Here is a thread on fdr titled "My Christmas Story". It is yet another example of moly's intentions of influencing young, vulnerable financial contributors to destroy their families. And here is another family destroyed proudly, on Christmas day no less. Sadly, Stef is still in business.

http://freedomainradio.com/BOARD/forums/t/23832.aspx

This is an interesting one if only because there were "Month's of therapy?"

You know this RTR thing better than I do. My thinking is that after time in the FDR community, behavior changes, tension builds. Parent's and family members walk right into a two by four.

You have it exactly right Arthur. As the person becomes more enmeshed in the community, stef, his podcasts and teachings, the person's behavior changes. Loved ones panic because they feel the person slipping away, but can't figure out any way to prevent it. They try everything they know, but it is impossible. They have conversations with the fdr member, but everything they say is scrutinized, and judged so harshly that it is impossible for them to relax and think clearly in these conversations. The loved ones struggle and try to save their relationship, but it is in vain because whatever they say will be wrong. It becomes impossible to know what to say. It's a nightmare.

Hmm. I went to the link, read the story and then went, "What was nelle talking about?" To me I read a statement from a young person who wished to be left alone (for whatever reason) and a bunch of people who refused to grant that person his autonomy. Where is the big bad story. (And NOTE: I am NOT a fan of the Stefmonster and his hideous manipulation of people to his own ends.) Now perhaps there is more to this somewhere else that I am not up on, but I did not see a problem here except that a few people are choosing to impose themselves on one who wants some private time (duration unknown.) What the religious usurpation of an ancient celebration of the solstice has to do with anything is beyond me.

- NonE

Hi NonE,

What really fascinated me most about your post is the fact that two people from completely different upbringings and life experiences can read the exact same story and get almost opposite impressions. That's an interesting lesson in personal relations and communications, and something that is helpful to remember when discussing these issues. Thanks for pointing that out to me NonE.

nelle

Hate to brake it to Tyrtle but if he had therapy from where I guess he may have done his story is just no different from the all the others that have gone before.
Does Fdr has more repeats than bbc tv at xmas in the uk but all with the same ending?
What we do not know here is why does he feel that he needs 'therapy' to find solutions to his problems. How did he feel before he had therapy?
Gee, get a life and sort your own problems out . Rtr has to be one of the worst therapies going and I know from first hand experience it is total bulls**t. We have only recently discovered the date our missing relation joined fdr. The rtr came a lot later, well after the inevitable destruction of our relationships had been executed.

Nelle,

Thanks for you comment. I'm sure that your perspective is as likely to be true as mine, or perhaps there is another view as well. One thing I've learned is that the world almost never looks the same to another as it does to me. It is hard to "own" this concept however, rather it is an intellectual idea that I have to keep telling myself over and over again. I just expect the world to look the same way to others as it does to myself.

- NonE

I'll screw things up and offer yet another perspective.

It's always hard to unfold the true family situation from an FDR member's account of it. To hear them talk, True Believer members are bundles of vulnerable empathy, openly and honestly expressing their "true-self" feelings with graceful articulation, staring out behind doe eyes at a brutal, insane world.

True Believers have no responsibility for their roles in the family or family dysfunction. They come to FDR knowing that they will be held entirely blameless and have no character flaws that may have played a role in the dysfunction.

If they have any unfortunate characteristics at all, those are the result of the "false self" that their parents created or (Molyneux toyed with this one for a while) the "parent" part of their Mecosystem.

So, when Tyrtle describes his Christmas story, I take virtually everything with a massive grain of salt. I would love to know what type of "therapist" he saw and what the therapist thought of Tyrtle's behavior with his mother during their sessions. Did the therapist tell him to defoo? Did he/she even know of Tyrtle's plans to do so? (I'll guess "no" to both.)

He says his mother and brother showed up at 3:00 PM on Christmas. Was it a surprise as he seems to suggest here? Did the family actually make no Christmas plans whatsoever, even though they all live close to each other? How about this--the family came over because Tyrtle decided to blow off their family get-together. They're having trouble understanding this radical change in him. So, after waiting for him in vain all morning they showed up to see if they can repair whatever's wrong. What beastly behavior.

