My heart goes out to you whiterabbit! You didn't deserve this! NONE OF US DID!!!
Here is the post that put me over the top! We can't let her get away with this, let'S go find her.
Please,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
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Not the worst but one of many
My parents took me to Straight on October 20, 1980. My intake lasted 6 hours. Two teen girls coerced a confession from me. Yes I had smoked pot, tried drinking. They advised me that if I did not sign myself in they could have me court ordered to mental institution. Because I had admitted to doing drugs. And doing drugs was crazy. They said that I would be in the program for 2 weeks and after that time I could leave if I chose .After 6 hours I gave up. I couldn't take any more verbal abuse, or listen to any more evidence, more verification that I was crazy. I decided that 2 weeks was not so long. A mere 14 days. How bad could it be?If it became unbearable I would run away. I never saw a psychiatric professional of any sort. Not a doctor, not my parents not even an adult. I signed the papers as they instructed. It was my fifteenth birthday. I had no idea what I'd done.
We changed foster homes frequently, arbitrarily. It seemed they didn't want us to feel comfortable or more importantly, secure. I do not know how many foster homes I lived in those first few months. The first one was roughly 3or 4 days followed by a week or so at the second. After that there was a string of homes consisting of days at a time. My clothes frequently did not catch up with me. I wished they would at least let me carry a toothbrush since some of the homes didn't have extras and mine failed to appear so often. But there's just no telling how much damage a desperate teen could do with a toothbrush. I'm sure someone would have tried to off themselves with it.
One home was very comfortable, the parents at least to me, appeared wealthy. But my oldcomer was a sadistic little tyrant who took sadistic pleasure in her power. She invented additional rules like newcomers had to sleep naked on the floor. Newcomers had to watch her eat spaghetti or ice cream especially if they were on the pb & j diet. Newcomers could not sit in a chair. Moral inventories were often not long enough, legible enough. They frequently had to be rewritten. Her reviews were merciless. Other foster homes were so poor that squares of toilet paper were specified and limited to an exact number. Newcomers may use 5 squares or 8 squares. Many homes were overcrowded in those days. The bedroom typically consisted of a mattress or two on the floor and we slept 3 or 4 to a mattress. Locked doors and locked windows.A new foster home was always cause for anxiety
Open meeting review was always charming. " I deserve nothing" or "I deserve talk". As if that wasn't enough to drive one to feel worthless, the resulting verbal assault would drive the message home. Still the staff had more vicious tools in their arsenal of ego destruction. There were so many people in the program in those days so this took all day. It started with the lowest phasers as early as 7am. We sat on the concrete floor. We'd been in review for hours one day after I'd been there maybe a month and I raised my hand to a 5th phaser to request permission to go to the bathroom. She denied my request. Time passed and my need became more urgent. The fifth phaser went to a staff trainee who said no. I tried to hold it. Surely they would break for us to use the bathroom soon. At the back of the group Txxx Bxxxxx on first phase for months, was humming to herself. She hummed & rocked herself constantly. Even a fifteen year old could see that she needed psychiatric help. Serious help. I wondered why someone who was so obviously mentally ill was permitted in the program. Txx was lucky on this day. The staff was trying to ignore her rather than restrain her. I tired to focus on her humming. Maybe I could distract myself from the need to go to the bathroom.
