MrSmith

Yeah, I haven't heard anything, either.

Alexandra was pregnant at 13 or 15 years old or something. Eventually, she got into drugs and popped out two or three more children with random guys. The last that I knew, custody of her children was with her parents, and her sister Kathryn had started down a similar road.

It's possible, but I don't think so. It would have required putting the parts of the image that are in the foreground (overlapping Jesse) into their own layer, then inserting Jesse in a layer between the original image and the layer created to be the foreground. There would be background to remove from the foreground layer. That would mean editing around Darcey's and her one daughter's hair. Those small hairs that are sticking up off Darcey's ponytail are hard not to screw up. The edge around her daughter's hair that is just in front of Jesse's bicep still looks soft and natural, and that is an area they definitely would have had to retouch no matter how large a section of the picture they took to turn into the foreground layer. Also, the lighting and shadows on him and his shirt look correct, as well. (That room looks lit by pot lights in the ceiling.) She needs to start using ladies Rogaine. She looks like she's got a receding hairline.

Oh, we finally got to watch this episode. That was hilarious watching her squirm. My God! That was some quality entertainment!

Personally, that girl was already only two or three months from being 18. If I had been her parent, I wouldn't have bothered to bring her on Dr Phil. She thinks she's been grown up since she was 11 years old and now she actually is almost grown up (physiologically, anyway); let her suffer the consequences of her life choices. I don't understand why they would want to have to support someone who's decided now that they want to go to school. That bitch is 7 years behind! If she'd listened to what her parents were telling her to do, she'd be just about to complete school and could go do whatever she wants with her life from there. Plus, I can't imagine she's got the intellect required to relatively quickly and easily study for the GED.

I hope you know that there are plenty of people who are not questioning or suspicious of Mimi any more than they are of any of the stories told on this show. Personally, I don't question or doubt any of their stories because I've known for a long time that CoS is a cult and its member are either Chiroptera guano loco, brainwashed, or both. So I can totally believe these stories we're being told on this show without any hesitation.

Two quotes spring to mind.... "Necessity is the mother of invention.", author unknown and "Life will find a way.", Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Not to mention that long distance was not cheap in those days, either. It wasn't until the mid- to late-90's that it started to actually get cheap, what with all those 10-10-xxx (ex: 10-10-811) numbers you could dial to get long distance cheaper. Those started out at around 10 or 15 cents per minute and competition quickly ramped the price down to 5 cents and finally to 2 or 3 cents. By comparison, long distance calling without the use of those numbers was 25 cents or more per minute at first, ended up around 8 to 10 cents per minute, and finally went "free" or "included" once mobile phones really became ubiquitous (for long distance calling) around 2005. We had actually gotten service from Vonage in 2002 with a number that was local to the area we most frequently called long distance; at $25 a month at the time, it was actually still a bargain for us. Source: Me. I worked for GTE/Verizon from 1997 to 2008.

But verbs are an important part of sentences! LOL

This experience amazes me. It's a good thing that stuff like this doesn't happen to me and my wife. My initial responses would have been trying to determine why they're asking me and how that information is relevant to anything. Once that's been ascertained or once they simply exhaust my patience by failing to answer my questions, then my responses would morph into a single response: "None of your fucking business." If I were feeling charitable or simply less hostile toward strangers than usual, then I would have simply responded with "I don't remember."

What my wife and I find amazing about all this is that you see an episode and then think "OK. This is the most depraved that Scientology and its members can possibly be" and then you watch the next episode and they manage to crank the depravity up another notch.

Based on how she conducts herself. She's proud of the fact she gained weight, in spite of her fiancee (and the man she supposedly lurves) wanting her to do the opposite. I mean, if she loved and accepted herself, then she'd be accomplishing more in life than living in Section 8 housing and sponging off her parents. People who have self-confidence and who love and accept themselves conduct themselves differently than the way Nicole does. Her weight is not the only indicator and it's not even the main indicator. Hell, take a look at yourself in comparison to her! Based on what you've written, you have good self-confidence and self-esteem and you accept yourself the way you are. Would you do things the way she's doing them? I very much doubt it. I strongly suspect that if you were planning a trip such as the one she is now on (at this point in the show), you would not have relied on your mother to pack diapers for your two or three year old child. I suspect you would have been much more organized. There's a whole slew of evidence collected on film between this season and last season of 90 Day Fiance that explains my position for me. If you haven't watched last season's 90 Day Fiance, I recommend you do that when you have time.

All he really said was that her issues started before she turned seven, and that seven is just when her parents became aware she was having a problem. It's not that anything traumatic happened to her. But it is true that her mental problems would have started before she turned seven. Take my wife, for example; she is dyslexic. It's not like she was suddenly dyslexic when a teacher noticed it and informed her parents. She'd been dyslexic her entire life, but nobody around her recognized the signs and symptoms. So Danielle was most likely exhibiting some signs of being schizophrenic before seven, and her parents figured it out when she complained about voices in her head urging her to kill people.

