The Catbox Implosion

2011-09-17T14:05:00.001-07:00

Hello, All.
It's been a long time since I've posted. There might have even been another to-do at Dr. Irene's Catbox in the ensuing years. Hopefully, those who are in abusive relationships and go to Dr. Irene's Verbal Abuse Site or her Catbox forum in the hopes of seeking help, are able to see through the manipulations and control that site and forum have attempted repeatedly over the years, and are able to find other, safer arenas for assistance.

That being said, for cost considerations, it's become time to retire the parable website: The Fall of the Kingdom.

So, I am posting the parable here, for posterity. Here you go. Thank you, friends and readers. And for those of you finding yourselves in verbally or otherwise abusive relationships, check out the resource to the right for a safer forum. Wishing you well.

The Fall of the Kingdom
(or Why the Kingdom Fell)

Once upon a time, a man founded a village to keep people safe from ogres.

And he was King of the village, because he founded it.

The King was busy with other things. He had only founded the village as a side-fancy. He appointed Guardians to maintain peace within the village and oversee it, and for many years he barely ventured into the village.

And people flocked to the village, and loved being there, for it was safe from ogres.

And, aside from normal ups and downs, there was peace. And more and more people flocked to the village, and more and more people were saved from ogres, and more and more people were grateful and helpful to other, newer villagers.

Now, one thing that caused angst within the village was cheesecake. Because many of the villagers were watching their weight, so if anyone mentioned cheesecake, there ensued many arguments. So the Guardians made a rule: no cheesecake, and no mention of cheesecake.

And the village community thrived and prospered and flowed beautifully and grew.

Then one day, the King got a craving for cheesecake. He found one that claimed it was low-fat, and put up posters on the village walls advertising it.

The villagers grew angry. Why can we not mention cheesecake, and he can? Well, he IS the king, but it really isn’t fair!

The King said he didn’t know the Guardians had made a rule about cheesecake. But he left the posters up anyway, and said something rude to one of the villagers.

Other villagers pointed this rudeness out to the King. “How can we be safe from ogres, if you are acting like one?” the villagers asked.

The King explained that he didn’t know the rule, and that he put up the posters without the knowledge of the Guardians. One villager said that the explanation was nice to hear, and thanked the Guardians, for it was made clear the Guardians had nothing to do with the double-standard that had been created.

The King roared. “How DARE you thank the Guardians, and not me? That is rude and insulting, and I will not tolerate it!” And the King, flippantly shooting a fake gun at the villager, banished the villager from the village.

Other people in the village had now seen two ogre-like behaviors from the King… but many more such deeds were to follow.

When villagers spoke up against the ogre-like behavior, the King banished them. More and more were banished.

The King was offensive and disrespectful to the villagers. The villagers said, “Hey, we don’t deserve that!” The King answered, “If you don’t like it, you may leave!” At that, the villagers became angry, and the King called them ogres for their anger.

The Kingdom became divided.

Some villagers were afraid that their safe village would be destroyed, and did not see – or did not want to see – the King behaving like the very ogres they were seeking safety from.

The King apologized for putting up the cheesecake posters, but did not apologize for behaving like an ogre to the villagers. On the contrary, the King insisted THEY were rabble-rousers! THEY were the problem! If he got rid of ALL of them, the village could go back to being peaceful and safe, the King claimed. It was THEIR fault. THEY were the ogres now, the King proclaimed.

The King twisted the circumstances, as ogres do, and made it appear the clear-eyed villagers were causing all the discontent in the village.

The King, trying to salvage his public image, un-banished the banished. (For they would not apologize for having clearly seen Him.) But they did not choose to return, for great wrongs had been done, and more were being done daily.

As more and more villagers came to realize that the King was behaving like an ogre, more and more villagers stood up – and were also banished.

The Guardians saw with clear sight what was going on, and could no longer, with good conscience, support the King’s ogre-like behavior. The King was acting on his own, anyway. So after many years of shaping the village into the beautiful thing that it was, the Guardians left the village and abandoned their service to the King.

