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Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Daytop Village => Topic started by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 07:54:12 PM

Title: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 07:54:12 PM
My name is B and I graduated from a DAYTOP outpatient facility (located in what was called the "Dresser building") in Dallas TX in 1993.  

Back when I was a senior in High School, my parents caught me smoking grass and tripping on acid and put me in DAYTOP on the advice of my guidance counselor.

Fifteen years later, I am just now starting to see that DAYTOP is nothing but an abusive cult disguised as a drug treatment program.

And it blows my mind to start to realize what happened to me there.

I am beginning to consider myself a victim (yes, a VICTIM) of the early-90s Troubled-Teen Industry hysteria.

The DAYTOP program in general is certainly a thought-reform environment, whether at the outpatient or residential level.  

In retrospect, knowing and understanding what I now know and understand about abusive groups, it was definitely very cult-like.

The way they broke down my boundaries, controlled my thoughts, emotions, and behavior, shamed and humiliated me before my peers and re-defined my personal identity amounts to psychological torture that was inflicted on me; in some groups/cults, they'll call the confession sessions "Hot Seats," but in DAYTOP, they are called "Encounter Groups" or "Marathon Groups," which were run by a bunch of thuggish fools with no training in psychology whatsoever.

It has taken me years to even understand what happened to me there, to even begin to recover from my experience in DAYTOP.  

That place was as traumatic as the eleven months that I later spent in Iraq in '05.

Their approach is very confrontational, very emotionally traumatizing to a kid:  "WE'LL SCREAM AT AND HUMILIATE YOU UNTIL YOUR WILL IS BROKEN AND YOU'LL WANT BE SOBER FOREVER!!!"

Their goal is to make you dependent on DAYTOP (or by extension, on groups in general) by reinforcing your identity as an addict and generally "broken" person.  

They'll make it so you are dependant on DAYTOP, or else some other group.

Later on in life, I spent time in a religious group/cult in an unconscious attempt to re-create the "therapeutic community"/groupthink environment to which I was accustomed in DAYTOP, and which I mistakenly began to see as a good and healthy way of living life.

After I got out of that place (it took me a year and a half to graduate) me and all of my Daytopian buddies all fell off the wagon together big-time.  I never partied so much or so hard in my life as I did with other Daytopians.

So I am a DAYTOP graduate, an ex-member of an abusive religious group (DAYTOP is abusive and cultic, but not so overtly religious to my recollection) and an Army veteran.  That's three groups.  

DAYTOP got me started in the unhealthy groupthink mentality.

I am a little angry with my parents for putting me in that place, but they didn't know.  We thought that it was a good thing at the time.

It all started with DAYTOP.  I can pinpoint it to them now.  I am starting to understand how profoundly detrimental an effect that place has on my life.  And it grieves me.

What are your thoughts, readers?  I am in intensive psychotherapy now for trauma and PTSD-related issues and am only just now beginning to come to terms with all of this.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 08:22:42 PM
Quote
in some groups/cults, they'll call the confession sessions "Hot Seats," but in DAYTOP, they are called "Encounter Groups" or "Marathon Groups," which were run by a bunch of thuggish Puerto Ricans with no training in psychology whatsoever.

There is a variation of this group confrontation in every program I can think of mentioned on this website.  A lot of it came out of Synanon, a cult in southern California (although the techniques themselves are much older).  If you research Synanon's "Game", you'll find that it's methods been copied all over the country in nonprofessional therapy cults and cultic groups.  One notable example was Straight Inc. which called the encounter groups "raps".  This term is also used in many other programs (this, of course is no coincidence).  Judging by the language you've used, I'm guessing you probably already know a lot of this.  Does your therapist have experience with cults/cultic groups and understand how they work, of have you had to do most of the research on your own?

Sadly, your experience as you describe it is hardly unique.  Indeed, the influence of similar cultic groups seems to be growing rather than shrinking.

Oh... and welcome to Fornits!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 08:34:25 PM
Quote
Judging by the language you've used, I'm guessing you probably already know a lot of this. Does your therapist have experience with cults/cultic groups and understand how they work, of have you had to do most of the research on your own?

Sadly, your experience as you describe it is hardly unique. Indeed, the influence of similar cultic groups seems to be growing rather than shrinking.

Both.  I am a serious researcher of cults and new religious movements, and my therapists are two of the foremost experts in the area of abusive and controlling relationships in the US.  My therapists have a huge amount of expertise and experience with cult-trauma survivors.  More later.  I'd like to keep this chat going if it's OK with you.  I find it very cathartic.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 08:56:39 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
I'd like to keep this chat going if it's OK with you.
That's what this discussion board is for.  I think you'll find a lot of people here with similar experiences, though the "book knowledge" does vary from person to person.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 09:05:22 PM
Two things about DAYTOP I remember quite well:

First, I'll tell of a Jewish lesbian "counselor" (DAYTOP grad from NYC and unqualified armchair psychologist) and self-described "diesel dyke" (that is not a homophobic comment from me, that's actually how she described herself to us) who we had there that I'll call "Marcia."  I used to dread going into the encounter groups that Marcia would run, as she was especially confrontational and vicious in her approach, to the point of being sadistic about it.  She'd encourage us to scream at and verbally abuse one another. She'd make fun of me relentlessly, telling me how phony and plastic and shallow that she thought I was.  She'd encourage the others to pitch in and tell me how weak I was too.  I remember when I made it to "coordinator" (the top of the DAYTOP chain of command) and she was teaching me how to conduct "haircuts" she'd tell me I that I was "too soft" with my counseling approach and encourage me to yell at people with the intent to shame and humiliate them.  She, in effect, was teaching me how to verbally abuse my peers.  She once humiliated me in front of the entire "DAYTOP family" in morning meeting by making me dance around in a silly fashion  while everybody laughed at me.  And all in the name of helping me to "overcome my issues."

The second thing that I remember really well was the periodic visits by The Monsignor, and how we'd all have to meet together and he'd pat us all on the head, one by one, like little kids or pets or something.  He'd never walk up and shake your hand like a grown-up, he'd pat you on the head like you were a cute four-year-old.   I always found that to be weird and inappropriate.

They'd verbally abuse and humiliate us, a bunch of teenagers, and teach us to do the same to one another.  Incredible.

If there are any good things I remember about DAYTOP they'd be: the fact that I made friends for life there; two of my best friends are DAYTOP grads and they're doing well, we used to party like mad but they are sober now with wives and kids and good jobs.  Also, at least in DAYTOP they taught me how to identify, get in touch with, and appropriately deal with my feelings.  It was genuinely therapeutic and beneficial in some respects.  So it wasn't all bad, just mostly bad, and the residual effects of all that verbal abuse and degradation and groupthink indoctrination remain with me and negatively impacts my psyche to this day.  It took me fifteen years or so to figure out that DAYTOP, the "drug treatment program" was a  front for an abusive cult group.  It blows my mind.  

Can I tell you anything about DAYTOP in those days?  Any questions or comments?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 09:32:30 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
That place was as traumatic as the eleven months that I later spent in Iraq in '05.

That speaks volumes.  How parents can send their kids into such environments never ceases to amaze me.

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Their goal is to make you dependent on DAYTOP (or by extension, on groups in general) by reinforcing your identity as an addict and generally "broken" person.

I think that's probably the longest lasting portion of the damage right there.  Learned helplessness.  I tend to think that the vast majority of people in this sort of "treatment" would have grown out of their behavior had they not had a "fuckup" identity drilled into them.

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They'll make it so you are dependant on DAYTOP, or else some other group.

Interesting you include "some other group".  If you're referring to what I think you are, i'd tend to agree.  Institutionalized 12 steppery performs a forced conversion function as a front group for the 12 step religion (http://http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-spirrel.html#judges) as a whole.  You might find this chapter of this book (link) (http://http://www.morerevealed.com/library/coc/chaptr10.htm) by Charles Bufe interesting.  It's a controversial viewpoint that some are very opposed to but personally I think it makes a lot of sense.

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After I got out of that place (it took me a year and a half to graduate) me and all of my Daytopian buddies all fell off the wagon together big-time.  I never partied so much or so hard in my life as I did with other Daytopians.

Must have been easy when you believed you were powerless.  In my cynical opinion this learned helplessness performs a "return to sender" function: programming a person to self destruct without the group.  You can only function as a member.  Further, you naturally try to help others you see as who you were before the cult (everybody, since history is revised).  They turn you into a deployable agent of the cult... a missionary of sorts.

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I am a little angry with my parents for putting me in that place, but they didn't know.  We thought that it was a good thing at the time.

That's why I believe education on this subject is so important.  If most parents truly realized what they were doing was not in the best interest of their kids, they wouldn't.  Personally I don't blame people for what they do in ignorance (including my parents), but I admit it did take time for me to get past my resentment.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 09:40:52 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
She'd make fun of me relentlessly, telling me how phony and plastic and shallow that she thought I was.

Different groups call it different things.  In the group I was in they used to say you were wearing "masks".  Metaphorically, they would encourage you to cut off your own face (believing it to be a mask) and replace it with what they wanted...  but their mask never seems to stick for too long without a milieu (or compatible milieu) to support it.  The scars, however, I would argue last a lifetime...  self/identity doubt, etc...

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She once humiliated me in front of the entire "DAYTOP family" in morning meeting by making me dance around in a silly fashion  while everybody laughed at me.  And all in the name of helping me to "overcome my issues."

Most programs listed on this site have some form of this or another.  Some have marathon LGATs where humiliating "skits" are performed in a ritualistic fashion in addition to what you just described.

Quote
They'd verbally abuse and humiliate us, a bunch of teenagers, and teach us to do the same to one another.  Incredible.

Many programs on this site recruit from within.  My guess is that they were grooming you for staff.  Did Daytop recruit staff from within?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 09:51:02 PM
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Interesting you include "some other group". If you're referring to what I think you are, i'd tend to agree. Institutionalized 12 steppery performs a forced conversion function as a front group for the 12 step religion as a whole. You might find this chapter of this book (link) by Charles Bufe interesting.
No, I was not specifically referring to Bill (though he and I used to be buddies; DAYTOP would take us to Bills' place once a week or so), but groups in general, all kinds, whether religious groups, military groups, self-help/recovery groups, whatever.  They are all basically the same.  I got used to groups and got to the point of believing that that was a good and normal and even superior way to go about my life.

In a sense, if you've seen one cult, you've seen 'em all.

I have been in a religious cult, visited and mingled with several different religious communities and various communes, (some cultic, some not), DAYTOP, AND the Army (which I consider to be cult too, but at least you get paid and get some benefits) all in an effort to re-create the phony sense of "community" that I experienced as a teenager in DAYTOP.

That's what it comes down to, doesn't it?  Learned helplessness.  Exactly what I need to hear.  

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Must have been easy when you believed you were powerless. In my cynical opinion this learned helplessness performs a "return to sender" function: programming a person to self destruct without the group. You can only function as a member. Further, you naturally try to help others you see as who you were before the cult (everybody, since history is revised). They turn you into a deployable agent of the cult... a missionary of sorts.

The Daytop Philosophy, recited like a prayer or mantra every morning before Morning Meeting, programmed us to be group-dependent, taught us groupthink  right away.  Here it is:

I am here because there is no refuge.
Finally, from myself.
Until I confront myself in the eyes
and hearts of others, I am running.
Until I suffer them to share my secrets,
I have no safety from them.
Afraid to be known, I can know
neither myself nor any other, I will be alone.
Where else but in our common ground,
can I find such a mirror?
Here, together, I can at last appear
clearly to myself not as the giant
of my dreams nor the dwarf of my fears,
but as a person, part of a whole,
with my share in its purpose.
In this ground, I can take root and grow,
Not alone anymore as in death,
But alive to myself and to others.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 10:03:36 PM
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Many programs on this site recruit from within. My guess is that they were grooming you for staff. Did Daytop recruit staff from within?

Bingo.  They most certainly did.  Most of the staff there were DAYTOP grads themselves.  There were some that were not grads, but the organization certainly did recruit potential new counselors from among the persons going through the program.  The director of the place even offered to fly me up to NYC to go through DAYTOP internship and counselor-training and the whole nine.  I went to college instead.
Quote
Interesting you include "some other group". If you're referring to what I think you are, i'd tend to agree. Institutionalized 12 steppery performs a forced conversion function as a front group for the 12 step religion as a whole. You might find this chapter of this book (link) by Charles Bufe interesting. It's a controversial viewpoint that some are very opposed to but personally I think it makes a lot of sense.

Hmmm, I'll study this out and will get back with you with my thoughts on it soon.  Thanks.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 10:09:51 PM
in the group I was in the played Kenny Rogers "Tell it All Brother" on repeat in an LGAT during the "disclosure circle" portion.

Perfect song for what lifton called the cult of confession

here is a link to the song (not recommended for CEDU vets):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpPcoVrmDHY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpPcoVrmDHY)

Imagine being in a sleep-deprived state wit that played on repeat for hours... being surrounded by everybody pouring their hearts out all around you, confessing to everything included but not limited to rape, bestiality, even murder.  Obviously some of it was probably exaggerated (if you've ever confessed to belong, you know what I mean), but that just made the group effect stronger.  Suffice to say they got it all from you.  Different groups have different implementations, but you're right...  once you've seen one cult, you've seen them all.  The general tune is the same:  Thought reform + origin + group power structure.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 10:22:06 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Until I confront myself in the eyes
and hearts of others, I am running.
In other words: you are most accurately viewed through the eyes of others.  How you see yourself is not correct or accurate. You are not "real". Only others can tell you who you are.

When I took that to heart (and that took a lot of pressure, confrontation, etc...), I flipped out.  I mean I went nuts.  I had a breakdown of sorts.  I couldn't figure out who I was, whether I was real.  I felt only they could tell me who I was.  It took me a good while to figure out who I really am after that.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that what I do defines me, not the other way around, and effectively I have the choice of who I want to be.  Before the program I never really thought about identity.  I just accepted myself for who I am.  The program was the first to bring in the foreign concept of multiple identities (a clean one and a dirty one).  What I wouldn't give to have that full measure of peace again. Thanks to the program there is always a trace of an instinctive, phobic, fear that somehow I am not who I think I am.  Knowing something does not always make fear go away, which is why I used the word phobia (implying irrational fear).
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 10:24:55 PM
So, you were a part of CEDU?  I that the group you were part of?  If not, may I ask what group you were a part of?  Just cannot help but wonder.

Also, please expand on what you mean by The general tune is the same: Thought reform + origin + group power structure.

What do you mean exactly in using the word "origin"?

Elaborate please?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 10:35:24 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
So, you were a part of CEDU?  I that the group you were part of?  If not, may I ask what group you were a part of?  Just cannot help but wonder.

A CEDU clone, actually.  CEDU (now defunct) reportedly stood for Charles E. Dederich University (CED = Synanon founder).  It started in the same area and was staffed with Synanon members.  It also incorporated some LGAT seminars crafted out of est and LifeSpring.

Quote
Also, please expand on what you mean by The general tune is the same: Thought reform + origin + group power structure.

What do you mean exactly in using the word "origin"?

Elaborate please?

Origin?  Origin of the group.  Where it came from (who the leader was, where he got his ideas, which bits of which cult he ripped off, etc...).
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 10:36:48 PM
Quote
Further, you naturally try to help others you see as who you were before the cult (everybody, since history is revised). They turn you into a deployable agent of the cult... a missionary of sorts.

Can you elaborate as well on this point a little please?  "...naturally try to help others you see as who you were before the cult (everybody, since history is revised)."  I do not quite take your meaning here.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 10:45:42 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Quote
Further, you naturally try to help others you see as who you were before the cult (everybody, since history is revised). They turn you into a deployable agent of the cult... a missionary of sorts.

Can you elaborate as well on this point a little please?  "...naturally try to help others you see as who you were before the cult (everybody, since history is revised)."  I do not quite take your meaning here.

Well.  Imagine you tried pot a few times or even were a casual smoker, got sent to a program like Daytop, and ended up being programmed into believing you were some sort of uncontrollable drug fiend (they would reframe the actions in your past to constitute grave flaws and signs of "illness"... that's the history revision I'm talking about).  Two things would then happen on leaving the cult: you would become an uncontrollable drug fiend the likes of which do not occur naturally and you would see other casual pot smokers (or even those who experimented) as destined to inevitably become uncontrollable drug fiends.  In their best interest (especially if you were a parent) you would then coerce or convince the hapless pot smoker that: you were just like him, he is destined to become an uncontrollable drug user, and he needs treatment (you would then refer to the program).  Without realizing it, you're performing a missionary action as a deployable agent of the cult.

Ironically, this just repeats the cycle and does far more harm than good, simply resulting in one more debilitated human being.

PS: if you've done this, don't beat yourself up about it.  I've done it before I realized what was up.  Nobody should be blamed for what they do in ignorance, IMO.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 11:07:38 PM
Yep, that's pretty much it, pretty much what happened to me.  They had me convinced that I was a lot worse off than I really was before I went into their program, and then after I left it, within a couple years' time I turned into an actual monster pothead, me and all my Daytopian friends.

And then, I subsequently turned to one group after another in an effort to get well and stay well...I'd become convinced that I could not function as a healthy an autonomous human being, that the only way to survive was as part of some group.  Basically, I got to a point to where I had lost pretty much all sense of personal identity and defined myself in terms of whatever group I was visiting or aligned with at the time.  And I have been around a lot of them: JPUSA, the Twelve Tribes, a small group in Dallas you've probably never heard of, ISKCON...believe me, I have made the rounds of the fringe religious groups.  

Most of these communities I never really intended to join; I was simply "checking them out" from the point of view of a researcher.  I just simply enjoy researching cults.  It helps me to understand my own experience and I simply find it fascinating.

Sheez, this discussion is really helping me.  It'll take a while to process it all.  Thanks for your time and help here.

Have you ever heard anything about DAYTOP having ties to, or being funded "under the table" by, organized crime out of NYC?  When I was around DAYTOP back in the day, there were rumors floating around that kids coming back from Millbrook would tell of.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 11:21:43 PM
I just was skimming through "AA, Cult Or Cure", the book I linked to earlier. I found this:

Quote
So if detoxification isn't the primary purpose of 12-step inpatient treat-ment, what is? One 12-step advocate lists the goals of treatment as follows:
   

(1) Treatment does not "cure" the disease—the expectation is that by insti­tuting an achievable method of abstinence the disease will be put into re­mission. (2) All therapeutic efforts are directed at helping the patient reach a level of motivation that will enable him or her to commit to this abstinence program. (3) An educational program is developed to assist the patient in becoming familiar with the addictive process, insight into compulsive behaviors, medical complications, emotional insight, and maintenance of physical, mental, and spiritual health. (4) The patient's family and other significant persons are included in the therapeutic process with the understanding that the therapeutic process does not occur in a vacuum, but rather in interpersonal relationships. (5) The patient is indoctrinated into the AA program and instructed as to the content and application of the 12 steps of the program. [emphasis added] (6) Group and individual therapy are directed at self­ understanding and acceptance with emphasis on how alcohol and drugs have affected their lives. (7) There is insistence on participation in a longitudinal support and follow-up program based on the belief that, as in the management of all chronic disease processes, maintenance is critically important to the ultimate outcome of any therapy. This follow-up usually consists of ongoing support provided by the treatment facility as well as participation in community self-help groups such as AA, Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Opiates Anonymous (OA), and the like.lv
   

Put in plain English, this means that the purpose of "the treatment process" is to "indoctrinate" the patient into "the AA program" and into the disease-concept-of-alcoholism belief system. That is, the purpose of 12-step treatment is to convince the patient that he has an incurable "disease" from which he will never recover; that he is "powerless" over his alcohol con­sumption; that he will inevitably lose control if he drinks; that should he return to drinking, he will inevitably drink in a progressively more destruc­tive manner; that he is "in denial"; that he must not trust his own thoughts and perceptions; that he must abandon self-direction and turn his life and will over to God (or God's interpreter, AA); and that he must make a com­mitment to lifelong involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, because the only alternative to such lifelong involvement is "jails, institutions, or death."

That is the purpose of 12-step "treatment." It really has very little to do with the problem of alcohol abuse. Rather, it's an indoctrination program designed to inculcate both distrust of self and learned helplessness ("power­lessness") in the patient, and to convince him that his only hope of salvation is to abandon self-direction and to plunge himself into lifelong participation in the religious program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Never mind that every single premise upon which this indoctrination program is built is demonstrably false. As someone once pointed out, smoking is a behavior and lung cancer is a disease, just as drinking is a behavior and cirrhosis is a disease. Alcohol abuse (lifting bottles or glasses to one's lips and swallowing more alcohol than is healthy) is a behavior, not a "disease"—terming a behavior a "disease" broadens the term's definition so greatly as to render it almost meaningless. Thomas Szasz puts the matter thusly: "Excessive drinking is a habit. If we choose to call bad habits 'diseases,' there is no limit to what we may define as a disease."lvi

As well, drinkers are not "powerless" over their alcohol consumption—it isn't Satan controlling the muscles in the arm lifting the glass to the lips —and they can learn to control it."Loss of control" tends to occur only when individuals believe that it will occur.lvii

Progression of the "disease" is not inevitable, and a very high percentage of alcohol abusers (including those termed "alcohol dependent") eventually "mature out" and either achieve non problem drinking or abstinence without participation in AA or any treatment program.lviii

"Denial" is a Catch 22 concept, and as such is essentially useless except as a bludgeon in the indoctrination process—if you admit that you're an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic; and if you deny that you're an alcoholic, you're "in denial," which is evidence that you're an alcoholic. Either way, as with denials of witchcraft in the Middle Ages, you lose.

And, finally, participation in AA is hardly a ticket to salvation; the recovery rate in AA is no higher than the rate of spontaneous remission.lix

Because they've been thoroughly indoctrinated into the AA/disease­concept belief system, these facts matter not at all to those administering and conducting 12-step treatment programs. For them, having turned their lives and wills over to God, The Program has become a matter of religious faith; and even to question the premises of their belief system is blasphemous. They know The Truth—as revealed by Bill Wilson in the "inspired" Big Book. As well, they believe that their sobriety and their very lives depend on "carry[ing] this message" to those not yet saved, so they often carry that message with fearful zeal.

But what is inpatient treatment actually like? Many of the elements of inpatient treatment are little changed from the days of Dr. Bob's early hospital work: the patient is isolated from family and friends; outside con­tacts are greatly restricted; reading matter is restricted to approved "re­covery" materials, such as the Big Book and other 12-step literature; the patient is regarded as sick and as unable to think sanely—thus the need for indoctrination; coercion is regarded as a normal and sometimes desirable part of the recovery process; the patient is given little time alone and is kept very busy; and the patient is placed in a milieu where indoctrination is achieved largely through the pressure of a unanimous majority opinion, and where dissenting views and skeptical attitudes are viewed as sick, as "disease symptoms." In this milieu, all activities—including individual counseling and group "therapy"—are aimed at one goal: indoctrination into the AA/ disease-concept belief system, and involvement of the patient in AA.

LOL... I swear.  I had not read that bit yet.  Came across it by chance.  I haven't read the whole book yet.  Have you read "Cults in Our Midst" by Margaret Singer?  That's another one i'd recommend.

What I find fascinating, though is that instead of becoming a lifelong member of a specific group, you've found a way to adapt to all sorts of them.  Did any of the beliefs of the other groups contradict those of DAYTOP?

As for your question about DAYTOP and it's connections to NYC organized crime.  I've forwarded that question to my friend (Antigen) who knows a lot more than I about DAYTOP's connections.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 01, 2008, 11:44:48 PM
Quote
LOL... I swear. I had not read that bit yet. Came across it by chance. I haven't read the whole book yet. Have you read "Cults in Our Midst" by Margaret Singer? That's another one i'd recommend.

What I find fascinating, though is that instead of becoming a lifelong member of a specific group, you've found a way to adapt to all sorts of them. Did any of the beliefs of the other groups contradict those of DAYTOP?

Oh yeah, I have read Dr. Singer's work (I do not recall if I read that one specfically or not but I have read some of her stuff) , a bit of Lifton, as well as that of Hassan, Seigelman/Conway, etc.  Sure.  I am pretty modestly familiar with the cult-ed literature, and always seeking to learn something new in that arena.

As to your second question: that's a big one.  Long story.  Give me time to process and write up an answer for you and will present it tomorrow night.

Say, I'm going to wind down now and read some of this AA stuff.  I hope to meet back with you here tomorrow night though.  Cool?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 01, 2008, 11:48:31 PM
Sure thing.  See ya tomorrow.  Gnight.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 02, 2008, 07:03:12 PM
Greetings; I hope that all are well this evening.

In response to the question put to me last night:
Quote
What I find fascinating, though is that instead of becoming a lifelong member of a specific group, you’ve found a way to adapt to all sorts of them. Did any of the beliefs of the other groups contradict those of DAYTOP?
Wow, that's a broad question, a lot of ground to cover here.  I shall begin answering the question, by recalling the two of the “DAYTOP values” that most profoundly affected my mentality after I’d left DAYTOP, these ones I really integrated the most into my worldview.  These two are, “You can’t keep it unless you give it away” and “Act as if."

These respective beliefs (Daytopian thinking and religion, especially Bible-based religious thinking IMO) do not, at least on the surface, contradict one another (most Bible-based groups are evangelistic to one degree or another) and the DAYTOP values are quite adaptable to being implemented in any overtly religious context.  I suppose that I contrived a way to adapt them to every situation and group that I was around.  Daytop is in effect a pseudo-religion with its own creed and dogmas etc.  For example:

You can’t keep it unless you give it away: This one threw my sense of boundaries way out of whack.  The best way to help yourself maintain your sobriety is by helping somebody else to do the same.   Or in a churchy group the best way to maintain your salvation is by helping others to attain the same, by "getting people saved."  A good value in and of itself I suppose (keeping it by giving it away, whatever "it" may be), it sounds good enough in principle, but taken literally and to an unhealthy degree this mindset fosters co-dependence and a group mentality, and an unhealthy sense of responsibility for other people’s success or failure.  It’s true that in a sense that “we are all in this together” (in the sense of a global community and all that), that we are interdependent, but it’s also true that I have to be selfish in order to learn how to be selfless in a healthy way.  DAYTOP taught me a lack of balance and a boundary-reducing philosophy in this respect.  You cannot keep yourself unless you give yourself away.  In retrospect, it sounds so insane, but that's what I tried to do, give myself away.

Act as if: Translated as "fake it ‘till you make it."  You are who other people tell you you are, or who they tell you you ought to be.  Need I say more?

Here's a couple more:

Be careful what you ask for you just might get it:  Again, sounds good on the surface, right?  But twisted and taken to an unhealthy extent, it leads to complacency and again, group-dependency, and a lack of confidence and trust in oneself; it leads one to actually fear being fully "recovered."  Makes one afraid of new challenges because this thinking leads to self-doubt and one will always remain in a state of thinking "I'm just trying to sabotage myself again, I'd better ask my counselor what she/he thinks before I make a decision."  It's crippling for a kid to be exposed to this stuff. Be careful if you think that you might want to be fully recovered and an independent, autonomous, fully-functional individual, you just might get it!

To be aware is to be alive  So nebulous; what does this one really mean?   It boils down and leads to what Lifton described as "doctrine over person" and "the dispensing of existence." It's a potent little thought-stopping phrase that is used to abruptly shut down critical thinking.  "To be aware of yourself is the same as being aware of other people telling you who who are, and until you know who you are as defined by the group perception of you the individual, you are not truly alive."  

All of these "DAYTOP values" IMO are, to some degree or another, thought-stopping, critical-thinking reducing nonsense phrases.  

All cults use some type of thought stopping technique. “You can't keep it unless you give it away” is a phrase I heard over and over while I was at DAYTOP and now in hindsight, I realize what a powerful tool that little phrase is, as is the teaching on “Act as if.”  Trying to incorporate all this new information about myself, my feelings, and the world around me was suddenly truncated by the thought-stopping phrase, “You can't keep it unless you give it away.”

"Let DAYTOP do the thinking for you" is all these really mean, and it actually promoted unawareness and an attitude of apathy, an inability to see anything valid outside of the group environment.  Instills a fear of "relapse" through misplaced hypersensitivity to times, places, and circumstances.  Conflates self-awareness and developing critical thinking with "be careful what you ask for" crapola and irrational fear of relapsing.  It actually guarantees relapse once you are out of DAYTOP!

These are just my notes, ramblings, brainstorming.  Am I making sense to anybody?

This I believe is a good start.  Any questions or comments from anyone?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 02, 2008, 08:10:34 PM
I mean, I can see some of these B-Mod and more confrontational techniques maybe perhaps being useful and even beneficial when applied to hard-core addicts, junkies and crack fiends coming off of the mean streets of NYC, but to apply those same techniques to suburban kids who are experimenting with grass at the local high school, even if it's an outpatient thing, is dangerous at best, and psychologically devastating, crippling at its worst.  

And in all truth, when I was in DAYTOP I met some for-real ex-dope fiends, trust me.  That scared me away from ever getting too mixed up with the "hard stuff."  Again, DAYTOP was not all bad, and there are some positives to my experience, but in the longer run, my final assessment was that it was a toxic environment to put some kid like me into, and that it was nothing but a negative influence on me.  It (the DAYTOP experience) just simply taught me to be fearful and dependent.

Taken literally and as a whole, these "DAYTOP values" are IMO a set of cutesy-sounding, thought-stopping, critical-analysis reducing armchair-psychologist mumbo jumbo.

That place utterly undermined my sense of identity and personal boundaries.  And it has taken me fifteen-odd years to see that.  This message board IS part of my therapy and healing process.  Good God.  These realizations are cathartic, and disturbing for me to process.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 02, 2008, 09:06:34 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
I mean, I can see some of these B-Mod and more confrontational techniques maybe perhaps being useful and even beneficial when applied to hard-core addicts

I would tend to disagree.  The results from most of these facilities are temporary.  Even if it worked, (which it doesn't, since the changes are reliant on a controlled milieu), it would still be a process without informed consent.  Who would fully and knowingly consent to brainwashing (not that such a thing is even possible, since Singer's first condition is that a person must remain unaware of how he is being changed)?

Quote
junkies and crack fiends coming off of the mean streets of NYC, but to apply those same techniques to suburban kids who are experimenting with grass at the local high school, even if it's an outpatient thing, is dangerous at best, and psychologically devastating, crippling at its worst.

I hear that.  If you tell a kid he's a fuck-up enough, he'll become one, whether he was to begin with or not.

An imaginary conversation with a staff member / other member of the group trusted with confrontation:

staff: you are a fuckup, a drug addict, and you need to admit that to yourself to get better.
inmate: but i'm not.  Just because I smoked pot does not mean I am addicted to it.
staff: you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a problem. Your best stinking thinking got you here.
inmate: but that doesn't make sense.  There was no due process or diagnosis.  how do you know I have a problem.
staff: because you're here.  Nobody is here that doesn't have a problem (mystical manipulation).  We know.  We are addicts just like you.
inmate: you don't know me.   I just met you.
staff: an addict knows an addict.
inmate: that doesn't make any sense.
staff: that's because you're thinking too much. Remember. Your best thinking got you here.  You are sick in the head.  You are just in denial.  It's not just a river in ejypt.
inmate: No i'm not in denial.  you people are crazy!
staff: Your denial is just further evidence you are in denial.

And so on and so forth, wearing away resistance.  Eventually the inmate decides to "fake it", becoming part of the group illusion that everybody there is a hopeless addict that will be deadinsaneinjail without the program.  Eventually the faking it turns into "believing it".  Voila!  A normal person is turned into a hopeless addict right then and there.  DId the person have a "problem" to begin with?  Who knows...  but he does now!

Quote
This message board IS part of my therapy and healing process.  Good God.  These realizations are cathartic, and disturbing for me to process.

Yeah.  Fornits can be a head trip of sorts, but I agree.  It's healthy in the long run to think about and process these things.  IMO, the longer you wait the more difficult it is anyway.

I'll respond more to your posts in a bit.  I'm working on a few projects here.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 02, 2008, 09:55:33 PM
Quote
I would tend to disagree. The results from most of these facilities are temporary. Even if it worked, (which it doesn't, since the changes are reliant on a controlled milieu), it would still be a process without informed consent. Who would fully and knowingly consent to brainwashing (not that such a thing is even possible, since Singer's first condition is that a person must remain unaware of how he is being changed)?

Well, I did say, "maybe, perhaps" they could be useful to some degree if we are talking about a hard-core addict in genuine denial about the extent of his or her problem.  
Quote

staff: you are a fuckup, a drug addict, and you need to admit that to yourself to get better.
inmate: but i'm not. Just because I smoked pot does not mean I am addicted to it.
staff: you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a problem. Your best stinking thinking got you here.
inmate: but that doesn't make sense. There was no due process or diagnosis. how do you know I have a problem.
staff: because you're here. Nobody is here that doesn't have a problem (mystical manipulation). We know. We are addicts just like you.
inmate: you don't know me. I just met you.
staff: an addict knows an addict.
inmate: that doesn't make any sense.
staff: that's because you're thinking too much. Remember. Your best thinking got you here. You are sick in the head. You are just in denial. It's not just a river in ejypt.
inmate: No i'm not in denial. you people are crazy!
staff: Your denial is just further evidence you are in denial.

Hahahaahha!!!  I had exchanges with "counselors" JUST LIKE THIS in that place.  Almost verbatim.  

You are blowing my mind, man.  You understand, you really seem to understand.

Wow, yes, I did eventually start to "Act as if" and then started to believe in the illusion...they repeatedly taught us that deadinsaneinjail stuff.  Exactly, word for word.  

I never did turn into a street junkie or crack fiend or anything (DAYTOP scared me away from that stuff for the most part) but got to where I was the biggest potsmoker this side of Cheech.  I am not proud of my past using and drinking.

My friends and buddies from there, however...two of them are dead now (one of them was a serious heroin addict who got killed while trying to steal a car), one of them spent a good while hooked on Oxycontin and had to go into another rehab to kick that stuff, another was on crack for a while, some have been in jail or prison, and I cannot think of one who stayed "clean and sober" in the longer run.

Like I said yesterday, two of my best friends are ex-DAYTOPians and they are doing relatively fine now, as am I.  

DAYTOP, then the various cults I mingled with, researched, and the one I was in, and the Army collectively really fucked my head up.  And it started with them.  Damn.

But hell, fifty years ago they would have been giving kids like us electroshocks and lobotomies and shit.  At least now we have psychotherapy.
Quote
Yeah. Fornits can be a head trip of sorts, but I agree. It's healthy in the long run to think about and process these things. IMO, the longer you wait the more difficult it is anyway.
Head trips are a good thing, as far as I am concerned.  Fornits for me is a healthy head trip.  Thanks for your time.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: dishdutyfugitive on December 02, 2008, 10:07:26 PM
Quote
   SEKTO wrote:I mean, I can see some of these B-Mod and more confrontational techniques maybe perhaps being useful and even beneficial when applied to hard-core addicts



I would tend to disagree. The results from most of these facilities are temporary. Even if it worked, (which it doesn't, since the changes are reliant on a controlled milieu), it would still be a process without informed consent. Who would fully and knowingly consent to brainwashing (not that such a thing is even possible, since Singer's first condition is that a person must remain unaware of how he is being changed)?

Folks who ardently believe they have the solution for addicts all have 1 thing in common - just focus on being sober today and show up tomorrow - you can deal with your 'drug thinking tomorrow here'

rinse - lather - repeat  adinfenitum

Now, I will give these folks credit for trying to help people. However, they're incredibly misinformed to the condition, solution and big picture. They're  insanely microfocused on the AA model. They will never achieve results that equate to a 'cure' or solution.

They need to wipe the drawing board clean. Erase the past and start from scratch. Leave your fuckin egos and wallets at the door.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 02, 2008, 10:41:05 PM
Quote from: "dishdutyfugitive"
Quote
   SEKTO wrote:I mean, I can see some of these B-Mod and more confrontational techniques maybe perhaps being useful and even beneficial when applied to hard-core addicts



I would tend to disagree. The results from most of these facilities are temporary. Even if it worked, (which it doesn't, since the changes are reliant on a controlled milieu), it would still be a process without informed consent. Who would fully and knowingly consent to brainwashing (not that such a thing is even possible, since Singer's first condition is that a person must remain unaware of how he is being changed)?

Folks who ardently believe they have the solution for addicts all have 1 thing in common - just focus on being sober today and show up tomorrow - you can deal with your 'drug thinking tomorrow here'

rinse - lather - repeat  adinfenitum

Now, I will give these folks credit for trying to help people. However, they're incredibly misinformed to the condition, solution and big picture. They're  insanely microfocused on the AA model. They will never achieve results that equate to a 'cure' or solution.

They need to wipe the drawing board clean. Erase the past and start from scratch. Leave your fuckin egos and wallets at the door.


What, in your estimation, is the condition, solution and big picture?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 03, 2008, 12:41:19 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
What, in your estimation, is the condition, solution and big picture?

There are alternatives to AA that have higher success rates.  Ones that focus on a cure, rather than dependence on a group.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 01:09:19 AM
A couple more notes/thoughts:

I remember that there were a few kids in the DAYTOP facility where I was who had come out of Straight; remember, I was in DAYTOP from '92 to '94, about a year and a half, and Straight closed in '93 I believe.  One of these kids was involved in some kind of class-action suit against them, I think.  We "inherited" some kids from Straight.  These kids used to tell horror stories of what life in Straight was like.  I am talking physical assaults, forced druggings, use of physical restraints, sleep and food deprivation, really overtly coercive and abusive stuff.  Over-the-top bad things of a physical nature.

To be fair, I never saw or experienced anything like that at all in my experience with DAYTOP.  We were encouraged to yell and scream and verbally abuse one another, they'd use humiliation and shaming, the deadinsaneinjail phobia indoctrination, the memorized and daily-recited DAYTOP Philosophy prayer and DAYTOP Values mantras that warped my sense of personal boundaries and identity...

But even then, there were certain guidelines, standards of behavior that we, the kids and counselors alike were obligated to abide by.  For instance, in the encounter groups, we had to keep both feet on the ground at all times and (as we were kids, minors most of us) were not permitted to use profanity during the group session.  Any kind of physical assault or fighting was never permitted.  There was this one time, though, when I remember (this was in an encounter group) the counselor in charge allowed one kid to walk over and push another kid down, hitting the floor while still in his chair (in the course of a particularly heated exchange of words in which the kid that got pushed was being downright insulting) but he (the counselor) broke it up before it actually came to blows.

So I never witness or experienced any physical or sexual abuse of any kind there, nothing at all like what I heard from kids coming out of Straight.   It was mainly verbal and emotional abuse, degradation, humiliation, and groupthink indoctrination.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 01:10:19 AM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
What, in your estimation, is the condition, solution and big picture?

There are alternatives to AA that have higher success rates.

Such as...?

Stuff like this?

http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/006854.html (http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/006854.html)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 03, 2008, 01:28:48 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
You can’t keep it unless you give it away: This one threw my sense of boundaries way out of whack.  The best way to help yourself maintain your sobriety is by helping somebody else to do the same.   Or in a churchy group the best way to maintain your salvation is by helping others to attain the same, by "getting people saved."  A good value in and of itself I suppose (keeping it by giving it away, whatever "it" may be), it sounds good enough in principle, but taken literally and to an unhealthy degree this mindset fosters co-dependence and a group mentality, and an unhealthy sense of responsibility for other people’s success or failure.  It’s true that in a sense that “we are all in this together” (in the sense of a global community and all that), that we are interdependent, but it’s also true that I have to be selfish in order to learn how to be selfless in a healthy way.  DAYTOP taught me a lack of balance and a boundary-reducing philosophy in this respect.  You cannot keep yourself unless you give yourself away.  In retrospect, it sounds so insane, but that's what I tried to do, give myself away.

It sounds like they incorporated a bunch of elements into that one philosophy (attack on the self, missionary work, group cohesiveness).  I am guessing that by "helping" others you would be expected to harshly confront them in group?  What did help entail?  Would it be accurate to state that the group was seen as more important than the individual?

Did you ever have to write written reports on yourself or others (some programs call this a "dirt list" or "moral inventory")?  How detailed did these reports get?  Were people expected to rat on others for minor offenses?  For doubting the program?  Was there a sort of "thought crime" you could be accused of?  Did objective criteria for advancement in the program really matter, or was it mostly based on the subjective evaluations of the staff into whether you had the "right" attitude (whether you were agreeing with the group philosophy and taking it to heart)?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 01:40:53 AM
Quote
It sounds like they incorporated a bunch of elements into that one philosophy (attack on the self, missionary work, group cohesiveness). I am guessing that by "helping" others you would be expected to harshly confront them in group? What did help entail? Would it be accurate to state that the group was seen as more important than the individual?

Did you ever have to write written reports on yourself or others (some programs call this a "dirt list" or "moral inventory")? How detailed did these reports get? Were people expected to rat on others for minor offenses? For doubting the program? Was there a sort of "thought crime" you could be accused of? Did objective criteria for advancement in the program really matter, or was it mostly based on the subjective evaluations of the staff into whether you had the "right" attitude (whether you were agreeing with the group philosophy and taking it to heart)?

We'll save these for tomorrow night, OK?  It's pretty late and I am going to go to sleep soon.  Until next time,

B
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 03, 2008, 01:42:06 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
We'll save these for tomorrow night, OK?  It's pretty late and I am going to go to sleep soon.  Until next time,

B

Sure thing.  gnight.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 03, 2008, 01:50:46 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
But even then, there were certain guidelines, standards of behavior that we, the kids and counselors alike were obligated to abide by.  For instance, in the encounter groups, we had to keep both feet on the ground at all times and (as we were kids, minors most of us) were not permitted to use profanity during the group session.  Any kind of physical assault or fighting was never permitted.

Most programs weren't like Straight in that they recognized that physical violence was unnecessary to the thought reform process (actually counterproductive, at least Signer says so).  In the program I was in they had similar rules to which you described above (both feet on the ground, no physical violence).  That's actually closer to what Synanon was IIRC (they had the same rules... unless you were a lawyer who was going after them.)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 03, 2008, 02:00:03 AM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
I mean, I can see some of these B-Mod and more confrontational techniques maybe perhaps being useful and even beneficial when applied to hard-core addicts
I would tend to disagree.  The results from most of these facilities are temporary.  Even if it worked, (which it doesn't, since the changes are reliant on a controlled milieu), it would still be a process without informed consent.  Who would fully and knowingly consent to brainwashing (not that such a thing is even possible, since Singer's first condition is that a person must remain unaware of how he is being changed)?
Quote
junkies and crack fiends coming off of the mean streets of NYC, but to apply those same techniques to suburban kids who are experimenting with grass at the local high school, even if it's an outpatient thing, is dangerous at best, and psychologically devastating, crippling at its worst.

Some comments inspired by the above, which in no way can address all of it...

First off, behavior modification, by definition of the word behavior, contains a complex array of targets. There are the physical aspects, what one actually does, but there are also psychological aspects: the intent, the motivation, etc. etc. etc.

Barring incidents of physical transgressions or abuse (which would certainly change the picture entirely), behavior modification which primarily addresses physical aspects generally does not have far-reaching consequences. Once the parameters for following the rules, the milieu, are removed, the subject generally reverts back to previous behavior. Or does not. That's basically up to the subject. His/her mindset or approach to life may or may not have changed or matured in the meantime.

Behavior modification which addresses psychological aspects, on the other hand, generally has longer-lasting consequences. This is why so many of these places so precisely target your soul.

What we tend to talk about here (on fornits), however, is not long term therapy with a trustworthy and competent practitioner, with informed consent and the pace being determined by the subject, with autonomy and confidentiality and individual freedom of choice respected and what not... What we generally talk about here is a system which utilizes shortcuts for reasons of expediency and cost effectiveness. And to do that in its extreme entails thought coercion.

Somewhere along the line, people figured out that getting people to be of the mind they wanted them to be was a lot quicker, and entailed less facilitators, if they capitalized on peer pressure. This is why ALL of these places, and I do mean every single friggin' one, use some form of group therapy or encounter group.

Thought coercion has a high price. For some, more than for others.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 03, 2008, 02:05:05 AM
The kinds of shortcuts that are utilized by and inherent to a group format affect some folks more "benignly" than others. I believe this is why, even chalking some cases up to Stockholm Syndrome, you still have a certain percentage of "success stories," namely people who, despite it all, genuinely feel they have been "bettered" by the experience.

But not all people are well suited to a group format. For some, the mere visceral reality of being in a group is traumatic enough in and of itself. This, on TOP of what is actually verbalized...

Somehow, at least in my humble experience, it was usually these people who formed the bulk of focus, when it came time to assess everyone's moral inventory at Hyde. Were their survival skills merely ill-suited to this artificially created environment? Or is "introversion" a dirty word for group-thinkers, a species that "society" is attempting to eradicate?

To run afoul of being "in tune with the group" was a larger sin than it was to mess up, when it came to issues that the group was supposedly "helping you address."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 02:15:24 AM
Quote from: "Ursus"
The kinds of shortcuts that are utilized by and inherent to a group format affect some folks more "benignly" than others. I believe this is why, even chalking some cases up to Stockholm Syndrome, you still have a certain percentage of "success stories," namely people who, despite it all, genuinely feel they have been "bettered" by the experience.

But not all people are well suited to a group format. For some, the mere visceral reality of being in a group is traumatic enough in and of itself. This, on TOP of what is actually verbalized...

Somehow, at least in my humble experience, it was usually these people who formed the bulk of focus, when it came time to assess everyone's moral inventory at Hyde. Were their survival skills merely ill-suited to this artificially created environment? Or is "introversion" a dirty word for group-thinkers, a species that "society" is attempting to eradicate?

To run afoul of being "in tune with the group" was a larger sin than it was to mess up when it came to issues that the group was supposedly "helping you address."

Holy cow.  You hit the nail right on the head, really pegged it right with that one.  I was about to go to bed, but once I saw the word "introversion" it just jumped out at me, so I feel compelled to jump back in for a minute here.  

Yes indeed, I am a strong introvert, INFP specifically.  I just finished reading "The Introvert Advantage" and will soon start on "Please Understand Me."

More later.  Really must get some sleep now.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Che Gookin on December 03, 2008, 02:45:30 AM
this is one of those threads that is hard to stop reading. Great discussion so far, and while I have nothing really to add(my experiences are all b-mod) I'll be sending my brother(cedu veteran). Maybe he'll find it of interest.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: dishdutyfugitive on December 03, 2008, 04:24:40 AM
Quote
What, in your estimation, is the condition, solution and big picture?


who the @#$% knows - perhaps were not supposed to know.

Why should we save the whales and not the sand flea? Is one better than the other?

Is a heroin addict a lesser person than another?


Why do we need the government to tell us what we can consume and not consume?
Why is obesiety tolerated?
They let people out of jail on the account of the fact they can't fit their 439 lb ass through the cell doors.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: dishdutyfugitive on December 03, 2008, 04:36:45 AM
Quote
And then, I subsequently turned to one group after another in an effort to get well and stay well...I'd become convinced that I could not function as a healthy an autonomous human being, that the only way to survive was as part of some group. Basically, I got to a point to where I had lost pretty much all sense of personal identity and defined myself in terms of whatever group I was visiting or aligned with at the time. And I have been around a lot of them: JPUSA, the Twelve Tribes, a small group in Dallas you've probably never heard of, ISKCON...believe me, I have made the rounds of the fringe religious groups.

This is precisely why I'm digging Fight club so much. The movie nailed it on the fucking head.

 intro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md36o8aEtRk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md36o8aEtRk)

marla
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojnOZW9 ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ojnOZW9-qk&feature=related)

more marla
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cpr46gM ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cpr46gME3Q&feature=related)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: dishdutyfugitive on December 03, 2008, 04:54:19 AM
Quote
What we generally talk about here is a system which utilizes shortcuts for reasons of expediency and cost effectiveness. And to do that in its extreme entails thought coercion.

and best of all, these systems implement their quackery vis a vis underpaid, misinformed, undedumacated stooges. The majority of them are ass clowns that spend 1/3 of their day gazing into the mirror with deep admiration. Always rehearsing self help lines they learned earlier in the day from their senior gihbranist. Pining for the day where they can bust the perfect group therapy speech so as to win facilitator of the year award.

 Hot damn you move at lifespeed.....
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 03, 2008, 10:18:58 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Quote from: "Ursus"
The kinds of shortcuts that are utilized by and inherent to a group format affect some folks more "benignly" than others. I believe this is why, even chalking some cases up to Stockholm Syndrome, you still have a certain percentage of "success stories," namely people who, despite it all, genuinely feel they have been "bettered" by the experience.

But not all people are well suited to a group format. For some, the mere visceral reality of being in a group is traumatic enough in and of itself. This, on TOP of what is actually verbalized...

Somehow, at least in my humble experience, it was usually these people who formed the bulk of focus, when it came time to assess everyone's moral inventory at Hyde. Were their survival skills merely ill-suited to this artificially created environment? Or is "introversion" a dirty word for group-thinkers, a species that "society" is attempting to eradicate?

To run afoul of being "in tune with the group" was a larger sin than it was to mess up when it came to issues that the group was supposedly "helping you address."

Holy cow.  You hit the nail right on the head, really pegged it right with that one.  I was about to go to bed, but once I saw the word "introversion" it just jumped out at me, so I feel compelled to jump back in for a minute here.  

Yes indeed, I am a strong introvert, INFP specifically.  I just finished reading "The Introvert Advantage" and will soon start on "Please Understand Me."

More later.  Really must get some sleep now.

 :roflmao:  (Well, I'll be darned or a monkey's uncle, whichever comes first!)

Ahoy there, matey!! Me being a INFP/INTP myself (there being a bit of a toggle in that third axis, dependent upon the specifics of the assay, ha!), I can well relate to where you are coming from!

"Hot damn, you move at lifespeed....."   :clown:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 06:59:55 PM
Ursus, I myself am INFP/INFJ, with my bit of toggle being on the fourth Axis.  More P than J-dominant though.

Here’s some more thoughts, from notes I took today while doing some studying and work in the area of boundaries, my sense of which DAYTOP philosophy completely erased, while resulted in my becoming utterly emotionally and psychologically crippled.  It has taken be fifteen years or so to even begin to see the extent of the damage DAYTOP did to me.  I took that stuff in, it became part of my self-explanatory style, and I personalized it, it became systemic in my thinking, and pervaded all areas of my life and relationships with others.  In the long run, DAYTOPianism proved poisonous to my life and sense of well-being.

I’ll get this out here first, and then next focus on specifically answering psy’s questions from last night.

Quote
staff: you are a fuckup, a drug addict, and you need to admit that to yourself to get better.
inmate: but i'm not. Just because I smoked pot does not mean I am addicted to it.
staff: you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a problem. Your best stinking thinking got you here.
inmate: but that doesn't make sense. There was no due process or diagnosis. how do you know I have a problem.
staff: because you're here. Nobody is here that doesn't have a problem (mystical manipulation). We know. We are addicts just like you.
inmate: you don't know me. I just met you.
staff: an addict knows an addict.
inmate: that doesn't make any sense.
staff: that's because you're thinking too much. Remember. Your best thinking got you here. You are sick in the head. You are just in denial. It's not just a river in ejypt.
inmate: No i'm not in denial. you people are crazy!
staff: Your denial is just further evidence you are in denial.

I remember having exchanges just exactly like this one in there.  Just like it, almost word-for-word.  A phrase I heard, and began to use over and over once I began to “Act as if” was the old Bill-ism “it doesn’t work unless you work it.” Also I was repeatedly told to try not to think too much about what was going on in my mind and in the DAYTOP environment and just to “focus on working your program, one day at a time.”  I was told often that I had a tendency to “think too much” (what kind of a program is it that discourages people from thinking?  That’s supposed to be helpful?!) and that I was phony, a showoff, and full of myself.  

In DAYTOPian thinking, you are never who you think that you are, you are always who the group and the program tells you that you are.  To conform to the groups’ and the program’s expectations of one’s behavior is considered “progress”, “making a breakthrough” and to not conform to the group/program norms is called “phoniness” or “being plastic.”  Counselors would always be telling me how “phony” I was being and one of their favorite DAYTOPisms was always to mockingly shout at me, “Oooh, I can smell the plastic burning!  It’s coming out of your ears, the smoke from all your melting plastic!”  All I was doing, in my mind, was questioning the validity of what they were doing and what was going on, and again, they’d tell me not to think so damn much and just “take it one day at a time.”

So I started to “act as if” and eventually came to believe what they were telling me.  I let them tell me who I was; individuality of opinion was not tolerated in that environment.  

DAYTOP was most certainly, looking back on it, a mind-control environment in which we were subjected to a process that molded us, reoriented us from a bearing of being urban high school kids experimenting with grass and mushrooms to a bearing in which we came to believe we were hopeless junkies with a genetic predisposition for addictive behavior and ultimately self-destruction. Of course DAYTOP subjected us to mind control/coercive persuasion/though reform techniques. Of course we were rewarded for conforming and punished for not conforming, as parts of the “DAYTOP family.”  Of course the whole idea was to minimize our individuality and personal autonomy and teach us to think as a part of the group.  Of course it was all about manipulating and exploiting the power of the situation, in order to make us think and behave in certain ways.  Of course they controlled our behavior, our communications with family and old friends, told us how to sit and how to speak and how to think and all that.  The “counslors” would "smoke" us in encounter group, or in the “haircut” sessions, like cheap cigars sometimes, and we’d “smoke” each other until some kids broke down in tears. Of course we become desensitized to the others' pain and suffering and get to the point where you only see a “dope fiend”, not a suffering person.  For me the “haircut” sessions were much more brutal and traumatizing than the encounter groups, since they were more personalized and took place in a smaller confined setting.  You are dealing with a junkie, never a healthy person in the DAYTOP state of mind. That one might be hard for people who were not in to understand. You are never truly “recovered” or totally “healthy.”  Of course it was a dehumanizing and degrading and de-individualizing process for all of us. A lot of people abused their power in the DAYTOP outpatient facility where we were for sure and none seem to be held accountable at all.  But at the time we all redefined the abuse as “tough love” which was being applied to make us “better.”  After all, the Monsignor wouldn’t want to deliberately hurt us, would he?

I remember how “Marcia” would try and teach me the art of “how to win friends and influence people” by giving me such advice as “try not to use big words when speaking to people; you are annoying and a showoff when you do that.”  Then I later used what I had learned subconsciously against others
in my life, furthering the cycle of abuse.  You always tell people what you think they don't want to hear, and ty and get them to internalize it as "truth."  This eventually encouraged my abuse of alcohol and drugs.  

Most of the “counselors” there were not really completely sober, either.  I had one friend who was in the home of one of the Puerto Rican counselors for whatever reason on one occasion, and she told me that she saw the guy drinking beer with his friends out by the pool.  There was another guy, an ex-DAYTOPian who never did graduate, who swore up and down to me much later on that he and another DAYTOP kid smoked a joint with one of the counselors while on the DAYTOP property.  I do not know this for an absolute fact, but the kid swore up and down that they all got high together and then the counselor told them “Hey, no hard feelings but you know I’m going to have to UA you guys, right?”  I was told that they all laughed about it all together like it was all a big joke.  Funny how the kids had to take random UAs but the counselors did not.

Personally, at the time I adhered to the program 100% while in it and did not get high again until I’d been at out of the program for less than a year.   I started smoking grass again at the ’94 Rainbow Gathering in Wyoming.  Ahh, those were the days!

So the long and the short of the matter is, the “one size fits all” approach to this kind of “therapy” does not work, and most of us came out of DAYTOP much worse off in the long run than when we went in  the place.  I have recently told one of my old DAYTOP buddies about this board, emailed him the link to it, and I hope that he will join us soon.  He'll tell you.
Quote
How parents can send their kids into such environments never ceases to amaze me.

Psy, frankly, the fact that so many idiots turn out to be parents in the first place, just out of some sense of obligation, never ceases to amaze me, man.  You know, one has to have a license to get and carry a gun, drive a car, practice medicine, so many things that one has be trained, qualified, and licensed to do, but any old dumbass can pop out as many babies as they want without a license, and then outsource them to another bunch of dumbasses to try to train them in all the stuff that was the parents’ responsibility in the first place!  You know?  That blows my mind.  Any idiot can have a kid and then give them to somebody else to do the raising.  Easy for me to say, I guess; I have no children.  I just have a very hard time understanding how and why somebody would do that shit to another little human being.  It’s incredible and so sad IMO.

BTW: also, does anybody know anything much about the history, background character, personality, and etc. of the Monsignor?  There’s little about him out there on the web.  Is he some kind of narcissist/sociopath type, or misguided but good intentioned man, or what is his story?  Anybody know?
All for now.  I’m going to have another mug of yerba mate and will get more of this done later.

This is not easy for me to go through, and makes me sad to think about, but I consider this board part of my therapy.  

Thanks for your time and support.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 03, 2008, 10:20:49 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Ursus, I myself am INFP/INFJ, with my bit of toggle being on the fourth Axis.  More P than J-dominant though.

Here’s some more thoughts, from notes I took today while doing some studying and work in the area of boundaries, my sense of which DAYTOP philosophy completely erased, while resulted in my becoming utterly emotionally and psychologically crippled.  It has taken be fifteen years or so to even begin to see the extent of the damage DAYTOP did to me.  I took that stuff in, it became part of my self-explanatory style, and I personalized it, it became systemic in my thinking, and pervaded all areas of my life and relationships with others.  In the long run, DAYTOPianism proved poisonous to my life and sense of well-being.

With me it was a case of a several things, specifically:

- I was too open with others to the point of sharing too much with people I knew little.
- I was too opinionated about others, confronting them in program style.  I would tell people that they didn't really know who they were inside.  I basically repeated the program on others on the outside.  It didn't turn out so well.  I had to learn the hard way to cut that out.

Quote
I was told often that I had a tendency to “think too much” (what kind of a program is it that discourages people from thinking?  That’s supposed to be helpful?!) and that I was phony, a showoff, and full of myself.

Some programs used the phrase "in your head" to describe a person who was thinking too much (as opposed to in your feelings).  The general theme was: don't think, just do what we do and you'll be fine... follow our orders blindly.

Quote
Of course we become desensitized to the others' pain and suffering and get to the point where you only see a “dope fiend”, not a suffering person.
...
But at the time we all redefined the abuse as “tough love” which was being applied to make us “better.”

Exactly.  What was once abusive was re-framed as "necessary"...  "Tough love" is an "ends justify the means" philosophy that rationalizes mistreatment as necessary for recovery.  The idea being that a person has to be "broken down" before they are "built up" again as a new person.  Problem being that it's not really possible to build a new person once you break somebody down.  You wind up with an unstable robot. It's thought reform, not therapy.

Quote
After all, the Monsignor wouldn’t want to deliberately hurt us, would he?

And maybe he didn't, deliberately.  A priest takes a vow of poverty, which means he's not likely in it for the money.  My bet for somebody like that would be a lack of education, good intentions, and an ample helping of cultic influence from those around him he sought for advice on "treatment".  The same is (or course) not true with many other school owners, but the moral busybodies can be just as oppressive as greedy tyrants.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."  C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis wrote a lot of good stuff, actually.

Quote
So the long and the short of the matter is, the “one size fits all” approach to this kind of “therapy” does not work, and most of us came out of DAYTOP much worse off in the long run than when we went in  the place.  I have recently told one of my old DAYTOP buddies about this board, emailed him the link to it, and I hope that he will join us soon.  He'll tell you.

Cool. I'm sure he'll find it interesting at the very least.

Quote
This is not easy for me to go through, and makes me sad to think about, but I consider this board part of my therapy.  

Thanks for your time and support.

You're welcome.  Thank you for bring such interesting discussion here.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 10:57:27 PM
Now that I have had that mate, it's time to address psy's questions.

Quote
It sounds like they incorporated a bunch of elements into that one philosophy (attack on the self, missionary work, group cohesiveness). I am guessing that by "helping" others you would be expected to harshly confront them in group? What did help entail? Would it be accurate to state that the group was seen as more important than the individual?

Did you ever have to write written reports on yourself or others (some programs call this a "dirt list" or "moral inventory")? How detailed did these reports get? Were people expected to rat on others for minor offenses? For doubting the program? Was there a sort of "thought crime" you could be accused of? Did objective criteria for advancement in the program really matter, or was it mostly based on the subjective evaluations of the staff into whether you had the "right" attitude (whether you were agreeing with the group philosophy and taking it to heart)?

