Just because I needed to

[Anonymous]

2/10

[Anonymous]

I tried to intervene, I offered to let him live with me but he refused.
All that matters to him are his friends and these aren?t the type of friends you hoped your child would choose, thieves and druggies who are or have been in jail.

The parents tried to help him at home for at least three years before they sent him away.  He was told what the consequences to his actions would be and he just doesn?t seem to care.

?The child isn?t functioning because he is too mentally ill to function.?

How do you reach someone who doesn?t seem to want to be reached?

Ok well, I dont know if you are real are not. But if you are interested in my advice as a former program kid...(and a damaged on at that)

The boy for lack of a better metaphor has been given a stroke by program. It makes no sense to send him back to make the stroke damage worse, of course.

Id like u to look at your wording. saying program is a "consequance". Real help is not a punishment. The problem with programmers is that they get you to confuse these notions. Punishment hurts it does not help.

You are trying to stop a behavior through punishment and this has nothing to do with meeting the boys needs but to get him to meet the parents desires


I sugges that you guys stop focusing on his behaviors and start focusing on his psche-spirit, the things that everyone is suposedly concerned about. Direct him to this website. The way to "healing" is understanding. You have to know what happened before u can start doing it.

Get him to go the police about what was done to him. Having to accept kidnapping and torture as something that "is for your own good and part of life" is very damaging to the pysche. In asstering himself against his abusers he wont sublimate his rage agasint himself or other innapropriate targets. He will regain self respect and a feeling that the world is worth living in. Get a lawyer. Get his advice about getting the police to take action, and suing. Help him get justice.

Talk to him without mention of changing his behavior becasue his behavior really isnt imortant - its his soul. Promise him if he comes live with yuo he wil NEVER be sent to program and u'll help him get justice. Tell him u understand what was done to him was evil. And you want to give him a safe repectful place to live where he can go about seeking redress.

As for his long term healing thats more complicated. He should be educated about abuse and brainwashing. So he can "think" his way around what was done to him. I think new ior intensified nterests in drugs are entirely based in program who indoctinate kids minds with drug lore 24/7. They are forced t to accept drug user as their identiy. They accept this idenity and interact through it with the world as they see it as their only way to recive love/freindship. Similarly if you kidnapped a boy and forced him to beleive he was a girl he'd emerge and interact with the world from a "girl" standpoint.

Education is the only way around this. Let him stay with his freinds. Its no big deal. It always shocks me that parents spend 100s of thousands of dollars trying to get their kids to beleive they are druggie criminals and then are SHOCKED when they make freinds with druggie criminals..after all these are their "peers" now.
These kids and their emotional darkness, sorrow, fear, lonliness, rage, hate are whom the kid relates to for obvious reasons He has the same feelings and background. They went to public prison. He went to a worse private prison.

So let him stay at your house. Dont make any rules , excpet obvious ones relating to violence against you. Nurture, dont control. Let him reassert "control" over his life as it has been quite unethically taken from him. It is the only way it will work out Everyone has a natural desire to happy and sucessful- if u dont beat it out of them. Through nurtuing, understanding, not punishing and hurting that will reestablish itself

[Antigen]

Wow! Sorry if I was a little sharp toward you earlier. Last posted anon (well, unless someone's posting right now) gave some good advice. If this kid isn't in touch w/ anybody in a similar situation, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea for him to seek out some contacts like that. It's been over 20 years for me but I'll try and give you some better idea of what might be going on there based on my own experience.  

?Just put yourself in his shoes and see what the world looks like from there.?

I?m trying to put myself in his shoes and I can?t understand why he won?t follow a few simple rules. 1. Get your GED(it would only take about 2 months) 2. Be respectful to people 3. Clean up your own mess when you make it. 4- Be home on time 5-Stay off drugs. He did get a job though.

