part 1 is here
part 2 is here
part 3 is here
according to “the story of [seekingintongues]” in george's book, “many of his [seekingintongues] co-workers and subordinates became angry with [seekingintongues] and they eventually confronted him. [he] finally resigned from the treatment facility…”
reading this, one would assume that, as a result of the confrontation, i resigned shortly thereafter. further, the reader may think that i simply refused to stop being “abusive” and was hell-bent on finding the flaws in my superiors.
here's what really happened.
part 4
i'm gonna find myself a girl who can show me what laughter means
and we'll fill in the missing colors in each other's paint-by-number dreams
and then we'll put out dark glasses on
and we'll make love until our strength is gone
and when the morning light comes streaming in
we'll get up and do it again ~ jackson browne
before i go on, i want to acknowledge that there were a few people that helped me make it through the next few months following the “confrontation.” j.h. pulled me aside one day and said, “look, all of this is going to turn out okay. your wife will never leave you. hang in there.” he also told me to watch my back with bob's wife. he said in so many words that she could not be trusted.
one of the women on staff accompanied me to an na meeting. i’ll never forget that. when everyone else was ostracizing me, she reached out. i had been clean and sober about 13 years at the time, but was told that none of my sobriety counted—that although i had avoided drugs and alcohol, i wasn’t really sober. i changed my sobriety date to the day after the confrontation and went to an na meeting to receive a desire chip.
i got to the meeting late (after the chips had been given out). when they asked if anyone had a “burning desire,” i spoke up. i stated that i needed to get clean and sober and had come to get a desire chip, but “i got here too late.” i was in tears and had a hard time getting the words out. someone said, “it’s never too late.” they gave me a desire chip. i am thankful, not only to the woman who accompanied me to the meeting (and i hope you know who you are; thank you), but also to the members of that na meeting who were loving and empathic. of course they had no idea that i had actually been clean and sober for 13 years.
also, bart was assigned to be my new sponsor. since i was “newly sober,” it was no longer appropriate for bob to sponsor me, so they chose bart. he helped me a lot over the next several months.
then there was eric, my coffee shop partner. he was always safe. he never talked down to me. he made me feel as though i had nothing to prove to him. i found myself trying to hang out around him as much as possible just because it felt good to be around him.
another person who gave me respite and respect was a guy who wasn’t in the program. his name was james. james did sound and lights for many of the events i produced. he knew things weren’t right with the program, but never said so. he believed i had a unique talent for planning and facilitating raves, dances and other events. he was making 3 times more than me and tried to convince me to let him set me up in the entertainment business. later, after hearing me play drums at a round robin, he again said he felt i was very talented and offered to get me a job playing drums with a touring band that was making money.
i never considered leaving the program, as i knew that leaving meant losing my family, but his affirmations helped me feel a little better about myself. i never told him what i had been put through, he just believed that what i was doing in the program was a waste of talent. i also never told anyone about his proposals for fear that the bob would prevent me from using him for events or from having any contact with him.
finally, the local chapter of aa held marathon meetings around the clock on christmas eve and christmas day. i spent most of christmas at those meetings, because, having broken ties with my parents and siblings, being “out” of my so-called family (the staff), being in a position where i was a guest in my house while everyone was waiting to see if i was going to “make it, and also being pretty much ostracized by my wife, who was reporting on me to bob and joy, i was alone on christmas. ”i’m not sure i would have survived christmas without those aa meetings.
back to the story
bob was an ex-con. he once explained to me the process used in prison for making someone into a punk. for those who don’t know, according to bob, a punk is basically someone an inmate owns. they give the owner their cigarettes, money, and other stuff, they also serve as the inmate's serial-rape victim. a punk has no existence other than to serve at the pleasure of the inmate who owns him.
here is how the process works, according to bob. first, a new inmate/recruit without street smarts is chosen—someone who isn't a hardened criminal, someone who is still sensitive, human. after selecting the recruit, the hardened prisoner will beat him within an inch of his life. the recruit may spend weeks recovering in the infirmary. the beating would be the worst the recruit had ever experienced in his life, bad enough to cause him to believe he is going to die, to cause significant emotional trauma.
