The Doc's New "Look"

Above are the gifs that Irene has created and chosen to display on the main pages of her site. Oh yes, she di-id. And she labeled them with her own name. The one with the water being poured all over the kitten was on a child abuse page. Nice!

In case the animation doesn't show (and they are very graphically animated), there are 2 cat pics - one with a cat opening its mouth and snarling viciously and angrily, another with the cat opening even wider and appearing to bite the viewer with glistening gigantic fang/teeth, and the third of course is the little kitty with a bucket of water being dumped upon it, cringeing and getting all soggy and whatnot - poor kitty.

These are images that Dr Irene has selected, created and shown to the world to somehow represent her image to the public. She feels attacked? Threatened? Is she attacking back? Is she trying to send a message to the members who were banned/who escaped from her clutches that she will not tolerate their "attacks" on her by their insistence to reclaim their own words... their refusal to "apologize" to her and come crawling back to her site... their refusal to embrace the "new regime" which seeks to blame the victim... their utter chutzpah in forming their OWN forum which is free from her abusive dictatorship?

(Sorry, folks. Evidently I don't know how to make the animation work when I copied them over here. I guess I'm not a "self-taught computer whiz" like Dr. Irene claims to be. If you have tips, they would be welcome. :)

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Hello and welcome back, dearest friends. The blog's been quiet lately. But things just keep getting weirder on the Dr Irene's Catbox show. It's not over, dear readers. Not at all. I have many topics to cover today, so I will separate them with my nifty new punctuation-mark divider. (You'll discover the meaning of these marks later in the post. :) )

Wait, it's almost Thanksgiving, so I'll begin with my traditional blog-opening Thanks: Thank you, Dr. Irene. Your Catbox taught me how to recognize verbal abuse - even when it's coming from you.

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Faux Advice

Where to begin, where to begin. Ah yes, let us begin with Prudence. Please don't come out and play anymore. The first admin of the New Regime, Prudence gives pseudo-psychiatric advice with all the warmth and understanding of a head of lettuce. Once you peel off her leaves, though, you discover her core is not about helping the members. Oh, no.

Anyway, dear readers, please be aware that PRU KNOWS SQUAT. She speaks authoritatively but she is not giving accurate or helpful information. Some of it is just plain dangerous. She's not interested in being supportive - she's more interested in making you find a way to blame yourself for your predicament. She is NOT an authority. Please, do not buy into her theories - it could be harmful. She sounds like she knows what she's talking about, but she really doesn't. Please be very careful. She is, as the filter says, full of asparagus.

But she is not the only one. The other admins, too, are giving poor advice. Most are not in a position to provide wisdom - hurriedly gathered from the ranks of "yes-folks" who were supporting Irene, they are not superior beings nor particularly evolved. And yet, in these control positions, they can appear to be speaking with authority and knowledge. They are not.

Much of the advice being given is wrong and even a cruel. Pseudo-professional voice(s) designed to lead (mindfvck) an abuse victim into believing an inappropriate version of "personal responsbility" - with no support being given to these victims, no real caring, no comfort of "Hey, I've been there, done that, I know how it feels and this is what helped ME" - no, it's preachy, lecture-y, cold and in many cases WRONG advice.

The emphasis on and the contorted version of the "personal responsibility" religion being taught by Irene and these minions is inappropriately applied in the case of abuse victims, especially those who are in the initial stages of seeking information, discovering the reality of their situation, trying to find out IF they are being abused, IF they are crazy, if it is THEIR fault. No, it is NOT your fault! Yet Irene/admins seem to be preaching that yes, it IS their fault, even if only for staying. Not a good way to empower those who have been suppressed into feeling better about themselves, standing up for themselves, finding ways to change their situation. This kind of preaching is more suppression.

It's also mixed in with some very inaccurate tidbits inferring that the abused are also abusers.

Along with some dangerously eager dabbling into psychological diagnostics... without even telling the victim they're doing so. One member was told (by Pru) to see a therapist, and to make sure to tell the therapist certain phrases. Unbeknownst to the member, these phrases were keywords, lingo that would lead the therapist to diagnose the victim/member as Borderline. This was done very covertly, so the victim/member could not be aware that that was Pru's intention. How extremely manipulative, unethical, wrong, wrong, wrong!!!

