I need professional help

I am ok, you're ok, we're all ok.

I've spent all of Friday to Monday on an arduous journey of self development. I was forced to make eye contact, share, hold hands, give, receive and hug. To be intimate, but not carnal with a room for of strangers. Strangers who all turned out to be ex-alcoholics, drug-users, divorcees and abandoned by their parents.

I’d been told by my mother to go on a course called “Essence". She had been strongly recommended it and thought I'd be a more confident person for it. Despite the fact she is 75% responsible for my lack of self esteem, I thought I'd go. I could do with finding my inner voice, despite that sometimes my outer voice seems quite noisy. Hopefully I would be able to listen to myself and stop being so indecisive and, at the very least I’d be able to order a drink at a bar, without being wrecked with doubt. Of course there was always the chance this was a brain washing cult. My fears weren’t alleviated by finding an entry about the “Church of the Living Essence” on Wikipedia. I expected to come out and to have signed away all prospective earnings to Essence.

You didn't talk on this course, you "shared" and people were "sharing" a hell of a lot more than I expected. Within two hours there were revelations, there were tears and there were problems so serious, mine felt as insignificant as someone passing wind in a sewage treatment farm. This wasn't just self development, I was in some kind of group therapy.

By the end of day one, they were doing family constellations. I sat their in disbelief as they unfolded in front of me. It felt so unreal. Menis who facilitated the seminar, a millionaire psychchologist Jerry Springer character if you will, would ask a member of the course who came forward as having relationship issues, to pick representatives of their family from the room. These representatives would be positioned how the individual viewed them in the picture of their family in their mind. They stayed in position, spoke about how they feel and were then allowed to move around. Family conflicts, tensions and feelings would come to light by watching a mini role-play of their family. Menis made the acting family members say words such as “Part of me died without you” and “I am sorry, I had no choice I had to leave”. Usually it all ended in a huge tearful group hug. People picked as representatives were crying as they acted out the mini drama, strangely people watching were also crying. One guy couldn’t cry but burped instead, the guy playing his dad also burped in sympathy.

It was all very strange, I prayed and looked down every time someone went to the front of the group that I wouldn’t be picked. She chose me. I played the girl with the issues in her family drama. I suspect she picked me as she sensed and identified with my North London Jewishness. I said what I felt. My ‘mum’ cried, I hugged her, not in character but because I wanted to stop her crying. It was strange I felt disconnected but I said what I felt. I felt like a fraud and a bad representative but I tried my best to identify with the situation.

That summed up my whole experience. I felt uncomfortable but I threw myself into it. I tried my best to get the most out of it whilst I was there. I even joined in the group hug which was a way to interact with people on the course we hadn’t yet spoken to. I managed to hug 40 people in 5 minutes, in a hug construction line. I refused to touch the creepy guy though, he had to just settle for eye contact. We were told not to be offended if a person did not chose to hug us as it was “their problem not ours” , but it's not true, it was all him him him (the curly haired 70s kids tv presenter freak). Funny that our group hug feel good session happened just before we talked about payment.

I joined in a massive chain shoulder massage. Also I got the chance to regress (pretend) to be a 5 year old and ask my parents for anything I wanted. I asked them to seek therapy. The whole exercise gave me a headache which went as soon as we stopped – hurrah my parent issues affected me after all. I didn’t feel so left out of the group. At one point I had to walk around the room and tell people "I see your essence is...". Only, I really didn't know what everyone's essence was, I wasn't even sure what they meant by 'essence', which was bad research given the name of the course. I had to make stuff up to a few people and I felt like a bit of a sham. I received some lovely compliments, promptly forgotten. However some of those positive comments I received actually unintentionally reinforced a few negative feelings about myself.

When I arrived home, I found an email from my US friend that said my long distance boyfriend had been imprisoned in jail. Worried at first, it turned out it was for writing with a marker 'r0ck is king' on a New York subway poster. My boyfriend later remarked that both our experiences stuck with a bunch of strangers were comparable. The boyfriend told me about one guy that night who was arrested because he took up two seats on the subway. I am now terrified to visit, should I be arrested.

All in all, my experience was mixed, I heard some lovely compliments about myself in our mass group complement orgy, but I felt I didn't really connect with it all. I wanted to try and make it work and to use some of the positive psychology techniques in real life but I am not sure I will. I took some numbers, a few took mine but I seriously doubt I will hear from them.

Am I brainwashed? Well unfortunately I have no money to give. There's still time, I will join the e-group and Menis holds a summer party.

Mum rang me today and apparently I signed up to the wrong course.