On 2006-03-01 16:35:00, Aunt Shelly wrote:
"I don't know it all. But I do know things regarding this situation that you don't. I am 44."
Funny, but that's what my friend's mother said when they sent *her* away to one of these places.
She's out now, and emphatic that it was a horrible misjudgment on the part of her mom to go along with her stepdad and send her there. She's emphatic that she and everyone else was mistreated there. She's grateful that people didn't forget her while she was in there, that people told her mother what an idiot she was being to her face, she's grateful that people who knew what really goes on in those places spoke up for her when she was locked away and couldn't speak up for herself.
She's also grateful that she can know her experience helped get at least one other kid rescued by motivating her friends to become aware of the issue and involved in persuading parents of how stupid it is to send their kids to these hellholes.
While she was gone, people were saying, "Yeah, what if she gets out and says it was fine. She says she's doing just fine now. She's not going to thank all these people for getting in her business and telling her personal business all over the internet."
Well, it wasn't fine, and she was only saying she was fine because they'd hurt her worse if she didn't and she was *grateful* people didn't forget her and were getting her story out there. Grateful.
So I've been through this before. And the place she was sent was a hellhole, but it wasn't nearly as bad a hellhole as the people who've been in Spring Creek say it is. Her hellhole had no nut to butt walking everywhere, and no hobbit, and better protection from the weather at least most of the time.
Don't kid yourself. You may not be able to get him out, but the place isn't fine, Alex isn't fine, and the people he's going to be most thankful for when he gets out are Ashley and her mom for kicking up a fuss and not letting him be forgotten while he was gone, and for being a voice for him by proxy while he can't use his own to speak the truth about what is happening to him.
Although, like others, he may or may not be drinking the kool-aid for a little while after he gets out, until he gets confident he's safe and financially independent from his parents and can't be sent back either directly forcibly or by "intervention" manipulations. Once he's sure he's safe, he's going to be just like I said.
The one thing you could be, and should be, doing differently is depriving the parents of all moral support and sanction for what they're doing. You should be telling them he's being abused, that keeping him there is a gross error of judgment on their part, and that yes, they are being absolutely horrible parents right now.
You should stand up for Alex even if it has no tangible effect now, because when he gets out, it will mean the world to him that you did. You should do this even if telling his parents a straight no-shitter and refusing to give them acceptance and moral sanction for their bad acts estranges you from them.
You should be the voice for Alex to tell his parents what they don't want to hear, the things that he *can't* tell him, to be his voice now, while he doesn't have one himself.
That's what you could do, and should do, that you aren't doing, and that's why you're catching crap from everybody here.
You have the power to be his voice to his parents. You may not see the use in it, but it will mean the world to him when he finds out you did. It will tangibly help him when he gets out, because it will help to rebuild his trust in the world that not all people are as destructively gullible as his parents.
Kids come out of these places with their trust in their parents' judgment irretrievably shattered. They also come out with a lot of their trust in the rest of the world shattered, frequently irretrivably, that this kind of thing can happen in the world.
You can speed his recovery from the trauma, once he gets out, by giving him a foundation he can build on to restore his trust in the rest of the world so that he won't think trying to make something of himself is useless, pointless, and doomed to failure.
You can't get him out, but you aren't doing even what you could do, and that's why you deserve a lot of the crap you're catching.
His own voice has been stolen for him. You could give him back some of what is being stolen by being a voice for him, but for your own selfish reasons of not rocking the boat that much with your sister and brother-in-law, you won't.
As for why you're still here talking to everyone else, that's obvious. You feel guilty and conflicted for *not* being his voice, like you know you should, so you're seeking moral sanction from us. You want us to sympathize with you and by sympathizing with you to say that it's okay for you to fail to acknowledge what's being done to him and be a steadfast voice for Alex.
It's not okay.
Part of what you're doing staying here and talking to us is flagellating yourself over those guilty feelings and wallowing in self pity, because punishing yourself like this is easier than doing the right thing.
You know what you're doing by keeping your mouth shut and only timidly criticizing his parents to their face is wrong, it's cowardly, it's the easy way out. You know it.
You'd just rather go round and round with us seeking, if not our approval, at least for us to give you some kind of permission for what you're doing by sympathizing with you.
No.
Alex needs you to be his voice to his parents saying that what they're doing is *not* okay, and you're failing him.
That's horrible, and you get no sympathy from me for it.
Go do the right thing, and then I'll be glad to sympathize with you when his parents stop talking to you.
Stop being part of their moral support, even if only lukewarm moral support, for this horrible choice they've made and are continuing to make over and over again every single day when they get up in the morning and decide to leave him there one more day.
You're doing the wrong thing every day you get up and decide not to give your sister a real no-shitter about how rotten she's being. She may not usually be a rotten person, but she's being one right now. And every day you don't tell her, you're doing the wrong thing all over again.
No sympathy.
Julie
