how i was spiritually raped and left for dead (part 5)

part 1 is here
part 2 is here
part 3 is here
part 4 is here

and when the band you’re in starts playing different tunes…
i’ll see you on the dark side of the moon ~ roger waters

my study of cults and thought-reform began, in large part, by accident. i had had some exposure to the topic during my second attempt at college where my studies were split between human services (mental health) and journalism. music was pretty much off the table and i had hoped to ultimately become a writer, focusing primarily on mental health, sociology and social-psychology issues.

in sociology, psychology and even political science classes, i was exposed to information related to the use of influence, thought-reform, and cults in general. this area was fascinating to me, but i would not do any follow-up study for some time.

i was happy being back in college. as a teenager, i had hated school. it was boring. after graduating from high school, i immediately started college as a music major. the truth is, i probably never should have been allowed to graduate high school. i was heavily involved in the music programs at my high school and was allowed to “slide by” missing classes and hanging out (usually high)because of my involvement in music. f’s were magically transformed into d’s or c’s by my “normal” teachers. i had learned that i could be excused from missing classes by simply telling teachers that i had “a music thing to take care of.”

the first time around, college wasn’t so easy. i was severely depressed. i never went to class. the level of competition was high. i was high. i was thrown out of school halfway through the second semester with straight f’s.

it would be 2 years before i would go back to college.

after being tossed out of school, clearly sick with major depression and self-medicating with the abuse a variety of drugs, i moved back in with my parents. shortly thereafter, with my dreams of having a career in music gone, i received a call from a high-school friend’s mom. it was may, 29 1983.

she explained that my friend had been out drinking and was passed-out in the basement. she asked me to take him to an aa meeting.

my parents were out, so i took their car. i had secretly made a copy of their car keys..

i sat in the aa meeting, high on pot, and listened to these people tell dramatic stories of desperation and redemption. i began to believe that these folks might have an answer to my problems. perhaps if i “got sober” i could find happiness too. i had made some halfhearted attempts to stop using drugs. i had also tried to cut down.

after the meeting, we were invited to go with the group to have coffee. that felt good as well. i had forgotten about stealing my parents’ car. i had totaled my own car and was forbidden from driving their cars due to my numerous accidents and driving violations.

at coffee, the guys from the aa group devoted a great deal of time and energy to me. they told me that only i could determine if i was an alcoholic/addict, but spoke to me as if they had already determined that i was one. they suggested that i enter an inpatient rehab. i told them i would consider it.

driving home, my friend and i discussed whether or not i was “chemically dependent,” the 1983 buzz word for alcoholic/addict. he told me about his rehab experience and suggested that i admit myself into the same program. it seemed like it might be a good idea. after all, i was unemployable, too unreliable to get a music gig, and had no commitments. i felt constant pressure to be productive, but was unable to motivate myself. my parents were at their wits end.

by the time i dropped off my friend and returned home, my parents had also returned. as i pulled into the driveway, my father came out and was standing outside. arms folded, he was clearly angry. i was busted for taking the car.

i immediately jumped out of the car and said, “ i am chemically dependent and need to go to drug treatment.”

my father is the greatest man i have ever known. he is everything a man should be. he was devoted to his career and worked his way up from shoe-store stock-boy to president of a fortune 500 company. yet he never neglected his family. he never missed one of our games or performances. he has always deeply loved my mother. that love was demonstrated through the respect and affection he showed for her both privately and publicly. though he has been a highly successful businessman, traveling all over the u.s. and abroad, he has never been unfaithful to my mom.

my father is compassionate, empathic, fair, loving, dedicated, spiritual, generous, and honest. i have never heard him speak badly of others. he treated his employees like family. he treats his family like we are his heart.

he has cried, prayed, fought, struggled, counseled, sacrificed, punished, worried, provided, encouraged, strengthened, affirmed, held, and loved me and my sisters in his efforts to help us meet our potentials.

when i told him i needed to go to rehab, he dropped the issue of me taking the car and sat with me at the kitchen table where we had a long talk.

he told me he loved me. he told me he would support me. he asked me where i wanted to go for rehab. i told him. it was late, but he contacted the rehab facility the next morning and made arrangements for me to be admitted. i would enter treatment the following morning.

the night before i was to enter treatment, i took more drugs than i’d ever taken in my life. when i returned home, i had several grams of hash. already wasted, i went into the bathroom and smoked as much as i could; then i ate the rest.

