winner - a concept given context far beyond a sober individual working the twelve steps. I was not only told how to behave, but what to believe about every area of my life. It did not matter if those areas were deeply personal, as evidenced by the countless discussions related to sex; in fact, I would not only learn who we could and could not fantasize about while masturbating, but what we could and could not do sexually - as if we could not be trusted to determine for ourselves the actions we take in our own bedrooms. I also found myself on the receiving end of many conversations revolving around whether or not it was acceptable to shave one’s own pubic region, as was a commonly held belief that a shaved pubic region was not only unnecessary, but a product of one’s own vanity that, incidentally, mimics child pornography. Perhaps more disturbing, however, was the ideology surrounding pornography, in general, that we were ordinarily subjected to. We were first told that no self-respecting woman would want to be with a man who’s actively watching porn; then, we were told that it alters a man’s behavior so much that women will be able to recognize whether or not they watch it. The possibility of romance was used as a weapon against us by the counselors, as well as group members, to conform to their principles, rather than allowing us to establish our own and when that didn’t work, personal attacks were their next best option. I remember being asked if I really wanted to be the guy who’s strung out on porn the rest of his life, as if it was some kind of crippling addiction that would keep me from getting anything I ever wanted out of life. Even more importantly, however, it was through these frequent exchanges that I became familiarized with “Pavlov’s Dog Theory,” a scientific study so bastardized by the counselors that it existed solely to explain away the possibility of any non-heterosexual orientation. Being insecure with my own sexuality, it was of course music to my ears to discover that my attraction to the same sex, a perversion as I then recognized it, was the result of watching too much porn and could be easily resolved by the work outlined by the program. For the next few years, I would work endlessly to alter my sexual orientation back to “normal” and apparently did so well enough that I was eventually asked to attend the Meehan Institute of Counselor Training.

When I was in counselor training, most of what we discussed had very little to do with counseling; in fact, the information required to pass the state-mandated test was tossed aside in exchange for the radically inappropriate teachings that came directly from the program itself. Examples of this, of course, include the explanation that non-heterosexual orientations were not only “unnatural” but an expression of one’s perverse desire for instant gratification, usually resulting from either their addiction to porn, as I had already learned in outpatient, or their unresolved childhood trauma. It was also reasoned that an attraction to the same sex was often a natural consequence of being in an abusive relationship with a member of the opposite sex, a belief supported only by the theory that the person, in question, had unlikely resolved their own fear of getting hurt again. Some people were just “pussies” that had decided to seek the “easier, softer way,” an almost comical assumption given that there is nothing “easier” or “softer” about being queer. I would actually be referred to as a “pussy” while sharing to one of the program's many directors that I had sexual thoughts about other men. His solution for me was that since “there is nothing romantic about two men butt fucking each other,” I should spend the time wasted fantasizing about that on where I would like to take a girl on a date. It’s these ways of thinking that we, who’s families spend $5,600 to send us to counselor training, learn for the three months that we’re there. It’s these three months, where we are taught that absurdity is a natural substitute for science, that earn us the right to then counsel others, many of whom are children. I never could've imagined the abuse that would follow, despite the seeds that had been sown throughout the better part of my recovery.