Many families get "surprised" when a member joins FDR because there appears to be a sudden and dramatic personality change. If you read enough inaugural posts, you'll find more than a few where a member has a problem with one parent only--some new members actually express affection for the other parent. Then they're exposed to the Molyneux argument that the first parent is a monster and the second parent a bigger monster because he/she "knowingly enabled" the first. Then they learn that everyone else in the family has been corrupted by the corrupt parents. This "enlightenment" and recasting of the family happens over the course of several months, but the family is unaware that it is going on. All they see is the sudden change when the transformation is complete.

True, I don't know a lot about truly abusive families but from what I've seen, all members of a clinically abusive family seem to get screwed up in some way. But this doesn't seem to match the pattern of True Believer families, in which siblings remember happy childhoods and often seem to be pursuing normal lives. They're not broken or merely coping--they're mostly happy. That is inconsistent from what I've seen of the clinically abusive family. In fact, what little I know about Molyneux's own brother and Christina's sister suggests that they are happy, well-adjusted, and still in contact with their parents.

So, to NonE's point, maybe it's just some guy who wants to be left alone. Maybe it really is. But my experience of FDR-watching suggests that this guy made a sudden, dramatic, and unexpected change that has left his family thoroughly confused.

He now appears to have become unreachable by logic or emotional appeal. When I read lines like "'I love you and I would do anything for you!' from my brother – implying that I'm a bad person for not being willing to do the same for him," I get very sad.

When one reaches a point in True Believer-ism where "I love you" becomes perceived as an attack, there's just no hope anymore.

Tyrtle says that "their tactics essentially consisted of calling me selfish – without actually using that word." In other words, he interpreted everything that was said as having a sinister motive and then served it up for the rest of us as fact. True Believers claim to be tragically misunderstood in every way by their families, yet understand every single motive of every family member with preternatural clarity.

Tyrtle's last line about how "liberated" he feels is again very typical. Certainly, there is a temporary release to be had from casting off all of your relationships, whether they are good or bad. It's a blank-slate feeling, as if you can begin your life anew. But I think it's also an illusion. You are, after all, the same person you were before.

The question is how will he feel a year from now? How will he feel if he ever reaches a point where he suspects Molyneux is wrong about a great many things but the only "relationships" he now has are with his FDR True Believer friends? Whenever I read the "I feel so liberated" sentiment from new defooers, it reminds me of this DH Lawrence poem (I don't know why):

---------------------------------------

A Sane Revolution


If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don't make it in ghastly seriousness,
don't do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.

Don't do it because you hate people,
do it just to spit in their eye.

Don't do it for the money,
do it and be damned to the money.

Don't do it for equality,
do it because we've got too much equality
and it would be fun to upset the apple-cart
and see which way the apples would go a-rolling.

Don't do it for the working classes.
Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own
and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.

Don't do it, anyhow, for international Labour.
Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of.
Let's abolish labour, let's have done with labouring!
Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it's not labour.
Let's have it so! Let's make a revolution for fun!

-------------------------------

So, kick up your heels, Tyrtle. You've escaped and can enjoy your new-found freedom. We'll ignore the fact that you picked Christmas as your defoo day because--innocent and doe-eyed as you appear--some part of you wanted to inflict as much pain on your family as possible.

We know that you're a True Believer now, so you are forever without blame.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, not even me (and I'm pretty, pretty, pretty... PRETTY special) tells stories about themselves 100% honestly.

Thanks for the wonderful D. H. Lawrence poem, QuestEon!

- NonE

Cassandra,
Your post is really interesting. It really makes sense to see the act of defooing in many cases as passive aggressive, a person who feels like a victim finally rising up and persecuting their family for what they have been taught to perceive as years of abuse. Then, after the defoo, a rescue reaction is provoked. Their family wants to rescue them, and their friends at fdr feel sympathy for them and want to rescue them as well. This all makes very good sense. It makes the whole process very attractive to certain personality types I would think. But you are right. Nothing is resolved by any of this, is it? It's all very sad.