Landmark forum

Has anyone has issues with depersonalisation and loss of self-image and identity after the Landmark Forum?

I find I am far too inwardly focused sometimes, almost completely in my head, or almost completely out of it.

The Landmark Forum may have whacked my self image around a little too much.

Another symptom is I don't feel I am operating from the same psychological base as the common person. As a result of continually trying to correct myself, and obtain a normal psychology/mental state, I often feel very un-centred, and not inhabiting my body properly.

The Landmark Forum used to be called est (erhard seminar training) I remember an expose Mother Jones magazine did on them many years ago. A very shady group which seems to harm a lot of people.

Self improvement is noble, but better to find a group that respects deeper values and will help you become grounded. Good you got out before you became zombified.

I fear I have become a zombie.

My psychology is all over the place. I look in the mirror sometimes and I am glassy eyed.

I did the Landmark Forum around 10 years ago, and my family and friends all noticed a negative change around this time. They put this down to a car crash and the shock to the system I received -

Immediately after the Landmark Forum, I misjudged a right hand turn while driving my car, knowing deep down I was not going to make the turn. I was practically in a psychotic state, believing myself to be free of all my limitations. My car was severed in half, I received concussion to the head, and minor cuts and bruises. The other car's occupants were all okay.

I was pretty shocked at what had happened, and couldn't admit that I had made a very bad error of judgement.

Since that time, I managed to finish my uni degree, and stumbled through 3 or 4 mediocre IT jobs.

Since the start of uni, I had been quite low on self-esteem. I had a bowel complaint which really got to me - I was leaking unpleasant gas almost daily. It killed my self-esteem and left me feeling ugly. To top this off, I was also playing with sex toys I shouldn't have been, and this compounded the guilt and disgust I felt at having a bad bowel. On top of this, I also had a sexual identity crisis through all my uni days and late high school!

So, one of my family noticing I had become very miserable and withdrawn, suggested I take the Landmark Forum. All of the problems I note above were not known by anyone, and I always kept them to myself, under a layer of hidden guilt and shame.

The Landmark Forum is supposed to de-construct your story, so you can reconstruct it again in a much more positive and responsible way. I can definitely see the benefit of this, however, I never spoke about bad smelling bowel compaints or sexual identity crisies in front of a room full of people(!), and only received Landmark's message that life was inherently meaningless, and we were only story making machines.

My concience is not really working for me. I am not sure if that is the result of an accumulation of dishonesty and 'reasoning away', the result of a series of negative beliefs in existence since before landmark, or the result of the 'brainwashing' or group hypnosis effects Landmark supposedly uses.

What I remember from the MJ article on est (landmark) is that they beat a person down with stupidity, but they don't have a real belief system. Its just programming and brainwashing without any useful beliefs then being injected into the empty, washed brain.

It might be that some people benefit from landmark, and it might be that your insecurities damaged you completely aside from landmark. But... nobody goes into a program like that unless they are desperate.

As for what you see as your issues:

Bowel complaints should first be evaluated by an MD. Physical medicine is the one thing that western docs do pretty good.

Sex toys is no major deal unless you have beliefs that lead to guilt, as it sounds like. If that kind of guilt is an issue, you should try some spiritual path that teaches a technique for sublimating that energy (stay away from the common religions like christianity that teach no answers then judge you for not knowing how to deal with stuff like sex)

"Sexual identity crisis" needs elaborating. Since you call it an "identity" issue it probably affected you deeply. Sexual identity is one of the deepest issues in a person's psyche, and people often suffer all sorts of misery until they figure out their own personal "identity". Unfortunately, MDs and other paid "experts" are seldom helpful.

The "zombie" state is something a lot of people go through. For some it is "burnout". For others "depression". It is always a lack of individual energy and will, and usually a feeling of being controlled or "weak" in the face of external (usually social) factors. For me, the solution is usually nature or camping. I can be depersonalized to the point where I am almost floating, but after I spend a few days in a wild place, alone, near animals I am a little afraid of, I start to sleep in normal cycles and my body and mind heal rapidly. Some people seem to get a similar benefit from other things. Natural spiritual paths all have "secretish" techniques to reground a person who is lost. Most of the authentic ways contain (I think) nature, fear, a sense of wonder, and so on. None of the authentic ways, none, include paying any person or group to "deconstruct" you. No authentic way involves being in a crowded place or following a leader whose authority is not natural (i.e., who has a title and an office).

From what I remember, I was quite willing to give Landmark a go because I could not envision anything else helping. Sexual Identity and Sexual Guilt seemed to be big problems for me at the time.

To expand on Sexual Identity Crisis, perhaps Gender Identity crisis might be a better term.

I don't seem to relate to the world in a very functional male way. Perhaps my social role does not seem very male. I have grown up as the 3rd son and as a bit of a peace maker.

