Str8 censored our minds

[Antigen]

On 2005-10-19 10:00:00, Anonymous wrote:

I dont agree with any form of abuse, but in some cases the kid is faced with doing some hard work and he/she is actually running away from themselves and needs a little extra time to get to the next level. Some kids have run away emotionally before they enter the program. Not all kids run because they are being abused by others.

Maybe, sometimes. But most of the time, people who need help and are offered it gladly accept it (real helpful help, not your self serving idea of forced behavior mod as being helpful.

But how do you tell the difference between a kid who's making a mistake by running from good care and a kid who's got damned good reasons to want to escape?

What NCL said is true. When we ran from Straight, most people we may have run into or sought out for help would not even entertain the notion that we had good reasons to run. Just like you, Anon, only it was some years ago and the Program was run under a different corporate logo than the ones you're familiar with. Now, of course, Straight, Inc. is infamous. Now the word is out and most people concede that, given the situation we were in, hitchhiking accross the country or just wandering the seedy side of Balto was pretty well justified. We couldn't go to the cops, the cops would only take us back to our parents. We couldn't got to family, our families had been convinced that we were desperate addicts in need of treatment. We had nowhere to turn because people like YOU keep hawking these rediculous broad-brush notions about teenagers as dangerous and deranged animals that must be dominated and controled.

But you'll see. Eventually, the wheels of justice and the court of public opinion will "discover" that the kids who are running from coercive thought reform programs today have good reasons for doing so. I hope your kids and those who you refer to these hellish places can find it in their hearts to forgive you.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
--Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

[Antigen]

On 2005-10-19 12:26:00, ex-prisoner wrote:

"All my sirens and whistles and bells went off at this part:



"...the kid is faced with doing some hard work and he/she is actually running away from themselves and needs a little extra time to get to the next level. Some kids have run away emotionally before they enter the program."

Yeah, me too. But I think I've acquired the habit of tuning them out in order to be able to tolerate much of the discussion on this topic.

Running away from themselves, huh? Avoiding yourself? Cutting up your arms to deal with the intolerable pain of marijuana withdrawal, huh? (again, anon, sounds rediculous to most people now. Just wait. 20 years from now you'll be ashamed of yourself for believing such obvious bullshit.)

No, I wasn't running away from myself. I was running away from a parent who was a danger to me. I wasn't avoiding myself, I was avoiding other people who treated me badly.

Look, anon, here's a very simple, basic reality check you can do yourself. When the same trouble occures again and again, look to the individuals who have been at the scene of the crime all along. Forget the rediculous notion that you know something about teenagers. Teenagers are individual people. Some are shy, some agressive, some very intelligent and playful, others not so swift and given to a more serious demeanor. Some are honest to a fault, others charismatically desceptive. There is no such thing as The Teenaged Personality®. It doesn't exist. Teenagers are as unique and varied as the rest of us.

So, having taken that myth out of the equation, who seems always to be at the scene of the crime? The kids come and go. Few of them spend more than a year or two mixed up in the industry. It's the adult business owners who repeatedly give the same lame excuses to explain away why one after another after another till we're talking about hundreds or thousands of different individuals have responded in the same ways to THEM.

Yeah, right. They're all stricken w/ the very same nonsensical delusion, running away from what they need the most. Can't possibly be anything wrong with the usual cast of characters from whom they're running, huh?

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die
-- Malachy McCourt

[TheWho]

On 2005-10-19 13:37:00, Antigen wrote:

"

On 2005-10-19 10:00:00, Anonymous wrote:


I dont agree with any form of abuse, but in some cases the kid is faced with doing some hard work and he/she is actually running away from themselves and needs a little extra time to get to the next level. Some kids have run away emotionally before they enter the program. Not all kids run because they are being abused by others.

Maybe, sometimes. But most of the time, people who need help and are offered it gladly accept it (real helpful help, not your self serving idea of forced behavior mod as being helpful.



But how do you tell the difference between a kid who's making a mistake by running from good care and a kid who's got damned good reasons to want to escape?



What NCL said is true. When we ran from Straight, most people we may have run into or sought out for help would not even entertain the notion that we had good reasons to run. Just like you, Anon, only it was some years ago and the Program was run under a different corporate logo than the ones you're familiar with. Now, of course, Straight, Inc. is infamous. Now the word is out and most people concede that, given the situation we were in, hitchhiking accross the country or just wandering the seedy side of Balto was pretty well justified. We couldn't go to the cops, the cops would only take us back to our parents. We couldn't got to family, our families had been convinced that we were desperate addicts in need of treatment. We had nowhere to turn because people like YOU keep hawking these rediculous broad-brush notions about teenagers as dangerous and deranged animals that must be dominated and controled.