Now please understand that this was about fifteen years ago and these are things I have not pulled to my conscious mind in a long time...this is stuff from I was 18/19, and I am 34 now.  Usually I try not to think about DAYTOP so much, not until lately.

Yes, the "help" we were expected to inflict on others entailed harsh confrontations, personal attacks, and basically put, DAYTOP's philosophy is essentially one that encourages psychological dominance over others and I too learned to pass that abuse on to others around me.  I myself am not one for much confrontation, and find it hard to be mean to people, to yell and scream and such.  But I learned how to be, learned how to pretend like I was a lot more angry than I really was so that it was not me who was the one getting reamed out.

In the DAYTOP groups, I'd always prefer to try and talk my way through some problem, use reason and deal with people in a compassionate and persuasive way.  
It's one thing to tell somebody "you hurt my feelings and this is how" or "you made me feel angry and this is why".  In DAYTOP you'd never say to somebody "You pissed me off" or "that makes me mad."  They'd have you identify your feelings and articulate them: we were taught that "Pissed off is not a feeling" or "dogs get mad, people get angry" etc. you see.  

So I was never one for a lot of yelling, and in DAYTOP-speak I was not properly identifying and expressing myself if I preferred a calmer and more rational approach.  No, we were supposed to YELL.  If I tried to talk it out with somebody, Marcia would scream at ME and tell me how phony and plastic and wimpy I was.  So I was encouraged to let 'er rip and really give people a piece of my mind "YOU'RE SO FULL OF SHIT, YOU LITTLE PUNK!!"  Generally we were not supposed to use profanity, but everybody did from time to time anyway.  They'd allow it as long as it wasn't too "excessive," however they were defining "excessive" at the time.  

So I was always encouraged to act a lot more offended or upset than I really was.  It got to where I was actually belligerent and happily confrontational too.

They (the counselors) tell you how they saw you, effectively telling you "who you really are" whether you really were that person or not.  They'd tell you what was wrong with you, what your issue was whether that was really your issue or not, or whether what they were saying had any validity at all.  They'd try to break you down and then put you back together again the DAYTOP way, tampering with the fundamental building blocks of your inborn personality, basically tell you that "you" weren't good enough (because it's your own junkie thinking that got you here, right?) and that they were going to build a "new and improved" you.  An attack on the self, yes.  "You are now part of a whole, something greater than yourself the messed-up individual, and you need the group to keep you well."  Dispensing of existence, doctrine over person, yes.  Mystical manipulation, it was all there.  I see it now, or I am starting to understand what was really going on there.

Was the group more important than the individual?  Yes and no.  It's all about situational context, and the power of the situation you see.  On the one hand, the whole point, the end result was personal growth.  One of thier little "values" I remember was "Personal growth before vested interest."  But in that situational context you needed the group to tell you how much "personal growth" you the individual had attained.  You'd have to prove yourself constantly to the staff and to your peers before you could make advancement in the DAYTOP chain of command.  

So here's a question: had one advanced up the chain because of one's personal growth, or had one's personal growth been increased through the shifting and growing sets of responsibilities put upon one through that very administrative advancement?

Did you ever have to write written reports on yourself or others (some programs call this a "dirt list" or "moral inventory")? How detailed did these reports get? Were people expected to rat on others for minor offenses? For doubting the program? Was there a sort of "thought crime" you could be accused of? Did objective criteria for advancement in the program really matter, or was it mostly based on the subjective evaluations of the staff into whether you had the "right" attitude (whether you were agreeing with the group philosophy and taking it to heart)?


1)  According to my recollection, coordinators and Department Heads did, yes.  (Coordinators and Department Heads being the two topmost levels of the DAYTOP chain.)  We'd keep log book of who committed what infractions and when.  We'd keep log books of who we gave a "haircut" or a "dealtwith" to, the time of day it was administered, the offense committed, and a short but somewhat detailed, concise report of it to be delivered to the counselor on duty, whoever it might have been on a particular day.  

But no, there were not any daily written reports that we all had to write out, or regularly-submitted moral inventories in a written form from what I remember.

2)  People were expected to rat each other out for minor offenses, yes.  Because, according to our indoctrination, if you know somebody is doing something wrong, breaking some rule or whatever, and you do not turn them in for it or at least persuade them to confess, then you were complicit to their bad behavior and might as well have been doing it yourself.  It became kind of a "feather in your cap" in terms of showing your "personal growth" if you turned somebody in for some small thing, say, if you catch them smoking behind the fence out back.  The more things that you could point out that you saw somebody doing wrong, the more you called them out on some improper attitude or inappropriate thinking, it showed that you had "matured" and must be gaining "personal growth."

People were expected to rat each other out for doubting the program, too, and again, the more you called somebody out on their "bad attitude" the more "feathers in your cap" you'd get and the more "personal growth" you had achieved.  Was there any kind of "thought crime" that one could be accused of?  Sure, in questioning the program at all, or questioning anything for that matter.  Any kind of non-conformity or not going along with the DAYTOP lines could land you in the coordinator's office for a quick "dealtwith" at any time.  No grumbling, no murmuring, no dissenting allowed.  Oh, you might be allowed to express an independent thought a time or two, but they'd set you straight pretty quick, or try to at least.  If you still didn't go along with it, did too much complaining or asked too many questions, you might have to spend time in "The Chair" after a series of "haircuts."  

Quote
Did objective criteria for advancement in the program really matter, or was it mostly based on the subjective evaluations of the staff into whether you had the "right" attitude (whether you were agreeing with the group philosophy and taking it to heart)?

I know of this one guy (a good friend of mine to this day, and he might post here a little bit someday soon) who was in the program for two and a half years before they let him graduate.  Why so long?  Nobody really knows.  The level of "readiness" to graduate was all subjectively judged by the staff and the director of the place.  Pretty much all subjectively judged, yep.

A big part of my story, and the others' too was in our relationship with our families.  They were so ignorant, so naive, and ate up everything DAYTOP told them.  It's like they were looking for some help to "fix" their son, when it was our dysfunctional family that was the problem.  The main lesson I learned
is that there are no "quick fixes."

I don't think that my friend will post much, if at all.  I talked with him tonight and he said that his memories of DAYTOP make him want to vomit.  But we'll see.

More later, after another yerba.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 11:28:05 PM
Quote
Some programs used the phrase "in your head" to describe a person who was thinking too much (as opposed to in your feelings). The general theme was: don't think, just do what we do and you'll be fine... follow our orders blindly.

Boy, that takes me back man.  They'd always tell me that I was "stuck in my own head" and that the solution was to get "out of my head."  

Wat kind of shit is that to teach a kid?

Another charming DAYTOPianism (not a "DAYTOP value", but one phrase that got bandied about a lot in the group environment) one that I never really understood, was "When you think you're looking bad you're looking good, and when you think you're looking good you're looking bad."  What on earth does that mean??  I always wondered.  Talk about confusion and lots of self-doubt.  Talk about impaired decision-making.  "I think I look good but I really look bad/I think I look bad but I really look good."  WTF?   That phrase threw my emotional balance WAY off.  If you incorporate that into your thinking, who knows where it might lead you?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: dishdutyfugitive on December 03, 2008, 11:37:58 PM
Quote
get "out of my head."

Quote

= we don't see too many of you intellectual kids. Quit hurting our brains with slightly advanced vocabulary. Stop talking smart talk. Get in to your feelings. Start flinging snot everywhere and swearing about your coerced program feelings".

 

Wat kind of shit is that to teach a kid?

Quote
"When you think you're looking bad you're looking good, and when you think you're looking good you're looking bad." What on earth does that mean?? I always wondered. Talk about confusion and lots of self-doubt.

HOly FuCK!!!!! 2+2 = 5
aka you you can try as hard as you want but you'll never get it or progress. You'll always be a degenerate teen worth $66k a year.
"I can't wait to yell at you next week about more senseless shite"
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 03, 2008, 11:55:03 PM
Quote from: "dishdutyfugitive"
Quote
get "out of my head."

Quote

= we don't see too many of you intellectual kids. Quit hurting our brains with slightly advanced vocabulary. Stop talking smart talk. Get in to your feelings. Start flinging snot everywhere and swearing about your coerced program feelings".

 

Wat kind of shit is that to teach a kid?

Quote
"When you think you're looking bad you're looking good, and when you think you're looking good you're looking bad." What on earth does that mean?? I always wondered. Talk about confusion and lots of self-doubt.

HOly FuCK!!!!! 2+2 = 5
aka you you can try as hard as you want but you'll never get it or progress. You'll always be a degenerate teen worth $66k a year.
"I can't wait to yell at you next week about more senseless shite"


I know, I know...DAYTOP fucked us up, me and my friends, and we were only participating at the outpatient level.  

But, they had our parents in on it too, and back in those days (early '90s) at the height of the "Tough Love/Positive Peer Pressure" fad our Moms and Dads just ate it up.  

Look, I was just some kid that was smoking weed and experimenting with some acid, for goodness sakes, and they made me out a total dope fiend.

There were kids coming back from Athens (DAYTOP residential in TX) were really screwed up.  Lots of angry kids were coming back from Athens, let me tell you.

DAYTOP's TX branches eventually closed down in the late '90s; if I remember correctly, it entailed some scandal involving embezzlement and financial impropriety, and the subsequent withdrawl of state funding and support,  that led the program to be closed down there.  So DAYTOP has not operated in tX in 10 years or so if I remember correctly.  There might be an intake center there, but there's not an inpatient or outpatient facility open any more.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 04, 2008, 12:02:52 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
I myself am not one for much confrontation, and find it hard to be mean to people, to yell and scream and such.  But I learned how to be, learned how to pretend like I was a lot more angry than I really was so that it was not me who was the one getting reamed out.

Yup.  You had to attack to survive.  A friend of mine who was in the same program I was in described it by saying that we were forced to become animals.  It was survival of the fittest.  Compassion was weakness.  Even outside of group, the politicking and incessant backstabbing was rampant.  The people weren't naturally like that but elements of the system forced them to adapt.  Either you learned to be a predator or you became prey.  It was a sick social experiment.

Quote
I see it now, or I am starting to understand what was really going on there.

I tend to think that once you understand about 70% of what was going on, most of the rest suddenly falls into place in a sort of "aha" moment.

Quote
But no, there were not any daily written reports that we all had to write out, or regularly-submitted moral inventories in a written form from what I remember.

The reason I asked was because some programs like the one I was in combine the ratting out with written lists.  The lists were then compared by staff.  Sometimes you were asked to rewrite them (often at random, sometimes because somebody else wrote something about you).  You would never know if you missed something, whether somebody had ratted you out, whether staff already knew...  You were even supposed to write down rumors.   It was like the secret police.  All in all it was very, very effective.  People would often end up ratting themselves out, not knowing if anybody else already did.  If you knew about something and didn't say, you could get punished as well. (and these were serious punishments, like losing your level).

Quote
2)  People were expected to rat each other out for minor offenses, yes.  Because, according to our indoctrination, if you know somebody is doing something wrong, breaking some rule or whatever, and you do not turn them in for it or at least persuade them to confess, then you were complicit to their bad behavior and might as well have been doing it yourself.  It became kind of a "feather in your cap" in terms of showing your "personal growth" if you turned somebody in for some small thing, say, if you catch them smoking behind the fence out back.  The more things that you could point out that you saw somebody doing wrong, the more you called them out on some improper attitude or inappropriate thinking, it showed that you had "matured" and must be gaining "personal growth."

Yup.  Where I was we were also taught that we were helping others to "follow the program" (so ratting was a noble thing).

Quote
If you still didn't go along with it, did too much complaining or asked too many questions, you might have to spend time in "The Chair" after a series of "haircuts."

The chair, I assume was a chair in the middle of a circle of chairs (the one in the center being the confronted one).. a hot seat technique.  We had this in the program I was in.  It was like a firing squad.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 04, 2008, 12:06:41 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Quote
Some programs used the phrase "in your head" to describe a person who was thinking too much (as opposed to in your feelings). The general theme was: don't think, just do what we do and you'll be fine... follow our orders blindly.

Boy, that takes me back man.  They'd always tell me that I was "stuck in my own head" and that the solution was to get "out of my head."

Yeah.  I've been trying to find out where that phrase came from with little success.  If you have any luck, let me know.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: dishdutyfugitive on December 04, 2008, 12:32:15 AM
they tried that shit on the outpatient level?


for fuck's sake. They'll try anything
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 04, 2008, 12:47:55 AM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
2) People were expected to rat each other out for minor offenses, yes. Because, according to our indoctrination, if you know somebody is doing something wrong, breaking some rule or whatever, and you do not turn them in for it or at least persuade them to confess, then you were complicit to their bad behavior and might as well have been doing it yourself. It became kind of a "feather in your cap" in terms of showing your "personal growth" if you turned somebody in for some small thing, say, if you catch them smoking behind the fence out back. The more things that you could point out that you saw somebody doing wrong, the more you called them out on some improper attitude or inappropriate thinking, it showed that you had "matured" and must be gaining "personal growth."
Yup. Where I was we were also taught that we were helping others to "follow the program" (so ratting was a noble thing).

LOL. Hyde School's "Brother's Keeper." One of their "5 principles," if I remember the current terminology correctly.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 04, 2008, 12:52:17 AM
Quote
The chair, I assume was a chair in the middle of a circle of chairs (the one in the center being the confronted one).. a hot seat technique. We had this in the program I was in. It was like a firing squad.

Yes, everything I am describing to you all took place at the outpatient level.

No, the Hot Seat technique was in the form of the encounter groups, which were done in a big circle with nobody in the middle and the all attention given to whoever was getting yelled at.  The encounter group usually consisted of, oh, 15-20 people, including at least one counselor, maybe two sometimes.  These encounter groups were conducted once a week if I remember correctly, twice sometimesand lasted an hour or two at the most, or until everybody felt properly ventilated, depending on whatever else we had to do that day.

Then there was another form of the hotseat, the more brutal  "haircut" sessions, in which you'd go into a small room and there would be three seats lined up on one side and one on the other.  The person receiving the "haircut" (a term borrowed from Synanon and going back to the early days of DAYTOP, also the term "splitee" for that matter, which was the DAYTOP word for somebody who'd run from or "split" the program) would face, from the single seat on the one side, the coordinators and/or counselors on the other and they'd take turns screaming at you and telling you what a fuckup  you were and all this, and it would go on for as long as they felt necessary.  

Also there were "dealtwiths" with were pretty tame, really.  You'd basically tell a person what he or she did wrong and not to do it again, maybe some light punishment, say, they have to do dishes for a week or something.  After somebody got two or three "dealtwiths" for this or that offense, they'd get a "haircut."  But, if it were a serious enough matter, they'd get a "haircut" right away.  

For example: say you catch somebody smoking out back.  No big deal, relatively speaking, give them a "dealtwith."  But if you catch them smoking out back on a regular basis, then it's time to give 'em a "haircut."

Now, The Chair was just that: some kid would be made to sit in a chair and face the wall in a corner like a child for a day or two, hands in their lap and both feet on the floor, not being allowed to speak and nobody allowed to speak with them.  They'd have to take their lunch in The Chair.  If some counselor deemed it necessary, sometimes the kid would be made to wear a paper sign taped to their back, with some message like "I am rebellious" or "Don't talk to me, I'm in The Chair."  Or sometimes, I remember now, they'd make a kid walk around with some sign all day but NOT make him sit in the Chair: "Ask me why I got a haircut today" or "I have issues" or "Ask me why I am so babyish" would read the humiliating message on the sign.

One time they made me wear a sign that read, "Ask me to bark like a dog" and all day long kids would come up to and ask me to bark like a dog, and I'd do it.

Another time Marcia made me dance around in Morning Meeting like a spazz, to "help" me "overcome my social hangups."  That stunt I recall to this day, and only added to my social hangups.

One time they made a kid walk around all week with a pacifier around his neck and whenever somebody asked him why he had the pacifier around his neck, he'd have to tell them "Because I am such a baby."

That particular kid is dead now.  He split from DAYTOP, stole a car, got drunk and high, coked up, went joyriding and ended up in...I think it was Oklahoma, and got he killed after running a red light.  Got broadsided by a truck and it decapitated the kid.  I still remember his name and went to the boy's funeral.  He was seventeen when he died.  That's a true story.

There are three kids who I was in DAYTOP with who are dead now.  I could tell you their names, too.

What do the people who come up with this stuff think they're going to accomplish (that is constructive) by making kids do this stuff?

More in a bit.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 04, 2008, 01:08:57 AM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
If you still didn't go along with it, did too much complaining or asked too many questions, you might have to spend time in "The Chair" after a series of "haircuts."
The chair, I assume was a chair in the middle of a circle of chairs (the one in the center being the confronted one).. a hot seat technique. We had this in the program I was in. It was like a firing squad.

I've read that Hazelton was using the "hotseat" in the early-mid 70's when they were incorporating Synanon techniques (Hazelton participated in trainings at Eagleville Hospital just outside of Philadelphia; Eagleville learned their stuff directly from Synanon). But the "hotseat" is a concept probably as old as therapeutic communities are, which predates Synanon by at least two decades.

We had "haircuts" at Hyde School too, literally, haha! That was one way of addressing a "phony image." Some of us also had to dig our own graves, 6x6x2 holes that - if the measurements were off - would need to be filled and re-dug. Again. And again. Joe Gauld got some of his ideas from Cool Hand Luke. It was required viewing for years. Perhaps it still is...
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 04, 2008, 01:16:07 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
...If some counselor deemed it necessary, sometimes the kid would be made to wear a paper sign taped to their back, with some message like "I am rebellious" or "Don't talk to me, I'm in The Chair." Or sometimes, I remember now, they'd make a kid walk around with some sign all day but NOT make him sit in the Chair: "Ask me why I got a haircut today" or "I have issues" or "Ask me why I am so babyish" would read the humiliating message on the sign.

One time they made me wear a sign that read, "Ask me to bark like a dog" and all day long kids would come up to and ask me to bark like a dog, and I'd do it.

Ah, jeez, the friggin' signs... Elan School was real big on the signs. Hyde School even had them for a while. I think I remember one particular awful episode where some kid was forced to wear a big diaper (he was quite overweight, and this was one of the issues he was being confronted about), and a sign reading "Ask me why I'm such a baby."

From an old Time article (http://http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914495,00.html) in 1975:

Faced with a rebellious applicant, Gauld once shouted, "Listen, I'm telling you either change your attitude around me or I will jam it down your throat."

Although annual fees for tuition, board and room add up to a hefty $4,700 [not any more! lol], life at the small (enrollment: 175) coed boarding school is almost as rigorous as that of a Marine boot camp. Many of the students are troubled, and short-tempered Gauld treats them like a drill instructor faced with a platoon of left-footed recruits. He occasionally slaps and routinely humiliates the kids--with their parents' tacit consent--in a no-holds-barred effort to toughen them up and build their characters. "The rod is only wrong in the wrong hands," Gauld likes to say. When he finds that a student has what he considers a "bad attitude," Gauld may order him to wear a sign saying I ACT LIKE A BABY, or tell him to dig a 6-ft. by 6-ft. trench and then fill it up. He has even conducted a public paddling ceremony at Hyde...[/list]
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 04, 2008, 01:33:07 AM
One time they made a kid walk around all week with a pacifier around his neck and whenever somebody asked him why he had the pacifier around his neck, he'd have to tell them "Because I am such a baby."

That particular kid is dead now. He split from DAYTOP, stole a car, got drunk and high, coked up, went joyriding and ended up in...I think it was Oklahoma, and got he killed after running a red light. Got broadsided by a truck and it decapitated the kid. I still remember his name and went to the boy's funeral. He was seventeen when he died. That's a true story.

There are three kids who I was in DAYTOP with who are dead now. I could tell you their names, too.

One of turned into a junkie after he left DAYTOP, and got shot while trying to steal a car for heroin money.

Another kid went into a gang, and I heard that he got shot and killed in a drive-by.

Mike (the kid with the pacifier) got decapitated by a truck after splitting from DAYTOP.

Truthfully, I feel bad about Mike to this day.  I myself gave that kid vicious haircuts and made fun of him and laughed at him in group with everyone else.  

You're either a predator or prey in that situation, like psy said.  

Mike had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and was actually a sweet-natured kid with problems, not some fuckup.  And I made the kid suffer too.  God, I wish I'd tried to be his friend now!

I am tearing up, remembering Mike at this moment.  It makes me emotional.  I hadn't though of this stuff in years, kind of blocked it out.  I remember the guy well.  He was a good kid, really.  He was so scared and vulnerable.  He didn't need to be there.  He didn't deserve that.  He should have been in Special Ed, not some brutal environment like DAYTOP.

Here's the story with Mike: Mike's parents confided to Marcia that they'd adopted him as an infant, but didn't know whether they should tell Mike of this, or how to go about it.  They told Marcia this in confidence, and asked her not to tell him.  But she did anyway.  Marcia then broke their confidence, and "accidentally" told Mike that he was adopted.  She sort of slipped it into a conversation with his as if she assumed that he already knew...she took Mike aside one day and it went something like "So Mike, how old were you when you found out that you were adopted?"  The bitch thought she knew what was better for Mike than his parents did, and took it upon herself to tell their kid that he was adopted.  

So Mike freaks out, steals a car with some kid who split with him, they get all coked up and drunk, wind up in Oklahoma, run a red, and Mike winds up getting his head removed, just a two or three days after Marcia spills the beans.

The other kid in the car got out of it without a scratch and told me about it himself at Mike's funeral.  

We found out what Marcia had done only after she'd been fired; If I remember correctly the director of out facility told us about it.

So "Marcia" (not her real name) gets fired from DAYTOP over that shit and last I heard she worked for UPS.  She'll answer to her maker someday.

Like Forrest Gump said, that's all I have to say about that.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 04, 2008, 01:55:29 AM
Quote
Gauld may order him to wear a sign saying I ACT LIKE A BABY, or tell him to dig a 6-ft. by 6-ft. trench and then fill it up. He has even conducted a public paddling ceremony at Hyde...

DAYTOP outpatient would do stuff like that too, make us wear signs, sit in The Chair all day, carry around baby bottles or wear pacifiers, make you bark like a dog, I never saw somebody made to dig a hole though, nothing quite so extreme; after all it was outpatient and we didn't have time for that...I remember they'd make kids walk around and pick up exactly 500 cigarette butts or exactly 500 blades of grass, some number like that, and label them all with tiny pieces of paper and tiny pieces of tape.  Lots of humiliation and degradation.  And then put you on the van and send you home.  And our parents let them do it.  DAYTOP had them thinking that this was all a good thing too, same as us kids.  Crazy, right?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 04, 2008, 01:58:43 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Here's the story with Mike: Mike's parents confided to Marcia that they'd adopted him as an infant, but didn't know whether they should tell Mike of this, or how to go about it. They told Marcia this in confidence, and asked her not to tell him. But she did anyway. Marcia then broke their confidence, and "accidentally" told Mike that he was adopted. She sort of slipped it into a conversation with his as if she assumed that he already knew...she took Mike aside one day and it went something like "So Mike, how old were you when you found out that you were adopted?" The bitch thought she knew what was better for Mike than his parents did, and took it upon herself to tell their kid that he was adopted.

So Mike freaks out, steals a car with some kid who split with him, they get all coked up and drunk, wind up in Oklahoma, run a red, and Mike winds up getting his head removed, just a two or three days after Marcia spills the beans.

The other kid in the car got out of it without a scratch and told me about it himself at Mike's funeral.

We found out what Marcia had done only after she'd been fired; If I remember correctly the director of out facility told us about it.

So "Marcia" (not her real name) gets fired from DAYTOP over that shit and last I heard she worked for UPS. She'll answer to her maker someday.

F-U-C-K!!! Staff like that... hell, if they don't come clean and express remorse for their past misdeeds... I really wouldn't feel too bad to see their names splashed on the internet 'till eternity!!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 04, 2008, 02:10:41 AM
Yeah, I think she ought to be held accountable too, but it'd be irresponsible for me to go throwing her name around when I cannot absolutely prove what I say.  

I mean, I heard of all this through people I think are pretty reliable sources, but it still amounts to hearsay.  What is your opinion?

And the woman who was director of the place, the one who told us that Marcia had been fired?  She was HIV positive and never told anybody at the time, kids or parents.  

How'd I find out about her?  That's a long story that I'll recount tomorrow.

Once DAYTOP in Dallas closed down she went to work for Phoenix House.  I heard that she is dead now too, from an AIDS-related disease, so we probably can't ask her.

And the kid that told me that stuff at Mike's funeral?  I didn't know him that well, and cannot recall his name.

Off to bed now.  See you tomorrow, I hope.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 04, 2008, 02:27:13 AM
There was a gal at Hyde who died not too long after attending  — a "car accident" they said. I heard that she was having trouble in her marriage and that she ran her car into a telephone pole. The source who informed me didn't seem to think it was an "accident." Knowing Nina, I didn't think so either.

Nina Carbone -- I write her full name in honor of her memory (as well as the hope that someone who knows more will come across this one of these days and proffer more info) -- attended AA meetings in Brunswick while at Hyde School. I'm not sure whether they were obligatory or not, but Nina was trying her best to work the program and basically did all that was asked of her. Knowing how seriously she took everything, and some of her battles with what nowadays would be called "major depression," it would be entirely in keeping for her to beat herself up unnecessarily over some perceived slip-up and go overboard in self-loathing.

In fact, come to think of it, she tried to commit suicide before Hyde.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 04, 2008, 11:28:12 PM
A few more thoughts this evening…

I should have perhaps named this thread "DAYTOP Did US Great Harm in the Long Run."  After all, I was not the only one.  When you get into the group mentality, and then try to get out of it it's not just MY story anymore, but OUR story.  You know?  But, it's MY therapy so here goes...

There was a sort of “core group” of DAYTOP grads that all graduated the program and left all about the same time.  We were about the only really solid group of grads that DAYTOP outpatient in Dallas had, and after we’d graduated the place closed down within a couple of years.  We all graduated within a few months of one another, went through second stage together for the most part and were in the same graduation ceremony…it was me, and some people I’ll call Billy, Carl, Ron, and Max.  Carl took two and a half years before they let him out of the place, for some reason.  And we all kept in touch with each other outside of the program too.  Except for Max; nobody is sure what ever happened to him, actually.  Anyway, Billy, Carl and I were all roommates off and on for the better part of three years after we’d graduated.  I moved away first, and Billy and Carl were roommates for another couple of years.  Ron would come around and hang out with us all of the time, but I lost track of him ten years ago or so.  We Datopians stuck together after we graduated, that is for sure.  I am still in touch with Billy and Carl to this day.  Carl and I spoke just yesterday, and Billy and I a few days ago.  We've had our rough spots over the years, but have always stayed in touch.  I have let them know about this thread, but I doubt that they'll participate.  Carl wanted to vomit, thinking about DAYTOP, it triggered him so bad.  

It was just a very co-dependent and abusive situation there for a while.  We learned how to re-create the group environment outside of the original group, but in a different situational context. None of us really individuated outside of DAYTOP.  We were all sort of co-dependent with each other.  And of course there was the one of us that developed the Alpha Dog mentality, and it turned into kind of a weird roommate cult of sorts.  I won't elaborate, you probably get the idea.  

We were kids; we didn't know what was going on.  

It's as if DAYTOP opened up the top of our skulls, scraped our brains and minds away, and replaced that with a bunch of "DAYTOP values" and "confront yourself in the eyes and hearts of others" shit, and then sent us out into the world again.  It'd be like being opened up, cut into during surgery, and then improperly sutured back together before being sent home.  Then you start bleeding all over the place, the would gets infected, bacteria gets into your blood, and then before you know it you have a systemic blood infection because of the botched surgery and the fact that the surgical team didn't close you up properly or give you any antibiotics or follow-up.  

That's what happened to us, but at a psychic level.  We weren't sutured back together properly individually, we got sutured together by DAYTOP and what started out as close friendships got warped into these purulent and toxic relationships and nasty patterns of behavior that continued for years.

That stuff totally stunted my emotional growth.

It's like I walked around with this big festering open wound for YEARS after the experience and am only just now seeing how badly the "doctors" botched the "surgery," you know?

And we did lots of acid and other psychedelics together in later years, too, to try and undo some of the DAYTOPian programming but that only re-enforced and strengthened the groupthink bond.  Taking a bunch of acid together in a tight-knit group like we were was like doing surgery on OURSELVES, like doing brain surgery on your buddy with a knife, fork, and spoon.  A different form of psychic surgery in an effort to try and correct the surgery that the non qualified "doctors" messed up in the first place.  Needless to say, crude, and very dangerous.  Very easily abused, or it's maybe more accurate to say, misused.

So I and my friends have had a lot of trouble adjusting to life outside of the group environment.  A lot of reckless, self-destructive behavior between us.  We've been to jail, other rehabs, I was in and around cults, you name it.

Again, it's all to show, to explain to you how my identity got undermined by being exposed to a philosophy that taught me that I was not who I thought I was, that I was who others told me that I am.  We were taught in DAYTOP to not trust our own minds, because (since we were convinced that were "dope fiends") our own minds were going to lead us down the road to self-destruction, so our only hope was to stay in a group.  That's why some of us stayed together as roommates, or at least lived close by to one another, for YEARS after leaving DAYTOP.  

It's analogous to the Christian twisted-Scriptural idea of there being no salvation outside of the local "Body", which usually in those circles means "our church," or "our group."  

DAYTOP philosophy totally got into my head, I personalized it and took it to heart, and as a result my boundaries were erased and personally I felt like a zero with the rim rubbed out for years after the fact.  Totally exposed, totally open, utterly vulnerable.  It's taking a lot of time and work to put that rim back.
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Eventually I came to the conclusion that what I do defines me, not the other way around,

Can you explain please what you mean by that psy?  Expand on this statement?

Also, there was this neat page that I found the other day.  It explains how it is that eventually one starts playing the "psychological coin trick" on oneself.  This one really sent me on a head trip.  It's from:

http://www.piney.com/sky1.html (http://www.piney.com/sky1.html)
Quote
Mind Manipulation

A Psychological Coin Trick In my work at Wellspring in helping victims of cults and spiritual abuse understand what happened to them I often demonstrate a simple coin trick. I place three coins on a table and keep a fourth in one hand. Let's say the coins on the table are a quarter, a nickel, and a penny, and the one in my hand is also a penny. I don't tell the person what coin I have in my hand; rather, I say, "I can read your mind, and I have already predicted what you are about to do. The coin in my hand will prove to you that this is so. Now, what I want you to do is to pick up any two of the coins on the table." Let's say he picks up the quarter and the nickel, leaving the penny on the table. As I show him the penny in my hand I say, "Was there any way I could have known you would leave the penny on the table?" The answer, of course, is "No," and he begins to believe that maybe I do have ESP. But then I tell him to pick up a different combination of coins. So he picks up the quarter and the penny, leaving the nickel on the table. Now I say, "Give me either one of the coins you just picked up." Let's say he gives me the penny. Then I say to him as I again show him the penny in my hand, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would give me the penny?" Again, the answer is "No." But by now he's beginning to see what I'm doing. Finally, I tell him that there is only one other possible outcome of the trick. Instead of leaving the penny on the table, or picking it up with another coin and then giving it me, he could have picked it up but then kept it while giving me the other coin. I explain that in that case I would have shown him the penny in my hand and said, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would keep the penny?" Now he understands that all I'm doing is interpreting what he does after he does it. I don't say at the start that the coin in my hand will be the same as the coin he leaves or gives me or keeps. I wait till he makes his move and then I only interpret what he does afterwa seem like I have psychic powers.
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I believe what this shows is that our behavior is often at least partly a result of the way other people treat us, and is not necessarily a true measure of our character or intellect.

Any thoughts?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 05, 2008, 01:02:11 AM
Here's a little more:  

I remember now, thinking about all of this stuff, pulling up old memories that I have not thought about or processed in years (this is really taking me back) that one thing phrase that got thrown around a lot in one form or another, whenever some kid was acting rebellious or being disobedient or "copping an attitude" in any way, went something  like this during the haircut or whatever:

"THE SIGN ON THE WALL SAYs DAYTOP, NOT PLAYTOP, SO IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU CAN LEAVE, AND DON'T LET THE DOOR SWAT YOUR BUTT ON THE WAY OUT!!!"

Or, sometimes instead of the "It's not PLAYTOP, it's DAYTOP" line they'd use  "It's called DAYTOP, not DAYCARE, so if you don't like it why don't you LEAVE and see where you end up!!!"

...or some variation like that, therefore erecting the bars in our minds.  A lot of us were forced to go into DAYTOP by our parents, and some were probated there.  If we leave, split, where are we gonna go, the streets?  Deadinsanejaildeadinsanejaildeadinsanejail...and our parents were duped into believing us to be a bunch of fuckups, too, so who's going to believe their kid when the kid comes home at night and says "I hate that place.  I'm being abused and degraded there.  They're trying to brainwash me."  You know?

My Dad would say, "It's tough love, not a recreation center."  At the center, Marcia would tell me not to think too much: onedayatatimeonedayatatimeonedayatatime...And I started to actually to be grateful for the ongoing punishment.  It was just one long coercion in DAYTOP.

A couple more DAYTOP values, too, that I recall now are these, maybe these people will be held accountable one day, according to the very principles they taught us:

IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH (Yeah, I'd like to see it all come out in the wash, all right.)  Also

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND  (Yes it does, Marcia, yes it does...)

Or when somebody would ask about how DAYTOP came up with its methods, they'd tell us about Synanon (I heard about Synanon there and the literal haircuts in DAYTOP's early days, I think that the old director there was in Synanon) we were told that a lot of this stuff was borrowed and adapted from Synanon, but then (and this, remember, was before the Internet existed) they'd tell us "But you know, Synanon was a cult, and we just took some of their best methods and adapted them; Synanon was abusive and fanatical, but DAYTOP is humane and nurturing and here's why..."  

After all, the head guy is a priest, he must be keeping our best interests at heart, right?  Yeah, right.  Not an abusive cult my ass.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 05, 2008, 02:23:54 AM
Quote
Did you ever have to write written reports on yourself or others (some programs call this a "dirt list" or "moral inventory")? How detailed did these reports get?

Tonight I remembered something that I had not thought about in YEARS; it was buried waaay back in my memory.

There was one time, just one occurrence of this thing I am about to describe to you in all my time in DAYTOP.  There was this one time where the coordinators (there were just two of them at the time; I'll call them Jeff and Nathan) with the blessings and help of the counselors, made us all gather and do a mass spill-your-guts confession session together.  Just that one time in all my days at DAYTOP.  Usually there were four coordinators in the DAYTOP structure, one for each department, but in this instance there were just two, with two departments each.  

When I made coordinator, however,  was the only one in the whole house for awhile and they gave me the responsibility of carrying all four departments until they got some other kids with enough "personal growth" to take some of my load.

I was a real asshole sometimes back then, running the whole house myself.  The power trip got to me, I'll admit.  I'd pull kids out of lunch to do haircuts on them, and learned how to give those haircuts like a pro.  I remember telling Mike that he was just a big baby (he was overweight and wore real thick glasses) and he told me "Suck my balls" and then we just screamed louder until he started to cry.  Then we'd lighten up on him.  I feel bad about that, really bad.

My memory of that "Tell It All Brother" day with Jeff and Nathan is pretty hazy; after all, it was over fifteen years ago and I hadn't thought of it in a looong time.  They even had a special DAYTOPian name for this cult-of-confession ritual we did that day, but it it escapes me.  I can't remember what the DAYTOP term for this thing was.  I want to say it was called "The Gut Check" but that's probably not right.  But we were always being told,  " you need to check your gut."

Jeff and Nathan stood before the assembled group with notebooks and we had to stand up one at a time and go through this interrogation thing where we'd have to confess all of our hangups, fears, tell of people we'd offended, bad things we'd done, bad attitudes we had, issues that still bound us, all that.  Nathan would press us for more and more, and I remember distinctly now he told me, "You're only throwing me bones, but I am looking for the meat" doing this Grand Inquisitor thing.  "I know you're hiding something, I know you're holding back."  I don't remember how much or what exactly I confessed to, but do remember exaggerating things and making some stuff up just so they'd leave me alone.

But this was not a regular thing; we did two Marathon Groups and just one of these mass confession sessions in the whole time I was there.

The Marathon Groups were in this dim room, with soft muzak playing, kind of an eerie atmosphere, everybody in a circle, and was basically just like an intense encounter group that was five or six hours long where things got more personal.  More tomorrow on that.

DAYTOP in TX closed down in oh I'd say, around '95, '96, a few years after we were out of there, in circumstances involving some kind of financial scandal, embezzlement and such.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 05, 2008, 03:01:44 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
We were kids; we didn't know what was going on.

It's as if DAYTOP opened up the top of our skulls, scraped our brains and minds away, and replaced that with a bunch of "DAYTOP values" and "confront yourself in the eyes and hearts of others" shit, and then sent us out into the world again. It'd be like being opened up, cut into during surgery, and then improperly sutured back together before being sent home. Then you start bleeding all over the place, the would gets infected, bacteria gets into your blood, and then before you know it you have a systemic blood infection because of the botched surgery and the fact that the surgical team didn't close you up properly or give you any antibiotics or follow-up.

That's what happened to us, but at a psychic level. We weren't sutured back together properly individually, we got sutured together by DAYTOP and what started out as close friendships got warped into these purulent and toxic relationships and nasty patterns of behavior that continued for years.

That stuff totally stunted my emotional growth.

It's like I walked around with this big festering open wound for YEARS after the experience and am only just now seeing how badly the "doctors" botched the "surgery," you know?

Well, that was the point, to remake the human psyche, eh? It came from a criminologist viewpoint, to curb and control the wanton element, and it came from a psychological viewpoint, the picking apart of how the human soul ticks...under pressure. Some haunted hell that is, when the guideposts of an ordinary existence are stripped away clean.

"We were kids; we didn't know what was going on."

Somewhere along the way, that world assumed that adolescents were something akin to smaller and less corpulent adults. There was no recognition nor appreciation that there was still a good bit of developmental progress being made in the forming of who said being was in the process of becoming. It was brain salad surgery in the hands of horse traders.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: dishdutyfugitive on December 05, 2008, 10:57:54 AM
Quote
It was brain salad surgery in the hands of horse traders.

That my friends is the best close I've heard in a long time.

Ursus buy yourself a few rounds and put it on my tab.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 05, 2008, 01:08:26 PM
My therapists are actually out of town this week, taking a much-deserved vacation.  So this board IS my therapy right now.  I sincerely hope that nobody minds.

Here's a couple more things that I'll add while I am thinking about it:

The director of the place I'll call her "Marylin",the one who I was told is/was HIV positive?  I never did tell of how I found out about her.  To make a long story short (and I'll spare you the details; they're probably not important) I was told of this by my friend Billy, who was told by his mother.  Billy's mom was a genuine heroin addict and was originally told of it by "Marylin" herself during a private counseling session.  Billy's mom (she's gone now too, BTW) had Hep C and they were discussing blood-borne illnesses that are transmitted through shooting up.  That's when Marylin, so the story goes, shared her status.  I do not know if Marylin was legally obligated under state law to tell any of us of her supposed HIV-positive status at the time or not, but she didn't, and I did not know of it until after I'd graduated.  If it's indeed true (and it might not be, for all I know) that she was HIV-positive , she was working in close proximity with minors, for God's sake.  But Marylin never told me or anybody of the other kids at the time, and I do not even know this for an absolute fact, in any case.  I take it on very good authority though; I take Billy's word for it.

Also the Marathon Groups...we did two of them while I was there.  This was long so ago...I do not remember them being all that intense or traumatic, really; they were just, like, extended encounter groups that into more personal and detailed stuff, and we not supposed to yell.  Another type of group confession thing, basically a different version of the "Gut Check" exercise that we had to go through that one time with Jeff and Nathan.  The Marathon Group was set in a room in which the lights were dimmed, there was soft music on, and it was smaller, ten or fifteen of us I'd say.  They were six or so hours in duration.  Basically, we were told to confess and reveal all of the most personal details of our lives, how it made us feel, and we were supposed to confront one another one hangups, suppressed emotions, "Tell us how that made you feel" stuff, and the like.  They really tried to get into your business during those sessions.  But again, the haircuts and encounter groups were much more brutal, and in retrospect  much more traumatizing to me, than the Marathon Groups.  They were still not pleasant, but the Encounter Groups and haircuts were much more "in your face" and the Marathons were sort of subtle and laid-back.

We were a bunch of kids that they were subjecting to this shit; we were all between 14-18 years old.  There were a couple of kids who were as young as 12-13.  During one group session, this 12- year old girl (she was really young to be there) started talking about horrific sexual abuse that had been inflicted upon her; this girl had no boundaries, and I do not know what the counselors ever did about her situation. She'd come out of something called the Letot Center, that particular girl.  There were a few girls that had come from Letot.  I myself was 19 when I graduated from the program; I was one of the oldest, if not THE oldest.  Looking back I can see now just how wildly inappropriate that place was for a bunch of teenagers, especially a casual high-school potsmoker like me.  There was one "staff psychologist" but I do not know what she did all day or what her background was; she worked in the offices in the back and was the one that they'd always bring the parents to.  As far as I know, she was the one trained or degreed person in the place (other than the teachers in the school, which I never went to since I had my GED)  and I really do not know what exactly she did for them; she never ran any groups or anything, and was always in the back.  And there was one social worker, I remember now, one actual social worker with a degree that did intake stuff, and that's it.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 06, 2008, 08:56:36 AM
If there was little/no risk of bodily fluids interchange, I don't think there was any reason to require "Marylin" to divulge her HIV status, minors or not.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 06, 2008, 12:50:00 PM
Yes, you are right.  

But that's not what I am getting at and (with respect) is beside the point.

My point is, that I am not sure what the applicable laws of the State of TX were with respect to that kind of thing around '92-'94; in other words, I do not know whether she would have been legally required to disclose that kind of information to us at that time or not.  

In my mind, it's not about whether she should have been obligated to disclose her status or not, it's whether she, and the rest of the DAYTOP staff who knew, were breaking the law.

If she didn't tell us her status, but the law (at least the way it was back in those days) would have required her to, then she would have been in violation of the law. And if this is indeed the case, it's another thing they should be held accountable for. After all, they're all about accountability, right?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Antigen on December 06, 2008, 02:14:02 PM
Great thread! Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have to go find some grub right now, then I'll be back later to catch up.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 06, 2008, 03:34:44 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
After all, they're all about accountability, right?

NO, Sekto, they are all about your accountability. They, for their part, have the holy caress of the indomitable Catholic Church to allay their sins. And we all know just how accountable those "holy caresses" have been in the past, don't we now?

On another note, I have managed to re-find a piece on 'confrontational therapy' which mentions Daytop in a historical sense. You might find it interesting... I posted it here:

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=26291 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=26291)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 06, 2008, 04:40:23 PM
Quote
Motivational Litmus Tests at Admission: Forced confession at the end of a confrontational intake interview that one was a baby, was stupid and needed help, and the surrendering of something of value to demonstrate one's commitment to recovery (e.g., money, property, one's hair).

Pull-ups: Immediate feedback from one community member to another regarding inappropriate behavior.

Image work: Demands to change physical appearance and demeanor (everything from how one talked to how one walked).

Haircut: A group session in which a relatively new member is "taken apart" by community elders and given prescriptions for improving his or her attitudes and behavior.

Learning Experience: An assignment intended as a form of self-confrontation and communication to other community members. Examples include being "busted" from a higher status position to the dishpan; wearing a diaper, a toilet seat or a sign (e.g., "I'm a baby. Please help me grow up.") for a prescribed period of time; or having one's head shaved.

The Synanon Game: A no-holds-barred group therapy that utilized verbal attack and ridicule to strip the participant's exterior image and defenses while supposedly toughening them on the inside.

Probes, Reaches, Trips, Marathons & Stews: Versions of the Synanon Game that could extend for prolonged periods of time (six to eight hours, to days).

The Fireplace Ritual (General Meeting): Meeting called of the whole community to confront a single individual's behavior.

This really takes me back, wow.  

Remember, everything I am telling you was taking place in TX, and the whole atmosphere and attitude about "treatment" and "rehabilitation" down there, whether it's some outpatient facility for Johnny Pothead or a maximum-security prison, is entirely punitive in its approach.

This punitive approach to "treatment" that was the "big thing" in TX the early '90s hurt a lot more people than it helped, needless to say.

DAYTOP terminology and practice in my day included the "haircuts"; we'd use the term "pull up", also we'd call it "reeling in"; we also called them "learning experiences or L.E.-s"; we'd do "Image work" and this was also called "learning to recognize one's physical attitudes;" we did the encounter groups once or twice a week, those two marathon groups, the one "Gut Check" session in the year and a half or so that I was there, and "haircuts" whenever they were considered necessary.  

The name of the annual DAYTOP Halloween party/dance was Gaudenzia.

Each new member (I forget the term for newer members and think that they were simply called "younger members") was assigned a "big brother" or "big sister" to help them adjust to the program and to keep them "reeled in" properly.

Also there was a lot of the use of the word "gut," as in "you need to check your gut" or "that makes my gut flip," etc.  

For example: if somebody new was "copping an attitude" we'd "reel them in" by arranging a "haircut" with that person's "big brother" and some "coordinators" or "counselors."  We'd confront this person on their "image problem" and "physical attitudes" and then after the "haircut" they'd be given an "L.E." like sitting in The Chair for awhile with a sign on their back, or walking around with a sign that said, "ask me to bark like a dog"  or a pacifier on a string around their neck.  If the person would still not come around, then they'd be confronted in the "encounter group" and then if they were still had not made the proper attitude adjustment they'd be "called out" before the entire "DAYTOP family" in "morning meeting," which I suppose was a variation of the Fireplace Ritual, in an effort to help "pull them up."

More later.  My head is spinning, and I need time to process and recollect this stuff.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Antigen on December 06, 2008, 05:28:30 PM
Quote from: "psy"
As for your question about DAYTOP and it's connections to NYC organized crime.  I've forwarded that question to my friend (Antigen) who knows a lot more than I about DAYTOP's connections.


Here's one. http://www.thestraights.com/theprogram/ ... story2.htm (http://www.thestraights.com/theprogram/synanon-story2.htm) Look at the sidebar to the right of the article, a long and detailed plug for "Duck in a Raincoat: An Unauthorized Portrait of Joe Ricci (http://http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962952206?ie=UTF8&tag=feedyourhead-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0962952206).

Nobody knows for sure where Seed founder, Art Barker was indoctrinated but some folks think it was Daytop. He also had track affiliations and landed up with one of his ardent followers as deputy mayor of Dania (Port Everglades....shady fuckin little town who's boudaries are so thoroughly jerrymandered they look like a bad jigsaw puzzle.)


Quote from: "ibid ~ editorials"
Footnotes:

a. Keeping this editorial on point with Straight, Inc., it should be noted that when Dr. Dan Casriel and Father William O'Brien setup Daytop, the world's first successful Synanon imitator, they hired a Synanon director named David Deitch to direct it. They apparently did not know that David Deitch was an admirer of Ernesto Che Guevara--Fidel Castro's right hand man. Later Casriel and O'Brien would claim that Deitch was trying to use synanons to turn Daytop into a left wing commune, and they managed to have Deitch removed.
http://www.thestraights.com/news/editor ... tornot.htm (http://www.thestraights.com/news/editorials/2protestornot.htm)

That's about all I got on that.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 06, 2008, 05:45:20 PM
More on David Deitch here:

David Deitch
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=23440 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=23440)[/list]

BTW, Deitch was also heavily involved with Pheonix House  (NYC) and Gateway (Chicago), that latter TC being the entity which ran that unit in the Texas prison system that came to our attention this past summer...

I think Gateway was also a starting point for that woman who founded Abraxas, but I wasn't able to find proof of it, just lots of tantalizing coincidences.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 06, 2008, 07:16:09 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Or, sometimes instead of the "It's not PLAYTOP, it's DAYTOP" line they'd use  "It's called DAYTOP, not DAYCARE, so if you don't like it why don't you LEAVE and see where you end up!!!"

...or some variation like that, therefore erecting the bars in our minds.  A lot of us were forced to go into DAYTOP by our parents, and some were probated there.  If we leave, split, where are we gonna go, the streets?  Deadinsanejaildeadinsanejaildeadinsanejail...and our parents were duped into believing us to be a bunch of fuckups, too, so who's going to believe their kid when the kid comes home at night and says "I hate that place.  I'm being abused and degraded there.  They're trying to brainwash me."  You know?

My Dad would say, "It's tough love, not a recreation center."  At the center, Marcia would tell me not to think too much: onedayatatimeonedayatatimeonedayatatime...And I started to actually to be grateful for the ongoing punishment.  It was just one long coercion in DAYTOP.

You've said so much in so little space about how it's so difficult for one to actually just "up and leave".  Where I was, in addition to what you've described, there were no homless shelters in the area and even if we did choose to leave, we could not take our property, identification, or any money we had.  The rationale told to us by the staff was that the stuff was our parent's property and money, not ours (whether or not this was actually true).  They told us that if they let us leave with money we would just spend it on drugs (regardless of whether or not we were "enrolled" for drug issues or not), and if we left with our property we would just pawn it and spend the money on drugs.  Since parents were told never to take us back in to the house, that option was out of the question as well.

They made it clear that the only practical salvation (in addition to the other forms) would only be possible within the program.  They told us that if we left we would come back broken.  Altough AWOLs were common, in most cases this (rigged) "prediction" turned out to be accurate as students soon discovered the practical difficulties (i.e. no homeless shelters), not even to mention the psychological debilitation / enforced dependency.  Seeing these kids come back broken influenced us all, I think.  It created a perception that "maybe the staff was right.  maybe we are sick in the head and can't make it without program."  In many cases they would actually throw kids out on the streets as a "punishment" if they didn't AWOL on their own since the streets were such an effective way to break down resistance (high crime area as well... a friend of mine was raped on the streets).

The key thing here is that they created the illusion of being able to leave (and told us this often) while at the same time making it nearly practically impossible.  The end result is a deep-seated feeling of learned helplessness, eroding any shred of self-confidence "students" have left.  It's a trick many cults use.  Scientology's Sea Org uses similar tactics to keep their members from leaving.  Did Daytop do any of that or did they rely exclusively on psychological debilitation?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 06, 2008, 07:28:56 PM
Recalling and processing this stuff has really triggered a lot of old emotions in me in the last couple of days; I have lately been experiencing this sensation that I will describe as being similar to a vibrating inside of my head, as if my psyche has been plucked like a guitar string.  My vision goes blurry, and I momentarily feel sick to my stomach, as if I've been spinning on the merry-go-round too much.

Boooiiinnnggg...

This is the same sensation that I experience, when I am triggered by thinking about the Army and Iraq.

So, I was doing some work and reading on boundaries the other day, and then I had that AHA! moment, a door opened in my mind, and then I started to unpack things that I had locked away, stored in a mental closet years ago, with respect to the DAYTOP experience.

It happened to me too, man, it happened to me too. And for so long I thought that it was "normal" and "healthy."

I never realized that DAYTOP was a cult, I thought that I had been through "treatment."

Yeah, the Ludovico Treatment is what it was.

That's messed up, huh? And it's taken me the better part of FIFTEEN years to figure this out.

It was very powerful thought reform that we were exposed to; it goes to show you just how how potent the mind control we were under was, that it took so long for me to even start to see it.

My judgmental attitude, self-perceived "authenticity" and lack of tolerance for what I perceived as the "phoniness" in others is/was so systemic in my thinking that that was my mental "baseline" for all of my adult life! You know?

Amazing, amazing.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 06, 2008, 07:48:19 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Quote
Eventually I came to the conclusion that what I do defines me, not the other way around,

Can you explain please what you mean by that psy?  Expand on this statement?

Well.  IMO, the idea that there is a "fake"/"bad" identity and a "real"/"good" identity is an artificial one entirely.  Think about the first time you even heard that concept.

The "program's" concept:

- you are a fake/bad person who has been in denial.  You need to accept who you are (and we'll keep you guessing at that until we approve, giving the illusion that you "found" who you "really" are).  Once you "find" this healthy identity, we can tell you what are healthy ("real") actions.

Another concept:

- What you do defines who you are. You can choose what you do and thus define who you are.

Margaret singer writes that cults attack one's identity as fake (create an identity crisis) so they can create a cult "pseudopersonality", convincing you that the fake personality is really who you are.  She describes this at length in "Cults in Our Midst" (highly recommended reading).
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 06, 2008, 09:26:58 PM
Some words of encouragement from The Chairman:

That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're riding high in April,
Shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
When I'm back on top, back on top in June.

I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.

That's life
I tell ya, I can't deny it,
I thought of quitting baby,
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it.
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try,
I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself laying flat on my face,
I just pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life
That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out
But my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here july
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die
My, My
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 06, 2008, 11:13:27 PM
Quote
The key thing here is that they created the illusion of being able to leave (and told us this often) while at the same time making it nearly practically impossible. The end result is a deep-seated feeling of learned helplessness, eroding any shred of self-confidence "students" have left. It's a trick many cults use. Scientology's Sea Org uses similar tactics to keep their members from leaving. Did Daytop do any of that or did they rely exclusively on psychological debilitation?

Did Daytop do any of what?  I am not sure that I understand your question psy.  But I'll tell you what I remember:

From what I remember, it was usually put to us in terms of, "Those doors aren't locked.  I'm not putting a gun to your head and making you stay here.  You can leave whenever you like, and it's your choice.  Don't let the door bruise your butt on the way out."  

If a kid lived at home they'd mockingly say "It ain't easy, living on the streets, but you'll find that out once your mama kicks you out of the house for splitting the program.  You made your bed, and now you've gotta lay in it.  This place ain't called PLAYTOP.  We can't make you stay.  Up to you.  Bye."

Or if the kid was probated there, the counselor would say, "You want to leave huh?  Well, this place is called DAYTOP, not DAYCARE.  OK, no problem.  I'll just call your PO, and I'm sure that TYC will have a bed ready for you."

The counselors and staff would never physically force anybody to stay there.  If a given kid wanted to leave, he or she could walk out the door whenever they wished.  The counselors were never allowed to lay their hands on anybody, unless it was to break up a fight or something, or under some extenuating circumstance.  If it came to breaking up some altercation, or if it came down to a counselor defending him or her-self, then the counselor could (and would) step in and physically stop a kid from hurting another kid or something like that.  And I did see an instance in which a counselor stepped in and physically stopped one kid from kicking another kid's ass by putting him (the kid who was ready to beat somebody up, that is) in a bear hug.  

But no, they'd never physically stop anybody from leaving.  They'd let the kid walk right out the door, and would call his/her parents and/or PO right away.

This was in the middle of Dallas, mind you, an urban area, not out in the sticks.  It would have been easy to hop on a bus and get away.  But where would you go?

Does that answer your question, psy?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Antigen on December 07, 2008, 07:30:54 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
My judgmental attitude, self-perceived "authenticity" and lack of tolerance for what I perceived as the "phoniness" in others is/was so systemic in my thinking that that was my mental "baseline" for all of my adult life! You know?

Yup! And you can just imagine how popular that kind of attitude made me with other kids when my older bors and sis were in the Seed. It was a big part of the effective social isolation netting. We were more or less cajoled or coerced into being assholes to outsiders so we had no vector into anything if we did leave. And the longer you stayed involved the narrower and more tenuous any of those old ties might become.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 07, 2008, 10:34:55 PM
After deliberating with myself over this, I have decided to disclose these people's names.

DAYTOP outpatient started out in Richardson TX; I first went there in March of '92.  Then they gradually moved the operation to the Dresser building, near downtown Dallas, beginning in spring/summer of '93 and into early '94.  I graduated in approximately August of '93, and DAYTOP left TX entirely in approximately '96.

So here they are, all of them. These are the staff who were working at DAYTOP when I was there:

I'd love it if some of you floated these names around and tried to see what can be come up with on these people. Especially Marcy.

First is Ruben SILVERIO (maybe SYLVERIO, I cannot remember the proper spelling). A Puerto Rican DAYTOP grad from NYC.

Next, Marcy LANGSTEIN (pronounced Lang-STEEN) this is the one whom I refer to as "Marcia;" she was a totally bullying, confrontational "diesel dyke."  Again, I am not making fun of her; that's how she described herself to us at the time.  I remember her as a kd lang loving, folk-music playing, flannel and cargo-pants wearing, pickup truck driving type. She is also a DAYTOP grad from NYC; I think that she was a grad from the Queens outpatient facility.

If what I was told about her is true, then Marcy indirectly killed Mike GOMEZ through her abuse and negligence, IMO.

Mike GOMEZ was the kid I told of, whom Marcy (going against his parents' wishes) told that he was adopted, according to my sources. This led to Mike becoming very disturbed and running away, eventually getting killed while driving drunk. The kid had FASD, and was learning-disabled. We all treated Mike very poorly, and I regret that. He was the guy who was made to walk around with the pacifier.

The DAYTOP directors' names back in my time were these:

When I first got there in March of '92, the director's name was Mike GORMAN. He was a chain-smoking ex-jazzbo from NYC who claimed to have played the drums in Billie Holiday's band. He chain smoked filterless Pall Malls, spoke in this raspy voice, and he's the one the always went around with that "When you think you're looking good you're looking bad, and when you think you're looking bad, you're looking good" crap. He'd been to prison and had a small teardrop tattoo near one of his eyes, I cannot remember which one.  Mike Gorman graduated from DAYTOP way back in the '60s and had worked for their organization for a long time. He's been dead for over ten years. He was pretty old when I knew him, and I heard that he died in Florida at his daughter's house.  He died in '93.  I am pretty sure that Mike Gorman had been part of Synanon back in the day, too.

The next director after Mike was a guy named Eddie CINISOMO. He was a DAYTOP grad from NYC too and would always tell us that we were just statistics to him.  I don't know how or why he got removed from the directorship, but he did. He is dead now too, from some kind of natural causes, but I know no details of his death or the circumstances of it. His wife worked for DAYTOP too, as an administrator, but I do not remember her first name.

After Eddie was M*******  another Puerto Rican, ex-heroin addict.  I am not mentioning here name here to protect her privacy in case she is still alive.  She started out as a counselor in DAYTOP and eventually got promoted to director of our outpatient facility. She was (according to my sources) HIV positive but none of us knew it at the time, and I heard that she is dead now too. She's the one that went to work for Dallas' Phoenix House facility after DAYTOP was shut down in TX. She eventually died (or so I heard) from an AIDS related disease.

So all three of the directors at our outpatient facility are dead now. I do not know for sure, 100% about M*******, but feel that it is likely that she is indeed dead. She's not mentioned as part of Phoenix House's Dallas facility anymore.

Also on the staff as counselors were Greg THOMAS and Leroy BREWSTER. These two were these two huge black dudes that used to be football players. A kid named Mike told me, swore up and down, that he and another kid named Jerry once smoked a joint with Leroy on DAYTOP property and laughed about it together. Leroy supposedly UA'd them shortly thereafter but nobody involved cared. What are they gonna do, make me sit in the Chair? Was Mikes' reasoning. DAYTOP never kicked anybody out of the program, just shipped 'em too Athens if things got out of hand or if the kid was too rebellious or whatever. Greg Thomas was an ex-college football player who had to quit playing because of an injury and eventually started working "in the industry."  Leroy Brewster was a guy who used to deal Ecstasy in the mid '80s, and had worked for the Buckner orphanage before he got hooked up with DAYTOP.  I am pretty sure that Leroy was from Lake Highlands and went to Lake Highlands High School.

The other kids who eventually died were named T.J. THURMAN and Robert ROMAN. T.J. was the guy I told of who was a junkie and eventually got shot trying to steal somebody's car, and Robert was this Mexican kid who eventually joined a gang and got killed too.

One time in 1995, I was driving in Old East Dallas and saw Marcy out in her yard mowing her lawn, so I pulled over and got out of the car to say hi to her.  I do not recall our conversation much but do recall that she told me she was working for UPS.

Let's see what can be done to hold 'em accountable.

The name old DAYTOP Dallas outpatient staff psychologist (whom I referred to the other day) is Susan MERLIN (like the magician) and the old staff social worker's name is Joyce RATNER. Joyce eventually quit working for DAYTOP because (as she told me years later) she began to see how abusive they were.  I was in touch with Joyce a little bit over the years, off and on; as late as the year 2000/2001 I ran into her in a restaurant and we talked about "the old days" over lunch.  Joyce actually apologized to me for what they'd done.  I didn't "get it" at the time, what she was talking about, but sure do now.  Joyce was a really nice lady.

I actually believed that DAYTOP had helped me for years after the fact.