This sort of makes my encounters with other blokes less than "blokey".

I do carry a lot of guilt around with me due to play with sex toys in homosexual fashion. This combines with bowel problems to produce some embedded humiliation. I have carried this around with me for some time, and these are the things I need to resolve. I wake up in the morning very self conscious about having "violating" myself. It produces self disgust, and the shadow side of my conscience projects this onto others, or I bury the feeling away, and it resurfaces later during the day when I make a mistake at something.

Here is my initial reaction.

First "gender identity" conjures up a very serious disorder. I think you actually have a much more normal kind of identity issue, the kind of thing lots of people go through.

The issue about not relating in a typical way (in this case a typical "male" way) might put you in awkward spots socially, but it does show individuality and an original character.

If you let yourself be defined as "an outsider" then you might be just isolating yourself more.

A lot of people in this situation join into different peer groups that are in line with their personalities and beliefs. For example if you liked dark clothes and so on you might move into the goth culture. If you liked... etc etc.

Its admirable that you don't seem compelled to find a group of peers, a culture that you fit into well. Maybe you see yourself as someone others would not want to socialize with. But... that is the whole point of finding a culture you fit in. "Finding your people".

The sexual stuff actually sounds pretty common too. If something bothers you, causes too much guilt etc, then you should look for a way to guide those energies / desires in a way that doesn't make you conflicted internally. When you find a group (/culture / people/ etc) that you fit with you will find that many of the members dealt with the same issues you have.

The real difficulty is just finding them. Compare yourself to a twin of yours born several hundred years ago. He had no internet, no telephones. Just a small group of people in his village that fed his guilt and isolation until someone realized he was possessed by the devil. Then they burnt him alive.

Yeah. I don't have gender identity disorder then.

I'm like a selfish child more than anything else. Irresponsibility follows. I also have some ego problems too "this is not it" (meaning, reality).

And yes: defining myself as an outsider is very troublesome.

Yes: finding my people is the challenge. Thinking straight to allow people to find me, and not ducking the issue is also the challenge.

I appreciate the dialog.

I swear I have some kind of brain damage in the prefrontal cortex. There is a sense of aching pain in my brain running across and behind my forehead, and a sense of something missing. My executive functions are diminished.

I also find panic and tension arising from the base of my neck, and deeper within my brain, from quite simple provocations - I panic and become anxious easily.

Also, my sense of balance is out. I can feel pain throb from what may be my amygdalae sometimes, usually accompanying some very negative thoughts.

I have hurt my neck falling off my bicycle once, and this damaged some vertibrae. I am not fully fit physically in my neck. So, bad physical health is probably not making a very good contribution to my cognitive and executive abilities.

This is just a reaction to your comments about medical (biological) stuff.

Several hundred years ago, almost nothing was attributed to physical causes. Except that a person had lost a physical chunk of their brain in an accident, everybody assumed their problems were spiritual.

About a hundred years ago, some "psychiatrists" started to divide mental illnesses into two general categories. First, those caused by psychological factors, and second those caused by physical problems (the latter further divided into congenital or hereditary vs. physical trauma).

In Carl Jung's collected works, he comments that he (i.e. modern science) simply did not have the knowledge and tools to adequately research the physical causes of psychological issues. Jung, who more than anybody else went deeply into the psychology of mental illness was one of the strongest supporters of the notion that much mental illness has a physical component that will be found out eventually.

I remember the fellow, Charles Whitman who climbed the clock tower in Texas in the 60s with a rifle. He was sure that something was physically wrong with him, but nothing was diagnosed. He climbed the tower and sniped a whole bunch of people. He left a note asking that his brain be dissected to find out what might be abnormal. After he had spent his bullets and died he was autopsied and found to have a brain tumor.

The point is... in another 100 years maybe every little twitch will be traceable to a physical cause. But, until then, we have to use the tools of psychology to solve those problems that physical science has not caught up to yet.

Psychology (including spirituality etc) have thousands of years of understanding already. Certainly you should explore the physical issues. There might be some happy horseshit about amygdalae that a doctor will notice that will solve your problems, but it is very unlikely. Unless you have lots of money for medical tests you will never get a thorough enough bio exam to answer your questions. Despite their image as generous healers, medical doctors will not order expensive experimental tests for a person unless the person has cash.

But... you have obviously abundant intelligence and motivation to look for psychological understanding that will help you (and which doesn't require so much money). My advice would be... study analytical psych (Freud, Jung, etc) or some eastern traditions that have expertise in related areas (asian tantras and energy esoterica and so on) until you are wealthy enough to pursue your interest in the physical causes of psych issues.

I basically still carry around a whole heap of shame and guilt and disgust and humiliation and anger about what I have done to my body.

So I have become keen to leave it, basically.

A spiritual cause affecting my psychology.