Question about brainwashing

[Anonymous]

I have a question for all the people out there in cyberspace that actually bought into the Straight way of thinking. I have been reading the posts here for some time and the one thing that struck me as strange was that some people actually believed what they were telling us.

First let me explain I was barely a teenager when I entered like many of you. I hadn't done drugs and had never even had a boyfriend, so when they told me I was on the path of destruction I could never believe them. I did comply and I said all the right things but I never internalized all that mumbo jumbo. I remember once someone told me "I should be glad my parents got me help before I hit my bottom." That was the Straight justification for my lack of drug use. You see they told me given 6 more months on the "street" and I would have prostituted myself for crack. One I had never lived on the street not even one day and as for crack well even to this day I have never even seen it. So my question is how did they get to some of you? I still don't understand how anyone bought the crap they sold. I mean I went along and when I left the program I left the old brainwashing behind. I knew I wasn't on the path to jail or death and even at 14 years old they weren't going to convince me otherwise. So I'm interested in hearing how they got to some of you.

[Anonymous]

The issue wasn't so much brainwashing, but moving on up through the phases to please disappointed parents who we apparently put through hell. Those of us who did do some drugs fell for some of the brainwashing easier than those who did no drugs because we must have screwed up real bad to end up in a place like Straight.

I think we developed split personalities in Straight to be honest. We became superachievers if we complied. Or we became miserable failures if we resisted. Either extreme was not the real us. We were some where in between...human. But what Straight staff member is going to say, "Hey, so you sold your body for some crack rock, people make mistakes, just faggedaboudit!" Right. How else could they get us to feel desperate enough to change without a massive amount of fear and exaggeration.

I did notice that most of those who didn't do drugs didn't ever really believe the hype at all and copped out as soon as they got the chance. We were all secretly glad when they were gone because we didn't have to wrack our brains going over their pitiful Moral Inventories, trying to make sense of their incarceration for them.

"I set a goal to try to have a good day"

"I set a goal to try to understand my oldcomers."

"I set a goal to 'get honest' about my drug list."

Good job, now strip down to your underwear so we can lock ourselves in a room with an alarm from radio shack on the door and get some sleep! Woo-hoo!

[Anonymous]

Well, first I wonder...how long were you in there? I think what happens in straight, is that you at some point just break down, emotionally, and decide to comply. You simply become completely exhausted and give up. Now this means not thinking about running away, not singing old songs, all that stuff. Of course I think now it was truly impossible to not do all this stuff, but its like you develop this part of your brain you just decide is off limits. It doesnt cease to exist, and you know this, but you just dont go into it because then you know you'll have to clear it up. It's much easier that way. Getting yourself back to normal, though, is easier said than done. It's like there's this residual fear lurking around in your brain or something. It is really irrational...so was the program.

[Anonymous]

I was in the program for somewhere around 19 months, and managed to graduate b/c I did what they wanted me to. I never however bought into all the other crap like we were worthless nobody's before Straight, or that Straight alone held the key to life and survival. I said I did but never internalized it. I understand the eventually you just give up idea, but to really believe all that self-hatred work the steps or die BS? That's the part that puzzles me.

Until I found this site I always assumed everyone else was just doing what they had to do to get the heck out of that place also. I didn't think anyone believed it.

[Anonymous]

Well I think what Im saying is that you really give up in the sense that you decide to not let yourself even think about how much you want to get the hell out and how stupid it is, but at the same time, you don't go right ahead and talk yourself out of wanting it, you just decide to *not think about it*. This is what I did. And then eventually, I think you can start to forget that you think one thing and start to think another instead. You keep hearing something over and over and one day you forget what you really think and decide that you actually agree when you really don't.

[taureana]

I was thoroughly convinced.  I went in when I was 17 and had been living on my own since I was 16.  I was working a full time job at Taco Bell by day and getting drunk as a skunk by night.  Every night.

I smoked pot, I did inhalents and I abused OTC's.  I had heard about X and coke but had never seen it.  I thought LSD was a drug used in the 60's and that it wasn't around anymore.  Part of me at the time wanted to stop smoking pot because it was illegal and I didn't want to get busted.  I knew I was a drunk.  I didn't drink like any of my female friends, and I usually drank way more than my male friends.  But, hell, I was a kid that had never been taught how to say no to anything.  I was completely out of control.  I can't honestly say that if someone had offered me cocaine or a needle that I wouldn't have done it.

My dad was an alcoholic and a drug addict and an abuser.  I had witnessed him hit bottom, try to kill my mother, and get sober through AA.  I went to meetings with him when I was a pre-teen.  I went to Al-Anon meetings as well as Al-A-Teen meetings.

So when I went into Straight and they told me that I could never drink again, I believed them.  When they said that if I continued to use drugs I would be on the street again, I believed them.  When they said that it was progressive and I would end up prostituting to support my addiction, I believed them.  I had already had too many instances of leaving parties with someone that I had only met a couple hours before.  And I had never bought drugs because I always wound up "dating" some guy who either dealt drugs or always had a steady supply or supplier.

