My old therapist, Mike Bollock told me to come.

dirge · Post by **dirge** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:49 pm

Hi I'm Dirge and this year will be my second Burning Man experience. Last years was one of the most amazing and pivotal (in a postive way) that I've had in my life. I had a REALLY corrupt therapist named Mike Bolluck, and I mean corrupt in a bad way. He put me in a octagonal room maybe 8 by 6 with no books, paper, or company for weeks at a time. Even when out of the pink room he would often forbid me to talk to anyone or write for almost 2 months straight. I started communicating by sneezing and secretly throwing a stress ball to one of my friends. He was in the buisness of brain washing youth for cash. He once said he would brain wash me into being stepford wife if my parents paid him well enough for it. He said it was nothing personal and on the outs we would have been friends. One of the things he suggested for me to do when I left treatment along with watching weird movies like Blue Velvet was to go to Burning Man. I asked him what it was and he showed me an article about it in a magazine. For years I talked about going, to see what Mike was talking about. The year before last my mom said, "Stop talking about it, you are never going. You've been blathering on about it for 5 years. So, I bought my ticket to the burn and took the flight to Reno and the rest is history.
P.S Mike it would be really weird to run into you at the burn. Maybe, we could make peace.
I'd like that

skygod · Post by **skygod** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:38 pm

Another sheep looks up.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Sat May 19, 2007 9:35 am

Make you look. (MYL)

Cabana Springs · Post by **Cabana Springs** » Sat May 19, 2007 9:59 am

I had a REALLY naughty therapist named Mike Testicles. He used to make me masturbate into the toilet and then wave goodbye to my unborn children.

MozyBonz · Post by **MozyBonz** » Sat May 19, 2007 10:01 am

Daaaadeee?

phil · Post by **phil** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:48 pm

skygod wrote:Another sheep looks up.

Hmm... Can we get all the sheep to stand on Zanzibar?

Teo del Fuego · Post by **Teo del Fuego** » Mon May 21, 2007 5:16 pm

that post was a load of Bollocks, ermm, Bollucks

skygod · Post by **skygod** » Tue May 22, 2007 8:30 am

[/quote]
Hmm... Can we get all the sheep to stand on Zanzibar?[/quote]

"the image of the entire human race standing shoulder-to-shoulder on a small island is a metaphor for a crowded world where each person feels hemmed in by a prison made not of metal bars, but of other human beings."

dirge · Post by **dirge** » Tue May 22, 2007 2:37 pm

Think what you will, but my story is one hundred percent factual. I dealt with Mike Bolluch (ok I added the K :)) worked at several programs. He was my therapist at Island View and then became head of the far less restrictive therapeutic boarding school, Oakley. He is now absent from their website and they have a new director of therapy, but he is mentioned in several articles. Including
http://p079.ezboard.com/fstraightincsur ... 21&stop=30

http://www.strugglingteens.com/artman/p ... 5202.shtml :?

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Tue May 22, 2007 4:16 pm

I don't doubt your story at all.
It's as good a reason as any to go.

Teo del Fuego · Post by **Teo del Fuego** » Tue May 22, 2007 6:25 pm

What was the point of posting this guy's name on our message board? Is he evil?

dirge · Post by **dirge** » Tue May 22, 2007 7:18 pm

I personally don't think human beings can be entirely evil. However, he was instrumental in fucking up my life. He used me to get additional money from my parents and tried to convince them that I needed to be in mental hospitals for the rest of my life. In that case he would remain as an assistant therapist and be paid 10's of 1000s of dollars to fly over and treat me (his yearly salary was around 50,000) at the time. So, I would say corrupt. I felt badly for him though, to a point. He manipulated my elderly father and later he manipulated me into not exposing him for what he was when I was 17, when I could have prevented him from being in charge of other adolescents and I regret my decision. I would like to meet up with him though and maybe come to some sort of closure.

dirge · Post by **dirge** » Tue May 22, 2007 7:22 pm

It wasn't very mature of me to include his name in the subject heading. I mainly wanted to get his attention if he was coming.

MikeVDS · Post by **MikeVDS** » Tue May 22, 2007 7:53 pm

and tried to convince them that I needed to be in mental hospitals for the rest of my life.

