Just wondering how other parents have handled this.

We heard one with our child and I just wanted to scream "Can't you hear Stefan guiding your thoughts!?" It's just an awful experience being on the sideline and watching someone you love be manipulated.

At first, I wanted to hear everything that was happening. I thought it would give me a clue to how I could help. Now I think it's healthier if we don't listen. What do you do?

that must be absolutely horrible. for many reasons.


I only know how bad it is when Stef does a podcast on you and you just hear him lie, manipulate, psychologize and what not and there's nothing you can do about it. But that does not even come close to the kind of exprience you must have had.

Raureka once had the same experience as I did and described it thusly:

Quote:

Interesting, infuriating, laughable, humiliating, sickening... I wrote a few paragraphs benignly probing Stefan's ideas, only to find myself being dragged through the mud with my hands tied behind my back. Watching as someone knowingly, unrestrainedly and maliciously misrepresents you is utterly exasperating to say the least - but I'm sure you know that already. Stefan loves to talk of the power disparity in relationships. Well, how about the disparity between the host of the show, and an anonymous board member. The former broadcasts his side of the story to an audience of thousands; the latter, if lucky, can count his audience on two hands. It's like trying to bring down Fox News by standing on a street corner with a picket sign. The feeling of humiliation stemmed from the powerlessness I experienced - I felt that I was in the right, but could do nothing to prove my case. It was remarkably similar to several experiences in high school, actually, where I would challenge a teacher's assertions, and then be openly degraded and mocked. The whole interaction was, for me, extremely bizarre. I never anticipated, nor wanted, the attention that I got. I drafted the posts out of curiosity. I took Stefan's definition of 'corruption' and his hypothesis of the connection between family and state, and followed them through to their conclusion in an attempt to see what implications these ideas have for the average person. The invocation of 'my father' was not, as Stefan claimed, an anger-spurred defense mechanism, but simply an attempt to create the image of someone to whom we can all relate - a literary device, of sorts. (As it turned out, of course, I had invested more of my own attachment to my father into the conversation than I then intended or realized). When I heard Stefan's first podcast on my post - where he misread, misinterpreted, misrepresented, mocked and psychologized me - I knew there was little I could do to salvage my position in the conversation. It was like being invited to a debate, only to have the microphone turned off when it's your turn to speak. Desirous to continue participating in discussions at FDR, I attempted to clarify and address some of Stefan's key criticisms (read: mischaracterizations) of me, and then apologize for any miscommunication between us. All of this, of course, he attacked me for in a second and separate podcast. Any further debate with Stefan on my part would have been futile. I disappeared, and have been lurking in the shadows since. [/i]

Stefan's podcasts are merely one of many media outlets I listen to. I am bothered with the asshole giving atheism and anarchism a cultish reputation.

However I find some of Stefan's podcasts to be to a degree entertaining, mostly the episodes where he is talking about economics or anarchist theory. Haven't been many of those podcasts as of lately so I pretty much just ignores him now.

I haven't listened to anything that my son has done, but I have read a few posts that he wrote. He said some really hurtful things and it was hard to read. I haven't read anything in a while because it's torture to see what they've been convinced of by Stef. I know my son didn't feel that way before he found FDR. He now says just the opposite of what he would tell us before.

I agree that it would probably be healthier not to go there, but it's the only connection I have and sometimes it's hard not to search for something, just to know that he's O.K. I have to keep reminding myself that he's a victim of all this and that he's not trying to hurt us.

When my son left, I searched the site for posts and podcasts to try to find a reason. It was great to hear his voice again but distressing to hear him being tricked by Stefan into misremembering and misinterpreting events.

I can't bear to listen to those podcasts again but if I found a recent one I would probably listen in the hope of getting news and understanding. I realise that wouldn't be good for me but I miss him so I would willing pay the price.

My son played his podcast to me the last time I saw him. It was very scary (actually, the whole weekend was very scary). I heard things being twisted out of proportion. At this time, I thought my son was just trying to share with me what he was going through, so I gave it my full attention. But weeks later I was "cut off" anyway.

I have very rarely gone to the FDR board because it just hurts too much. My son's brother has also listened to the podcast more than once. He says he has a lot of questions he'd like to ask his brother, and I can see he has some feelings about having been "defood" along with us, when he hasn't done anything.

The scary weekend I referred to above was the last time I saw him, a little over a year ago. It did not feel like we had conversation, it felt like the Inquisition; I felt like I was fighting for my life and I was exhausted. Is that the RTR "talk" people are referring to?

RTR refers to Real Time Relationships(A book of Stefan Molynuex). I haven't read the book(ain't going to either) but it is a strategy very foreign to normal human communication that is very emotional confrontational to expose what kind of emotional relationship one has with each other.

But because it is such an odd way of communicating it seems more counter productive to these goals than anything else as the unexpecting party of the conversation expects a normal conversation and hence comes out as being defensive, evasive and getting angry.

This is heartbreaking. We can only hope that someday those who have been led to defoo will realize how they have been manipulated by Molyneux.

that p. 254 script (RTR actually has 350+ pages!) strikes me as one of the most passive-aggressive ways to have a conversation. And yeah, QuestEon is right when he says "Instead, the child "ambushes" the parent, has a thoroughly confusing conversation, and when the parent is unable to achieve the impossible goal of figuring out what is going on, the child leaves believing the conversation has provided closure. It is sick and it is sad."

the parent naturally feels quite shocked and wants to get to the substance of the matter but when she tries her child will just keep responding by describing her feelings rather than talk about substance. This must be hella confusing and quite maddening for the parent, cuz she will be implicitly judged (by her child telling her how she feels bad when the parents says that) every time she tries to do that

And then Stef's conclusion:

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In other words, you will understand in your very core the simple and tragic fact that there is no point fishing in this lake anymore, because there are no fish left in the lake. This means that your mother is simply a mythology robot, with no capacity whatsoever to interact with you in an honest and vulnerable manner. Fundamentally, she does not exist.

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