Dearest survivors of Elan,
My name is Sammie, Aka Samantha Monroe.
I am a survivor of STRAIGHT Inc. Sarasota 1980's
Like most of you I was placed there at an early age, 13, and my time there was hell. As was the time for most everyone else that frequents Fornits.
(I say most b/c I know that there are some of you that are Sadisticly enjoying the sufferance your actions have caused.)
The reason I am writting you is that I want to tell you a little about my healing process and maybe you can help me to understand, and perhaps validate the fact that we are not crazy but broken children in adult bodies. When I was liberated from straight, things did not go back to normal. I was placed in States custody where I was bounced from home to hospital to centers until one day at 17 I just walked away and in the dark of ignorance and started to figure out how to survive. I also tried to make some sort of sense as to why this shit all happened to me. I tried seeing many different people throughout the years hoping that I could be fixed, but the thing was.. Noone ever thought to look deep into the effects of STRAIGHT on the young mind and the longterm damage caused by it. We are unfortunatly our own case studies.
There were times when I tried to kill myself and I realy wanted to die. I didn't die, for some reason I survived again, more therapy, more suicide attempts, intermitten moments of lucidity and insanity. All the while surviving living second to second hoping I wouldn't fall apart. I tried numbing myself w/ drinking but all I got was extremly sick physcialy, mentaly shot, and sometimes in a situation I would not have been in had I not been drunk. I was never a day to day drinker I binged but all the same, it didn't work. I tried find people I could be a part of somewhat of a surrogate family. Can you ever make up for the loss of one persons love especialy your parents by looking to another. I couldn't.
I also tried defining myself by my job and clothing, cars and friends/associates. I found myself trying to be someone I wasn't. THAT HIT ME.
Who the fuck am I? I mean realy, what do I think what do I believe?
Has anyone else ever thought about this?
I had no answer. I have no fucking idea who I am. And you want to know why?
While I was supposed to be discovering this I was sitting on front row in BLUE fucking chairs being told how to live what to eat what to say how to pray to whom I pray too and all along being told to "get with the program" "you will stay there until you 7th step or I could never to come home again"
This and so much more. I was told "I would die w/out straight" "W/out straight I would be a whore on the street" "Noone will ever love me or like me" Even though I left the straight building those words the torment never did it just lingered and while the years passed I conditioned myself to be ready for the confrontation, to try and not be a whore to try and prove I was able to be loved and I spirled and whirled into an abys of deep sadness and hate, spite, envy, discouraged, at the end of my fucking rope!!!
I dropped my dog off at a friends, went to walgreens and bought 3 boxes of extra strength sleeping pills and ate 90 of them in one shot went to bed and hoped to never wake up again.
I awoke in such pain I mean PAIN like I never felt before. I was dying and I knew it and I wanted in my heart to dye but I wanted to go softly, you know w/out the pain. It was excruciating and I was convulsing on the floor and I was sweating and every muscle in me was spasming, I was awake and aware of my body failing and I no longer wanted it to be this way I hated the pain, I hated it and I screamed and I cried and I fell to the floor again and again.
I called 911 I don't know how I got the phone dialed but I remember trying to talk to the person on the other end and was saved by the paramedics and the staff at the hospital.
Once again I survived.
See a pattern here?
Always surviving....................
I went into a hospital for about a week and had some intense therapy by a bitch of a woman who said outright.
and I quote; "I know about straight. I know what they did and you're right it was fucked up and you shouldn't have been there and you didn't deserve it and you got pretty fucked up by it or you would'nt be sitting here in a hospital, once again waiting for some one to tell you how to think and what to feel and when to eat."
"Are you seeing a pattern here?"
So she made me write letters to everyone who ever hurt me and tell them off and let them have it. and to write a letter to myself as to why I was so hard on me? Why was I punishing me for the shit that happened." I had to apologise to me.
Then I was discharged. Going home was hard I slepted at a friends house for about a week, before I could stay at home and then I could only go as far as the living room.
I sat there for a long time and tried to decide how to begin growing from where I left off at when I started Straight. How to make a 35 year old woman out of a scared 13 year old in 30 days or less.....................
Now this is what I did and I want you to know that in NO WAY am I trying to preach I just want to say................
I let it go. I screamed and cried and remembered everything and relived it one more time and then I told God that if all of this shit that happed to me is for a reason then I suggest he let me know because I've fucking had it and I Fucking give up! And I felt peaceful and drained but lighter and I slept without waking in my own sweat for the first time in years and I was calm and it all seemed not to matter anymore that it happened now I was doing something with it, what I didn't know. This wasn't my problem. If God has a plan for me well then I'll know I'll see it. I knew I would get some sign.
So I just went to work I went to my classes I went out I just started to live. Nothing great. Until I was hit w/ my mission, my reason for being, for surviving this shit. It just fell into place as I began to set out the needs I had were met and I just seem to be rolling along in life living with VIVOR and some joy a purpose.
Every day I thank God for this life and for protecting me and keeping me alive while I myself felt no value. When I was being beaten by the straightlings, while being raped, while starving, while in a trance walking aimsley surviving, Thank you God for not letting me die.
And now I thank you for allowing me the honor of sharing with you.
God bless
Peace and love
sammie
