I read the book a couple weeks ago. There were a few paragraphs that I thought were particularly poignant so I thought I'd post 'em here.
These highlights are all from Chapter 9, which is where Maia finally cuts to the chase after building her case outta individual stories in the previous 8.
Page 249:
"...The atmosphere in the programs - in which emotional attacks are unrelenting, privacy is non-existent, sleep and food deprivation are common, and the person has little if any control over his environment - is exactly the type that research has found most likely to produce PTSD.
The more researchers learn, in fact, the greater the evidence becomes that being put in any kind of situation of total powerlessness for a significant length of time has the capacity to produce lasting damage to the brains' stress system, especially when it happens to a young person. This damage has been linked not only to PTSD, but to increased risk for depression, addiction, other mental illnesses, and even immune-system disorders and cancer..."
Page 251:
"...Kids report simply being thrown into the programs'daily activities with no opportunity to process what has happened. Their perfectly rational anger, hurt, and desire to escape are framed as pathological 'denial,' which must be broken down until they reach 'acceptance' and come to praise their captors and keepers..."
My comment: Psychological whiplash!!!! This is where the trauma all started for me. Right on day 1. Sometimes I still feel like I'm in shock. I think that's part of what PTSD is...living in a state of constant emotional shock.
Page 252:
"...tough love programs impose greater restrictions and limits than most parents would set for grade-schoolers. Such a developementally mistimed intervention is unlikely to foster healthy familial connections and emotional growth, even if the child complies..."
Page 253:
"...for teens in these programs, there are no opportunities to begin to explore romantic relationships: contact with the opposite sex, let alone dating, is barely allowed. Friendships are impoverished by the constant pressure to 'turn in' ones' fellows for misbehavior, and the depth of the betrayal that can result when secrets disclosed in confidence are used to advance a 'friend' at your expense. Tough love participants are left behind to play catch-up in almost every life area. They are also socialized to behave in ways that aren't conducive to relational health. For example, as Kyrsten Bean described it, the WWASP program made her so hard on her friends that they became afraid to turn to her when in crisis because she was so judgemental and blunt. In the outside world, most people don't believe that it is appropriate or helpful to prod people in their emotional sore spots -- but tough love participants are taught that this is an act of love for which they should be thanked..."
My comment: God damn!!! I can totally relate!!! This is exactly what I've been tryin' to explain for years, to my friends, who can't understand why I struggle so much. $tr8 was so fucked up in so many ways. They made me sick. I mean just when I was about to enter manhood and seek my place in the world and in society they completely and totally removed me from it, spent years brainwashing me into socially unnacceptable and socially stunted behavior and then released me back into the world just at the age when I should have been self-supporting and independent. I mean it's crazy to me that they even expected me to be able to function socially at all, after everything I'd been through...WTF was I supposed to do ?? I was homeless and semi-homeless off an' on, but mostly on, for about a decade after $tr8. Even now I live on the fringe of society. While my friends went to high scool and college and dated girls and got married and started famillies and kept jobs I struggled just to understand why I couldn't keep a job or otherwise relate...And not to say that I would have necessarily wanted all those things, but it would have been nice to have had the choice and not have my circumstances dictated to me by the abuse I suffered at the hands of $tr8.