I was on 4th phase and had signed up for Staff Trainee when I copped out of the program after I turned 18.  But I still honestly believed that Straight saved my life up until this past December.  From reading the posts, and remembering so much repressed crap and talking with other ex-straightlings, I have really had my eyes opened.  Straight didn't save me.  I saved me.  Have I been drug free since then?  No.  But it's not Straight at all that keeps me where I am.  I think it's just maturity and a sense of self worth.  I did not get self worth from Straight.

On my first day there, I saw a 5th phaser that I had gone to school with and known since the 4th grade.  He was no different in Straight than he was in school.  He was still a cocky, arrogant little shit.  And he treated all of the lower phasers the same way he treated the kids that were not in his "in" crowd in school.

I waited for weeks for him to apologize to me for the things that he had said and done to me in school.  After all, we had to make amends, right?  We had to admit to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.  This pathetic piece of crap had slandered me and completely humiliated me before I had ever even thought of using drugs.  When I was just a little girl in Science class.  I was the butt of his jokes and it made all his little groupees laugh.  He commenced, and I never got my apology.  I was not validated.  There was no self-worth in Straight.

I think those of us that were brainwashed so badly were so because of our desire to please others.  I really wanted to prove to my mom that I wasn't a fuck-up and that I wasn't gonna turn out like my dad.  Dead at 42 in a single-car accident with an empty whiskey bottle and a tournicate in the back seat.  I wanted my mom to like me.  I wanted to like me.  Because at that time, I hated me.  One of the best things that I had to do in Straight was to look at myself in the mirror and say "I love you".  Because I didn't love me.

Maybe because my bottom was lower than others, I was more suceptible (sp?) to the brainwashing.  

Sorry about the marathon post.... just a deep subject.

[whiterabbit]

I don't know what your experience was or how long you were there. There may be some explanation there. As for me I was just a kid. My 15th birthday. I'd not done a lot of drugs. Smoked pat, hash,ludes a little alcohol. Not an addict.Not tough or worldly or streetsmart. I remember my first sight of the group- pale faces, sunken eyes, arms flapping, grunting and groaning. I was terrified. And I kept thinking NO they are NOT turning me into one of those. I tried faking it. Ran away twice. Once went to HRS and reported Straight. Damned if that didn't get me in a whole lot of hot water.Refused to comply, spaced out, tried to wait it out. But you know after being on the PB & J diet three times(and note that the pb& j is basically bread & water)after being deprived of sleep, of bathroom privileges, of privacy of safety & security, of being told that I was selfish, worthless powerless & pathetic for a year my brain found a new way out. The brain is funny that way. Store it all away in a locked closet in the back until it is safe to unlock it. Until we're not powerless anymore. And participate. Jump into it full on-shut out everything but this one thing- 7 stepping and staying free until 18. SURVIVE.
Maybe you didn't have the same experiences. Maybe you're immune to brainwashing in a way that the rest of us poor slobs are not. Maybe I was just more vulnerable or you were less so. I don't know. But it is called "brainwashing"for a reason. And I really thought that I left all that thinking behind when I turned 18. That I kept the useful things and dumped everything else.It wasn't until I had a real crisis and started to talking to people about what I felt, thought, how I was coping that I began to realize how much of it was still there.

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?"  
-- Quentin Crisp

[Anonymous]

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[Free Indeed]

Hi there.  My daughter was in Second Chance, a Memphis Christian program that was related to straight.  It left her psyche very damaged and what therapeutic effect it had was very little.  
I can't speak for her, but I think that people can be molded just about any way if they are in an extremely controlled situation.  Couple that with the fact that there is usually at least some truth the accusations the teenager hears.  Yes, my daughter, at 15, was abusing drugs and extremely rebellious, but her acting out was more of a result of screwed up family dynamics (the cause) than her poor decisions (the only way she could deal with the pain at the time.)  

No program can force someone to want something from the inside, and external pressure only works temporarily.  But when teenagers are totally stripped of their voices, they have no choice but to be compliant.

[Anonymous]

How and when did you realize that the program was harmful? My parents are true believers to this day in Straight, though significantly less so and it is NOT talked about anymore. For my folks to acknowledge that they were WRONG for putting me in Straight would cause me to breakdown and cry, but they can't do this or won't. It's become a family shame/weird thing that you don't touch and don't care to anyway. I can't think about that place much without it causing needless pain and confusion in the present. Sorting though it gets complicated because abuse and half truths (like you mentioned) can really warp the mind.

Do you ever talk to your daughter about Second Chance? Do you tell her you are sorry, that it was a mistake? Or was admitting her into SC something you were coerced into or persuaded into by others you trusted? Some people on this site forget sometimes that our parents were also LIED to about our "condition" and tried to make the best decison possible wanting positive change for us. Not that parents are totally innocent, but that they were deceived. My time is up,,, good bye.