By Patricia Lefave, Monophrenic 

A Demonstration of Classic Group Dysfunction and Scapegoating-
Inviting an Audience in to Watch it Happen, and Then Denying the Whole Thing

Does this sound far fetched to you? Well, let me tell you that not only is it NOT far fetched, it is an extremely common group phenomenon.

I got all of my information about what was going on according to the Homewood Family in relation to me, by way of the hospital staff and the public acting it all out. Now I grant you that since no one involved EVER talked directly or in a genuine, respectful and equal way to me personally, the reliability of my information certainly comes into question and would be classified as “hearsay,” most of it anyway, in a court of law. Still that is not the point I am making here is it?

The POINT is that the entire event is denied to exist by those participating in it and it was then 'recreated' in terms of my supposedly 'defective' brain and defined as a perception/reaction problem contained within ME. Doing so you see gets everyone else OFF the accountability hook and that is precisely WHY groups of people close ranks and do this. Such groups are everywhere; in families, in schools, in clubs, in cults and in workplaces. Do you experts REALLY not know that? Or are you “pretending to be stupid” as many of my fellow psychiatrized believe is the case?

As I have gone through the years, moving into the second decade of group denial and continued community abuse and assessments, I get the daily dish (most often “dis”) from the public. As I once told my recovery therapist when she asked why I stayed in “so long”¹ I responded something like, “oh it won't matter how long I talk, what I say or how often. Two weeks, two years ² or two decades, it won't make any difference. No one is going to hear me in this. It is like they are deaf to what I am saying but also they really don't want to hear it.“Out here in reality³” some people know who I am by name only, some by sight only, some by name and by sight, and some by neither name nor sight. Yet people representing all of the above mentioned descriptions on these various levels of awareness, discuss all of the latest they are getting out of Homewood with me as their topic, just as they ALWAYS have been. They still put on little shows for me and give me little “tests” to see what kind of a reaction they might get; then they assess the reaction from the point of view of their group delusion as the “objective observers” of me.

Of course it is very dangerous for me to SAY this as what I am saying was already defined as 'symptoms” of my mental illness a long time ago. So if I believe this has happened and IS happening, that can be used as the excuse to “help” me some more....poor me...so crazy and I do not even know it! Perhaps the Red Cross Support worker with the pony tail can pass that along as well to the bus drivers, who can mime it, bus to bus as usual, while she joins them in their amusement while standing at the fare box. (not that any of these people DO that of course and I only “think” that they do because I am a mental case with a perception/reaction problem.)

Perhaps we could get some more diagnostic opinions on that say...from Bus driver Artie or Red Cross Support Worker Bonnie, whom I perceive⁴, as acting this all out for me, year after year, along with a variety of other people, which is no doubt my defective brain problem as usual. My not seeming very 'friendly' toward these people of course has nothing to do with them but only with MY “character disorder”...right? In fact, the Homewood family have allegedly TOLD people that is exactly what my problem is and that they should not expect me to be otherwise since I am just a walking, talking “personality disorder.” Don't these diagnoses of individuals just do wonders for those perpetually “blameless others”?

Yet I must not be aware. I MUST not...I must also not be aware that I am having a variety of contemptuous remarks spewed at me by 'strangers' as that will only “prove” how right the same people who caused this in the first place are, if they decide to have me picked up for more 'treatment,' in hand cuffs if necessary, should I decide to resist treatment, for this defective brain of mine that causes me to 'think” I “have been harmed”⁵ by them. This is a pretty damned good power to have if you can swing it isn't it?

The Homewood staff sometimes describe themselves as a ”family” and I am afraid I would have to agree with that; one big dysfunctional family. They have the dysfunctional roles right down to perfection including the closing of ranks to protect themselves from the gaze of those “outsiders.” Since this “family” is supposed to be above all of that though, I find this attitude and then the denial of it, quite disturbing.

Perhaps one of you could let me know when, or if, you are ready to stop assessing other people's “reality” in the space of ten to fifteen minutes and try facing a little of the reality of your own making....?? After all, how can you expect others to do, what you people cannot do yourselves?