And the King continued to act like an ogre, but tried more carefully to hide it. If things were written, they were erased. If questions were asked, he answered them without answering them. He told the remaining villagers to get over it. He had apologized, what more did they want? He attacked and retreated, attacked and retreated.

And he tried to bring His structure and order to the kingdom. He wanted to bring it under His control.

The villagers who grew clear vision continued to leave. Some stayed only to try to help new villagers who thought it was an ogre-free zone.

But some villagers – from fear of losing their village, perhaps – flew to the defense of the King. And they became his minions, and the King grew more validated in His Rightness by the few who remained supporters. And the villagers did not want to see the ogre. So they didn’t. And they shouted, “Can’t you let it go? The King apologized for the cheesecake! Stop fanning the flames!” They believed the King, that the clear-eyed villagers were the ogres. They hotly scolded the clear-eyed villagers, and grew in the King’s favor for doing so – even as they, too, behaved exactly as they were not supposed to behave.

The King scrabbled to try to cover up the ogre-like behaviors and reorganize and control and make the village into what He wanted it to be – far, far from what it had been so beautifully before. And he tried to form a new troop of Guardians taken from his supporters to enforce his vision. And the fogged villagers pleaded with the others to let it drop, it was just cheesecake, let it go.

The King and his new Guardians tried to label the outrage “Fear of Change,” to further discredit the clear-eyed villagers.

But the villagers with clear eyes knew anything they said or did could be deemed worthy of banishment, if they stood up for what was right. Their objections were shushed, and their voices attempted to be silenced, and any who spoke up were threatened with banishment. Some were careful. Some, unable to bear the wrongness, took clear actions against the King, straight out, trying to get the king or the fogged villagers to see, and got their punishment over with.

All the clear-eyed villagers hoped and wished and hoped and wished the King would finally see the error of his ways. But the King did not. The King wanted control. The King did not like some of the villagers – those who stood up, those who disagreed, those who did not believe in the King’s supremacy. The King wanted it His way. And since he had founded the village, it was true he had the right.

The King left many hurt, confused and bereaved villagers in his path, and the villagers no longer trusted him.

The village was no longer what it was supposed to be – safety from the ogres. For the ogres were within it, overseeing it, poking a nose in here and there. It felt unsafe. And it was never the same again. Oppression tried to rule, and the safe place fell apart.

And those who thought it would all be back to normal if the dissenters would only stop and go away, were misled. There was no more "normal" anymore. Everything had changed.

Because it was not about the cheesecake. It was never about the cheesecake.

2009-11-07T16:17:00.000-08:00

Wait... Irene...WHO can't get over WHAT? Who is "attacking" the Catbox??? You have become so insanely Captain Queeg-ish. YOU were the one bringing up the events of last year. YOU did it. Now it's somehow other people's inability to "get over it" that made YOU start that thread and YOU bring that up? It was NEWLY banned members that created a recent exodus... it was the way YOU and your admins handled things before that, that caused all that to happen. Not google stats. Not numbers. Nobody's "recruiting" or trying to steal your members for the sake of numbers and statistics. Although it's to everyone's benefit that another, healthier place does exist. And your jealousy and paranoia is exquisitely obvious.

It is your behavior which caused all this, your behavior which is continuing. You. You. You. What you have done. What you are doing now.

Personal responsibility, my 4ss. You only think people should "look inward" and "own their responsibility" when it means swallowing your lies and re-writing history and taking the heat off of you. "Personal responsibility" is for all the other suckers, right? Not for you. What about your responsibility in the mess you created, all by yourself? Oh wait, you don't have any.

2009-11-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

Oh hey, Dr. Irene, you’re up and at it again. With a rather transparent (but not in the way you profess to want) garbage-full “explanation” and attempt to repair the rightfully faltering opinion of your forum by your members.

Irene, it was you, yourself – because of the settings on the board that only YOU could undo – who was responsible for the former admins receiving administrative emails. The emails arrived into their INBOXES – they simply read them. And, it was, in fact, a former admin who informed you, Irene, of your error, making you aware of the issue so you could correct it. Then you blame THEM for it? And continue to do so? That's not only immature and sick, but a blatant lie.

