Suck IT, I hope you will wisen up. Danny and Whooter are not of your values, even if they agree with you on things.
Paul St. John
I'm not here trying to make friends, my private messaging functions are disabled and I never talk to anyone on this forum in private or behind the scenes. Some people might agree with some of my opinions, some people might disagree. It really doesn't bother me too much how it plays out either way. I am here giving my opinions on this industry because I lived it and have some experience with it. If me holding the beliefs that treatment helps people sometimes, AA isn't evil, and believing that Whooter is just a parent and not a payed industry employee makes me fall within the same category of Danny or Whooter, well I can't help that much. I can't believe in what I call Fornits Mythology because I find most of it absurd.
Nobody is asking me for advice, I think the amount of parents coming here for advice at this point is very low, and even fewer read through these long drama filled threads. It would mean little to someone new to this website and probably kind of confusing. So I don't censor my posts with this idea in mind that I am somehow impacting lots of children's futures, like some posters here assume. I think this is a forum where people can be honest about what they think, and so that's how I treat it. I get that some people are abused in treatment, and some are even killed. Others are sent when it's not necessary, and I know the older programs were bad. I went to treatment in the 90's and although it was difficult, I know now that I really needed it and it really did save my life. I can only speak for myself with my experience with treatment. I also have some experience in AA/NA and it was a very positive and beneficial eperience.
So when I read here about AA threads about how its a cult, ineffective and all the hate towards it, I just don't agree. I feel the same way towards treatment programs, because I have a more positive view here than most, so I choose to offer up my side of the story. I don't have an agenda any more complicated than that. I describe why I disagree with so many of the regulars on this forum, because the mythology can get really ridiculous. I just read a post a minute ago where again DJ claims Whooter is a payed Aspen employee, and almost everyone here believes this, even the admins. I just find this so ridiculous, I can't join in the conspiracy fun, sorry.
I try to be respectful the best I can even though I disagree a lot of times and explain my own position and why I feel the way I do. I purposely don't name the treatment program I went to because I'm not trying to push any one program or offer advice to anyone. But I do think I have a right to speak out when I am just explaining my own experience in a treatment program that is often discussed on this forum. The mythology and group think and its ideological enforcers destroy whatever chance this forum had of being an open and free for all discussion. We see what happens to people who hold outside views like that family of the teen girl asking for advice, they are crucified. This is one thing I find most amusing about same people here, like DJ. They want more information like where you went to treatment in order for you to prove you're not 'fiction', but then people who do give out their details and hold contrary opinions to the group are treated like shit. Their pictures are posted, links to their personal websites and blogs. This happens regularly here with people who have been deemed enemies, and even 'one of our own' , another so called survivor, says the wrong thing and bam the cult strikes them down.
So it would be easier to not post here, and go post on a forum that is moderated. Its ironic but forits claims to be a free for all, but when anarchy reigns every man does not remain equal. Gangs can take control too and enforce their own agenda, and part of this is done with disseminating a mythology which allows people to find enough justification for their extremism. When basing your ideology off your own experience its not so easy to take such black and white positions, in my view. Unless you rewrite your own experience as some do and edit their own memory to fit in with the ideology, but thats complicated although I do see it happen. The end result is an echo chamber of ideas, one person trying to out extreme the next. Rather than a discussion about the reality of what goes on from more than one perspective. Fornits cult wants to focus in on the most extreme case of the negative, but that is by definition rare. I think this is a complicated subject and if people aren't honest about what's happening, then the conclusions will be skewed towards the side of simplistic condemnation, and fornits has been that way for a while.