Well, the real problem in terms of the 90 days and etc is that these people are supposed to already have been in a long-term relationship and know each other well. So, the 90 days is supposed to be time for the two of you to plan the wedding and execute it. It's not intended for letting people like Nicole, Evelyn, and most of the other morons on this show to bring their fiancees to the US in order for them to get to know their fiancees and find out whether they actually want to marry them. All of that is supposed to already be done and settled before the 90 days even starts.

There. That's better. :D She is definitely someone who does not love and accept herself. I think she is only apathetic and lazy because she does not perceive herself as having any power, influence, or control over what happens to her. She is a bystander and a spectator in her own life. Everything happens to her, rather than things happening because of her. The sad thing is that if she took the time to listen to advice, actually understand it (asking questions whenever necessary, which would be most of the time [at least at the outset]), and then implement it as best she can, then I think she would come to realize very quickly that she can make things happen and steer her own ship. I'm not sure what her parents did that caused her to view herself as being buffeted and steered by the whims of the winds and the tides, but a good guess would be that they didn't ever really let her do things for herself. I suspect they were so afraid she would fail at whatever it is that she tried that they helicopter'd around her and made sure to always rescue victory from the jaws of defeat for her. This kind of parenting quickly creates a child who does the absolute minimum, often tries to redefine what the "absolute minimum" really is, relies on other people for their success, and has no self-confidence and very low self-esteem because they were never allowed to suffer the ignominy of their defeats or to savor the taste of their hard-won victories. By preventing the child from having those experiences, they don't learn what they are personally capable of or that they'll survive their defeats and they don't understand the depth and breadth of the cost of the blood, sweat, and tears required to turn defeat into victory and dreams into reality. Nicole is just not used to having to do things for herself. This is why it was mom's fault that the diapers almost got left behind. Honestly, I'm surprised she didn't berate her mother for "letting" her almost forget the visas (or whatever it was that she almost forgot). Jaundice?

Probably nothing happened to them. They can murder people in the street and claim they were afraid for their lives, even when said murder victim was running away and was unarmed, and they're given a free pass.

We actually felt a bit sorry for that girl by the second half of her show. He tries to tease the horrible thing that happened to her, but when it's a female guest then it's either rape or childhood sexual assault/molestation .... which I suppose is actually a subset of rape since it's forced sexual activity. We've made a game of trying to guess where he's going to send his guests for treatment. We both guessed the Lawliss PNP Center yesterday, and we were both wrong of course. Had I really been thinking, I would have guessed Origins instead because the PNP Center doesn't deal with people who have substance abuse issues. One reason I felt for that girl yesterday is because I understood how she felt when she felt induced to harm herself. I can get stressed and frustrated to the point where my brain physically hurts and it feels like there are a bunch of tiny daggers being driven into my brain. I've learned to manage it without harming myself now, but when I was younger I managed it by harming myself. By comparison, when you're feeling that way, hurting yourself actually feels good. It's definitely a release and I can see where people could become sort of addicted to it. I'm fortunate in that I was always able to reason with myself, even in that state, and didn't hurt myself very often or very badly; I have no physical scars or lasting effects from it. As for him telling her that he understands while other therapists have not, I actually think it's a fair statement in this case on his part. It seems pretty clear to me that previous therapists have not understood it. That may not be those therapists' faults either. It could simply be that she was unable to accurately articulate what is/was going on with her at those times. Perhaps, especially when she was a young child, her parents failed to give the therapist enough information (or perhaps gave inaccurate information). There are a number of reasons why the previous therapists may not have understood and I don't think he was faulting any of them for it, either; I obviously would not. However, I do think he had some understanding of what is/was going on with her based on the information she and her family provided him before coming to do the taping. Clearly, the girl did not feel previous therapists had helped her, which makes his statement that he believes he can help her where they were unable to also accurate. I think he yelled at and got in the girl's father's face to demonstrate the absurdity of the father behaving that way, himself. It's a valid and sometimes effective tactic. And who knows why the father chose that response? Maybe it's the only thing he really knew from all those years in the Marines. Perhaps he'd tried a soft approach earlier in the girl's life and it failed, which led him to decide that getting in her face couldn't work any worse. Whatever his reasons, I think he really needed to be on the receiving end of it to fully understand its absurdity. Anyway, I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong for how you feel about Dr Phil's antics. Just trying to give a different perspective on it. Everything I've thought of could be totally wrong, anyway. There are certainly reasons I have yet to imagine for why all of these people have behaved in the ways they have.

