Ok, I did it. I sent out an email to my quest group detailing my thoughts on the whole thing, the logical fallacies I found in some of the philosophies, a link to this message board (let's see if anyone joins in?), a list of Hans' claims and quotes from TIT taken from this message board, and the warning about LGAT's from the LDS church. It was very healing to write the message, but when it came to hitting the send button my anxiety was going crazy. It's maddening the amount of control I feel from spending only 4 days there. But I did it anyway. I think it was a good idea, and I hope I'm not too sensitive to the replies I'm sure I'll get.
I shared everything with my husband last night, that was very good. I'll definitely need all of you as support as well because you know (even more than I do I'm sure) exactly what it's like there.
If I get any replies I feel the need to share here, can post exerpts I as long as I don't include any identifying info about the person who sent it to me?
Anyway, I'm already feeling better today than yesterday. Thanks so much for each of your comments, ExImpact, don'tlove and hopeful. ExImpact- you're right, they have no idea who I am. The way I feel about my impact family is similar to how I would feel about a "one night stand" you would have with someone on a vulnerable night. :P (grrr, I changed the "you" in that last sentence to "I" and then back to "you" again. :evil: ) I care about them as I would any human being, but I feel awkward around them and would be ok with not seeing most of them again.
Don'tlove- yeah, feedback was just awful, I sobbed when I got home. I'm also so mad because I see it for the verbally abusive, manipulating technique that it was, and instead was trying to look internally to see what I could change so I didn't give anymore people the impression that I was weak, fake, a loser, a scared little girl, etc. I would NEVER, EVER tolerate an exercise like that any other time or place, and it's frustrating that I let it happen. I am frustrated that one of my best friends would recommend that I go through that.

Way to go army-of-me!!! Thats the kind of stuff we need going on. I have not been through impact but I have had friends go through it. It is has been an awful experience for those close to them. WAY TO GO!

army-of-me: I think what you're doing is great. Please let us know what comes back from your "buddies". Do any of them really care about you or do they only pretend to as long as you agree with everything that they do and say? Obviously that's a rhetorical question because we know what the answer will be for the vast majority. Hopefully you can reach at least one person.

I tend to jump in and out of discussions on this forum depending on how busy my week happens to be but it looks like there are a few more consistent contributors. I wish everyone luck as they attempt to deprogram themselves.

Most of the time I think I'm fairly well adjusted but every so often I find myself still struggling with Impact stuff. For some reason I have been running into a lot of Impact people lately. I don't really have hard feelings toward any of them, except for Robert Paisola (he was a slime ball before Impact and has just become worse since), but when they try to talk to me my stomach turns and I want to vomit.

The feedback arcs were just stupid. People just repeated what I said when the trainer asked a stupid primer question like, "TELL US ABOUT A TIME YOU LIED, GO!!!". There was no "natural knowing", people just heard me and regurgitated things. I didn't really mind my "Summit stretch" much but I know a lo of people were subject to terrible embarrassment.

Thanks for listening guys. I like being able to sound off on this board and read about other peoples' experiences. Good Luck!

The Longest Day—June 1944—June 2007

Army-of-Me is becoming Army-of-We. I think of the Nazis as just a big LGAT that caused a lot of death and destruction. The same techniques of mind manipulation, coercion and deception were and are used in both. The army of invasion at Normandy, France has its analog in the Army-of -We. The leaders at Impact Center (read Fuehrer Bunker) have reason to despair over hit stats on this forum more than they have reason to rejoice over Quest enrollment backlog. June 21 is the longest day and one to remember. Ever since I came in contact with Impact I have known how the French felt when the Germans forced them to pay for their own occupation. Impact could morph into a benign training entity if they would, but this would adversely impact their bottom line. The malignant version of LGAT that I see in Impact has got to go. Processed people have had enough and are not going to quietly take this oppression any more.

To mix French and Russian I say, “Viva la Samizdat;” or long live the self published Cult Education Forum.

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army-of-me
If I get any replies I feel the need to share here, can post exerpts I as long as I don't include any identifying info about the person who sent it to me?