at this point, the recruit is ruined. he will never be the same. next they wait for him to recover, not only physically, but mentally. when the recruit feels as though he’s going to be okay—when his confidence is almost restored and he begins to feel safe--they beat him again…within an inch of his life.
after the second beating, when he’s almost physically recovered, but still traumatized, they corner him. they begin to beat him again. but this time they tell him, “i’m not going to fvck you, but i just want you to suck my d!ck.”
all that is necessary to force the recruit into performing sexual acts is the threat of violence...a raised hand or a quick movement. he has been removed from his environment and placed in prison among violent sociopaths. he has little contact with family and friends. there is no hope of escaping his current situation. he fears for his life.
once the recruit performs oral sex, usually in tears, he is fully broken. he is so ruined by the trauma he has experienced and devastated with shame because he has given in to the rapist, he becomes the property of the inmate and can even be rented or sold to other inmates. they knock him down further by constantly reminding him that he is a loser, a weakling who would rather suck c0ck than defend himself.
the recruit/punk now performs any sex act demanded by the inmate. he may be forced to wear women's clothing and makeup. the essence of the individual, who has been converted to punk, is gone--destroyed.
bob also claimed that the forced sex is more about destroying the punk than it is about sex. it's about power. when speaking about raping young inmates, i heard bob say, "i couldn't get a nut [climax] 'til his tears hit my c0ck."
once destroyed, the punk becomes a deployable agent—a slave. he is dead.
the hardened inmate that turned him has no remorse, no empathy for the person he has destroyed. human life means nothing to him.
the infirmary
metaphorically speaking, i was in the infirmary from november of 1995 to the fall of 1996. i began to regain my confidence toward the end of '96 and winter of '97.
during most our time in arizona we had only one car. we couldn’t afford another. after a while we were allowed to purchase a pickup truck for my wife. in february of 1997, i was allowed to trade our old ford escort and buy another car.
i’m not even going to try to explain the insane process of trying to buy a car while having to call bob's wife from the dealerships throughout the negotiations. i’ll just say that: 1. she can’t perform basic arithmetic and 2. i was humiliated having to present her proposals to normal people, who thought i was an absolute lunatic for suggesting what i was told to suggest and for my (her)inability to do basic math.
i knew better than to cross her. when she said 2+2=5, i agreed.
with my new car and feeling as though i had done penance, had been taken back by my wife, and been taken back (kind of) by “the family,” i was less afraid.
more specifically, rather than being in a panic, i had adopted ongoing moderate-grade fear as a natural state. i functioned in a passionless, depressive state of post traumatic stress disorder. however, i began to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
then i was blind sided.
it was time for the grand opening of the new coffee shop, of which i was half owner. i had devoted a tremendous amount of time, along with my partner, to designing and building the shop. i had performed dances, raves and other events that brought a lot of revenue in to the shop. the shop was beautiful.
that friday i was called over to bob’s house and verbally beaten. i was told that, while this confrontation was going on, brian, bob's muscle, was out in the desert digging a hole (for my body). i don’t remember the specifics of my supposed transgressions. here is what i do remember.
-bob and his wife made a direct threat against my life.
-that night i went to staff purpose and the topic was me...again.
-bob and his wife had to explain what was “wrong” with me to the rest of the staff, because no one else saw it. they told the staff that it would be difficult to understand what was wrong with me, but continued to explain it until everyone “understood.” they told the staff that the things i’d done to harm them (the staff) would not be things that they would know had been harmful, but that whatever, difficulties, fears, bad feelings, etc. that any of them had experienced recently were the direct result of manipulative things i had done to harm them. they were told to think of whatever difficulties, fears, etc. they had experienced lately and then they assign blame to me.