Pru has a skew to view members as Borderline. Her questions, her "advice" leads in that direction. Which also goes hand-in-hand with...

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The New Direction

The Catbox's "new philosophy" seems to view all the abused members as essentially flawed, perhaps disordered, mentally ill - something wrong with them. They must be disordered, or else why would they have been abused? would be one mind-set behind such a philosophy. But that viewpoint is WRONG. Anyone can be abused. Being a victim of abuse does not mean one is flawed, ill, disordered. But the "new philosophy" treats members/victims as inherently flawed. This goes along with Dr. Irene's statements during the meltdown, where she clearly revealed her condescending and demeaning beliefs about the abused. She is continually disprespectful toward them, minimizing their discomfort, using baby-talk and belittling them, telling them that "They don't know ________" because they are abused and can't tell the difference.

By the way, the "new Catbox" was supposed to be "kinder and gentler." Tell me where is this kindness, this gentleness? It's not evident anywhere. It doesn't exist. Now what it is, though, is utterly controlled. And that's what Dr. Irene wants, evidently.

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Conspiracy Theory

To bolster her position with Irene(?), or to make herself look as if she has secret knowledge(?), Dearest Prudence has spouted to Irene/the other admins with pearls of fake wisdom about the supposed "reasons" for the (nonexistent) "attacks" on the Catbox. However, her so-called "information" (that she made up in her own head) is all very, very incorrect.

In short: There's no coup, Pru. Nobody wanted to take over the Catbox. You're wrong in telling Irene and others that there is/was a coup. You made it up. It never existed. Nobody was/is trying to overthrow the Catbox, as you say they are. Nobody else (besides Irene) is trying to gain control of the Catbox. Nobody else wants it. You've been spreading huge misinformation. For what profit, Pru? Everybody was happily keeping to themselves UNTIL the Irene's Google Black & White/Bang Bang day of infamy. It was IRENE who started it, who perpetuated it, who exacerbated it, who still - and increasingly - seems to live in loonyland. Irene, please, get help.

Perhaps Pru created all these conspiracy theories in order to manipulate the admins/Irene into believing she is a Font of All Wisdom. What-evah.

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Blaming

Oh yes, in case I forgot to mention it - Dr. Irene continues to try to slander ex-admins by insinuating (or stating straight out) that they "hacked" into the system, created problems which caused certain protected forums to become visible, wreaked all sorts of havoc. ALL LIES. In fact, Dr. Irene and/or the new admins created all the site issues that she is blaming on the ex-admins. How low can you go, Irene? They couldn't even get INTO the system to do what you're blaming on them. Your lies only dig you deeper into the insanity.

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Rigid Topic Adherence

But I digress - back to the topic now. Which reminds me - Pru, why do you so despise any diversity of answers in your post? Why is nobody allowed to stray from your strict topic-rules within a thread? Why do you have such obsessive insistence that THE TOPIC MUST BE ADHERED TO AT EVERY MOMENT AND NO MEANDERING - NOT EVEN FOR A SECOND - IS PERMITTED!? WHY are you so controlling, hmmmmmm? You are behaving freakily. It's insane-looking control. No, you may NOT talk about that! You may NOT disagree with me! That's off-topic!

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Access to Download Their Own Words

To make herself appear gracious (oops, am I "defining" here?), Dr. Irene agreed to make an old backup copy of the site available for people to download their words that were deleted (by Irene/new admins) during the fracas.

However, she refused to permit access to anyone who had been "banned" or who signed their names to a list requesting access to their topics to be downloaded THEN deleted, or in support of those who wanted to do such. And, of course, these are many of the people who needed the access most.

Holding others' words hostage, Dr. Irene? Does it make you feel good to have that kind of control? Your claim that, without their words the threads wouldn't make sense, doesn't hold water. and is a foolish argument to try to preserve the integrity of the threads. The right to access their words supersedes any right you might have to "have things make sense." You're allegedly deleting the words, anyway, so what's it to you if they have them, or not? You're being cruel and sadistic, not allowing people to access their own words. And it is within their rights to access them, to edit or delete them at will. You are holding their intellectual property hostage. (No, your newly posted rule about "Once you give the Catbox your book, you can't ask for it back" is full of hot methane.) Remember, Irene, YOU were the one who denied them access in the first place, while you were on your "Bang-Bang" rampage. The ones who requested to be given access to their posts, YOU chose to ban/supress. They were only standing up for what was rightfully theirs.