A few weeks after I graduated from counselor training, when I was working the Step One shift, a couple of the program's directors took me away from it to smoke cigars with them. It was there that they talked to me about how I needed to work on developing more masculine qualities, perhaps by engaging in a hobby that was, according to them, “outside of my comfort zone.” Later on, one of my coworkers would lecture me for the way I had reached out to a girl in the group, explaining that she, along with others, might think that I’m gay for agreeing to watch a “chick flick” with her. Another coworker would make fun of me for crying to a song that reminded me of my dead parent, for the reason that it was, according to her, a “gay” thing to do. In one of the monthly purpose meetings, the director made jokes about me being “inside” of another male counselor - something that was received only with laughter. Bob Meehan himself would even tell the training class following my own that while I deserved the upmost respect for taking everyone’s shit, I was probably gay. When I would share how I felt, in reference to these incidents, I was told that my options were either to “change it” or to “own it.” I began to internalize all of this and, due to my own desire to be accepted, I began working even harder to change these qualities that had been deemed unacceptable by those around me. I would later be celebrated in a purpose for denouncing a dramatic television show for the reason that when I watched it, it made me feel like a “faggot;” however, even that wouldn’t satisfy those around me, as my sponsor, who was also my coworker, would suggest that I stop watching Friends, as well, due to the fact that it was the kind of show his wife watched. I would experience similar criticism from yet another coworker who suggested that I only liked “girly shit” for “shock value” and that it was nothing more than my ego attempting to differentiate myself from everyone else. If by now you’re wondering why I even participated in these conversations, all I can say is that it was always in pursuit of becoming a better man and I trusted that the staff had those answers. I couldn't have been more wrong, as I can't help but notice today that what I was subjected to is in direct opposition of the very laws that protect employees from this kind of treatment by their employers; however, in the program, what’s illegal is classified as “spiritual.”

For years, I felt relegated to a subclass of human existence and for what reason? I spent years working on the things that made my life unmanageable primarily because the people around me decided that it was. Furthermore, I was promised that if I stopped watching porn, which I did for years, my brain would rewire itself and I would no longer be attracted to men. As stupid as that sounds now, why wouldn’t I, as an 18 year old, believe what I was hearing from who I only presumed to be trained professionals? I trusted them and really worked hard to take their every suggestion, going as far as becoming a member of Sexaholics Anonymous, despite the fact that I had never even had sex at that point. It was nothing if not incredibly painful to do the same thing over and over again, only to be told to get up and try again by the very people who would describe that as insanity in any other case. I was never once told that what I was doing wasn’t working for me; instead, I was told to try harder. In all of the time I spent in the program, I was never even given the option to try something different until after quitting, when someone told me that my sexual orientation, whatever it may be, was perfectly acceptable and far from a determining factor in my ability to effectively work a program. It took years to hear that, the majority of which were spent somewhere that I definitely should have. That is not only unacceptable but they should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Alas, the problem I have with the program is not necessarily that they’ll never apologize to me, but that they lack the self-awareness to even consider it. When I shared my concerns about the program with one of their counselors, he dismissed them with the statement that it’s a perfect program ran by imperfect people and that I should judge them not by their actions, but by their intentions, which coincidentally, contradicts the program’s reliance on a quote from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that states exactly the opposite. He also told me that I was angry and resentful, despite the fact that I was neither. When I shared my concerns with another counselor, he dismissed them with the suggestion that perhaps the counseling I received, in regards to my sexual orientation, resulted from how I presented it to the staff. His feedback was not only highly insulting, but a complete bastardization of the facts. Not only was I brutally honest about that area of my life, so much that it's all I spoke of, but I was the client and it was far from my role to ensure that the counselors did their job. I was little more than a child at the time; nevertheless, the implication that my negative experiences were all my fault only served as evidence that any attempt to cooperate with the program, and convince them of the ways in which I was harmed, is futile. Why would I want to, anyway, after years of watching any criticism of the program be rationalized as the delusions of “bailed kids” or “disgruntled ex-staff?” The only answer would be to prevent it from happening again, although to think that outcome is even a possibility appears naïve at best. They’ve made it abundantly clear where they stand, that they’re right, everyone else is wrong, and there’s no reason for them to change anything - lest of course it threatens their credibility, which in that case they only become more insidious in their transgressions.

2020 Film Journal - This Is Paris

Alexandra Dean | 2020 | USA | Documentary

This is Paris Hilton and she’s always been an inspiration of mine. She may “act” dumb, but she’s really not. Did you know, she’s always nice to her fans and you never heard anything bad on how she treats fans? Yeahh she’s kind through and through.

Bhad Bhabie is telling her version about being exiled to Turn-about Ranch for the amusement of the viewers of the Dr. Phil show. The Dr. Phil show is some kind of bizarre entertainment.