@Anela, I've had that happen, too. I figured out that what you have to do is to grab the quote box you want to delete by it's draggable handle (upper left corner, four-way arrow), and drag it up so there is one line of text below, and then you can delete the quote box. So, just hit enter to create an empty line above the quote box, drag the quote box above that line, put your cursor on the empty line that is now below the quote box and you can backspace to get rid of the quote box. Hope that helps. :)

OK. I have to post this here. I just stumbled across this on YouTube and had to share it. I could swear that some of the patterns in this video are LLR. Enjoy! (Ignore the women in the keyframe. It was the text that made me curious because it made me think of LLR.)

I loved how Evelyn said that if it was God's plan for them to be together, then they might as well get married right away. My response was "Bitch, please. If it's God's plan for you to be together, then that'll be the plan 2 years from now." And there is no way her fiancee is any 24 years old (6 years older than she is, and she's saying she's 18); that guy is rapidly approaching 30 (our guess is 28 to 30 years old). If she believes he's a virgin, she's just being willfully deceived. I think her parents are just going along with this because they recognize their daughter wants to get laid and understand that if they don't go along with this, she'll just move to be with him instead. We are anxiously awaiting the arguments between Azan and Nicole. And we're hoping they lead to the complete collapse of this sham relationship. I both loved and hated how proud Nicole was of her weight gain. I loved it for the inevitable drama it will bring, and I hated it because she's clearly doing it on purpose because she was "told" to lose some weight. So, she put some weight on instead as a "fuck you" to Azan and everyone else telling her she needs to lose weight. Put her in a bonnet and diapers, give her a bottle, and shave her head and she would be nearly indistinguishable from Baby Huey. The guy (David?) who is in Thailand..... heh. I don't even know what to say. How does he expect to provide for her when he's always having to hit his friend up for money? I can't wait until his friend's wife puts a stop to his gravy train. Hopefully she'll do that right at a critical juncture with the Thai lady's family. (Sorry. They're mostly boring and I haven't been able to learn their names, yet.) As for Molly, I'll enjoy watching the crash and burn. So, let her keep doing what she's going to do. Watching the fallout from all of this with her daughter and the rest of her family is going to be fun, too. I think I have enough popcorn popped, but if I run out I'm not against buying it pre-popped in bulk! I disagree. I think putting May (Mae?) on a leash is one of the best decision she's made. We couldn't understand why the kid wasn't on the leash right after they deplaned in Morocco. That would have prevented her from climbing the luggage carousel and putting herself in danger.

Honestly? I think it's just that both their proficiency's in spoken English are deficient, which renders them unable to accurately relay detailed and/or complicated information in this language. I think they would both be capable of relaying this information exactingly accurately, if they were able to do it in Armenian. Also, I loved how their children (one of their daughters) revealed that Peggy did not actually finish her college degree in English. So, she may have majored in English, but she didn't finish her schooling, which makes perfect sense given her poor command of the English language.

I don't buy it, either. However, let's be the devil's advocate for a bit, shall we? Let's assume the cult of Scientology really didn't know what was going on there. If so, that doesn't reduce their culpability. All it does is reveal their lack of oversight of their facilities and employees. Whether they knew or not, they're still responsible and able to be sued. Sure, they could try and hang it around the necks of those who actually worked at the labor camps ranches. I would fucking love to see that in court! You'd have David Miscarriage Miscavige and his cronies trying to shirk blame and responsibility, while the people who actually worked at the labor camps ranches would be testifying that they weren't doing this stuff in a vacuum. It would be courtroom drama gold!

@GHScorpiosRule You make a good point. HR is useful when the company is relatively small and people tend to know each other. Once you're working for a corporation or any other larger company, then you're boned and HR is there to protect the company and doesn't care about the employee.

@bilgistic, @theredhead77 is right times MILLIONS. I can't give her post enough likes, even if I could like it 1/second for 24 hours. HR is there to fuck the employee over and protect the employer. I tried to explain this to MrsSmith before she cracked her left knee cap at work from overwork. She thought I was just a jaded, disillusioned prick at the time because I hated my job, the company I worked for, and the asshole managers that turned it into the eighth circle of Hell. Then she got hurt and discovered that not only did the company not give one single fuck about her, they were actively trying to fuck her over. My initial reaction was a sarcastic shocked face and anger. Do not ever trust HR!

Take comfort. You are not alone. I thought the Dip was a he this entire time, too. To be honest, I'm actually disappointed the Dip is a she. LOL. Must say something about me, too! At least you know it's not necessarily a sexist thing. LOL I disagree with your sister. You don't owe that place jack shit. I would absolutely negotiate for the approved unemployment claim. If the HR rep balks, I'd just straight up tell her that you tried for years to get things to change while you were working there. Now that you're not, there's no benefit to you to discuss it with anyone and the mere fact she's even bringing this up forces you to relive it and subjects you to the stress and trauma all over again. So unless they're willing to make it worth your while, they can all fuck right off and figure out what's wrong with their company on their own. After all, it really shouldn't be that fucking hard to figure it out. All they really need to do is open their damn eyes and take an objective look around at how they treat people. Fuck the HR rep and the horse she rode in on, I say.