Oh yes, and why can't they even find their posts that haven't been deleted? Because you and your new admins changed those members names to convenient 3-letter nonsensical abbreviations, which cannot be searched on. Even if a member did have search privileges, which you've denied to so many.

And because you deleted without allowing those who were "banned" access to their words first. Then you refuse to allow them access to their words, after you recovered the old backup copy. It's twisted.

Oh, but it gets better. So, the people who were allowed to have access were told (via a message hidden in a thread) that access to their wordswould end this weekend. Not told WHEN this weekend, some members questioned the Doc. Finally reacting to the questions, she reluctantly added a post that access would end at a specific time - 6pm Eastern Time on - forgive this writer's memory, but it was either Saturday November 22, or Sunday November 23. Now, that's a pretty precise time.

However, suddenly and without warning, even those who had access to the backup thread were restricted from it - Friday November 21. Dr Irene closed it off, well before the time she'd said it would be. An admin explained to a member that the first "batch" of people had (supposedly) had enough time to download, so their privileges had been ended. Nobody was told of being in "batches." Nobody was told of differing access times for different people. No, the access was summarily ended. My guess is because Dr. Irene enjoyed playing that head-game, telling people it would be available until a certain time, then suddenly axing them off from access prematurely, just for the fun of it. Ha-HAAAA, I'm still in control! You can have your words, but I decide when and where, and just when you think you're safe, I'll show YOU who's boss! (What I imagine went on in Irene's head about it.)

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Punctuation is the Enemy

Here's another fun bit of craziness: punctuation is a threat. Yes, folks, the admins now moderate and threaten/ban over punctuation. True story. One member was banned over a simple little dot. A period. She posted a period on a thread. Yes, it was an almost-silent protest - "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all." For posting the period, she was ordered by administration to explain the period. When she did not, the admin threatened to remove all her privileges if she did not respond by a certain time that day. She was told that ignoring an admin PM is against the rules. Posting a period is evidently against the rules, also. The member lost her "privileges." (Such "privileges" they are - the ability to post in a crazy dictatorship? Pshaw.)

Another member did not understand an admin's post in a thread. To express this, she quoted the part she did not understand, and typed a question mark. Now, I've seen this many times. A lot of people use a question mark to say, "I don't understand." Or "Huh?" But this, too, raised administrative ire. This member was interrogated harshly in admin PM's about the question mark. She was told it is not acceptable to quote an admin and place a question mark after it.

A member was told that admins were taking such measures because of the "attacks" on the Catbox. They had NO TOLERANCE for any kind of subversive acts. So members, beware your punctuation!

Yes, readers, you're right. This doesn't make sense. Such hooplah about a mere "." or "?" Warranted? Paranoia? Or excessive control-seeking?

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-this entry is finis, but the story continues to unfold-

Thank You

You know, I've been saying this a lot: Thank you, Dr. Irene. Your Catbox taught me how to recognize verbal abuse - even when it's coming from you.

And I mean that. I've also learned that I DO have a voice - a big, strong one - and I have a right to that voice.

You can try to squash all the "little people" from your Catbox, Dr Irene, but you won't succeed. There is a whole mess o' evidence against you. Hard, cold facts. And what you've been doing is laid out clearly in the "How to Recognize Verbal Abuse" books. Classic abuser tactics. This has been one heckuva educational experience, and you've broken a lot of trust & hearts along your forest-clearing machete-swinging path. Is that the legacy you want to leave? Is that the reputation you want in the world? If so - well, congratulations, you've achieved it.

What you have done, and continue to do, is so, so very wrong. I've already described most of it in this blog. (See also www.TheFalloftheKingdom.com)

I might come back to sharing with the world how you & the new admins gleefully took joy in calling your members "monkeys" and "picking them off one by one" (in other words, banning or suspending their privileges at whim & without notice), lying to the other members by telling them that didn't happen, and then fabricating a lie about a former admin to try to cover your tracks - lying - lying - lying. The former admins who received the slew of emails that you claim didn't exist - the nasty, member-deprecating "monkey" emails - received them because of YOUR mistake, Dr. Irene. They didn't want any more Catbox emails, and yet they kept coming to them. It wasn't some clandestine evil "hack job," as you claim - you're trying to smear THEIR reputations like you did the earliest banned members' - but it won't work, Dr. Irene, because it's a LIE. You LIE about what happened in the Catbox. You LIE to try to cover it up. Blame-shifting, crazymaking, power, control...