How do you know he was wrong?

skygod · Post by **skygod** » Wed May 23, 2007 8:03 am

dirge wrote:he was instrumental in fucking up my life.

Living well is the best revenge.

Dork · Post by **Dork** » Wed May 23, 2007 9:48 am

What I said in the other thread about Burning Man occasionally being a really bad environment for aspies - that applies to Eplaya as well, as shown in this thread. Keep your chin up - it does get easier as you get older and spend more time out in the world.

Ugly Dougly · Post by **Ugly Dougly** » Wed May 23, 2007 10:45 am

gyre wrote:I don't doubt your story at all.
It's as good a reason as any to go.

Because someone else said to go? No.

MikeVDS · Post by **MikeVDS** » Wed May 23, 2007 12:07 pm

Because someone else said to go? No.

Not just someone; the guy who said he should be locked up in hospitals for the rest of his life. There lies the difference.

Keep your chin up

If anything anyone has said here would get a chin down Burningman could be a harsh place for those people. Where "Fuck you" means, "Love you" and "You smell like ass" means "Come over and give me a hug to share some". Harsh is not bad if it helps people learn to take life and others less seriously. We're all family and we're all these strange lanky rubbery creatures that are anything but logical. What do I care what some illogical, stretched appendage, funky smelling organism thinks about me?

Dork · Post by **Dork** » Wed May 23, 2007 1:39 pm

MikeVDS wrote:If anything anyone has said here would get a chin down Burningman could be a harsh place for those people. Where "Fuck you" means, "Love you" and "You smell like ass" means "Come over and give me a hug to share some". Harsh is not bad if it helps people learn to take life and others less seriously. We're all family and we're all these strange lanky rubbery creatures that are anything but logical. What do I care what some illogical, stretched appendage, funky smelling organism thinks about me?

Yes, people who take pleasure in being assholes and expect you to realize they "mean well" can be a big problem for those of us with difficulty discerning motives and processing social clues. I've learned to simply tolerate them long enough to walk away and find something else to do. I do not accept the notion that I must become one with the assholes in order to fit in and be a true burner. I don't fit in anywhere else, why should I be concerned with fitting in on the playa?

MikeVDS · Post by **MikeVDS** » Wed May 23, 2007 2:18 pm

Yes, people who take pleasure in being assholes and expect you to realize they "mean well" can be a big problem for those of us with difficulty discerning motives and processing social clues. I've learned to simply tolerate them long enough to walk away and find something else to do.

I also had social problems much of my life. I was a big dorky spaz (now I'm just big and dorky). I used to have a very short fuse and horrible temper. I just learned to differentiate between logic and emotion and let logic do the emotional work for me. Now no one who didn't know me many years ago believes that I used to be that way.

Asshole is an emotional label, so I don't like to use it. It immediately incites anger so I keep it reserved for only for extreme cases. If someone offends you and you're oversensitive, that does not necessarily make them an asshole since you're admittedly the atypical one. If someone means well who just called you a fucker why should you let it affect you at all? Since you know that's a fairly common thing and there are two options.

1. They are using it as a term of endearment and want to say "Hi".
2. They are bing an asshole and what your attention so they can have fun at your expense.

There are many logical win-win situations regardless if it's #1 or #2. I fear your method would make me miss out on experiences and eventually become more cynical of people in general. One good response is "Merry Christmas" when it is not near Christmas. To #1 you're being funny and to #2 you're saying fuck you back, but in a much more creative way. By coming back with a friendly tone you win either way. If they're friendly they get a friendly retort and if they're trying to get at you, they lose and are the ones left unfulfilled, and you're walking away smiling.

Life is just a game.

Dork · Post by **Dork** » Wed May 23, 2007 3:05 pm

MikeVDS wrote:Asshole is an emotional label, so I don't like to use it. It immediately incites anger so I keep it reserved for only for extreme cases.

Fair enough. I find it a convenient label for a certain confrontational way of interacting with others. It seems to be fun for many people but it requires a lot of nuance and picking up nonverbal cues, which is very difficult for autistic people to catch onto quickly. I've tried and can get away with it in certain situations, but overall it's dangerous ground.

If someone means well who just called you a fucker why should you let it affect you at all? Since you know that's a fairly common thing and there are two options.

