We lived in a two story apartment building in the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles. Bob and the inner circle dictated the living arrangements. The in crowd lived on the top floor.
We outgrew the building, so we bought a three story apartment building just outside Century City, allowing for more precise stratification based on status within the group. The new building required extensive renovation prior to move-in. It was a massive team effort. Everyone had a job to do, starting with the units on the third floor and working our way down.
When the third floor was completed and work on the second floor began, Bob and many other third floor dwellers discontinued their work efforts. The work force winnnowed down further when the second floor was completed. The bottom floor people, having worked for months on the upper floors, were mostly left to fend for themselves when it came to renovating the bottom floor units.
Marsha bravely brought this up in group, and the response was predictable. Without any consideration given to the facts, Bob tore into her. "You're selfish! You're paranoid! You don't appreciate what we have here!" And so on. And whenever Bob tore into someone, there was always a chorus joining in.
It was a cardinal sin to criticize Bob in any way. It just wasn't permitted. Never mind the facts.
5 comments:
Thank you for writing this. He sounds like a malignant narcissist to say the least. Reading his books gave me a disturbing feeling, and this blog confirms why.
I was there. I saw it all. Every word you have written is the absolute truth - and I might even say, a fairly balanced perspective. For a long time I resented much and cringed at the rest. But I just let inertia guide my life, which seemed fine to me at the time. I simply did not have the emotional or intellectual discipline to change my situation, until I did. It took years after leaving to even begin to realize and acknowledge the really shabby, unethical, and even a bit illegal treatment I received. However, I am grateful it left no long-term damage, just lessons learned. I am thankful for all the wonderful things in my life, post the E.
Thanks for sharing this. I appreciate it a lot.
Hi, I just discovered this blog on The Environment. Your writing is powerful and makes me feel both shaken and vindicated. You are right about everything. When I was 11, my mother moved my sister and me into the Palms building. The year was 1976. My mother had been Bob's patient. Your description of the group meetings and everything else rings absolutely true. The most harrowing and haunting thing about that time was the group's insistence that my mother separate from me. She was so enraptured by Bob that she obeyed. She moved into one of the rooms in an apartment on Glendon and I was told to "find a place" to sleep in the building. I wasn't put out on the street, but at age 11 I was told to find my own place to live in the building and not to rely on my mother because the mother-child bond was, in their view, inherently destructive. My mother obeyed the group directive to detach from me, and that destroyed me.
I just now saw your post and it broke my heart. I was there, I know what happened to you. If I could have one do-over in my life it would be to go back in time and scream out loud about all the craziness and cruelty that was acted out on mothers and their children. Not that it would have helped, they would have said I was crazy, but at least you would have known that somebody in the world understood what you were going through.
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