my parents roused me early the next morning and, still high, i showered. we made our way to the rehab facility.



she has a way about her
i don't know what it is,
but i know that i can't live without her ~ billy joel

i'm intense. burdened. serious. she set me free.

for as long as i can remember, i've had difficulty living in the moment. i've always been that way. maybe i was born that way.

as a teenager, i was an outsider. i was involved in the church music program. i played music at school as well. and although i participated, hung around with other teens, i never really felt connected.

on the inside i felt vulnerable. i was too sensitive...easily hurt. but on the outside, i seemed impenetrable. at times, i held others at bay with my serious demeanor. other times i would act out, fighting, pranking, teasing people. adults at the church i attended would sometimes say, “i don't think i've never seen seekingintongues laugh or smile.”

i met her on may 31st 1983.

in 1983, drug treatment centers were generally not beautiful facilities. this one was harsh--painted cinder block walls and large steel doors. each door had a small square window with thick glass reinforced with thin diagonal steel wires which crisscrossed inside the glass making diamond shapes.

the facility was surrounded by razor wire. the steel doors were locked. the patient rooms were bare, with twin beds, cheap, weathered nightstands and flimsy wood-grain veneered dressers. there were no sharp objects. the mirrors in the bathrooms were made of polished steel, rather than glass, so that they could not be broken and used to harm one's self. the place reminded me of the hospital from the movie one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

as a privileged kid, who group up in a beautiful home around other privileged, middle-class families, i did not feel that this was the right place for me. additionally, after the long admission process, i was coming down from the drugs i'd ingested the previous night. i wanted to get high again.

i finally had to say goodbye to my parents and, after hugs and tears, i was escorted back to the nurse's station.

during the long walk to the nurse's station, i began to think that i could probably convince them that i didn’t need to be here. they had yet to take a drug history from me and i assumed that, if i told them i hadn’t really used drugs that much, they would call my parents to pick me up. i didn’t realize that i had probably been diagnosed as an addict before i even hit the door. in drug treatment in 1983, “no one gets here by mistake,” was the mantra. virtually anyone with health insurance who showed up at a drug treatment center would be admitted.

as i stood at the nurses station, staring at the locked steel doors, contemplating my “escape,” she approached me.

she bounced toward me bubbly, blonde and beautiful. she had long tan legs and was wearing short-shorts and tretorns with no socks. outgoing and confident, she came right up to me and, standing a little too close, she tilted her head to one side. she smiled and said, “cool, you have an earring.”

“who is that girl?” i decided to give rehab a shot.

we became fast friends. we hung out all the time. we even had a mock wedding ceremony, officiated by one of the counselors, where we exchanged leather rings that we’d made in art therapy. she was discharged before me and when i had day passes, we attended church together. she was my pal and my girlfriend.

i was in rehab for 7 weeks. i had good insurance and length of stay was directly related to insurance coverage. the rehab did me good. i was drug-free, had reconnected with my religious beliefs, been given hope, and found a really great friend and girlfriend in the suntanned girl who’d approached me at the nurse's station.

after rehab, my family welcomed me back home in a celebratory manner…the prodigal son. they loved me and forgave me. i also, hooked up with the local chapter of palmer drug abuse program, a support group and counseling center for teens and young adults.

pdap provided me with a social outlet. it was a way to have friends while avoiding those people i'd used drugs with in the past. she went to pdap with me. she drew me out of myself.

she was outgoing, open and vulnerable. she got me to talk...long discussions into the late hours, talking about dreams and demons.

she made me laugh. like kids, we'd walk through the grass and trees—blue sky overhead. she would run from me, daring me to catch her. we would poke and tease one another. she would sit on my chest and tickle my ribs. then she would jump to her feet. “you can't make me kiss you back,” she would say. then she would close her lips tightly and open her eyes wide. she would move her head from side to side, holding back laughter, resisting, as i tried to place my mouth on her tightly closed lips.

as my lips touched hers, she tightened them even more in defiance...until she surrendered. we fell into eachother's arms and the world drifted away.

then we would lie together, staring at the soft, airy, cumulus clouds, assigning meaning to the shapes we'd imagined they made.

pdap was a national non-profit organization which had support groups and counseling centers in several cities around the country. up until 1980, it had been run by bob. following two national news stories, one on 60-minutes and one on 20/20, bob was fired. he was exposed for using manipulative, brutal and cultic methods to control staff and clients and for taking money from private, for-profit hospitals fo referring kids from the non-profit program he controlled.