That place really, really screwed with my mind.  It took me fifteen years to see that.

Last I knew, Joyce was retired and I have no idea at all about whatever happened to Susan.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 08, 2008, 12:44:14 AM
All this reminiscing about DAYTOP that I have been doing lately reminds me of the old Cheech and Chong routine (I believe it is on an album called Big Bambu) in which one of them was playing some Jesus hippie guy who said:  "I used to be all messed up on drugs, but then I found The Lord.  Now I'm all messed up on The Lord."

All of we old Daytopians from Dallas in the early '90s were saying, "We used to be all messed up on drugs, but then we found DAYTOP.  And now we're all messed up on DAYTOP."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Antigen on December 08, 2008, 07:53:47 AM
I gotta go play my role in the combine now, but I just wanted to respond to this cause it made me realize a tragic loss and tear up.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
And we did lots of acid and other psychedelics together in later years, too, to try and undo some of the DAYTOPian programming but that only re-enforced and strengthened the groupthink bond. Taking a bunch of acid together in a tight-knit group like we were was like doing surgery on OURSELVES, like doing brain surgery on your buddy with a knife, fork, and spoon. A different form of psychic surgery in an effort to try and correct the surgery that the non qualified "doctors" messed up in the first place. Needless to say, crude, and very dangerous. Very easily abused, or it's maybe more accurate to say, misused.

Among the minor disabilities I had going at life to begin with is an odd difficulty in marking a new face or name. I guess I started to realize it around middle school age; that the people around me just had an easier time of getting to that familiar get along with others where you can call someone by name naturally, spontaneously, without having to rack your brain for the name and how you know this person. Being that my family were all in the Program already and my mother drinking most deeply and lustily of the kool-aid, I didn't have a single confidante who I could talk to about things like this except my brother, Jack. And he wasn't around all that much in those days. I think he was drunken and heartbroken in Tallahassee or something.

Anyway, I never put it together till now, but I was already working on that. I used to doodle all the time. In school, I used to do a lot of portraits of teachers and students. I never got back to that, nor to improving my handwriting and playing guitar, though I've had one or two in the house practically all of my adult life.

Nothing wrong with a little psychic self surgery. In fact, short of total milieu control, which we know to be haphazard and harmful, there is no other way to do psychic surgery, is there?  I almost wish I had done more acid.
Title: to the memory of MIKE GOMEZ
Post by: Anonymous on December 08, 2008, 09:42:10 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Next, Marcy LANGSTEIN (pronounced Lang-STEEN) this is the one whom I refer to as "Marcia;" she was a totally bullying, confrontational "diesel dyke." Again, I am not making fun of her; that's how she described herself to us at the time. I remember her as a kd lang loving, folk-music playing, flannel and cargo-pants wearing, pickup truck driving type. She is also a DAYTOP grad from NYC; I think that she was a grad from the Queens outpatient facility.

If what I was told about her is true, then Marcy indirectly killed Mike GOMEZ through her abuse and negligence, IMO.

MARCY SHARON LANGSTEIN

• b. 1968, now aged 40.

• Possibly lived in the Bronx, NY in the early 1980s. A younger sister or other relative (http://http://www.classmates.com/directory/public/memberprofile/list.htm?regId=152322851) went to middle school there.

• Lived in Florida at least during her teenage years. Has had addresses at one time or another in Pinellas Park, Palm Harbor, and Clearwater. No dates on those, but she graduated from Countryside High School (http://http://namesdatabase.com/schools/US/FL/Clearwater/Countryside%20High%20School) in Clearwater, FL in 1985. The same younger sister or other relative mentioned above also graduated from there three years later. As of July 2004, her mother was allegedly still living in Florida.

• That same sister (or other relative) appears to have still been in Florida recently, employed as an executive by Clearwater Underwriters, Inc, (http://http://www.portfolio.com/resources/company-profiles/Clearwater-Underwriters-Inc-27615017) according to Conde Nast portfolio (but apparently no longer, according to Clearwater Underwriter's website (http://http://www.cuifla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=70)).

• Marcy Langstein copyrighted (http://http://bulk.resource.org/copyright/hids/hid_12/hid_12423900-12424199.txt) some "words & music, performance, recording" called "Is this America?" in 1992, perhaps while in Texas (judging by the letters "Tx" in the record).

• Was employed for a time by JR Music Supply, LLC in Rhode Island, left under messy circumstances judging by conditions detailed in a lawsuit (http://http://www.uchelp.com/law/ri/jrmusic.htm), both parties contesting the story of the other. M.S. Langstein's alleged reason for abruptly leaving had to do with the illness of her mother in Florida. Last day of employment by JR Music was July 20, 2004. However, Langstein stayed in Rhode Island long enough to file for unemployment benefits two days later.

• Had the following contact info (http://https://www.ibuzzpro.com/Members/paid/MLM-leads-by-State/RI-401.txt) when she lived in Rhode Island (perhaps overlapping with the time period that she played for the CCWHL - see below):

• There is a court case I do not have access to filed December 18, 2006, in the Florida Southern Federal District Court (West Palm Beach office): Langstein v. Wyeth et al, unfortunately no first initials, may or may not be her, case #9:2006cv81234, LINK (http://http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-flsdce/case_no-9:2006cv81234/case_id-287749/).

• Marcy Langstein played on the team 'Hat Tricks' in the Cape Cod Women's Hockey League at least during the 2006-2007 season (http://http://www.ccwhl.com/2006stats.php). There is a photo section on that website with pics from a Charity Golf Tournament some of the women participated in; you might want to take a look at them in the off chance... Quite frankly, pretty much every single one of these women fit your description.

• She signed the guestbook (http://http://www.legacy.com/Guestbook.asp?PersonID=114309069) for the death of the infant twin daughters of a friend or relative this past summer (CACHED (http://http://64.233.169.132/search?q=cache:u4zGSVc_1h4J:www.legacy.com/Guestbook.asp%3FPersonID%3D114309069+%22Marcy+Langstein%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us) link). Most of the other people signing this page were from Bennington, Vermont.

July 31, 2008
Cynthia - They havent made the words yet that can comfort the loss of children.
Please know all my love, thoughts and prayers are with you today and always.

Goddess Bless...
Marcy
Marcy Langstein (New York, NY)
contact me (http://http://www.legacy.com/GB/ContactMe.aspx?PersonId=114309069&EntryId=25277642)
[/list]

• Other addresses (http://http://www.peoplefinders.com/summary.asp?fn=marcy&mn=&ln=langstein&city=&state=&x=47&y=10&age=&dobmm=&dobdd=&doby=&vw=people&Input=name) Marcy Langstein has had:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 08, 2008, 03:58:24 PM
Quote
Nothing wrong with a little psychic self surgery. In fact, short of total milieu control, which we know to be haphazard and harmful, there is no other way to do psychic surgery, is there? I almost wish I had done more acid.

Well, HBWR or Oliloqui are excellent replacements.  Bouncing Bear has some fine stuff and I can vouch for their products.  I've gone through BBB many times for procurement of entheogens.  I never did dig salvia d though; she's not really my ally.

Yes.  That's the one, that's Marcy.  Thanks for tracking this stuff down, Net Picker.

This stuff brings back some old memories: I remember now her telling us that she'd lived in Florida as a teen, and I also remember her, at DAYTOP, playing us that song ("Is This America?") on an acoustic guitar one time.  

However, the women in those photos?  I do not recognize any of them as being Marcy.  But I might have a closer look later on.

More later.
Title: Re: to the memory of MIKE GOMEZ
Post by: Antigen on December 08, 2008, 05:24:17 PM
Quote from: "Net Picker"

MARCY SHARON LANGSTEIN

• b. 1968, now aged 40.

• Possibly lived in the Bronx, NY in the early 1980s. A younger sister or other relative (http://http://www.classmates.com/directory/public/memberprofile/list.htm?regId=152322851) went to middle school there.

Lived in Florida at least during her teenage years. Has had addresses at one time or another in Pinellas Park, Palm Harbor, and Clearwater. No dates on those, but she graduated from Countryside High School (http://http://namesdatabase.com/schools/US/FL/Clearwater/Countryside%20High%20School) in Clearwater, FL in 1985. The same younger sister or other relative mentioned above also graduated from there three years later. As of July 2004, her mother was allegedly still living in Florida.


I wonder if she had much contact with either the clams or the Straightlings during that time.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 08, 2008, 06:12:17 PM
Yeah, noticed that. What about the Clearwater Underwriters, Inc business? They sell flood insurance, from what I can tell.. At least 4 members of the Waters family. Are they legit?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 08, 2008, 07:09:16 PM
You know, now that I think of it, I am almost positive that Marcy once recommended to me that I read Dianetics.  If it wasn't her, somebody on staff there once did; I am pretty damn sure of that it was Marcy though.  However, I do not remember anybody ever mentioning the word "Scientology."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 09, 2008, 12:40:00 AM
Keep in mind that I have not seen Marcy in person since approx. 1995, but can still see her face and remember her looks.  She had long, wavy brown hair.

That said, I'll tell you that I have taken a closer look at those Golf Tournament photos from '06/'07 and did not recognize any of those folks.  I'll look through some more though, and will let you know if I recognize her.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 09, 2008, 05:02:44 PM
OK, I shall now disclose for everybody's information where I am am who my therapists are, in order to assuage any real or potential concern about the veracity of what I have been describing to all of you, and to describe for all of you my present situation and circumstances.

I have been posting to this board from within Meadow Haven; we are in Lakeville MA and my therapists' names are Bob and Judy PARDON.

Meadow Haven is a residential program that helps survivors of cults of all kinds, and also survivors of certain abusive and overly controlling relationships that took place in some religious, psycho-therapeutic, or otherwise cult-like context.  

They (Bob and Judy) work closely with Wellspring, and to compare Wellspring to Meadow Haven I'll use the following medical analogy.  Wellspring is comparable to a cult-trauma emergency room, and Meadow Haven is a longer-term program, kind of like extended physical therapy that one would go through after being hit by a truck or something, but it's not physical therapy, it's psychotherapy.  Wellspring and Meadow Haven refer people to one another on a regular basis.

There are only two programs of this kind in the United States.  Wellspring is one of them and Meadow Haven is the other.  Wellspring is the ER, and is short-term; Meadow Haven is the longer-term therapeutic community program.

The Pardons are well familiar with CEDU clone programs and the like, and Bob just loaned me a copy of Help At Any Cost to read.  Amazingly, they'd never heard of DAYTOP until I told them about it.

BTW: I just started that book; I skipped the introduction and finished Chapter One last night.  Tonight I'll read the introduction and probably start Chapter Two.  

Read of Meadow Haven and the Pardons here:

http://www.meadowhaven.org/index.htm (http://www.meadowhaven.org/index.htm)

http://www.meadowhaven.org/the_people.htm (http://www.meadowhaven.org/the_people.htm)

The Pardons are well known in cult-ed and cult recovery circles and the Meadow Haven program is nothing like a 12-step group environment, not at all, nothing whatsoever.  I am definitely in a safe place and we are not controlled or coerced here in the least.  I am in the driver's seat of my own treatment all the way.

The Pardons are committed Christians, but they are hardly preachy and never try and impose their beliefs on anybody at any time; not in any way, shape or, form.

Bob and Judy PARDON (my therapists) are without a doubt two of the most compassionate, encouraging, and positive people I have ever had the privilege to know, not to mention two of the foremost experts on the subject of thought reform in this country, and it is a pure blessing to be here in and therapy with them, to sit under them as my mentors. I am 100% confident in their integrity, professional ethics, and capability, and am so very grateful to be here with them.  I am very very fortunate, all of us here are.  It is my incredible privilege to be here, and I cannot overstate that point.

These are very highly competent people that I am with, certainly not Puerto Rican hack armchair psychologists or anything like that.  

They are absolute professionals and I am 100% confident about their competence and ethics.

I consider myself highly blessed to have them. The Pardons literally saved my life. That is no understatement and none of us here takes that fact lightly.

Furthermore, I am in about three hours of psychotherapy a week and am making real progress.

Check them out if you're not familiar with them, or have never heard of Meadow Haven.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 10, 2008, 05:53:14 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
There are only two programs of this kind in the United States. Wellspring is one of them and Meadow Haven is the other. Wellspring is the ER, and is short-term; Meadow Haven is the longer-term therapeutic community program.

You DO know (do you?), since you were in Daytop, that the term "therapeutic community" is a dirty word around here. It is neither therapeutic nor is it a community.

Daytop is one of the original therapeutic communities. They usually focused on addiction treatment.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 10, 2008, 09:47:35 AM
Well, one would imagine that the words "treatment" and "program" are dirty words around here too, but that is exactly what I am participating in.  I am in a treatment program for cult-trauma survivors, and Meadow Haven is both therapeutic and a community; therefore, it is a legitimate therapeutic community.  

There are legitimate treatment programs that are healthy and constructive for the participants, who are all participating voluntarily, mind you, and in psychotherapy with trained, licensed professional counselors; as well, there are (needless to say) unhealthy and illegitimate hellholes that call themselves "treatment programs" which are abusive to and destructive for the participants, who are usually there involuntarily, and which are usually run by a bunch of uneducated thugs.

One thing that I do not need is somebody telling me what I can and cannot say.

So I'll tell you what: my assertion is, that I don't have to change anything at all about what I say or how I say it just because you (or anybody else) tells me so, Guest.  I do not need you playing "semantics police."  I do not not your blessings.  If I wanted somebody to control me or my choice of words and impose their will (and therefore their way of thinking) on me, then I'd go back to DAYTOP.  

So I'll say what I want, and use any choice of words I wish, if that's OK with you.  Deal?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 10, 2008, 10:05:07 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
One thing that I do not need is somebody telling me what I can and cannot say.
Maybe, but at the same time, aren't you suggesting to him what he can and can not say?  Just food for thought and I mean no disrespect.  In any case, what you won't find here is any administration or authority interfering with what anybody can or cannot say.  There are staunch industry supporters, program staff, and the like who come here from time to time, berate survivors, and generally make asses out of themselves but...  why interfere with that?  By letting them speak they make all the more clear to everybody just how bat-shit crazy many of these cult members are.  Some AARC threads have particularly good examples of this behavior.

All in all I think it's a bit silly.  People criticized me when my lawyers referred to Benchmark as a "school" in their papers even though they didn't employ any qualified teachers (judge's words, not mine), but for lack of a better term what other way is there to succinctly describe the place.  Program maybe?  But then that would be implying it's a treatment program when it's not licensed as one.  Anybody got any better suggestions?

All in all it's pretty silly.  "Therapeutic community", negative connotations aside, is a fairly good way to describe the place you are in based on your description.  Maybe "cult recovery center" would be another, but...  come on, guest..  you know what he meant.  SEKTO has a point about the "semantics police."  Quibbling over terminology is more the program's territory than of Fornits, or most anywhere else.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 10, 2008, 10:12:20 AM
Quote
Maybe, but at the same time, aren't you suggesting to him what he can and can not say? Just food for thought and I mean no disrespect. In any case, what you won't find here is any administration or authority interfering with what anybody can or cannot say. There are staunch industry supporters, program staff, and the like who come here from time to time, berate survivors, and generally make asses out of themselves but... why interfere with that? By letting them speak they make all the more clear to everybody just how bat-shit crazy many of these cult members are. Some AARC threads have particularly good examples of this behavior.

Good point, psy.  Thanks.   No hard feelings, Guest?   More later.  Must go now.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 13, 2008, 01:10:12 AM
Sorry, I'm not sure what there is to quibble about. "Guest" is correct. TC's in this country are primarily used to treat drug addiction, along with so-called attending psychological issues. In Europe the definition and application is a little broader, encompassing certain mental illnesses in addition to substance abuse issues. (Although I am sure that there are some exceptions to the above.)

It doesn't sound as though this is about semantics at all, nor about mere "negative connotations"; my guess is that it is about the historical definition of the phrase.

Perhaps one might think that calling a community that offers therapeutic benefits a "therapeutic community" is technically okay. I can assure you, however, that you will probably generate a great deal of confusion in people who are more familiar with the term as it was originally defined, especially on this forum (Daytop being one of the original TC's).
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 13, 2008, 01:52:02 AM
From Wikipedia's definition (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_community) which--I must hasten to humbly qualify--is woefully incomplete and needs some editing, but which does--nonetheless--serve to illustrate what I opined in my previous post (color emphasis mine):

Therapeutic community is a term applied to a participative, group-based approach to long-term mental illness, personality disorders and drug addiction. The approach is usually residential with the clients and therapists living together, is based on milieu therapy principles and includes group psychotherapy as well as practical activities.

Therapeutic communities have and gained some reputation for success in rehabilitation and patient satisfaction in Britain and abroad. In Britain, 'democratic analytic' therapeutic communities have tended to specialise in the treatment of moderate to severe personality disorders and complex emotional and interpersonal problems. The evolution of therapeutic communities in the United States has followed a different path with hierarchically arranged communities (or concept houses) specialising in the treatment of drug and alcohol dependence.

The term was coined by Tom Main in his 1946 paper, "The hospital as a therapeutic insititution",[1] and subsequently developed by others including Maxwell Jones, R. D. Laing at the Philadelphia Association, David Cooper at Villa 21, and Joshua Bierer.


History

Under the influence of Maxwell Jones, Main, Wilmer and others (Caudill 1958; Rapoport 1960), combined with the publications of critiques of the existing mental health system (Greenblatt et al. 1957, Stanton and Schwartz 1954) and the sociopolitical influences that permeated the psychiatric world towards the end of and following the second World War, the concept of the therapeutic community and its attenuated form - the therapeutic milieu - caught on and dominated the field of inpatient psychiatry throughout the 1960’s. The aim of therapeutic communities was a more democratic, user-led form of therapeutic environment, avoiding the authoritarian and demeaning practices of many psychiatric establishments of the time. The central philosophy is that clients are active participants in their own and each other's mental health treatment and that responsibility for the daily running of the community is shared among the clients and the staff. 'TC's have sometimes eschewed or limited medication in favor of group-based therapies.

In the late 1960s within the US correctional system, the Asklepion Foundation initiated therapeutic communities in the Marion Federal Penitentiary and other institutions that included clinical intervention based upon Transactional Analysis, the Synanon Game, internal twelve-step programs and other therapeutic modalities. Some of these programs lasted into the mid 1980s, such as the House of Thought in the Virginia Correctional system, and were able to demonstrate a reduction of 17% in recidivism in a matched-pair study of drug-abusing felons and sex offenders who participated in the program for one year or more.

Modified therapeutic communities are currently used for substance abuse treatment in correctional facilities of several U.S. states including Texas,[1] Delaware,[2] and New York.[3] In New York City, a program for men is located in the Arthur Kill Correctional Facility on Staten Island and the women’s program is part of the Bayview Correctional Facility in Manhattan.[2]
[/list]
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 13, 2008, 02:02:48 AM
From Daytop's home page (http://http://www.daytop.org/), color emphasis THEIRS, being a link, actually (see post following this one):

—•?|•?•0•?•|?•— —•?|•?•0•?•|?•— —•?|•?•0•?•|?•—

Daytop provides services for those who seek help with life's problems compounded by substance abuse. Over 100,000 individuals have reclaimed their lives with assistance of the program.

Daytop is based on the therapeutic community (TC) concept: a highly structured, family environment where positive peer interaction is emphasized. Separate and individualized programs are available for adolescents, adults, and all family members.

Substance abuse, at whatever level, disrupts people's lives, and the lives of those who care about them. Daytop seeks to heal the whole individual, and also his or her family and social network. Issues such as physical health, education, and work preparedness are all part of restoring our clients and their families to health.

The staff consists of professionals in the fields of psychology, social work, medicine and education, as well as Daytop graduates who have gone through intensive training and certification in counseling.

Daytop has been providing drug-free counseling services since 1963, making it the oldest and largest drug-free, self help program in the United States.

For specific information regarding our facilities in New Jersey visit http://www.DaytopNJ.org (http://www.DaytopNJ.org).
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 13, 2008, 02:07:58 AM
The aforementioned link expanded out (it doesn't have its own URL, being of javascript origin):

—•?|•?•0•?•|?•— —•?|•?•0•?•|?•— —•?|•?•0•?•|?•—

What is a Therapeutic Community?

The therapeutic community is a drug-free self help program whose primary goals are the cessation of substance abuse behaviors and the fostering of personal growth. The TC model incorporates nine essential elements. These elements are based on the social learning theory that utilizes the community to foster behavioral and attitudinal change. The elements are: active participation, membership feedback, role modeling, collective formats for guiding individual change, shared norms and values, structure and systems, open communication, individual and group relationships and a unique terminology.

The TC includes both professional and para-professional staff. Graduates of the TC program who have completed classroom and internship training in counseling are an essential part of the program's effectiveness, as is the inclusion of professionals from the fields of medicine, mental health, education, and law.

Community activities help members explore and learn about themselves in the following four distinct yet overlapping areas of personal development: behavior management, emotional/psychological, intellectual and spiritual and vocation/education and survival skills. The TC believes that people can change and that learning occurs through challenge and action, understanding and sharing common human experiences.

Treatment in the TC begins with entry into the community. Here the member learns the values and norms of the community, which are a reflection of those held by society. In the middle phase of treatment, members explore individual histories and experiences, practice new behaviors and begin to gain increased self-esteem and knowledge of themselves. As new attitudes and behaviors are developed so too are individual goals and possibilities for the future, including vocational and educational training. The next phase of treatment involves the important task of re-entry into the larger community. New ways of relating to others are practiced and members gain valuable experience in working or going to school outside the TC while receiving support from the community. Ultimately, the member will be ready to live independently and continue to gain support from an aftercare program.

The TC model is adaptable to different client populations and settings. Adolescent programs include a full educational curriculum and greater family involvement. The model can be adapted to an outpatient setting, long or shorter-term treatment and include specialized groups such as those involving medical regimes or other lifestyle changes. The TC engages the whole person in the recovery process and challenges the individual to have a full, positive life with healthy supportive relationships and satisfying work.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 13, 2008, 11:53:52 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Quote
Interesting you include "some other group". If you're referring to what I think you are, i'd tend to agree. Institutionalized 12 steppery performs a forced conversion function as a front group for the 12 step religion (http://http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-spirrel.html#judges) as a whole. You might find this chapter of this book (link) (http://http://www.morerevealed.com/library/coc/chaptr10.htm) by Charles Bufe interesting.
No, I was not specifically referring to Bill (though he and I used to be buddies; DAYTOP would take us to Bills' place once a week or so), but groups in general, all kinds, whether religious groups, military groups, self-help/recovery groups, whatever.  They are all basically the same.  I got used to groups and got to the point of believing that that was a good and normal and even superior way to go about my life.

In a sense, if you've seen one cult, you've seen 'em all.

I have been in a religious cult, visited and mingled with several different religious communities and various communes, (some cultic, some not), DAYTOP, AND the Army (which I consider to be cult too, but at least you get paid and get some benefits) all in an effort to re-create the phony sense of "community" that I experienced as a teenager in DAYTOP.

That's what it comes down to, doesn't it?  Learned helplessness.  Exactly what I need to hear.  

Quote
Must have been easy when you believed you were powerless. In my cynical opinion this learned helplessness performs a "return to sender" function: programming a person to self destruct without the group. You can only function as a member. Further, you naturally try to help others you see as who you were before the cult (everybody, since history is revised). They turn you into a deployable agent of the cult... a missionary of sorts.

The Daytop Philosophy, recited like a prayer or mantra every morning before Morning Meeting, programmed us to be group-dependent, taught us groupthink  right away.  Here it is:

I am here because there is no refuge.
Finally, from myself.
Until I confront myself in the eyes
and hearts of others, I am running.
Until I suffer them to share my secrets,
I have no safety from them.
Afraid to be known, I can know
neither myself nor any other, I will be alone.
Where else but in our common ground,
can I find such a mirror?
Here, together, I can at last appear
clearly to myself not as the giant
of my dreams nor the dwarf of my fears,
but as a person, part of a whole,
with my share in its purpose.
In this ground, I can take root and grow,
Not alone anymore as in death,
But alive to myself and to others.

No, I was not specifically referring to Bill (though he and I used to be buddies; DAYTOP would take us to Bills' place once a week or so), but groups in general, all kinds, whether religious groups, military groups, self-help/recovery groups, whatever.  They are all basically the same.  I got used to groups and got to the point of believing that that was a good and normal and even superior way to go about my life.[/list]

SEKTO, can you tell us about Bill? Are you talking about Bill Wilson?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 14, 2008, 09:38:33 AM
Bill Wilson, yes.  Those were veiled references to AA and AA culture.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 14, 2008, 10:15:25 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Bill Wilson, yes.  Those were veiled references to AA and AA culture.
@guest: See also "friend of bill" (not clinton)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... 20Bill%20W (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Friend%20of%20Bill%20W).

It's used as code language to speak to AA members without alerting those who are not AA members or don't know the super sekret "lingo"/slang.  I've even seen it used in movies (one example: "pay it forward (http://http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0223897/)").

See some more 12 step loaded language by the same user:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.p ... Step+slang (http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Twelve-Step+slang)

(just a fraction of what there is out there)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 18, 2008, 02:54:16 PM
Interesing reading so far. And the only reason I'm reading it is that guess what I was in Daytop Texas in the early 90's and some of what is said in the original post is either puposely fabricated or the delusional memories of a self admitted pothead. I've gotten through the first 3 pages of this thread and while some of it actually factual, I just hate when people make crap up to serve their own self interests. :soapbox:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 18, 2008, 05:39:57 PM
Quote from: "odie2"
Interesing reading so far. And the only reason I'm reading it is that guess what I was in Daytop Texas in the early 90's and some of what is said in the original post is either puposely fabricated or the delusional memories of a self admitted pothead. I've gotten through the first 3 pages of this thread and while some of it actually factual, I just hate when people make crap up to serve their own self interests. :soapbox:

What isn't factual, specifically?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 19, 2008, 10:40:10 AM
The Jewish Lesbian Diesel Dyke and the Puerto Rican thugs he says were counselors. First off at the time he claims he was there, the only females working in the facility were the cook, the MSW, the secretary, and the Program Director. The cook was the grandmotherly type, not someone you could mistake as a Diesel Dyke. The Social Worker was a licensed therapist that never had anything to do with Daytop before she worked there. The secretary and Program Director were both happily married. Now to the puerto rican thugs as counselors. A true fabrication since the only individual of Latino descent was the Assistant Director, who I personally knew as a very compassionate individual that I never heard raise his voice at a child. The individual obviously has an axe to grind with Daytop and hey I have no problem with that, just don't stretch the truth that far. :bs:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on December 19, 2008, 10:50:41 AM
Quote from: "odie2"
The Jewish Lesbian Diesel Dyke and the Puerto Rican thugs he says were counselors. First off at the time he claims he was there, the only females working in the facility were the cook, the MSW, the secretary, and the Program Director. The cook was the grandmotherly type, not someone you could mistake as a Diesel Dyke. The Social Worker was a licensed therapist that never had anything to do with Daytop before she worked there. The secretary and Program Director were both happily married. Now to the puerto rican thugs as counselors. A true fabrication since the only individual of Latino descent was the Assistant Director, who I personally knew as a very compassionate individual that I never heard raise his voice at a child. The individual obviously has an axe to grind with Daytop and hey I have no problem with that, just don't stretch the truth that far. :bs:

Ok. So it's your word against his, unless you submit any actual evidence to contradict his claims. For all anybody knows, you could actually *be* that "compassionate" Assistant Director. No point confirming or denying it, and I'm not accusing you.  I'm merely pointing out a possibility.

As for the times he was there... perhaps he was trying to avoid pinpointing his identity, perhaps you are mistaken.  He did name the employees names, however.  Are you denying anybody of those names has ever worked there?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 19, 2008, 02:59:54 PM
The only staff I don't recall is Joyce Ratner. No I'm not Ruben but someone that got to know him real well. This fellow got names right but not their positions. Naturally I can't comment on identity of any clients. As far as the Marcy story I think if something like that happened I would have known. I finally did get around to reading this entire thread so I may make additional comments. Something that struck me was how this individual originally mentioned the Puerto Rican Thugs then moved on to the 2 huge black dudes Greg and Leroy, who put together by the way aren't as big as I am so I'm beginning to wonder what this guy really was fearful of back then. Was it the program or the fact he was a mixed up white kid with deep seeded prejudices. ::fullofshit::
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 19, 2008, 03:03:36 PM
odie pls pick up your PMs
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on December 23, 2008, 11:22:20 PM
hi Odie,

We spoke a few years ago about DV in Mt. Vernon (see post: who's in charge here? 2006-05-22 20:36:00). I just read through this whole thread and can't figure out why this guy would make all of that up. He seemed desperate to talk for several days in a row and then nothing. Was it just to promote the program he's in now?

I have my own issues with Daytop, but I cannot imagine a relatively stable person being so profoundly effected for so long.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts on all of this.

-grit.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 26, 2008, 11:50:03 PM
Greetings all.  

The Pardons (my therapists) were out of town for the entire week after Thanksgiving (the week in which I was most active here) and now that they are  are back, I probably will not post here much anymore, if at all.  The reason I was doing all of that posting was mainly that it served as as an adjunct to my psychotherapy, as well as to my readings and work in the area of boundaries and emotional trauma; because they were out of town (the Pardons as well as most of the other residents here) and there was nobody to talk to, I was spending a lot of time alone at that time.  I needed someone to talk to, a place to test some ideas, a sounding board, so I Googled the words "DAYTOP cult" and that's how I found Fornits.  I found just such a board here.

This board has served its purpose toward my treatment as far as I am concerned.  It was a form of reflective journaling, but in a way better, since I got a lot of good input from psy and others.

The Pardons and the others are all back now, so I will post no more unless somebody directly asks a question or whatever, and I wish to reply.  I'll keep my eye on this board (as I have been) but prefer to keep my online presence to a minimum right now and don't feel like dealing with trolls and other BS, like participants engaging in flaming and trying to bait me into arguments that I am not going to be a part of.  I can see all that coming from a mile away and make it a practice to "never feed the trolls."

For another thing: it (my presence here) had, and has, nothing to do with trying to promote the program I am part of now, and if you notice, I didn't even mention the name of this place for several days.  The only reason I mentioned the names of Meadow Haven and the Pardons was to give some legitimacy to what I was to communicate, so that nobody would think that I was making it all up.  You know where to find me.  I am not going to disclose my name here (speaking of boundaries), but all of you know where I am if you want to meet me.  I'll be happy to tell you all about it in person if you'd care to hear of these things in more detail.

Personally, I really do not like the unmoderated forum format; there's just too many trolls and other jerks out there.  So I prefer to stay away from online forums these days for the most part.

I assure everyone and give my sacred word on this:  I did not invent a single thing that I recently posted.  Everything I wrote is is true and accurate.

As far as Guest not understanding how a relatively stable person could be so profoundly affected for so long: well with respect my friend, about all I can say about that is that you have not walked the proverbial mile in my shoes and are not the judge of me.  There are other things, personal things about my background and life story that I did not tell of and that you therefore in fairness cannot take into consideration in coming to such a conclusion; there are many other factors involved here that you are not able to take into account in attempting to evaluate me and my experience in DAYTOP, as I related it.  

In other words, I am not here to tell you my autobiography.  I am here to tell you about my experience with DAYTOP and how it affected my life and the lives of my friends, some of whom lost their lives.  Mike Gomez, for instance, got pushed over the edge in DAYTOP and died from negligent treatment IMO.  

I was a relatively stable person in the first place, and the DAYTOP environment was in fact the destabilizing influence, not the other way around;  Daytopianism completely undermined and utterly warped my personal identity and sense of boundaries.

Simply put, my conclusion is that the "one size fits all" approach to that kind of "therapy" basically does not work, and in the long term far more persons get hurt than helped, especially (like me) if they did not need to be in a program like DAYTOP to begin with.  It is (the DAYTOP way) not legitimate medical treatment, it's thought reform, mind control, and DAYTOP is little more than a "sobriety cult."  I do not know of one single person from that time period that stayer "clean and sober" in the longer run, and we (me and my Daytopian friends from circa '93-'94) have all had major difficulties in our post-DAYTOP lives, but are all generally doing well now, fifteen years later.  Some more well than others I suppose.  I myself am more than OK and getting better all the time.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on January 03, 2009, 10:11:06 PM
I was there with the original poster of this thread.  I was in DAYTOP Texas for over 2 years.  Most of what I have read is right on the money.  Ruben was a compassionate individual, but I once watched him scream at someone so violently that his false teeth flew across the room.  The place turned me into a cripple or sorts, and I have spent the rest of my life sorting out the damage done to me by them and my family.  The real tragedy is that it was all done 'for our own good'.  I was DAYTOP's poster boy.  They kept me around way longer than anyone else so they could show me off as a success story.  What they failed to realize is that I began to abuse others in the way I had been abused and thus the cycle continued.

I was a hardcore drug addict and criminal from that point forward.  Actually, I was a hard core criminal first (totally sober though!!!) for about 3 years-then I became a hard core drug addict.  The only thing that brought a change into my life was Jesus Christ.  I finally admitted defeat from my wicked heart, and realized that in my heart of hearts I wanted to be drugged out.  It was at that point that I just asked God for a new heart, one that wasn't ruined from a lifetime of rehabs and violence.  I asked for a heart that had good desires, like wanting to be with my wife and kids, and not out running the streets.  Well folks, it's there for the asking, because I haven't got high since, and I don't need 12 steps or another institution.  The bible says point blank "ALL who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved".  I was a slave to much more than a drug, I was a slave to a heart and mind that had been poisoned.  Jesus set my mind free and gave me something I could trust and believe in.  There was no other way for me, and I believe from where I'm standing, He is the real answer.  Jesus came to give us a relationship, not religion.

Anyways, DAYTOP is a terrible program that believes the ends justify the means.  Is changing your behavior worth handicapping your mental health?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 03, 2009, 11:58:41 PM
Thanks for agreeing to post your testimonial, Billy.

That could not have been easy for you to have done.

You're a good man and a good friend.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on January 09, 2009, 12:28:25 PM
Thank you for your eloquent support of your brainwashed student my dear Rev. Pardons :jerry:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 19, 2009, 10:47:53 PM
For the record, Billy C is not Bob Pardon.  

I have known that man (Billy, that is) for over 15 years.

Class dismissed.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 22, 2009, 05:08:28 PM
Look what I found recently.  You'll LOVE this.  Here is the Leroy BREWSTER of whom I wrote in earlier posts.
 
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... =230453083 (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=230453083)

Check out his photos:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... =230453083 (http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewAlbums&friendID=230453083)

Say, straight up: how come almost every posted photo of Leroy is set in a bar?  I mean, what's up-he must frickin' LIVE at the bar.  There's no pictures of him even, like, hiking or watching football or something.  Just lots of pictures of him at the bar with this big shit-eating grin on his face, and surrounded by tipsy young women.

These people, these half-assed and totally unqualified DAYTOP counselors, had no business getting into my head or anybody else's.  

I can't say for sure, but I imagine that most of them (especially Marcy) are a sad sight today.  Just look at what Leroy's up to in '09.

All I see is one hell of a drunk old man, a lowlife pimp and small-time playa!  This just infuriates me.  How did he get hired?

This is the man who I was told once smoked a joint with a couple of the DAYTOP kids, on DAYTOP property no less, and then laughed about it with them!  

And this is one of the people who was running our encounter groups and was responsible for helping to mold kids' minds?  

This is a man who used to sit in on closed-door meetings in which the DAYTOP counselors would discuss our deep dark secrets and personal issues?

No college education at all, no certification,  no nothing.  What kind of educational requirements did DAYTOP have back then that allowed people like this to be on staff and with access to children?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on January 23, 2009, 10:48:37 AM
Well... you knew him, I didn't. But people -- and, consequently, organizations composed of people -- have been trying to control one another since the beginning of time. Some less ethically than others.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 23, 2009, 12:23:33 PM
I'm not sure that I take your meaning there, Ursus; can you explain, expand on that, restate your point please?

Oh man, this pisses me off.  It makes me want to punch a hole in the wall.

Check out Leroy at the James Brown Theme Party.  

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... Id=1083684 (http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=230453083&albumId=1083684)

From the looks of things, he's a bouncer in a Denver bar called The Thin Man, and something of a literal pimp.

And this man was once in charge of helping to mold my mind and personality?  

This man was once telling me about working on my personal growth?

This man once gave me haircuts and would run encounter groups, would get into our heads and was dealing with our innermost fears and insecurities?

What were his qualifications to be doing that kind of "counseling" work involving children?  

Did he get his degree from the University of Straight Pimpin'?  

Why, I'll bet he even got himself a PhD; a Pimpin' Hos Degree!

Judging by the looks of things, he's also taking plenty of continuing education hours too, to keep his pimp certification and credentials valid.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... D=11821351 (http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=230453083&albumID=1083684&imageID=11821351)

Fuck DAYTOP.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on January 23, 2009, 12:51:24 PM
Hey... slow down... Nothing personal and no offense intended. It was just a comment about the disparaging state of the human condition, and apparently my delivery was less than optimal!

When I said you knew him, I didn't...I only meant that I can't really comment on his personal mores, since I didn't know the man. Probably a stupid thing for me to say, sorry about that. If he was a dickhead, I'll take your word for it.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 23, 2009, 01:19:34 PM
Oh no Ursus, there must be some misunderstanding; your comment did not offend me in the least, I assure you.  Pardon me if I gave you that impression.

I didn't even think twice about what you wrote, in terms of being rankled by it; it's only that I just didn't quite take your meaning.

Your input was not the source of my disgust, my discovery of those pictures is the source of my disgust.  I am genuinely outraged.  

The man had absolutely no educational credentials at all and very little experience in the counseling field, just a good deal of street smarts that helped him to relate well with the kids that he was dealing with.  I think that he was on staff in the Buckner orphanage in some kind of counseling or mentorship position before he came to work for DAYTOP.

In all honesty, Leroy was one of the "cooler" and less sadistic counselors, and was a hell of a funny guy.  I liked him, actually.  He was a trip.  He told us a story one time about how, back when he was in high school, he and a whole bunch of other kids from Lake Highlands High stole a school bus and drove it to a Parliament concert, partied it up in the bus the whole way to the show, ditched it in the parking lot when they got there, and never were caught.  His thing was smoking a lot of grass, and he dealt Ecstasy back in the mid-eighties, shortly after it became illegal.  He used to frequent Dallas' legendary Starck Club, where X first started gaining popularity.  But he was supposedly sober when he worked with us.  Probably not though.  He was into a lot of funk and R&B stuff, so the James Brown Theme Party photos do not surprise me at all.  That's the Leroy I remember.

What really gets me, what really pisses me off, is that there was a total lack of accountability and oversight in DAYTOP back then that allowed a guy like that to get hired to begin with, much less to be in a position of influence over a bunch of children.  Not that Leroy is or was a bad guy per se; it's just that he wasn't qualified to be doing that kind of work at all.  

If he really did smoke a joint with Mike and Jerry that time (and I don't know it for a fact, but Mike swore up and down that he smoked weed with Leroy), then I say he's an asshole for doing so.  I find the thought of it to be particularly disheartening.  Smoked weed with a couple of the kids on DAYTOP property.  Damn, that's gansta.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 23, 2009, 06:00:32 PM
Here' a detail from the past that i remembered, and it's one that will prove the veracity of that what I have posted in the last couple days.  

We Dallas Daytopians used to call Leroy "Sexual Chocolate" because he reminded us of the goofy singer Randy Watson in that Eddie Murphy movie Coming To America.  He didn't like it and would tell us not to call him that, but it was funny at the time and I remember it to this day.  

Leroy'd walk by and we'd yell out "Sexual Chocolate!  Sexual Chocolate!" or we'd start singing The Greatest Love of All.  He hated that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoS8j9eN ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoS8j9eNMZU&feature=related)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on January 24, 2009, 10:25:36 PM
This is highly relevant to your interests:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26020&p=324276#p324276 (http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26020&p=324276#p324276)

It's a speech given by Abraham Maslow at Daytop in NY
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 29, 2009, 12:44:12 AM
Thank you psy, relevant on many levels it is indeed.  

Can you please, for my edification, highlight and elucidate upon what you believe to be the most pertinent points contained in this text?

Thanks for your time.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on January 29, 2009, 01:17:38 AM
Quote
Synanon and Eupsychia. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1967; 7; 28
These are excerpts from a speech given by Abraham Maslow, leading figure in the Human Potential Movement alongside Carl Rogers, at the Synanon branch in NY, Daytop Village, Staten Island, N. Y., on August 14, 1965. Synanon is a community run by former drug addicts to which addicts come to be cured. (Cedu was started in ’67. Also in 67' Synanon adopted the idea of lifetime therapy and became a self-proclaimed utopian community.)

What I have read about Synanon, as well as what I saw last night and this afternoon, suggests that the whole idea of the fragile teacup which might crack or break, the idea that you mustn't say a loud word to anybody because it might traumatize him or hurt him, the idea that people cry easily or crack easily or commit suicide or go crazy if you shout at them - that maybe these ideas are outdated.
I've suggested that a name for this might be "no-crap therapy." It serves to clean out the defenses, the rationalizations, the veils, the evasions and politenesses of the world. The world is half-blind, you might say, and what I've seen here is the restoring of sight. In these groups people refuse to accept the normal veils. They rip them aside and refuse to take any crap or excuses or evasions of any sort.
Well, I have been asking questions, and I have been told that this assumption works fine. Did anybody ever commit suicide or crack in any way? No. Has anyone gone crazy from this rough treatment? No. I watched it last night. There was extremely direct talking, and it worked fine. Now this contradicts a whole lifetime of training, and that makes it terribly important to me as a theoretical psychologist who has been trying to figure out what human nature is like in general. It raises a real question about the nature of the whole human species. How strong are people? How much can they take? The big question is how much honesty can people take. There are all sorts of games cooked up to cover the truth, but the truth is that the average American citizen does not have a real friend in the world. Very few people have what a psychologist would call real friendships. The marriages are mostly no good in that ideal sense as well. You could say that the kinds of problems we have, the open troubles - not being able to resist alcohol, not being able to resist drugs, not being able to resist crime, not being able to resist anything - that these are due to the lack of these basic psychological gratifications. The question is, does Daytop supply these psychological vitamins? My impression as I wandered around this place this morning is that it does.
It seems possible that this brutal honesty, rather than being an insult, implies a kind of respect. You can take it as you find it, as it really is. And this can be a basis for respect and friendship. I remember hearing an analyst talking a long time ago, long before group therapy. He was talking about this honesty too. What he was saying sounded foolish at the time, as if he was being cruel or some-thing. What he said was that "I place upon my patients the fullest load of anxiety that they can bear." Do you realize what that implies? As much as they can take, that is what he is going to dish out, because the more he can dish out, the faster the whole thing will move. It doesn't seem so foolish in the light of experience here.
On the new social therapy. This is a thought which may turn out to be of professional interest to you. There is a new kind of job opening up that is an activist's job, and it is one that demands experience rather than book training. It is a sort of a combination of an old-fashioned minister and a teacher. You have to be concerned with people. You have to like working with them directly, rather than at a distance; and you have to have as much knowledge of human nature as possible. I have suggested calling it "social therapy." Well, this seems to be developing very gradually over the last year or two. The people who are doing best are not the people with Ph.D.s and so on; they are the people who have been on the streets and who know what it is all about themselves. They know what they're talking about. They know, for example, when to push hard and when to take it easy. With the sudden effort to try to teach the illiterate how to read; and of psychiatry to help people to maturity and responsibility; and so on, there is already a great shortage of people to do these jobs.
Well, one of the interesting things about Daytop is that it is being run by people who have been through the mill of experience. You people know how to talk to others in the same boat. And this is a job; it may be a new type of profession.
On the current social revolution. I could give you a half hour of examples of the way it takes place in different spots. There is a revolution going on. There are some spots which are more growing points than others; but they are all growing in the same Eupsychian direction, that is in the direction of more fully human people. This is going on in education as well. I think that it would be possible, if we got together and pooled all the experiences, bad and good, that we could all pool together, to take the skin off the whole damn educational system. But we could also rebuild it. Well, this is explosive because it demands a human reality, human needs, and human development, rather than a sort of traditional heritage from a thousand years ago which is outdated. It is difficult to speak about Eupsychian education. I think that you can contribute some with the thought that I suggested to you that you consider this as a sort of pilot experiment.
On encounters. May I tell you something. I've been in only one encounter group - last night - and I don't know how I would react if I'd been in that thing for a long time. Nobody has ever been that blunt with me in my whole life.
A major research question. That raises a question that I am asking around here. It is a very important question, and you don't really have the answer, I guess. The question is why do some people stay and others not? That also means, if you take this as a kind of educational institution, how good will it be for how much of the population? How many customers do you expect? How many people won't it work for? You know, the people who never show up do not get counted as failures. You people here overcame a hurdle, you overcame a fear. What is your theory about the people who don't jump over the fear? What is the difference between them and you? This is a practical question, since you people will be the graduates who will be running places like this somewhere else in the future. Then you must face the problem of how to make a larger percentage stay. I report to you that by comparison with that picture that procedure - what happens here is that the truth is being dished out and shoved right in your face. Nobody sits and waits for eight months until you discover it for yourself. At least the people who stay can accept it, and it appears to be good for them. That is in contradiction to a whole psychiatric theory.
From the kind of talking that we did last night, I very definitely have the feeling that the group would feed back things that you could not get in a hundred years of psychoanalysis from one person. Talking about what somebody looks like and what you look like to somebody else, and then having six other people agreeing about the impression you give, is revealing. Maybe it is not possible to form your own identity or a real picture of yourself unless you also get the picture of what you look like to the world. Well, that is a new assumption. In psychoanalysis that assumption isn't made. What you look like to other people isn't taken into account.
After you get over the pain, eventually self-knowledge is a very nice thing. It feels good to know about something rather than to wonder about it, to speculate about it. "Maybe he didn't speak to me because I'm bad, maybe they behaved that way because I'm bad." For the average man, life is just a succession of maybes. He doesn't know why people smile at him or why they don't. It is a very comfortable feeling not to have to guess. It is good to be able to know.

Maslow was a big proponent of the human potential movement.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 29, 2009, 01:35:32 AM
To give a synopsis: basically, he is saying "We'll have to hurt you in order to help you.  You may not understand what we are doing right now, think that it's rough and perhaps even abusive, but eventually you'll come to understand and be grateful for what you have done to you and for you, and we'll teach you how to do it for other people so that you can one day treat others in the way you've been treated and thus perpetuate the cycle of mercy."  

That's pretty much what I take away from it.  What say you psy?

Oh, and I recently read O'Brien's book.  

It's easy to pontificate condescendingly in such a manner as he about what the country needs to do in order to "save our kids," when he's a priest who is under a vow of celibacy and has no kids of his own, right?

Constantly in the latter half of the book calling addicts and other people with problems stupid lazy babies and the like.  

More on that later though.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on January 29, 2009, 01:53:22 AM
Oh, I could pick it apart piece by piece and comment on it, but one of the most telling things for me was this comment:

"Maybe it is not possible to form your own identity or a real picture of yourself unless you also get the picture of what you look like to the world. Well, that is a new assumption. In psychoanalysis that assumption isn't made. What you look like to other people isn't taken into account."

Maslow assumes that people don't already have a "real" picture of themselves, and that the group can tell you who you are.  This thinking is prevalent throught the full gamut of programs.  How many times did I hear "You don't know who you really are.  You're just wearing a mask".  It gives an excuse to attack a person's self concept (and values) and replace them with those of the group.

"you people will be the graduates who will be running places like this somewhere else in the future"

Sadly, this was accurate.

There is a revolution going on. There are some spots which are more growing points than others; but they are all growing in the same Eupsychian direction, that is in the direction of more fully human people. This is going on in education as well. I think that it would be possible, if we got together and pooled all the experiences, bad and good, that we could all pool together, to take the skin off the whole damn educational system. But we could also rebuild it. Well, this is explosive because it demands a human reality, human needs, and human development, rather than a sort of traditional heritage from a thousand years ago which is outdated.

And this is the human potential movement in a nutshell.  that's a section of the passage to reflect on.

What he said was that "I place upon my patients the fullest load of anxiety that they can bear." Do you realize what that implies? As much as they can take, that is what he is going to dish out, because the more he can dish out, the faster the whole thing will move.

Maslow seems to interpret any change as progress.  That's certainly not always the case.  People attacked will break down and conform to the group.  This can be psychologically scarring in the long run, as people learn they can only see "themselves" through the eyes of others (among other ways).  I'm sure many in program felt they lost their sense of self.  Is this self discovery?  No.  It's the dissolution of the self.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on January 29, 2009, 09:27:10 PM
In addition to O'Brien's book, I in the last couple of months have also read Help At Any Cost as well as So Fair A House.

So Fair a House, now that's an interesting book.  

I read it as a window into a long-gone place and time when people in general were much more naive and trusting than we are today.

Dederich even says straight out in it (I'll find the citation later) in the transcript of Casriel's recorded interview, that he was trying to build a cult around himself and that he deliberately surrounded himself with a "bunch of dummies" who would do whatever he wanted, and then placed them on the newly-incorporated Synanon's Board of Directors.  That's right, he called the first Board of Directors a bunch of dummies.

So not a lot of good fruit has come from the the figurative tree that Dederich planted, to put in mildly.

He was a grade-A nut, an involutional narcissist, emulator of L. Ron H. and in general a deluded pseudo-messianic madman.

It's amazing to me that he built such a following for so many years.  

To me, an interesting man to study however.

I mean, though he was very intelligent, he wasn't even particularly charismatic; by all accounts he was a gruff, belligerent, loudmouthed and physically disfigured control freak.

Have you ever seen the documentary film TC Pioneers, psy?

And now for my evening constitutional.  More later.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 01, 2009, 09:05:15 PM
What is next? Who cares about what someone said 40 years ago. Get a life and get off those damn meds.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 02, 2009, 12:47:10 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Two things about DAYTOP I remember quite well:

First, I'll tell of a Jewish lesbian "counselor" (DAYTOP grad from NYC and unqualified armchair psychologist) and self-described "diesel dyke" (that is not a homophobic comment from me, that's actually how she described herself to us) who we had there that I'll call "Marcia."  I used to dread going into the encounter groups that Marcia would run, as she was especially confrontational and vicious in her approach, to the point of being sadistic about it.  She'd encourage us to scream at and verbally abuse one another. She'd make fun of me relentlessly, telling me how phony and plastic and shallow that she thought I was.  She'd encourage the others to pitch in and tell me how weak I was too.  I remember when I made it to "coordinator" (the top of the DAYTOP chain of command) and she was teaching me how to conduct "haircuts" she'd tell me I that I was "too soft" with my counseling approach and encourage me to yell at people with the intent to shame and humiliate them.  She, in effect, was teaching me how to verbally abuse my peers.  She once humiliated me in front of the entire "DAYTOP family" in morning meeting by making me dance around in a silly fashion  while everybody laughed at me.  And all in the name of helping me to "overcome my issues."

The second thing that I remember really well was the periodic visits by The Monsignor, and how we'd all have to meet together and he'd pat us all on the head, one by one, like little kids or pets or something.  He'd never walk up and shake your hand like a grown-up, he'd pat you on the head like you were a cute four-year-old.   I always found that to be weird and inappropriate.

They'd verbally abuse and humiliate us, a bunch of teenagers, and teach us to do the same to one another.  Incredible.

If there are any good things I remember about DAYTOP they'd be: the fact that I made friends for life there; two of my best friends are DAYTOP grads and they're doing well, we used to party like mad but they are sober now with wives and kids and good jobs.  Also, at least in DAYTOP they taught me how to identify, get in touch with, and appropriately deal with my feelings.  It was genuinely therapeutic and beneficial in some respects.  So it wasn't all bad, just mostly bad, and the residual effects of all that verbal abuse and degradation and groupthink indoctrination remain with me and negatively impacts my psyche to this day.  It took me fifteen years or so to figure out that DAYTOP, the "drug treatment program" was a  front for an abusive Catholic cult group.  It blows my mind.  

Can I tell you anything about DAYTOP in those days?  Any questions or comments?

feel free to name the abusive counselor by name. Don't be discourgaged by the trolls- that's what they're trying to do to you. I enjoy your writing very much.
thank you
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 02, 2009, 04:06:55 PM
The Truth will set you free.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 02, 2009, 05:32:26 PM
Quote
feel free to name the abusive counselor by name. Don't be discourgaged by the trolls- that's what they're trying to do to you. I enjoy your writing very much.
thank you

Thank you for the positive feedback.  

Input like this keeps me motivated and is very encouraging.

Stay Irie.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 12:46:47 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
After deliberating with myself over this, I have decided to disclose these people's names.

DAYTOP outpatient started out in Richardson TX; I first went there in March of '92.  Then they gradually moved the operation to the Dresser building, near downtown Dallas, beginning in spring/summer of '93 and into early '94.  I graduated in approximately August of '93, and DAYTOP left TX entirely in approximately '96.

So here they are, all of them. These are the staff who were working at DAYTOP when I was there:

I'd love it if some of you floated these names around and tried to see what can be come up with on these people. Especially Marcy.

First is Ruben SILVERIO (maybe SYLVERIO, I cannot remember the proper spelling). A Puerto Rican DAYTOP grad from NYC.

Next, Marcy LANGSTEIN (pronounced Lang-STEEN) this is the one whom I refer to as "Marcia;" she was a totally bullying, confrontational "diesel dyke."  Again, I am not making fun of her; that's how she described herself to us at the time.  I remember her as a kd lang loving, folk-music playing, flannel and cargo-pants wearing, pickup truck driving type. She is also a DAYTOP grad from NYC; I think that she was a grad from the Queens outpatient facility.

If what I was told about her is true, then Marcy indirectly killed Mike GOMEZ through her abuse and negligence, IMO.

Mike GOMEZ was the kid I told of, whom Marcy (going against his parents' wishes) told that he was adopted, according to my sources. This led to Mike becoming very disturbed and running away, eventually getting killed while driving drunk. The kid had FASD, and was learning-disabled. We all treated Mike very poorly, and I regret that. He was the guy who was made to walk around with the pacifier.

The DAYTOP directors' names back in my time were these:

When I first got there in March of '92, the director's name was Mike GORMAN. He was a chain-smoking ex-jazzbo from NYC who claimed to have played the drums in Billie Holiday's band. He chain smoked filterless Pall Malls, spoke in this raspy voice, and he's the one the always went around with that "When you think you're looking good you're looking bad, and when you think you're looking bad, you're looking good" crap. He'd been to prison and had a small teardrop tattoo near one of his eyes, I cannot remember which one.  Mike Gorman graduated from DAYTOP way back in the '60s and had worked for their organization for a long time. He's been dead for over ten years. He was pretty old when I knew him, and I heard that he died in Florida at his daughter's house.  He died in '93.  I am pretty sure that Mike Gorman had been part of Synanon back in the day, too.

The next director after Mike was a guy named Eddie CINISOMO. He was a DAYTOP grad from NYC too and would always tell us that we were just statistics to him.  I don't know how or why he got removed from the directorship, but he did. He is dead now too, from some kind of natural causes, but I know no details of his death or the circumstances of it. His wife worked for DAYTOP too, as an administrator, but I do not remember her first name.

After Eddie was M*******  another Puerto Rican, ex-heroin addict.  I am not mentioning here name here to protect her privacy in case she is still alive.  She started out as a counselor in DAYTOP and eventually got promoted to director of our outpatient facility. She was (according to my sources) HIV positive but none of us knew it at the time, and I heard that she is dead now too. She's the one that went to work for Dallas' Phoenix House facility after DAYTOP was shut down in TX. She eventually died (or so I heard) from an AIDS related disease.

So all three of the directors at our outpatient facility are dead now. I do not know for sure, 100% about M*******, but feel that it is likely that she is indeed dead. She's not mentioned as part of Phoenix House's Dallas facility anymore.

Also on the staff as counselors were Greg THOMAS and Leroy BREWSTER. These two were these two huge black dudes that used to be football players. A kid named Mike told me, swore up and down, that he and another kid named Jerry once smoked a joint with Leroy on DAYTOP property and laughed about it together. Leroy supposedly UA'd them shortly thereafter but nobody involved cared. What are they gonna do, make me sit in the Chair? Was Mikes' reasoning. DAYTOP never kicked anybody out of the program, just shipped 'em too Athens if things got out of hand or if the kid was too rebellious or whatever. Greg Thomas was an ex-college football player who had to quit playing because of an injury and eventually started working "in the industry."  Leroy Brewster was a guy who used to deal Ecstasy in the mid '80s, and had worked for the Buckner orphanage before he got hooked up with DAYTOP.  I am pretty sure that Leroy was from Lake Highlands and went to Lake Highlands High School.

The other kids who eventually died were named T.J. THURMAN and Robert ROMAN. T.J. was the guy I told of who was a junkie and eventually got shot trying to steal somebody's car, and Robert was this Mexican kid who eventually joined a gang and got killed too.

One time in 1995, I was driving in Old East Dallas and saw Marcy out in her yard mowing her lawn, so I pulled over and got out of the car to say hi to her.  I do not recall our conversation much but do recall that she told me she was working for UPS.

Let's see what can be done to hold 'em accountable.

The name old DAYTOP Dallas outpatient staff psychologist (whom I referred to the other day) is Susan MERLIN (like the magician) and the old staff social worker's name is Joyce RATNER. Joyce eventually quit working for DAYTOP because (as she told me years later) she began to see how abusive they were.  I was in touch with Joyce a little bit over the years, off and on; as late as the year 2000/2001 I ran into her in a restaurant and we talked about "the old days" over lunch.  Joyce actually apologized to me for what they'd done.  I didn't "get it" at the time, what she was talking about, but sure do now.  Joyce was a really nice lady.

I actually believed that DAYTOP had helped me for years after the fact.

That place really, really screwed with my mind.  It took me fifteen years to see that.

Last I knew, Joyce was retired and I have no idea at all about whatever happened to Susan.

thanks for posting this. I am reading throught the entire thread now....so insane...Thanks for imput
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 03, 2009, 01:13:22 AM
You are welcome.  

Everything I wrote is 100% true and accurate, every word, and I'd swear in and testify to it all in court if I had to.

This place and the people who ran it really screwed my mind and my life up, the minds and lives of my friends as well.

Such is the fruit grown from the branch of the second-generation Synanon-style program (and third-generation Diantetics-based program) called DAYTOP.

But I do not blame my parents, it is not rational  to blame my parents; they did not know the whole truth about DAYTOP, they are good and decent people, and I do not doubt for a moment that they had my best interests at heart.  

They did not want to hurt me, they wanted to help me.

They were caught up in the same Tough Love/Positive Peer Pressure fad that a lot of parents got caught up in in the early nineties.

They are victims of DAYTOP too, our parents.

Just like the parents of Mike Gomez.  Mike was adopted, and an only child.  His parents only wanted the best for him.  

And DAYTOP Dallas indirectly killed their only child through their negligence and abusive treatment, which was inflicted by an unqualified and poorly trained Scientology-influenced pseudo-counselor named Marcy Langstein.

Mike Gomez was borderline retarded, half-blind and developmentally disabled.  He had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

A nice kid really, he was not some junkie or a fuckup, and not the "big baby" that DAYTOP labeled him.

DAYTOP is essentially a "sobriety cult."

It's taken me fifteen years or so to recognize and even begin to repair the damage that DAYTOP did to my psyche.

My experience in , and recovery from the other groups that I was set up to fall into (Army, religious cults) has forced me to dig deep, do some serious introspection work, and I realize that the program is (gradually and to a lesser and lesser extent, the more I work on myself and consciously retrain my mind and therefore re-wire my brain) still running and is self sustaining, not requiring new input, because the program in a sense robbed me of my identity and in its place put reformo-me.

I have come a long way in rebuilding myself but the old "disk operating system" is still performing commands , if you get my drift.

And this grieves me.  It all makes me feel very sad.  I feel robbed, cheated.

It is very cathartic for me process all of this and to be able to write here.  

