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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-