I would disagree that it's a common thing. Perhaps the crowd you run with is different, or you just like to think of it as common. Even where it is common, it's not always meant as a positive and not all of us are as good at brushing off the possibility that we did something to anger them. I agree that assuming a positive and reacting in a friendly way is a good approach.

I fear your method would make me miss out on experiences and eventually become more cynical of people in general.

I'm not advocating a method, just saying what's allowed me to make it through the week. There are a million possible experiences to have out there. This is one possible avenue to a few of those possibilities that I know will fuck me up if I take it, so I choose to limit my exposure to it. If you enjoy the road, good for you. Just don't expect me to follow you because you think it will be good for me. And don't tell me I should stay home.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Wed May 23, 2007 3:25 pm

Ugly Dougly wrote:
gyre wrote:I don't doubt your story at all.
It's as good a reason as any to go.
Because someone else said to go? No.

Getting curious enough is a good reason.
Coming from florida takes more than idle curiosity.

MikeVDS · Post by **MikeVDS** » Wed May 23, 2007 3:27 pm

I would disagree that it's a common thing. Perhaps the crowd you run with is different, or you just like to think of it as common. Even where it is common, it's not always meant as a positive and not all of us are as good at brushing off the possibility that we did something to anger them.

It's not common out in defaultia, but seems pretty common at burningman and I've yet to see someone trying to do it in a mean way. I also don't know if people can do the same thing and brush things off, but it did work well for me. The way I break it down into different possible situation I don't see it as brushing it off either. It just reacting in a way that yields a positive outcome. It's emotionally satisfying to leave an asshole feeling empty and having to live with being an asshole. I did not always brush things off as I said before but when you think about what is really happening, taking offense is the worst emotional outcome I could have for myself in those situations.

I try to get rid of my human perspective and see things simply and logically and when I see things that way my emotions follow and respond accordingly. When someone does something I see it as situation X with possible outcomes Y and Z. I know it's not always easy. I still have a temper, just fortunately a long enough fuse that I don't think I've seen it come out in many years.

I never said anyone shouldn't go. I think we need more dorks and less assholes there. I'm not autistic so I know I don't really understand but I was always the weird guy and had similar problems, just on a lesser scale. I was just sharing my perspective because it has really allowed me to enjoy life more.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Wed May 23, 2007 3:35 pm

Dork wrote:What I said in the other thread about Burning Man occasionally being a really bad environment for aspies - that applies to Eplaya as well, as shown in this thread. Keep your chin up - it does get easier as you get older and spend more time out in the world.

Humour is one thing that is subtle enough that it is the most misunderstood thing between cultures, especially with idioms.
And some people are not that good at expressing themselves on a typewriter.
It takes a softer hand for a joke.

Even in nyc, I get a positive response from courtesy.
Of course, I have that new york attitude available too.

Even being familiar with the people on this board, I have no idea if they are oblivious or joking much of the time.
There is at least one person I never understand.

Teo del Fuego · Post by **Teo del Fuego** » Thu May 24, 2007 9:55 am

Guys, I agree with whoever thinks that some e-Playans are a bit too snarky or mean-spirited and that, as Fat Albert and friends sang: "A joke isn't a joke, if it hurts somebody." Some of the crap I've seen going back and forth here seems so incredibly foreign to the great positive vibe I have always experienced at BM.

Having said that, I thought the original post was a joke. "Bollocks" in the UK means "testicles," and in common slang "nonsense" or "bullshit." Also, I thought "Mike Bollock" was a take on the 'ole "Mike Hunt" routine.

Sooo, if I was being offensive, it was not my intent. But it did seem like someone was sorta using the e-Playa either as a vehicle for libel or for a crude joke.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Aiee! It burns! · Post by **Aiee! It burns!** » Thu May 24, 2007 10:20 am

Isn't laughter always love?

skygod · Post by **skygod** » Thu May 24, 2007 6:36 pm

Teo del Fuego wrote: "A joke isn't a joke, if it hurts somebody."

You never expect the Spanish Inquisition!

My old therapist, Mike Bollock told me to come.

My old therapist, Mike Bollock told me to come.

Hmmmmmmm

It depends on your definition of evil

Although.....

Re: It depends on your definition of evil