Yeah, that's what I was thinking. For some reason, Straight honored my withdraw request and actually had my parents in for a meeting. By that time I was so washed and traumatized I could not make a coherent argument about why they should take me out. For some reason, it did not seem all that bad or abnormal to any of us that I had no bathroom privacy and had to ask to pick everything up in the host home and so on.
I think my mom liked the fact that I was finally docile. I never thought of it that way, but I was raging pissed on my intake, and a week or two later I was self-doubting and no longer forceful and infuriated. What good changes I was making.
Besides that, they sent a third phaser in with me, who later ridiculed me in group. Of course they sent her in on purpose, and of course staff stood me up, and then her up, on purpose. The message was clear: Watch yourself, it is not acceptable that you put in for withdraw. "I thought it was bullshit," said the third phaser. "Okay, thank you," said Staff. I had a seat.
I think it was just after that that Brady Minnick and a fifth phase girl had a two-on-one with me. They told me that even if I tried to leave when I was eighteen, they would get me court-ordered by the pot that was with me on intake. I was naive and stupid. I believed them.
The isolation and fear are very very effective, combined with the intensity of Straight. It was effective in breaking my spirit and my mind in a matter of days.
An HRS number posted on the wall, even a private little telephone booth, that only does as much good as the ability of the person or institution on the other end of the line to read through all the brainwashing, or the ability of a terrorized child to make a phone call and speak about it.
Can you imagine? "Well, it was told to me that -" "Who told you?" "I can't say that." And so on.
I was not getting enough water in Straight, and I did not even know it. I was so pale in August that an outside doctor checked my capillary refill. I didn't know nothin about the law or my own health. I could have died, my parents finally figured that out when I went to the hospital.
Who is Trebach suggesting we be allowed to call, anyway? As if we would not have been monitored, as if this all would not be one more thing to be F.O.S. about, stood up in group about, set back for, and so on. God help you if you were already playing head games, and had a doubt about talking behind backs, you would need the strength of angels to make any phone call that was coherent whatsoever.
"Excuse me, is the child abuse hotline? I'm being brainwashed... yes ma'am, they are using all the classic techniques."
Plus, if I had made a phone call to a lawyer, that is something to get honest about, or be F.O.S. about, and who knows how many lawyers in the area were being greased, who knows what they knew about the judges already, how the whole thing was helped along by big money and politicians, so are you going to get lucky and get the right lawyer on the phone, who will put time and sweat into helping you out of a nightmare?
I think it might be better to have the secret dealings inside the program opened up to outside observation, to independent child abuse experts and experts in coercive persuasion. The secrecy and the hidden dealings allowed Straight to carry on doing what they were doing. Don't expect children to be able to speak up for themselves.
Then again, sorry to be pessimistic, but Straight was opened up more than once to outside observation, scathing reports were written about the nature and specifics of what was happening, but at the same time, as mentioned, many people were getting greased, or else they were lazy, or else it was just another complaint to ignore while pretending not to ignore it.
Beth, Straight Survivor from Springfield, VA, 1987. I will speak to any decent reporters who want to know about the child abuse that Mel Riddile oversaw. Underline decent. Jay, I have no respect for you. You wrote a piss poor article this morning, and I think you know it. By the way, excuse me, but you are a liar. When I called after you wrote the first article to let you know that Riddile worked for Straight, you left a message on my phone asking me if I was sure I had the right guy, and the spelling of Riddile was strange, and you were having the library look into it and so on. You big fat liar. Either you lied this morning in your new little half-assed child abuse apologist write-up on Mel Riddile, in which you state that you did not mention Riddile's Straight career on purpose - allow me to quote you: "In my article, I did not mention Riddile's drug abuse work, both for Fairfax County and then for Straight, because I didn't think it was relevant to the topic" - or you lied to me in your phone message. Sorry Jay, I took good notes. How is anyone going to ever trust what you say again?
