Anon said that you are here because you are looking for answers. This is true. Why did this happen to us? Most likely because we were teens who were a bit more rebellious in combination with other things (I'm ADHD) than our parents were ready or capable of handling. Some parents were less capable than others. Our parents were sold this dream that if they put us in straight we'd come out the children they always wanted. Strong, proud, patriotic law abiding citizens. Then, once they had bought into this dream, they were told that if we said anything bad about straight, we were simply "druggie" liars still caught up in our "disease." The parents still had the dream and no one would back us up, because part of moving on was invokeing the fight or flight response which insured an every man for himself self preservation reaction. To have someone back me on what I was saying would be for them to invite their own demise. I know, for me once I was on 4th and 5th, I could not have gone back through the program and would do anything to keep from being started over. I just couldn't have done first again.
When all the programming I had recieved in that place began to unravel, I started going through the same things that you are talking about. I thought about suicide long and often. In the back of my head the little voice kept telling me that was not the answer. I had been to a counselor before straight and gave him a call. I made an appointment and while I didn't talk about my experiences in straight (it was still quite some time before I made that connection) I talked about everything else I had fears and doubts about. I thought I was completly off my rocker. When I get really stressed, there is this thing that occurs. When I am trying to go to sleep I get what I call loud thoughts. It is like someone yells inside my head. Needless to say I nearly jump out of my skin when it happens. Bizzare, huh? From what I understand this is something that can occur with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrone. Hmmmm, straight->PTSD, who would have thought it?
I, like you, was also on staff. While I do carry some guilt for this I think it may be like the guilt I carred for fucking up the lives of my druggie friends. Pure hubris. Damn near all of the people I hung around with are very successful business people or have post graduate degrees and that kind of thing. Same thing with phasers I was close to while on staff. One of them just got into med school and so forth. Why do I think this way? Because that place taught me to think that way. It is flawed! It places me in the position of God, whom I am not.
The last thing is that you sound quite depressed. You might want to see a physician and see about a serotonin uptake inhibitor. It is an anti-depressent that blocks the serotonin receptor on the dendrite or axion, I can't remember which. They take about two-weeks to reach full effectiveness, but give you the ability to look at facts much more objectively while preventing the "I'm a complete failure," thinking from taking over the process.
Just my two cents.
Clay