Thanks again for your support and encouragement.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 09:19:59 AM
Sekto, I hope you really mean what you said you are willing to testify in court. You Have made statements in this post that are a lie. You also stated that some are HIV positive and some are dead and so on. I hope you have alot of money to defend yourself in a court of law. You are liable and I can't wait for you to have to pay the price for your lies. You have a number of facts wrong and It appears to me that you have a ton of personal guilt about how you treated someone. You can try and blame the program for your wrong's but you will have to live with it your whole life. Daytop did not make you treat someone bad. They also never abused you or damaged you. You were that way when you got there and you remain F*** Up. How dare you slander people who are dead. They have no way to defend themselves. While I do not have time now to disbute all your lies, rest assured I will.  :twofinger:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 03, 2009, 09:46:25 AM
Quote from: "Honesty"
Sekto, I hope you really mean what you said you are willing to testify in court. You Have made statements in this post that are a lie. You also stated that some are HIV positive and some are dead and so on. I hope you have alot of money to defend yourself in a court of law. You are liable and I can't wait for you to have to pay the price for your lies. You have a number of facts wrong and It appears to me that you have a ton of personal guilt about how you treated someone. You can try and blame the program for your wrong's but you will have to live with it your whole life. Daytop did not make you treat someone bad. They also never abused you or damaged you. You were that way when you got there and you remain F*** Up. How dare you slander people who are dead. They have no way to defend themselves. While I do not have time now to disbute all your lies, rest assured I will.  :twofinger:
Ignore this shit, SEKTO.  It's a typical idle threat.  Notice that the person says "you're a liar bla bla bla" but then conveniently doesn't have time to list which of your statements of fact are innacurate.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 11:40:09 AM
Sekto, Lets begin to breakdown your lies:

“If what I was told about her is true, then Marcy indirectly killed Mike GOMEZ through her abuse and negligence, IMO”.

Therefore, you heard this information from someone else. This is not fact, but something you Heard! I heard the sky is green; it does not make it true.

“Mike GOMEZ was the kid I told of, whom Marcy (going against his parents' wishes) told that he was adopted, according to my sources. This led to Mike becoming very disturbed and running away, eventually getting killed while driving drunk”.

How is this related? How do you know that Mike (God rest his sole) did not have a bad day. How do you relate one to the other? Again NOT fact but something you heard!

“We all treated Mike very poorly, and I regret that. He was the guy who was made to walk around with the pacifier”.

This is again a False statement. It should have been written that You treated Mike poorly. You have to live with that. How do you defend what you did? Do not blame other people for your actions.

"When I first got there in March of '92, the director's name was Mike GORMAN. He was a chain-smoking ex-jazzbo from NYC who claimed to have played the drums in Billie Holiday's band".

So you can believe everyone else but question Mr. Gorman?

"When you think you're looking good you're looking bad, and when you think you're looking bad, you're looking good" crap".

This was likely true in your case.

 “Mike Gorman graduated from DAYTOP way back in the '60s and had worked for their organization for a long time”.

Wow, you actually have some of the information correct. He actually, started the Daytop in Italy and some other areas. He retired and then was asked to come out of retirement to assist with starting both Texas and Florida.  

 "He's been dead for over ten years. He was pretty old when I knew him, and I heard that he died in Florida at his daughter's house. He died in '93".

Not True. He died in his own home in Florida, surrounded by many people who loved him and who were Daytop Graduates.

“I am pretty sure that Mike Gorman had been part of Synanon back in the day, too”.

Not True. Never was a part of Synanon.

The next director after Mike was a guy named Eddie CINISOMO. He was a DAYTOP grad from NYC too and would always tell us that we were just statistics to him.

Actually, you were only a number or statistic. He was not your counselor or your momma. Come to terms with it.

“I don't know how or why he got removed from the directorship, but he did. He is dead now too, from some kind of natural causes, but I know no details of his death or the circumstances of it”.

How do you assume that he was removed from the Position? Maybe his illness had something to do with it.

 “After Eddie was M******* another Puerto Rican, ex-heroin addict”.

It appears you have some issue with this person being a women and Puerto Rican? What a shame. You still have many issues to work out.

“I am not mentioning here name here to protect her privacy in case she is still alive”.

How considerate of you.

 “She was (according to my sources) HIV positive but none of us knew it at the time, and I heard that she is dead now too”.

So much with this one. What does her HIV status have to do with anything? How do you know she was HIV positive? In fact, you don’t know anything about her. What a great lawsuit, this will be.

“She eventually died (or so I heard) from an AIDS related disease”.

I hope you know of a few good attorneys’ with this one.

 I will further dissect you lies and Bull later. You are a weak person who tries to find comfort in others pain. It is amazing that quote as truth what you want to hear. Just because you failed at recovery does not indicate that others will. Daytop has helped many and not everyone who goes to Daytop will benefit. You can’t blame the program for everything. You have to take responsibility for your own actions.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anne Bonney on February 03, 2009, 12:15:25 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
Sekto, Lets begin to breakdown your lies:

“If what I was told about her is true, then Marcy indirectly killed Mike GOMEZ through her abuse and negligence, IMO”.

Therefore, you heard this information from someone else. This is not fact, but something you Heard! I heard the sky is green; it does not make it true.

“Mike GOMEZ was the kid I told of, whom Marcy (going against his parents' wishes) told that he was adopted, according to my sources. This led to Mike becoming very disturbed and running away, eventually getting killed while driving drunk”.

How is this related? How do you know that Mike (God rest his sole) did not have a bad day. How do you relate one to the other? Again NOT fact but something you heard!


Sorry.  Couldn't help myself.

 :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:




Quote
“We all treated Mike very poorly, and I regret that. He was the guy who was made to walk around with the pacifier”.

This is again a False statement. It should have been written that You treated Mike poorly. You have to live with that. How do you defend what you did? Do not blame other people for your actions.

Were people really forced to walk around with pacifiers in their mouths?




Quote
"When you think you're looking good you're looking bad, and when you think you're looking bad, you're looking good" crap".

This was likely true in your case.

And how is this libel or slander?


Quote
“Mike Gorman graduated from DAYTOP way back in the '60s and had worked for their organization for a long time”.

Wow, you actually have some of the information correct. He actually, started the Daytop in Italy and some other areas. He retired and then was asked to come out of retirement to assist with starting both Texas and Florida.  


And how is this libel or slander?

Quote
"He's been dead for over ten years. He was pretty old when I knew him, and I heard that he died in Florida at his daughter's house. He died in '93".

Not True. He died in his own home in Florida, surrounded by many people who loved him and who were Daytop Graduates.


And how is this libel or slander?



Quote
“I am pretty sure that Mike Gorman had been part of Synanon back in the day, too”.

Not True. Never was a part of Synanon.



And how is this libel or slander?

Quote
The next director after Mike was a guy named Eddie CINISOMO. He was a DAYTOP grad from NYC too and would always tell us that we were just statistics to him.

Actually, you were only a number or statistic. He was not your counselor or your momma. Come to terms with it.



And how is this libel or slander?  Good to know how the higher ups view the people they're supposed to be caring for.  Thanks for that bit of insight.

Quote
“I don't know how or why he got removed from the directorship, but he did. He is dead now too, from some kind of natural causes, but I know no details of his death or the circumstances of it”.

How do you assume that he was removed from the Position? Maybe his illness had something to do with it.



And how is this libel or slander?

Quote
“After Eddie was M******* another Puerto Rican, ex-heroin addict”.

It appears you have some issue with this person being a women and Puerto Rican?  


And how is this libel or slander?  


Quote
What a shame. You still have many issues to work out.

How very program like of you.  Anyone who dares question the great and powerful Oz is subjected to all kinds of moral inventories being taken of them.

Quote
“I am not mentioning here name here to protect her privacy in case she is still alive”.

How considerate of you.


I thought so too.

Quote
“She was (according to my sources) HIV positive but none of us knew it at the time, and I heard that she is dead now too”.

So much with this one. What does her HIV status have to do with anything? How do you know she was HIV positive? In fact, you don’t know anything about her. What a great lawsuit, this will be.


 :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:  :roflmao:   Yeah, good luck with that.  Google Pumpgate or Ray Bradbury and see how well the Semblers made out w/ their suit against him.  Go ahead.  Sue.  Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze sue!  All the dirty little secrets about Daytop will come spilling forth.

Quote
“She eventually died (or so I heard) from an AIDS related disease”.

I hope you know of a few good attorneys’ with this one.

If that's all you've got, hell.....a first year law student could take care of this.


Quote
I will further dissect you lies and Bull later.

Further??  You haven't done shit for it yet.

 
Quote
You are a weak person who tries to find comfort in others pain. It is amazing that quote as truth what you want to hear. Just because you failed at recovery does not indicate that others will. Daytop has helped many and not everyone who goes to Daytop will benefit. You can’t blame the program for everything. You have to take responsibility for your own actions.

Again, how very program of you.  You learned well, I see.  Congratulations.  You've finished your "becoming" and have been thoroughly indoctrinated.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 12:18:45 PM
I understand the kids who just get out of programs and want to blow off some steam by posting on the internet. But what strikes me as particularly sad is the middle aged "survivors" who still can't let go of an experience and hold onto the past and use it to account for their failure in life. Nothing is as pathetic as middle aged people still bitching about their child hood. Get over it already whiners.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 03, 2009, 12:38:24 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
Just because you failed at recovery does not indicate that others will.

This mentality is something that facinates me.  It's "if you are critizing the program, you must not be sober!".  It implies a person can only get "sober" through the one program... that there is only one true path to salvation.  When I went down to protest Benchmark, the first thing they told their students (from what one told me) was that I was on drugs.  I wasn't, but for the sake of argument, even if I was, how would they know (what... do staff have built in long-range drug detectors), and even if they did, it wouldn't defeat my arguments. It's just ad-hominem...  one of the few, over-used weapons program supporters have in their arsenals.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 12:51:13 PM
Quote from: "Guest"
I understand the kids who just get out of programs and want to blow off some steam by posting on the internet. But what strikes me as particularly sad is the middle aged "survivors" who still can't let go of an experience and hold onto the past and use it to account for their failure in life. Nothing is as pathetic as middle aged people still bitching about their child hood. Get over it already whiners.

What strikes me as particularly sad is the middle-aged thought police who still cling to program tactics and mindset, and who refuse to acknowledge the tragic FACT that their peers suffered trauma and abuse while in program.

Sounds to me like a real failure in grasping the concept of humanity. I guess program didn't teach you that, did it?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anne Bonney on February 03, 2009, 01:08:10 PM
Quote from: "Guest"
I understand the kids who just get out of programs and want to blow off some steam by posting on the internet. But what strikes me as particularly sad is the middle aged "survivors" who still can't let go of an experience and hold onto the past and use it to account for their failure in life. Nothing is as pathetic as middle aged people still bitching about their child hood. Get over it already whiners.


Oh go on with your bad self.  ::)  Jeezus christ, what the fuck is it about program people that they absolutely cannot BEAR to hear anything negative about their beloved programs?  And why must we always be "fucks ups" or "addicts" if we're criticizing them?

Most of us 'old timers' are here to help ease the newly released POWs back into normal society and to regain their critical thinking skills.  This kind of a mindfuck has lasting repercussions.  It gets into the core of a person's psyche and scrambles it.  It teaches them that they are powerless, it teaches them that they will fail w/o benefit of the program, it teaches them that they are damaged for life.  None of it is true and the new people could use a little reassurance that they're not crazy.

Why are you here?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 02:08:18 PM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "Honesty"
Just because you failed at recovery does not indicate that others will.

This mentality is something that facinates me.  It's "if you are critizing the program, you must not be sober!".  It implies a person can only get "sober" through the one program... that there is only one true path to salvation.  When I went down to protest Benchmark, the first thing they told their students (from what one told me) was that I was on drugs.  I wasn't, but for the sake of argument, even if I was, how would they know (what... do staff have built in long-range drug detectors), and even if they did, it wouldn't defeat my arguments. It's just ad-hominem...  one of the few, over-used weapons program supporters have in their arsenals.

I never said the person wasn't sober, I said they have failed in recovery. In order to recover you must come to terms with issues. As SEKTO has not.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 03, 2009, 02:10:51 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
In order to recover you must come to terms with issues. As SEKTO has not.

Oh?  So "recovery" implies more to you than just getting off drugs?  That word have a special meaning (http://http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing19.html#Loading%20the%20Language) to members of your group?  Wow!  I am utterly shocked.  Perhaps you can elaborate as to precisely what "recovery" means in your lexicon.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 03:38:11 PM
PSY,
I have already elaborated and made the point clearly. "My Group" as you say is just one person who will not allow the few failures of a program to spread lies.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 03, 2009, 04:42:18 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
PSY,
I have already elaborated and made the point clearly. "My Group" as you say is just one person who will not allow the few failures of a program to spread lies.
You didn't answer the question.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 05:46:12 PM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "Honesty"
PSY,
I have already elaborated and made the point clearly. "My Group" as you say is just one person who will not allow the few failures of a program to spread lies.
You didn't answer the question.

Where was I asked a question?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 03, 2009, 06:03:00 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "Honesty"
PSY,
I have already elaborated and made the point clearly. "My Group" as you say is just one person who will not allow the few failures of a program to spread lies.
You didn't answer the question.

Where was I asked a question?
Are you being dishonest?

"So "recovery" implies more to you than just getting off drugs? That word have a special meaning to members of your group? Wow! I am utterly shocked. Perhaps you can elaborate as to precisely what "recovery" means in your lexicon."

Rephased: To you, does "recovery" imply more than just getting off drugs?  Does that word have a special meaning to you?  What does "recovery" mean to you (define it)?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 03, 2009, 07:30:36 PM
Monsignor O'Brien and the DAYTOP organization have made this person "Honesty" feel good about him or her-self, probably for the first time in his/her life, and "Honesty" wants to do everything he/she can to make sure that nothing further happens to expose DAYTOP and hurt the credibility of the man (O'Brien) and group (DAYTOP) that have given this person his/her new-found improved self-image.

"Honesty's" is a very typical position in most cult groups. People outside of the group are viewed either as potential members or potential enemies of the group. They are not usually considered appropriate for friendships-whether close or casual.  They are not seen as adequate individuals in and of themselves.

All cults and abusive organizations view themselves as engaged in some all-important work, whether it is to convert lost souls, spread "The Truth," improve the well-being of members, get people off of drugs, or simply raise money. Nothing can be permitted to interfere with this all-important mission.

"Honesty's" is a classic expression of the "end justifies the means" argument. This is a terrible concept under the best of circumstances, as it permits deception and other unethical behavior in the pursuit of "good" goals. It is especially heinous when followed in the name of helping people.

"Honesty" (and all of the DAYTOPians for that matter) needs to learn that his/her importance and worth as a person does not depend on any role or function that he/she fills in a group-his/her value (and that of all people) rests in the fact that he/she is a human being. One is not more valuable because one possesses a high IQ, has many possessions, lives in a three-story mansion, or has been sober for twenty years.

After all, it is DAYTOP that makes "Honesty" feel so good about him or her-self-so self-confident and worthwhile, probably for the first time in his/her life. He/she may believe that he has no options outside of the group, and that is not a happy prospect for him/her.

So rather than receive the message, he/she attacks the messenger (in this case, myself) through use of the ad hominem attack.

Again, a very typical reaction for someone in an abusive and controlling group. After a certain point it seems that they are unable to refute the logical, objective arguments put to them and so he/she does what people often do in such a situation: they attack DAYTOP's critics personally. If one party to a dispute can discredit the other party in some way, then it is easier to to discredit that person's arguments. This is what the DAYTOPian trolls engage in time after time, argument for the sake of argument, and it is quite a pedantic and tiresome tactic.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 08:48:44 PM
Rephased: To you, does "recovery" imply more than just getting off drugs?  Does that word have a special meaning to you?  What does "recovery" mean to you (define it)?[/quote]

 Recovery has many meanings. It depends upon the person and situation. Being drug free is just part of it. If a person has a drug or alcohol issue. So to answer your question Yes It certainly does mean more me then just getting off drugs!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 03, 2009, 09:01:00 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Monsignor O'Brien and the DAYTOP organization have made this person "Honesty" feel good about him or her-self, probably for the first time in his/her life, and "Honesty" wants to do everything he can to make sure that nothing further happens to expose DAYTOP and hurt the credibility of the man (O'Brien) and group (DAYTOP) that have given this person his/her new-found improved self-image.

"Honesty's" is a very typical position in most cult groups. People outside of the group are viewed either as potential members or potential enemies of the group. They are not usually considered appropriate for friendships-whether close or casual.  They are not seen as adequate individuals in and of themselves.

All cults and abusive organizations view themselves as engaged in some all-important work, whether it is to convert lost souls, spread "The Truth," improve the well-being of members, get people off of drugs, or simply raise money. Nothing can be permitted to interfere with this all-important mission.

"Honesty's" is a classic expression of the "end justifies the means" argument. This is a terrible concept under the best of circumstances, as it permits deception and other unethical behavior in the pursuit of "good" goals. It is especially heinous when followed in the name of helping people.

"Honesty" (and all of the DAYTOPians for that matter) needs to learn that his/her importance and worth as a person does not depend on any role or function that he/she fills in a group-his/her value (and that of all people) rests in the fact that he/she is a human being. One is not more valuable because one possesses a high IQ, has many possessions, lives in a three-story mansion, or has been sober for twenty years.

After all, it is DAYTOP that makes "Honesty" feel so good about him or her-self-so self-confident and worthwhile, probably for the first time in his/her life. He/she may believe that he has no options outside of the group, and that is not a happy prospect for him/her.

So rather than receive the message, he/she attacks the messenger (in this case, myself) through use of the ad hominem attack.

Again, a very typical reaction for someone in an abusive and controlling group. After a certain point it seems that they are unable to refute the logical, objective arguments put to them and so he/she does what people often do in such a situation: they attacks DAYTOP's critics personally. If one party to a dispute can discredit the other party in some way, then it is easier to to discredit that person's arguments. This is what the DAYTOPian trolls engage in time after time, argument for the sake of argument, and it is quite a pedantic and tiresome tactic.


What a crock of shit. First let me say that you continue to assume things that just are not true. This is typical of failures and how they tend to think. You can blame Monsignor and Daytop all you want but you know the truth. I only attack the messenger when the words they use are lies. As is the case with you. I take offense to you speaking poorly about individuals who are deceased and who were good people. I also see you have not and likely wont dispute what I have called you on. Instead of maybe saying that the program was not for you and didn't help, you attack the people who tried to help you. You would help more people by maybe recommending other forms of treatment or help. Of course you likely can't since it appears you have not gotten the help you need. So stop the bullshit. Daytop is not for everyone and they never claimed to be. They do help some people and that is a fact. I would love to know what you think Daytops motives are for hurting people as you claim they have.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 03, 2009, 09:11:51 PM
Quote from: "HONESTY"
it appears you have not gotten the help you need.

Define "help you need", or for that matter, why don't you define "recovery"?  This is not a stupid request.  Answer the question and you'll see where i'm going.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 03, 2009, 09:54:05 PM
In a cult, abusive organization, or abusive relationship it does not matter if the information presented is true.  If the information presented is negative about the group or any member of the group, then you cannot say it. Usually such negative information will be will be labeled as slander, and if one persists in speaking it or writing it one can be disciplined severely; speaking ill about or being at all critical of the group can result in the speaker (or in this case, writer) being demonized, dehumanized, poked fun at, humiliated, or what have you.

You gave me an old-school haircut and really put me in my place, huh?

Wow, I admit it; you are right, Honesty.

Yes, I admit to God, yourself, and all participants in this forum that I am a hypocrite, a failure, an idiot, and a weak person in general.

It is such a blessing to have good friends like you, who'll point out my imperfections and help me to correct my attitude when it is needful for you to do so.

I am humbled and welcome the opportunity to receive rebuke from you in the future.

Thanks for your wonderful service.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Do you see what I am driving at?

In other words, a lot of times people who leave high control groups (and this particularly happens with people who were part of leadership in their group, as I suspect that you are) still behave as if they are still in the group when interacting with others in another group situation, regardless of whether that kind of behavior is appropriate in the new situational context.

That is what I see you doing ; you are behaving this situational context as if you are still in your old group, namely DAYTOP.

Actually, I suspect that you are presently part of DAYTOP leadership.

Is this assessment correct?

You are translating your (past or present) position as a leader within the DAYTOP organization, into this situation and it's not appropriate for you to do so.

Thanks again for humbling me with your words of rebuke.  

I'm sure that I deserved such hostility and beg your pardon for being offensive.

You are right, I am an idiot, a hypocrite, weak, and a failure.  

Maybe one day I can arrive at your level of virtue and goodness.

I sure hope to be a well-adjusted and psychologically healthy guy one day, just like you.

Thanks for straightening me out.  I am sure you feel really good about yourself now.

With such a great example as you to show me the way to go about resolving conflict (with verbal abuse and psychological assaults) I am sure to go far in life.

Seriously though, your response to me was just plain nasty.

You come across to me as arrogant, condescending, and self-righteous.

But that's OK.  I am not going to lose any sleep over it.  And do you know why?

BECAUSE I REALLY DO NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR OPINION, THAT'S WHY.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anne Bonney on February 04, 2009, 10:17:13 AM
Quote from: "Honesty"

I never said the person wasn't sober, I said they have failed in recovery. In order to recover you must come to terms with issues. As SEKTO has not.


Yeah, we get it.  Anyone who dares criticize your beloved program or program guru obviously hasn't "come to terms with their issues".  Right.

 ::)  ::)  ::)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 04, 2009, 12:21:01 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
Sekto, I hope you really mean what you said you are willing to testify in court. You Have made statements in this post that are a lie. You also stated that some are HIV positive and some are dead and so on. I hope you have alot of money to defend yourself in a court of law. You are liable and I can't wait for you to have to pay the price for your lies. You have a number of facts wrong and It appears to me that you have a ton of personal guilt about how you treated someone. You can try and blame the program for your wrong's but you will have to live with it your whole life. Daytop did not make you treat someone bad. They also never abused you or damaged you. You were that way when you got there and you remain F*** Up. How dare you slander people who are dead. They have no way to defend themselves. While I do not have time now to disbute all your lies, rest assured I will.  :twofinger:


and yet..no civil action on your behalf or those you represent, because, of course, Setko is being utterly truthful. Thank you setko, for your intelligent, and thoughtful commentary here.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anne Bonney on February 04, 2009, 12:58:03 PM
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Were people really forced to walk around with pacifiers in their mouths?




Thought I'd ask again since I didn't get an answer.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 04, 2009, 01:02:31 PM
There is a similar story in Cults in our Midst where a man was made to act like a baby and be in diapers and a crib, IIRC.  I think this was in the Center for Feeling Therapy.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 04, 2009, 01:04:42 PM
You are welcome, Guest, and I thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

And now for a little more commentary.

As human beings we (or at least, most of us) need to be in relationship to other people. We need others as friends, confidants, lovers, etc. to offer us affirmation, solace, correction, fellowship, etc.

In normal, healthy relationships, however, we also need time and space for ourselves occasionally so we can obtain rest and spend time in reflection. We will on occasion voluntarily give up our personal agenda on occasion to meet an emergency, whether it concerns our family, out community, or our nation. But once the emergency has passed we go back to our normal lives again.

In abusive organization like DAYTOP this personal agenda is seldom if ever granted; the member is almost always, if not always, giving up his own right to privacy and the pursuit of his own goals in order to pursue the goals of the group and to submit to the agenda of his or her authority.

Finally, the process of group building, when it becomes abusive, creates a system that is mutually addictive to both founder(s) and followers.  The followers need the founder/leader/organization to make them feel that they are realizing the proffered goal; the founder/leader/organization needs followers (some call them the leader's "narcissistic supply") to make him (O'Brien) feel successful, powerful, and truly enlightened.

It is a truism that to be in one's teens and early twenties (like we Dallas DAYTOPians from the early '90s were) is a most difficult period of life; young people, such as the young people that DAYTOP seems to target (at least back then), are in a major transition period of life from childhood to adulthood. They are beginning to take on or be given greater responsibility over their own lives, making decisions for themselves that some authority-parents, teachers, etc.-formerly made for them. This can be either a heady experience or an unsettling one, often both at the same time. If some one older (like Mr. O'Brien) comes along and offers guidance, even in the form of harsh discipline,this can be experienced as relief from the pressure of decision-making.

Adolescence and early adulthood is a notoriously difficult period of life. It is a transition from childhood to adulthood, with young people wanting and being able to make more decisions for themselves. Decisions that an authority (teacher, parent, etc.) formerly made for them they are now having to make for themselves. And they are having to think about their futures: what career should they pursue? What do they want to look for in a potential mate? What do they believe about the meaning of life? This can be a bit unsettling, even scary, for a lot of young people. If a group like DAYTOP comes along and offers "assistance" in the form of "attack therapy," or even offers to make some or most of those decisions for them, then this can be experienced as a major relief.

I believe that this is how and why the DAYTOP generally only succeeds in enticing people to join the DAYTOP organization as staff/counselors, when the potential recruits are barely adults, whether in an emotional or chronological sense.

Furthermore, in practice, it looks a lot like "Honesty" is deriving his/her sense of self-worth as an individual from his/her involvement with his/her group (DAYTOP).

"Honesty" offers something of a voluntary testimonial as to how wonderful DAYTOP is--for the first time in his/her life he/she feels special and has been given meaning and purpose. This is no doubt true, which is precisely what makes his/her statements so sad.

There is a potential danger with public testimonials, such as "Honesty's" or any of the others made publicly by past or present DAYTOPians. If the testimony is to a person or a human organization (as in this case since, after all, DAYTOP is a human organization which is led by imperfect humans and not by God Himself) there is the possibility that the person or organization may change in time from good to bad. For example, teaching discipline to students or to one's own children is essentially good, and getting them to articulate answers to spoken questions may facilitate learning. But discipline may mutate into abuse, if, for example, the teacher or parent or counselor hits a student with words; with verbal abuse and psychological assaults, humiliation and such.  At this point, since Honesty has made a statement praising the DAYTOP it will be much harder for him/her to admit that it is abusive. It is humiliating to have to "eat one's words" and Honesty will more than likely redefine the abuses as "discipline" designed to improve the "dope fiend/druggie" who was hit, humiliated, verbally abused, or otherwise mistreated.  After all, if what I am saying is true in all respects, then it would mean that DAYTOP has been abusing kids for the past forty years, and why would DAYTOP or any of its staff want to acknowledge and admit to that?

This is very much like what happens with the woman who is physically abused by her husband. Having expressed her love for him and committed herself to living with him "for better or for worse" she finds it impossible to entertain the thought that he could and would deliberately hurt her. So she redefines the abuse and views it either as discipline to make her a better wife and mother, or as a punishment she deserves for failing to please her husband.
Public testimonies to God or abstract principles like love, patriotism, or the virtues of a lifestyle of absolute sobriety do not carry the same potentiality for negative consequences, for the simple reason that God and abstract principles do not change from good to bad, from healthy to unhealthy.

Virtually any conversion experience will feel similar on the level of emotions, whether the conversion is to Christ, Mohammed, Marx, Monsignor O'Brien, or Elvis.

That does not mean all conversions are the same, just that they feel the same.

And doubtless we'll shortly be hearing the DAYTOPians cry "slander" as a response to my recent posts on the topic of "Honesty" and the source(s) from which he/she derives his/her self esteem, and his/her sense of personal validation.  Any criticism of any of DAYTOP or anyone on its staff will be automatically be interpreted as "slander" and/or "persecution" as we all well know.

I would encourage the DAYTOPians to try and remain objective and rational in reflecting on the concepts that I have introduced to the discussion.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 04, 2009, 01:24:12 PM
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Were people really forced to walk around with pacifiers in their mouths?




Thought I'd ask again since I didn't get an answer.

I beg your pardon for not answering this sooner, Anne; I was meaning to get to it today and thanks for reminding me.

Here was my original post, made last 6 December:

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26260&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=60 (http://fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26260&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=60)
Quote
For example: if somebody new was "copping an attitude" we'd "reel them in" by arranging a "haircut" with that person's "big brother" and some "coordinators" or "counselors." We'd confront this person on their "image problem" and "physical attitudes" and then after the "haircut" they'd be given an "L.E." like sitting in The Chair for awhile with a sign on their back, or walking around with a sign that said, "ask me to bark like a dog" or a pacifier on a string around their neck. If the person would still not come around, then they'd be confronted in the "encounter group" and then if they were still had not made the proper attitude adjustment they'd be "called out" before the entire "DAYTOP family" in "morning meeting," which I suppose was a variation of the Fireplace Ritual, in an effort to help "pull them up."

To answer your question: I recall Mike Gomez being made to walk around with a pacifier hanging around his neck on a string (like a necklace), but no, I do not recall him actually being made to put it in his mouth.  People were told to approach him and ask "Why do you have that pacifier around your neck, Mike?" and he was made to reply, "Because I am such a baby."  That was Marcy's idea.
 
And once I was made to walk around with a sign on my back that said "Ask me to bark like a dog."  People would approach me and ask me to bark like a dog, and I would.  That was the idea of a coordinator named Nathan Y.

Also I was once made (again, by Marcy) to dance around like a spazz in morning meeting in an effort to "help me" overcome my inhibitions and social shyness.  At first I refused, but she told me that we would stay in the meeting for as long as it took, until I danced.  It was terribly embarrassing for me, and only added to my hangups.  I never forgot the time Marcy kept us in morning meeting for as long as it took in order to make me dance.  I felt like an idiot.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anne Bonney on February 04, 2009, 01:30:11 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Were people really forced to walk around with pacifiers in their mouths?




Thought I'd ask again since I didn't get an answer.

I beg your pardon for not answering this sooner, Anne; I was meaning to get to it today and thanks for reminding me.

Here was my original post, made last 6 December:

http://fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php? ... a&start=60 (http://fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26260&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=60)
Quote
For example: if somebody new was "copping an attitude" we'd "reel them in" by arranging a "haircut" with that person's "big brother" and some "coordinators" or "counselors." We'd confront this person on their "image problem" and "physical attitudes" and then after the "haircut" they'd be given an "L.E." like sitting in The Chair for awhile with a sign on their back, or walking around with a sign that said, "ask me to bark like a dog" or a pacifier on a string around their neck. If the person would still not come around, then they'd be confronted in the "encounter group" and then if they were still had not made the proper attitude adjustment they'd be "called out" before the entire "DAYTOP family" in "morning meeting," which I suppose was a variation of the Fireplace Ritual, in an effort to help "pull them up."

To answer your question: I recall Mike Gomez being made to walk around with a pacifier hanging around his neck on a string (like a necklace), but no, I do not recall him actually being made to put it in his mouth.  People were told to approach him and ask "Why do you have that pacifier around your neck, Mike?" and he was made to reply, "Because I am such a baby."

And once I was made to walk around with a sign on my back that said "Ask me to bark like a dog."  People would approach me and ask me to bark like a dog, and I would.

Also I was once made (by Marcy) to dance around like a spazz in morning meeting in an effort to "help me" overcome my inhibitions and social shyness.  At first I refused, but she told me that we would stay in the meeting for as long as it took, until I danced.  It was terribly embarrassing for me, and only added to my hangups.  I never forgot the time Marcy kept us in morning meeting for as long as it took in order to make me dance.  I felt like an idiot.



Wow.  Sounds familiar though, unfortunately.  Break 'em down thru humiliation.  

SETKO, I was asking the idiot who was going after you.  I believe these things happened because they happened to me in a different program.  I was wondering what his thoughts were on this type of "therapy".
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 04, 2009, 01:38:47 PM
Anne, I slightly edited the post you quoted in order to include the names of the people who thought up these humiliating "LEs."

Marcy was one of the more vicious and confrontational counselors; she was downright sadistic about it really, I'd say.  

I used to hate the encounter groups she's run because she'd scream at you until you wanted to hide under your chair.  

She'd always scream at me and tell me how phony and shallow and plastic she thought that I was.

She'd counsel me to try and not use big words when I speak to people and told me that she thought it very annoying.

I am as certain as I can be that she once recommended to me that I read Dianetics.  That would have been in '93 or '94.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 06, 2009, 04:17:59 PM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "HONESTY"
it appears you have not gotten the help you need.

Define "help you need", or for that matter, why don't you define "recovery"?  This is not a stupid request.  Answer the question and you'll see where i'm going.


I have already given you my definition. My refernce to "Help you Need" is for Mr. B (Sekto) obvious unreolved guilt he has for his treatment of others and his ongoing desire to blame others for his actions. If you want to show me where you are going feel free to do so.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 06, 2009, 04:27:19 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Monsignor O'Brien and the DAYTOP organization have made this person "Honesty" feel good about him or her-self, probably for the first time in his/her life, and "Honesty" wants to do everything he/she can to make sure that nothing further happens to expose DAYTOP and hurt the credibility of the man (O'Brien) and group (DAYTOP) that have given this person his/her new-found improved self-image.

"Honesty's" is a very typical position in most cult groups. People outside of the group are viewed either as potential members or potential enemies of the group. They are not usually considered appropriate for friendships-whether close or casual.  They are not seen as adequate individuals in and of themselves.

All cults and abusive organizations view themselves as engaged in some all-important work, whether it is to convert lost souls, spread "The Truth," improve the well-being of members, get people off of drugs, or simply raise money. Nothing can be permitted to interfere with this all-important mission.

"Honesty's" is a classic expression of the "end justifies the means" argument. This is a terrible concept under the best of circumstances, as it permits deception and other unethical behavior in the pursuit of "good" goals. It is especially heinous when followed in the name of helping people.

"Honesty" (and all of the DAYTOPians for that matter) needs to learn that his/her importance and worth as a person does not depend on any role or function that he/she fills in a group-his/her value (and that of all people) rests in the fact that he/she is a human being. One is not more valuable because one possesses a high IQ, has many possessions, lives in a three-story mansion, or has been sober for twenty years.

After all, it is DAYTOP that makes "Honesty" feel so good about him or her-self-so self-confident and worthwhile, probably for the first time in his/her life. He/she may believe that he has no options outside of the group, and that is not a happy prospect for him/her.

So rather than receive the message, he/she attacks the messenger (in this case, myself) through use of the ad hominem attack.

Again, a very typical reaction for someone in an abusive and controlling group. After a certain point it seems that they are unable to refute the logical, objective arguments put to them and so he/she does what people often do in such a situation: they attack DAYTOP's critics personally. If one party to a dispute can discredit the other party in some way, then it is easier to to discredit that person's arguments. This is what the DAYTOPian trolls engage in time after time, argument for the sake of argument, and it is quite a pedantic and tiresome tactic.



Bla,bla,bla, You like many others have continued to try and slander Dyatop becuase it didn't help you. Daytop has never said they can or would be for everyone. I am not an employee of Daytop and and I'm not saying that some staff or counselors at Dyatop sucked. This is true and likely you had to deal with some. But this does not mean that the program or everyone associated with it is this way. You attacked people who are dead and some who are not. Just beacuse you had a poor experience does not mean the program was bad. Perhaps you were not and appear not to be ready to come to terms with your own shit. So don't accuse me of things I'm not and don't blame others for your obvious failure at treatment. Did you ever think that maybe just maybe you were the one who was wrong.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 06, 2009, 06:32:47 PM
^^
TheWho
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 08, 2009, 12:07:48 PM
Telling me, Honesty, that what happened to me in DAYTOP is somehow my fault, that I somehow deserved that kind of mistreatment, is like telling a woman who was raped that it is her fault and that she should not have dressed like a slut to begin with.  

Mike Gomez not deserve that.  Billy C. did not deserve that.  I did not deserve that.  Nobody deserves that.

I did not "fail" in my treatment, DAYTOP failed us.

You are blaming the victims (a form of the ad hominem attack) and insulting our intelligence and integrity.  

So please do me (us) a favor, Honesty.  

Before you pop off with another self-justifying response on this board, why don't you take a little time to think about this.

If you are honest with yourself I think you will see that you do not have anything here to take a stand about.

You are very much in the wrong here.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 08, 2009, 05:41:22 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Telling me, Honesty, that what happened to me in DAYTOP is somehow my fault, that I somehow deserved that kind of mistreatment, is like telling a woman who was raped that it is her fault and that she should not have dressed like a slut to begin with.  

Mike Gomez not deserve that.  Billy C. did not deserve that.  I did not deserve that.  Nobody deserves that.

I did not "fail" in my treatment, DAYTOP failed us.

You are blaming the victims (a form of the ad hominem attack) and insulting our intelligence and integrity.  

So please do me (us) a favor, Honesty.  

Before you pop off with another self-justifying response on this board, why don't you take a little time to think about this.

If you are honest with yourself I think you will see that you do not have anything here to take a stand about.

You are very much in the wrong here.

I'm not wrong and you know it. You slander people who had nothing to do with your issue. The person or people you claim hurt you have not. You had the oppertunity to leave the progrm at any time. You made a choice and you have to live with it. Daytop never made you do anything, you chose to. So don't blame others for you poor choicese, blame yourself.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 25, 2009, 11:48:00 PM
Your words brought tears to my eyes. I am not one who often cries. I am currently in 2x weekly sessions with a Psychologist who inadvertantly triggered a cascade of memories and rage in me...by simply using vernacular I remember from Daytop. He had at some point worked within a similar program. I made my disgust about that known.
       I was one of the first 7 "family members" of DayTop Richardson TX. In that "common ground", I was trained and encouraged to be hostile and confrontational. My recollection of encounter groups are as of being a prized conteder in the verbally abusive equivalent of a cock fighting ring. I was a 13 yr. old girl.   I know that I quickly assimilated in to a scary little bitch who would "drop slips" on even counselors (Yes, even Marcy. I wonder if the Marcia written of had a scar on her right cheek. Same cheeky bitch?). I was searching for that "refuge" we all intoned about together, each morning meeting. I became trained to cut my peers to the quick and was rewarded with promotions for adapting so well. I am sorry to all who have ever encountered me in an encounter group or "hair cut" (more like a scalping). My experience of that place would have been far less damaging if someone any one of them had allowed me to be a kid or at least reminded me that I was.
     I was 14 when I was sent "upstate" to NewYork for residential treatment, after the police found me stoned at a male counselor's apartment. Granted, he held only a marginal role of being an "atheletics counselor" and was of course to the "others"(promoted from within) an outsider. No charges were filed against the "counselor" for having provided me with drugs or for harboring a runaway. One officer did ask if "anything had happened". I answered truthfully, "no". While sexual contact had not occured by the time of my being "located there", it had seemed to me inevitable. By that I mean unavoidable, as choice was not a consideration in that role. Following this, I was treated to my 15TH birthday in Millbrook, NY. In the RTC environment I was "that one" the girl with the dubious distinction of being the problem child that had been swept their way. I am aware that that which made me vulnerable to that particular pervert pre-dated my arrival at DayTop. That did not make the hypocracy of having been sent to RTC, and harshly discouraged from speaking honestly of the circumstances that brought me to RTC any less harmful. I became sucidol while in NY.
     I'm startled by how vivid my anger for these thing is.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 06:55:04 PM
I'm not sure who B is and by his ramblings I have no doubt that he has been traumatized but he has more then a few facts wrong.  I'll begin by saying that yes many mistakes have been made in the treatment field and Daytop is one among many.  To clear up some of the fiction that B has been going on about.

1. Daytop, Texas closed in 2000 and it was a choice made in NY because of the manage care company that had taken over funding of the Dallas programs.  This can easily be checked with the state, who still holds Daytop in high esteem.  Daytop, Texas was a small operation so after salaries and overhead there would have been little to, "embezzle".
2. Daytop is not a religious organization and has not ever nor is run by the mob.  
3. "Marcia", as you have chosen to call her, and it's a good thing because, can you say slander.  Your story about Mike is a complete fabrication and "Marcia" left Daytop of her own accord for a better opportunity and just an fyi, she is doing very well today, gainfully employed, and very happy.
4.  You may not know of any successes that came from Daytop but that would be because you were not immediately successful and you are one angry mixed up person.  By the way the person who told me of this blog is a success story.

Again, I have no doubt that you did not have a good experience and I agree that much was lacking, "back in the day", but there are TC's all over this country, including Daytop, that do a good job.  The field has become more regulated and, at least in Texas, you can not work as a counselor in a substance abuse program without a credential.

You need to check your comments and keep them in perspective.  "All", of the friends that you made at Daytop who were not successful are not, "ALL", of the people who have walked through the doors of Daytop.  There are many out there who's lives are better and they are better for their experience at Daytop.  It's sad for you that you decided to seek out the stuggling addict rather than the addict who was able to achieve sobriety one day at a time.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 08:01:45 PM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "HONESTY"
it appears you have not gotten the help you need.

Define "help you need", or for that matter, why don't you define "recovery"?  This is not a stupid request.  Answer the question and you'll see where i'm going.


Are you kidding me.  You can stop your little game of how do you define this or that or whatever.  Here are the facts Sekto or whatever is full of it.  He has told so many lies it's comical.  True, there probably were people who abused power at times but this guy is amazing.  Are you his lawyer or is he able to take care of himself now that he's all grown up.  Man I came on here because i was just told about this and wanted to check it out and I have to wonder if many of you are sitting at computers in some pysch ward playing.  And, if people really want to have a discussion do more then making fun of a tpyo.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 08:13:31 PM
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Quote from: "Honesty"

I never said the person wasn't sober, I said they have failed in recovery. In order to recover you must come to terms with issues. As SEKTO has not.


Yeah, we get it.  Anyone who dares criticize your beloved program or program guru obviously hasn't "come to terms with their issues".  Right.

 ::)  ::)  ::)

I never thought that I'd be in the position of defending DAYTOP because, as I have said there were some issue there that I had a problem with, but this guy SEKTO is not telling the truth and even when he tells the truth is with major spin.  I don't have an issue with people sharing their feelings and what issues they may have had with any program but I know about this program and he's feeding you all a lot of stories that I'm sure he believes but just aren't true.  Honesty knows what he's talking about and SEKTO is spun his own memories which he believe to be true.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 08:17:30 PM
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Were people really forced to walk around with pacifiers in their mouths?




Thought I'd ask again since I didn't get an answer.

To end this one, another fabrication.  Maybe SETKO heard some stories from those who were graduates because they use to tell stories about the old days but pacifiers and all of that other crap never happened.  His fantasy again.  I'm not attempting to belittle his experience apparently it was not good but he needs to be truthful.  Share your pain without telling lies I'm sure there's are many things that he can share that are true that can express his pain but this is sick.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 27, 2009, 08:20:57 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "HONESTY"
it appears you have not gotten the help you need.

Define "help you need", or for that matter, why don't you define "recovery"?  This is not a stupid request.  Answer the question and you'll see where i'm going.


Are you kidding me.  You can stop your little game of how do you define this or that or whatever.  Here are the facts Sekto or whatever is full of it.  He has told so many lies it's comical.  True, there probably were people who abused power at times but this guy is amazing.  Are you his lawyer or is he able to take care of himself now that he's all grown up.  Man I came on here because i was just told about this and wanted to check it out and I have to wonder if many of you are sitting at computers in some pysch ward playing.  And, if people really want to have a discussion do more then making fun of a tpyo.

Well.  I was getting at a point but the question was never answered.  To a certain extent I asked the question to cause the person who asked it to think about whether their definition of recovery was that of the world at large, or whether it had it's own definition specific to daytop/Synanon derived programs.

I asked the question about "help you need" because it illustrates a point that anybody who dares to criticize the program is automatically labeled as in need of "help".  It's a fairly flexible term.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 27, 2009, 08:22:10 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Were people really forced to walk around with pacifiers in their mouths?




Thought I'd ask again since I didn't get an answer.

To end this one, another fabrication.  Maybe SETKO heard some stories from those who were graduates because they use to tell stories about the old days but pacifiers and all of that other crap never happened.  His fantasy again.  I'm not attempting to belittle his experience apparently it was not good but he needs to be truthful.  Share your pain without telling lies I'm sure there's are many things that he can share that are true that can express his pain but this is sick.

Were you there?  How did you know it did not happen?  There have been other documented instances of this exact sort of thing happening at various programs so it's not entierly unheard of or even out of the ordinary.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 27, 2009, 08:28:29 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
I never thought that I'd be in the position of defending DAYTOP because, as I have said there were some issue there that I had a problem with, but this guy SEKTO is not telling the truth and even when he tells the truth is with major spin.  I don't have an issue with people sharing their feelings and what issues they may have had with any program but I know about this program and he's feeding you all a lot of stories that I'm sure he believes but just aren't true.  Honesty knows what he's talking about and SEKTO is spun his own memories which he believe to be true.

In my experience on this forum, i've found a few interesting things. Most people agree on what factually did or did not happen, though not all people agree on the interpretations of those events.  One person might see a particular event as abusive...  another person might see it as "therapy" or somehow a part of recovery.  You might disagree with him on his opinions, but as far as the facts of his story go, unless you were there at the exact same time he was with the same people, you might not know what you're talking about.  Programs do get "better" or "worse" over time and tend to vary between locations and staff changes.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on February 27, 2009, 08:57:23 PM
Sorry to butt in on your run of posts here, Magnificent, but it seems to me that SEKTO is relating his personal experiences at Daytop and his interpretation of the net effect that Daytop has had on him, and that salient fact is well communicated by the nature and tenor of his posts.

With all due respect, your posts, on the other hand, would appear to be attacking the validity and veracity of his experiences. I dunno...were you standing there by his side during each and every day of his time there? Do you have some magical mind-bonding ability by which you were able to get inside of his head and see exactly how events affected him?

I myself would be much more interested in hearing of your personal experiences and how and why you feel that Daytop, or TCs in general, have their place in dealing with various problems and societal issues.

People are affected by events and interactions with others differently. Somewhere early on in this thread, SEKTO did state that he was quite introverted. I would very much like to hear your opinion of how the TC modality affects introverts vs. extroverts, given the very nature of "groups" per se, and the inherent "discomfort" (if not terror) they elicit in some folks.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on February 27, 2009, 09:10:21 PM
Lols. Looks like I came in on a run of 'psy' posts after a run of 'Magnificent' posts! Shows you how slow I type!

—•?|•?•0•?•|?•—

Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "Magnificent"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Quote from: "Anne Bonney"
Were people really forced to walk around with pacifiers in their mouths?
Thought I'd ask again since I didn't get an answer.
To end this one, another fabrication.  Maybe SETKO heard some stories from those who were graduates because they use to tell stories about the old days but pacifiers and all of that other crap never happened.  His fantasy again.  I'm not attempting to belittle his experience apparently it was not good but he needs to be truthful.  Share your pain without telling lies I'm sure there's are many things that he can share that are true that can express his pain but this is sick.
Were you there?  How did you know it did not happen?  There have been other documented instances of this exact sort of thing happening at various programs so it's not entierly unheard of or even out of the ordinary.

We even had some of that stuff at Hyde School, although I think Elan (which evolved out of Daytop, or so I understand) is the most famous for that kind of "behavior modification."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 09:24:26 PM
Quote from: "Ursus"
Sorry to butt in on your run of posts here, Magnificent, but it seems to me that SEKTO is relating his personal experiences at Daytop and his interpretation of the net effect that Daytop has had on him, and that salient fact is well communicated by the nature and tenor of his posts.

With all due respect, your posts, on the other hand, would appear to be attacking the validity and veracity of his experiences. I dunno...were you standing there by his side during each and every day of his time there? Do you have some magical mind-bonding ability by which you were able to get inside of his head and see exactly how events affected him?

I myself would be much more interested in hearing of your personal experiences and how and why you feel that Daytop, or TCs in general, have their place in dealing with various problems and societal issues.

People are affected by events and interactions with others differently. Somewhere early on in this thread, SEKTO did state that he was quite introverted. I would very much like to hear your opinion of how the TC modality affects introverts vs. extroverts, given the very nature of "groups" per se, and the inherent "discomfort" (if not terror) they elicit in some folks.

I will answer your question and psy at the same time.  I will not share my experience because that isn't my point in writing here.  I was at Daytop the entire time that Setko is speaking of so this is how I would know what went on.  I am not saying that he did not have bad experiences or that there weren't some that took their power a bit far.  I'm not sure that Leroy didn't smoke with the kids, we never heard of it and we pretty much heard most of what was going on.  I personally spent a lot of time with Leroy and I have never known him to smoke pot at that time.  Marcy is a lesbian but I never heard her describe herself as a diesel dyke but she was young and the programs were not as regulated.  She was not let go because we gave her a going away party you don't do that when you are let go.  The Joyce that he speaks of was let go from the Daytop she did not leave on her own.

What I am saying is that he is making some of this stuff up.  I too can share experiences that I've had at Daytop, and some not so good, but Sekto has made statements about things he has no knowledge of and has also stated facts that just never happened.  I'm not writing here to defend Daytop I'm writing here because, with the understanding that his perceptions are his reality, they are not necessarily the truth.  The people who he speaks of are basically good people who were doing what they thought they had to do and not with the intention of abusing or injuring anyone.  There isn't one school, hospital, institution in the country that doesn't have bad stuff going on but this guy is way out there.  

There were a couple of staff there that were sent from NY to open the program when these individuals were too strong handed they were sent back to NY or let go.  By the time that the program closed, which was not due to wrong doing on Daytop's part as Setko stated, there were only a couple of people who were original NY staff, maybe 2.  He heard that Mike Gorman died at his daughter's house, he had no children.  From my recollections Ed Cinisomo was one of the nicest guys around but the kids had little to no contact with him because he was the executive director.  If Ed in fact ever made statements about the kids being statistics it would not have been done in a hateful degrading way.  

There were staff who shouldn't have been working with kids and I can see how a young kid can be hurt so I am not saying that Setko shouldn't take issue with Daytop I am only saying that he needs to get his facts straight because some of his perceptions are either straight up fantasies or lies.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 27, 2009, 09:46:54 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
some of his perceptions are either straight up fantasies or lies.

Well.  The specific things you mentioned were minor (such as reasons a person was let go) and it is just as plausible either he was mistaken/misinformed or you are lying (i'm not accusing anybody here...  just stating a possibility).

Also, if you read  back on this thread carefully, SEKTO was careful to state *how* he knew things and what were his sources.  this makes everything that he says when mentioned with his sources evaluative opinion.

Such as.  If I say "Daytop did the thing with the pacifier.  I know this because i talked to sources A, B, and C."   It's opinion, because you're stating how you know something and a reader is free to disregard your *conclusion* based on the facts and sources you provided.

I think, also, if you read carefully, SEKTO would probably concede that the staff members had the best of intentions.  As you probably know well enough, however, this is not always enough. Furthermore, you're both coming at this from two very different perspectives.  You were a staff member so you've seen this through "staff's" eyes, and know most had the best of intentions.  Clients, on the other hand, had no way of knowing that.  It's easy to perceive misguided authority as sadism when you don't know what the other side feels like.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 10:18:58 PM
I guess it is acceptable with you for Setko to misstate or misinterpret.  I don't only speak as a staff member I also speak as a client and if a kid was told to wear a pacifier I can assure you it was not with the Director's permission.  It was clear to everyone who worked there that physical learning experiences were off limits.  However, I will give Setko his misinterpretations what I challenge is the outright dishonesty about people he presumes to know.  People he heard things about from other people and so on.  I get that he's utilizing this site as a means of healing, venting or whatever his intentions are but his global statement about Daytop are off.  That program has been around for over 40 years and the time that Setko was there it was so far from what he describes.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 27, 2009, 10:31:02 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
I guess it is acceptable with you for Setko to misstate or misinterpret.

I didn't state that at all.  What Is said was that he stated where he got the information from and as such, you're free to accept his conclusion or come to your own.

Just FYI, there is no wrong interpretation.

[attachment=0:2tgxtvxv]Picture 496.png[/attachment:2tgxtvxv]

Quote
I don't only speak as a staff member I also speak as a client and if a kid was told to wear a pacifier I can assure you it was not with the Director's permission.

I can accept that.  But it seems you're now impying it could have happened.  Before you stated outright it did not.

Quote
It was clear to everyone who worked there that physical learning experiences were off limits.  However, I will give Setko his misinterpretations what I challenge is the outright dishonesty about people he presumes to know.  People he heard things about from other people and so on.

Ok. Well do you have any other examples?  I see you listed a few but that was only a minority of what he spoke about.  The bulk of his experience, it seems, you do not disagree with the facts of, as I see it... just his perceptions, opinions, and conclusions which naturally differ from person to person.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on February 27, 2009, 11:02:22 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
I'm not sure that Leroy didn't smoke with the kids, we never heard of it and we pretty much heard most of what was going on. I personally spent a lot of time with Leroy and I have never known him to smoke pot at that time.

Well...if I were Leroy and had half a knuckle of street-smart savvy between my ears, I sure as hell wouldn't let on to a fellow staff member or admin at a drug rehab program, that I ever smoked any pot in my lifetime.  :D

Quote from: "Magnificent"
...if a kid was told to wear a pacifier I can assure you it was not with the Director's permission. It was clear to everyone who worked there that physical learning experiences were off limits.

Given that many, possibly even most, of the staff working there have been clients of Daytop in the past, do you not think it quite possible that some of these staff may have utilized methods that they were subjected to during their time as clients?

Yeah, the methods supposedly became less brutal as time went on, "official" protocols changed. Perhaps you abided by these changes, and were philosophically in accord with them, but can you honestly say that all of your fellow staff felt deep down as you did?

A lot of the time, people go along with these changes in theory, but in the heat of a frustrated moment, revert back to the old methods...after all, "it worked" for them, right? These are not the kind of incidents that you -- a staff member who would surely disapprove -- would be informed about, unless a fellow staff snitched or let it slip. And given the nature of the program, the chances of a kid complaining about it are seriously reduced.

I'm not just trying to make an academic argument here; this kind of thing frequently happens in organizations that try to make major changes with a lot of the old guard or the old mindset still in place. The term "organizational incest" comes to mind, although it doesn't adequately describe all of what I am trying to say...
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 11:13:20 PM
Again, my intention is not to defend Daytop or any of the tactics they may have used.  He told lies about people and brought up things about others that don't matter as the HIV status of a staff person.  You want to keep on going back to his experiences but that is not what I am debating.  I never saw a pacifier, could it have happened, perhaps but I never saw it.  I've even called a few old students and staff to ask about this because I thought it's been a while maybe I've forgotten but none of them remember anything like that.  Again, did it happen, it may have, don't know.  It's interesting that those who do remember are those who did not have a pleasant time at Daytop.  

My main issue has been his fabrications and stating that he knows something about someone through someone else.  That is irresponsible.  I get that he may not have known the legalities behind someone who is HIV positive not revealing their HIV status back then but why is that even an issue now.  Is he traumatized by the fact that someone who worked there may have been HIV+?  He doesn't even have direct knowledge whether anyone is + or not but he makes a point to mention it, why? How does he live not knowing about everyone he comes in contact with?  I believe that he brought that up for other reasons that had nothing to do with his trauma.  There were also people there with cancer, diabetes, and kidney problems is it an issue that he wasn’t informed about this?

Leroy and Greg were these 2 big black guys.  Again what is the issue that they traumatized him or that they were big black guys?  He has chosen to assassinate a few characters so I think that that opens him up to scrutiny.  Unless you are personal friends with this person are you positively sure that he isn't snowing all of you?  You attack honesty for challenging this guy and you are trying to express how I am off base but DO YOU REALLY KNOW.  Why are you so ready to believe him and question other points of view?

I'm with honesy, I think that this guy just has to blame someone or thing for his failures and can't accept that he is the problem.  It's ironic how he was this normal kid but he's smoking weed and doing Acid.  That's real normal dude.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 11:20:42 PM
Quote from: "Ursus"
Quote from: "Magnificent"
I'm not sure that Leroy didn't smoke with the kids, we never heard of it and we pretty much heard most of what was going on. I personally spent a lot of time with Leroy and I have never known him to smoke pot at that time.

Well...if I were Leroy and had half a knuckle of street-smart savvy between my ears, I sure as hell wouldn't let on to a fellow staff member or admin at a drug rehab program, that I ever smoked any pot in my lifetime.  :D

Quote from: "Magnificent"
...if a kid was told to wear a pacifier I can assure you it was not with the Director's permission. It was clear to everyone who worked there that physical learning experiences were off limits.

Given that many, possibly even most, of the staff working there have been clients of Daytop in the past, do you not think it quite possible that some of these staff may have utilized methods that they were subjected to during their time as clients?

Yeah, the methods supposedly became less brutal as time went on, "official" protocols changed. Perhaps you abided by these changes, and were philosophically in accord with them, but can you honestly say that all of your fellow staff felt deep down as you did?



A lot of the time, people go along with these changes in theory, but in the heat of a frustrated moment, revert back to the old methods...after all, "it worked" for them, right? These are not the kind of incidents that you -- a staff member who would surely disapprove -- would be informed about, unless a fellow staff snitched or let it slip. And given the nature of the program, the chances of a kid complaining about it are seriously reduced.

I'm not just trying to make an academic argument here; this kind of thing frequently happens in organizations that try to make major changes with a lot of the old guard or the old mindset still in place. The term "organizational incest" comes to mind, although it doesn't adequately describe all of what I am trying to say...

You may have missed this part but there were only 2 to 3 Daytop Graduates working at that facility at any time so I'm not sure who this guy is talking about.  Most of the other staff were college graduates who wanted to work with kids.  He's presentling a picuter here of this program full of addicts who had gone through the program and that is the furthest from the truth.  This guy just needs to get over it and if he needs therapy get but stop putting his issues on others.  If he's messed up he's messed up and he needs to deal with that not with everyone else.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Magnificent on February 27, 2009, 11:31:31 PM
I would think that if a place were truly as evil as this guy says that Daytop was why have there never been any complaints with the state or legal actions.  You can keep on responding to my postings with, "how do you know", but it can easily be checked out with the state.  You can also find out why the program closed.  That is one fact that can't be disputed, the New York operation decided to pull out of Texas.  I would say that if things were that horrible there would be some record of something going on.  That program operated in Texas for 10 years and when I run into someone who remembers Daytop they remember the good things as well.  Was it all good, probably not but this Sekto describes the house on haunted hill.  Perhaps his life is a horror movie I don't know but he is way over the top.  This is getting old so signing off.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 27, 2009, 11:32:49 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
Again, my intention is not to defend Daytop or any of the tactics they may have used.  He told lies about people and brought up things about others that don't matter as the HIV status of a staff person.  You want to keep on going back to his experiences but that is not what I am debating.  I never saw a pacifier, could it have happened, perhaps but I never saw it.  I've even called a few old students and staff to ask about this because I thought it's been a while maybe I've forgotten but none of them remember anything like that.  Again, did it happen, it may have, don't know.  It's interesting that those who do remember are those who did not have a pleasant time at Daytop.  

My main issue has been his fabrications and stating that he knows something about someone through someone else.  That is irresponsible.  I get that he may not have known the legalities behind someone who is HIV positive not revealing their HIV status back then but why is that even an issue now.  Is he traumatized by the fact that someone who worked there may have been HIV+?  He doesn't even have direct knowledge whether anyone is + or not but he makes a point to mention it, why? How does he live not knowing about everyone he comes in contact with?  I believe that he brought that up for other reasons that had nothing to do with his trauma.  There were also people there with cancer, diabetes, and kidney problems is it an issue that he wasn’t informed about this?

Leroy and Greg were these 2 big black guys.  Again what is the issue that they traumatized him or that they were big black guys?  He has chosen to assassinate a few characters so I think that that opens him up to scrutiny.  Unless you are personal friends with this person are you positively sure that he isn't snowing all of you?  You attack honesty for challenging this guy and you are trying to express how I am off base but DO YOU REALLY KNOW.  Why are you so ready to believe him and question other points of view?

Well...  you obviously see you disagree with his conclusions and opinions, but I can't see a single thing you mentioned in your post where you question the factual accuracy of what he has said.

Quote
I'm with honesy, I think that this guy just has to blame someone or thing for his failures and can't accept that he is the problem.  It's ironic how he was this normal kid but he's smoking weed and doing Acid.  That's real normal dude.

[attachment=0:102adbk8]Picture 497.png[/attachment:102adbk8]

Note the synonyms "usual" or "typical".  As I recall, it's fairly usual for teens growing up to smoke pot or even try acid.  This does not make them addicts or mean they have a problem.

And what do you know of *his* life that you claim he has failed and is looking for somebody to blame?  Furthermore, starting off with statements like "have to wonder if many of you are sitting at computers in some pysch ward playing" will not make you friends or converts to your cause.  Maybe if you did a little less below the belt insulting and a little more factual refuting I might take you a little more seriously.  As it stands, you're just complaining because you disagree with his interpretation of the events and somehow that offends you. Well boo hoo. Opinions of other people offend me all the time but I respect their right to have them.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 27, 2009, 11:36:08 PM
Quote from: "Magnificent"
I would think that if a place were truly as evil as this guy says that Daytop was why have there never been any complaints with the state or legal actions.  You can keep on responding to my postings with, "how do you know", but it can easily be checked out with the state.  You can also find out why the program closed.  That is one fact that can't be disputed, the New York operation decided to pull out of Texas.  I would say that if things were that horrible there would be some record of something going on.  That program operated in Texas for 10 years and when I run into someone who remembers Daytop they remember the good things as well.  Was it all good, probably not but this Sekto describes the house on haunted hill.  Perhaps his life is a horror movie I don't know but he is way over the top.  This is getting old so signing off.