-my wife was told that she must sit in a place where she could not see my face during the confrontation. she was told, as were the others, that if i seemed hurt, became tearful, apologized, tried to be nice to people, helped someone, showed empathy for anyone, or anything else that would normally be considered a sign of remorse, i was conning them. therefore, i was not allowed to be contrite, emotional, apologetic or helpful. this was a brilliant double-bind created by the otherwise tree-stump-stupid, mrs. bob. if i was mean i was an as$hole. if i was nice…i was an as$hole.
-i was told that i used my sexual prowess to “con” my wife into wanting to be with me—that i should be less effective in the bedroom.
-once again, i spent several hours, powerless, as the staff attacked me, accusing me of creating a variety of problems for them and manipulatively planting fears within them.
-a well known rock star, and bob lapdog, was present in the purpose for some reason. he was also a member of bob's inner-circle and an honorary graduate of the the counselor training school. go figure. his friend, a former music partner from childhood and leech of the rock star was also present. so i was forced to endure this confrontation while two people, one i barely knew and another i’d never met before, were present and participating.
-after the purpose, i was sent home alone while the males gathered at one house for social time and the females, including my wife, at another.
aside from the rift created between my wife and me, the most hurtful part of the experience was a comment made by a woman on staff whom i had taken under my wing. in the past, i had seen her beaten down, ostracized and kicked out of the house where she had lived for years with a family in bob’s inner circle.
she had no relationship with her family and i was afraid she would ultimately be kicked out on the street with nowhere to turn. secretly, i had made it my personal mission to protect and nurture her. for years, bob had made fun of her, claiming that she was an idiot. in working with her, i found that she was brilliant and talented. during the purpose, she said to me, “i’ve worked too hard to get where i’m at to let you fvck it all up.” she had no idea that i had been devoted to advocating on her behalf. i don’t blame her and was never angry at her. i was saddened by the “fact” that in trying to help her, i had hurt her. later, when the fog cleared, i was saddened by the fact (no quotes) that the person who was in her corner was portrayed as someone who was trying to “keep her down.”
the next night was the grand opening of our new coffee shop.
the coffee shop was a drug and alcohol free nightclub for teens and college-aged kids. we had taken a rented warehouse property and transformed it into a desert-themed dreamscape. a silhouette of desert mountains lined the walls from the floor up to about 5 feet. the brilliant colors of the sunset arose from behind the mountains, darkening to purple and then midnight blue which covered the very top of the walls and the ceiling. the ceiling was midnight blue with stars.
there were malibu lights mounted every 6 feet along the baseboards and the light hit the walls just above the mountains, accentuating the sunset and then fading into the night sky.
there was a stage on the back wall. i was positioned behind the mixing board on the side of the stage. the bar was positioned on the wall opposite the stage. the room was packed with hundreds of enthusiastic young people. looking over the tops of their heads, i could see the wall behind the bar. halfway up the wall was a 12 by 5 foot mirrored mountain scape. a shelf, lined with bottles of coffee flavorings, vanilla, caramel, pomegranate, cherry, etc., ran across the bottom of the mountain scape. a purplish hue radiated from behind the bottles, reflecting off the mirror-mountains.
the rock star and his deadbeat friend were on the stage. they had come to perform the star's hit songs for our grand opening. the room was electric. the audience was bouncing to the beat, singing along. looking across the stage, i could see my wife on the other side. she, like everyone else was intoxicated by the music, the excitement, the happening.
it was 20 feet between where i stood, behind the mixing board and where she stood on the far end of the stage. i looked up at the stars of the universe above my head. i imagined floating and flying through the stars. i thought about times i had been away from my wife, my soul-mate.
in our younger years, when circumstance had caused us to be in different cities, we had both looked up at the same night sky, each of us knowing that the other was seeing the same stars. we took comfort in knowing that although we were physically separated by hundreds of miles, we were together is spirit.
with my eyes, i followed the painted night sky for 20 feet across the length of the stage. then, lowering my head, i looked down to see the woman i loved, a million miles away.