I had a very hard time at first w/ being radically impulsive at turns and neurotically regimented at others. I was not used to having any choices or the need to plan anything. Everything was either mandatory or forbidden or explicitly instructed. Nobody told me explicitly not to accept a date with the 30yo dude to go play pac man and hang out at the bar. It was Georgia, I was 17, the underage drinking laws were just blue laws in that place and time, where's the harm? But it freaked my brother and his wife right the hell out. Of course! And they were both Seed graduates, she having been on staff for awhile. So they treated every odd or unsettling behavior as evidence of drug addiction (cause that was their thing in the Seed and Straight) and not, as they should have but could not, as evidence of how the program tends to mess up your thinking. Though they had moved on w/ their lives and no longer held themselves to those rigid standards of behavior, somehow I was different because I had split the program and was supposed to goose-step in time like a super Seedling to prove how incredibly straight I was. I could not do that. It was all I could do to keep my act together enough to get to and from work and I had missed out on learning all of the normal social skills and codes. I had been cloistered in a twilight zone environment where smiling at the wrong person at the wrong time was right justification for a good ass kicking. I knew how to function there, I had to learn that to survive. I had no clue how to function in the real world.

If I had had ANY group of friends to fall back in with, I would have been there yesterday! You're not going to get this kid to give up on that kind of outside support.

?If all the adults in his life are sending him the message that his brain could use a little more washing then I don't blame him for being shitty to the whole lot of you.?

Perfectly said. I?m sure that?s a big part of where his head is at ? unfortunately his parents aren?t willing to put up with it. I was hoping to convince him that it would be much easier to follow the rules for the next 9 months until he turns eighteen then it would be to go back to a TBS. Maybe I?m wrong in my thinking but it just seems like the logical choice and that it shouldn?t be that hard. If you feel that I?m wrong in my thinking PLEASE make suggestions.

?(though I suspect the term as used here is an expansive, emotional ploy to describe taking the rents' car out w/o permission)?
You are correct but he doesn?t have a drivers license and the parents are very concerned about their liability if something happens.

Well, that's just not criminal behavior. When I got my dad's car stuck in the sand and he reported it stolen, the local cop took him aside and told him "John, it was your kid, not some nigger or even the bad kid next door. It was your kid, go talk to her." but the cop wouldn't have known that Seed parents tend to over-react to such things.

This kid needs to find a safe place to live for the next few months, away from his parents, they're not going to be reasonable. He needs to be allowed to sort his own head out some. He'll figure out the friends. And please bear in mind that, w/ the way you characterized the "car theft", you might not be getting the whole, unvarnished truth about the friends, either. Drug dealers? Really? I always take that w/ a grain of salt wrt teenagers too. Very rarely do you run across a teenaged gang thug, especially one who's parents fit the demographic for these programs. More often, they're just acquiring for their own use and curiosity, which usually passes w/ maturity unless some well intended do gooder screws up the kid's future w/ psyche commitments and criminal a record before they have a chance.

[nimdA]

ginger you are my hero.  ::heart::

[Antigen]

Aw! Now see how sweet you can be?   ::dove::  ::kiss:: ::rainbow::  ::cheers::  Peace, Love and Happiness, and lots of good cheer to ya, burthuh!

[Oz girl]

I have noticed at times with some parents that the definition of thief and drug dealer can be pretty fast and loose. Isnt every kid who knows some one who can give them and all their mates a bag technically a dealer?
I have 3 brothers one of whom was a total goody 2 shoes. All 3 at some point before legal driving age "stole" dad's midlife crisis car and got in the shit with him when busted. One waseven caught red handed by the cops.
Do parents define things so strictly because the law does and their kid is likely to get in real legal trouble or is it a minority of people?

[Antigen]

Well, really it depends on the parents and their level of gullibility. You're right. If I'm headed to the store and I pass my neighbor who asks me to pick him up a loaf of bread while I'm there, by Program parent standards, the law and law enforcement operating procedure (crafted over decades by none other than the Semblers and their equally hysterical cronies) that would make me a bread distributor.

That's what's so damned frustrating about this whole thing, at least for me on a personal level. When I was a kid, our family's involvement w/ the cult made us outcasts in the neighborhood and schools. I didn't think I had any obligation beyond just knowing better than to ever put my own kids through this bullshit. But it seems that the crazies really have taken over the asylum so that now my kids are subject to this zero tolerance, zero thought bullshit at school and in public and the industry loonies think they're in the majority. But it's a contrived consensus. Here's just one well researched example of how they have accomplished this.

Prime-time propaganda
How the White House secretly hooked network TV on its anti-drug message: A Salon special report.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Daniel Forbes
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs/

Oh, and btw, also a cautionary tale for all those who think the whole thing is strictly the domain of Repugnican lunacy. Don't think that the Dempublicans will save us all. In many ways they're worse than the Repugnicans because people don't suspect them so they get away w/ even more. That Jimmy Stewart charm school graduate pictured above is Bill Clinton's cabinet level advisor on drug policy (head of ONDCP). He is the first ever non medical doctor appointed to that office. His prior gig was as commander of SOCOM, which dream job he landed after having established a particularly savage reputation during Papa Bush's Gulf War One.