This forum is littered with hundreds of examples of the incompetence or refusal of the state to do much of anything even in the rare cases it's their responsibility (most of the industry is unregulated).  Case in point:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/200 ... erg-center (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/nagging-zap-swearing-zap-new-yorks-investigations-rotenberg-center)

Govt did an inspection, found abuse.  Result: place is still open.

Don't trust the govt to hold your hand. Most of the time they'll lead you into a wall.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: chuckh on February 28, 2009, 12:18:20 AM
I am very pleased that people here understand the mind controlled and dumbing down of the population as a whole. It is part of a grander scheme for control by the elitist. It is good that people start thinking for themselves and becoming their own master. Just listen to your gut feeling and when you yourselves have children, please teach in a positive way. As small children allow them to be with their imaginary friends and tell them they can learn from them. As children grow older have patience and understanding. Earth is nothing more than a school, an illusion where we come to learn lessons.
Teach them that mind control exits in all aspects of life from the statist controlled school system teachings and how the county is going towards fascism. This starts by putting the youth in mind controlled facilities such as the one I was placed into called the seed. Putting the youth on mind controlling drugs such as riddling. All this is for control and one world government. Parents are part of the problem because they have been brainwashed also. Please start thinking for yourselves. Look in the sky and see the chemtrails they are spraying us with. They keep so much from us. Project blue beam is another mind controlled project where radio frequencies are aimed at us constantly. There are weapons they have such as haarp where earth quakes can be generated at will. Television is such a farce where they tell us what they want us to know. Wake up people please. Send out frequencies of love toward the earth. We have all been incarnated at this time to grow and hopefully get past the negativity and evolve into a higher dimension. We have been here before but we must raise our consciousness.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 12:50:33 AM
Here's a cut and paste of something I posted on this thread a while back.  Why say the same thing again in a different way?

...you have not walked the proverbial mile in my shoes and are not the judge of me. There are other things, personal things about my background and life story that I did not tell of and that you therefore in fairness cannot take into consideration in coming to such a conclusion; there are many other factors involved here that you are not able to take into account in attempting to evaluate me and my experience in DAYTOP, as I related it.

In other words, I am not here to tell you my autobiography. I am here to tell you about my experience with DAYTOP and how it affected my life and the lives of my friends, some of whom lost their lives. Mike Gomez, for instance, got pushed over the edge in DAYTOP and died from negligent treatment IMO.

I was a relatively stable person in the first place, and the DAYTOP environment was in fact the destabilizing influence, not the other way around; Daytopianism completely undermined and utterly warped my personal identity and sense of boundaries.

Simply put, my conclusion is that the "one size fits all" approach to that kind of "therapy" basically does not work, and in the long term far more persons get hurt than helped, especially (like me) if they did not need to be in a program like DAYTOP to begin with. It is (the DAYTOP way) not legitimate medical treatment, it's thought reform, mind control, and DAYTOP is little more than a "sobriety cult." I do not know of one single person from that time period that stayer "clean and sober" in the longer run, and we (me and my Daytopian friends from circa '93-'94) have all had major difficulties in our post-DAYTOP lives, but are all generally doing well now, fifteen years later. Some more well than others I suppose. I myself am more than OK and getting better all the time.

Everything I wrote is true and accurate to the best of my recollection.  I stand by everything I wrote 100%, and again, would testify to it in court if I had to.

Maybe certain minor details I did not recollect accurately, but that in my mind is of little consequence.  I mean, this was fifteen years ago.

Magnificent: you don't know me, friend.  

Here's a bit of personal information about me that I chose not to disclose until now to give you an idea of the bigger picture.

I have a relatively mild form of Asperger's Syndrome.  

Basically, I am on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, I am a non-neurotypical person, am strongly introverted by nature, and am an intellectual, though also am quite socially awkward and prone to more than my share of personal eccentricities.

I got caught smoking weed and tripping on acid, my parents took the advice of my high school guidance counselor and put me in there so that DAYTOP could fix their kid.

Somebody like me would find DAYTOP to be a brutal and distressing environment.  

I should never have been there to begin with.

None of those counselors back then had degrees, none of them at all.  

I doubt that most of them would have even heard of the MBTI.

If the DAYTOP staff had been in any way, shape, or form properly trained professional counselors, they'd have picked up on my PDD right away.  

Just like Mike Gomez.  He was a FASD kid.  Complete fabrication my foot.  The guy was buried in the Restland cemetery in Dallas TX, right across the street from NorthPark Mall.  I can take you to the exact spot of his damn grave if you like.  I went to his funeral, for God's sake.  A lot of us did.

If DAYTOP staff back then were degreed professionals they could have picked kids like him and me out and made the appropriate referrals right away.

No, instead we were labeled as being "bad kids" and subjected to a regimen that repeatedly taught us that something was wrong with us, that we were lazy ungrateful babies.  

DAYTOP basically said "We don't like the way you behave.  Stop it.  Behave the way we tell you to behave or else."

I internalized all that junk and in an effort to undo the DAYTOPian programming I have been forced to dig deep and realize the program is still running and is self sustaining, not requiring new input, because the program in a sense robbed my identity and in it's place put reformo-me.

I have to a great extent rebuilt myself but the "disk operating system" is still performing commands , if you get my drift.

So I'm not going to argue with you, Magnificent.

You have no idea, no idea at all of what else I do with my time, my extreme efforts toward self-improvement and the educational activities that I have undertaken.

You don't know me from Adam and have no right to be so presumptuous as to think that you do.

You know nothing of how sick or how well I am.

You know nothing of how much of a failure or success I am.

You know nothing of what is going on in my head, or in my heart.

Don't tell me who I am, or how I think.

In other words, I am not here to tell you my autobiography. I am here to tell you about my experience with DAYTOP and how it affected my life and the lives of my friends, some of whom lost their lives. Mike Gomez, for instance, got pushed over the edge in DAYTOP and died from negligent treatment IMO.  Ask Marcy about him maybe.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 28, 2009, 01:01:24 AM
Quote from: "chuckh"
I am very pleased that people here understand the mind controlled and dumbing down of the population as a whole. It is part of a grander scheme for control by the elitist. It is good that people start thinking for themselves and becoming their own master. Just listen to your gut feeling and when you yourselves have children, please teach in a positive way. As small children allow them to be with their imaginary friends and tell them they can learn from them. As children grow older have patience and understanding. Earth is nothing more than a school, an illusion where we come to learn lessons.
Teach them that mind control exits in all aspects of life from the statist controlled school system teachings and how the county is going towards fascism. This starts by putting the youth in mind controlled facilities such as the one I was placed into called the seed. Putting the youth on mind controlling drugs such as riddling. All this is for control and one world government. Parents are part of the problem because they have been brainwashed also. Please start thinking for yourselves. Look in the sky and see the chemtrails they are spraying us with. They keep so much from us. Project blue beam is another mind controlled project where radio frequencies are aimed at us constantly. There are weapons they have such as haarp where earth quakes can be generated at will. Television is such a farce where they tell us what they want us to know. Wake up people please. Send out frequencies of love toward the earth. We have all been incarnated at this time to grow and hopefully get past the negativity and evolve into a higher dimension. We have been here before but we must raise our consciousness.
I'm not sure everybody here would agree with you.

PS:  Are you a fan of Tool by any chance?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 01:04:04 AM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "chuckh"
I am very pleased that people here understand the mind controlled and dumbing down of the population as a whole. It is part of a grander scheme for control by the elitist. It is good that people start thinking for themselves and becoming their own master. Just listen to your gut feeling and when you yourselves have children, please teach in a positive way. As small children allow them to be with their imaginary friends and tell them they can learn from them. As children grow older have patience and understanding. Earth is nothing more than a school, an illusion where we come to learn lessons.
Teach them that mind control exits in all aspects of life from the statist controlled school system teachings and how the county is going towards fascism. This starts by putting the youth in mind controlled facilities such as the one I was placed into called the seed. Putting the youth on mind controlling drugs such as riddling. All this is for control and one world government. Parents are part of the problem because they have been brainwashed also. Please start thinking for yourselves. Look in the sky and see the chemtrails they are spraying us with. They keep so much from us. Project blue beam is another mind controlled project where radio frequencies are aimed at us constantly. There are weapons they have such as haarp where earth quakes can be generated at will. Television is such a farce where they tell us what they want us to know. Wake up people please. Send out frequencies of love toward the earth. We have all been incarnated at this time to grow and hopefully get past the negativity and evolve into a higher dimension. We have been here before but we must raise our consciousness.
I'm not sure everybody here would agree with you.

PS:  Are you a fan of Tool by any chance?

Chuck, dude, put your tinfoil hat on and get back into your fallout shelter.  WTF are you talking about?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 28, 2009, 01:15:39 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Chuck, dude, put your tinfoil hat on and get back into your fallout shelter.  WTF are you talking about?

People are entitled to their opinions.  I happen to disagree with him too with most of what he said, but that's just me.  Personally, I think people are inherantly fucked up, greedy, and generally all around evil.  It's human nature.  I don't think that is going to ever change.  I don't think it's a huge conspiracy... I think that's just how people are and how they tend to act when endowed with power over others on whatever scale.  The trick is setting up a society where we can all get along.  Personally I think that rests with a limited government in which the sole role is to keep one person from infringing on another person's rights...  not to get off-topic...
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 01:22:14 AM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Chuck, dude, put your tinfoil hat on and get back into your fallout shelter.  WTF are you talking about?

People are entitled to their opinions.  I happen to disagree with him too with most of what he said, but that's just me.  Personally, I think people are inherantly fucked up, greedy, and generally all around evil.  It's human nature.  I don't think that is going to ever change.  I don't think it's a huge conspiracy... I think that's just how people are and how they tend to act when endowed with power over others.  The trick is setting up a society where we can all get along.  Personally I think that rests with a government in which the sole role is to keep one person from infringing on another person's rights...  not to get off-topic...

Yeah, you're right.  I was annoyed is all, and beg your pardon.

Magnificent set me off.  Classic DAYTOP stuff.  "You're a failure and you aren't being honest.  Even though DAYTOP may have used harsh methods some of us needed it so shut up with  your phony whinin' ass, punk. You may have been picked on at DAYTOP a lot but get over it."

Sheez.  It never ceases to amaze me, how callous and judgmental some people can be.  Makes me sad, it does.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 28, 2009, 01:25:20 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
It never ceases to amaze me, how callous and judgmental some people can be.  Makes me sad, it does.

Human nature...  education can help but that can't be forced.  It becomes re-education at that point.  Hopefully he'll read around and change his opinions, but that's up to him.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 01:27:55 AM
Yes, education is the key, is it not?

And for another thing: I learned about my Asperger's much later on, way after DAYTOP.  

This revelation was quite a relief, as I then understood that there is nothing wrong with me, that I was born this way (non-NT).

DAYTOP did little for me other than inculcate into my mind a sense that I was somehow "broken" and "bad."

Fuck DAYTOP.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 28, 2009, 01:30:14 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Yeah, you're right.  I was annoyed is all, and beg your pardon.

Magnificent set me off.

Yeah, I know it's a natural reaction to snap back when somebody attacks you but that's not the only way to handle it.  IMO, when somebody attacks you there are two options: escalate the conflict by attacking back, or attempt to diffuse it by remaining calm, asking questions, etc...  9/10 times it works in my experience.  The exception is when a person is currently in a cult.  That can be a lot more difficult.  Ever tried talking to a Scientologist?  Good luck getting a word in edgewise in between "WHAT ARE YOUR CRIMES!".

Some program parents are almost as good.  In one thread on toppix I was acused of being on drugs 8 times before I finally lost count...  lol...
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 28, 2009, 01:31:01 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Yes, education is the key, is it not?
That and encouraging a person to ask questions he might not have thought of before...  get em thinking again!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on February 28, 2009, 01:32:04 AM
You sure make a lot of excuses for him Psy.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 01:37:18 AM
Don't you know that I've heard it all before? You'll all have to try harder than that. It does not hurt my feelings.

You and Magnificent and Honesty all the rest of the trolls and DAYTOP apologists will go to such pains to try and discredit me...but, that would mean that I am often "on target", so to speak, IMO.

I am logging out and going to bed now.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 28, 2009, 01:42:08 AM
oh lol..  1500 comments and they're still accusing me of being on drugs and sites like ISACcorp of having viruses.

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/wish/ ... /p56#c1136 (http://www.topix.net/forum/source/wish/T3KPEP7KPVEM8FPSR/p56#c1136)

Skim that from the beginning...  it's golden.  LOL

This one is good too... they accuse William Earnshaw (ISACcorp) of being a "drugged out hippie"

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/wish/ ... H8BA6MVS4J (http://www.topix.net/forum/source/wish/TROP1SFH8BA6MVS4J)

Anybody who criticizes the all-mighty god program is on drugs or somehow a failure.   After the first few times it's hilariously comical.  They behave in an absolutely bonkers manner and expect others to take them seriously and send their kids to them (which is precisely why I bother... without us they might appear normal talking amongst themselves).
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 01:47:18 AM
Goodnight psy.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on February 28, 2009, 01:48:27 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Goodnight psy.
gnight!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 05:26:43 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Your words brought tears to my eyes. I am not one who often cries. I am currently in 2x weekly sessions with a Psychologist who inadvertantly triggered a cascade of memories and rage in me...by simply using vernacular I remember from Daytop. He had at some point worked within a similar program. I made my disgust about that known.
       I was one of the first 7 "family members" of DayTop Richardson TX. In that "common ground", I was trained and encouraged to be hostile and confrontational. My recollection of encounter groups are as of being a prized conteder in the verbally abusive equivalent of a cock fighting ring. I was a 13 yr. old girl.   I know that I quickly assimilated in to a scary little bitch who would "drop slips" on even counselors (Yes, even Marcy. I wonder if the Marcia written of had a scar on her right cheek. Same cheeky bitch?). I was searching for that "refuge" we all intoned about together, each morning meeting. I became trained to cut my peers to the quick and was rewarded with promotions for adapting so well. I am sorry to all who have ever encountered me in an encounter group or "hair cut" (more like a scalping). My experience of that place would have been far less damaging if someone any one of them had allowed me to be a kid or at least reminded me that I was.
     I was 14 when I was sent "upstate" to NewYork for residential treatment, after the police found me stoned at a male counselor's apartment. Granted, he held only a marginal role of being an "atheletics counselor" and was of course to the "others"(promoted from within) an outsider. No charges were filed against the "counselor" for having provided me with drugs or for harboring a runaway. One officer did ask if "anything had happened". I answered truthfully, "no". While sexual contact had not occured by the time of my being "located there", it had seemed to me inevitable. By that I mean unavoidable, as choice was not a consideration in that role. Following this, I was treated to my 15TH birthday in Millbrook, NY. In the RTC environment I was "that one" the girl with the dubious distinction of being the problem child that had been swept their way. I am aware that that which made me vulnerable to that particular pervert pre-dated my arrival at DayTop. That did not make the hypocracy of having been sent to RTC, and harshly discouraged from speaking honestly of the circumstances that brought me to RTC any less harmful. I became sucidol while in NY.
     I'm startled by how vivid my anger for these thing is.

Yes, now I know that you are for real, Inculcated.  

Marcy indeed has a scar on one of her cheeks, I cannot recall which.  

Like Gorman and his teardrop tattoo: it was under one of his eyes, but I likewise I cannot recall which.

How did you find this board?  

We might remember one another?  

Do we have mutual friends?

Do remember a guy named Henry H.?  A Cole H.?  Bobby H.?  A girl named Renee H.?  

They were some of the first, from what I remember.  What a coincidence, that their last names all start with an H.  Odd.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 28, 2009, 06:19:32 PM
Also, I recall that the kid who came back from NY (I think he was at Millbrook too) and told me of DAYTOP's supposed mob connections was a goofy redheaded guy John HOPKINS, if memory serves.  Whoa! Another H.

A coorection: my bad.  There was a Henry C., not a Henry H.  

But a Cole H. Renee H. and a Bobby H. also Bobby's brother was there for a while; his name was Chris H.  Their cousin too, Jeremy H.

Also John HOPKINS, the redheaded guy who was in Millbrook.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 04, 2009, 02:34:20 PM
Today I come writing with a story to tell all of you, a story about The Man Who Thought That He Was Dead.

This man firmly believed he was dead, even though he was a living, normally–functioning human being. Well, his wife persuaded him to visit a psychiatrist, who tried in vain to convince him that he was in fact alive. Who wants to be married to a dead guy?  The wife argued.  

The psychiatrist hit upon a plan.   In order to help this poor soul, the psychiatrist realized that he had to introduce the man to one fact that would contradict the belief that he held, that belief being that he was dead.  The psychiatrist decided to prove to the man that dead men do not bleed.

So he showed the man medical reports and scientific evidence that dead men do not bleed.  He took the man to a hospital and they witnessed an operation together, so that the man could see that living people bleed when cut.  Next they went to the country morgue, and the man witnessed an autopsy, seeing that the corpse did not shed blood when incised.  

After thoroughly convincing the man that dead men do not bleed, the psychiatrist took out a pin and pricked the man’s finger.

When the man saw the drop of blood trickle down his finger, his eyes bugged out. "Ha!" he cried, "Dead men do bleed after all!"


My point is, that Magnificent and Honesty and the rest of the DAYTOP apologists will not believe anything I say if it is critical of the beloved program, regardless.

The truth of what we went through in DAYTOP Dallas in the early '90s doesn't matter to them.  It's critical of the program, therefore I am not allowed to say it.

In a cult, abusive organization, or abusive relationship it does not matter if the information presented is true. If it is negative about the group or any member of the group, then you cannot say it. Usually such negative information will be will be labeled as slander, and if one persists in speaking it or writing it one can be disciplined severely, ultimately with expulsion from the group, or, if one is an outsider speaking ill about or being at all critical of the group, one can be demonized, dehumanized, poked fun at, humiliated, or what have you.

For saying what I have said, I have been called a failure, a phony, a liar, a person in need of help, all that.

Therefore, it's truly a waste of time IMO to bother with trying to have a rational, objective, mature discussion with any of the DAYTOPians.

They simply cannot be reasoned with.

All they'll do is twist whatever I communicate back onto me and try and make it into some personal attack.  They'll give me a forum haircut.  When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

There's nothing that anybody can say, some magic phrase, that will make their critical thinking skills turn on with respect to what I have brought to the table and concede that I might have a point.  They'll just invalidate everything I've said and dismiss it all as "complete fabrication."  

They'll invalidate everything I say as pure lies and slander no matter what evidence I bring.

It's no fabrication.  I know what I know.  I was there.  They were not.  Simple as that.

Their confirmation bias is too strong. Therefore, any attempt at dialog is futile IMO. DAYTOP in their minds is incapable of being wrong or incorrect, about anything, ever.

Trying to get through to them with logic and reason is like banging your head into a wall over and over again. After a while, it becomes painful.

To put a finer point on what I am trying to say, it's as if I am writing to the waking dead.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on March 04, 2009, 03:09:26 PM
cool story.  I liked your example with the coins earlier too(if that was you... or maybe i'm thinking of somebody else)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 04, 2009, 03:12:46 PM
Do you mean the one about the coin trick that one eventually starts playing on oneself?  I'll post it later, when I have more time.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on March 04, 2009, 03:14:58 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
There's nothing that anybody can say, some magic phrase, that will make their critical thinking skills turn on with respect to what I have brought to the table and concede that I might have a point.

This is not true.  I've seen it happen (on this site too).  It just takes time, sharing the right information, and especially asking the right questions.

I've also talked scientologists into reading Margaret Singer's "Cults in Our Midst" (granted I agreed to read dianetics in return.. which was blah).  It just takes time.  People snap out of brainwashing without a support structure of some type / some similar group.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on March 04, 2009, 03:19:29 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Do you mean the one about the coin trick that one eventually starts playing on oneself?  I'll post it later, when I have more time.
The one I was referring to was the one with the three coins where the counselor shows people how cult cons are pulled.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 04, 2009, 05:45:39 PM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
There's nothing that anybody can say, some magic phrase, that will make their critical thinking skills turn on with respect to what I have brought to the table and concede that I might have a point.

This is not true.  I've seen it happen (on this site too).  It just takes time, sharing the right information, and especially asking the right questions.

I've also talked scientologists into reading Margaret Singer's "Cults in Our Midst" (granted I agreed to read dianetics in return.. which was blah).  It just takes time.  People snap out of brainwashing without a support structure of some type / some similar group.

You have a good point psy, but still I do not altogether agree.  Sometimes members of cultic groups are just too far gone, have passed the psychological point of no return, and will not leave the group (or abandon the group mindset) no matter what happens.  Sometimes the are just too personally invested in the group and have too much of an interest in believing in the group and its mission to just simply walk away.

I do not doubt that in the individual DAYTOPians' hearts, they are (or at least believe that they are) truly dedicated to DAYTOP and the Monsignor's teachings.

But at the same time, also in their hearts they wish that they could be superior to the rest of us.

They want to believe that they know something that we do not know, that they see something that we do not see, that they have figured out something that we have not apprehended.

And they are for the most trapped in this kind of self-reinforcing delusion.

They for the most part are unwilling or unable to admit to themselves, or to anybody else, that they could be wrong and possibly could have been misled by DAYTOP.

Better IMO to undermine their potential success in damaging more kids than to try and get those who are in, out.

Personally, I have dealt with a number of cults and cult members and I swear, sometimes I think that these members would still believe in the group and it's leader no matter what evidence you provided them with to try and show them that the group is a fraud.  Mormons and their devotion to Joseph Smith and the LDS Church are the first example that come to mind.  You could put evidence, absolute proof that Joseph Smith was a fraud right before their eyes and they'd still hold to Mormonism as their religion.  You could show them the proof that the Book of Abraham was not really translated from Abraham's writings "written by his own hand upon papyrus" and you could show them the proof that the BOM was plagiarized from a book by one Soloman Spaulding and they'd still believe in Mormonism.  

Why?  Because of the psychological principle of confirmation bias.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

I could give the DAYTOPians absolute irrefutable proof of what happened to my friends and me back then and they still would not believe me.  Because if I am right and telling the truth (and I am) and they were obliged to acknowledge it, then it;d mean that DAYTOP has been abusing people for the past forty years and they'd not be too keen on admitting it.

I guess that my experience with DAYTOP may have somehow "strengthened" me in some sense, although I must say that I've come to now hold somewhat of an attitude of fatalism.  One must be bitten by the radioactive spider before one's Spidey Sense kicks in, if you take my meaning.  The "long-termers" in DAYTOP are largely "sold out" altogether and have abandoned any need to reference themselves to anything other that what the organization assures them of.

Confirmation Bias is also known as Tolstoy Syndrome.  A couple of quote by Leo Tolstoy:

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life".

A related Tolstoy quote is:

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 04, 2009, 05:48:22 PM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Do you mean the one about the coin trick that one eventually starts playing on oneself?  I'll post it later, when I have more time.
The one I was referring to was the one with the three coins where the counselor shows people how cult cons are pulled.

Is this it?

http://www.piney.com/sky1.html (http://www.piney.com/sky1.html)

Mind Manipulation

A Psychological Coin Trick In my work at Wellspring in helping victims of cults and spiritual abuse understand what happened to them I often demonstrate a simple coin trick. I place three coins on a table and keep a fourth in one hand. Let's say the coins on the table are a quarter, a nickel, and a penny, and the one in my hand is also a penny. I don't tell the person what coin I have in my hand; rather, I say, "I can read your mind, and I have already predicted what you are about to do. The coin in my hand will prove to you that this is so. Now, what I want you to do is to pick up any two of the coins on the table." Let's say he picks up the quarter and the nickel, leaving the penny on the table. As I show him the penny in my hand I say, "Was there any way I could have known you would leave the penny on the table?" The answer, of course, is "No," and he begins to believe that maybe I do have ESP. But then I tell him to pick up a different combination of coins. So he picks up the quarter and the penny, leaving the nickel on the table. Now I say, "Give me either one of the coins you just picked up." Let's say he gives me the penny. Then I say to him as I again show him the penny in my hand, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would give me the penny?" Again, the answer is "No." But by now he's beginning to see what I'm doing. Finally, I tell him that there is only one other possible outcome of the trick. Instead of leaving the penny on the table, or picking it up with another coin and then giving it me, he could have picked it up but then kept it while giving me the other coin. I explain that in that case I would have shown him the penny in my hand and said, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would keep the penny?" Now he understands that all I'm doing is interpreting what he does after he does it. I don't say at the start that the coin in my hand will be the same as the coin he leaves or gives me or keeps. I wait till he makes his move and then I only interpret what he does afterwa seem like I have psychic powers.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 04, 2009, 08:16:47 PM
A person I was in treatment with in NY told me about this web site so I thought I'd take a look around & I landed on this discussion.  Man it sounds like your experience was horrible and you are still dealing with it.  I am sorry for your pain.  Your experience is unfortunate.  With that said, is it a good idea to say "so-and-so told me they were told that?"  That is how rumors get started and perpetuated.  You could be unknowingly perpetuating false information about the living and the dead.  Just sharing my thoughts.  Good luck in your road to resolution.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anne Bonney on March 04, 2009, 08:41:06 PM
Quote from: "care"
A person I was in treatment with in NY told me about this web site so I thought I'd take a look around & I landed on this discussion........................

Naw.....you're not really gonna try and pull that off, are you?

 
Quote
Man it sounds like your experience was horrible and you are still dealing with it.  I am sorry for your pain.  Your experience is unfortunate.  With that said, is it a good idea to say "so-and-so told me they were told that?" ]/quote]

Which part are you disputing?  I'd be glad to discuss it with you.


Quote
That is how rumors get started and perpetuated.  You could be unknowingly perpetuating false information about the living and the dead.  Just sharing my thoughts.  Good luck in your road to resolution.

Agreed, which is why it's important to cite what you're speaking of.  How can I address your assertions?  What, specifically, do you find to be untrue?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anne Bonney on March 04, 2009, 08:43:55 PM
OK....I've tried to edit it but it won't let me..... I asked......   Which part are you disputing? I'd be glad to discuss it with you.

in that post.  The edit wouldn't take.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 04, 2009, 08:59:38 PM
Thanks friend.  It was rough, all right.  That's nothing to subject a bunch of teenage kids to.  

All of what I wrote is true and accurate to the best of my recollection, my sources are some of my best friends and I trust them implicitly.  This stuff I've written  is not gossip; it's fact.  I was there.  Billy was there.  Inculcated was there.

I have not thought much about those days for the last 15 years or so; up until right after last Thanksgiving, I had not "unpacked" some of those memories for a long time.  

DAYTOP has had an enormous influence on my life and thinking, and for me the experience was pretty much nothing but damaging.

I do not doubt that DAYTOP has helped some people; there are those out there who benefited greatly from their experience with DAYTOP, I am sure.  

It's just that I did not belong there, and neither did Mike Gomez, in all likelihood.

I have Asperger's and Mike had FASD.  We did not belong there.  We were non-neurotypical kids.  

To DAYTOP it didn't matter.  All DAYTOP saw was a couple of incipient dope fiends.  No compassion whatsoever.  

And I'm angry about it, yeah, sad too.  DAYTOP screwed my life up.  And it's not my fault.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 06, 2009, 11:04:37 AM
"All of what I wrote is true and accurate to the best of my recollection, my sources are some of my best friends and I trust them implicitly. This stuff I've written is not gossip; it's fact. I was there. Billy was there. Inculcated was there"

What a crock of Shit. How dare you continue to blame others for your life problems. If you want to balme someone blame yourself.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 06, 2009, 11:41:23 AM
Quote from: "Honesty"
"All of what I wrote is true and accurate to the best of my recollection, my sources are some of my best friends and I trust them implicitly. This stuff I've written is not gossip; it's fact. I was there. Billy was there. Inculcated was there"

What a crock of Shit. How dare you continue to blame others for your life problems. If you want to balme someone blame yourself.


FUCK. YOU.[/color][/size]

 :twofinger:   :fuckoff:  :twofinger:  :fuckoff:  :twofinger:  :fuckoff:



And learn how to use the quote feature.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on March 06, 2009, 12:04:50 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
"All of what I wrote is true and accurate to the best of my recollection, my sources are some of my best friends and I trust them implicitly. This stuff I've written is not gossip; it's fact. I was there. Billy was there. Inculcated was there"

What a crock of Shit. How dare you continue to blame others for your life problems. If you want to balme someone blame yourself.

I am curious, Honesty, whether you could venture to answer a question for me that your friend or colleague Magnificent seemed to overlook... The question had to do with how he, or you, or anyone that is a fan -- or even just a student -- of TCs views the appropriateness of the TC modality for people who are very introverted. Or even non-neurotypical, for that matter.

Given that the primary arena of a person's evolution or change in a TC is what happens in Group, wouldn't people who are less than comfortable with, or who feel stigmatized by, that particular modality be less than optimally helped? Perhaps even harmed?

Just how "honest" can the observations that are shared in Group really be, if not everyone is equipped with the same type of communication and information processing abilities, not to mention the predilection for -- or belief in -- doing so?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 07, 2009, 01:08:54 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Also, I recall that the kid who came back from NY (I think he was at Millbrook too) and told me of DAYTOP's supposed mob connections was a goofy redheaded guy John HOPKINS, if memory serves.  Whoa! Another H.

A coorection: my bad.  There was a Henry C., not a Henry H.  

But a Cole H. Renee H. and a Bobby H. also Bobby's brother was there for a while; his name was Chris H.  Their cousin too, Jeremy H.

Also John HOPKINS, the redheaded guy who was in Millbrook.
           I'm not sure if I would know if I knew you. As Roethke put it "I take my waking slow" My awareness likes to nap.
             I wandered over to this site while key word searching for DayTop's philosophy. My 'ologist croons a lot of empathetic understanding my way, but I'm not sure he really does, on this topic.
            Jeremiah N. and a Chris H. were the first two. Liz (who did not stay long )was the third. Jeremiah became a counselor.
            I remember Michael Gorman for his wry humor. He seemed to get a kick out of the Tatum O'Neil effect (affectation) of me bumming his Pal Mal non-filters. Rueben is the only Cuban staff member that I recall.
            I don't remember the name of the short term facility upstate. I was sent to Millbrook for the long term sentence and served the rest of my time at  another long term residential, Foxrun? (Also, right when that location was first opened).
            While I was in NY. the only kids from Texas (3, I think) were girls
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 07, 2009, 01:53:46 AM
Oh, and to Maginficent who wrote that "physical learning experiences were off limits..."  'Seems like your awareness gets sleepy to. Chair time FOR ENTIRE DAYS!, props, signs worn around the neck... role playing in extended groups (interminable nightmares). Were you always in the other room ?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 07, 2009, 12:40:27 PM
Yep, now I know for sure that you were there.  Long stretches of time on The Chair for malefactors, props, signs, all that stuff, you know.

If memory serves, Ruben is Dominican, not Cuban or Puerto Rican.  

I remember Jeremiah NEAL.  He had a sister at DAYTOP too, if I am not mistaken, but I cannot remember her name right now.  Though I want to say it is Heather?  Jeremiah was the DAYTOP golden boy at the time.  He became a counselor, yes.  

And Chris H., Bobby's older brother.  One of the girls that went to NY was named Renee H.

Personally, I don't pay much mind to Magnificent and Honetsy.  Neither one of them was there with us, and this goon Honetsy probably does not understand big words like "neurotypical," "modality," "predilection," or "introversion"anyway.  I mean, Honetsy does not even know how to use spell check or the quote feature.  Honetsy is as articulate as some low-level street thug whose favorite phrase seems to be "what a crock of shit."

That kind of talk is simply over this person's head.  So why do they not answer Ursus' question about the effects of the group-therapy model on introverted persons?  Because they CAN'T.  The group is always right, the individual always wrong.  Classic cultic groupthink stuff.

It never ceases to amaze me, the denial that these people are in, how callous and judgmental they can be.  Talk about cognitive dissonance.  Honetsy needs a check-up from the neck up.

"Lah dee dahh dahh dumm...DAYTOP good, critics bad, DAYTOP good, critics bad...look at all the pretty bubbles...whee......lalala...DAYTOP good, critics bad..."

And again, have you ever heard of spell-check, buddy?  Your spelling is atrocious and frankly it does not help you to look very bright. You spelling is like that of an eight year old.  You come across and crude and hostile, and like a mindless, flaming idiot.

Maybe Honetsy is non-neurotypical too.  Perhaps after Honetsy's time in program, he/she got a lobotomy to boot.  Honetsy is obviously not the sharpest tack in the box, but he probably cannot help being so naive, obviously being a simple-minded, trusting soul.

I don't remember DAYTOP as being much big on empathy or compassionate care.  I don't see much empathy or compassion in Honetsy's posts.  The Monsignor sure teaches his students well.

Again, it's like trying to reason with the waking dead, attempting a dialog with these people.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 07, 2009, 02:35:11 PM
Phillip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment showed how easily people lose themselves in authoritative group situations.

His experiments record educated volunteers needing psychological counseling to recover from the trauma of a SIX DAY simulation/experiment.

Imagine how much longer it takes for people who do this in real-life scenarios and are part of such groups for years!

The whole lesson to be learned is that good people can be compelled, if under the proper conditions, to do bad things; we should not underestimate the power of the situation and of group pressure when evaluating these kinds of cultic groups (like DAYTOP) and what comes out of them.  And always be aware of unwittingly committing the "fundamental attribution error" when evaluating the character of the individuals who make up the group.

Of course, I doubt that the DAYTOPians will have any use for this stuff.  "Who needs all that fancy academic mumbo-jombo?" They'll say, "What a crock of shit.  We don't like the way you're behaving, or what you're saying, so stop it.  Behave the way we want you to behave and say what we want you to say OR ELSE."

Cognitive dissonance, black and white thinking, ad hominem attacks.   It's all there.  When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

* 11 April 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* by Michael Bond

From issue 2599 of New Scientist magazine, 11 April 2007, page 42-45

As an iconic image of human rights abuse, it is hard to equal: a hooded man with electrodes attached to his fingers stands precariously on a small box. One slip and he risks a numbing electric shock. In April 2004 this picture and others showing American soldiers mistreating Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad cast a pall over the US military's conduct in Iraq that has never lifted. The electrode stunt was dreamed up by a group of US army reservists working as military policemen at the prison. Staff Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick was one of them. It was not the only abuse he perpetrated at Abu Ghraib. Among other things, he admitted making three prisoners masturbate while his colleagues looked on, and thumping another so hard in the chest that he had to be resuscitated. Most people would label Frederick as morally corrupt, a classic "bad apple". The judge at his trial certainly did. He sentenced him to eight years in jail, handed down a dishonourable discharge, and removed his salary and pension. Frederick deserved severe punishment, the judge argued, because he was exercising free will when he committed the acts. But was he?

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo from Stanford University in California thinks not. He believes the judge was guilty of the "fundamental attribution error" - overestimating the effects of someone's temperament on their behaviour and underestimating the effects of the environment in which they were acting. Zimbardo was an expert witness on Frederick's defence team. He interviewed him at length before the trial and carried out extensive psychological tests. He found no hint of mental illness or sadistic tendencies in Frederick. "In many ways this soldier was an American icon: a good husband, father and worker, patriotic, religious, with many friends and a history of having lived a most normal, moral small town life," says Zimbardo. Then he went to Abu Ghraib and turned into a monster.

This may be an extreme case, but such transformations are surprisingly common. You find them in just about any environment in which an individual is subsumed into a group or is reacting to what others are doing: rioting mobs, football crowds, committees, social networks, even panels of judges. In such situations a group mentality can easily take over, leading people to act out of character or adopt extreme or risky positions. In an analysis that considered 25,000 social psychology studies, published a few months after the Abu Ghraib abuses emerged, Susan Fiske at Princeton University concluded that almost everyone is capable of torture and other evil acts if placed in the wrong social context (Science, vol 306, p 1482). "Our society tends to focus on individual psychology," says Zimbardo. "All our institutions - in war, law, religion, medicine - are based on this concept." Yet if we don't understand the power of group psychology we can never hope to combat evils such as torture, suicide bombings and genocide, or indeed avoid making bad decisions or committing despicable acts of our own.
“Almost everyone is capable of evil acts if placed in the wrong social context”

Zimbardo has famously shown how easy it is to turn peaceful people abusive and hostile. In an experiment at Stanford University in 1971, he recruited students to imitate prison guards and inmates. After six days the experiment had to be stopped because the guards - ordinary summer-school students selected for their healthy psychological state - had pushed many of the prisoners to the point of emotional breakdown. In a similar experiment published in 1974, Stanley Milgram from Yale University persuaded ordinary people to administer electric shocks to a "victim" sitting behind a screen. Without much trouble Milgram had all of them increasing the voltage until the victim was screaming (it was an act but they didn't know that). Two-thirds of them carried on until the victim was apparently unconscious.

"If you can diffuse responsibility so people don't feel accountable, they will probably do things they normally never would," says Zimbardo. Milgram did this by telling the participants that he was in charge, and that he himself would take responsibility for anything that happened. Zimbardo gave his "prison guards" all the symbols of power of real guards - uniforms, whistles, handcuffs, sunglasses - effectively giving the volunteers permission to behave like them. He also ensured that prisoners were known only by numbers, not by their names. Many studies have found such anonymity to be an effective tool for changing the way someone is treated, or how they treat others. You find the same effect outside the lab. In 1971, anthropologist John Watson from Harvard University found that tribal cultures renowned for their barbaric treatment of enemies usually wear masks or paint their faces when going into battle, while those who go to war unadorned tend to be far less brutal. Likewise, many commentators have observed that people perpetrating crimes such as torture and genocide often dehumanise their victims by thinking of them as animals. Following on from Milgram's experiment, Albert Bandura from Stanford University found that people would administer more severe electric shocks if he told them that the recipients (whom they could not see) seemed "like animals".
Personal allegiance

Groups can create environments that diminish individual responsibility, but they can also exert their hold in another way. "There is a significant difference between mob behaviour, in which anonymity and imitation are the important factors, and the direct influence of a group, which involves personal allegiance to leaders and comrades," says Ariel Merari, a psychologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel and an expert on Middle Eastern terrorism. Groups that recruit suicide bombers are among those that use the latter approach, building a sense of community and encouraging feelings of responsibility towards other group members: the "brotherhood mentality". Here, individuals take responsibility for their own actions within a culture where suicide bombing is seen as glorious. Then, by recording farewell messages to family and friends either on videotape or in writing, they make a commitment to their own martyrdom that they cannot renege on without losing face (New Scientist, 15 May 2004, p 34).

All of this is a long way from the situations that most of us face. Yet many of the decisions we make every day are heavily influenced by what others are doing. In a study published last year, for example, Duncan Watts and colleagues at Columbia University in New York showed that the reason chart-topping pop songs are so much more popular than average is not because they are significantly better but because consumers are influenced by the buying habits of others (Science, vol 311, p 854). This is known as the social cascade effect, a phenomenon in which large numbers of people end up doing or thinking something on the basis of what others have done.

There are two mechanisms at work here, says Watts. "The first is social learning. The world is too complicated for each individual to solve problems on their own, so we rely on the information that is encoded in our social environment - we assume other people know things we don't." Then there is social coordination, where you want to do the same thing as other people not because you think it is better but because what matters is doing things together. "Liking the same song, movies, sports and books not only gives us something to talk about, but makes us feel like we're part of something larger than ourselves." As well as directing consumers' buying habits, these two forces can influence financial markets, protest movements, and even - through opinion polls - how we vote.

It is not surprising that people should be so susceptible to the dynamics of their social environment. After all, we evolved as social animals in environments where cooperation and group cohesion were key survival tools. Our reasons for being influenced by others are often valid, but if we are not careful this tendency can get us into trouble. In a classic study carried out in the 1950s, for example, social psychologist Solomon Asch revealed how the peer pressure associated with being part of a group can lead people to deny the evidence of their own senses. When asked simply to match the length of a line on a card with one of three reference lines, 70 per cent of his subjects ignored their own judgement and sided with the rest of their group who, unbeknown to them, had been primed to make a blatantly wrong choice.

When any group of like-minded people get together, the result can be equally alarming. One common effect is that the group ends up taking a more extreme position than the one its members started with - it becomes polarised. For example, a group of people who begin a discussion believing George Bush's policies on Iraq are merely ill-advised may finish convinced that his policies are insane. Cass Sunstein, professor of law and political science at the University of Chicago has identified two reasons. First, in like-minded groups you tend to hear only arguments that support your own viewpoint, which is bound to reinforce it. In addition, people are always comparing themselves with others and will shift their position so as not to appear out of line. The same kind of thinking is behind the phenomenon known as "risky shift" in which adolescents, already prone to risky behaviour, are even more inclined to throw caution to the wind when they are with their peers.

Polarisation is related to another form of group psychology known as groupthink, where members strive for cohesion at the expense of all else. Maintaining cohesion can give a group a sense of power and bolster the self-esteem of its members, but it can also lead them to make bad and dangerous decisions. "When group cohesion is based on congeniality, criticising ideas means attacking the source of group cohesion," says Clark McCauley, director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. As with social cascades and polarisation, problems often arise when people rely on what they think others know and fail to share useful information they might have. This mistake can be compounded by the influence of a manipulative leader. Groupthink has been blamed for the CIA's flawed plan to invade Cuba in 1961 - the infamous Bay of Pigs debacle - and also for NASA's failure in 2003 to recognise that the damage done to the wing of the space shuttle Columbia by a piece of foam during take-off was potentially fatal. Irving Janis, the psychologist who coined the term groupthink in 1972, believed no one was immune. "Probably every member of every policy-making group is susceptible," he wrote in a landmark paper.

Another situation in which we are all prone to assuming a strong group mentality is at times of crisis. This explains why support for national leaders increases in wartime - and why George Bush achieved almost unanimous backing for his "war on terror" after 9/11. It is understandable that people look to their own group when they feel threatened, but the result can be an escalation of tension. In a study published last year, for example, a team led by Tom Pyszczynski from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, found that Iranian college students who were prompted to think about their own death showed greater support for suicide attacks against the US than they would have otherwise (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol 32, p 1).

Knowing what we do about group psychology, what are the lessons to be learned? For a start, we should discourage isolated cliques of like-minded people and encourage people with opposing views to speak out - and that applies whether you are trying to prevent terrorism or elect a new school head. The flip side of this is that we should recognise that extremist groups are usually remarkably homogenous in terms of the interests, political affiliations, age and socioeconomic status of their members. "If I were an intelligence agent trying to break a terrorist cell, if I caught one member I'd find out what food he eats and what clothing he wears," says Scott Atran at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The chances are his fellow terrorists would have very similar preferences. Accordingly, Atran and forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman are building a database of members of jihadi terrorist networks in Europe and Asia, recording information such as family background and friends.

Another lesson is that the wider social environment influences the decisions made by groups. Pyszczynski found that he could change the attitudes of his Iranian students by convincing them that public opinion in their country was opposed to suicide attacks. What's more, in similar studies with US students he first increased their appetite for conflict with Arabs by getting them to think of their own death, and then found he could reduce it simply by showing them photos of family life from many different cultures or reminding them of their own group values, such as compassion, and of what they have in common with others. "This is particularly encouraging as it shows a way of reversing a process that otherwise can increase public support for terrorism," he says.

The behaviour of football hooligans can also be influenced by their social environment, according to Clifford Stott, a social psychologist at the University of Liverpool, UK. Working as a consultant to the police for the European championships in Portugal in 2004, he found that the aggressiveness of football crowds is heavily influenced by how the police treat them. Although violence has been part of the group identity of a significant section of England fans, low-profile policing at certain matches during Euro2004 encouraged them to adopt an uncharacteristically orderly attitude which they then maintained through self-policing (European Journal of Social Psychology, DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.338).

The idea of group psychology is rather unsettling. We like to think that we are in control of our own decisions and behaviour, not at the mercy of our social environment. It is also deeply disturbing to contemplate that any of us might have done what Frederick and the other Abu Ghraib reservists did. Yet Zimbardo also points to a positive side. His latest research looks at what makes a hero, and he has found that our universal capacity to perform evil acts under the influence of the group is matched by a universal capacity to resist peer pressure and do the right thing. "There is nothing special in the backgrounds of heroes - they choose to act on the moment. There are no predictive psychological factors," says Zimbardo. Ordinary heroes, like ordinary monsters, are everywhere.

Joseph Darby is a perfect example. He was an army reservist in the same company as Frederick, and the person responsible for stopping the torture and human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib. Darby passed a CD of the photographs to his superior officer. He did this despite the severe potential costs to himself and his family, who are now in hiding for fear of retaliation from members of his unit. Zimbardo looked into Darby's background. "Ordinary," he says. "He never did anything like it before."


There's this article too, called Bad Apples and Bad Barrels: Lessons in Evil from Stanford to Abu Ghraib

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bad ... ad-barrels (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bad-apples-and-bad-barrels)

The photographs of prisoner abuse from Abu Ghraib shocked most Americans. But social psychologist Philip Zimbardo had seen it all 30 years before in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford University, where he randomly assigned college students to be “guards” or “prisoners” in a mock prison environment. The experiment was to last two weeks but was terminated after just six days, when these intelligent and moral young men were transformed into cruel and sadistic guards or emotionally shattered prisoners.

As he watched the parade of politicians proclaim that Abu Ghraib was the result of a few bad apples, Zimbardo penned a response he calls the Lucifer Effect (also the title of his new book from Random House), namely, the transformation of character that leads ordinarily good people to do extraordinarily evil things. “Social psychologists like myself have been trying to correct the belief that evil is located only in the disposition of the individual and that the problem is in the few bad apples,” he says. But, I rejoin, there are bad apples, no? Yes, of course, Zimbardo concedes, but most of the evil in the world is not committed by them: “Before we blame individuals, the charitable thing to do is to first find out what situations they were in that might have provoked this evil behavior. Why not assume that these are good apples in a bad barrel, rather than bad apples in a good barrel?”

How can we tell the difference? Compare behavior before, during and after the evil event in question. “When I launched my experiment at Stanford, we knew these students were good apples because we gave them a battery of tests and every one of them checked out normal,” Zimbardo explains. “So, on day one they were all good apples. Yet within days the guards were transformed into sadistic thugs and the prisoners were emotionally broken.” Likewise at Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo notes that before going to Iraq, Staff Sergeant Ivan “Chip” Frederick—the military police officer in charge of the night shift on Tiers 1A and 1B, the most abusive cell blocks at Abu Ghraib—“was an all-American patriot, a regular churchgoing kind of guy who raises the American flag in front of his home, gets goose bumps and tears up when he listens to our national anthem, believes in American values of democracy and freedom, and joined the army to defend those values.”
The guards were transformed into sadistic thugs, and the prisoners were emotionally broken.

Before Abu Ghraib, Frederick was a model soldier, earning numerous awards for merit and bravery. After the story broke and Frederick was charged in the abuses, Zimbardo arranged for a military clinical psychologist to conduct a full psychological assessment of Frederick, which revealed him to be average in intelligence, average in personality, with “no sadistic or pathological tendencies.” To Zimbardo, this result “strongly suggests that the ‘bad apple’ dispositional attribution of blame made against him by military and administration apologists has no basis in fact.” Even after he was shipped off to Fort Leavenworth to serve his eight-year sentence, Frederick wrote Zimbardo: “I am proud to say that I served most of my adult life for my country. I was very prepared to die for my country, my family and friends. I wanted to be the one to make a difference.”

Two conclusions come to mind. First, it is the exceedingly patriotic model soldier—not a rebellious dissenter—who is most likely to obey authorities who encourage such evil acts and to get caught up in believing that the ends justify the means. Second, in The Science of Good and Evil (Owl Books, 2004), I argued for a dual dispositional theory of morality—by disposition we have the capacity for good and evil, with the behavioral expression of them dependent on the situation and whether we choose to act. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who knew a few things about the capacity for evil inside all of our hearts of darkness, explained it trenchantly in The Gulag Archipelago: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Also there's a short film called The Wave.  

I viewed it and was quite taken aback.

This is a "must see" short film. A real blowout. I strongly urge all interested parties to view it.

A bit of background here:

http://www.ronjoneswriter.com/wave.html (http://www.ronjoneswriter.com/wave.html)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 07, 2009, 03:56:59 PM
In conclusion:

Honesty:

You seem to have shut down your critical thinking, at least where DAYTOP is concerned.

Your response to the question about what is wrong, or has been wrong with DAYTOP illustrates this point.

You find little if anything meaningful to address that is wrong with DAYTOP, despite its deeply troubled history, continued complaints and the simple fact that it is after all a human-run organization.

Please understand that there are many ex-DAYTOPians who feel quite differently than you do and have very negative feelings about their experiences with DAYTOP.

You are rude and have been rude repeatedly on this thread.

It seems to me that you have attempted repeatedly to incite arguments and/or pull this thread off topic.

You are trying to change the subject and twist this forum into a personal attack on me.

It appears that your only purpose here is as an apologist for DAYTOP.

Your comments are essentially attempts to rationalize the kind of control DAYTOP often exercises over the lives of its charges.

If all you have to offer here is the same personal attacks over and over again perhaps you should move on.

Frankly, IMO you are actually an embarrassment to that organization.

Here's the link to the must-see film The Wave that I mentioned earlier.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 7890475769 (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4689717947890475769)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 04:28:07 PM
Sekto,

I must say that your emotions seem to have gotten the better of you. I have been attacking you. For the lies that you say. If you have noticed, which I am confidant you have not. My issue is with your attacks on individuals. Whom you claim, you heard things about. You have, (on many occasions) said things on this site that are not facts but lies. The people you try and slander do not deserve it. Yes, I have attacked you and I will continue too, as long as you keep up the lies. I have never once said that Daytop is for everyone. In fact, I am sure many people have valid issues to pick with various things about the program. You on the other hand want to blame the program and some of the Good people associated with it. In particular, the ones who have since passed on. This is another sign of your weakness and unresolved bullshit. What if I do have a 5th grade education? Does this make me or anyone else less then you? By your previous post, I gather you think it does.
I suggest you begin to come to terms with your failures and begin to take responsibility for your own shit. You treated people poorly and you have to live with that. Do not blame Daytop because you failed, Blame yourself. Do you think all the people who Daytop has helped or who tried to help, all conspired against you? Do you think they want to see people fail?  If you’re Honest and I question whether you can be, then you know that they didn't. The fact is the program didn't help you. Deal with it. Stop blaming everyone for your own shit. What about all the people who have been helped. What about all the success people have had? Does this matter? According to you, it does not. I know as many who have read your lies know, that Daytop is successful and has been around so long because it does work and it does help people. So deal with it. Perhaps you should move on and find a better way to deal with your shit.  
 :cheers:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 04:52:49 PM
Please tell me, what are these lies of mine that you write of?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 06:10:18 PM
Sekto:
Thank you for citing The Lucifer Effect.  I had read it late last spring. While reading, I had not then reflected on its content in the same light. Following your post, I revisited the last section (Chapter 16 -conclusion) of the book with renewed interest.
 I found the hypotheses of a substitute paradigm  “For a slow assent to goodness”  called to mind the cultivation process that some like Marcy, maybe Honesty etc. might have experienced on their way to achieving their counselor status.  Zimbardo speculates transformation via the Virtuous Authority experiment that he describes, might cause some to “doing ever more extreme “good” actions.  The extremes of virtue push him or her all the way to engaging in actions that at first seemed unimaginable.” (p.449)
I savored his apt wording. I then considered how a person who has come to accept taught (not intuited) beliefs about what their idea of good is (and that that is The Good) may deflect anything contrary to their beliefs. Maybe there is some “Altruism effect” compelling not only the actions of some, but also the ardency with which others defend them.  Denying the veracity of those who do not “share in their purpose”   seems to be of that same cause and effect…so to speak.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 06:50:29 PM
You are welcome for the citation.

In all truth, I have never read The Lucifer Effect in its entirety, just excerpts of it as well as certain online abstracts and such.  My therapist has a copy that I'll borrow and read when I get the chance.  I have, however, seen Quiet Rage and other documentary footage from the original experiment, and thought it pertinent to bring the examples and lessons learned from Stanford and Abu Ghraib into our discussion.

Have you ever seen Quiet Rage, Inculcated?  And did you get a chance to watch The Wave yet?  If so, what did you think?

 :feedtrolls:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 08:09:32 PM
Sekto:
   I did view “The Wave”. I liked it. I like it more for that it was based on a real teacher’s unique approach to offering students the chance to understand (rather than just absorb information). I had seen a PBS airing that included some footage of the Stanford Prison Experiment, a while back. I’m not sure if that was Quiet Rage or something else.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 08:16:15 PM
Please PM or email me, won't you Inculcated?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 08:45:15 PM
Zombies  
Zombies could be considered innocent bystanders, just the guy or gal next door -- until someone in the villages of yore decided they had done something wrong. "They then would go to a trial by ordeal," says James D. Adams, PhD, associate professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy, Los Angeles, and an expert in zombie history.  
Another expert, Daniel Lapin, PhD, a clinical psychologist, sees the medical mystery of zombies differently. In Haiti in the 1700 and 1800s, the bokor, or priest, selected a victim and laced his drink with curare, a preparation of plant poisons that knocks out the motor nerves but keeps the sensory system untouched. "As total paralysis sets in, the bokor pretends to be magically inducing the paralysis," Lapin says. "The bokor next officiates at the victim's burial. The victim thinks he or she is being buried alive." And the victim is right.
Two or three days later, the bokor digs up the victim. "The victim bonds subserviently and forever with the person who digs them up," Lapin says. Sometimes, however, Lapin says the victim would "go crazy during the ordeal," The victim would then be likely to wander from village to village, Lapin tells, earning the reputation as the village idiot.
         Off Topic?   This excerpted article was shared with me by someone attempting to illustrate an entirely different point.  I may have totally misinterpreted this. My supposition is…  Maybe the “trial by ordeal” followed by their sense of being rescued would explain not just the bond of the Daytopian believer, but also the clearly lacking erudition.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 09:29:27 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
Sekto,

I must say that your emotions seem to have gotten the better of you. I have been attacking you. For the lies that you say. If you have noticed, which I am confidant you have not. My issue is with your attacks on individuals. Whom you claim, you heard things about. You have, (on many occasions) said things on this site that are not facts but lies. The people you try and slander do not deserve it. Yes, I have attacked you and I will continue too, as long as you keep up the lies. I have never once said that Daytop is for everyone. In fact, I am sure many people have valid issues to pick with various things about the program. You on the other hand want to blame the program and some of the Good people associated with it. In particular, the ones who have since passed on. This is another sign of your weakness and unresolved bullshit. What if I do have a 5th grade education? Does this make me or anyone else less then you? By your previous post, I gather you think it does.
I suggest you begin to come to terms with your failures and begin to take responsibility for your own shit. You treated people poorly and you have to live with that. Do not blame Daytop because you failed, Blame yourself. Do you think all the people who Daytop has helped or who tried to help, all conspired against you? Do you think they want to see people fail?  If you’re Honest and I question whether you can be, then you know that they didn't. The fact is the program didn't help you. Deal with it. Stop blaming everyone for your own shit. What about all the people who have been helped. What about all the success people have had? Does this matter? According to you, it does not. I know as many who have read your lies know, that Daytop is successful and has been around so long because it does work and it does help people. So deal with it. Perhaps you should move on and find a better way to deal with your shit.  
 :cheers:

What on earth does all this mean?  This says nothing, really.  Most of the time Honesty seems to do a lot of typing, calls me liar, says it's my fault, calls me a failure, but actually says noting other than that.  Honesty refuses to answer the questions put to him/her (naming whatever it is that I am supposedly lying about, explaining the effects of the tradiotional TC modality on the introverted and/or non-neurotypical) and instead goes for the tired old ad hominem routine.  Honesty types a lot, but says nothing other than "DAYTOP good, critics bad, DAYTOP good, critics bad,what a crick of shit, DAYTOP good, critics bad, DAYTOP good, critics bad, it's your fault..."  Basically honesty is saying that anybody who questions the program or feels hard done by DAYTOP hasn't yet dealt with their issues.  What does that mean, anyway?  Arrogant and condescending is what it is, crude and hostile too.  DAYTOP didn't teach this person much in the way of compassion or empathy.

You and me were there.  We know what happened.  Honesty was not, and does not.  Very simple.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 10:03:23 PM
SETKO:
It seems that if a person’s sense of self is tied in to something other than themselves, then that person would perceive anything spoken against that something as a personal attack. “Honesty” may be internalizing the grievances of those who speak against the program. Such a personalization could incite responses that are based more on emotion than due consideration.
That said, my own emotional response based on my experiences, is that most of the DAYTOP Villagers I’ve encountered appeared to be limited to a narrow perspective and others… um, stupefied.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 10:37:35 PM
Tell us something please, Honesty: you mentioned that you are not in full agreement with DAYTOP in many areas of it's policies and practices; would you mind explaining to us what some of your points of contention with that organization are?

My thoughts:

There has been no hint that DAYTOP actually needs such a yes-man as Honesty as their spokesperson, but, by all appearances, as far as Honesty is concerned that doesn't matter. He/she does not want to wait for another actual incidence of persecution to occur, he/she wants to prevent further threats to his/her security from arising.

Honesty reminds me of that kid Robert in The Wave, who volunteers to be Mr. Ross' bodyguard. Robert starts to dress like Mr. Ross, talk like Mr. Ross, follow Mr. Ross around, etc.

The Monsignor and DAYTOP have made Honesty feel good about him/herself, probably for the first time in his/her life, and Honesty wants to do everything he/she can to make sure that nothing further happens to expose DAYTOP and hurt the credibility of the man and group that have given this person their  new-found improved self-image.

Honesty's is a very typical position in most cult groups. People outside of the group are viewed either as potential members or potential enemies of the group. They are not usually considered appropriate for friendships-whether close or casual, and are therefore worthy of what social psychologists would call "moral exclusion."

All cults and abusive organizations view themselves as engaged in some all-important work, whether it is to convert lost souls, spread "The Truth," improve the well-being of members, to keep people sober, or simply raise money. Nothing can be permitted to interfere with this all-important mission.

Honesty's is a classic expression of the "end justifies the means" argument. This is a terrible concept under the best of circumstances, as it permits deception and other unethical behavior in the pursuit of "good" goals.

Honesty (and all of the DAYTOPians for that matter) needs to learn that his/her importance and worth as a person does not depend on any role or function that he/she fills in a group-his/her value (and that of all people) rests in the fact that he/she is a human being. One is not more valuable because one possesses a high IQ, has forsaken all to follow Jesus, has many possessions, lives in a three-story mansion, has been sober for twenty years, has a fifth-grade education or a PhD.

After all, it is DAYTOP that makes Honesty feel so good about him/herself-so self-confident and worthwhile, probably for the first time in his/her life. He/she may believe that he/she has no options outside of the group, and that is not a happy prospect for him/her.

So rather than receive the message, he/she attacks the messenger through use of the (big words) ad hominem attack. After a certain point it seems that Honesty is unable to refute the logical, objective arguments put to him/her and so he does what people often do in such a situation: he/she attacks DAYTOP's critics personally. If one party to a dispute can discredit the other party in some way, then it is easier to to discredit that person's arguments.

This is what trolls like Honesty engage in time after time, argument for the sake of argument, and it is quite a childish and tiresome tactic.

There is a potential danger with such public testimonials, such as Honesty's, Magificent's, or or any others. If the testimony is to a person or a human organization (as in this case since, after all, DAYTOP is a human organization which is led by humans and not by God Himself) there is the possibility that the person or organization may change in time from good to bad. For example, teaching discipline to students or to one's own children is essentially good, and getting them to articulate answers to spoken questions may facilitate learning. But discipline may mutate into abuse, if, for example, the teacher or parent or (whoever the leader may be) instead of hitting his desk with the dowel, so to speak, hits a student with a dowel or a whip, makes them sit in a chari for hours at a time or makes them wear a pacifier. At this point, since Honesty and the rest have made public statements praising DAYTOP (just as the character of Robert in the short film made a public statement praising The Wave) it will be much harder for him to admit that it is abusive. It is humiliating to have to "eat one's words" and Honesty/Magnificent/whoever will more than likely redefine the abuses as "discipline" designed to improve the student/DAYTOP resident who was humiliated or otherwise mistreated.