this was to be my night. not mine completely, i did have a partner and we had created this place together. as long as i could remember, my desire to be creative had been an unquenchable longing. art, music, writing, i was passionate about these things. the coffee shop and everything that went with it, dances, raves, parties provided a creative outlet which kept me going in an otherwise stifling environment. like most artists, i wanted to be recognized for my work. i needed to create, but i also needed others to see the product and recognize my achievement.
my partner in the coffee shop was brought on stage and applauded for “the beautiful coffee shop that he had created.” i was in the corner running the mixer. no one would talk to me. i received no recognition.
that night, when i should have been applauded and been allowed to celebrate my achievements, i was instead made to be a pariah. i fully believe that this entire thing was orchestrated by bob's wife so that, my partner, her “spiritual son,” did not have to share the spotlight with anyone else.
my wife stood at the edge of the stage applauding as well. she wouldn’t talk to me either. at one point, i went over and stood behind her. later that night, she was livid that i had “tried to ruin her fun by standing near her.” this idea had been planted by bob's wife. later, i was harshly confronted by bob and his wife for attempting to keep my wife from celebrating the grand opening of the coffee shop of which i was half owner...by trying to stand by her!
the image of my wife, celebrating with her new “family” at the grand opening of “my partner’s coffee shop” while i was banished to the corner to mix the sound—which i’d better not fvck up, if i knew what was good for me—is still burned in my brain.
i can still see her standing there, stepping out of her shoes, head tilted, glowing at my partner’s success. i felt betrayed. i hated her for this.
for all intents and purposes, they had caused my wife to be unfaithful. she was with them. her primary loyalty was not to her husband, but to them. in my mind, it was no different--what happened that night and the following months—than if she would have been sleeping with another person. they manipulated her, lied to her, rallied the troops against me, and caused her to cheat on me, metaphorically.
i have tried to reframe this for years, but cannot because it is the truth.
furthermore, our intimate relationship ended there. she was coached by bob's wife, to whom she reported my actions on a regular basis. it didn’t really matter what i did or said, because everything that happened was interpreted as an attempt on my part to hurt my family and everyone else.
at some point, our 4 year-old daughter, who had gotten a new camera, asked to take a picture of mommy and daddy. my wife was livid. she accused me of “setting our daughter up” to ask to take a picture of us. “i don’t want my picture taken with you,” she said. this was reported to bob and his wife. as a result of being poisoned by their convoluted, conspiratorial meddling, she thought that i was trying to use our daughter to get close to her. she couldn't have been more wrong. i hated her.
whatever love i'd had for her was gone.
i need to step out of the story to explain that it wasn't my wife's fault. she was being carefully manipulated by bob's wife. bob and his wife were scripting nearly every discussion my wife and i had. she would return to bob's wife several times each week to report on our “progress.” bob's wife would then interpret every word, every action, telling my wife what the words and actions “really meant.”
bob's girls would be together in a group where my wife was present and they would openly talk sh!t about me. they would call me a loser. no one challenged bob's girls.
bob's daughter, muffy, was part of this crowd. muffy had grown up in this group. nearly every friend she had ever had, had been handed to her by bob and his wife. in fact, she didn't have friends, she had lapdogs—people who followed her around and did whatever she wanted to do, whenever she wanted to do it. she wanted my wife to be her best friend. she wanted to hang out with my wife night after night. she wanted my wife's world to center on her.
as a tool to manipulate my wife, they also used a method which thought-reform expert, dr. robert j. lifton, referred to as mystical manipulation.
in his landmark book, thought reform and the psychology of totalism, a study of “brainwashing” in china, lifton defined mystical manipulation as : “the manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated.”¹
here's an example: those of use who had reached a certain level within the organization believed that bob's wife had mystical powers. she could enter people's dreams while they were sleeping, read minds, and interpret the words used by people to decipher unknown desires and motives. she could also read tarot cards.