[Anonymous]

"saying program is a "consequance". Real help is not a punishment. The problem with programmers is that they get you to confuse these notions. Punishment hurts it does not help."

They tried to help before they sent him away the first time.
How do you help someone who doesn't want Help?

"I had no clue how to function in the real world".

THis was one of many arguments I used to help get him out before

I kind of feel like this is a vicious circle, I understand that TBS is way to radical of an approach but there has to be something.
I don't think it's right to just let a kid do whatever they want, there has to be some kind of boundries.

Thanks everyone for the input.

I kind of feel like i'm not making any forward progress today.  
 

[Karass]

I have noticed at times with some parents that the definition of thief and drug dealer can be pretty fast and loose. Isnt every kid who knows some one who can give them and all their mates a bag technically a dealer?
I have 3 brothers one of whom was a total goody 2 shoes. All 3 at some point before legal driving age "stole" dad's midlife crisis car and got in the shit with him when busted. One waseven caught red handed by the cops.
Do parents define things so strictly because the law does and their kid is likely to get in real legal trouble or is it a minority of people?

First, I want to say that even though I think some drugs and some drug habits are potentially dangerous, I think the #1 problem with illegal drugs is that they're illegal, not that they're drugs. We live in a police state, and "zero tolerance" is terrifying to many parents.

Our kids don't have the luxuries we had as teens of making a few mistakes, doing stupid and potentially harmful shit, and then growing up and out of it to become productive, responsible citizens. For them, the wrong mistake at the wrong time and place can be hugely devastating to their future chances for happiness, success (however they define that) and personal freedom.

Who knows how the majority or a minority of parents define stealing and dealing, but in most US states, the law is very harsh on dealing -- and like Ginger said with her loaf of bread example, the law doesn't distinguish between friends keeping each other from running out and a real drug trafficker who's in it for the money.

Is it a "fast and loose" definition if, say, a kid has a seriously expensive habit and he deals just to keep his personal use costs down? He's not exactly doing it for the money, but he's not just helping friends either -- he's just taking his profits in drugs instead of cash. Again, the law doesn't give him any special treatment.

Definition of a thief? I think that one is a lot easier for most people, even for most parents. Stealing someone else's property and selling, trading or using it for personal gain is pretty much stealing by most people's definition. Your brothers didn't "steal" your dad's car (although arguably they stole some gas) -- they just borrowed the car and went joy-riding. If instead of bringing the car home, one of them sold it and came home with a couple ounces of coke and no car, that would be stealing -- which would probably be followed by dealing, given that much blow.

[Antigen]

They tried to help before they sent him away the first time.
How do you help someone who doesn't want Help?

Oh, that's easy. You just have to break them first. Trouble is no one on this planet knows how to build a human being so it's a very, very bad idea to intentional break them. But that is what the industry has to offer.

"I had no clue how to function in the real world".

THis was one of many arguments I used to help get him out before

I kind of feel like this is a vicious circle, I understand that TBS is way to radical of an approach but there has to be something.
I don't think it's right to just let a kid do whatever they want, there has to be some kind of boundries.

Thanks everyone for the input.

I kind of feel like i'm not making any forward progress today.

I'm sorry you're feeling discouraged and I don't have any brilliant, authoratative sure fire alternative solution for you. There are a whole lot of things we simply cannot cure or fix reliably, and kids making wrong turns (or, maybe, often, relatively innocuous mistakes that scare the shit out of their parents) is definitely one of them. Think about this in a broader perspective. Samuel Clemens, at the age of 12, took the opportunity while minding the family business to switch out the ordered copy for practical jokes. Think of the liability! The oppositional, defiant little shit could have sunk the family business. Good damned thing his people were not hooked into whatever Victorian era program like cures and nostrums were offering at the time.

The industry plays on hysteria; "He's going to diiiiiiiieeeeee! If you don't do something, fast!" This is plain bullshit. A more reasoned, level headed view is that life on this planet is sometimes dangerous and growing up is wrought with risks and trouble. There is no better way offering than just to stick by your family unconditionally and roll with it.  They're selling a fiction and it's a cruel joke. Unfortunately, once people become convinced that they've found the magical snake oil to cure what scares them it's very, very difficult to make them understand that there is no such thing. It's a cruel joke.