There was no “backdoor.” There was no “hacking.” There was no wrongdoing of any kind by the former admins. Straight, clean-cut and simple. Irene, those accusations you continue to promote are lies – straight-out lies – defamatory ones. You might have twisted them around in your head to believe that your version of the “truth” is real, but that doesn’t make it so.

Almost every single thing that was posted in the “Rebuilding” thread was a lie or a distortion. There’s almost no truth in it at all – it is a rather sad attempt to manipulate your dwindling readership into believing “your truth.” Brainwashing once again. The only truths there, really, were these: 1. there was an implosion (yes, there was), and 2. that you had posted a political post which went against your own rules. Everything else in your letter goes against the facts, and are twistings and manipulations and attempts to mind-fvck your herd so they stay with you and your power-mongering manipulative admins.

Having blatantly exposed your practice of “no privacy” within your reign, and repeated history with more bannings with reasons manufactured out of paranoid delusions and spewed and re-chewed as “Protecting” your flock (oh, come on), you lost members. YOU lost those members by your own actions, Irene. It wasn’t because somebody crept around behind your back and “stole” them. YOU did it. YOU did it last year, and YOU did it this year. YOUR behaviors caused them to leave. Because you are controlling, manipulative and abusive. You want to control what they do and what they think. You and your admins have made it clear you want people to THINK in a certain way. Your “personal responsibility” blather is a cover for mind control – you believe only certain ways of thought are “correct” and you want to control your members by encouraging in certain directions and discouraging/punishing other directions. You do not allow independent thought, you do not allow anyone to disagree with you (no matter how respectfully). You are a controlling, manipulative abuser – and the worst of them, because you mess with the minds of people who are already abused and come to you for HELP. It is very, very sick.

YOU treated people in ways that made them leave you, and then you blamed others for that. That’s typical abuser-speak as well.

I don’t have the time to do a line-by-line breakdown of your “Rebuilding” letter, although it certainly deserves it. But it’s all a bunch of manipulative drivel. Irene, face it, YOU brought down your Catbox. With abuse. And again, we thank you, Dr. Irene, for teaching us to recognize abuser tactics so that we recognize you as one. Those who leave you are protecting themselves… from you. You are not there to help them. You are trying to get them to do things “your way.” Control. Abuse.

And again - trying to control your members' private communications with each other??? There's so much that's sick about that, I can't even begin to enumerate. Reading them is sick enough - preventing members from communicating outside the public forum is sick, twisting what's been said in those messages is sick, telling the public some convoluted storybook of lies about what was in those private messages is sick - and without the supposed-wrongdoers even able to defend themselves or present their side...but then asking and expecting your members to use any "private" messages they might receive to YOUR personal benefit, as a covert - or, rather, overt - operation to seek and destroy? That's very, very low.

And isolating your members from private contact with each other or other websites, that's a familiar tactic too, an abuser tactic. Abusers tell us it's "for our own good" too.

Oh and by the way, anger and validation are healthy in abusive situations. Validation is what helps a person gain strength in the knowledge that their perspective is worthwhile and helps stop the mind-control cycle. Anger is what often helps propel a person out of their bad situation. The former admins weren't "doing things wrong." You just wanted them gone so you could control the members better. By genuinely trying to help others, they were obstacles to your plan of manipulating them into submission and obeisance.

“Personal responsibility” – et tu, Irene? How about some for yourself? You brought this all on yourself and now you just keep blaming others…into eternity.

And if your members can see that your forum is unhealthy and don't want to be a part of it, it's not their "wrongness" - it's nobody else's "fault" - just yours. Accusing them, blaming them, in order to try to cover your own butt-tracks in the mess is just...blame-twisting.

Irene, your forum isn’t about its members, it’s about YOU – and it shows. Your admins are there to corral, not to help. At least two of them have no experience in abuse (from the victim’s side, at least) and are most interested in spewing their own jargon and half-truths, self-aggrandizement and power rather than actually desiring to help others. You're not helping people, you're hurting them - and that's okay with you, as long as they think what you want them to think, and do what you want them to do, and believe what you want them to believe.

