Re: How many people do you know that have suffered from Landmark Education
Date: September 30, 2008 09:42AM
[Hi Nettie,
I'm the sister of a Landmark Forum member. She got involved 10 years ago and met her future husband there. She invited me to her "graduation," and I went and thought since she looked happy and transformed that maybe it was a good thing. I checked up on it via the internet and read about the coersion and humiliation that went on during the meetings and since I also had young children at the time and couldn't devote an entire weekend to such a thing, I decided against it. Well, this ticked off the Landmark Forum people and they kept calling me and each call got more belligerent. I was "irresponsible," incapable, and they cancelled me out of the course because obviously I didn't have what it took to go through with it. I took it as a challenge and I called my sister telling her how unprofessional and crude these Landmark Forum people were and that as a result, I'd NEVER go to one of their sessions.
She said she respected my decision, and I thought we were good. About 4 months later, I found out I was not invited to her wedding. I'm her only sibling. She was the maid of honor at my wedding 10 years prior. No one but their parents were invited to the wedding. Against both sets of parents' prompting and pleading she and her husband still stuck with their plans and at their wedding were only the parents, and the minister. I'm surprised some Landmark Forum guru wasn't the minister - or was he? I don't know, I wasn't there. I even hosted her bridal shower much to the horror of relatives who couldn't believe my sister's odd and rude behavior. I think she went on to be a "coach" and was heavily involved for at least the next 2 or more years. About 2 years after this, she called me incessantly at work, and I actually had to dismiss myself from work to talk to her. She brought up some memory in her childhood that she just HAD to discuss with me in the middle of the weekday - a memory that I had not nurtured her enough during an insecure moment in her life at age 8. I had had enough of this, and told her I'd meet her to discuss this issue. I told her that I was 13 at the time she was 8 and this incident she wanted nurturing and didn't receive it, was also in front of my entire 8th grade class. I explained to her my position at age 13, but I don't think she heard a thing. She used the Landmark Forum system to backhandedly accuse me of being an insensitive ass of a sister at age 13 for not meeting her needs. She said it was one of her "rackets" she was getting over, but I knew she was just using it to make me feel badly for something in our childhood that centered solely around her. I told her what I thought of Landmark Forum once again. As predicted, she became even more aloof, and about 5 years after this incident, she seemed to have no memory of any happy times she had in her childhood. In the 10 years since she joined Landmark Forum, I think she's been to perhaps 20 family events total. That includes all holidays and special family events like graduations, etc. She says caustic and hurtful things about our parents, and thinks that she has no accountability for what she says. Her husband never comes to any family events anymore. Because of the awkwardness around both her and her husband, I feel like the sister I knew died a long time, and there's only a shell walking around in her skin. My mom and dad are convinced she and her husband have left Landmark because they go to a Christian church. I'm not convinced.
I thought I was finished with this Forum nightmare, when lo and behold, my ADHD child's therapist recommended Landmark Forum as something she'd just discovered and that I should take my 11 year old daughter. I relayed my blunt opinion of the organization and told her in no way would my daughter step foot in the door of Landmark. I haven't heard from my therapist since, and will probably have to look for a new brain integration therapist and start over with my child's procedure just because of Landmark Forum. It's like being in Stepford. People come back from these sessions with half a brain.