i've never really talked too much about what happened at Desisto during my stay for nine months in 95 or 96. one night i decided to google it in and found out all this shit. it's all come back to me now. i went there the day before my 13th birthday, to a 'farmed' alternate girls dorm. our first night was spent in the lobby with all the mattresses on the floor and the furnature boarding up the windows and our male dorm parent sleeping by the door. the new girls were apperently 'rioting' upstairs from us and i could hear what a 'limit structure' sounded like. upon my arrival i had already been in a lock-down facility, and a foster home. I had been arrested countless times, was rejected by my mother and her lousy good for nothing boyfriends and had been in a foster home. by the sweet age of 13 i had seen it all... little did I know i was about to embark on a brainwashing experience from hell, that would turn me into an entirely different person. I kind of laid low the first few weeks and absorbed all the cult crap around me... where do I begin okay, the meetings I found it odd that people were crying on a daily basis not just crying, but recalling the horrid and unjust things that had happened to them in vivid detail. rapes, initiations, abuse you named it everything had to be 'relived' in great detail. people were stripped from their integrity and basic human rights, they were broken down and reduced to shit, all with two feet on the floor. The meds cabinet was never locked, bacause we were all to be trusted with that sort of thing, Give me a fucking break ... a dorm full of abused scarred teens, many of which had major problems with drugs were entrusted with the meds cabinet - load of shit! the arms length and hand holding whilst taking a shit, the walking with your head down and not being allowed to make eye contact with anyone... BEING REDUCED TO SHIT! Like a concentration camp, we woke up at four in the morning to break the ice in the driveway to our dorm with sledge hammers, heads down, in sub-zero degree weather. another time we were farmed. we were chopping wood by north (we couldnt have razors to shave but we could hold axes) and one of my dormates got pissed and swung at another with an ax, it sliced her coat. Needless to say we put her in a limit structure when and she struggled free and put her head through a window - anything wrong with this picture? what happened after that, this girl was cornered for i dont know how long untill someone deemed it was okay she got out. I remember seeing people in the corner for days BEING REDUCED TO SHIT! crying and rocking back and fourth no clothes the whole nine yards. IT wasn't fair they couldnt eat couldnt drink much went to the bathroom right then and there I saw people that I loved hurt and lonley and scarred- Fucked up. I remember sit- ins and all that crap. Heres the icing on the cake for me ... I think about it all the time. Before I got sent to Desisto I had run away on mothers day, my father spent that day looking all over for me and needless to say he had to cancel the plans he had with my grandparents. well later that year at Desisto, My Grandfather died and my grandmother too, I wasn't allowed to go to their funeral because we were farmed. It Was by the grace of god, allowed one 10 minute conversation with my father. the only time i heard him cry was then, I had fucked up his last mothers day with his mother and then he got fucked by Desisto's radical policies-make me fucking puke. I'll never be able to give that to him, I never got to make things right with my grandparents. This haunts me all the time- Fuck you DeSisto! i hate the way I was reduced to shit! i hate the way i had to recall and relive all the horrible things that had happened to me and all the horrible things that i did. Shit happens thats life, people fuck up and make mistakes and feel the pain caused by them and move on having learned from them. re kindling shit over and over doesnt do anybody any good. i still have problems with that too not directly, but indirectly. I feel as though i have to make up for lost time- CONSTSANTLY. does anyone else still carry the DeSisto shit with them everyday? I can never do anything well, enough. I still feel as though i have to be humble to the point of shit because i fucked up so badly as a kid. i work myself to the point where i make myself sick- just as we did when we were farmed. I hate taking medications I do it only when i really feel i need to, sometimes I'll buy them but wont take them- I remember people being so drugged up that they couldnt stay awake, but were forced to stand in the corner because they were physically unable to participate in the meetings. I remember having dangerous levels of lithium in my blood right after withdrawl. only now that im 25 i'm starting to realise that vacations arent a bad thing and that i deserve them once in a while. My first night after being withdrawn i was so scared of being alone, and to this day i have problems sleeping and dislike being by myself for long periods of time. It's gotten better over the years but at first it was so foreign to me to be by myself. my first night away i was in a hotel enroute to another boarding school (three total) and was afraid to turn the tv on, FUCKING BULLSHIT! THANKS DeSisto! And all the raw feelings, the experiences and the love I had for the people whom I shared DeSisto with, I dont know what ever happened to any of them. Another thing that i carry around with me. i think of the worst if i love someone i prepare myself that we may just part ways one day and that will be that- horrible feeling to have- needless to say i dont love too many people. just recently i have accepted the fact that love isnt so bad life is too short not to try it anyway. I think of all this stuff and read everything that had been posted and i feel comforted knowing that others know what i know, im not alone. it feels good to get it out after 11 years or so. i miss my friends. i am sorry so many people still hurt it's not fair, Michael was such a sick man who was worshipped like a god, I loved my dorms (new girls alternate girls) but never understood why everyone flocked around him. People said he would like me but he creeped me out and i never persued a relationship with him for that reason- he was a creep at least. I read that he died and i really believe he the is only person who has been in my life who is in hell, not rapists, not abusers, not dealers or any of those people i knew a long time ago, i tihnk they could be forgiven. but i tihnk about him and what he did and what he has done to so many people and wonder if he was ever forgiven. It's my personal belief that he is rotting in hell as i type, and if he was forgiven for all he did then god must really be pure love. I am sorry people are still hurting, I miss my friends. The experience changed me and i told you why, but i think in its own way, without it i wouldnt be as strong as i am today, it tested me to the max, and i can handle more then most...we can handle more then most ! Waiting for reply for MSN i would love to see some old friends again AIM zanzabar2121 nothing but love for all my friends.