More time passed.It became painful. The meeting showed no signs of relenting. I could focus on nothing but my desperate physical need. I began signaling frantically. The 5th phaser looked sympathetic and again went to the trainee who looked at me and went to a junior staff member, Kathleen Winn. She glared at me and shook her head no.I was desperate. How could they not see that I genuinely had to go? My stomach was distended, grotesque. Frightening. I was sweating, crying. Begging. I wondered if my bladder would burst and kill me. Kathleen looked at me with a smirk. Disgust, contempt and a giggle. The senior staff member, Wanda Minton finally noticed. There was now a second girl Jill Sxxxx, also crying and asking to go to the bathroom. Other girls were beginning to raise their hands. Wanda shrieked at the group"If you girls have to go to the bathroom so goddamned bad you can go on the fucking floor cause you're not going!" I was sitting on my foot, shoving it into my crotch, rocking slightly, crying. Girls began to scoot away from Jill and I. Finally I couldn't wait any more. I thought maybe I could just go a little. Enough to relieve the pain and hold the rest until the end of the review. There was no stopping it. I sat in a big puddle of urine. Jill followed suit. We both cried silently. Kathleen looked at us and told us we were disgusting. She laughed. Wanda told us we could just sit in it. The review continued. Another girl went on the floor. I was no longer crying. Tears continued to stream down my cheeks but I was no longer in physical pain and emotionally I had just given up. I didn't care. Not about what they said, not that I was stewing in my own urine, not the smell or the disgust all around me. I emotionally checked out. It was as if it was happening to someone else and I was watching. Finally my name was called and I stood in my urine. A flurry of hands went up. All vying for the opportunity to tell me that I was disgusting, a piece of shit. Kathleen Winn began to laugh. Hard. Wanda looked at me with disgust, contempt. They both proceeded to tell me how disgusting, stupid, pathetic I was. I was humiliated, ashamed, helpless and terrified. On the inside I was trembling.Tears continued from my eyes but the sob in my throat locked up tight. I said nothing. Wanda advised the 5th phaser, Lxx Axxx to get a mop but that I was to clean up my mess. She gave me a rag mop but no bucket. I mopped and wrung it out with my hands in the girls bathroom sink repeatedly until it was cleaned up. I cleaned up all the urine on the floor. Mine, Jill's all of it. The entire group watched, even the boy's side joined in the fun. Occasionally Kathleen would look over and giggle.
This happened on two more occasions. At that point I decided that I would just drink as little as possible so I wouldn't have to use the bathroom. I needn't have bothered. I was put on the peanut butter and jelly diet for failing to cooperate. This limited my morning meal to 2 pieces of dry toast and a dixie cup of orange juice approximately the size of a shot glass. Lunch and dinner was a big hamburger bun with a teaspoon of peanut butter in the center. Sometimes a slab of jelly sometimes not. Usually frozen. One 6 oz cup of water at lunch and one at dinner. I went on the diet in early to mid November and was on it through Christmas. One day they called my name at sick call and told me I had a bladder infection. Gave me a little blue pill each day for about a week or so and then just as abruptly told me I was better. I realized at some point that I had lost weight. While sitting on the couch one morning, I showed my foster mother how I could fit both of my arms inside my corduroys and touch my knees. Corduroys that I had been barely able to zip up. They took me off the pb & j diet a few days later.
Of course exercise raps were pretty high on the list of intolerable therapies. Occasionally Wanda would lead us in an exercise rap. The timing of this appeared to be random. We would do no exercise for a week or two or even a month and then abruptly we would do a 2 hour session of exercises. We would do jumping jacks, sit ups endlessly, military style. If anyone fell out of count we would start over. Girls would have tears mixed with sweat running down their faces but we could not stop or it would result in more exercise. So we'd continue exercising and crying. That windowless warehouse in central Florida was brutally fucking hot without the air conditioning. The very walls would sweat. People would pass out. Beg for water. We were allowed only seconds at the water fountain in order to minimize the disruption to our "therapy". People frequently choked trying to drink as much water as possible in the limited time allowed. One of the newcomers that lived our foster home went home after a particularly brutal exercise session and drank water until she threw up. One day the girls group went to the carpet room for our exercise rap. I don't know why I thought this would be better. I just thought it had to be somehow. It was agony. Endless. My stomach cramped.Three girls fainted. When I got to the foster home that night my old comer asked me what the sores were on my back were. Turns out they were rug burns.
Like I said, not the worst. more or less typical I'm sure. You know what kills me though? For 20 years I somehow believed that this was acceptable THERAPY. That I NEEDED that at the ripe old age of 15. That being deprived of EVERYTHING and learning not to want or hope was making me a better person. Talk about brainwashed. It's just unbelievable to wake up after all this time and realize how utterly insane it all was.