Ah, but I ramble. Dr. Irene, your Catbox has imploded, and no one else is responsible but you. How about applying your own "Personal Responsibility" philosophy to yourself, for a change?

Well, it's hard to believe, but the juvenile behavior, vindictiveness and refusal to do "the right thing" by Dr. Irene and the Catbox admins has gone even further.

Members who requested their posts be deleted have instead had the poster "name" changed, but the posts remain. So, not only are the posts not deleted, but their user names have been changed to insulting ones such as "Stinky" and "Dingbat."

Also, instead of deleting the posts as has been requested, they have merely deleted access to their accounts by those members, rendering the posts as having been posted by "GuestCat_______" with their name in it (if the name hasn't been changed to an insult by the admins/Irene).

Then one of the insult names was changed back to the original name. Do you think we didn't see that?

The New Administration is still claiming that those who spoke up against Dr. Irene's abuse on the site are "disruptive troublemakers." The spin is still on, even heavier than before. The opposite of truth.

Furthermore, the requested deletions were not about "copyright infringement" - although that is certainly a possibility, that Irene would choose to use/abuse member's words without appropriate notice or permission, since she has already taken so many crazily inappropriate and illegal steps - but rather, it is about the members no longer feeling that their words are safe there. And, since their words are legally their OWN, they have the right to remove them. Dr. Irene is infringing upon that right, just because she wants to. It's not about disruption or preserving thread integrity - those are red herrings, excuses to try to gain support - classic twisting and blame-shifting. She just doesn't want to give it up. She just wants to control.

And again, there are no "attacks" on the site. Members (who have largely been stripped of any privileges or access, anyway) are only trying to claim what is rightfully theirs and protect theirselves.

Thank you, Dr. Irene, for giving us the Catbox. We learned to identify abuse, even by the Catbox owner herself.

Your credibility isn't such that people will necessarily believe you just because you say something is true. The truth - the real truth - is out. Your scurrying and cover-ups aren't helping, they're just making it more apparent what you are doing. Yes, you've convinced a few. Are you proud of that? Proud of manipulating a few malleable, delicate psyches into what you want them to be? Do you enjoy that?

Clearly you enjoyed your power, picking them off, degrading them, threatening them with giving mental health information to their real-life peers, cyber-killing them at whim - Does that make you the better person? Really? You trumped up fake "reasons" for the validity of your decisions, but way too many people know that those "reasons" were false. They never existed. You just plain don't like those people, for whatever reason. Maybe you feared them. I don't care. But you did it all for personal reasons, and they were very unstable reasons at that.

Amazingly, the Plot Thickens

Well, it all hit the fan, folks.

One member sent a legal letter to Dr. Irene, pleading that members be permitted to edit/delete posts at will, as it had become a legal issue. Many members had signed their names to the letter - some requesting all their posts to be permanently deleted, others who supported any member's right to edit/delete their own posts, while they did not want all their posts deleted. When Dr. Irene received the letter, she...

amazingly thought it was the right thing to do...
to POST the letter in the Catbox.

With the member's REAL NAME and EMAIL ADDRESS still on it.

She was really that egotistical, that she thought it was okay to do that?

In a forum where people are sometimes in DANGER if their real identity is revealed? And which forum was allegedly created for the purpose of HELPING such people, not further endangering them? And in which Dr. Irene HERSELF had pleaded with members to conceal their identities?

Oh, but it gets even better...

And then, Dr. Irene threatened to reveal personal information about the letter-writer to the writer's real-life peers. The statement - I'm paraphrasing now, because it's no longer there to reference, but it went something like this, "I wonder what your peers would think of you when they find all these things out about you?"

Well, a hue and cry went up after Dr. Irene so arrogantly posted that letter (thinking herself above any ethical, moral or legal standard???)... and several other members said, "Sign me up, too. That's just wrong, Doc." Some commented on Dr. Irene's habit of laughing at the members' discomfort or their questions - it was minimizing and condescending.