Jealous of another forum built without you which doesn’t punish and control its members, but genuinely cares about them? Tsk tsk. Irene, you’re not prom queen anymore, and it hurts – so you blame it on the voters and the popularity of another genuinely-nice girl and try to backstab and manipulate by getting the voters to TATTLE to you, so that you can destroy the ballots. It's the ballots' fault. It's the other girl's fault. Uh-uh, no.

Tsk-tsk, Dr. Irene. Tsk-tsk.

2009-10-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I see you’re at it again. Ni-i-i-i-i-ice.

WHY are you so AFRAID of members going to other sites? Hmmmm?

Do you not realize that’s kind of...crazy? And EXTREMELY controlling – the very thing you’re supposed to be against?

If you were on the level, you wouldn’t be so paranoid about your members dabbling elsewhere. It wouldn’t matter to you. It's the Internet, for cripe's sake. You can't control what everybody does on the Internet. To even think you can, or to try, is nutso. (Oh, but I think you're just afraid of them connecting with specific people or forums - hmmm - the ones who left you because of your abusive behavior, right? That's abusive, too. To control someone out of spite... anger... just plain wrong.)

If you were on the level, you wouldn’t be reading members’ PRIVATE messages – that’s really sick, do you know that? – blockading and deleting them – under the guise of “keeping your members safe.” WHO are you keeping them “safe” from – outsiders who might give them the perspective that YOU are the nutso, controlling ones?

It’s ABUSER behavior. YOU are controlling your membership. YOU are ISOLATING them from others – other friends, other perspectives. YOU are restricting and controlling their communications with others. YOU are the abusers.

It’s a sick shame that you are abusing those who come to you for help and safety from abuse. Disgusting.

You can’t keep people from eventually realizing the truth. Your mad scrabble to maintain control, your trigger-finger bannings, blatant disregard for privacy, paranoia and finger-pointing (“they’re the ones to blame!” “we’re just keeping you safe!”) doesn’t hold up forever, except in the minds of those too fogged to be able to see the truth.

Your behaviors are sick. You manipulate the abused – who are not the healthiest to start with – and control them to maintain your own power trip.

Sick, sick, sick.

2008-12-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

Hi Folks, this one may be choppy, unfortunately I don't have the wherewithal to expand much at this time.

Let me begin with my customary thanks: Thank you, Dr. Irene, for giving me the Catbox, which taught me to recognize abuse - even when performed by the Catbox's owner, herself.

Private Messages on the Catbox are being read by its admins. So yes, they're not private at all. They are now reading and filtering PM's to prevent, as they call it, "misuse of the privilege" and also the possibility of "wooing new members away." Now any PM including a link to ANY site is prevented from being sent. PM privileges are being removed left and right. Even innocuous PM's like one member asking another how they are doing - denied. Paranoia reigns supreme. Such strict and obvious CONTROL, Doc/Admins!!! Post moderation, reading PMs, preventing private messaging, you seem so intent on making sure that nobody receives any information that you, yourselves, do not provide. That's pretty sick - pretty much along the lines of mind control. Isolating your flock from outside influence, are you? That's a common cult tactic.

Also recently come to light is that an ex-member, vindictive about being previously banned due to inappropriate behaviors (and not an abuse victim), had likely been emailing Dr Irene behind-the-scenes, stirring the pot before/during/after the implosion, telling lies, finger-pointing and calling certain members "bullies." These were the same members who were initially banned in the meltdown - coincidentally the same members instrumental in causing the vindictive ex-member's prior banning by calling him out on his behavior. This ex-member had multiple membership names and has now returned to the Catbox and pushes semi-uninformed, inaccurate, long-winded non-logic on others. Remember now, this ex-member did not experience abuse, he only seems to have some sort of weird curiousity and interest in it, spending an inordinate amount of time reading, writing, studying, following forums, trying to get back in after being banned, etc. It's more like an unhealthy obsession, and his previous bannings were due to posting that was inappropriate and perhaps even harmful to others. Very suspicious, not really to be trusted, hmmm? Yet he's back and in good graces and ready to force his non-logic on a new batch of unsuspecting newbies.