But, more to the point, from what you've described, this kid's parents are a direct and immediate danger to his safety and his very life. You might want to consider getting the juvenile courts involved to proactively prevent the parents for whippin' a little more cure on him. But if they're living in the same area you are (sorry, I peeked at your logging inf) the whole state is pretty well owned by program interests, so it might not be out of line to suggest that the kid hit up his friends and see if they can find him safe lodging somewhere till he reaches the age of majority.

[Antigen]

Rebel, Jerry Epstine put it best, I think. There is no drug so dangerous that it cannot be made more so through prohibition.

[Anonymous]

Antigen's Ghost

You seem to have an amazing ability to put into words issues I'm still trying to figure out in my own head.

"You might want to consider getting the juvenile courts involved"
I'd be scared that I would be cut off completely, like I said earlier I'm walking a fine line here.

"(sorry, I peeked at your logging inf)"  How did you do that?
Seriously  though I didn't vote for our current governor based solely
on his ties to the TBS industry. I learned that information from this web site.

Again I have more to say to your responses though I don't have the time right now to go on but please hang in here with me I will be back.

[exhausted]

He?s been to therapists locally before he was sent away the first time.
He refuses to see a therapist now because he says he has nothing to say.

I?ve talked to him alone and he says he?s sick of talking and that everything is fine.
?Just leave me alone?

I went to his house today to see his behavior and he acted like a shit head.
I think part of his issue is that he has no respect for anyone.

They?ve tried the consequences for his actions but he basically says
YOU CAN?T MAKE ME?  and he?s right.

I can understand understand why his parents want to send him away,
He treats them worse than dirt

But being that I don?t believe in these programs can a former programmie
Or anyone suggest something else to try.

I have been/am EXACTLY where you are x3

No you can't make him do anything, tell him you don't want to make him, that is the last thing you want him to do, the whole idea is that he wants to do something about it

All i can offer you is what I did, I decided not to send my kids to a program, even though it meant hell for me, I stood back and observed what I was doing as a parent and what they were doing as people, it took alot for me to realise that these kids are people and i have no right to make their life choices ofr them, it's down to them what they want to do for a living, whether they want to follow a criminal path etc etc, nearly immediately after stepping back and letting them know I didn't intend to screw out at them, but armed them with all the information i could muster, I gave them their weapons, then I let them out to survve, they knew the consequences, they knew they were not my consequences and I would not accept any responsibility for anything that came of bad choices made by them - they started to trust me, they started to respect me, they started to come to me with problems - why? probably because they knew for starters I wasn't going to freak out, or try to control them, but they also knew it might be worth getting some more info from me before doing anything they may regret

The bad choices still happen, it's not a magic cure, but the good ones far outweigh the bad, this could be because the responsibility i theirs alone, it could be that they are seeing me as someone other than the enemy, more likely it's because they don't wind me up anymore and therefore it's no fun, I don't really care what their reasoning is, al i know is that I have loving kids who are working really hard on finding themselves as peple, rather than controlled (or rather me trying to control them) robots who just did everything behind my back, we really are a much happier family because I was able to look at myself and realise where I was going wrong rather than point the finger at them the whole time

Eldest son starts college on Monday - he is 20, up to now he's wanted to do nothing but go to jail and generally waste his life, you have no idea how hard its been for him to wake up and want more for himself than that, but he did it and I am so proud of him for wanting to change things - it took guts for him to admit his failings as it did me.

I hope you can gain something from this, really, trying to control him is not going to work, encouraging him to want to control his own destiny could do the trick

I still want to murder them at times, but to date it has been 2 months since I've had the police/neighbours/other irate persons on my doorstep - as opposed to 1 - 2 times daily, I think that kind of tells it's own story

[Anonymous]

exhausted,

Thanks for sharing your story, and it's great advice!
 I'm sure it was a very difficult thing to do and I'm glad to hear it's turning around for you and your family.

Would you mind clarifying a few details for me?

 "letting them know I didn't intend to screw out at them, but armed them with all the information i could muster, I gave them their weapons, then I let them out to survive"

What kind of information and weapons?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

9mm Sig Sauer