Now if you don't want to speak directly just discuss it with your staff, or in the cafeteria, or with some of the current Support Workers in there, who aren't “confused” like crazy me, and I will get your thinking on that indirectly as always, when they lower their eyes and discuss all the latest with bus drivers like AVZ...or with staff members who take the bus home after work⁶ etc. or when they are at the food court at the mall on their days off. As long as it is not genuine and direct communication, you can all just call it more of my “paranoid delusions and hallucinated conversations” and that should keep the marvellous myth of privacy, superiority and respect going as is....which of course will keep the Homewood “Family” off the hook, wide eyed and forever mystified about why I am so “weird...” since they haven't done a thing officer/doctor...no sir...not a thing, nor have any of them seen or heard anything at all...why I must just be crazy if I say they did...yes that's it...crazy...why they would have no REASON to do such a thing. No reason at ALL.

Now watch Dale T. smirk.

Now let me see HIS fear. Let me see when he finally “realizes his experience” and also realizes that he can't UNDO, what he has already done, in the name of his superior “game” because he has left a trail of CONCRETE evidence behind him which connects the metaphysical “play” to the physical REALITY.

This is from where we all look back and see what we all did when we decided to follow the leader with the hidden agenda of domination, no questions asked because we are all “assholes” who look for “reason”⁷ where there never WAS any “reason” to start with.

This “game” is about power and control over others. Though there is no “reason” (logic/rationality) IN it, there is a REASON FOR it. The reason is emotional, not logical. There is no reason IN what you do. In Dale's est training the trainees were actually manipulated to SAY, “There is no reason in what I do.”

I once told Dale, “You know that I can SEE you don't you?” (I meant SEE him as he really is.) He did know that but I don't think he knew how WELL I could see him.

Unfortunately I think that the majority of them in the training heard that statement of self definition without really hearing themselves, just like the group of citizens here can't really hear themselves. Those most likely to hear it and find it amusing and valuable may well be all the sociopaths who took the training. The other small group of people who are most likely to understand it are their targeted victims but since it would not be “reasonable” for the sociopaths to behave that way, who is going to even listen to a bunch of whining, nuts like us...right? Why that would be like blaming...and no one⁸ can ever be blamed. That is why we have to invent “diseases” for everyone so that we can excuse the reality we recreate for ourselves, over and over again, by blaming our brains for it and avoiding the appropriate blaming of our societies, our ideas, and our self serving belief systems with which we promote ourselves and our own points of view at the EXPENSE of those 'defective' others.

Question: Am I NOT the “other” being blamed from YOUR point of view?

If you REALLY want to understand why, and how, this happens and why and how the targets of it get to be “schizophrenic⁹” for “claiming” we have been harmed by “others”, all you need to do is look at your own group behaviour and you will get all the answers to this “mystery.” You asked me “but WHY would the Homewood 'family” behave this way? You are your own answer. Why are YOU behaving this way and what is motivating all of you to do so? Drop the pretence. It is the same in every other group. Dysfunctional families and all other dysfunctional groups are JUST LIKE YOU. They behave the same way, they deny the behaviour, they conceal the truth from both their targets and each other, and they blame their victims in order to defend themselves. They also consider themselves to be perfectly normal and even 'healthy' psychologically for doing it and they routinely find all the flaws in the victim who complains about BEING victimized because doing so is ALSO part of the rules of the maintenance of dysfunction. That is what makes it an escape proof infinite loop. As long as there is rule against seeing it, and understanding it, will be maintained as is.

We “can't blame others” is an abstract rule in absolute terms in dysfunctional groups because if we “could” blame others we might have to find the “faults” in the generation before us that instructs us not to blame them and calls it a character flaw in “us” if we try it. We are well trained not to find any 'fault' in authority figures no matter what, or who, that “authority” may be or may represent. The failure to do so and the eagerness to comply and get the approval of 'authority' is going to be our collective downfall if we don't soon outgrow this nonsense.

Question everything. If you don't, you will continue generation after generation to be forced to look back at what you did by blindly following the leader and become able to see it only AFTER it is too late and cannot be undone. If anyone is appealing to either your “superior” status, or inherent value as a human being or is telling you that you are inherently “inferior” and so you should just follow the leader, let that ring inside your minds as a loud warning bell.