to a large degree, pdap had cleaned-up its act. it had a fantastic counselor training school with a strong multi-disciplinary faculty. however, most of the organization's directors had worked for and were trained by bob. there was still a strong machiavellian component within the program's hierarchy. heavy confrontation was commonplace. and the staff, which consisted almost entirely of former clients, were treated as though we were still clients. we were subjected to the leadership's assessment of the quality of our sobriety and spiritual development. this meant that we had to attend staff purpose meetings (originally implemented by bob) and that the directors generally played the role of counselor and 12-step sponsor to us.

i entered the pdap with 7 weeks sober and got my 30 day monkey-fist--a token recognizing 30 days of continuous sobriety--after attending pdap meetings for 30 days. immediately, upon receiving my monkey’s fist, i was asked to serve on the steering committee, a volunteer service-oriented group made up of members of the support group. at 6 months sober, i became a counselor aide.

she was with me throughout all of this. at times, i would realize how close we'd gotten, how vulnerable i'd become. i would try to push her away. i ignored her. sometimes, i was cruel to her.

she would come out, wearing shorts or a flirty skirt, flitting about. her eyes were bright, either green or blue depending on what she was wearing. she would go about her business, talking to other boys, her blond hair gently touching the soft, tan skin of her bare neck, smiling as though she was unaffected by my indifference to her. she always looked and smelled ethereal. she would walk right past me, subtly switching her hips. she would continue in this manner until youthful jealousy would win out and she would draw me in. she would cause me to expose myself to her once again. it was as if she knew parts of me that were hidden from the rest of the world, hidden from me.

i was not ready to return to college. i knew that music was out of the question due to the prevalence of drug use in the music culture. since i loved helping others, i pursued a career as a counselor. i went to michigan for my first paid job in the drug treatment field. after a few months, the michigan pdap board of directors sent me to texas to attend a counselor training school..

after working as a counselor for pdap, and becoming a bit turned-off by the controlling, confrontational drug treatment culture, i decided to go back to college. also, the director for whom i’d been working was contacted by the pdap national staff while i was in counselor training. they had told him that they did not believe he would be able to keep me. they had fought with him to let them place me in a larger program where they could advance my career. this made him angry. rather than recognizing that a small organization like the michigan program did not have the resources necessary to develop young talent, he saw it as a personal affront to his abilities as a director.

he refused to allow the national staff to place me and insisted that i return to michigan. he took out his anger on me, accusing me of making the national training coordinator think i was a “hot shot.” he also kept a close hold on me. i was frequently confronted for “secretly thinking about leaving michigan,” thereby betraying my him. it seemed as though this was personal to him. if i left, it would mean that the national team was correct, that he wasn't capable of hanging on to me.

i hadn’t thought of leaving michigan, but with the constant suggestion that i was going to leave, i began to consider it. pdap wasn’t fully cultic at that time, but the ghost of bob’s cultic ways was still present. also, my boss was a holdover from the bob days, he tended toward being manipulative and controlling.
in 1986, i returned to st. louis where i worked for st. louis pdap for a short time before going back to school.

i was on the honor roll and dean’s list right out of the gate. i had decided to pursue journalism. i took a lot of writing course and made a’s. i also began to take more psychology, sociology, and human services classes. i did not intend to return to the field of drug and alcohol counseling, but my journalism professor recommended that i load up on classes related to the areas on which i wanted to write.

i was also working as a prep-cook at a local bar and grill, teaching drums at a local music studio, and working, as a volunteer, with young people who were being sent to me by various local ministers. there was no shortage of substance abusers in need of help on the college campus either. i had the opportunity to help some of them as well.

i joined the music society at school and became friends with the music society’s president, a red-hot, professional studio guitarist, who was severely addicted to alcohol. i was able to get him a bed in a treatment program (he had no insurance) and became his sponsor. we started jamming together and got a band going with some sober kids from the program.

i wasn’t very good. i didn’t have the time to devote to practicing. we played a graduation party or 2 and often played for the local pdap group. we were pretty bad, didn’t make any money, but had a lot of fun.

i was in college when i met bob. the st. louis pdap program had been on the verge of closing and he had positioned himself as the man who would save the program. he got me to volunteer at the “new” st. louis pdap (later the program changed its name). the program had broken its affiliation with pdap national and bob had taken control. even though he had been fired years earlier, he was still a legend in pdap.

