That's what really sucks. If you're not screwed up before you went in, you sure as hell will be when you get out. If a kid with real issues goes in, its worse.
I wasn't an out of control kid. I was very shy and incredibly insecure. My parents were busy with their own marital problems and I was kinda just ignored. There wasn't a whole lot of time spent teaching me about life. I was an only child and incredibly lonely. We were three strangers all living together. When things were really bad, my mom would move into the back bedroom. That put my room right in the middle of them. I would listen to my mom cry herself to sleep everynight. My father could be a cruel bastard. Never physically, always emotionally. He would just shut down and not speak to us for weeks. Seriously, weeks on end. It was awful how quiet that house was. An it wasn't like he was interested in actually helping me, just how my behavior reflected on him. If my grades slipped, I was grounded until they came up. No help or instruction, just "buckle down". I was grounded for an entire year once. I think subconsciously I purposely just did nothing. I couldn't argue with him, I had no way to rebel or assert my own mind or will. So I just sat there. Did that in the program too. I never fought, I was too terrified. I just sat there, doing nothing. For 8 months on first phase. The first time.
Its like I was this empty space before I came in. You could wind me up and point me in the direction you wanted me to go and off I'd be. I had no idea who I was. I just sort of existed. Don't get me wrong, high school was a great time. Until I got yanked. I felt like I finally had people that were interested in me and what I thought and felt. It took 3 years in a public school (grades 1 - 8 were at an Episcopalian school, not that we were religious, daddy didn't want his little girl bussed to the 'south side') for me to begin to, for lack of a better phrase, form a personality. Just when I was starting to feel a part of things, just when I felt like I mattered and belonged, BAM. I'm yanked out of my life and locked up.
I was in a state of shock for a long time. I mean, I knew what Straight was. I grew up in St. Pete. I had heard the horror stories and I was about to find out that they were just the tip of the iceberg. The best way I can think to describe what I felt like they did is this. Its like someone takes an egg scrambler to your mind and your psyche. The kids who have issues before coming in seem to get it worse. They find your weakness and expose it and use it. And they're good at it too. Emotional evisceration.
