On 2004-09-01 08:39:00, shanlea wrote:
"Who can share the long term, deleterious ramifications CEDU had on your life after leaving? Parents should be aware of this. I know lots of people had PTSD and recurring nightmares and others had an inability to re-integrate into the real world after such oppressive insularity. Others said they were a few years behind their peers once they returned because of teh bogus academics. I know that even though I split, I still judged things according to arbitrary CEDU "values" and was always afraid (unconsciously) of being dirty and thinking normal things were "bad" according to CEDU rules. I also was unfairly judgmental of others. I thought of everything in terms of being in agreement/being dirty. In terms of relationships, I had difficulty trusting people thinking they would use things against me later or had an over reaction if I felt someone was trying to tell me what to do because I felt so over-controlled in the CEDU milieu. The worst thing was that the CEDU environment was so bizarre, contrived, and unrealistic that it was difficult for me to ever relate to plain old normal folks once i got outside. "
You have said it some. But to really get into HOW this was done so stongly, so definitively would be a great feat. Why, for example would someone who didn't do the crowning final pscho-blow to the ego, the I&Me and SUMMIT, still thought of things in terms of the program? Why would kids who got out of there before three months had passed still be screwed up for their time there? That is powerful shit! And it does need an explanation. I want to be the one who goes back to the basement and gives a blow by blow account of how I was calmed first, stripsearched second, abondoned third, and a year later I was yelling at kids in raps in order to save our lives. I came damn close to killing myself at RMA. It's HUGE. And I want to be the guy who really takes it on for all of us. But I can't. I can only do it for myself and I am scared! But I am strong and I am learning.
I do now KNOW that I have PTSD and it ain't from picking off gooks or watching my buddies get shot up, but my pain and debilitation IS real. It'd not Bipolar, it's not depression, it's nothing that someone who wants to defend the program can say. Oh, yeah...It came from my time in Bonners Ferry Idaho at Rocky Mountain Academy. I was traumitized at RMA, not from some shit before.
And I see nothing wrong with highlighting the issues that have stayed with me and (I hope, dear Zeus) made me a better person. I want to differentiate the difference between being a different person now than I was five, ten and fifteen years ago, to see what I might have been without the program. This in itself is difficult. I have parents. They wanted to help. But They fucked up. Mom sounds just like Ottowa5, but finally, after years of seeing me struggle she even agrees that the situation of my life is not at all NOT DUE to RMA. She doesn't yet express the regret I know she feels. RMA actually got inbetween my family. Thanks again.
Oh. I will be honest. I will address what really might have been without RMA. Tune in later.