This is very much like what happens with the woman who is physically abused by her husband. Having expressed her love for him and committed herself to living with him "for better or for worse" she finds it impossible to entertain the thought that he could and would deliberately hurt her. So she redefines the abuse and views it either as discipline to make her a better wife and mother, or as a punishment she deserves for failing to please her husband.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 11:02:03 PM
I don't know about the program that you're talking about and I'm sure that it was terrible but let it go.  How long ago did you say it was?  It seems that all you want to do is go on and on about how bad the place was.  Don't you think it's time to move on or are you one of those who wants to wallow?  Dude you have serious problems.  And making fun of spelling?  Is that where you go when someone gets to you and you don't know where else to go?  You consider yourself an intellect and when you do something like make fun of spelling I don't see an intellect I see a child trying to be meaner then the other kid.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 11:15:50 PM
Careful study of the Monsignor's words in You Can't Do It Alone, will reveal a lot about the DAYTOP mentality; it's something to the effect of (and I had to give the copy I read back to the library therefore I do not have one with me from which to make citations), "allegiance to one another," support(ing) one another," work(ing) together," "obey(ing) the rules," and "supporting the DAYTOP family."  

The Monsignor writes in a manner very much like Mr. Ross' speech to his class, from The Third Wave)...

"Now, through hard work and allegiance to one another you will learn faster and accomplish more. But only if you support one another, and only if you work together and obey the rules you can ensure the success of The Wave."

He does not quite write, "We must support one another regardless of what any of us does," but that could easily be implied from what he does write. I see this theme over and over again in the Monsignor's writings.

Honesty's still trying to do the goose-step just right. Poor Honesty.

"DAYTOP, DAYTOP uber alles..."

In cultic groups like DAYTOP it is essential to live in "unity" with the other members, and especially with the leader(s).

In practice, however, the "unity" that is promoted in cultic groups such as DAYTOP is really "uniformity." Members must believe alike, think alike, talk alike, (sound familiar, Honesty?) and often even look alike. Divergences from even minor points of doctrine and practice is usually not allowed. When it is allowed, those who think differently are not permitted to express their differences publicly. If they do, there are consequences to pay. In DAYTOP, aren't these consequences called "Haircuts" or "encounter groups?"

Cultic and other overly authoritarian groups (again, DAYTOP is a typical example of this) do not recognize that there can be unity without uniformity.

As human beings we (or at least, most of us) need to be in relationship to other people. We need others as friends, confidants, lovers, etc. to offer us affirmation, solace, correction, fellowship, etc.

In normal, healthy relationships, however, we also need time and space for ourselves occasionally so we can obtain rest and spend time in reflection. We will on occasion voluntarily give up our personal agenda on occasion to meet an emergency, whether it concerns our family, out community, or our nation. But once the emergency has passed we go back to our normal lives again.

In abusive group like DAYTOP this personal agenda is seldom if ever granted; the member is almost always, if not always, giving up his own right to privacy and the pursuit of his own goals in order to pursue the goals of the group and to submit to the agenda of his authority.

Finally, the process of group building, when it becomes abusive, creates a system that is mutually addictive to both founder(s) and followers. The followers need the founder/leader/Monsignor to make them feel that they are realizing the proffered goal; the founder/leader/Monsignor needs his followers (some call them the leader's "narcissistic supply") to make him feel successful, powerful, and truly enlightened.

Some more thoughts about The Wave, relating more directly to the theme of nurturing vs. coercion:

At one point, speaking about his class's renewed order, which is coming about as a result of the new "game" that they are playing, Mr. Ross states: "It's as if they wanted to be disciplined."

This is a profound statement, in my opinion.

I believe that Mr. Ross is in fact correct, that most teenagers, and most hard-core addicts in treatment, want at least some discipline. They may not always be consciously aware that they want it, and they certainly won't tell their parents or counselors that they want discipline, but without it they often feel insecure, lacking direction.

It is a truism that to be in one's teens and early twenties is a most difficult period of life; young people, such as the young people DAYTOP seems to target, are in a major transition period of life from childhood to adulthood. They are beginning to take on or be given greater responsibility over their own lives, making decisions for themselves that some authority-parents, teachers, etc.-formerly made for them. This can be either a heady experience or an unsettling one, often both at the same time. If some group like DAYTOP comes along and offers guidance, even in the form of discipline,this can be experienced as relief from the pressure of decision-making.

Later on in the film, Mr. Ross states, "It's amazing how much they like you when you make decisions for them."

This is IMO another profound statement, and it is a corollary of the first statement ("It's as if they wanted to be disciplined.") Adolescence and early adulthood is a notoriously difficult period of life. It is a transition from childhood to adulthood, with young people wanting and being able to make more decisions for themselves. Decisions that an authority (teacher, parent, etc.) formerly made for them they are now having to make for themselves. And they are having to think about their futures: what career should they pursue? What do they want to look for in a potential mate? What do they believe about the meaning of life? This can be a bit unsettling, even scary, for a lot of young people. If some group like DAYTOP comes along and offers "assistance" in the form of quick and easy "answers" to these questions, or even to make some or most of those decisions for them, then this can be experienced as a major relief.

I believe that this is how and why DAYTOP generally only succeeds in enticing people to join the the group as staff, when the potential recruits are barely adults, whether chronologically or emotionally speaking.

I pray that the DAYTOPians will read and thoughtfully consider that which I have written.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 11:25:41 PM
I wonder how someone who “does not know of the program being talked about” just wandered in. I’m also amused that someone who admits ignorance of the heart of the matter of the topic at hand would be moved to put their two cents in. Whoever you are, you should conserve your resources until you have something of value to contribute...perhaps better spent on something you do know about.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 11:30:11 PM
Quote from: "Guest"
I don't know about the program that you're talking about and I'm sure that it was terrible but let it go.  How long ago did you say it was?  It seems that all you want to do is go on and on about how bad the place was.  Don't you think it's time to move on or are you one of those who wants to wallow?  Dude you have serious problems.  And making fun of spelling?  Is that where you go when someone gets to you and you don't know where else to go?  You consider yourself an intellect and when you do something like make fun of spelling I don't see an intellect I see a child trying to be meaner then the other kid.

The program has been running to my detriment (and I have not been consciously aware of this fact) for the better part of 15 years.  

These are things that I have not thought about or written of in years and years.  

The catharsis that I find on this board is itself a part of my letting go process, a part of my therapy.   I am purging myself of the DAYTOP mentality through this board.  

And I don't need this fool Honesty getting in the way of my healing.

In writing what I have written, I have had to withstand a barrage of attacks from these people, attacks on my character and state of mind.  

They call me a liar, a failure, a psych patient.  

Frankly, yes, I'd have more respect for their point of view if what they wrote was just a little more cogent and articulate, or if they could at least spell or put together a proper sentence.  As it is, I'm dealing with some guy who writes on a third grade level and brings nothing to the table other than, "what a crock of shit.  It's your fault that you're such a failure."

But one thing they won't do, they won't even answer questions put to them or give any reasoned, thoughtful replies at all.  They dismiss all I've put out here as "complete fabrication."

Complete fabrication nothing.  I'll take you right to Mike Gomez's grave if you like.

They are rude, hostile, and simplistic in their thinking.  All they do is call me a liar and attack my character, and need to take a seat back at the kids' table where they belong.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 11:37:49 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
I wonder how someone who “does not know of the program being talked about” just wandered in. I’m also amused that someone who admits ignorance of the heart of the matter of the topic at hand would be moved to put their two cents in. Whoever you are, you should conserve your resources until you have something of value to contribute...perhaps better spent on something you do know about.

Thanks for having my back, Inculcated.  I'd love it if you wrote to me, but respect you and I respect the fact that you may choose not to do so.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on March 10, 2009, 11:41:55 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
They are rude, hostile, and simplistic in their thinking.  All they do is call me a liar and attack my character, and need to take a seat back at the kids' table where they belong.

Yes, but at the same time it's amusing.  I almost feel sorry for how they embarrass themselves sometimes by the way they act.  I recently ended up on Pathway Family Center's shitlist, incdedentally:

http://www.pathwaytruth.org/critics.html (http://www.pathwaytruth.org/critics.html)

It's pretty funny, actually.  Reminds me of Scientology's "religious freedom watch"
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 10, 2009, 11:49:04 PM
Quote from: "psy"
Quote from: "SEKTO"
They are rude, hostile, and simplistic in their thinking.  All they do is call me a liar and attack my character, and need to take a seat back at the kids' table where they belong.

Yes, but at the same time it's amusing.  I almost feel sorry for how they embarrass themselves sometimes by the way they act.  I recently ended up on Pathway Family Center's shitlist, incdedentally:

http://www.pathwaytruth.org/critics.html (http://www.pathwaytruth.org/critics.html)

It's pretty funny, actually.  Reminds me of Scientology's "religious freedom watch"

I hear ya, psy.  

These people do more to undermine DAYTOP's credibility than I could ever hope to do by myself, you know?

They are their own worst enemies.  I love it how they do half the work for me.  They make DAYTOP look bad better than anybody else ever could.

Like I said before, these people are actually an embarrassment to DAYTOP.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 10, 2009, 11:54:12 PM
You people are nuts.  It's funny to read hwo trying to be cool in your response but you're nut jobs.  It's fun to blog something and then one of you come back with some stupit crap.  I could keep you going forever and you all would follow.  Talk about cults what do you think you all have become.  If people don't agree with you you attack, if they agree you kiss their asses.  You're all a joke.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 11, 2009, 12:03:08 AM
Blah blah blah slander blah blah blah you're full of hate hate blah blah blah you're sick blah blah blah you're a failure blah blah blah you're crazy blah blah blah.

I've withstood more nonsense than that in my lifetime, man.  Your little insults aren't shit to me.  I've heard tougher words in the barracks after a bad night of drinking than I've EVER read here.

I was in the Army and spent 11 months in Iraq (OIF3).  

I went through BCT at Ft. Benning, and trained with the best infantrymen in the world.  I was part of 3ID, the Rock of the Marne, hooah.  I've been in combat and seen Iraqis all shot to bits, watched IEDs blow the hell out of armored vehicles and crazy shit like that.

So don't you know that I've heard it all before, been insulted by some of the best?  Do you think maybe I've been a little desensitized to abuse and suffering, mine and that on the part of others?   Do you think that maybe I'm trying to recover from some of these things?  Do you think maybe my nerves are kinda shot?

You'll have to try harder than that.  It does not hurt my feelings, junior.  Do you know who you're writing to?

You DAYTOPians all take such pains to try and discredit me...but, that would mean that I am often "on target", so to speak, IMO.   ::unhappy::
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 11, 2009, 12:29:13 AM
Quote from: "Guest"
You people are nuts.  It's funny to read hwo trying to be cool in your response but you're nut jobs.  It's fun to blog something and then one of you come back with some stupit crap.  I could keep you going forever and you all would follow.  Talk about cults what do you think you all have become.  If people don't agree with you you attack, if they agree you kiss their asses.  You're all a joke.
To Guest (the one with the allergy to nuts)
Your post is reminiscent of the previously unnamed contribution (probably for the self proclaimed ignorance) I’m going to call you Big Spender… B.S. for short. You don’t to spell out your need for negative attention or your paucity of knowledge. That’s all really obvious.  It’s just that you don’t understand or even care to understand the purpose of this forum that troubles you.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on March 11, 2009, 02:20:07 PM
I’m trying to metabolize the food for thought to be had here, but the intrusions turn my stomach.
I’m trying to understand how the reverberations of my immersion within DAYTOP have played out in to my present life. The impact of my experience at DAYTOP calls to mind in me something my psychologist calls “betrayal trauma”. Granted, there are other non-DAYTOP influences that have contributed to the quandary I find myself in, while trying to deal with my experiences. (“Lightening” has stricken me more than I care to share, and taken the life of a girl I loved very much.)
Trust, has been in my thoughts as I examine the fact that it’s nearly impossible for me to feel it. Most of the time, I vacillate between suspended disbelief and a sense of being unreachable. This inhibits my attempts to deal with treatment abuse related issues in therapy. Of course other issues are impeded by my distrust. Knowing this hasn’t helped. Priming, Habituation, Basic Associative learning… These have instilled in me at an early age the only defenses I can conjure (That don’t include disappearing into the nearest patterned object).
Meanwhile, I smile.
How have others who have been harmed by those in the “helping professions”…deal?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 12, 2009, 05:06:14 PM
You guys are a joy but I'm disappointed you didn't pick up on my spelling.  And oh yeah I would say that I'm the one on target Septic boy.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on March 12, 2009, 06:15:14 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
How have others who have been harmed by those in the "helping professions"…deal?

That's a tough one. Are you talking about your Daytop experience, or your attempts to recover from your Daytop experience?

Many therapists are really quite ill-equipped to deal with this sort of thing, especially when the event was some time ago. Not only is there damage due to the length of time the wounds have festered, there may also be additional damage accrued from self-destructive choices made as a result of the original wound. And some -- even well-meaning -- therapists can add yet more damage to that brew as a result of their ignorance.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on March 12, 2009, 10:05:50 PM
Quote from: "Ursus"
Quote from: "Inculcated"
How have others who have been harmed by those in the "helping professions"…deal?

-- even well-meaning -- therapists can add yet more damage to that brew as a result of their ignorance.

     DAYTOP was one of my damaged in treatment experiences.  I assimilated so quickly in to DAYTOP’s program due to my age and the situation I was coming out of. I was desperate for something that made sense and thought for a while that I had found it. That is until being instructed to conspire with silence about the circumstances that sent me to residential. I actually felt more betrayed by DAYTOP counselors (that I had trusted) for that, than toward the perv’.  
   Of course there is a cumulative effect of other experiences (preceding DAYTOP and following). I’m opting to not elaborate in detail. I have shared these (to the extent that I am able) in current therapy.  I believe the ‘ologist means well. (My ‘iatrist just writes scripts). I am so conflicted about the trust that’s required for treatment to be effective.
So, with treatment abuse induced rage and lack of trust, are some people untreatable?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on March 15, 2009, 06:37:35 PM
I’ll rephrase the question. How does a person who has been subjected to ill-treatment in treatment, find persons who are equipped to deal with such issues? Ursus seems right on it with mention of the “additional damages accrued from self destructive choices” (resulting of the original wound).
How have people in this forum found their way through the destructive influences left in the wake of treatment abuses?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on March 15, 2009, 06:46:30 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
How have people in this forum found their way through the destructive influences left in the wake of treatment abuses?

Some have, some haven't.  Figuring out how the program works (and how thought reform works) has been the best healing for me, personally.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 16, 2009, 12:39:53 AM
The place where I am now, the legitimate, non-coercive Meadow Haven program that I am working my way through,  has been tremendously beneficial toward my learning self-acceptance and in my overall healing process after my experiences in various abusive groups, all of which DAYTOP helped to set me up for.  I am fortunate enough to be in therapy with two of the foremost experts on the thought reform process in this country.  These people specialize in treating victims of overly controlling and abusive groups.  The Pardons (that is Bob and Judy Pardon) saved my life and are helping me to rebuild it, and have been nothing but a tremendous blessing to me.  I have been in Meadow Haven for a little more than six months and just cannot tell you how far I have come.  Meadow Haven and Wellspring, that's it in this country in terms of treatment centers for persons who have exited various cultic situations, whether they took place in a religious, pseudo-therapeutic, political, or other context.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Antigen on March 16, 2009, 08:41:11 AM
Quote from: "psy"
 I recently ended up on Pathway Family Center's shitlist, incdedentally:

http://www.pathwaytruth.org/critics.html (http://www.pathwaytruth.org/critics.html)


Way ta go, Psy! You know I must be slackin when I don't even make those lists any more. LOL
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on March 18, 2009, 02:20:24 PM
Thank you for your replies.  I’m going to let the sum of my anger x betrayal = vigilance, for now.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 18, 2009, 07:42:14 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Thank you for your replies.  I’m going to let the sum of my anger x betrayal = vigilance, for now.

You're welcome.  I'd begin by reading Combatting Cult Mind Control, by Steve Hassan.  It'll help you gain a better understanding of the thought reform process and its dynamics.

Then I'd read Mongignor O'Brien's book You Can't Do It Alone if you want to refresh your memory in understanding the DAYTOP mentality and "treatment" philosophy, also if you want to learn about DAYTOP's history, origins, connection to Synanon, etc.  

Next I recommend reading D. Casriel's So Fair a House.  It'll give you an understanding of Charles Dederich and the Synanon program he created.  

A familiarity with and understanding of Synanon is the key to understanding DAYTOP.  DAYTOP is, I'd say, essentially a Synanon clone program, which itself was a Dianetics-derived program.  

Dederich appropriated a lot of ideas and techniques from LRH, and O'Brien appropriated a lot of ideas and techniques in turn from Dederich.

In other words: Dianetics to Synanon to DAYTOP, it's all the same stuff, successively adapted over the years, just tweaked and refined as circumstances demanded.  

DAYTOP is, in the final analysis, a third-generation Dianetics-based cultic pseudotherapy group.

LRH once said that his whole mission in developing Dianetics was to learn how to turn the human soul inside out, or something to that effect.  DAYTOP is part of the fruit of the tree that LRH planted, and it just disgusted and enraged me to discover all of this history and background.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 18, 2009, 08:58:36 PM
Also, to be fair, I should say that I never have read Dianetics and probably will not do so anytime soon.  I have looked it over, and it seems like chloroform on paper to me.  I am however, a little familiar with LRH's theories with respect to this "science of the mind."  Actually, I really ought to read it someday, though, to help to expand my knowledge and understanding of these matters.  

Psy: did you say that you've read Dianetics, and if so, what did you think?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on March 18, 2009, 11:44:07 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
did you say that you've read Dianetics, and if so, what did you think?

Some of it actually makes a fair amount of sense. I can see how people are sucked into Scientology through it.  Problem is although it makes sense and *sounds* true... it's not backed up by science (and contradicted in many cases).

That being said, a lot of what Dianetics teaches flat out contradicts the whole concept of powerlessness, so i'm skeptical as to how much Dederich would have adopted into Synanon.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 19, 2009, 12:40:42 AM
Hmmm...yes, I ought to read Dianetics.  It looks kind of lame, but who knows?   In any case, it'll be edifying, at least in terms of aiding my understanding of Synanon and DAYTOP, and the connections between all three.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on April 01, 2009, 03:39:58 PM
Let's start honestly looking at the Pardons

Bob Pardon to the rescue (continued)

BY CHRIS WRIGHT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Intervention is indeed a tricky and controversial business. The days when cult-busters could ride into town and snatch victims out from under their captors’ noses are long gone. Though forced extraction was widely used the 1970s, a series of crippling lawsuits and mounting ethical concerns have rendered the practice obsolete for the past 20 years. "I used to be involved in that," says Hassan, "but I don’t do abducting any more. It’s so incredibly traumatizing for everyone, including me. I basically don’t do anything illegal any more."

One of the last holdouts of the old-school approach was a New Jersey–based researcher named Rick Ross, who admits to having used coerced-extraction techniques as late as 1994. "I got involved in a lawsuit with the Church of Scientology," he says. "I realized I was going to spend more time with my lawyers than with my work, so I stopped." Today, none of the dozen or so full-time cult researchers in the US uses coercion — or at least none will admit to doing so. "It’s not like the old days where you could literally go and kidnap someone, take them to a motel room, and nail the door shut," says Bob Pardon. "You have to have a much more respectful approach."

These days, the Pardons favor a process called "exit counseling," which entails spending up to a year educating the family of a victim, creating strategies to build trust between the family and group leaders, devising a way to lure the victim away from the group for a few days, then subtly giving that person information about cults that will help him see his own predicament, and thus willingly make his escape. Which isn’t as easy as it may sound.

Generally, interventions are initiated by the families of cult members. For the vast majority of the people actually in cults, leaving is a wrenching, painful affair. "You never have people saying, ‘I’m so glad you came! Let’s get out of here!’" says Bob. "People routinely tell you, ‘I’m happy here. What are you doing?’ The cult has essentially created a cult persona. A layering of cult identity has been established."

In recent years, the process of breaking through those layers has also undergone a major overhaul. Today, few exit counselors ascribe to the once-popular strategy of "deprogramming," in which the survivor has his cult-instilled beliefs drummed out of him, forcibly and mercilessly. At best, goes the conventional wisdom now, this fighting-fire-with-fire approach leaves an individual with a slew of unresolved issues buried just below the surface. At worst, it sends that person back into the arms of the group.

"People have to come to their own conclusions," says Bob. "When you come out of a group, you’ve already had people dictating reality to you. The last thing we want to do is dictate reality for them. So what we do is give them the tools to work through things, to understand things on their own."

"The biggest thing is the issue of trust," adds Judy. "They don’t trust anyone, even themselves. So the first thing we have to do is build bridges, so they’ll trust us enough to start doing this work. It’s incredibly emotional, very draining for them. It’s a long, involved process."

"This isn’t like leaving the Kiwanis or some kind of fraternity or sorority," continues Bob. "You have based the very essence of who you are on this belief system, and you find out now that it is false."

Dismantling a belief system, of course, is no walk in the park. Over the years, the Pardons came to believe that they could work more effectively with some of the more damaged cult survivors if they had full-time access to them. For a while, Judy put people up in her own home. "That," she says, "was very difficult." Last fall, with the help of private donors, the couple opened Meadow Haven, a rambling former nursing home in rural Lakeville, in Southern Massachusetts.

"We’re here to help people put their lives back together," says Bob, "to help them in any way that they need."

Exactly what kind of help a recovering cult member is supposed to get remains somewhat up in the air. The field is, for sure, more an art than a science. "You can’t go to school for it," says Bob. "I can tell you that." Over the years, researchers like Steve Hassan and Robert Jay Lifton have published books outlining what destructive mind-control groups are and suggesting ways to ease people out of them. Still, the cult-member-rehabilitation process remains a nascent, amorphous enterprise, and the Pardons will readily admit to drawing heavily from whatever sources are on hand. "I’m very eclectic," Bob says. "I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel."

The kind of help that has been made available to residents of Meadow Haven so far has been a mix of therapy, religious counseling, exercise, education, rest, and large doses of TLC. "I’ve been overwhelmed with gratitude to Bob and Judy," says Kerry, sitting on a sofa in the center’s large, brightly lit living room. "This whole experience has been so intrusive to my person, to my identity, to my family structure, to my relationships. I lost all my friends. It’s such a devastating point to be at. So to receive unconditional love from people was an incredible experience. They didn’t expect anything from me — they just gave and gave and gave."

but The work that Bob and Judy Pardon do is not without controversy. A few years back, Bob became a central figure in the Attleboro-sect case, in which members Jacques and Karen Robidoux were arrested in connection with the deaths of two children. Along with becoming a constant presence in news stories about the episode, Bob served as an adviser for authorities handling the case, writing up a comprehensive report on the sect, and was even named guardian ad litem — or court-appointed advocate — for the group’s remaining children. Today, Bob routinely consults with police, social-services agencies, and lawyers about cult issues.

Andrew Walsh, a religious historian at Trinity College in Hartford, finds this troubling. "I’m by no means an expert on cults," Walsh says. "I wouldn’t go around saying that what Robert Pardon does is bad for people. But what’s interesting to me is that he got an awful lot of mileage out of being a ‘cult expert’ while not being open about that fact that he is religious himself. His group sounds academic and nonprofit-y, and he presents it that way because if he called it the Anti-Cult Ministry, people wouldn’t call him, judges wouldn’t call him. It seemed to me that he positioned himself as a kind of free agent able to comment objectively about the [Attleboro] case, and journalists just ate that up and gave him oceans of ink without saying who he was."

One journalist who did call into question Bob Pardon’s religious background was the Boston Globe’s Eileen McNamara, who, in February 2002, wrote a scathing column in which she basically accused Pardon of browbeating Attleboro group members into accepting his version of Christianity. To bolster her case, McNamara included excerpts of a letter Pardon had written to member David Corneau. "I can testify to you that your beliefs and practices are not consistent with His Word, nor, more profoundly, with His character," the letter read. "How God must weep over your decisions." Bob, meanwhile, insists that his letter was taken out of context. "She misinterpreted it," he says. "She quoted only parts of it, had it say things I didn’t intend to say."

Even those who count themselves among the Pardons’ supporters, however, admit to having concerns about the couple’s fervent Christianity. "This is a hard one," says the AFF’s Carol Giambavo. "It’s better to have someone who understands the issues around Scripture-twisting, who can help unravel that. But when you help get someone out of a group, very often they’ll transfer their dependency needs onto you. You have to be very careful not to transfer your religious beliefs onto them."

"They are very careful about that," insists Kerry. "They joke about it — ‘This is the Cult of Bob.’ But they definitely didn’t try to take the place [of Tariq’s group]. I became very needy with my mom, much more than with Bob and Judy. They encouraged me to branch out and make friends."

Then there’s the question of who pays for all this. Meadow Haven has an annual operating budget, says Judy Pardon, of about $100,000. Though some of this is offset by gifts from the families of cult members the Pardons have helped (they do not charge for their work), the bulk of Meadow Haven’s funding comes from private donors, many of them Christians who, as Steve Hassan puts it, "maybe have expectations that Bob and Judy are doing more evangelical work than they are."

All the same, Hassan is quick to add that he doesn’t believe the Pardons have a surreptitious religious agenda. "I don’t think they’ve ever tried to tell me I shouldn’t be Jewish," he says, adding, "I think the world of Bob and Judy. They’re genuinely kind people. They’re for real."

No matter what you say about the Pardons, you cannot doubt their commitment. Even their romantic relationship — they married two years ago — seems to have blossomed from the work they do together. At first glance, they are an odd couple. Bob, 51, is a bearded, slightly ruffled, jovial man with a penchant for wearing Stetsons and making wisecracks. Judy, 59, is a slight woman with long, reddish hair, bird-like energy, and a tendency to use the language of self-help. On the issue of their work, however, Bob and Judy speak very much with one voice — sometimes literally.

Bob: "We deal with this all the time ..."

Judy: "People say because we’re Christians ..."

Bob: "We’re jamming our beliefs down people’s throats ..."

Judy: "The spiritual aspect has to be dealt with ..."

Bob: "Has to be dealt with ..."

Judy: "Because that’s what the foundation is on ..."

Bob: "At some point you’re going to have to deal with this ..."

Judy: "But we’re not going to tell people they have to believe what we believe ..."

Bob: "That would be unethical ..."

In any event, it seems clear that Kerry has benefited from her stay at Meadow Haven. "There are times I’ve been extremely angry," she says, "especially remembering the abuse. It makes me infuriated. But it took me a long time to get to that point. For a long time I still had intense feelings of love and adoration for Tariq. I’d like to reach a point where I could forgive him, if only for myself. He’s a sinner just like I’m a sinner. I also did terrible things to people."

Recently, Kerry made contact with her old cult-mates — the people to whom she did those terrible things. "Obviously, it’s very weird," she says. "I’ve apologized, asked for their forgiveness. They even say to me, ‘Kerry, we know it wasn’t you, we know it. You weren’t the one doing this to us.’ So they understand, you know, why. But it’s awful for me to have to face them. I don’t even know how to express my sorrow and my remorse and my guilt and my — just total disgust with myself for doing that."

More will be revealed. :notworthy:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on April 07, 2009, 12:54:29 AM
Scientology to Synanon to DAYTOP.  There is a common denominator, a common influence bewteen all of these groups, that I am in the process of unraveling.  It all seems to have started with the publication of Dianetics, when you start to trace the history thing back.  All roads lead back to Ron, the mad genius.

On the topic of Hubbard/Dederich, Scientology/Synanon connection, here are quotes substantianting a possible link between.  Pay particular attention to the use of the word "game."  Think of the Synanon "game."  I think that Dederich most probably learned a thing or two from Hubbard.  From A Piece of Blue Sky:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shel ... /bs9-2.htm (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/bs9-2.htm)

Thetans are all-knowing beings, and became bored because there were no surprises. Hubbard asserted that the single most important desire in all beings is to have a "game." To have a "game" it was necessary to "not know" certain things, so certain perceptions were negated ("not-is-ed"). More and more perception and knowledge had to be abandoned as time passed, and some Thetans started the "game" of creating traps for other Thetans. Believing it possible to harm others, Thetans learned contrition, and punished themselves for their own "harmful" acts. An ongoing part of this self-imposed punishment is dwindling perception.

One universe ended and another began, and there have been many universes, each more solid and entrapping than the last. An essential part of the game was the "conquest" of matter, energy, space and time by the life force, Theta. In each universe Thetans have become more enmeshed in matter, energy, space and time (MEST), to the point where many have identified themselves totally with it, and consider themselves nothing but MEST. Thetans are by now in a hypnoid state, having forgotten their quadrillions of years of existence and their original godly power, barely capable of even leaving their bodies at will.

Thetans nevertheless have the power of "postulate." Whatever they intend comes into being. Negative decisions and opinions, or "bad postulates," generate a negative destiny. For quadrillenia, Thetans have been "implanting" one another with hypnotic suggestions, and clustering other Thetans together (turning most into "body-Thetans' '). Scientology seeks to undo "other-determinism," and return the Thetan to "self-determinism," and eventually to "pan-determinism" where he acts for the good of all.

Most of these ideas can be found elsewhere. "Before the beginning was a Cause" is highly reminiscent of the central premise of the Tao Teh Ching. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna teaches Arjuna that he is immortal and imperishable, that life is a game, and that in truth no harm can be done to others, as they too are immortal and imperishable. The comparable word for "Thetan" is "atman." The doctrine of reincarnation is common to several major religions. That we reap as we have sown, or karma-vipaka, even more so. The emphasis upon the development of Intention, or the ability to postulate, in Scientology comes straight from Crowley's "thelema" or Will, upon which most magical systems concentrate.

To sum up: Hubbard saw the individual's current state as a fall from grace, but the individual's own grace, not that of God. He saw the Thetan as an all-capable individual, who has gradually restricted his powers, over "quadrillions" of years, in part to have a "game," and in part for fear of hurting others. He called this degeneration the "dwindling spiral." In Scientology counselling, the Preclear is directed back to incidents in his past existences which have shaped his way of thinking (and consequently his current circumstances). A better future is to be obtained by release from quadrillenia of long forgotten conditioning and guilt. Sociologists use the term "neo-gnosticism" to describe such beliefs when they are allied to a supposed system of enlightenment (many of the original Christian gnostic sects spent their time learning the passwords which would give them entry to heaven after death).


http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shel ... /bs9-1.htm (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/atack/bs9-1.htm)

Having decided in 1952 that most science fiction is actually a recounting of real past-life experience, Hubbard's own preoccupations as a science fiction writer became the cosmology of his religion. He was an egomaniac who generated an egomaniacal philosophy, which had at its core the belief that whatever happens to others is their own fault. Whatever happened to L. Ron Hubbard was the fault of a great Conspiracy. He advocated personal responsibility to his followers, but almost uniformly failed to practice what he preached.

Lately I have been reading this biography of LRH called A Piece of Blue Sky, studying the life of LRH and the dissemination of his ideas.  I find it to be quite remarkable.  

In the recent past, I as well read So Fair a House, and find CED to be quite a remarkable individual.  But LRH, he was the Donald Trump of cult leaders.  Incredible.

I can certainly see certain parallels between LRH and CED philosophy, and how CED could have been influenced by Dianetics-inspired thinking, and even certain Scientology principles.  Insofar as both are anti-psychiatry, and both claim to be an extension of Freudian psychotherapy.  In both systems, (Dianetics and the Synanon method) the basic idea is that by re-experiencing unconfronted traumas it is supposedly possible to unravel and eventually resolve deep-seated neuroses.  LRH in this respect appears to be a progenator of the "attack therpy" that Casriel and the rest later continued in a different context (ironically enough, as a form of psychotherapy!)

Both systems depart from Freudian thinking in that they both deny that sexual repressions are basic to psychological aberration.  Both LRH and CED promised a new and improved mental state through the application of Dianetics/Synanon.  

Both LRH and CED were apparently obsessed with the idea of abortion.  I see many similarities.  LRH was a tall-tale teller, plagarist, and pathological liar.  So was CED.

Sure, there are many obvious differences too; CED didn't come up with some system paralleling LRH's Reactive/Analytical/Somatic division of the human mind, for staters.

Will keep studying it out.  What are your thoughts, fornits denizens?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 05, 2009, 09:12:01 PM
Question for Sekto:
‘Been a while. ‘Still reading?
I hesitate to ask this. I’d hate to cause you a flash, but were you ever subjected to Marcy singing that song she wrote about that f*ing bag of love? She’d plunk away on her guitar and yodel it out in morning meetings …and well, just about any other opportunity she had to subject her captive audience to it.
I felt compelled by some commiserating urge to ask you.  In the song she “sang” of herself “sitting upon this window sill …“.  I used to imagine her leaning too far and falling through it. Then we’d have been spared the bruised fruit of her inspiration by her having fallen before ever jotting down her lyrics.
I hate that that song is still in my head. Granted, there are also commercial jingles in there from ages ago, but none so chilling as Marcy's creative process.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on May 05, 2009, 11:59:55 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Both LRH and CED were apparently obsessed with the idea of abortion. I see many similarities. LRH was a tall-tale teller, plagarist, and pathological liar. So was CED.

They all are!! Add to that list: megalomania and narcissism! Lately, I've been reading about Paul Twitchell (http://http://www.eckankar.org/Masters/Peddar/hisStory.html) of Eckankar (who also delved into Scientology at one point). Good Lord, I never knew... Plagiarism, in particular, seems to be de riguer for these harbingers of new "truths," lololol. They all steal from each other.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
Sure, there are many obvious differences too; CED didn't come up with some system paralleling LRH's Reactive/Analytical/Somatic division of the human mind, for staters.

Chuckie did not exactly have a "contemplative turn of mind," if ya get my drift!  :D
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 07, 2009, 05:41:48 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Question for Sekto:
‘Been a while. ‘Still reading?
I hesitate to ask this. I’d hate to cause you a flash, but were you ever subjected to Marcy singing that song she wrote about that f*ing bag of love? She’d plunk away on her guitar and yodel it out in morning meetings …and well, just about any other opportunity she had to subject her captive audience to it.
I felt compelled by some commiserating urge to ask you.  In the song she “sang” of herself “sitting upon this window sill …“.  I used to imagine her leaning too far and falling through it. Then we’d have been spared the bruised fruit of her inspiration by her having fallen before ever jotting down her lyrics.
I hate that that song is still in my head. Granted, there are also commercial jingles in there from ages ago, but none so chilling as Marcy's creative process.

Hey there friend.  Yes, I still check in here to look for new posts.

Thinking about the old days in DAYTOP is not particularly triggering to me anymore, as I have processed the experience thorougly, and well realize what was going on and what happened to me (us) there.  I do not at all mind your asking about my recollections.  

Basically and simply put, it was just one long process of coercion there, and the residual psychological effects lasted well into my adult life.  Once I opened up that door in my mind, a metaphorical door that had been nailed shut for all of those years, a whole lot of old baggage got unpacked and reorganized relatively quickly.  

The only song I specifically remember Marcy singing in Morning Meeting was "Is This America?", which was this downbeat acoustic lesbo-folk number.  I don't remember the tune, or any of the words.  She had more songs in her repertoire, which I can very vaguely recall, but America? is the only one I know by name.

Yeah, I remember now how she sang while playing her guitar, sitting in a chair in front of that big window in the room in the back of the building, the one where we had Morning Meeting. You could look out of that window and see the pool behind her as she sang.

More later.  I need to cook dinner.  It's good to be back!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 09, 2009, 05:42:27 AM
Quote
Basically and simply put, it was just one long process of coercion there, and the residual psychological effects lasted well into my adult life. Once I opened up that door in my mind, a metaphorical door that had been nailed shut for all of those years, a whole lot of old baggage got unpacked and reorganized relatively quickly.

Yeah, I remember now how she sang while playing her guitar, sitting in a chair in front of that big window in the room in the back of the building, the one where we had Morning Meeting. You could look out of that window and see the pool behind her as she sang.

   Laughs. My baggage is currently being handled by a parade of porters, bellhops, and pall bearers. It gets rifled through sometimes and has all too often been checked for contraband (by those who helped pack the trunks). Essentially, this means I’m simply glad to occasionally organize a thought.
                Same staff different buildings. I was there when the “family” had just carpet bagged their way to Texas. We typically had morning meeting on the racket ball courts (no windows) Marcy’s window was in her song. Still, reverie is a way out of anywhere and I think she might’ve benefited from a fall.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 14, 2009, 10:18:41 PM
By the time I got there (in March of '92) DAYTOP was still in Richardson and we had Morning Meeting in that large room in the back of the building, by the pool.  There was this big swimming pool out there in the back yard, but we never used it.  The racketball courts we only used once in a while, for smaller groups during the daytime, but not very often.  By late '93/early '94 they had moved the entire operation out to the Dresser building, but I was on second stage by that time.  All of our Second Stage meetings were held there.  Also, if memory serves, I graduated in late '93, just a few months short of my 20th birthday.  The ceremony was in the Dresser building.  

Later on I (though am not certain of the details) heard through the DAYTOPian grapevine that they got run out of TX a few years after we graduated over some mismanagement and finacial imporoprieties taking place in Athens, stuff about alleged embezzlement that was taking place there.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 16, 2009, 12:07:54 AM
The “family” was small when the Richardson location first opened. The area by the pool was being used for what passed for school (or atleast the time) while I was there. It was at that location where I strove to buy in to what they were hard selling. I was for a time, a model member. My fall from grace happened in such a way that if Athens was open, it was too close to for their comfort (as in not far enough away for them to send me).  I’m supposing you arrived while I was upstate or shortly thereafter.
    I never went to the dresser building. Strangely, I don’t remember anyone other than Jeremiah N. really graduating.
 
    Do any of those you know who were also sent up for residential in New York recall that we were given packs of cigarettes along with sundry items etc.?
I don’t know if that was even legal or even why they chose to accommodate teen smoking.
Why did they allow adults from Swan Lake to collect me from the airport? I was sedated for the trip by a dose of Medea’s “Sit in the chair and be good now”. They hand checked my belongings on the way. When I was in intake and watching my belongings picked over again, I realized the transit search had been just daytopians looking for some of “what she’s having”. Then another birthday and then another facility. I was pretty vocal in my objections to the first of the strip searches. By the third, I knew it was a waste of breath. Ultimately, it was my becoming a persistent suicide risk that sent me free…well back to Texas anyway.

I dare to say that I wished everything suppressed in me at any point would just stay down.Though,I know that’s not possible, nor even healthy.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 17, 2009, 07:52:43 PM
If the back room was used for "school" then where'd you guys have Morning Meeting back then?

We used to smoke indoors, in the coordinators' office, all the time.  That office was the designated indoor smoking area.  Mike Gorman and Marcy would smoke all over the building though.  Mike'd carry an ashtray around in his hand.  Then, after a while, the State of TX got wise to what we were doing and made everybody smoke outside.  Then we had to go out by the pool.

I used to bum smokes off of Ruben and some of the other staff, though of course I was eighteen at the time.  Some of the staff even used to send me on cigarette runs; they'd give me money and I'd go to the gas station down the street to buy packs for them while they were on duty.  I'd get to go for a walk and would get some free smokes for my trouble.  I was a model, true-believing DAYTOPian at the time too, and they knew I would not split.  

Personally, I know nothing of any kids being given cigarettes when they were sent to NY;  I never heard anything like that.  The only kids I recall that went to NY were John Hopkins and a girl named Renee Haynes.  I am not sure where Jeremiah Neal went through residential, but I thought that it was Athens?

Who or what is Medea?  Are you saying that you were literally sedated?  I do not understand.

My only input about what you have supressed is this: if you do not deal with the trauma, then eventually the trauma will deal with you.  You are in legitimate therapy now, is that right?  It sounds like you are on your way towards healing and resolution.  

So I do not blame you for resenting and being angry over your experience.  What DAYTOP did to us is shameful.  It's taken me fifteen years to realize that DAYTOP is an abusive pseudotherapy group.  In my opinion DAYTOP is a full-blown cult; I call it a "sobriety cult."

DAYTOP was certainly detrimental to my well-being, and did me great harm in the long run.

PM me whenever you care too.  I know a few ex-DAYTOPians from back in the day and could put you in touch with some people whom you may remember.  Do not hesitate to let me know if I can help you in any way.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 17, 2009, 09:11:20 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
If the back room was used for "school" then where'd you guys have Morning Meeting back then?
Morning meeting was upstairs in the dining room at first. Somehow we migrated down to the courts, later on.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
We used to smoke indoors, in the coordinators' office, all the time.  That office was the designated indoor smoking area.  Mike Gorman and Marcy would smoke all over the building though.  Mike'd carry an ashtray around in his hand.  Then, after a while, the State of TX got wise to what we were doing and made everybody smoke outside.  Then we had to go out by the pool.
Yes, smoking was allowed in the Daycare (even for those not old enough to legally buy them). It was only in residential in NY that they were provided to us. I even remember that we could choose from 3 or 4 options.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
I used to bum smokes off of Ruben and some of the other staff, though of course I was eighteen at the time.  Some of the staff even used to send me on cigarette runs; they'd give me money and I'd go to the gas station down the street to buy packs for them while they were on duty.  I'd get to go for a walk and would get some free smokes for my trouble.  I was a model, true-believing DAYTOPian at the time too, and they knew I would not split.  
I'm surprised anyone was allowed to go the store. That was revoked from us when one of the boys tried to pass some pretty good but not quite good enough counterfeit 20's around the area.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
Personally, I know nothing of any kids being given cigarettes when they were sent to NY;  I never heard anything like that.  The only kids I recall that went to NY were John Hopkins and a girl named Renee Haynes.  I am not sure where Jeremiah Neal went through residential, but I thought that it was Athens?
I think if Jeremiah did any residential time it would have been in Athens, and then only as part of the transformation to his counselor incarnation. He was their heir apparrent from day one.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
Who or what is Medea?  Are you saying that you were literally sedated?  I do not understand.
Medea  (mother.)Yes and no sense trying to understand .
Quote from: "SEKTO"
My only input about what you have supressed is this: if you do not deal with the trauma, then eventually the trauma will deal with you.  You are in legitimate therapy now, is that right?  It sounds like you are on your way towards healing and resolution.  
…legitimate remains to be seen. (See Inculcated prev. post re: trust issues)

Quote from: "SEKTO"
So I do not blame you for resenting and being angry over your experience.  What DAYTOP did to us is shameful.  It's taken me fifteen years to realize that DAYTOP is an abusive pseudotherapy group.  In my opinion DAYTOP is a full-blown cult; I call it a "sobriety cult."
Gaudenzia, ugh.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
DAYTOP was certainly detrimental to my well-being, and did me great harm in the long run.
When that insight woke in you, when you were able to form the words of it, and then convey them here / to others…each of these has been a step of you returning from that long run and gaining ground on the destination of your choosing.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
PM me whenever you care too.  I know a few ex-DAYTOPians from back in the day and could put you in touch with some people whom you may remember.  Do not hesitate to let me know if I can help you in any way.
THX.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 17, 2009, 10:33:24 PM
This forum has been of great help to me in sorting out my thoughts and feelings, and ultimately towards my healing.  It's a form of reflective journaling, but better, since I have received a lot of validation and support.  Maybe fornits can be a part of your healing process too.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 17, 2009, 10:36:56 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
 Maybe fornits can be a part of your healing process too.
We'll see. LAUGHS. My last post (just moments ago) was to some idiot who considered the statuatory rape of a girl in TC. to be "the least of problems".
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 17, 2009, 11:07:59 PM
My advice to you, friend (not that you asked for it) is to try and ignore the trolls and other jerks who inflitrate these forums and focus instead on getting better, as trite as that may sound.  Don't let the idiots get you down.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 17, 2009, 11:18:33 PM
Was there a girl named Rhiannon there when you were at Daytop, Richardson ?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 17, 2009, 11:53:45 PM
I do not recall anybody by that name.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 18, 2009, 12:38:56 AM
SETKO: Check  PM.
Sleepy now. 'night.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 18, 2009, 05:21:10 PM
PM recieved and replied to.  Thanks for writing to me, and I hope that we can be friends.  

Do you still keep in touch with other DAYTOPians from back then?  I know of a few, and we are still friends.

In fact, I know one fellow from the old days that has no complaints at all about it, thinks back fondly of his time in DAYTOP and is grateful for them.

Let's try and keep this thread going.  My friend "Billy" wrote that one time, but neither he nor the others I know are interested in getting involved here.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on May 18, 2009, 08:33:14 PM
i think you just have your interpitation on what you encounterd in daytop.that is your opinion and your intitled to it,but i also went through daytop and chouldent disagree anymore.i feel daytop was the best thing that ever happend to me.i was also a young teen when there all there groups are benificial and there to help you idenifiey your issues and to help you understand your fellings and how to deal with them along with getting you ready for the realworld that we as addicts never chould deal with on our own hence needing daytop. :cheers:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 18, 2009, 09:13:17 PM
Is that y00-who?   Might it taint your gratification to know that my contempt for you is mixed with pity?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 18, 2009, 09:20:19 PM
:rose:
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Do you still keep in touch with other DAYTOPians from back then?  I know of a few, and we are still friends..
No. I put some distance between myself and Texas at 17, and for the most part have kept it that way.
Quote from: "SEKTO"
In fact, I know one fellow from the old days that has no complaints at all about it, thinks back fondly of his time in DAYTOP and is grateful for them..
I can imagine there being some persons whose time there was brief enough to mitigate the damage. There were also those precious few members of the “family” who seemed to have a knack for neither inciting, nor arousing the glare of the collective. Hmm, I sigh of envy/regret?

I left something of myself behind in an extended group back there that I’ll never get back. I make it sound as if it slipped away. It was wrenched from me.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 18, 2009, 10:24:19 PM
Quote from: "chille"
i think you just have your interpitation on what you encounterd in daytop.that is your opinion and your intitled to it,but i also went through daytop and chouldent disagree anymore.i feel daytop was the best thing that ever happend to me.i was also a young teen when there all there groups are benificial and there to help you idenifiey your issues and to help you understand your fellings and how to deal with them along with getting you ready for the realworld that we as addicts never chould deal with on our own hence needing daytop. :cheers:

Wow, I guess that the educational part of DAYTOP's "getting you ready for the real world" didn't include teaching you proper spelling or punctuation, did it?  

Ever hear of spell check?

Your writing is so bad that I feel like I need to take a shower after reading this stuff.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on May 19, 2009, 09:04:58 AM
Sekto,  Get a life. Remember, you screwed yourself up, not anyone else.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 19, 2009, 10:31:19 AM
So, in your book, is anything bad that happens to others essentially their own fault?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 19, 2009, 06:36:45 PM
Question to “Honesty”:
Honestly, your posts have more to do with petty antagonism than any real intention to defend programming…right?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 19, 2009, 10:12:00 PM
SEKTO:  
Okay, so I was a little sleepy and the tensile strength of my tapestry thread was taught from tangles.
My reference to the movie The Jerk was to infer an analogy of Nathan (main character) clutching his thermos as to be similar to the desperate rationales that those who cling to their programming seem to find sufficient. Nathan (played by Steve Martin) finds his life taking a wrong turn. He’s leaving his home (forced by bankruptcy to leave this comfort zone he’s come to know) and gathering in his arms random objects on his way out…saying “This is all I need”…and this…and this…”etc. Shortly thereafter he’s adrift (wandering in a robe, I think) and has traded these items for a thermos. He announces that all he really needs is this thermos.
So my statement that, “It’s like they’re clutching the thermos while trying to force the rest of us to drink the punch from it!” was a bit of a mixed metaphor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaTlU-eY0bw&NR=1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaTlU-eY0bw&NR=1)  (Nathan in high spirits singing of a thermos)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on May 20, 2009, 02:07:12 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
Question to “Honesty”:
Honestly, your posts have more to do with petty antagonism than any real intention to defend programming…right?

I have no desire to defend the program. They can handle that themselves if they wish. I do have issue with failures like SEKTO, Blaming people for his failure. Particularly those who are no longer alive. So the program didn't help him or possibly you. We get it, move on. :beat:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 20, 2009, 02:51:12 PM
Quote from: "Honesty"
I have no desire to defend the program. They can handle that themselves if they wish. I do have issue with failures like SEKTO, Blaming people for his failure. Particularly those who are no longer alive.
My interpretation of what SETKO has conveyed here is that the program is what he considers to have been damaging to him. I have not read anything by him that specifically attributes the source of harm to him as being by any individuals other than staff members of said program.
It would seem to me that he will "get over it" as you put it in exactly as much time as it takes him to heal from his experiences incurred there. Catharsis is a part of that. The sharing of such personal perceptions may give to some an opportunity to consider consequences of the program not offered by the PR firms who compose their promotional literature.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 20, 2009, 06:49:37 PM
Thanks for having my back, Inculcated.  

I have always said that my participating in this forum is a big part of my process of "letting go" or "getting over it," though I prefer the terms "catharsis" and "healing."  In my mind, it's not about finding fault or finding somebody to blame, pointing the finger.  

For it's true, in a sense Honesty is right; I acknowledge the fact that I am responsible for my situation and made my own bad choices along the way that led me to where I am now, that is, back in treatment, albeit a supportive and nurturing treatment situation rather than a confrontational and abusive one.  Nobody chose anything for me.  I made my bed, and I am sitting in it.  That's on me.

What some people fail to realize, however, is that psychological and emotional trauma incurred in such a brutal group situation as DAYTOP can and does severely undermine one's ability to make healthy and constructive decisions.  Going through something like that will affect one's life, and usually not in a positive way, at least in the long run.

In my individual circumstance, I was unconsciously recreating the group atmosphere that I experienced in DAYTOP through my involvement in various religious communities, communes, and and cults.  It was my form of isolating and removing myself from "the world."

Specifically, I became addicted to living and moving among groups, particularly religious groups, and thought that I could not function as a fully psychologically autonomous individual; I have been involved in everything from Rainbow Gatherings to the Army, from Pentacostal Holiness churches to Hare Krsnas and everything in between.  Believe me, I have made the rounds of various communal groups.  I learned a lot along the way and these experiences were not without their edifying elements too, though a lot of it was to my detriment as well.  

Such are the consequences of my religious addiction.  That's why I am here at MeadowHaven.

Again, my bad choices are on me, and that is not in dispute.  The erasure and re-arrangement of my identity and personal boundaries was inflicted in DAYTOP.  That was the starting point, that place is where I trace it all back to.  They inflicted a form of psychosurgery on us and badly botched the operation on me and a lot of people I know, and I want them to know that, that's all.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 25, 2009, 07:16:45 PM
Earlier I wrote,

Quote
In my individual circumstance, I was unconsciously recreating the group atmosphere that I experienced in DAYTOP through my involvement in various religious communities, communes, and and cults. It was my form of isolating and removing myself from "the world."

Specifically, I became addicted to living and moving among groups, particularly religious groups, and thought that I could not function as a fully psychologically autonomous individual; I have been involved in everything from Rainbow Gatherings to the Army, from Pentacostal Holiness churches to Hare Krsnas and everything in between. Believe me, I have made the rounds of various communal groups. I learned a lot along the way and these experiences were not without their edifying elements too, though a lot of it was to my detriment as well.

Such are the consequences of my religious addiction. That's why I am here at MeadowHaven.
Now I’d like to take the opportunity to expand on these statements a bit.

What I am trying to say is that for many years post-program, I was trapped in a sort of depressive fugue state and would, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, put myself into various group situations in order to re-create the therapeutic group context that I have been immersed in as a part of DAYTOP.   To help you understand how this came to be, I shall now give some background, the “back story” as it were, to put things in context and help explain how it came to be that I was put into DAYTOP in the first place.

For me to say that I never felt like I fit in as a part of this world would be an understatement.   I always felt like an alien being among the earthlings, as if I looked like a human, and understood the language, but was totally ignorant of the culture and customs of the society in which I lived and was born into.
All of my teachers would always remark about what a bright child I was, genius level in fact according to the standardized tests, but how I was a chronic underachiever, never got on well with my peers, was a kind of loner, and wasn’t living up to my potential in general.

In all honesty, I as a kid was always the nerdy one in school, had few friends, was not at all popular, nor was I much of a participant in the social scene.   Not a hit with the ladies.  I was terribly insecure and got beat up at home by my father and in school by my classmates, and felt utterly alienated from others, both intellectually and socially.  I was always fundamentally different from everybody else, heard my own drummer, marched to it, and was never one to “color between the lines” so to speak.  Way outside of the box.

Now I know it was Asperger’s all along, but in my youth all I knew was that I was “different.”  I was often depressed and uncomfortable in my own skin.

So as a means of escape from the pain of feeling so out of place among others, and not finding acceptance anywhere I went, I in elementary and middle school lost myself in fantasy stories, comic books, and certain role-playing games.   I immersed myself in an imaginary world in which I felt like I did fit in, a world I could create and control, and in which I could take on some heroic persona, an imaginary alter-ego.  

Spider-man was my favorite as a kid.  Peter Parker was a sort of hero of mine, the nerdy, bookish guy with special powers that he had to keep secret  from everybody, who believed that with his great power came great responsibility.  I wanted to be Spider-Man, with his super-hero alter ego.  I was always as a kid fantasizing about transcending myself; I wanted to be somebody else and take on another persona, hence the D&D and the comic books.

Later on in high school, when I outgrew the comics and fantasy wargaming, I got into psychedelic drugs, particularly grass and LSD.   This was my new means of escape, my new means of seeking transcendence, of introspecting and trying to discover myself.

I rebelled, tried to destroy the nerd image, sought acceptance among a more rebellious crowd, started wearing combat boots and Army-surplus jackets and hanging out with the misfit kids who would hang out across the street from the school and smoke cigarettes before class.  I was desperate for acceptance from somebody and tried to find a group of people in which to fit in.  So I hung out with the other misfits my junior and senior years in High School.

We’d sometimes skip school and drop some acid, then walk around in the Dallas Museum of Art all afternoon, or go up onto the rooftop of Moon Manor and sit under the big Geodesic  Dome up there.

Long story short, I got busted tripping at school and wound up in DAYTOP in March of ’92.  I was eighteen years old.  This would have been in the last six weeks of my senior year and I would not have graduated anyway, so I decided to get my GED, and I do not know how I made it that far in High School anyway, as little as I studied and as much as I skipped class.  I really was a pothead underachiever and was on a one-way road to Fuckupville.

DAYTOP was the place in which I was forced for the first time in my life to take a close look at myself and try and make some real changes.  This is where I learned to identify and articulate my emotions and practice my interpersonal skills and means of relating to others of my peer group.  This is where I came to realize that the direction in which I was going in life, with the constant potsmoking and weekly psychedelic adventures, was not in the long run going to take me to a place where I wanted to be in life.  I split for a couple of months in the summer of ’92 but that’s a whole other story.  

I’ve already, through the medium of this forum, related my account of what my experience in DAYTOP was like at length.  First the positives:  

I was popular in DAYTOP.  People liked me and sought out my counsel.  I was part of a team, part of a whole, with my share in its purpose and all that.  I got along well with my peers, for the first time in a social situation up to that point.   I was the only coordinator in the house for a while.  The family in general  liked me.  The counselors thought of my as an oddball and a space cadet and would tell me not to use big words or show off my smarts that much because they called it ostentatious and phony and over time I developed into a true-believing DAYTOPian.  

So it wasn’t all bad and there were certain elements of the experience that proved edifying toward the development of my self-awareness and social skills.  I made friends for life through DAYTOP and learned how to identify and in a more constructive fashion deal with my feelings.

In DAYTOP, I experienced a cohesive peer group in which I was accepted and valued for the first time in my life.  Two of my best friends are guys who I graduated with.  We formed and maintained a close bond for years and were roommates off and on for three years or so after graduating.  

After we left, we all fell off the wagon together too and I’ll tell more of that stuff someday maybe.  We went to Rainbow Gatherings, sold weed, hung out with Hare Krsnas, engaged in weird late-night acid-fueled Encounter Group type sessions.  Imagine something along the lines of a Synanon Game on LSD.  That’s what we’d do sometimes.  We lived in a bus way out in the desert outside of Taos for about a year and grew our own.  It was a big blue bus with no engine, and a wood-burning stove, on top of a hill.  We called it The Great Space Coaster.  Those were high times in ’95-’96, in every sense of the term.  We had lots of adventures.  It was a long, strange trip.  The NM Gathering in ’95 was one of the best times I ever had in my life.  This would have been a little more than a year after graduating DAYTOP.

But as I’ve also written in the past, there were definite negative and destructive elements at work through all of this as well.  We’d all become very emotionally dependent on one another, as if DAYTOP sewed up apart as individuals and sewed us back together as a group.  We’d learned to reproduce the group, outside of the group.   We never learned to be individuals in the larger sense.  It became a kind of DAYTOP graduate roommate cult of sorts.  Instead of lifting each other up to get and stay sober, we all started getting high together and encouraged and fed one another’s baser proclivities.  We had no boundaries between ourselves, or with anybody else.  We were very judgmental of anybody outside of our little clique.

Now back to me and why I am here.  

To summarize, (and again, a lot of this I already wrote of in my earlier posts, in terms of how the DAYTOP mentality became systematized into my consciousness) in the subsequent years following my time in DAYTOP and as a part of the DAYTOP grad roommate cult, I went to college part time, had various part-time jobs, was in the Army, and wasn’t so successful in any of these things.  I got fired from more than one job, quit several as well, never finished my degree, still smoked a lot of pot, got hooked on GHB, had an emotional breakdown in 2000 following an incident involving a betrayal by my sister and family and my resulting deep resentment that led to depondency, then  I joined the Army in ’03 for purely mercenary motives, went to Iraq, came home more depressed, resentful, and isolated than ever, and began my time as a serious suicidal-ideation having religious addict and compulsive seeker of religious communities in which to deliberately place myself.

This is the scarier stuff for me to face, the naked truth, and I want to make myself very clear.

A quote:

"If nothing has satisfied your deepest longings in this world, perhaps you were created for a different world".(C.S.Lewis)

And I never have, as I said before, I have never felt like I belonged in this world, like I am an alien who is on a planet other than the planet of my origin.  So after the Army, I set about trying to find the Mothership.   I wanted to “beam up”, having found no intelligent life down here.

For a time up until about a year ago, I was quite consciously seeking to lose/escape from my individuality into a collective identity as a form of soul suicide without having to “pull the trigger."  In other words, I was seeking to lose myself in a group as a means of killing myself without having to leave my body.  

I was trying to "kill" my old self and somehow find and cultivate my New Self, to become in some contrived sense fully Self-Realized.

I engaged in attempt after attempt to attain Transcendence, but in the religious realm.  Higher than the comics and RPGs, higher than the LSD sessions, higher than the DAYTOP group therapy, higher than them all, seeking God is the Ultimate Trip, and mingling with various cults is the ultimate role-playing exercise.  

It for me was like what those people in the movie The Village, where they were all so overcome with grief that they all moved out into the woods together and created a world of their own.  I was overcome with grief and was out to find a pre-arranged world of my own.

Perhaps a better reference would be to that movie Fight Club, in which the guy goes as a “tourist” from support group to support group as a means of release, becomes dependant on the groups, then moves on to a more radical form of group therapy (the Fight Club), which for him becomes the ultimate in catharsis, and in the end (basically) comes to realize that he’s been fighting himself all along, that’s he’s been fighting with a suppressed alter ego of sorts.

I got started in DAYTOP, AA, NA, and the Roommate Cult Support Group.

Then I graduated to the hard stuff.  I have experimented with Hare Krsnas, the Twelve Tribes, a small group in Dallas you never heard of, JPUSA, various Pentecostal communities, Hutterites and Anabaptists, and others.  I even dabbled in groups that I never really intended to join just to try them on, so to say.  I have tried on different religions and communities in the way that somebody might go to the department store and try on clothes.

For a couple of years, I travelled the country for a couple of years seeking out and living among various communities until my savings was depleted and then came to Dallas again.

Yes, I was trying to find a cult to join so that I would no longer have to be myself, so that I could deliberately move into a world of suspended reality, and have that reality dictated to me.   To try and assume a different persona and obliterate my old one, with which I was not satisfied and which I wanted to escape and leave behind.

This was my way of seeking to kill myself without having to leave my body, you see.  

God is the Ultimate goal in the pursuit of transcendence, and cults are the ultimate in committing cognitive, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual suicide.

It was all, as I see it now, illusory in nature.  There are no Utopias.  Like August Nicholson said in The Village, “We cannot run from heartache…Heartache is a part of life, we know that now.”

