SUICIDE

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of any suicides of Pathway clients?

[Anonymous]

There was last week

[Anonymous]

How dare you!  Don't lower yourself to this level.

[Anonymous]

No lets not talk about suicide and why people kill themselves, lets keep it a secret. Lets not help them face that wanting to die and feel why  they do and overcome it.  It was an horrendous thing and I know how it feels and am overcoming it. PATHWAY DIDN'T HELP!!!!

[Anonymous]

I sure hope you get the help you need.

[METALGOD8]

I am saddened to hear about this most unfortunate event. For people in the immediate family and for fellow clients that knew each other, I offer my sympathy.
I am also offering hope, that this program and it's modality will be forever banned. No children should ever be exposed to this type of treatment, EVER! I am very upset that more children are dying as this program marches on, like some kind of machine. While most of us cannot understand everything that goes on inside someone's head and why they chose to end their life, there is always a chance that something could have been done to help long before this happened.

In my opinion, I believe parents who seek treatment by companies that use this STRAIGHT, INC. modality should REFRAIN from doing so, and parents of children in programs using these methods should remove them NOW!  :smokin:

[SurvivorEMSR]

My sympathies go out to the family and friends of this girl.

I think it's horrible that she didn't get the treatment that she needed in Pathway. Aren't there therapists that specialize in dealing with suicidal kids? I'm pretty sure there are none at PFC.

Pathway, you need to stop convincing parents that their childrens' main problem is drugs. You are preventing these kids from getting the real help that they need. Can't you see that?

I'm sorry if some people on this site think that this topic is taboo. I think it NEEDS to be discussed! If we remain quiet about this unfortunate incident, NOTHING WILL BE DONE! Thank you for listening. EMSR

[Antigen]

To all the program supporters, let me let you in on a little secret. With very few exceptions, all of us have been where you are. We believed that the program was the way, the truth and the light and that Christ himself would be motivating like a seagul on acid if he were there. I understand completely how you can think that all program critics are evil, hateful or operating from some impure motive because I used to believe the same thing... sort of.

I know a few other things that must necessarily be true by extension. In all liklihood, you hated putting your kids in or, as a client, doing all the things that oldcomers are required to do to newcomers and other fellow inmates. You've probably told little white lies, broken laws and acted against your gut instinct and better judgement, all for the higher purpose of getting kids straight.

You've got a lot hanging on that moral imperative. But, like a hooker who refuses to see that the love of her life has become her pimp, it won't get any better by plugging your ears and chanting "LALALALALALA!" to drown out the facts that you know to be true. The sooner you come to terms with what you're a part of, the better for everyone involved.

To go to Journal of Applied Polymer Science go to http://www3.interscience.wiley.com and then journal search and put the journal number and year
-- Journal of Applied Polymer Science  Vol. 47, 1984

[Anonymous]

What is Pathway saying about this suicide? Is there any way we can get this in the paper?

[Anonymous]

i was in the program when she graduated and when she died. She made her own decisions..i dont realy undestand how PFC can be blamed for her death..anyway...as a graduate of the program, its kind of disturbing to read all this shit. i dont nkow what is true. i dont know what isnt true. i do know what happened to me. Not a damn thing. I had no problems with staff. i feel realy close to staff. i konw of clients that did basicly get fucked over by staff.i dont believe everyone in pfc is an addict. i do think pathway can help anyone that wants the help. Pathway didnt "save" me. but i am grateful for the program. would i go back? hell fucking no. but i'm gratfeul for where i am today and i dont think i would be if i hadnt gone to pathway. would i have died using drugs? i dont know..so..anyway..why cant you people just let things be? in a year in pathway i never saw any abuse..we now do "carefronting"..personally i think its bullshit because its easy. all the abuse and whatnot you talk about does not go on there and if it does it didnt for me, and me is really all i have to worry abuot

[Antigen]

The reason why people suspect that these programs might be contributing to suicides is because a whole lot of former clients have attempted or completed suicide.