But you'll see. Eventually, the wheels of justice and the court of public opinion will "discover" that the kids who are running from coercive thought reform programs today have good reasons for doing so. I hope your kids and those who you refer to these hellish places can find it in their hearts to forgive you.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
--Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist

"

They wont have to forgive me, I never dominated or controled any kids and if someone ran to my house I would listen to their story and take them in.  I had a cousin who ran away and ended up getting raped in NYC, as it turned out she ran away because she was addicted to heroin and felt she couldnt talk to her parents about it.  I knew them and they would have and did support her, and they handled the problem privately at home.  She is fine now and has a family of her own, (she and I argue about programs)

[starry-eyed pirate]

Str8 was an Orwellian mind control cult that was operated by ringwraiths in the shadows, under the guise of a drug treatment facillity.  There was no sign on the front of the commercial building indicating Straight Inc.  They didn' want to be seen.  They are the perpetrators of countless and grievous crimes against children and minors.  Their form of drug treatment was more akin to a mind-rape than some kind of a recovery from drugs.  Runnin'away from str8 was survivin'.  Survivin' a brutal crime.  

Do you know what it's like to be hunted by the law, for bein' a fugitive minor, 'cause your a cop-out from a mind-rape ??  To have to live like a nocturnal animal, for fear of bein' seen by predators ??  To rather suffer the cold and the rain and the hunger, not to mention the despair of that kind of oppression ??  To feel squeezed almost into non-existence ??  

Fuck Str8!!  Fuck the Law!!   :skull:  :skull:  :skull:

[Withdraw]

Straight took so much from us, I can't even begin to  tell of it tonight. The list would be too lenghty and overwhelming. I just know they damaged me forever, in every state of being possible. The worst part was not having an advocate or be allowed to speak with an Attorney when I asked to hundreds of times. Even criminals have that right  :evil:  :evil:  :evil:

[starry-eyed pirate]

We were held against our will in nameless warehouses and made to suffer by authoritarian maniacs.  We had no voice to the world.  No way to call for help.  i remember the feeling well.

Sitting there in group abandoned by parents,  kidnapped by a sick cult and unable to communicate with the outside world.  Foresaken.  Forgotten and keenly alone.  Subjected to the insanity.  Wonderin' how long you could go.  The despair of needin' help and knowin' that there would be none.  The thoughts i never shared.

[Withdraw]

yea, That was one of the very worst de-humanizing part of it all. We couldn't cry out...They made sure there was no one listening  :evil:   :evil:   :cry:

[groovy1634]

On 2005-10-19 10:16:00, Nonconformistlaw wrote:

"Personally,  I think you should be able to write it as many times as you need to Pirate. Sometimes you just need to say it again, and again, and again, etc....right? Yeah I know....Sometimes we just need to be heard...again. I have no problem with that.  ::rainbow:: "

i totally agree.....especially if all of this has been pinned up in your soul for so long...

 :smile:

_________________
MEOW


[ This Message was edited by: groovy1634 on 2005-10-19 20:37 ]

[Anonymous]

On 2005-10-19 19:49:00, starry-eyed pirate wrote:

"We were held against our will in nameless warehouses and made to suffer by authoritarian maniacs.  We had no voice to the world.  No way to call for help.  i remember the feeling well.



Sitting there in group abandoned by parents,  kidnapped by a sick cult and unable to communicate with the outside world.  Foresaken.  Forgotten and keenly alone.  Subjected to the insanity.  Wonderin' how long you could go.  The despair of needin' help and knowin' that there would be none.  The thoughts i never shared."

yeah that's the feeling. I dont think ive ever really put it into words but that's it. feeling trapped, powerless, but it's also a feeling of being forgotten about and abandoned.

 :cry:

[Withdraw]

[ This Message was edited by: Withdraw on 2006-02-28 22:09 ]

[Anonymous]

Withdraw has the insight of a fly.

[Withdraw]

Seeing through so many eyes.. ok, I can handle having the insight. It sure is better than having the insight of "Sybil"

[Anonymous]

yeah but did you read Rabbit, Run?

[starry-eyed pirate]

What happened to That Anon Outlander who presented the opposing view ??  Are you still here ??

[Froderik]

::bump:: ..