i became increasingly more involved in bob's st' louis program. bob, jim and al opened an inpatient hospital program and offered me the directorship. i worked full-time as the hospital's director while attending college full-time. i continued with school, completing 2 years, until i was convinced, by jim. and bob, that school was a dead end. they wanted me to quit school and go to atlanta to run a new program they were starting.

while i had been in school, i had begun to learn a bit about cults. but more importantly, i became a voracious reader.

i moved to atlanta and delivered pizza, while working on licensing and opening the atlanta program. it was 1988.

i hated being in atlanta. i wanted to be in my home town. i wanted to be in college.

my girl had moved to atlanta too and in september of '88 we took a trip back to st. louis to get married. the suntanned sweetheart i'd met in rehab became mrs. seekingintongues.

during this time i was reading a lot. m. scott peck was one of my favorite authors. i’m pretty sure that the first book on cults i ever read came from the bibliography of peck’s book, a different drum.

among the cult books i read was steve hassan’s landmark text, combating cult mind control.

this book, combating cult mind control, would ultimately save my family.

it also saved bob bob’s life.
 
 
i remember the girl of my dreams
found my soul
and she placed my heart back
in my "missing-heart hole"
and my child like passion and wonder
and pride
returned, and i started to glow
from inside~seekingtongues (1997)


i had left her when i went to michigan to become a counselor. i was determined to become the greatest drug and alcohol counselor ever. i was going save lives. i didn't intend to allow anything or anyone to become important enough to me to distract me from this goal. this was my excuse for leaving her.

ultimately i couldn't let her go. in the quiet moments, i longed for her. it was as if she was sweetly seducing me from 800 miles away. i finally gave in and called her. i convinced her to come to michigan to be with me.

late one night, we stood on the shore of one of michigan's expansive lakes. there were a billion stars overhead. the stars lit up the lake...a billion wavering points of light. as a challenge, we tried to last an hour without touching each other. laughing, we would move our hands as close as possible to the other's body without making contact.

ultimately, desire won. we embraced. tenderness and passion. tension and release.

the past didn't matter. everything we'd been through, all our experiences, our difficulties, had led to this union. everything had a purpose and that purpose was us. she found me. we found eachother. we would always be together. she would always touch me. i would always touch her.


arizona 1997

i was just about finished getting bob's residential program launched. under rachael's (one of bob's girls) watch, i was, putting the finishing touches on the policy and procedure manual.

my marriage was in shambles. we lived in the same house but not together. our connection had been destroyed. the girl i'd met in rehab, my love, had left her body and and someone else had moved in. her essence had been destroyed by bob and his wife's relentless demand for total allegiance. they had uncovered and destroyed everything we loved until nothing was left...except them.

i hadn't touched her in months.

i knew my wife was reporting my actions to bob and his wife, so i did not feel safe at home. bob's wife had ordered my wife to destroy or sell box-loads of my books, mostly stuff related to synanon, counseling, psychology, sociology, and cults. i had no friends and had not spoken to my parents and siblings since the 1995 confrontation. our contact with my family had been restricted and supervised prior to that.

my father , having not heard from me and having written and called numerous times, had flown to arizona and tried to make contact. he knocked on our door while my wife, my daughter, and i hid in the bathroom. afraid that his spiritual darkness would harm us.

bob was on the phone. i was at rachael’s house, literally an hour away from finishing the policy and procedure manual. i could tell by rachael’s demeanor that it was bob on the phone. i could also tell that he was attempting to find out when we’d be finished and that they had already concocted some kind of plan to “deal with me” once the manual was complete.

rachael hung-up the phone and said, “bob wants you to go to george's house when we’re done. he wants to see you.”

my heart raced with fear. then, i had the strangest experience. one i’d had only once before, in the 1995 confrontation. i was looking down from above my body, detached from myself.