I didn't see what happened to me as abuse either. Even when 4 or 5 girls were sitting on me or when I spent a few hours in timeout getting yelled at, punched and shoved around. I saw it as something I brought on myself. After all, I could have just lied and said I was sorry for having run away, that I was grateful to be back in group and that I was a druggieinneedoftreatment, just as I was told to. Instead, I decided to be a smart ass, knowing what would happen, and just said I couldn't say those things because they weren't honest.

Now, in the real world, if someone beats hell out of you like that for refusing to say something you don't want to say and know is a lie, well that's agrivated assault. But back then, having spent years in an environment that operated on a different morality, I didn't see it. Wasn't till years later, in fact, that I ever thought about it and realized what a sucker I'd been.

None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.
-- John Muir

[Anonymous]

well i'm sorry that shit happened to you, seriously that is pretty fucked up. but i never saw that happen, the only time i saw sumone restrained is when the client attacked staff. did staff deserve it? maybe...but that doesnt give the client the right to do that. i think a lot of what happens at PFC is bullshit. but it helps a lot of people as well...i hope if that type of shit is still going on that sumone would  speak up...i would have and i know most all the current clients would.

[Antigen]

Well, it's a fine line. If someone attacks you and you don't want to injur them or anything, naturally the responsible thing to do is to restrain them safely till they calm down.

But if the staff and group and parents have antagonized the kid for the purpose of drawing a hostile response, that's entirely different. That's what the Program is essentially all about. They take kids who don't think they need help in changing who they are and keep them under pretty nearly unbearable psychological pressure till they lose their temper. Then they respond to that along the lines of "See there? We told you you were a violent psycho! And just look, you tried to hit somebody! And, after all, we're only trying to help you, you ungrateful piece of shit!"

The very basis of the program has a few problems. One, they start out from the premis that the kid has the problem(s) they think they do and then set about convincing them of it. What if they're wrong? What if the kid hasn't got any serious problems, except for over-worried parents? That alone is enough to drive a kid over the edge.

That's an awful lot of power to entrust with anyone, let alone the majority peer staff. Sometimes, the power goes to their heads and they take a sadistic pleasure in inflicting emotional pain on the other clients. (really, when it comes down to it, staff is just another, higher phase in the Program, after all) But there are no witnesses outside of group. And if anyone tries to tell their parents or an outsider when (not if) things go wrong, by rule they're lying, manipulating and subject to a startover.

In a nutshell, there's only one way to make someone change against their will. You have to break their will. Regardless of how worth it some people might think the process is, it's always damaging to begin with.

When he [Califano] claims that the voters of Arizona and California did not know what they were voting for when they supported the two initiatives, he reminds me of the way Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic reacted to recent election results in that country.
-- George Soros -- Sunday, February 2 1997; Page C01 The Washington Post

[Anonymous]

You mean you weren't denied communication with your parents? That is abuse.  You weren't in homes that were not certified to be foster homes?
You weren't denied access to a phone? How is carefront any different than confront except in the spelling.  You were never stood up and humiliated in front of people?  You weren't armed and watched in the bathroom?  Your staff included other graduates including Vickys daughter who is head of the aftercare who have no education or degree.  Did you ever talk about suicide and why people do that?  To get a better understanding?
You weren't having to sleep with others that scared you?  Do you have nightmares and wake up sweating or in terror?   The reason they keep kids so long is so the brainwashing stays.  A few months should be plenty.  Too many kids get out with this anger and rage of "I want to drug and can't attitude".  Never learning for themselves,only what was beaten in them in the program.

[dopesickkid]

I also was in the program when this girl same in and when she graduated. I don't blame pathway for what happened to her because in the true scheme of things she did what she did to herself. I think that pathway could have done a hell of a lot more to help her. There were certain issues that she really needed to look at and pathway just ignored it. if i could see it in her then those fuckers with their fancy fucking degrees had to have also.