the girls would gather together at muffy's house and joy would help them find answers to life's most important questions. one of those questions for my wife was: “will i ever have another baby?” bob's wife did a reading. the results indicated that my wife had done a great deal of spiritual work to invite the right people into her life [bob's girls] and distance herself from the wrong people [me and her mother]. now, after finally achieving what she had sought, she was on the verge of sabotaging everything. a baby represented a destructive instinct in my wife. it would cause her to be trapped—tied to the undesirable spiritual vampires while creating a time-consuming task (taking care of a newborn) which would separate her from her true family [bob's girls].
what appeared to be an answer to an important question was in reality just a con. bob's wife wanted my wife to continue to avoid her mother and me. she made the question and the cards fit the message that she wanted to deliver.
she also knew that my wife had struggled for much of her life to have strong friendships with other girls. difficulty along these lines had caused her a great deal of pain. being accepted into the fold and having these friendships with bob's girls made her happy. the underlying message, "you have to choose us or your husband," planted a powerful fear within her.
bob's wife was a student of eriksonian hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming. she knew how to plant fears.
exit counselor, mental health professional, and mind-control educator, steven hassan calls this technique of planting fears “phobia indoctrination.” in his book, releasing the bonds: empowering people to think for themselves, he defines phobia indoctrination as: “programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader’s authority. the person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.”²
for my wife, the deeper fear was that, if she questioned the guidance provided by bob's wife, she would die, at least spiritually, and more importantly, destroy her daughter.
it may be difficult to understand how an intelligent person could turn her life over to an obvious charlatan. the truth is, if my wife had met these people and they had immediately tried to lay this crap on her, she would have walked away. but this was after years of indoctrination. we had no contact with the outside world. our ability to think critically had been stifled. all questions were answered either by the doctrine of the group or the leaders directly. from the beginning we were told, “your best thinking got you here,” meaning our attempts to solve our own problems had led to ongoing drug abuse and had nearly destroyed us. we needed someone else to think for us.
bob sat me down and told me, “your wife doesn’t love you. she doesn’t want to be married anymore. they [his wife and the girls] are trying to figure out where to send her.” he told me, “she hates you man. she told my wife she can’t stand the sight of you.” these were bob’s words.
he said that they couldn’t afford to support my wife and daughter and had nowhere for them to live. he said he couldn’t send me away—that he needed me in arizona, because “i can’t do this thing without you.” he also indicated that they didn’t have another man available to hook her up with.
somehow, i had screwed everything up. my marriage needed to be split up and i was putting the burden of dealing with this problem on the program. they couldn’t send me away, couldn’t support her and my daughter, couldn’t find a guy for her to marry who could support her and my daughter, didn’t have anywhere to send her…and it was my fault.
“i’m gonna have to fix this thing [meaning find a way to make my wife stay with me and get joy and the girls to go along with it],” bob complained.
at this point, i was trying to get his residential center licensed and opened. bob needed to hold things together long enough for me to finish the job, which i’d been working on for months. bob's wife was trying to end my marriage and in reality had succeeded. she just couldn’t get bob to agree to put the final nail in the coffin because of the residential center.
i had enough sense to realize that bob and his wife were interfering with my marriage, my family. i had seen them split other marriages. i had always believed that, when they split couples in the past, it was in the best interest of the couple. now, on some level, i began to see things in a different light.
my wife and i were estranged, but it was because of their meddling. they may be the chosen spiritual leaders, but in this situation they were wrong. if i didn't do something they would destroy my family forever. my daughter would grow up calling some other man daddy. they would see to it that she would grow up believing i was evil.
this is the point where bob hatched his plan to hold things together long enough to get the center opened.
it was also the point where i hatched my plan save my family.
i decided to murder bob and his wife.
to be continued…
notes:
1.lifton, robert j.; the psychology of totalism, a study of “brainwashing” in china, 1981 (reprint) university of north carolina press.
2.hassan steven a.; releasing the bonds: empowering people to think for themselves, 2000 aitan publishing company.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
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