Oh yes, and this person espouses a VERY twisted version of the events of the implosion, one which minimizes the egregiously horrendious behaviors committed by Dr. Irene and the new admins, even excuses them, while blaming those who did NOT cause it.

Finally, the Catbox's New Direction includes a very specific "recipe" for how admins are to handle posters, to "lead them" into accepting responsibility for their own lives. Sometimes this seems to include the members being coerced into believing they are codependent and/or have borderline personality disorder. The New Regime seems to believe ALL abuse victims must be disordered or flawed in these ways, and is intent on thrusting these diagnoses onto the members whether they like it or not. Perhaps to make them/herself (admin) more comfortable with being disordered, the label is being applied freely to others - or perhaps sometimes just insinuated, with the members attempted to be led to draw that conclusion about themselves.

The New Regime also does not want to allow members to meander from the topic AT ALL. It's strictly VERBOTEN. The New Regime does not seem to realize the extreme benefits of meandering, nor of allowing people or thoughts to flow.

And the New Regime does not want to permit sharing of personal stories on other posters' threads. Sharing of one's own experience is not helpful to the original poster, they believe. It is straying from the topic and bringing the focus onto themselves, the Regime believes. The New Regime does not seem to realize the extreme benefits that all posters have reaped from reading other stories, the "been-there-done-that's," from people who can relate, HOW they relate, what they did, how they understand, what happened to them.

The New Regime wants to give guided advice, leading members to specific (Regime-suggested) conclusions about themselves, without input or sharing from other members.

The New Regime wants to lead members' minds and tell them what to believe. The New Regime at the Catbox wants to force people to believe what they want them to believe - whether it's the Personal Responsbility doctrine, or that they are codependent or have BPD. They are not allowed to share. They are not allowed to PM privately, if at all. They are not allowed to post freely, but are moderated. They are not allowed to receive information about other websites. They are only allowed to do what the New Regime wants, and think what the New Regime wants them to think. And the New Regime will applaud them when they "see the light" - their light. But their "light" is actually darkness. The darkness of control, mind-control, constriction, suppression, coercion, false diagnoses, harmful advice. The darkness of abuse.

2008-11-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

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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2008-11-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

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.)

. ? . ? . ? . ? . ? . ? . ? . ? . ? . ? . ? . ?
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?

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

Thank You

2008-11-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-11-06T07:01:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-05T06:52:00.001-08:00

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.

2008-11-03T07:23:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

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.

Catbox is Controlling People's Words

2008-10-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

and the words are their OWN. The members' words belong to the members and nobody else. Many members' posts and threads have been "hidden" so that the original poster cannot access them to view, edit, copy, or delete, but only the admins can see and do anything with them.

Since members' posts by law (it seems) belong to THEMSELVES, this would appear to be illegal. It's also unethical and wrong to withhold a persons own posts from themselves. For what cause? Punishment of who they are? To "show who's boss?" That seems to be the idea. There's no logical explanation for it. These are old posts, doing no harm, just sitting around. Many of the members on the "hidden" list haven't even posted in a while.

It's a fact this is going on.
And it's so very wrong.

MORE news. Select members are having their entire message boxes removed. Their ability to PM removed. Their personal photos removed. This was done after the Irene visited their profile. YOU WILL BE SILENCED!!! is the clear attempted message. Does anybody "out there" realize all this is going on? Probably not, since the silenced members are...being silenced. Being controlled. SHE must control. No matter what. What sickness is going on!!!!!!!!!

Irene must be SO AFRAID of these people. She is going to extreme lengths to destroy them.