One way to understand this desire of mine is for me to explain my conviction that in our modern secular world, such communities provide sanctuaries and safe "habitats" where serious and devout disciples can earnestly strive to put the radical precepts of the Sermon on the Mount into practice without being crushed by a heartless and godless world.

Just as endangered species in nature find refuge in wildlife sanctuaries and natural habitats, where they are protected, so do committed Christians, who strive to put the radical precepts of the Gospel into practice, enter in by the "narrow gate" into the spiritual sanctuaries found within the walled cloisters of monastic habitations and spiritual communities, in order to escape from the selfishness that rules this world and to give themselves entirely to God.

It was all my way of isolating, while still being around others but only those of a like mind and a common path.

The whole of my experience with the groups can be summed up as one long repeating cycle of going from group to group in an effort to improve and fix myself somehow, and as the ultimate in escapism, a form of suicide, actually, but cognitive suicide.  

I learned the hard way that looking outside of oneself for some group or other to externally impose a vision of reality and transcendence on an individual is bound in the long run for futility.  It’s just not real.

Jesus said (Luke 17:20-21) "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

Please understand that I do not quote from the Bible in order to be preachy, for that is not my style; you have to understand that my spiritual/religious consciousness is the overarching framework in wich I was operating, the context in which all the motivation for my previous behavior must be explained.  This, and the fact that I was trying to reproduce the therapeutic community environment, but in a different context.  The ultimate context, in fact, for I set about injecting God into the equation.  This takes the quest for the perfect TC to the highest degree.  It also takes the damage done to a deeper level of evisceration too, because this all ulitimately damaged me at the deepest possible level, that is, the level of my soul, in the very essence of my being.

And then last August, I came to start to understand that even all of that community-hopping wasn’t going to help.  I’d been seeking out new highs and spiritual peak experiences for years and had reached terminal burnout.

At that point, I was ready to bow down at the altar of Mr. Mossberg and step into eternity once and for all.  I became acutely suicidal and smoked pot like a madman, day and night.  I was at the end of my rope.  It was time to initiate my own personal Project Mayhem.

That’s when I called Meadow Haven and begged for some help.  I arrived here last September 7 and have been in treatment ever since.   I am three hours of therapy a week, am using certain brain-training computer programs designed to improve my cognitive function and minimize the symptoms of my psychological trauma, so that underlying issue can be dealt with more readily.  I work out and eat well.  Still I have no job, but that will come in time.    I am looking forward to going back to college in Boston this fall and getting on with my life.  

What does this have to do with DAYTOP, you may ask?  In short, DAYTOP set me up for my compulsive religious addiction later on in life.  DAYTOP was the gateway it all.  I was unconsciously trying to recreate the therapeutic community atmosphere.  My being hooked on groups in order to maintain my sense of safety and security I can trace back to my formative years, in which the groundwork was laid and my identity and individuality were undermined through what happened to us there.  And I can trace it all back to DAYTOP.

Pardon me if this all rambled a bit.  It all just spilled out of my mind and thorugh my fingertips onto the keyboard and into the screen, and I didn't rwork from an outline or create any rough draft.  It was just type and post, with very litte minor editing and proofing.  

Does all of this make sense to anybody?  Has anybody any questions?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on May 25, 2009, 08:14:24 PM
It makes a lot of sense, but I've come to a different place, philosophically.  It's very hard to put to words the place I'm at now.  I'm not sure where to start.

Drugs as an escape?  Not sure how I feel about that.  Drugs are a tool.  They can be used as an escape, or a means of self discovery and healing.  I don't believe anymore that compulsive behavior is unchangeable.  Bad habits can be broken, and are broken every day.  It's just a matter of knowing yourself and self discipline.

I don't think it's wrong to want to transcend and become who you are.  I feel that I am what I do, and what I do is defined by my choices.  Things outside me are outside of my control, yes, but I'm in control and responsible for myself.  I can change myself and choose to become something else.  This is how I felt before the program and how I feel now.  In the program, however, I was convinced that there was some "true self" i had lost and somehow had to discovery...  which was silly.  I already knew who I am.  I am who I choose to be.  Rather than "who am I", I ask myself "who do I want to be"...  I do what I feel is right and that defines me.

I do remember, though, wanting to lose that ability to choose.  After being pressured to a point in the program I was so low I just wanted it to stop.  I felt that if I gave myself to the program, maybe things would end...  maybe I would be allowed to progress.  So I sacrificed myself.  I consciously gave in... under duress, sure, but I made the choice.  Once I stopped resisting, I felt myself slip away, and I fell into the alluring trap of believing that they could tell me who I was.  They told me I didn't know who I really was, which, in a sense, was both true and false since I had never really thought about it.  I had always just felt "i am who I am".  Suddenly they were challenging this and attacking my self concept.  With everybody around me cheering me on and saying how fantastic it is to find their true selves...  well you know how it goes...  the whole "you're not being real/authentic" deal until you behave in a way they perceive as "real/authentic" (what the fuck do they know anyway).  I'm just glad I've since sorted all that out.

In any case.  Scars teach us something too.  I doubt I would have the same viewpoints on everything I do now had I not experienced what I did.  In that sense, it was a learning experience.  Would I have gone through it again if given the choice...  if it meant giving up all this knowledge i've learned?  A year ago I might have said yes.  Now, i'm not so sure.  I certainly wouldn't wish it on anybody else, especially without full knowledge and consent, but for me, in the end it turned out all right.  Who knows whether things would be better or worse had I never gone to the program.  I can't say either way.  All I can say is that I wouldn't be who I am today had i not had the same experiences I did.  Like I said.  Scars teach us something too.  It doesn't mean that program was a good experience.  It just means that you can learn from bad experiences.

Thanks for giving me something to think about.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 25, 2009, 08:24:11 PM
There's a lot in terms of details that I paraphrased and glossed over, but it was all in the interest of relative brevity.  This'll hopefully help you to understand my mentality better.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 25, 2009, 08:33:11 PM
Quote from: "psy"
It makes a lot of sense, but I've come to a different place, philosophically.  It's very hard to put to words the place I'm at now.  I'm not sure where to start.

Drugs as an escape?  Not sure how I feel about that.  Drugs are a tool.  They can be used as an escape, or a means of self discovery and healing.  I don't believe anymore that compulsive behavior is unchangeable.  Bad habits can be broken, and are broken every day.  It's just a matter of knowing yourself and self discipline.

I don't think it's wrong to want to transcend and become who you are.  I feel that I am what I do, and what I do is defined by my choices.  Things outside me are outside of my control, yes, but I'm in control and responsible for myself.  I can change myself and choose to become something else.  This is how I felt before the program and how I feel now.  In the program, however, I was convinced that there was some "true self" i had lost and somehow had to discovery...  which was silly.  I already knew who I am.  I am who I choose to be.  Rather than "who am I", I ask myself "who do I want to be"...  I do what I feel is right and that defines me.

I do remember, though, wanting to lose that ability to choose.  After being pressured to a point in the program I was so low I just wanted it to stop.  I felt that if I gave myself to the program, maybe things would end...  maybe I would be allowed to progress.  So I sacrificed myself.  I consciously gave in... under duress, sure, but I made the choice.  Once I stopped resisting, I felt myself slip away, and I fell into the alluring trap of believing that they could tell me who I was.  They told me I didn't know who I really was, which, in a sense, was both true and false since I had never really thought about it.  I had always just felt "i am who I am".  Suddenly they were challenging this and attacking my self concept.  With everybody around me cheering me on and saying how fantastic it is to find their true selves...  well you know how it goes...  the whole "you're not being real/authentic" deal until you behave in a way they perceive as "real/authentic" (what the fuck do they know anyway).  I'm just glad I've since sorted all that out.

In any case.  Scars teach us something too.  I doubt I would have the same viewpoints on everything I do now had I not experienced what I did.  In that sense, it was a learning experience.  Would I have gone through it again if given the choice...  if it meant giving up all this knowledge i've learned?  A year ago I might have said yes.  Now, i'm not so sure.  I certainly wouldn't wish it on anybody else, especially without full knowledge and consent, but for me, in the end it turned out all right.  Who knows whether things would be better or worse had I never gone to the program.  I can't say either way.  All I can say is that I wouldn't be who I am today had i not had the same experiences I did.  Like I said.  Scars teach us something too.  It doesn't mean that program was a good experience.  It just means that you can learn from bad experiences.

Thanks for giving me something to think about.

This is all very painful for me to unpack and sort through, psy.  But very therapeutic as well.  Thanks for providing this space in which to think it all out and write of it.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on May 25, 2009, 09:28:42 PM
To put it in a nutshell, the program's return to sender function kept executing itself.  So for years after the fact, in times of stress and emotional upset, I set about looking for DAYTOP again.  I was trying to return to DAYTOP, but in a more refined way, as I involved God in the quest.  That's the ultimate TC, a religious community or cult.  I never thought of it in those terms until just today, the ultimate TC.  Wow.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on May 25, 2009, 11:51:57 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Earlier I wrote,
In my individual circumstance, I was unconsciously recreating the group atmosphere that I experienced in DAYTOP through my involvement in various religious communities, communes, and cults. It was my form of isolating and removing my self from "the world."

Specifically, I became addicted to living and moving among groups, particularly religious groups, and thought that I could not function as a fully psychologically autonomous individual; I have been involved in everything from Rainbow Gatherings to the Army, from Pentecostal Holiness churches to Hare Krsnas and everything in between. Believe me; I have made the rounds of various communal groups. I learned a lot along the way and these experiences were not without their edifying elements too, though a lot of it was to my detriment as well.

Such are the consequences of my religious addiction. That's why I am here at Meadow Haven.

Now I’d like to take the opportunity to expand on these statements a bit.

What I am trying to say is that for many years post-program, I was trapped in a sort of depressive fugue state and would, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, put myself into various group situations in order to re-create the therapeutic group context that I have been immersed in as a part of DAYTOP. To help you understand how this came to be, I shall now give some background, the “back story” as it were, to put things in context and help explain how it came to be that I was put into DAYTOP in the first place.

For me to say that I never felt like I fit in as a part of this world would be an understatement. I always felt like an alien being among the earthlings, as if I looked like a human, and understood the language, but was totally ignorant of the culture and customs of the society in which I lived and was born into.
All of my teachers would always remark about what a bright child I was, genius level in fact according to the standardized tests, but how I was a chronic underachiever, never got on well with my peers, was a kind of loner, and wasn’t living up to my potential in general.

In all honesty, I as a kid was always the nerdy one in school, had few friends, was not at all popular, nor was I much of a participant in the social scene. Not a hit with the ladies. I was terribly insecure and got beat up at home by my father and in school by my classmates, and felt utterly alienated from others, both intellectually and socially.
I was always fundamentally different from everybody else, heard my own drummer, marched to it, and was never one to “colour between the lines” so to speak. Way outside of the box.

Now I know it was Asperger’s all along, but in my youth all I knew was that I was “different.” I was often depressed and uncomfortable in my own skin.

So as a means of escape from the pain of feeling so out of place among others, and not finding acceptance anywhere I went, I in elementary and middle school lost myself in fantasy stories, comic books, and certain role-playing games. I immersed myself in an imaginary world in which I felt like I did fit in, a world I could create and control, and in which I could take on some heroic persona, an imaginary alter-ego.

Spider-man was my favourite, as a kid. Peter Parker was a sort of hero of mine, the nerdy, bookish guy with special powers that he had to keep secret from everybody, who believed that with his great power came great responsibility. I wanted to be Spider-Man, with his super-hero alter ego. I was always as a kid fantasizing about transcending myself; I wanted to be somebody else and take on another persona, hence the D&D and the comic books.

Later on in high school, when I outgrew the comics and fantasy war gaming, I got into psychedelic drugs, particularly grass and LSD. This was my new means of escape, my new means of seeking transcendence, of introspecting and trying to discover myself.

I rebelled, tried to destroy the nerd image, sought acceptance among a more rebellious crowd, started wearing combat boots and Army-surplus jackets and hanging out with the misfit kids who would hang out across the street from the school and smoke cigarettes before class. I was desperate for acceptance.

DAYTOP was the place in which I was forced for the first time in my life to take a close look at myself and try and make some real changes. This is where I learned to identify and articulate my emotions and practice my interpersonal skills and means of relating to others of my peer group. This is where I came to realize that the direction in which I was going in life.

Over time I developed into a true-believing DAYTOPian.

So it wasn’t all bad and there were certain elements of the experience that proved edifying toward the development of my self-awareness and social skills. I made friends for life through DAYTOP and learned how to identify and in a more constructive fashion deal with my feelings.

In DAYTOP, I experienced a cohesive peer group in which I was accepted and valued for the first time in my life. Two of my best friends are guys who I graduated with. We formed and maintained a close bond for years and were roommates off and on for three years or so after graduating.

But as I’ve also written of in the past, there were definite negative and destructive elements at work through all of this as well.
We’d all become very emotionally dependent on one another, as if DAYTOP sewed up apart as individuals and sewed us back together as a group. We’d learned to reproduce the group, outside of the group. We never learned to be individuals in the larger sense.
 We had no boundaries between ourselves, or with anybody else.
 I came home more depressed, resentful, and isolated than ever, and began my time as a serious suicidal-ideation having religious addict and compulsive seeker of religious communities in which to deliberately place myself.

This is the scarier stuff for me to face, the naked truth, and I want to make myself very clear.

For a time up until about a year ago, I was quite consciously seeking to lose/escape from my individuality into a collective identity as a form of soul suicide without having to “pull the trigger."
In other words, I was seeking to lose myself in a group as a means of killing myself without having to leave my body.

I was trying to "kill" my old self and somehow find and cultivate my New Self, to become in some contrived sense fully Self-Realized.

I engaged in attempt after attempt to attain Transcendence, but in the religious realm. Higher than the comics and RPGs, higher than the LSD sessions, higher than the DAYTOP group therapy, higher than them all, seeking God is the Ultimate Trip, and mingling with various cults is the ultimate role-playing exercise.

 I was overcome with grief and was out to find a pre-arranged world of my own.

I got started in DAYTOP, AA, NA, and the Roommate Cult Support Group.

Then I graduated to the hard stuff. I have experimented with Hare Krsnas, the Twelve Tribes, a small group in Dallas you never heard of, JPUSA, various Pentecostal communities, Hutterites and Anabaptists, and others. I even dabbled in groups that I never really intended to join just to try them on, so to say. I have tried on different religions and communities in the way that somebody might go to the department store and try on clothes.

Yes, I was trying to find a cult to join so that I would no longer have to be myself, so that I could deliberately move into a world of suspended reality, and have that reality dictated to me. To try and assume a different persona and obliterate my old one, with which I was not satisfied and which I wanted to escape and leave behind.

This was my way of seeking to kill myself without having to leave my body, you see.

God is the Ultimate goal in the pursuit of transcendence, and cults are the ultimate in committing cognitive, emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual suicide.

It was all, as I see it now, illusory in nature. There are no Utopias.

It was all my way of isolating, while still being around others but only those of a like mind and a common path.

The whole of my experience with the groups can be summed up as one long repeating cycle of going from group to group in an effort to improve and fix myself somehow, and as the ultimate in escapism, a form of suicide, actually, but cognitive suicide.

I learned the hard way that looking outside of oneself for some group or other to externally impose a vision of reality and transcendence on an individual is bound in the long run for futility. It’s just not real.

Jesus said (Luke 17:20-21) "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

Please understand that I do not quote from the Bible in order to be preachy, for that is not my style; you have to understand that my spiritual/religious consciousness is the overarching framework in which I was operating, the context in which all the motivation for my previous behaviour must be explained.  I was trying to reproduce the therapeutic community environment in a different context. The ultimate context, in fact, for I set about injecting God into the equation. This takes the quest for the perfect TC to the highest degree.
 It also takes the damage done to a deeper level of evisceration too, because this all ultimately damaged me at the deepest possible level, that is, the level of my soul, in the very essence of my being.

And then last August, I came to start to understand that even all of that community-hopping wasn’t going to help. I’d been seeking out new highs and spiritual peak experiences for years and had reached terminal burnout.

What does this have to do with DAYTOP, you may ask? In short, DAYTOP set me up for my compulsive religious addiction later on in life. DAYTOP was the gateway to it all. I was unconsciously trying to recreate the therapeutic community atmosphere. My being hooked on groups in order to maintain my sense of safety and security I can trace back to my formative years, in which the groundwork was laid and my identity and individuality were undermined through what happened to us there. And I can trace it all back to DAYTOP.
 
To put it in a nutshell, the program's return to sender function kept executing itself.

It’s often very difficult for anyone to relate such self reflective honesty and really convey their insights of their experiences to others. Reading this was very illuminating.
It seems as if the world you could not connect with were some barren land in which you trailed the idea of some Utopian oasis as an elusive mirage. Such a goal can never be reached. As we know mirages fade the nearer we get to them.
Such willingness to surrender your individuality in pursuit of a self destructive desire to nullify your uniqueness had you conforming to a chameleon like identity you would wear to blend in.
I am glad that you have survived this rough passage with your uniqueness in tact.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on June 09, 2009, 09:49:18 PM
http://www.atlantavampirealliance.com/e ... lines.html (http://www.atlantavampirealliance.com/educational/ethicalguidelines.html)
B.I.T.E.   :-*
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on June 10, 2009, 10:27:41 PM
:-*

It is my contention that DAYTOP is a cult, and must be understood as such.  Further, I contend that the DAYTOP "treatment program", whether at the inpatient or outpatient level, is essentially a thought-reform regimen.

The tactics of a thought-reform program like DAYTOP are organized to destabilize a person's sense of self, get the person to drastically reinterpret his or her life's history and radically alter his or her worldview and accept a new version of reality and causality, and then develop in the person a dependence on the organization, thereby turning the person into a deployable agent of the organization.
 
Think of the DAYTOP conditioning process in the light of Hassan's BITE model of explaining thought reform environments.  Do you think it fits like a hand in a glove?  I do.  

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcece ... s/BITE.htm (http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/articles/BITE.htm)

The thought-reform process begins with isolation of the individual (whether in a physical or psychological sense), then proceeds to a gradual manipulation of the physyical environment in which that person is isolated.  Then gradual control is exerted over the individual's behavior, the flow of information into and out of the envirnment restricts the individual's thinking, those very thoughts are retrained and controlled, and emotional range and repsonses are controlled as well.
 
Basically, what is commonly called "brainwashing" is a process that is mainly physically coercive in nature, and the conditioning usually reverses itself on itys own once one exits the physically coercive situation or environment.  "Thought reform," "mind control," or "coercive persuation" is more subtle a process, it is psychologically coercive in nature, and the psychological conditioning is more lasting after the individual leaves the thought-reform environment.

I used to think that DAYTOP "wasn't all that bad" and that in my mind I was somehow exaggerating its coercive nature, as well as the conditioning's effects on my mentality.   I used to think of DAYTOP, "Well, at least it's not Straight."  But now I see that DAYTOPian coercion is n my opinion in many ways even more damaging to the individual than the blunt force applied in Straight, which is the most egregious and prominent example of an overtly abusive TC for youths in our times.  The DAYTOP mind control is more subtly applied and more rigidly reinforced.  Very sophisticated B-Mod stuff going down in DAYTOP.  Very effective and very subtle mind-manipulation and encouragement of "right thinking" in DAYTOP.  It's a thought-reform environment.  You know?  

If you're being forced to the ground and bound up in restraints, or if you are being subjected to food and sleep deprivation, then you KNOW that that's wrong; nobody has to tell you that it's abusive.  But if you're getting screamed at during encounter group or a haircut as a part of a body of people that you are supposed to think of as "the family," and there's this groupthink going on, then there's this element of "it's for your own good" to it, and it's not so readily seen as abusive and coercive in or out of the immediate context in which it's taking place.  Therefore, the conditioning is more lasting, more pervasive in a person's psyche, more personalized.

Here's a genius video on cults and thought reform/mind control.  Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E)

What follows is a pertinent extract (pp. 20-21) from a book entitled Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults, by Janja Lalich. I recommend Bounded Choice for anyone seriously interested in understanding the psychological dynamics of the cult phenomenon.

http://books.google.com/books?id=p2Udi3 ... +choice%22 (http://books.google.com/books?id=p2Udi37GljsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22bounded+choice%22)

Individuals in a cult context are constrained not only by a bounded reality-one product of the self-sealing system-but also by bounded choice. This occurs when the individual reaches what Lifton described as a state of personal closure. ("Closure" in this sense does not mean completion, as it is sometimes used, but a turning inward and refusal to look at other ideas, belifs, or options.) I suggest that a state of person closure should be considered the individualized version of the larger self-sealing system. Thus, as a person identifies and unites with the bounded reality of the group and its belief system, becoming a devotee by making that charismatic commitment to the self-sealing worldview, another process begins to take place. That is, individual perspective and personal decision making become limited and constrained, and that restritction comes as much from within as from without. In the context of closure and constraint, choices may exist, but they are severely limited. In such situations, the person can be described as being in a state of bounded choice

http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_bookre ... choice.htm (http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_bookreviews/bkrev_boundedchoice.htm)

The interaction between the individual and the charismatic system is the key to understanding bounded choice theory. The believer responds to the intellectual and emotional pull of the group with commitment that is renewed through ongoing interaction, and in the process develops a new self. The leader’s vision of the path to salvation has transformational power.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on June 10, 2009, 10:40:53 PM
Quote from: "Dinnerw/DavidDeitch"
http://www.atlantavampirealliance.com/educational/ethicalguidelines.html
B.I.T.E.   :-*


Ironic, isn't it, that these Atlanta vampire people have more stringent ethical guidelines in place within their organization, than do the DAYTOPian psychic vampires in theirs?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on June 10, 2009, 11:01:27 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
:-*

It is my contention that DAYTOP is a cult, and must be understood as such.  Further, I contend that the DAYTOP "treatment program", whether at the inpatient or outpatient level, is essentially a thought-reform regimen.

The tactics of a thought-reform program like DAYTOP are organized to destabilize a person's sense of self, get the person to drastically reinterpret his or her life's history and radically alter his or her worldview and accept a new version of reality and causality, and then develop in the person a dependence on the organization, thereby turning the person into a deployable agent of the organization.
 
Think of the DAYTOP conditioning process in the light of Hassan's BITE model of explaining thought reform environments.  Do you think it fits like a hand in a glove?  I do.  

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcece ... s/BITE.htm (http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/articles/BITE.htm)

The thought-reform process begins with isolation of the individual (whether in a physical or psychological sense), then proceeds to a gradual manipulation of the physyical environment in which that person is isolated.  Then gradual control is exerted over the individual's behavior, the flow of information into and out of the envirnment restricts the individual's thinking, those very thoughts are retrained and controlled, and emotional range and repsonses are controlled as well.
 
Basically, what is commonly called "brainwashing" is a process that is mainly physically coercive in nature, and the conditioning usually reverses itself on itys own once one exits the physically coercive situation or environment.  "Thought reform," "mind control," or "coercive persuation" is more subtle a process, it is psychologically coercive in nature, and the psychological conditioning is more lasting after the individual leaves the thought-reform environment.

I used to think that DAYTOP "wasn't all that bad" and that in my mind I was somehow exaggerating its coercive nature, as well as the conditioning's effects on my mentality.   I used to think of DAYTOP, "Well, at least it's not Straight."  But now I see that DAYTOPian coercion is n my opinion in many ways even more damaging to the individual than the blunt force applied in Straight, which is the most egregious and prominent example of an overtly abusive TC for youths in our times.  The DAYTOP mind control is more subtly applied and more rigidly reinforced.  Very sophisticated B-Mod stuff going down in DAYTOP.  Very effective and very subtle mind-manipulation and encouragement of "right thinking" in DAYTOP.  It's a thought-reform environment.  You know?  

If you're being forced to the ground and bound up in restraints, or if you are being subjected to food and sleep deprivation, then you KNOW that that's wrong; nobody has to tell you that it's abusive.  But if you're getting screamed at during encounter group or a haircut as a part of a body of people that you are supposed to think of as "the family," and there's this groupthink going on, then there's this element of "it's for your own good" to it, and it's not so readily seen as abusive and coercive in or out of the immediate context in which it's taking place.  Therefore, the conditioning is more lasting, more pervasive in a person's psyche, more personalized.

Here's a genius video on cults and thought reform/mind control.  Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E)

What follows is a pertinent extract (pp. 20-21) from a book entitled Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults, by Janja Lalich. I recommend Bounded Choice for anyone seriously interested in understanding the psychological dynamics of the cult phenomenon.

http://books.google.com/books?id=p2Udi3 ... +choice%22 (http://books.google.com/books?id=p2Udi37GljsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22bounded+choice%22)

Individuals in a cult context are constrained not only by a bounded reality-one product of the self-sealing system-but also by bounded choice. This occurs when the individual reaches what Lifton described as a state of personal closure. ("Closure" in this sense does not mean completion, as it is sometimes used, but a turning inward and refusal to look at other ideas, belifs, or options.) I suggest that a state of person closure should be considered the individualized version of the larger self-sealing system. Thus, as a person identifies and unites with the bounded reality of the group and its belief system, becoming a devotee by making that charismatic commitment to the self-sealing worldview, another process begins to take place. That is, individual perspective and personal decision making become limited and constrained, and that restritction comes as much from within as from without. In the context of closure and constraint, choices may exist, but they are severely limited. In such situations, the person can be described as being in a state of bounded choice

http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_bookre ... choice.htm (http://www.icsahome.com/infoserv_bookreviews/bkrev_boundedchoice.htm)

The interaction between the individual and the charismatic system is the key to understanding bounded choice theory. The believer responds to the intellectual and emotional pull of the group with commitment that is renewed through ongoing interaction, and in the process develops a new self. The leader’s vision of the path to salvation has transformational power.

           
  Well said. I believe that  it’s harder for the victim to defend against those insidious abuses/abusers that aren’t recognized immediately as harmful. As such, it’s easier for the mind f*ckers to inflict lasting injury.
It's interesting how we let those who push the farthest boundaries of the extremes cause us to define what is intrinsically harmful in reductive terms like " lesser evils" or as "moderate".
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on June 11, 2009, 05:56:29 PM
Thank you, Inculcated.  

And now I shall post an augmentation to my previous post which will further expand on the topic of Hassan's B.I.T.E. model of explaining the thought-reform process.

Again: it is my contention that DAYTOP is a cult which subjects its victims to a destructive, closed-group mentality, though immersion in a highly regimented and controlled environment; the DAYTOP program is best explained and understood in the light of one of these thought-reform models.  IMO B.I.T.E. fits them like a hand in a glove.
 
What follows is cut and pasted from a Wikipedia entry on the topic of mind control.  Also outlined are models posited by Lifton and Singer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_contr ... BITE_model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_control#Steven_Hassan.27s_BITE_model)

In his book Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, mental health counselor and exit counselor Steven Hassan describes his mind-control model, "BITE". "BITE" stands for "Behavior, Information, Thoughts, and Emotions." The model has a basis in the works of Singer and Lifton, and in the cognitive dissonance theory of Leon Festinger.

In the book, Hassan describes the components of the BITE model:

Behavior Control
Regulation of individual’s physical reality
Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals
Need to ask permission for major decisions
Need to report thoughts, feelings, and activities to superiors
Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques positive and negative)
Individualism discouraged; "group think" prevails
Rigid rules and regulations
Need for obedience and dependency
Information Control
Use of deception
Access to non cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
Spying on other members is encouraged
Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda
Unethical use of confession
Thought Control
Need to internalize the group’s doctrine as "Truth"
Use of "loaded" language (for example, “thought terminating clichés"). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding, and can even stop thoughts altogether. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words."
Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.
Use of hypnotic techniques to induce altered mental states
Manipulation of memories and implantation of false memories
Use of thought stopping techniques, which shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts
Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate.
No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful.
Emotional Control
Manipulate and narrow the range of a person’s feelings
Make the person feel that if there are ever any problems, it is always their fault, never the leader’s or the group’s
Excessive use of guilt
Excessive use of fear
Extremes of emotional highs and lows
Ritual and often public confession of "sins"

Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader’s authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.

Hassan writes that cults recruit and retain members through a three-step process which he refers to as "unfreezing," "changing," and "refreezing". This involves the use of an extensive array of various techniques, including systematic deception, behavior modification, withholding of information, and emotionally intense persuasion techniques (such as the induction of phobias), which he collectively terms mind control. He describes these steps as follows:

Unfreezing: the process of breaking a person down
Changing: the indoctrination process
Refreezing: the process of reinforcing the new identity

In Releasing the Bonds he also writes "I suspect that most cult groups use informal hypnotic techniques to induce trance states. They tend to use what are called "naturalistic" hypnotic techniques. Practicing meditation to shut down thinking, chanting a phrase repetitively for hours, or reciting affirmations are all powerful ways to promote spiritual growth. But they can also be used unethically, as methods for mind control indoctrination."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on June 13, 2009, 11:26:06 AM
On the Dresser building, DAYTOP Dallas mid-'90s (emphases added by myself):

Yep, that's it, that's the Dresser building I remember, all right.   I went through second stage there, and we had Guadenzia there in October '93.  That's the place where the graduation ceremony for Chris, Bobby, Clay, Don, Armando, me, and a few others was held.  I cannot recall any females graduating from DAYTOP Dallas/Athens, though I am sure that some did.  If I recall correctly, there were a few kids who graduated from Athens there graduating too.  
 
I remember that the Dresser building had that huge recessed sunken fireplace, and the garish '70s design, all of the mauve taupe, burnt orange, and lime green carpeting and wallpaper.  It was obvious that nobody had renovated the place in years.  When DAYTOP moved in, it was a dump, dusty and trashed out, and looked like it had been frozen in time, circa 1978.  It had been unoccupied for many years.  When it was given to DAYTOP (technically sold for a dollar, so I heard) they had kids from Richardson (myself included) go over there from time to time in the van in order to help clean it out.  

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:PB ... clnk&gl=us (http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:PBSHzmF4hW0J:www.braniffpages.com/1965/1965.html+daytop+dresser+building+dallas&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

Hostess College

Also in 1968, Braniff opened the most expensive and modern "Hostess" college on Wycliff in Dallas. The six-story building (pictured on the right) housed three floors (each with a different "solid" colour scheme) of dormitories. Work-out facilities, training rooms, and a beauty salon could be found on the first two levels. The ground level, was for entertaining "guests" and had a entertainment center, a recessed fireplace, meeting area and classrooms. All of the colors and 56 different "herman miller" fabrics were chosen by Girard. Art was flown in from Panama and South America, and Girard also designed and provided the furniture.

Braniff trained its flight hostesses at a Love Field Hotel and The Braniff Base prior to 1968.

It was occupied by Braniff from 1968 to 1982. It was "sold" (perhaps donated) to Dresser Industries (now part of Haliburton) in 1982. Dresser vacated the building, and it was donated to "Daytop" drug treatment centers. Daytop sold the building in 1997. In 1999, it opened as a highly upscale retirement home, and was totally remodeled. Only a few items including an original Girard art piece in the stairwell, a "fabric wall" with five herman miller colours and "fireplace pit" are the only original Braniff designs left.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on June 13, 2009, 11:32:27 AM
DAYTOP vs. the Rasta (Has been moved to the "DAYTOP Doesn't Deserve to Exist" thread.)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on June 13, 2009, 09:38:38 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
On the Dresser building, DAYTOP Dallas mid-'90s (emphases added by myself):

Yep, that's it, that's the Dresser building I remember, all right.   I went through second stage there, and we had Guadenzia there in October '93.  
 
I remember that the Dresser building had that huge recessed sunken fireplace, and the garish '70s design, all of the mauve taupe, burnt orange, and lime green carpeting and wallpaper.  It was obvious that nobody had renovated the place in years.  When DAYTOP moved in, it was a dump, dusty and trashed out, and looked like it had been frozen in time, circa 1978.  It had been unoccupied for many years.  When it was given to DAYTOP (technically sold for a dollar, so I heard) they had kids from Richardson (myself included) go over there from time to time in the van in order to help clean it out.  

Well SEKTO, you have your predecessors to thank for the garish locale of 2nd stage.

During a smoke break some few of our then small number were rounded in to a room and called a choir. Langstein trained us to project something like holiday cheer in English and Spanish.
On the day of our big performances, the onset of my developing bronchitis caused me to lose my voice. I was not allowed to break formation, even for my fever. (We formed a tree or a bell for the secular)
We went to the Children’s Hospital and they pimped our adorable troubled teen routine to some other places. ( 'stopped at a gas station for some cough drops) We ended up at Halliburton’s party. It was Halliburton that sold the Dresser building to Daytop for a dollar.
I remember one lady who had enjoyed our wassailing voiced her concern that “the little one in front seems flushed” (me)

Thank you, Dick Cheney and Daytop for the Pucci designs and cigarettes and for my chronic asthma.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 03, 2009, 09:21:06 PM
Dwelling, mulling, ruminating…
SEKTO:
If I had to rank the more unpleasant of the Daytopian group therapy venues I’d say that while the encounter groups were brutal, the extended groups were (and in some ways still are) interminable nightmares.
 
In the early days we were a smaller population with no senior members and an overwhelming swell of staff to kid ratio. They actually told us to expect our first extended group to be “like a sleep over”. Naively we clutched our pillows and swilled sodas. It was too late once I realized why so many boxes of Kleenex were strewn about the room we were in. None of us slept.  

By the time the almighty marathon group was assembled some of us were bitten and shy. We pursed our lips into tight smiles belied by the fear in our eyes as newer members were told to “bring their blankets”. :nods:

Worse than even these was the gawd awful ghastly “Girl Group”. This is where they expanded on the deadinsaneinjail theme to include the caution that we may well all end up as prostitutes, if we did not embrace the “Girls Group Guidance” being extended to us. In fact some of the girls were coaxed,goaded, cajoled…  to “realizations” (skewed condemnations) that perhaps having sex while high or sex with anyone they might’ve gotten high with somehow translated into sex for hire. I dodged the bullet on this, but other shots were fired. (It wouldn’t be long anyway until I was stood before the “family” in that last house meeting called in my honor and pariahed like a 14 year old Hester Prynne). Watching my friend decide she had “sold herself” to her freshmen year boyfriend was gut wrenching.
 
 Beyond even the understandable enforcement of the second of the three cardinal rules (No F,F, OR F’), having even slightest normal adolescent curiosity and drives was discouraged and held as proof of weakness. We were all advised (and for good measure preempitvely admonished) for not "taking ownership of ourselves". Also,that we were to watch ourselves against being sexually manipulative (lest our inherently promiscuous junkie sell out natures be exploited out there in the big bad world).

Acknowledgement of abuse also came hand in hand with this theme.In the same breath as "thanks for sharing that with the group you’re so brave", there was added a caution that this meant some permanent mark was there. This is particularly messed up as it reinforces the blame the victim message and anything internalized by the original perpetrator. It sure as hell taught us to try and blend in with the scenery in those groups, because “support” was just preamble to judgment.

These messed up methods were applied by incompetent drama ghouls. The more they could wrench out of a kid by way of revelation and confession the better. Never mind how these brutal tactics amounted essentially to revictimization in their own tearing ways. The scar tissue left in the wake of such extractions make it damned near impossible for even a competent practitioner to help to heal.

I was going to elaborate on my recollections of girl’s sexual trauma histories being used against them. Instead, I’m going to go binge eat my way out of the size four skinny jeans, because I’m not allowed to have sedatives anymore.(I’m being told I’m learning to cope. Unpacking memories is good for me? It’s supposed to hurt right?) ::puke::

You will likely remember how the rules were applied differently for girls than for the boys. I wonder, did they ever have anything like a boys group?

Also, is it me or is clicking on the “return to daytop village” forum option a little unnerving?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 04, 2009, 12:46:29 AM
To put it more succinctly, it’s that tune stuck in your head, you can’t quite remember the words…but there you are a lifetime later humming along.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 05, 2009, 12:22:44 AM
Inculcated:

Personally, I remember the haircut sessions and encounter groups as being much more brutal and traumatizing than the Extended Groups that I was part of.  In my day ('92-'94) of DAYTOP Richardson/Dresser we did two Extended Groups the whole time, and I do not remember those as being all that "in your face."  It was a bit like a really long encounter group session, but without the yelling, and a lot of crying, in which we'd talk about all of our deep dark personal stuff and discuss these things amongst ourselves.  I really do not remember these too well, actually; I have pretty vague memories of these sessions and they really did not impress me that much.  Greg facilitated one of the groups that I was in, and Ruben the other.  I remember well, however, Marcy's violently confrontational Encounter Groups, and the way I remember receiving and later giving the haircuts.  I remember distinctly Mike Gomez crying like a baby and how scared he was.  Nobody spent the night in the building for those long groups; they'd start at, like, nine or ten AM and go into the afternoon, at which point we'd go home.   So these groups were six or seven hours long and were by DAYTOP standards realtively pretty tame.  

They'd probably toned down some of the more psychologically invasive elements of the DAYTOP outpatient "therapy" by the time I was part of it, believe it or not.  And I though we had it bad in my day, holy shit.  We never had a single Marathon, for example, and I get the impression that the DAYTOP Richardson I went through was sort of like "DAYTOP lite" compared to the way they were in your days there in Richardson, when they first started out in TX.

What angers me the most about my time in there, what I resent the most, is the fact that none of these people were in any way, shape, of form properly trained or degreed professional counselors, and had any of them been as such they could have picked up on my PDD, made an appropriate referral to a specialist, and gotten me some real help instead of their soul-warping BMod nonsense.  I'll bet you that none of them knew anything about autism other than what they had seen in Rain Man. As it was, they labelled me a "space cadet" who had eaten too much acid and fried his brain.  "Nothing's wrong with you, you just need to grow up, ya baby.  We don't like the way you are, so stop it or else." is what I was taught, basically.  That's right, the counselors' explanation for why I was that way, was attributed to my eating too much acid.  As it was, I was made to feel broken and "weird," and DAYTOP instilled in me a sense of not liking myself, of not being OK with who I was/am.  And I still struggle with that, of simply being OK with B.  DAYTOP would have been one of the worst kinds of places to put some kid like me or Mike Gomez.

Quote
Beyond even the understandable enforcement of the second of the three cardinal rules (No F,F, OR F’), having even slightest normal adolescent curiosity and drives was discouraged and held as proof of weakness. We were all advised (and for good measure preempitvely admonished) for not "taking ownership of ourselves". Also,that we were to watch ourselves against being sexually manipulative (lest our inherently promiscuous junkie sell out natures be exploited out there in the big bad world).

Acknowledgement of abuse also came hand in hand with this theme.In the same breath as "thanks for sharing that with the group you’re so brave", there was added a caution that this meant some permanent mark was there. This is particularly messed up as it reinforces the blame the victim message and anything internalized by the original perpetrator. It sure as hell taught us to try and blend in with the scenery in those groups, because “support” was just preamble to judgment.

These messed up methods were applied by incompetent drama ghouls. The more they could wrench out of a kid by way of revelation and confession the better. Never mind how these brutal tactics amounted essentially to revictimization in their own tearing ways. The scar tissue left in the wake of such extractions make it damned near impossible for even a competent practitioner to help to heal.

Nor do I recall being part of an all-male group while I was there.  We could have had one, and probably did actually, but I do not recall that.  Nor can I recall the girls being separated and taken into an all-girl group.  When I was on second stage, by coincidence all of the second stagers were males and we'd engage in a lot of "guy talk" type stuff, we'd speak on not compromising our sobriety for sex or relationships, and so forth.

There was when I was a coordinator a girl that once told me when we were speaking one-on one, a twelve or thirteen-year-old mind you, that she was being molested by the youth pastor at her church.  She told me that she was being touched inappropriately and demonstated to me exactly where and how he was touching her.  Horrified, I found and told Ruben of this right away, that very day.  But I do not know whatever became of that incident, the youth leader fellow, or of the girl.  She was in foster care, and out of Letot.  I think that she made it to second stage, but am not sure of whether she graduated.  Her name was KH.

There was another time when a boy of sixteen or seventeen told me of being molested by a male stranger who had picked him up while he was hitchiking.  He told me that he was terribly ashamed about what had happened.  I never did tell anyone of this, and in retrospect wish that I had.  The kid's name I do not recall.  

Me, when I was 18/19 years old, believe it or not, I was pretty asexual and for the most part oblivious to the more prurient aspects of male/female relationships.  I just simply didn't think about sex that much when I was a teenager (odd as that may sound to some of you who who are reading this) and so any of that kind of sex-ed, sexual trauma talk etc. at DAYTOP, as far as I was concerned, would have gone in one ear and out the other.  These things were just not a part of my consciousness at the time.  There were DAYTOP females who I was friends with while on second stage, and we'd go to dinner together sometimes, go to AA dances or movies or whatever, but nothing physical ever happened between any of us.

I did not "get" flirting while in DAYTOP and was very socially awkward.  Now that I am 35 I am much, much more socially savvy, adapted, and have vastly improved my skills in reading non-verbal cues, body language, and also in matters pertaining to theory of mind/empathy.

DAYTOP did not know Asperger's or anything about PDD/ASD.  They just called me "weirdo" or "space cadet."  That affected me the most in the long run, I think, that's what's been the most harmful element of my experience with them.  They just weren't equipped for kids like me.  They simply instilled in me a deeply ingrained sense of feeling "abnormal."

And I like your quote about humming the tune, too.  Sort of like "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail" eh?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 05, 2009, 03:31:08 AM
SEKTO:
Quote from: "SEKTO"
What angers me the most about my time in there, what I resent the most, is the fact that none of these people were in any way, shape, of form properly trained or degreed professional counselors, and had any of them been as such they could have picked up on my PDD, made an appropriate referral to a specialist, and gotten me some real help instead of their soul-warping BMod nonsense.  I'll bet you that none of them knew anything about autism other than what they had seen in Rain Man. As it was, they labelled me a "space cadet" who had eaten too much acid and fried his brain.  "Nothing's wrong with you, you just need to grow up, ya baby.  We don't like the way you are, so stop it or else." is what I was taught, basically.  That's right, the counselors' explanation for why I was that way, was attributed to my eating too much acid.  As it was, I was made to feel broken and "weird," and DAYTOP instilled in me a sense of not liking myself, of not being OK with who I was/am.  And I still struggle with that, of simply being OK with B.  DAYTOP would have been one of the worst kinds of places to put some kid like me or Mike Gomez.
That’s a lot of how their methods were so messed up. They would slap a label on people (even quite literally in the form of a sign to be worn) and that was that. It was always some reductive dismissal such as junkie hyphen this or that.

We were taught to accept this. By then such words were really a reflex.They would  spout a lot rhymey one liners. One size fits all slogans. I don't know if I was even moved to flinch by the time I was told (as was the “family”) that I was toxic. I thanked them for this. It was explained that my being sent upstate was a second chance I was being granted. It’s interesting how the “you don’t know how good you have it here in Daycare” snarls and the ominous threat of being sent up state got repackaged as my opportunity. I was also being made an example of. I'm sure other girls there got the message.

If they for whatever reason eased up on the orgies of tears by the time you did your time then I’m glad, and I hope that continued to get phased out. I’m sure you’re better off having only scant memories of the two you attended.

I hope K.H. got some intervention for her situation and that they didn’t salt her wounds with any of their version of supportive feedback.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
And I like your quote about humming the tune, too.  Sort of like "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail" eh?
Hmm, not quite.It's not a quote. It's my attempt to describe the subliminal messages in the “old tapes” that become white noise for a while. Then one day you hear it and wonder why am I humming this? Damn,that’s not my theme song.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 05, 2009, 03:31:56 PM
Well, here's MY theme song.  It's called the Nrsinghadeva Pranama.  Jaya Prabhupada!

http://www.harekrishnatemple.com/bhakta/nrsimha.html (http://www.harekrishnatemple.com/bhakta/nrsimha.html)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QuyuW_j ... D&index=11 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QuyuW_j2UM&feature=PlayList&p=FE61A16DA50778AD&index=11)

namas te narasimhaya
prahladahlada-dayine
hiranyakashipor vaksaha
shila-tanka-nakhalaye
 
ito nrisimhah parato nrisimho
yato yato yami tato nrisimhah
bahir nrisimho hrdaye nrisimho
nrisimham adim sharanam prapadye
 
tava kara-kamala vare
nakham adbhuta-shringam
dalita-hiranyakashipu-tanu bhrigam
keshava dhrita-narahari-rupa
jaya jagadisha hare
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on July 05, 2009, 11:44:16 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
We ended up at Halliburton's party. It was Halliburton that sold the Dresser building to Daytop for a dollar.

I imagine that Halliburton had a vested interest far beyond the mere benefit of a tax write-off.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 05, 2009, 11:50:08 PM
SEKTO: want to be my accountabilabuddy?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 06, 2009, 01:52:43 AM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
SEKTO: want to be my accountabilabuddy?

Gladly.   ;)   I'd like that.  Thanks for asking.  It's my privilege.

You know, I've been rethinking the matter of my theme song, and have come to the conclusion that the Pranama is not really the best song that represents me as a person.  That one was from a time in my life when I was immersed in ISKCON, like my Krsna Days Theme.  Good song (prayer), very meaningful to me, but on second thought not very representative of where I'm at now.

Also there's the Rainbow Gathering Taos '95 theme, the mighty Peter Tosh's Downpressor Man:

Irie-I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oD63-EJW5Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oD63-EJW5Y)

Say downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?

oh... along that day

You gonna run to the rocks
The rocks will be falling
When you run to the rocks
The rocks will be falling
When you run to the rocks
More rocks will be falling

oh... along that day

You gonna run to the sea
The sea will be boiling
When you run to the sea
The whole sea will be boiling
When you run to the sea
The sea will be boiling

oh... along that day

Thats why i say downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?

oh... along that day

You gonna run to the lord
Beggin him to hide you
You gonna run to the lord
Beggin him to hide you
You gonna run to the lord
Beggin him to hide you

oh... along that day

So I say downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?
Downpressor man
Where you gonna run to?


But the song that represents me best, my personal anthem, would have to be Sinatra's That's Life.

Sade's Smooth Operator comes in as a close second.  But that Sade tune was really an Army thing.  Let me explain with a story.

There was this one time in Basic Training (I went through at Ft. Benning, aka Sand Hill) when we were all in formation one afternoon and the Drill Sergrant told us that "every good soldier has a theme song.  What's yours?"  So we were made to go through the formation one by one, in alphabetical order, and announce to the group and sing our individual theme songs.  

Mind you, everybody had to maintain their military bearing throughout this exercise, and nobody was allowed to crack a smile at all, much less laugh; we all had to stand rigid at the position of attention, eyes straight ahead and showing no emotion, and sing our theme songs that represented us as soldiers.  Anybody who laughed or so much as smiled would get dropped, yelled at, and made to do a bunch of pushups while the others were singing.  It was like something twisted out of Full Metal Jacket, but funnier.  When it was my turn, off the top of my head and without giving it much thought, I began singing, with a totally straight face, "He's a smooth operator, a smooooth operatooor, smooth operator, smooooth operatoooor..."  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efdfGeUKXuU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efdfGeUKXuU)

The Drill Sergeant looked at me like I was crazy.  He told me that he could tell I was a real smart guy, and he thought that one day I'd go to college and earn a degree in foolology.  

This one kid chose the Batman theme song as his, and when it was his turn he just busted out with "Dadadadadadadadadadadadada Batmaaan!"  

But all in all, I'd really have to say that Sinatra's That's Life is my true Supreme Theme Song.  That one's really me.  I've travelled from one side of this country to the other on my quest to find Absolute Truth, and I've seen and done a lot of strange stuff.  

I've posted it here before, and now will again.  I love this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVWD482Puvs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVWD482Puvs)

That's life, that's what all the people say.
You're riding high in April,
Shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune,
When I'm back on top, back on top in June.

I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.

That's life
I tell ya, I can't deny it,
I thought of quitting baby,
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it.
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try,
I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself laying flat on my face,
I just pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life
That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out
But my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here july
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die
My, My


Also, just because i think it's such a good set of songs, I'll post this live version of Jimi Hendrix performing Hey Baby (Land of the New Rising Sun) and In From The Storm live at the legendary Rainbow Bridge concert, Maui, on July 30, 1970.  Freaking great stuff.  This really smokes.  Gives me goosebumps every time.   :rocker:   Dig this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpRsgzURnvU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpRsgzURnvU)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 06, 2009, 04:25:29 PM
Back in the day I used to listen to a lot of reggae, and have been listening to it today, revisiting what Dylan called "My Back Pages."  

Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and Third World were and are some of my favorites.  Old-school stuff.  Old Wailers too, of course.

Bob Marley's solo stuff is OK, and I give him much respect, but Tosh wrote a lot of well-known Marley tunes anyway.  I much prefer solo Tosh for his militant edge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia6Tvpj6dPw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia6Tvpj6dPw)

The soundtrack to The Harder They Come is one of the very best reggae albums of all time IMO.  My two favorite Tosh albums are Legalize It and Equal Rights.  All brilliant stuff.  

Irie Monday afternoon meditations   :dose:    :

One good thing about music, when it hits you (you feel no pain)
Oh, oh, I say, one good thing about music, when it hits you (you feel no pain)
Hit me with music, hit me with music now


Bob Marley, Trenchtown Rock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j6uXOfgWz8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j6uXOfgWz8)

And I keep on fighting for the things I want
Though I know that when you're dead you can't
But I'd rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave


Jimmy Cliff, The Harder They Come

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjtXfkHCEkY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjtXfkHCEkY)

So Sinatra's That's Life would have to my Supeme Theme, but Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh would be, like, the background music to the Soundtrack of My Life.  Oh yeah.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 06, 2009, 04:41:24 PM
My Back Pages, by Bob Dylan

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 06, 2009, 05:46:50 PM
Why not post my theme music here, I figure.  This thread is sort of like a journal to me, and I really  prefer not to post too much anywhere other than to it.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 07, 2009, 01:48:12 AM
SEKTO:
That Nrsinghadeva Pranama, that’s a lovely chant.
Quote from: "SEKTO"
But the song that represents me best, my personal anthem, would have to be Sinatra's That's Life.
An excellent choice of an anthem.


Quote from: "SEKTO"
Sade's Smooth Operator comes in as a close second.  But that Sade tune was really an Army thing.  Let me explain with a story.
There was this one time in Basic Training (I went through at Ft. Benning, aka Sand Hill) when we were all in formation one afternoon and the Drill Sergeant told us that "every good soldier has a theme song.  What's yours?"  So we were made to go through the formation one by one, in alphabetical order, and announce to the group and sing our individual theme songs.  Mind you, everybody had to maintain their military bearing throughout this exercise, and nobody was allowed to crack a smile at all, much less laugh; we all had to stand rigid at the position of attention, eyes straight ahead and showing no emotion, and sing our theme songs that represented us as soldiers.  Anybody who laughed or so much as smiled would get dropped, yelled at, and made to do a bunch of pushups while the others were singing.  It was like something twisted out of Full Metal Jacket, but funnier.  When it was my turn, off the top of my head and without giving it much thought, I began singing, with a totally straight face, "He's a smooth operator, a smooooth operatooor, smooth operator, smooooth operatoooor...The Drill Sergeant looked at me like I was crazy."
LAUGHING! Picturing it and playing the song in my head. LAUGHING again!
What synapse misfired on that? I’d love to hear Oliver Sacks offer his insights in to what the hell happened along that neural pathway.

Quote from: "SEKTO"
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now
Well, that’s resonating with me. It’s strange when thoughts that seem exclusively a perception of the unique personal experience of living me get echoed outside of my own mind. It’s as unnerving as it is validating.
Quote from: "SEKTO"
This thread is sort of like a journal to me, and I really prefer not to post too much anywhere other than to it.
Probably for the best. That WHO thread in particular reads like The ScrewTape Letters!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 08, 2009, 02:57:53 PM
SEKTO (my Accountabilibuddy):

I’m just going to  Paint it Black,today
________________________________________
1. To impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill: inculcating sound principles.
2. To teach (others) by frequent instruction or repetition; indoctrinate: inculcate the young with a sense of duty________________________________________
[Latin inculc re, inculc t-, to force upon : in-, on; see in-2 + calc re, to trample (from calx, calc-, heel).]

(Meanwhile)
…The cruelty and revenge also inculcated by this doctrine are equally prominent, in that it consigns the servant — who from fear had hidden the talent — to ...

BTW ads by google brought up this scientology link while key wording Inculcare     " Learn About Scientology - Get The Facts About Scientology. View Exclusive Online Videos Now! Scientology.org "Blah, blah, blah...
Inculcated stated, "Madness, this world is rife with lovely turns of strangeness, and added
I want to be sedated."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 08, 2009, 05:26:14 PM
Do what you need to do, Inculacted, but as your accountabilibuddy I must caution you to be careful with "Mother's Little Helper."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 08, 2009, 06:00:16 PM
Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Papa may have…Mama may have…
But God bless the child that's got (HER) own
                       -Billie Holiday
 :nods:
Oh, and that reference to Holiday doesn’t mean I’m slamming chiva.
 It just means I’m Inculcated not Introjected.
Sure Valium n’ I go way back in the day. He’s my valiant comfort, even if his hands are a little cold.
He never minds when I forget he's there and he's always there when I get around to wanting him around me.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 08, 2009, 06:51:35 PM
What you wrote about Prince Valium reminds me of that old Ethel Waters blues tune called "Handy Man."
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on July 08, 2009, 10:02:38 PM
esther narcotica  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68h4AnUq ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68h4AnUqXT0&feature=related)
TOXICA
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCT7kUuO ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCT7kUuOjqU&feature=related)
Valle de Valium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOP3qV80 ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOP3qV80-wc&feature=related)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 08, 2009, 10:47:56 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
When I wrote:

Quote
Personally, I never heard of Straight until '93 when I met a guy in DAYTOP named CM who had come out of there when they closed, and told us all kinds of horrible stories, really bad stuff. He was telling us how DAYTOP was a cakewalk compared to what he had come out of.

...it was my mere intent to report my recollection of what the guy had said.  I remember a guy CM who came to DAYTOP out of Straight and after a while, when he was telling us about where he'd been and what had happened to him there, basically said with respect to DAYTOP, " This place is easy compared to Straight."
Now please understand, this is not me saying that DAYTOP "wasn't that bad;" because DAYTOP was very bad; that which I quoted above had nothing to do with my own personal opinion or commentary, and I am hardly reversing my position as to the insidious nature of the place nor on the effect it had on me.  
Like I've written before, I get the idea that the DAYTOP Richardson I remember (''92-'94) was kind of like "DAYTOP lite" relative to the DAYTOP Richardson from the '98-90 era, when they first started out in TX.  Probably the staff had toned things down somewhat by then, but it was still intense enough to have seriously affected my mentality and the minds of my friends as well.  What to say of what the conditions must have been like upstate!  They would have chewed me up and spit me out there.
Immersion in the DAYTOP program  was hardly a cakewalk for me or for the people I know.  DAYTOP was horribly abusive in our experience, and was run by a bunch of halfassed, thuggish pseudo-counselors who hardly knew what they were doing, and had no business working with a bunch of kids and molding our minds.
SEKTO, I moved this over here to continue:
 :rose:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 08, 2009, 11:59:14 PM
.You’re damn right Daytop was intrinsically and insidiously harmful. There’s the rub. No pun intended.
I was not f*ing around when I wrote that Daytop was but one of my abused in treatment experiences. Daytop messed me up particularly badly because their punitive love was being inculcated within a thirteen year old girl. They had no business “treating me”,nor anyone else with such tactics .Not like that.
I found my voice in encounter groups it’s true, but those words I parroted were symptoms of what they were doing to all of us.

As for the tendency of some to compare programs it’s pointlessly divisive. I also suspect it’s more of their programming that needs purging.

Here’s the narrative comparison that I base my point on.Later in my teens, while at a Psych unit (non- affiliated with Daytop) I got in to a petty debate with a counselor. We had been discussing REN and Stimpy. He did not believe me when I informed him that “Yes. Discombobulated is a real word.” Eventually he returned to the day room and conceded that “yes, it is a real word”. He then stopped with the fun banter and began baiting me. I knew something was up and understood the situation I was in enough to try to avoid being drawn in. Minutes later as I had to walk past him to head to my room he swept my leg, dropped me to the floor, pinned my forearms with his knees and proceeded to allow a line of what he later laughed off as “frog spit” to emerge then slurp…you get the idea. When he got the hell off of me, I was supposed to be grateful he hadn’t actually spit on me. He tried to laugh it off and told me he had done this because I was “uptight and looked like I could use a good laugh.”
At this same place I was at one point restrained to a “papoose board”. Later,following another staffer's surprise that my being forced to wear a blindfold for a couple of hours (until I was crumpled on the floor "screaming/crying please get it off of me")…didn’t go well. I was given valium to control my outburst and sent to bed in the middle of the day. Never mind that I had fully regressed and had a breakdown from the “Learn to trust and ask for help” exercise that (untrained glorified orderly) of a counselor had administered. He did this because he’d read in my chart from a previous inpatient stay at a crisis centre that I had refused the trust portion of the ropes course. I had done the web/bell thingy and all of the other stuff very well. None of that mattered, I was going to learn to trust one way or another, they were determined.Even though I won't down play how messed up those moment were, I was at least able to recognize the lunacy.
These things I was able to recognize as abusive and feel outrage. I did not own these cruelties as if I deserved them. I was lucky for not having to absorb those particular harms within me.
Daytop calling me TOXIC and silencing me, that stayed with me. The reverberations of that and all they exacerbated with their punitive love play out to this day.
Daytop did me great harm in the long run.
Here is my truncated version of their philosophy “There is no refuge.” End of philosophy.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 09, 2009, 12:01:48 AM
Oooops, I didn't catch the typo till just now.  The above should have read "...was kind of like "DAYTOP lite" relative to the DAYTOP Richardson from the '89-90 era..." and I corrected it on the other thread too.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 09, 2009, 02:58:23 AM
Quote
You’re damn right Daytop was intrinsically and insidiously harmful. There’s the rub. No pun intended.
I was not f*ing around when I wrote that Daytop was but one of my abused in treatment experiences. Daytop messed me up particularly badly because their punitive love was being inculcated within a thirteen year old girl. They had no business “treating me”,nor anyone else with such tactics .Not like that.
I found my voice in encounter groups it’s true, but those words I parroted were symptoms of what they were doing to all of us.

As for the tendency of some to compare programs it’s pointlessly divisive. I also suspect it’s more of their programming that needs purging.

Here’s the narrative comparison that I base my point on.Later in my teens, while at a Psych unit (non- affiliated with Daytop) I got in to a petty debate with a counselor. We had been discussing REN and Stimpy. He did not believe me when I informed him that “Yes. Discombobulated is a real word.” Eventually he returned to the day room and conceded that “yes, it is a real word”. He then stopped with the fun banter and began baiting me. I knew something was up and understood the situation I was in enough to try to avoid being drawn in. Minutes later as I had to walk past him to head to my room he swept my leg, dropped me to the floor, pinned my forearms with his knees and proceeded to allow a line of what he later laughed off as “frog spit” to emerge then slurp…you get the idea. When he got the hell off of me, I was supposed to be grateful he hadn’t actually spit on me. He tried to laugh it off and told me he had done this because I was “uptight and looked like I could use a good laugh.”
At this same place I was at one point restrained to a “papoose board”. Later,following another staffer's surprise that my being forced to wear a blindfold for a couple of hours (until I was crumpled on the floor "screaming/crying please get it off of me")…didn’t go well. I was given valium to control my outburst and sent to bed in the middle of the day. Never mind that I had fully regressed and had a breakdown from the “Learn to trust and ask for help” exercise that (untrained glorified orderly) of a counselor had administered. He did this because he’d read in my chart from a previous inpatient stay at a crisis centre that I had refused the trust portion of the ropes course. I had done the web/bell thingy and all of the other stuff very well. None of that mattered, I was going to learn to trust one way or another, they were determined.Even though I won't down play how messed up those moment were, I was at least able to recognize the lunacy.
These things I was able to recognize as abusive and feel outrage. I did not own these cruelties as if I deserved them. I was lucky for not having to absorb those particular harms within me.
Daytop calling me TOXIC and silencing me, that stayed with me. The reverberations of that and all they exacerbated with their punitive love play out to this day.
Daytop did me great harm in the long run.
Here is my truncated version of their philosophy “There is no refuge.” End of philosophy.
This is something I wrote last June 10.  Why should I write the same thing all over again, but in a different way?