HECK YEAH :D

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army-of-me
I would NEVER, EVER tolerate an exercise like that any other time or place, and it's frustrating that I let it happen. I am frustrated that one of my best friends would recommend that I go through that.

You touch on a very interesting idea here. This is one of the KEY rationales that my ex-TIT friend used on me. More so than any one idea, this story helped me get out of Impact: She quoted Ayn Rand's [i:e8b0fb96b3]Atlas Shrugged[/i:e8b0fb96b3] (I'll paraphrase), where a businessman and his friend were talking. This businessman was very sucessful in business, but his home life was a mess. His wife and mother walked up and down his spine as if it were a staircase. The friend tells him that he always wondered why the formidable businessman would tolerate at home what he would NEVER tolerate at work. Why does he live two fractured lives instead of one complete one?

My friend asked me the same question and I had no answer for her. I barely slept that night as the full extent of what had been done to me began to dawn on me.

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formerimpactgrad
Most of the time I think I'm fairly well adjusted but every so often I find myself still struggling with Impact stuff. For some reason I have been running into a lot of Impact people lately. I don't really have hard feelings toward any of them, [b:018e8a2a04]except for Robert Paisola (he was a slime ball before Impact and has just become worse since),[/b:018e8a2a04] but when they try to talk to me my stomach turns and I want to vomit.

LGAT's are just fast buck companies wanting to make a fast buck with pop psychology with people.

What is at the core of a person before they attend an LGAT seminar is what gets enhanced by these seminars.

Whatever emotionally unhealthy element in a persons life is triggered by the emotional triggers that get pulled in seminars.

Since these seminars are not professional psychiatrists, and the volunteers that are staffing are definitely not professional psychiatrists either.

The mental health malpractice is extreme in peoples lives.

Some show it more than others.

Never the less, its the Mental Health Practice and its outcome in a persons life such as Robert Paisola.

In a licensed professional psychiatric counseling realm Robert Paisola would be confronted with his [b:018e8a2a04]NEGATIVE[/b:018e8a2a04] behavior. It would be confronted in a manner that is uniquely fitted to Robert in dealing with his unique psyche.

Not a cookie cutter approach as in LGAT's.[/b]

Anyone who is looking for information on Klemmer & Associates and its seminars.

Read in detail about Impact Training. As I have been reading the many posts about how seminars are ran, and how Impact operates in dealing with participants. The many seminar formats, and how they process participants in seminars are like reading messages from participants in Klemmers seminars.

I am a Klemmer Graduate and have gone through all Klemmer seminars. I have experienced it all.

The posts on Impact are cut out of the same cloth as Klemmer.

Army,

I would be interested in the reaction you receive from posting of this warning. My experience is that Impact trainees are in deep denial about this. My view is that if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck etc. it is a duck. How clear can it be. Various local authorities interpret the warning differently which allows choice, but come on. For Impact to join in the warning by saying they agree that some groups, unlike Impact, are dangerous is the height of hypocracy. They have clear intention and we know what that is. This is a powerful tool in the anti-LGAT arsenal. For LDS trainees there is a powerful statement on Impact in 2 Nephi 28. The whole chapter is an antidote to the Impact Cult. It speaks of false churches being built up in the last days, teaching false and vain and foolish doctrine etc. That will resonate with over 50% of Impact trainees if they just knew about it and made the obvious connection.

You are making a valuable contribution to truth.

Hopeful

Umm... I'm not religious at all but I think Impact sucks too!

The bottom line is that Impact makes a lot of promises that it fails to deliver. Furthermore, Impact causes emotional and intellectual side effects that cause people to live and behave in ways that are completely contrary to the things that they teach.

If you're religious and have religious reasons for staying out of the training, then that's great. If you're not religious, know that the Impact Trainings are about mental conditioning and sucking every last dollar out of everyone that walks through their doors. I do not have a problem with a company collecting money for a valuable product or service but Impact is nothing more than a modern purveyor of snake oil and enchanted religious relics!

It has come to my attention that I may have offended some here in wanting to expose the teachings. I apology if I have done that here. I will be careful about what I say here. I only want to heal.