And apparently, the mass post/thread hiding by admins is due to the fact that some members were deleting their old posts. So, in essence, the Catbox is punishing members for deleting their posts by withholding the posts (the members' own intellectual property) from them, and/or using it as a control method over them for no apparent reason, because if they're deleted, they'd be gone anyway. It makes NO sense. And restricting access to members' own posts (for no apparent reason except "they want to?") is in my opinion criminal.

PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW THIS STUFF IS HAPPENING!!! It won't be overlooked. It won't be forgotten.

We TRUSTED you, Dr. Irene Matiatos. We thought you were caring. Now all it seems you want is power-over and control. You've done so many things we're all so familiar with in verbally abusive relationships. Twisting, blaming, crazymaking, name-calling (slandering member(s)' reputations), minimizing, and more. And now, withholding. Instead of a helpful forum, your catbox is now just a vehicle by which you control masses. SHAME ON YOU, Dr. Irene Matiatos. You have betrayed so many, across many countries. Are you happy? Really?

Addendum: Some members are deleting their posts. They no longer feel it is a safe place for those words. And Dr. Irene/admins are RETRIEVING the deleted posts, and re-posting them! That is SO WRONG. If people do not want their words posted, they should be deleted. Period. End of story. It's not someone else's right to make that decision.

Later, Dr. Irene had a crazy explanation that the deletions are causing "board disruption" and/or infringing on the meaning of threads. That's too bad, but it doesn't change the right members have to remove their own words.

Another Update

2008-10-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

Another Catbox update.

ALL posts and topics by certain members have been deleted or hidden in one fell swoop. Those "targeted members" who were deemed to be troublemakers. Without warning, without chance to retrieve the posts, without explanation. Even those who have not posted at all lately. It's part of the silencing, the squashing of whistleblowers.

Administration does not want these things that they are doing, known. The moderation, the "disappearing" of people.

This cat is being let out of the bag.

Part of a grand scheme - the "cleanup" - the "pruning." Pruning PEOPLE. Cutting off PEOPLE. Especially if they speak up against obvious wrongs.

Newbies are being led into a false sense of okayness. It's NOT okay in there. It's not safe.

Latest News

2008-10-30T07:28:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to the Catbox Implosion Blog. It's a blog about the catbox implosion. This blog is opinions only, of course. Like most blogs. Please take it with as much salt as you feel necessary. To view the parable, "The Fall of the Kingdom," please visit http://www.thefallofthekingdom.com/

Latest News regarding the forum:

Posts are censored.
Any questions or disagreements are made invisible or locked.
Admins "moderate" certain members, by previewing each and every post certain members on their "watch list" make.
This is all in an effort to squash and quell further "disruption" (as they call it) - or, in actuality, voices of reason.
While themselves causing massive disruption by doing so.
It's become ridiculous.
The advice and support given is full of nonsense - a lot of words which mean nothing.
Some admin(s) have no personal experience with the site's topic.
Condescending, patronizing, parroting "I hear that you feel ______" psychobabble.
Some of the advice is actually harmful.
When people pointed out that danger, they were labeled troublemakers and were suppressed.
And now they're being moderated. Not permitted to post, to speak, without every word being monitored and pre-approved.
Control at all costs!!!!!
People feel they have to walk on eggshells to post there.
Admins shout about triggers while being triggered themselves.
Double-standards abound.
Censor, block, moderate, review, censor, delete, block, filter filter filter.
The truth cannot be changed.
You can delete, censor, filter, bury posts by bumping, but
History cannot be altered.
What happened, happened.
Plenty of people saw it.
Plenty of people know what it was.
Plenty of people have lost all faith, trust or hope in what it once was - and especially in its leader(ship).
Leadership has been replaced by censorship.
Those who stand up are not crazy. They are the sane ones.
Truth.
Clarity.
Voices.

Hear them.

Introduction and Welcome to the Catbox Implosion Blog

2008-10-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to the Catbox Implosion Blog. It's a blog about the catbox implosion. This blog is opinions only, of course. Like most blogs. Please take it with as much salt as you feel necessary.

To view the parable, "The Fall of the Kingdom," please visit http://www.thefallofthekingdom.com/

See other posts for more news.