The lack of edit/delete ability came under discussion. Dr. Irene and/or her admins had commented in the thread that it was only a few members who'd had that function disabled, with full notice (a lie, they were not notified). And her reasoning was because of (paraphrasing) "those member's rude and really awful content," and she defined their attempts to delete their own posts as "venting of anger because they had no where else to vent it."

Someone else pointed out there was a serious flaw in that logic - if the content was really awful and rude, then why did Dr. Irene prevent them from deleting it? Why did she want to force them to leave it there, why did she want it?

Within hours, the Catbox was closed down.
Could be so that Dr. Irene and the admins could delete all the requested posts.

Oh, but in the meantime, the Doc posted a link on her main site page saying something like the catbox would be back better than ever, with no more of "this yucky stuff" - and the link led to a CNN article about the proliferation of angry posts and blogs on the internet. (I suppose this is one of those "yucky things" she doesn't like.)

Too bad, Doc, if people are angry at you, hmmmm? As more and more members have realized each day, you brought this all upon yourself. A little vindictive power-tripping goes a long, long way in cyberland. You brought your own house down.

P.S. Many members have found Dr. Irene's repeated use of baby-talk to be demeaning and condescending. Clawsies, pawsies, her (giggle) at people's discomfort, her use of teenage language ("Like, duh"). Here's a clue, Doc - your (ex) members are intelligent people in their own right. Their refusal to lock-step with you is a credit to them. If you weed and dilute your member base to only those who agree with you (and/or are afraid of you), you'll be left with only a few clones and nothing interesting or of value.

Oh, but that's what you wanted, wasn't it? A bunch of clones?

(As you repeatedly told another member weeks ago, even after she asked you to STOP saying that to her, that you wanted to clone her, it wasn't a compliment to HER. You still kept hammering away at it. Because what YOU wanted was more important than her feelings, right?

And that's what abuse is all about.

Thank you, Dr. Irene, for giving us the Catbox. We learned to identify abuse. Even by the Catbox owner, herself.

So the Catbox is shut down - for how long? Who knows? But I'm sure Dr. Irene will find a way to spin this into blaming the "bad apples" for it all. It's all "their" fault. None of this would have happened if it weren't for "them" and their "rude and really awful"ness.

It was your actions, your behaviors, that brought all this about, Doc. It was you. You can scurry and scuttle and try to blame, but we know better. We're intelligent people. You brought this on yourself.

Questions are suppressed and criticized and disregarded.

ANY disagreement, no matter how respectfully worded or personal-feelings-based, is condemned as a challenge/attack.

The IRONY of the entire fiasco is that it was all done in the name of "RESPECT."

Yet, disrespect toward the MEMBERS by Dr Irene was what STARTED it.

Not disrespect of them toward HER. Oh, they are spinning it that way. But that's not what really happened.

The truth is out there, if one cares to see it.

There is no logic or sanity to what is going on there now. None. It's a lot of crazyness. It is not making sense. And yet, still, all the people who are being "blamed" are the ones who SEE the crazyness. And that's WHY they are being blamed. Because they see it. And that makes her afraid.

Incredible Lies

Incredible lies are being told to mislead the remaining membership.

Bannings and suspensions ARE taking place, and with no warning.
Members are being punished for editing or deleting their own posts. The deletions were perceived as an "attack" on the box. However, in reality, the deletions were being performed for self-protective purposes. Those members no longer wanted or felt safe with their words posted in that forum, and were deleting them AS WAS THEIR RIGHT TO DO. Dr. Irene and admins decided that they should NOT be permitted to delete their own words, and suspended privileges for them. It was viewed as "another attack" on the Catbox. But it wasn't. And now those members are being PREVENTED THEIR RIGHTS. It's not even legal.

Dr. Irene/admins are LYING and telling the remaining membership that these people have NOT been banned or suspended, and yet they have. They have been placed into a special "group" - of suspects - of disliked people - of those who dare to speak out against the heinous acts that have been perpetrated by Dr. Irene/admins. Lies, and more lies. And the members in question have no way to refute the lies, as they have been silenced. And anyone who questions it is also silenced.

Furthermore, members who have NOT EVEN DELETED ANYTHING are being accused of doing just that, just so they can be lumped in with the "troublemakers" and the charges trumped up. LIES!

Lies, lies. LIES!
It just keeps getting sicker and sicker.