“hey! hey! hey!!” rachael was shouting. i snapped back into my body. “i need you to be a martian right now,” she said. “i need you to focus. let’s finish this.”

i had assumed that while i was working with rachael, bob had moved my wife and daughter out of my house. it was almost impossible to finish. it was excruciating. i’m pretty sure, however, that bob and george didn’t feel a thing. for them it was another day.

after completing the work with rachael, i went straight to george’s house. i had been instructed not to go home before going to there.

george greeted me at the door with a smile and a hug. he guided me to his backyard where bob was smiling and sitting quietly, legs crossed-- a buddah on a garden bench at the edge of the brick walkway that meandered past george’s swimming pool and through his backyard garden. he was holding a big stick.

bob sat silently, stick in hand, staring at me. he looked at my eyes, then slowly down to my feet and back up to my eye’s. he held his gaze, staring directly into my eye’s. i did not dare to break eye contact. after a long pause he stood, pointed at the bench with his stick and said, “sit.”

i sat.

bob remained quiet pacing in front of me, with george watching silently from the background.
he finally broke silence.

“you’re a pussy,” he said. another pause.

“i’m tired of hearing your wife complain about wanting to leave you. she can’t stand the sight of you because you are a fvckin’ broad [meaning woman]. i’m tired of hearing her say she doesn’t love you. what am i supposed to do, send her back to her mother?”

he was right. i was broken. i was afraid to have an opinion, afraid to express an idea or thought. i didn't laugh or smile. my intellect, my sense of humor, my passion, they were gone. i simply did what i was told. i was unaware that they'd been telling my wife that i didn't love her as well.

he was silent again…pacing.

“you are full of fear,” he continued. “you have too many feelings. men don’t have fear. men don’t have feelings. men don’t care about romance.”

“you think i give a sh!t about my wife? she cleans the house and cooks my meals. a couple times a week i bend her over the bathroom counter and get what i need. she has a vibrator. if she wants to get off, she can go crazy with that thing for all i care.”

“do you think i cared when stan [his stepson] died. i cared that my wife was too fvcked up to clean the house and cook my meals…that’s what i cared about. i didn’t cry. i didn’t have feelings. i didn’t even like the fvcker.”

“feelings are bullsh!t! romance is bullsh!t! fear…is bullsh!t!!

“none of it’s real. fear...isn’t...real”

whap! he hit me on the shoulder with the stick. i didn’t flinch. my shoulder was burning, but i didn’t really feel it. i had reverted to floating above my body.

“that’s real,” he said speaking of the pain in my shoulder.

he pulled up a lawn chair, sat across from me and laid the stick across his lap. george pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

i remember thinking, “i was afraid you were going to hit me with that stick. was that real?” i was too terrified to speak.

bob, with george beside him, unfolded the plan he had hatched to keep things in place until the residential center was launched.

“you need to find your true sociopathic male self,” he said. “you need to take all those fears and feelings and stuff them deep down inside…in place where they’ll never again see the light of day.”

george sat beside him nodding and making his best “serious” face. in retrospect, i’m not sure george had the capacity to understand anything bob was saying.

bob explained his plan. i was to go spend a week in isolation, in the desert at the foot of the santan mountains, using the empty residential facility as my base. i was to have no contact with anyone. i was to spend my time fully and finally ridding myself of any and all emotion.

bob, in a classic eriksonian hypnotic approach, began planting suggestions. i was already in an altered state.

he said, “when you get out there you’re going to be overcome with every fear imaginable. you’re going to constantly be afraid that we have somebody at your house, fvcking your wife’s brains out. i can make that happen if i want. you’re going to be afraid we are moving her to another city. when you come back, you’re not gonna care. you’re gonna be a man…with no more feelings. you won’t give a sh!t about anything except whether that b!tch does your laundry.

“go home.” he said. “don’t say anything to your wife except ‘i’ll be back,’ pick up some sh!t and don’t come back for a week.” he handed me a twenty dollar bill. “get some food,” he said.

that was it. i walked out the door, went home, told my wife i’d be back, grabbed a couple shirts and a pocket knife and headed for the santan mountains.

on the way there, i stopped at a little rural grocery store. i grabbed a 1 lb. block of cheese, some water and some bananas. while i was picking up the food and water, i was struck by the woman who was ringing me up. i assumed that the little store was family owned and that she was wife and mother to the family. what caught my attention was that she was smiling. she seemed genuinely happy with her simple life. she was kind and friendly. this was a world i didn’t know.

at this point, i still believed everything bob had said. soon i would be reformed once and for all.

but i couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in the store. she was unencumbered by any mission to save the world…or her soul. my thoughts would continue to return to this woman.

the list
1. a gallon of gasoline
2. two glass mason jars
3. two rags
4. pants, shoes, shirt—fished out of a dumpster
5. a handgun

my plan to kill bob and his wife would come to me shortly.

to be continued...