The thought-reform process begins with isolation of the individual (whether in a physical or psychological sense), then proceeds to a gradual manipulation of the physical environment in which that person is isolated. Then gradual control is exerted over the individual's behavior, the flow of information into and out of the environment restricts the individual's thinking, those very thoughts are retrained and controlled, and emotional range and repsonses are controlled as well.

Basically, what is commonly called "brainwashing" is a process that is mainly physically coercive in nature, and the conditioning usually reverses itself on itys own once one exits the physically coercive situation or environment. "Thought reform," "mind control," or "coercive persuation" is more subtle a process, it is psychologically coercive in nature, and the psychological conditioning is more lasting after the individual leaves the thought-reform environment.

I used to think that DAYTOP "wasn't all that bad" and that in my mind I was somehow exaggerating its coercive nature, as well as the conditioning's effects on my mentality. I used to think of DAYTOP, "Well, at least it's not Straight." But now I see that DAYTOPian coercion is n my opinion in many ways even more damaging to the individual than the blunt force applied in Straight, which is the most egregious and prominent example of an overtly abusive TC for youths in our times. The DAYTOP mind control is more subtly applied and more rigidly reinforced. Very sophisticated B-Mod stuff going down in DAYTOP. Very effective and very subtle mind-manipulation and encouragement of "right thinking" in DAYTOP. It's a thought-reform environment. You know?

If you're being forced to the ground and bound up in restraints, or if you are being subjected to food and sleep deprivation, then you KNOW that that's wrong; nobody has to tell you that it's abusive. But if you're getting screamed at during encounter group or a haircut as a part of a body of people that you are supposed to think of as "the family," and there's this groupthink going on, then there's this element of "it's for your own good" to it, and it's not so readily seen as abusive and coercive in or out of the immediate context in which it's taking place. Therefore, the conditioning is more lasting, more pervasive in a person's psyche, more personalized.


viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26260&start=270 (http://fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=26260&start=270)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 10, 2009, 01:17:24 AM
Quote
Probably for the best. That WHO thread in particular reads like The ScrewTape Letters!

I know what you mean.  Sometimes looking around and reading some of these fornits threads (especially the WHO thread) is to me like taking a peek into the Mos Eisely Spaceport.  You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.  Too rich for my blood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YSF5Sfq ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YSF5SfqF2o&feature=related)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 10, 2009, 11:09:11 PM
SEKTO (my accountabilibubby)

 I have been sleeping as means to escape my concerns. I will later whine about my inability to sleep.  This will result in me self administering a dose of ‘night ‘night (Klonopin). The Valium is for the really troubled waters.
 
When I wake in the morning groggy, I will feel badly for having slept so well.

In order to refresh myself I’ll wash down some Adderall with my Noni berry tea. Then I’ll hop in the shower and wonder about everything and everyone and both love and hate this place and all and then wonder why I bother.

By the time I’m sliding hangers in my closet back (looking for the right dress to wrap up in); I’ll wonder why I have such thoughts and why we're taught to bother with lip gloss. Then I’ll wonder if an Ativan might take the edge off and set a better tone for the day I’ll watch from afar.
 
This might be my anthem right now:
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LECSVlc6O1g  :poison:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 11, 2009, 12:30:09 AM
You've got to be careful with that stuff, accountabilibuddy, the pills that is.  Be good to yourself.  Don't overmedicate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYD5WCp ... re=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OYD5WCp9sw&feature=related)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 11, 2009, 11:05:00 PM
:rose:
Lux vivens - Jocelyn Montgomery (with David Lynch), Music of Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was a German abbess, author, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icNd55pMCwE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icNd55pMCwE)
Best with eyes closed^
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 12, 2009, 02:21:32 PM
What a nice song, Inclulcated; a very pretty song it is indeed.  Truly beautiful.  Thanks for introducing us to the works of Hildegard von Bingen; I'd never heard the name before.  Here's the English translation of the hymn you brought out.

Viridissima Virga  
 
O viridissima virga, ave,  
que in ventoso flabro sciscitationis  
sanctorum prodisti.  
Cum venit tempus  
quod tu florusti in ramis tuis,  
ave, ave fuit tibi,  
quia calor solis in te sudavit  
sicut odor balsami.  
Nam in te flourit pulcher flos  
qui odorem dedit  
omnibus aromatibus  
que arida erant.  
Et illa apparuerunt omnia  
in viriditate plena.  
 
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)


Viridissima Virga
 
Hail to you, verdant rod  
that burst forth in the rush of the wind  
out of sacred prayers.  
When your time had come  
to blossom on all your branches  
the word rang out:  
Hail to you,  
Hail to you  
The sun`s warmth trickled into you  
like the fragrance of balsam.


And now an offering from me:

Pierre Abélard (1079–1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXhvkSN_E_0&NR=1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXhvkSN_E_0&NR=1)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 15, 2009, 06:26:00 PM
prescribed a healthy Dose of reality? Hell, even moderation is better had in moderate quantities.
This news journal is really incisive

New Pain-Inducing Advil Created For People Who Just Want To Feel Something, Anything
NOVEMBER 21, 2008 | ISSUE 44•47

PHILADELPHIA—Wyeth Pharmaceuticals unveiled a new pain-causing line of Advil this week that will help millions of benumbed, hollow consumers to feel at least somewhat alive for up to four hours.

An ad for the new temporarily-life-affirming product.
"Advil Release delivers a soothing burst of pain when cold and listless Americans need it most," Wyeth CEO Bernard J. Poussot said during a press conference Monday. "Just two capsules can deliver all-day relief in the form of searing, life-affirming agony; the kind of agony Advil users trust when being a pale specter of humanity adrift in a meaningless and uncaring universe is just not an option anymore."
According to Poussot, the new drug works by delivering a powerful stimulant straight to the brain's pain center, causing an intense stinging sensation all over the body. If taken regularly, the deadening futility of day-to-day life will be temporarily washed away in a flood of blessed and cleansing torment.
"Two fast-acting, long-lasting Advil Release taken three times a day are recommended for anyone who is convinced he or she will never laugh or cry again," Poussot said. "Teenagers who see no difference between being dead or alive, nor why it makes a difference either way, may require twice the suggested dosage."
Continued Poussot, "Those wishing to never again suffer through another numb, flat day devoid of even the basic components of humanness are advised to take an entire bottle of Advil Release along with a quart of gin."
A nationwide advertising campaign for the new medication is slated to begin next week. In the first of two 30-second TV spots, a woman is shown walking outside on a winter's day and coming upon a puppy that has frozen to death. As she stares unblinkingly at the small, frail carcass, a disembodied announcer tells viewers: "Don't spend another day unable to shed a single tear for the eternal tragedy that is existence. Embrace the pain. Advil pain. It's the only thing that's real."
Public reaction to the new medication has been generally positive. Millions of emotionally dulled people across the nation have scrambled for the opportunity, any opportunity, to temporarily escape from mechanically lurching through unfeeling day after unfeeling day after unfeeling day after unfeeling day.
"This new Advil has really—oh, God, the sublime suffering," said 27-year-old copy center employee Nathan Tillson of Roanoke, VA, tears welling up in his eyes. "Sweet Jesus, I haven't closed off. I can still feel."
"Gah," Tillson added before doubling over on the floor and openly sobbing for the first time in as long as he could remember.
Other pharmaceutical companies have also begun marketing their own brands of over- the-counter medications that will help the emotionally anesthetized feel briefly alive. The makers of NyQuil are reportedly developing a new product they describe as "the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, aching, screaming, crying, writhing, so you can possibly—for the love of God—experience some sense of normalcy medicine," and Johnson & Johnson recently released a new line of Tylenol Maximum Suffering, the active ingredient of which is thumbtacks
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 24, 2009, 02:10:37 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
The Daytop Philosophy, recited like a prayer or mantra every morning before Morning Meeting, programmed us to be group-dependent, taught us groupthink  right away.  Here it is:

                                          I am here because there is no refuge.
                                          Finally, from myself.
                                          Until I confront myself in the eyes
                                          and hearts of others, I am running.
                                          Until I suffer them to share my secrets,
                                          I have no safety from them.
                                         Afraid to be known, I can know
                                          neither myself nor any other, I will be alone.
Where else but in our common ground,
can I find such a mirror?
Here, together, I can at last appear
clearly to myself not as the giant
of my dreams nor the dwarf of my fears,
but as a person, part of a whole,
with my share in its purpose.
In this ground, I can take root and grow,
Not alone anymore as in death,
But alive to myself and to others.

Among the following are what were called the “unwritten philosophies”
Unwritten was meant to denote that these aphorisms were spoken as common sense.
At Millbrook they were branded into separate plaques.
The task of polishing them was considered by all as a relatively light LE.

Daytopian philosophies:

1.   You can’t keep it unless you give it away
2.   You alone can do it, but you can’t do it alone
3.   Honesty
4.   Trust in your environment
5.   What goes around comes around
6.   No free lunch
7.   To understand rather than be understood
8.   Personal growth before vested status
9.   Humility
10.   ACT as if
11.   Be careful what you ask for you just might get it

These (additions/retractions?) I found among the others. Curiously, I don't remember any emphasis on these.
They didn't even have plaques for them. They are as follows:
               
To be aware is to be alive
Responsible love and concern
Forgiveness
Pride in quality              
Compensation is valid
...hmmm, Intriguer, non?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 25, 2009, 04:01:49 PM
All that happened there was that they assaulted my very Self and dismantled my personality, they taught me that something was wrong with me and that DAYTOP could "fix" me, I actually believed it, I personalized and internalized all of that crap for years, and in the process my very soul was disfigured.  

DAYTOP set me up for a lot of very odd and self-destructive behavior later on in life, and I think of that organization as a quasi-religion.

It's not a treatment program, it's a thought reform environment, a mind-control center.  It's very a dangerous program and nothing somebody's kid should be subjected to.

Presently, I am still in the process of both grieving what was taken from me in DAYTOP, and purging myself of what was instilled in me there.

Remember that scene in Misery where the crazy woman broke the guy's feet with the sledgehammer so that he could not leave her house; she had him imprisoned and he would have to do what she wanted him to do?  

That's kind of what DAYTOP did to me, mentally.  The whole thing was a surgery that they fucked up, and I (we) left the place "hobbled."

They stunted my emotional growth me with sort of the psychological equivalent of the breaking of one of my legs, only they never reset it (me) properly, and I have been in immersive therapy for the last eleven months relearning how to "walk."

DAYTOP had the single most negative influence upon me of anything I have been through, in my entire life.  I experience a range of emotions when thinking about it, from extreme anger to despondency, but right now I am just rather numb.  

DAYTOP did me great harm in the long run.  I did not belong there, and it was probably the very WORST place for a kid like me (non-NT) to have been put into.  They did me far more harm than good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVqIcB3ZxzI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVqIcB3ZxzI)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 26, 2009, 04:09:54 PM
A dawning moment of insight wakes, while turning pages...

Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
By Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.
Loading the Language“The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis.
The loading is much more extreme in ideological totalism, however, since the jargon expresses the claimed certitudes of the sacred science. Also involved is an underlying assumption that language - like all other human products - can be owned and operated by the Movement. No compunctions are felt about manipulating or loading it in any fashion; the only consideration is its usefulness to the cause.
For an individual person, the effect of the language of ideological totalism can be summed up in one word: constriction. He is, so to speak, linguistically deprived; and since language is so central to all human experience, his capacities for thinking and feeling are immensely narrowed. This is what Hu meant when he said, "using the same pattern of words for so long…you feel chained." Actually, not everyone exposed feels chained, but in effect everyone is profoundly confined by these verbal fetters.”


Hmmm...So, it was lingo used in session that reminded me of Daytopia that led me to seek understanding of why I had such a visceral reaction to those words…angry after all this time. In a later session,I attempted to describe my experience of Daytop. I was frustrated by the fact that I could not seem to communicate this without choking out a lot of the lingo. I actually put a hand to my mouth and said “I can’t make you understand. I don’t know how to say it without using their words, so I’m just not going to say anything.”

The philosophies that were branded in to separate plaques were also branded in to what thinking we were permitted at the time:
"To understand rather than be understood"They didn't really respond to pointed questions with anything but blunted answers.
“You can’t keep it unless you give it away” was the emphasis added to status members who were being given a “dressing down” for "not working their program"( yep, they actually phrased it just so) by showing enough punitive love to their peers with “pull ups”.
"Be your brother’s keeper, but keep no secrets here", was the topic called of a particularly scathing house meeting.
“Trust in your environment” "Wearing this sign will help the family to recognize what you most need help with and open you to feedback".(involved a lot of shouting)“Be careful what you ask for you just might get it.”The circular logic had its intended effect of causing dizziness."What goes around comes around"

When all else fails “Act as if”.
My “belly is flipping”.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on July 28, 2009, 03:10:59 AM
“It’s a battle of philosophies really”, summed up Monsignor William O’Brien, cofounder and president of Daytop Village. “The current way is to impose control from outside the person by putting him or her into a cell. The Daytop way… is to intervene…by changing destructive life patterns, building in self-discipline and boundaries with the help of a therapeutic community.”
From: Dark paradise By David T. Courtwright
Build the prison within them. Let their peers be their jury. Obtain from them confessions under duress. Teach them to carry their own prosecutor and judge in their rehabilitated minds…Yeah, they’ll walk the line. :flame:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on July 28, 2009, 11:45:08 AM
http://books.google.com/books?id=VxUuPa ... P60Y&hl=en (http://books.google.com/books?id=VxUuPa3cnLMC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=%22and+boundaries+with+the+help+of+a+therapeutic+community%22&source=bl&ots=j_QHJ-1T_h&sig=4FmhiGDOQBxUs9DMsS-edEaP60Y&hl=en)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on August 05, 2009, 12:16:46 AM
God didn't condemn Rahab for hiding the spies and lying to the Jericho officials.  The little hand that in that velvet glove weaves the web, and you can learn to deal with spiders.  There's a way, Inculcated, and I would like to bring you to it.  I have found found my one true family.  Let me lead you there.  Suffer the little children...
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on August 05, 2009, 12:47:27 AM
Hmm…SEKTO, I’m as concerned as I am intrigued.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on August 05, 2009, 03:58:43 PM
Are you ready to be instructed in the practice of a mystical sound vibration, an advanced mantra, that will cleanse the dust from the mirror of your mind and awaken you to your orignal transcendental consciousness?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on August 05, 2009, 04:02:26 PM
Hi SEKTO. I'm wary, but I'll bite.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on August 05, 2009, 04:10:38 PM
Hmmm... SEKTO?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on August 05, 2009, 04:21:34 PM
Despite of all the prejudgments about the Pastafarian movement, it is beyond doubt that this trancendental sound is a very potent way to get spiritual relief in this age of Kali-Yuga.  The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster indicates that sound is a very suitable medium to use for spriritual progress.  It has been here from the beginning of time and will last into eternity.  We live in the age of false leadership, quarrel and hypocrisy.   So there is a lot of pollution in our times, not only environmental pollution but also spiritual, mental and emotional pollution as well.  Reciting or singing this mantra cleanses the dust of the mirror of one's mind, so that it can reflect again our true inner spark of Pastafarian divinity.  The meaning of this mantra is: O All Atractive Pasta, please by your loving energy make me surrender unto You.  Please let your voice, mind and spirit flow with this zesty, tomato-based sound vibration, which is best experienced with an accompaniment of salad and garlic bread.

On top of spagetti all covered with cheese I found my new dogma till somebody sneezed...

Please chant and be happy!

HARE PASTA
HARE PASTA
PASTA PASTA
HARE HARE
 
HARE SAUCE-A
HARE SAUCE-A
SAUCE-A SAUCE-A
HARE HARE


Jaya Jah Pastafari!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on August 05, 2009, 04:23:18 PM
WTF? Damn, Have you been eating roots and herbs, again?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on August 05, 2009, 04:26:29 PM
Please chant and be happy!  I have been nibbling the mail-order seeds.

http://www.venganza.org/ (http://www.venganza.org/)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on August 05, 2009, 04:34:25 PM
Giggles!
…and whew. SEKTO, you had your accountabilibuddy a little worried.

That’s a most complex carbohydrate.
 While I respect the rights of the Pastafarian to their beliefs,
I’m saddened that they’re going to hell for their inability to either disprove or acknowledge Bertrand Russell’s Tea pot.
I was on the precipice of sleep when a vision of the invisible pink unicorn came to me.
She told me I would have to take one of Virgil’s guided tours of hell (passage back not guaranteed), and give the dragon in Sagan’s garage a name before I could ever hope to ascend from the unbearable “likeness” of being.
She cautioned, “There’s enough psilocybin in this to get a Pegasus through the Mitote and back before dawn. So, just a nibble”. Then she used my voice to quote Ingrid Berman from Gaslight. “Then, I don’t know what I do anymore! Dream. Dream.Dream...”

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream- Edgar Allen Poe
Quoth the raven,” nevermore”
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on August 05, 2009, 04:59:25 PM
Inculcated, I hope you're not starting to imagine things again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=e ... jDcvlWUk9E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=wjDcvlWUk9E)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on August 06, 2009, 04:44:39 PM
SEKTO:
Of course, I’m imagining things. The principle of indeterminacy teaches us that it’s what keeps gravitas from getting us down. (winks)
Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttv5dyvtF4o (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttv5dyvtF4o)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on August 08, 2009, 01:54:18 AM
(WARNING the following is a mercilessly emotive blog)  :suicide:

 inculcation:

I’ve been in the program for what seems to be a long time to me.Ultimately,my time served within Daytop will span over two years.

 14 now.The director smiles at one of my acerbic quips and tells me that I am something else. I’m flattered. I’m someone else. This is what I’ve become.
I’ve become one of them. When I first arrived my blushes were reserved for the excruciating embarrassment of being called upon to read the philosophy aloud in morning meeting. I had stared down at the paper in my hands, unable to look up and see myself being seen.

I can’t see myself anymore. I see what they see. I am in a way I can’t grasp as invisible behind this façade as I had silently willed myself to become during my first morning meeting.
 
I am a coordinator. I take my status very seriously. I carry my clipboard everywhere. My hypocrisy goes with me.  I actually believe I am showing love most ardently when I do so at the top of my lungs.I hold no reservations about holding even counselors accountable for missteps. They are expected to be the embodiment of the” refuge” I’ve been promised.

Secretly, I kiss the boy who looks like Keifer Sutherland. This is a titillating rebellion. Moments afterward, I will fear and resent the possibility that he may out me by dropping his guilt. I resume my composure by spurning his attentions as if nothing happened. Later in the week, I get his ass busted down to Housekeeping, (my crew) so I can keep a watchful eye on him.

I’m not all bad. I’m the best person to have in charge of the new members and the ones that” need help working their program”. I am a bully’s bully and dropping a slip on one of my crew comes with the threat my feedback.

I’m much smaller than most of my peers, but intimidating. I have the advantage of being raised in a way that prepared me for the arena. In encounter groups, the kids that are into conflict lean into the heat while I clear my throat. Others stare at the floor the way I once did.

The Tuesday following getting my tonsils taken out, a record number of slips are dropped on me. I may have found my voice in encounter groups, but my peers decide it’s time they had their say.

Dissonance, I’m living it. I am hurt by the feedback and can’t tolerate the truths. I’m angry and self righteous and tenaciously clinging to my image conscious awareness of not seeming to image.

A new staff member takes an interest in me. I tried to be oblivious to the intent. Later, when Holly comes across the parking lot and expects me to be flattered that he “likes” me, I’m grossed out. “He’s like twenty something"(which seems ancient to me at the time. I had seen Logan’s run and thought the outfits were cool and didn’t see the big problem about the whole ascension thing). He’s on the fringe, but he takes us to the lake and organizes a car wash so we can go to six flags. This nice guy creeps me out. I actually didn’t believe the rumors that he was into pot. I try to ignore him.

The tryciclics I’m being prescribed (again) kick in. Suddenly, I can be counted on for little more than sitting in the corner with my hair drawn over my face and pulling at my split ends. I am endlessly told that I am slipping, and I truly ache from the conflict of having disappointed them.

Each night I leave the daycare facility to go home to a hell I never did trust a Daytop staffer enough to try to describe. They were ignorant of all of that they were reinforcing with their punitive love. The trauma attributed as the cause of my "behavioral issues" was treated so brutally so often, that I would rather die than “dare to share” anything more with them.

I am put on chair. I am quietly indignant. I am not offered an explanation for why I’m sitting there. (Sweating you out is part of the process.) When brothers K&K who are also on chair decide it’s time to split, some mixture of outrage and a nic fit causes me to join them.

Michael Gorman does something unheard of. He gets in his car and tries to get me to return to the facility. I am crying because I’ve let him down, but I don’t understand how. And, it’ll be years before I could ever attempt to understand that my feeling let down by him was valid. I cross traffic to avoid him and run. K&K who were walking ahead of me catch up with me on my new trajectory. We were never close, because they never fell in lock step like I did, and I never liked them.

We’re in this together, I guess. We wander for a few hours. The boys have a plan and a place they’ve been told they could go.
By evening, I am seated on the couch at my counselor’s apartment being smoked out. He tells me the pot is good. I don’t know what nightshade means. I try to follow the conversation, but my head is spinning. Nothing makes sense. Well, the only thing I’m real fucking clear on is he’s sitting way to close to me and is telling me I can crash there.

D. comes over. He was my expeditor. He’s got a promotion coming. I’m confused by his appearance and by the casual way he scores before leaving. I’m just waking up to the fact that my hypocrisy has had plenty of company. I suppose among some of the kids the dual role of this counselor was common knowledge.  

I’m high and I don’t want to be there and I’m running through the fog trying to come up with an alternate destination.

I can only speculate that it was D. who called the cops.  There is a knock at the door. My name is called. The sounds of their radios tell me what to expect as I walk over.

I’m handcuffed. One of the officers stands with me outside and the other questions the counselor. Must be one smooth talking S.O.B.
During the ride, the officer sitting in the back with me chats me up. I’m not interested in making any new friends. I respond honestly that “nothing happened”. I can’t remember how (or if) how I came to be so obviously stoned was addressed. The friendly one asked me about the counselor and I respond with something so sweetly spoken and lewd that the one driving glances back at me over his shoulder. That pretty much ended the discussion.

It will be a long time before I ever feel like making friends again.

I’m sent to NY. I am strip searched three times upstate. The dose of sedatives I was given for travel numbs me for the first (Thanks Mommy). It is my resignation to my situation that causes me silently to allow the other two searches.

I am brimming with the invectives poured into me at the last house meeting. It was announced before my departure to NY. that I am TOXIC. I have been taught to believe them. I am also succumbing to the overwhelming sense of betrayal. I turn fifteen in the 30 day center. I don’t want any damn cake.
I am suicidal. I am a problem for them to deal with, but not one so easily dispatched of as my parents have them in a bit of a bind.

A push pull of no you take her no you keep her plays out in slow motion, during the months that I was transferred through three residential locations.
 
The month I am returned from Daytop a friend of mine who was rejected by Daytop’s approval process is killed as a passenger in a drunken driving accident .
I actually convinced myself of the possibility that I would arrive at her memorial to find her alive and well, like some sort of weird surprise party.
She’s gone.
Guilt hate rage...I spend a lifetime painting it black.

I’m capricious to say the least. I’m fun to be around for anyone who hasn’t pissed me off.
 
I spend a small amount of time in the public school environment, before another suicide attempt. I will cry while a nurse combs activated charcoal from my hair. While being extubated, I curse god for my survival.
 
I will spend the rest of my teens being shuttled from one inpatient setting after another. (Until that cosmic joke of a private school, graduates me).
There is a shade of blue that Armani had in their collection a few seasons back. Suicide blue. It is exactly the colour of the scrubs issued to me at the crisis intervention centre to signify that I’m a risk.

Suicide becomes the refuge that keeps me alive. The only way I can think of to describe that is to say it’s easier to get through anything for a while if by whispering to yourself,” It’s just for a while it’ll be over soon”. Sick, but empowering.

I require of those saints and martyrs who know me incredible amounts of tolerance.

My adulthood becomes a tightly drawn circle of control.  Every once in a while I break the spells with recklessness.

Later in life, following the death of another friend I will be overcome by survivor’s guilt. I’ll be 5150d for threats.

Inculcated likes to be medicated. It becomes not enough...or never was.

I will come very close to allowing them to perform ECT on me. "Just to see", I say of it.

I announce to my new doctor that I am “toxic”. I tell him I’m unreachable. I tell him the ghosts in the room are his colleagues. He nods and scribbles.
 I haven’t even told him the all of it (and there is so much I don't understand).Yet, he tells me he understands. He gives me a quizzical look while I laugh.

Thanks for the memories monsignor! When you die, I’ll spit on your grave and blog about it.
Title: The re-written philosophy
Post by: Inculcated on September 28, 2009, 12:11:31 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
The Daytop Philosophy, recited like a prayer or mantra every morning before Morning Meeting, programmed us to be group-dependent, taught us groupthink  right away.  Here it is:

                                          I am here because there is no refuge.
                                          Finally, from myself.
                                          Until I confront myself in the eyes
                                          and hearts of others, I am running.
                                          Until I suffer them to share my secrets,
                                          I have no safety from them.
                                         Afraid to be known, I can know
                                          neither myself nor any other, I will be alone.
Where else but in our common ground,
can I find such a mirror?
Here, together, I can at last appear
clearly to myself not as the giant
of my dreams nor the dwarf of my fears,
but as a person, part of a whole,
with my share in its purpose.
In this ground, I can take root and grow,
Not alone anymore as in death,
But alive to myself and to others.
I estimate that I intoned a minimum Seven-Hundred recitations of Beauvais’ philosophy. This inspired my own hermeneutical version.

Because there is no refuge here,

I confront my eyes; I am suffered to share my secrets.
                           And the eyes and hearts of others, I have no safety from them.

Taught to be afraid and told to be known
though by neither myself nor any other, I will be alone.

Common in this ground.

Where else but here in this mirror do I appear this way,
 
As if a person, part of a whole,
with myself share in its purpose,
is to others alive?

My fears, in this ground, take root and grow.
Not as of my dreams nor of my death
Not of this life, but of myself I alone lose to these others


Daytop Philosophy modified-Inculcated
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on October 15, 2009, 11:28:35 PM
SEKTO has become unstuck in time...

Finally I am caught up on my studies and have the time to do some writing.  Hi there everybody; I trust all of you are well.  It's been quite a while since I posted here.  Tonight I'd like to share some news with all of you: I moved out of the place where I was about six weeks ago, having finished up there.  These days I am living alone in a small apartment, and am a full-time student at a local university.  I live off of the GI Bill.  My grades are very decent, and things are coming along nicely.  I am at last moving on with my life.

I'd like to briefly say that going through the cult-recovery center that I was a part of was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.  DAYTOP did me great harm in the long run, but I've discovered a lot about myself on the road back.  The time I spent there was hugely beneficial toward my recovery, and overall healing.  I learned a lot about a lot of things there, a lot about myself.  Particularly that I do not have to lose myself to a group in order to feel like a whole individual.

To be sure, it was also one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.  Going through that process of remembrance and  mourning, and beginning the healing process towards my eventual re-integration was a lot of work and was quite painful at times.The two most important things that I learned a MH, were these:

1) I was assessed as a non-neurotypical person; in other words, I figured out that I am not crazy, I am autistic, and my therapists helped me to work through the sense of grieving and loss, and instilled in me the beginnings of a sense of self-acceptance and renewed confidence.

2) In time, I came to see the seriously deleterious effect that DAYTOP had on me and my life, and how so much of the DAYTOP experience had been represeed in my psyche for so long.  

I have experienced that healing and recovery do not go hand-in-hand with abusive or coercive tactics.  I have enormous respect and gratitude for the lasting friendships, and for the mentors that I have found this last year.  I have come to understand myself.  That understanding includes being educated about my diagnoses, and how they apply to me, without reducing me to a set of labels.  They say that knowledge is power, and coming to understand my history and non-NT status has given me an understanding not of my limitations, but of my abilities and the potential I hold within myself.  Even though I was quite discouraged at times, I became motivated to work through my issues and have truly found very substantial healing.

With this momentum, I plan on continuing to move forward in a positive direction with my life.

One of my major challenges has been in the area of forgiving my family.  I will continue to address potential boundaries issues in relation to my family of origin (the very ones who put me into DAYTOP in the first place) until I achieve substantial self-confidence and perspective to maintain my separate identity, yet still show grace to them.  The intent is to help me to foster a greater sense of independence and self-esteem.

In general, I have begun to overcome some serious childhood disadvantages and trauma.  I have developed my inner strength and developed a deeper capacity to love others in spite of the severity of the abuse I suffered as a child.  I even have learned to use some of these experiences to enhance my personal growth and share with others.  Like all who are alive and living their lives, I am a work in progress.

In Inculcated's professional opinion, my prognosis is excellent.    :whip:

Also, I'd like to now publicly thank my very dear friend Inculcated, who helped me to get through some very tough times there.  We used to talk quite often (and still do).  Her presence in my life while I was still in MH was a major source of validation, encouragement, and support.  Inculcated, I am grateful to you, and grateful for you.  You helped me a lot, and continue to help me.  You company and support was and is a big contributor to my healing, and I hope to be able to contribute to yours as well.  Thank you for being my friend.  It means the world to me.  Thanks to fornits for that, and for so much more.

You know it's funny what a young man recollects?  'Cause I don't remember bein' born.  I don't recall what I got for my first Christmas and I don't know when I went on my first outdoor picnic.  But I do remember the first time I heard the sweetest voice in the wide world.  It was on the twenty-first of last May, a Thursday, at about four o'clock in the afternoon.  That was the first time that we ever spoke, Inculcated and I.  Inculcated always had a way of explaining things so I could understand them.
Title: SEKTO, rockin' on his own theme song, now.
Post by: Inculcated on October 16, 2009, 12:01:31 AM
SEKTO:
I’ll be brief. I am so impressed by the strength you’ve shown rising to meet what’s been required of you to have come so far.
The strengths you’ve developed and acquired in the time I have known you are inspiring. With these you will go farther still.

I’m also happy that beautiful unique spirit of yours not only abides, but now has learned to thrive.      :rose:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on October 22, 2009, 07:05:45 PM
A happy Gaudenzia to all!

In the last two weeks I have made contact with five old Daytopians who I knew back in the day, four males and a female.  The woman (I'll call her Lisa) found and contacted me via FB first.  We have not seen one another in over 15 years, she and I.  Through her friends list, I was able to find two others.  The other two guys I found independent of my contact with Lisa.  I'll tell you now what became of everyone:

1)  One old buddy was in a cult called the Holy Order of Mans out in S. California for seven years, but left about a year and a half ago.

http://www.rickross.com/groups/hom.html (http://www.rickross.com/groups/hom.html)

Presently he is in the midst of a painful divorce from his wife of ten years (they were in the cult together), and battling with her over custody rights for their kids.  He owns and operates his own A/V business, and teaches A/V stuff at a local community college.  

The last time I saw him was at a Rainbow Gathering in '94, where he'd slashed his own throat and jumped into the fire during a drum circle, while in the grip of a bad trip on a large dose of magic mushrooms.  He and I have been talking on the phone a bit lately, and I am glad that he is relatively OK and working to rebuild his life.

This person was probated to DAYTOP Richardson and left voluntarily once his probation was up, at the age of 17.

2)  Another man (the one I have described here as Jeff) has been in the Navy for several years, is a corpman, and has been to Iraq twice.  He is married to a Japanese woman and has a couple of girls.  He and I found each other via FB (but have not spoken in person) and I know little of what has become of his life other than what I just described.  I am not sure if he graduated or not.

3)  The third fellow (this one is interesting to me and I'll call him Zane) is working as a hairdresser in a spa in Hawaii someplace, is an expert in the martial arts discipline called Jeet Kune Do, does Ultimate Fighting Championships, and spends his free time surfing, smoking weed, and otherwise partying.  He is tattooed from head to toe, and bleaches his hair.   He was in outreach and Pine Mountain too.  Graduated from Pine Mountain in '96.  This is the guy who I have written of before who we inherited from Straight once they closed down.  Nowadays he is a semi-professional Ultimate Fighting contender.  Talk about anger issues.

4)  The fourth old Richardson Daytopian is still living in Dallas and fought a hard-core heroin addiction for many years, I mean twelve years or so.  However, me tells me that he has been clean since February of '08.  Now he "only" drinks and smokes pot, and lives off off SSI and Medicaid.  Did not graduate, and never was sober, even when in the program.  This guy I have known for over twenty years; we grew up in the same neighborhood, and his mom and mine were in the PTA together.  We were in the same high school and used to get high together a lot.  As a matter of fact, I am the one who told him about DAYTOP in the first place.  This person checked himself in, WANTED to go there.

5)  Lisa was involved with DAYTOP for longer than anybody else I've ever met, longer than Billy even.  I am surprised that Lisa remembered and wrote to me.  It took her approximately five years to graduate, and she was in Dallas, Pine Mountain, and Millbrook too.  That it took her so long to graduate is due to the fact that she split a couple of times and so was not in for a continuous five years.  That, and they kept shipping her around.  But she graduated with Zane at Dresser in '96.  Lisa is doing well now, has a decent job, and is engaged.  I do not know if she is sober or what.

I have not asked most of these people what they remember about DAYTOP or how they feel it influenced their lives, I've only asked them how their lives have gone in the last 15 years and where they are now.  So we've got a guy who is a professional fighter, another who was in a cult, another was a junkie for many years, we've got an adrenaline-seeking war junkie who works with Marines, and Lisa seems to be doing well and is about the only halfway stable one in the bunch.  She agreed with me when I told her that I think of DAYTOP as  cult, though seems to have no hard feelings.  Probably a lot about the DAYTOP experience has been repressed in all of these people, like it was in me for all those years, until I was in therapy four hours a week.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Family Reunion bring a shiv
Post by: Inculcated on October 24, 2009, 02:26:08 PM
SEKTO:
Those are some interesting life experiences accrued by former charges of Daytop. Cults, military, Ultimate Championship Fighter…
Damn,slashing throat while literally jumping into the fire at a rainbow gathering…
Who needs staff for a fireside if you’ve got return to sender or self destruct imbedded?

I’m glad everyone seems to be on the mend.

Thx Monsignor! :flame:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Family Reunion bring a shiv
Post by: SEKTO on October 24, 2009, 05:39:42 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
SEKTO:
Those are some interesting life experiences accrued by former charges of Daytop. Cults, military, Ultimate Championship Fighter…
Damn,slashing throat while literally jumping into the fire at a rainbow gathering…
Who needs staff for a fireside if you’ve got return to sender or self destruct imbedded?

I’m glad everyone seems to be on the mend.

Thx Monsignor! :flame:

Yep, slashed his own throat with a piece of broken glass and then jumped into a bonfire, during a drum circle at the '94 Gathering in Wyoming.  Some people had to pull him out and they bandaged him up, which saved his life.  That's a true story.  I was not there to witness the incident, though I was at that same Gathering (in all, I have been to five) and when I ran into him he was wearing a thick and bloody piece of gauze around his neck.  He told me at that point of what had happened, and we have spoken of it recently as well.

Though he is a Christian now (after seven years in the pseudo-Orthodox cult his faith is still intact), at the time this person was very much into Crowleyan magick and dabbled in the Dark Side of the Force.  He now believes that he literally became demon-possessed, that the demons had taken control of his mind and tried to take his life.  But he's relatively OK now.
Title: Re: exorcising DAYTOP demons
Post by: Inculcated on October 24, 2009, 05:59:05 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
He now believes that he literally became demon-possessed, that the demons had taken control of his mind and tried to take his life.  But he's relatively OK now.
Daytop instilling the kind of fears and intrapsychic destruction that cause one to believe they are vulnerable to demonic possession since 1963.
My sincerest empathy to him and hopes for his continued healing.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on October 24, 2009, 06:25:18 PM
Quote
Daytop instilling the kind of fears and intrapsychic destruction that cause one to believe they are vulnerable to demonic possession since 1963.
My sincerest empathy to him and hopes for his continued healing.

This person left DAYTOP three or four months before I went in, so I do not know him from there; I know him from the early '90s Lower Greenville hippie scene and from Rainbow Gatherings.  We used to hang out at Grinder's coffeehouse on Prospect back in the day, and had mutual friends.

He recently told me another story, too.  One time he'd been out all night tripping (there was a lot of acid going around back then) and dropped some more while in the van on the way to DAYTOP, in an effort to keep the buzz going and stay awake.  But on that day, by coincidence, the staff had decided to pull one of their random and very confrontational house meetings.  So they herded everybody down to the racketball courts downstairs and had them in this meeting all morning, for one of those check-your-gut-and-drop-your-guilt sessions.  He told me that the staff had everybody stand up in front of the family, one by one, and endure their interrogations in front of one another.  

Imagine this: so here's this poor guy of sixteen getting grilled, psychologically assaulted, being yelled at by Marcy and Ruben in an effort to get him to confess to all of the stuff he had done, and was continuing to do.  He's is in this underground, undecorated, echo-chamber room with all-white walls in front of a bunch of other kids, getting screamed at and put on the hot seat, while peaking out of his mind on a heavy dose of acid.   He told me that he denied everything, even when they were up in his face and directly accusing him of being high at that very moment (which he was, but he didn't tell them that and acid cannot be detected in a UA anyway).

When he told me this story, we both laughed about it, and it is kind of a funny story.  But can you imagine...Marcy up in your face while you're peaking on acid in this sterile, all-white room.  It'd be like like something out of the final scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1u-_ymkvCo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1u-_ymkvCo)

Sheez, that would mess with your head for years, right?
Title: Re: Space oddity
Post by: Inculcated on October 24, 2009, 06:47:48 PM
Talk about reverberations.
It is funny to picture it…but also so not.
I can feel those white walls closing in and still hear the echoes of their scurrilous invectives, and feel the chill and burn sensation
as inevitably the glare turns, but I cannot imagine enduring that while on a psychoactive substance...damn.
Title: End Game
Post by: Inculcated on November 22, 2009, 05:06:03 AM
Because there is no refuge…The Lies. The Lies.The Lies. Here for you.Their Lies and their manipulations The Lies. The Lies. The Lies. Just open up. The Lies. The Lies. The Lies. We can’t feel you feeling it. The Lies. The accusations. The Lies. The Lies.The Lies. Hug it out. Scream it out. The Lies. The Lies. The cries. Confronted in the eyes and hearts of…The Lies. The Lies.The Lies.This will only hurt a little. The Lies. The Lies.The Lies. Let us in.Lies,lies lies,lies. what lies within? Their Lies. What we fear lies within you, can you feel it? We want you to. This is for your own good. Trying to help you to help you … The Lies. The manipulations and The Lies. Toxic. Toxic. Toxic.The Lies… and you’ve got to want it. How much do you want it? The Lies. The Lies. The screaming lies. The Lies and their manipulations.The Lies.Trust in the process. The Lies. The Lies. The Lies. Am I running feelings or are they running game? The Lies. Cry. The Lies. The Tissues and the fucking Lies! The manipulations. The Lies. The Lies.The Lies. We can’t feel you. We can’t feel you The manipulations. The Lies. Keep no secrets here. The Liars.The outcry of cry it out lies The Lies. The Lies...and The screaming invectives.The Lies. It’s about trust. Betrayal. The Lies. The look in to my eyes Lies. The Lies. The Liars. Act as if. Act as if this madness is acceptable. Acceptance. It’s a sign of trust in your environment. The Lies. The sign reads, Ask me about secrets and keeping your Lies. The Lies. You need to ask for help. Down on your knees so we can all really fucking feel it, you know…Cry. Confess. Lies. The Lies.Trust in the process. Oh, Lies.The Lies.The Lies. The Lie, belies the Keep quiet Lies. Dare to share. We can't feel you. The Lies. Be careful what you ask for you just might get it. The Lies. The manipulations. The Lies. The damned tears and cries The Lies. Feel it! Scream We want you to believe in you, but you've got to believe us. Have Faith. Faith that you’ll be salvaged from all we see in you. By the way you’ve got to swallow that too.TheToxins.The Lies.The Lies.The Lies. Tissue? The manipulations and The Lies. The Lies. So touched. So touching. You've got to want it and sit in the chair and let your inventory be taken. Let yourself be taken in. The Liars. Let’s take a moment to reflect… The Lies. The Lies.The Lies. The screaming Lies. Their eyes. Feel it.The manupulations and the Lies. The Lies seeping under the skin.The Lies.The silencing lies. The Lies. The Lies.The Lies and manipulations. The Lies. Breathe. Breathe in their Lies.The shhh close your eyes lies. Therein Lies the truth of their Lies.The Betrayal. No secrets.The toxic lies Silence.
Title: Meanwhile...
Post by: Inculcated on December 02, 2009, 04:28:30 PM
“I can’t feel you feeling it” inside out…still can’t find the words for it, which is weird because so many come to mind. It’s hard to make sense of what I might be trying to say when all of the words I have to communicate collide. Anyway, If we were to imagine some conceptual hell of non-linear time we could look back and see that the extended group never ended, part of me is still sitting there, and there I am in the next room on a different day on chair, while elsewhere trapped there unblinkingly clock watching the interminable nightmare of the never ending sessions, and just a blink away we’re transitioning to our “circle of trust” from what others call “dissipations” and we’ve all been in this ring of the circus before and everyone knows how it goes and the show must go on so you know here we go and we all watch the shadow on the wall made by H. screaming at any empty chair and we hear that boy from the day room wind up again (it’s all the same place when these places get under your skin) and we look at the scars on his hands and try to draw upon  the compassion drained of us in the fighting ring encounters and to draw a breath, and over there we’re in the round and …oh, the Robin sings like a canary and she screams and I can’t help but think that if this group were gathered in the other ring I’d be picking little yellow feathers of hers from my teeth, but for right now (the eternal now, as someone once put it) I want her to shut up so I don’t have to feel her feeling and I want the drone of her tearful moans to go on and drown out the sounds of my hurting for her and of my own fears, so I’m not called upon to have them affronted here in the eyes and hearts of … Feedback emanates from me in my stead, and I play the that was a brave share song for her, an empty offering falling from my tied tongue. In a game theory way we are bound in this common ground, not to each other but by one another in the rules of the roles we're made to play.By turns the shadows on the wall shift in our dimly lighted room where our circle is interned. In turn the shapes change their span and shade.  The shadows cast themselves from where they stand over us and over again their punch drunk screaming incantations are eliciting cultivated keening. All the while others are dispelling themselves with disappearing magic into the patterned fabric… And I can’t speak a word of this though my lips move making sounds without meaning drowned out of something else meant for keeping and lost in the midst. Now close your eyes & make a wish, when opened again, my pupils constrict.
Title: Gasping for breath
Post by: SEKTO on December 05, 2009, 07:35:17 PM
Tonight, friends, I am so depressed that I just do not know what to do.  I've been on a studying jag all day long (since about 9:30 this morning) and have stopped only to make tea, eat a sandwich, and go to the bathroom.  The weather outside is cold, the rain is pouring down, and it's really windy too.  Foggy.  Because of the shitty weather, I cannot leave my apartment to go out and try and have some fun, and none of my friends are available to speak in the phone right now.  So it's just me and the TV and the four walls and my computer.  I do not feel like reading a book, and am exhausted from studying all day.  My anxieties are getting the better of me and I just wish that I could cry it all out, but the tears will not come.  Can't sleep either.  Actually, I feel like I am suffocating.  I just need some support right now, as I am in a very bad frame of mind.  Please help; I do not know what to do.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on December 05, 2009, 09:19:19 PM
your phone is ringing.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 05, 2009, 10:44:16 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Tonight, friends, I am so depressed that I just do not know what to do. I've been on a studying jag all day long (since about 9:30 this morning) and have stopped only to make tea, eat a sandwich, and go to the bathroom. The weather outside is cold, the rain is pouring down, and it's really windy too. Foggy. Because of the shitty weather, I cannot leave my apartment to go out and try and have some fun, and none of my friends are available to speak in the phone right now. So it's just me and the TV and the four walls and my computer. I do not feel like reading a book, and am exhausted from studying all day. My anxieties are getting the better of me and I just wish that I could cry it all out, but the tears will not come. Can't sleep either. Actually, I feel like I am suffocating. I just need some support right now, as I am in a very bad frame of mind. Please help; I do not know what to do.
You are burnt out from studying, your blood sugar is low, no surprise that a low might come at this time.

Keep in mind, this too ... shall pass.  :D
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 06, 2009, 04:28:00 PM
Quote
You are burnt out from studying, your blood sugar is low, no surprise that a low might come at this time.

Keep in mind, this too ... shall pass.  :D

Too much Ritalin and Adderall, too little food, the stress of finals.  At least I get plenty of sleep, though, and my grades are excellent, all A's and B's.  Add to all that some tension in my personal life and you've got the recipe for a real depressive episode.  I sure do hope that it will pass.  The semester is over in a couple of weeks, anyway.  Then a month off.  I'm going to relax and read a lot in that time, try and get out more, weather permiting.

Really, if there were some kind of autism pill or some such that I could take to make me NT overnight, then I'd take it.  I'd rather not be this way, I'd rather not have this PDD.  Actually, I hate being like this.  Imagine being a traumatized 22-year old who is trapped in the body of a 36-year old, but who also has the intellect of a 50 year old.  It's very uncomfortable, kind of what I imagine that literal blindness would be like, but it's a social blindness.  Imagine being really smart, yet really stupid at the same time.  People have always thought me eccentric and even weird, but I do not know how else to be.  I don't know how NOT to be like this.

That's what has me depressed.  I feel a great sense of loss and grief.  It'll never really go away, either.  All the therapy and medication in the world won't make me NT.  Coming to terms with all of this makes me very emotional.  My social, emotional, chronological, and intellectual ages will never match.  I am as insecure inside as a nerdy little kid with no friends; I am still in many respects that nerdy and bullied little kid with no friends that I was when I was 12.  It pains me very much, and I do not like it at all.  It's a very isolating feeling; it's as if I do not belong to this world, never have, and never will.

My emotions are very childlike, though I do not necessarily think of myself as childish.  My friends, those who really know me well, know this to be the case.  In a lot of ways, I'm still a kid.

Keep in mind as well, I was only assessed as being on the spectrum a little over a year ago, when I was 34.  Well, AS was not added to the DSM until 1994 (the year I left DAYTOP) anyway.  Before that, nobody outside of certain medical specialists knew about ASD.  Next year, I'll undergo the neuro-psychological testing necessary in order for an official diagnosis to be made.  

And DAYTOP surely did not help me one bit.  I only started to unpack the DAYTOP stuff a year or so ago, too.  All they did for me was compound my insecurities.  All that constant humiliation, the  degrading LEs and all the screaming, (not to mention the abuse and neglect that I lived with at home) led me to have a deeply internalized sense of shame and perpetual self-doubt.

And so my parents stick me in this fucked up cult in order to make me "better."  Years later over dinner, just last summer actually while I was at MH, my father (who had come to visit me there) told me that he never could see how all that stuff that DAYTOP did was really supposed to help anybody.  I told him that DAYTOP is a cult and that they screwed my mind up.  He told me that he always thought it to be a cult too, but that he didn't know of any better options as far as what to do with me.  I told him that DAYTOP did me great harm in the long run, but that I forgive him. He didn't know any better, and he thought that it was helping me.  For that matter, I thought so too.  

Those people did not know what the hell they were doing, and for some kid like me, it was the worst place I could have been. The only thing is, that it took me fifteen years to see that fact.  Well, the second-to-worst place; they would have killed me in residential. No wonder Mike Gomez split right before they would have sent him to Athens.  They would have eaten him alive there.

The other day I was telling this woman, after my Personality Theory class and over coffee in the library, about my experience in DAYTOP.  She told me about being manipulated and used by her therapist, while in Jungian therapy many years ago.  So I opened up told her about the chair, the encounter groups, Mike and the pacifier, and the time I was made to wear a sign that said, "Ask me to bark like a dog."  She looked at me incredulously, as if she thought that I was making it all up.  I assured her that I was not.  She told me those were some of the worst and most abusive "therapeutic" B-Mod practices that she'd ever heard.  I told her that that was only the beginning, the tip of the iceberg in terms of the abuses of the Troubled Teen Industry.  She told me that she'd never heard anything like that before, that she had no idea.  I just smiled.  What to say?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 07, 2009, 07:53:16 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b26BD5KjH0)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on December 07, 2009, 10:50:20 PM
SEKTO,
'New theme song? Seriously, I hope this ^ piece of music is not all you’re listening to. That’s probably not an ideal soundtrack for dealing with the dismal weather, exams to study for and being blue.
Cheer up.  :hug:
A song with some sunshine (http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QkS-cUIemM)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 08, 2009, 10:21:36 PM
Feeling much better now, dear, thank you.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on December 09, 2009, 12:47:08 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
The other day I was telling this woman, after my Personality Theory class and over coffee in the library, about my experience in DAYTOP. She told me about being manipulated and used by her therapist, while in Jungian therapy many years ago. So I opened up told her about the chair, the encounter groups, Mike and the pacifier, and the time I was made to wear a sign that said, "Ask me to bark like a dog." She looked at me incredulously, as if she thought that I was making it all up. I assured her that I was not. She told me those were some of the worst and most abusive "therapeutic" B-Mod practices that she'd ever heard. I told her that that was only the beginning, the tip of the iceberg in terms of the abuses of the Troubled Teen Industry. She told me that she'd never heard anything like that before, that she had no idea. I just smiled. What to say?
Classic. This should be a scene in a Jacques Tati movie. 'Tis a pity that he only made 5 or so...
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on December 09, 2009, 03:35:27 PM
Too obscure of a reference for me, man.  That went over my head.  What do you mean?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 04, 2010, 09:16:34 PM
Recently, for diagnostic purposes, I have undergone a full battery of neuro-psychological testing.  This being done, I now know conclusively that I am a person on the autistic spectrum.  The one test that was, to me, the most memorable was called ADOS.  

http://portal.wpspublish.com/portal/pag ... ema=PORTAL (http://portal.wpspublish.com/portal/page?_pageid=53,70384&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL)

The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) is the "gold standard" for assessing and diagnosing autism and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) across ages, developmental levels, and language skills.

I was also given the WAIS, the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a battery of purely neurological testing, (the names of which I cannot recall), and as well went through a semi-structured interview with a neuropsychiatrist.

After all this stuff was evaluated, it was determined (long story short) that I meet criteria set by the designers of the ADOS and the other tests that would place my brain somewhere on the the jumble of developmental syndromes known collectively as "autism spectrum disorders."  I have now been conclusively diagnosed.

Just today, as a matter of fact, I was given an fMRI scan, which entailed my being placed in the chamber and given a series of "moral reasoning tasks," as well as certain protocols measuring my capacity for self-referential thought; also I performed episodic and semantic memory-related tasks.  I was in that damn chamber for over an hour and a half.

On a screen were described to me different scenarios, and then I was asked questions pertaining to the ethics of the situation being described.  This, while scientists were looking at different areas of my brain and how they "lit up" according to the responses I gave.   "Is Bobby forbidden to give Suzy the ham sandwich, or is he allowed to?"  It was that kind of thing, up to progressively more and more ethically ambiguous situations.

My point is, this: if I had been diagnosed twenty years ago, and placed in the care of competent therapists, then the whole trajectory of the rest of my life would probably have been much, much different (in a good way).  No, instead I was placed in DAYTOP and they did little other than try and do their damndest to try and get me to "act normal."  "We do not like the way you are behaving, so stop it or else."  No referalls, no evaluations, no nothing,  just lots of encounter groups and humiliation.  I came out of DAYTOP  with and deeply instilled and constantly reinforced sense that there was something very wrong with me.  The DAYTOP "counselors" used to laugh and call me a "space cadet" who fried his brain with too much acid.  That was their explanation for why I was so different from the rest of the kids, too much acid.  It outrages me that none of the DAYTOP "counseling" personnel back in my time there were in any way, shape, or form trained or degreed counselors. If I had been in residential or else some other and even more confrontational program, then who knows, I might not have made in this far in life.  It grieves me deeply to think of "what might have been."  Every day I gain more insight into just how much damage was done to me in DAYTOP.  It was like badly botched surgery.  DAYTOP was a toxic environment for somebody like me to have been in, toxic for anybody, but for me the exposure to that milieu was the equivalent of being given psychological Thalidomide.  The experience was downright psychologically disfiguring, and the scars will never go away; I will heal, and am healing, but the scars will remain.  For somebody like me, with a profound PDD, it was devastating.  But the hell of it is, for the longest time, I was grateful to them.  And to top it all off, I did not ever begin to recognize what had happened in there until over fifteen years after the fact.  This revelation came to me after a few months at MH.  There, while doing reading on identity formation and boundaries, and thinking about my early life, I had that AHA! moment, and finally saw DAYTOP for what it is: essentially a sobriety cult which employs thought-reform techniques in order to manipulate children.  

DAYTOP did me (us) great harm in the long run.  And it makes me very sad inside.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 05, 2010, 01:02:02 AM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Recently, for diagnostic purposes, I have undergone a full battery of neuro-psychological testing.  This being done, I now know conclusively that I am a person on the autistic spectrum.  The one test that was, to me, the most memorable was called ADOS.  

http://portal.wpspublish.com/portal/pag ... ema=PORTAL (http://portal.wpspublish.com/portal/page?_pageid=53,70384&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL)

The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) is the "gold standard" for assessing and diagnosing autism and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) across ages, developmental levels, and language skills.

I was also given the WAIS, the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), a battery of purely neurological testing, (the names of which I cannot recall), and as well went through a semi-structured interview with a neuropsychiatrist.

After all this stuff was evaluated, it was determined (long story short) that I meet criteria set by the designers of the ADOS and the other tests that would place my brain somewhere on the the jumble of developmental syndromes known collectively as "autism spectrum disorders."  I have now been conclusively diagnosed.

Just today, as a matter of fact, I was given an fMRI scan, which entailed my being placed in the chamber and given a series of "moral reasoning tasks," as well as certain protocols measuring my capacity for self-referential thought; also I performed episodic and semantic memory-related tasks.  I was in that damn chamber for over an hour and a half.

On a screen were described to me different scenarios, and then I was asked questions pertaining to the ethics of the situation being described.  This, while scientists were looking at different areas of my brain and how they "lit up" according to the responses I gave.   "Is Bobby forbidden to give Suzy the ham sandwich, or is he allowed to?"  It was that kind of thing, up to progressively more and more ethically ambiguous situations.

My point is, this: if I had been diagnosed twenty years ago, and placed in the care of competent therapists, then the whole trajectory of the rest of my life would probably have been much, much different (in a good way).  No, instead I was placed in DAYTOP and they did little other than try and do their damndest to try and get me to "act normal."  "We do not like the way you are behaving, so stop it or else."  No referalls, no evaluations, no nothing,  just lots of encounter groups and humiliation.  I came out of DAYTOP  with and deeply instilled and constantly reinforced sense that there was something very wrong with me.  The DAYTOP "counselors" used to laugh and call me a "space cadet" who fried his brain with too much acid.  That was their explanation for why I was so different from the rest of the kids, too much acid.  It outrages me that none of the DAYTOP "counseling" personnel back in my time there were in any way, shape, or form trained or degreed counselors. If I had been in residential or else some other and even more confrontational program, then who knows, I might not have made in this far in life.  It grieves me deeply to think of "what might have been."  Every day I gain more insight into just how much damage was done to me in DAYTOP.  It was like badly botched surgery.  DAYTOP was a toxic environment for somebody like me to have been in, toxic for anybody, but for me the exposure to that milieu was the equivalent of being given psychological Thalidomide.  The experience was downright psychologically disfiguring, and the scars will never go away; I will heal, and am healing, but the scars will remain.  For somebody like me, with a profound PDD, it was devastating.  But the hell of it is, for the longest time, I was grateful to them.  And to top it all off, I did not ever begin to recognize what had happened in there until over fifteen years after the fact.  This revelation came to me after a few months at MH.  There, while doing reading on identity formation and boundaries, and thinking about my early life, I had that AHA! moment, and finally saw DAYTOP for what it is: essentially a sobriety cult which employs thought-reform techniques in order to manipulate children.  

DAYTOP did me (us) great harm in the long run.  And it makes me very sad inside.

The MRI was not around twenty years ago, sure wish it was there for ya buddy. At least you have been diagnosed and maybe some good can come from this for you.
 :shamrock:
Danny........
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on March 05, 2010, 05:22:48 PM
You’re off on your time (http://http://www.mri.psu.edu/AboutMRI/timeline.asp) lines (http://http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312532/thinkquestH1/history.html) again Danny Bennison. Not that it would’ve helped much for a non neurotypical kid being immersed in Daytop’s program fifteen years ago.

Understandably your knowledge of Daytop’s intake and treatment practices is also limited.

The larger point that you’ve missed here is that at Daytop no considerations toward developing an individual treatment plan for SEKTO were made. Daytop’s program by its very nature caused lasting harm to SEKTO in particular, because no considerations were made for his being non neurotypical. They targeted any differences in him as being character flaws and reduced them to damaging labels, while imposing on him a demand to accept these labels and conform.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on March 05, 2010, 05:23:24 PM
SEKTO: I’m very glad you’re feeling empowered by the acknowledgement and support you’re getting along with your developing understanding.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on March 05, 2010, 06:19:05 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
You're off on your time (http://http://www.mri.psu.edu/AboutMRI/timeline.asp) lines (http://http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312532/thinkquestH1/history.html) again Danny Bennison.
Sorry, I believe you are in error to imply that the Materials Research Institute at Penn State (first link) was in any way involved with the development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, which is what Sekto was referring to...

Your second link was more spot-on. Nevertheless, from the time-line given, it is difficult to appreciate when MRIs were, for all practical purposes, already in routine use on humans, e.g., in a hospital setting. To that end, I will add that I personally toured an MRI facility that was operating as part of a hospital setting back in 1985 or 86. So it was certainly before then.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Inculcated on March 05, 2010, 06:45:02 PM
LOL Thanks for clearing that up Ursus.
The first link from my quick search was posted incorrectly. I meant to cite this (http://http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file28050.pdf).
 My  point is that MRI’s were in use at that time (unlike the assertion made in the post I was responding to) and that that fact has not a damn thing to do with the fact that Daytop’s program mistreated SEKTO in relation to, but not limited to his having asperger's syndrome.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 05, 2010, 07:17:06 PM
Quote
The larger point that you’ve missed here is that at Daytop no considerations toward developing an individual treatment plan for SEKTO were made. Daytop’s program by its very nature caused lasting harm to SEKTO in particular, because no considerations were made for his being non neurotypical. They targeted any differences in him as being character flaws and reduced them to damaging labels, while imposing on him a demand to accept these labels and conform.

My point is that MRI’s were in use at that time (unlike the assertion made in the post I was responding to) and that that fact has not a damn thing to do with the fact that Daytop’s program mistreated SEKTO in relation to, but not limited to his having asperger's syndrome.

Well put, very well put as usual, Inculcated.  You are simply one of the most articulate individuals that I have ever come across.  Thanks for your support.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Ursus on March 05, 2010, 07:30:26 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
I meant to cite this (http://http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file28050.pdf).
An excellent citation and an easily understood description of MRI, I might add. And only two pages, albeit densely printed ones, for those concerned about a humongous download.

Quote from: "Inculcated"
My point is that MRI's were in use at that time (unlike the assertion made in the post I was responding to) and that that fact has not a damn thing to do with the fact that Daytop's program mistreated SEKTO in relation to, but not limited to his having asperger's syndrome.
Far more pertinent might be when Aspergers Syndrome really entered the "common knowledge" database ... of clinicians in a position to make said diagnosis. Which wouldn't have been 'till the mid 1990s, assuming ya were even on the up and up with recent developments in the field. Chances are quite high that many people slipped through the cracks back then, and Sekto was one of them.

I think one of the key take-home points here is that, in all likelihood, given that our understanding of the human psyche is still evolving, there will always be syndromes and the like that will be missed, not understood, or simply not known. And programs utilizing therapeutic community methodologies, with their one-size-fits-all approach, by their very inherent nature, can potentially be quite damaging to some people. In some cases, why they are damaging to some people can now be understood. Or, at least, more understood.

Pertinent to all this is why would a program utilize or continue to utilize a one-size-fits-all approach in the face of so much overwhelming evidence of damage? If their avowed premise is to be believed, namely, that they want to help people, how can so much harm be tolerated? (This obviously a rhetorical question on my part, lol...)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 05, 2010, 08:28:57 PM
Quote from: "Inculcated"
You’re off on your time (http://http://www.mri.psu.edu/AboutMRI/timeline.asp) lines (http://http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312532/thinkquestH1/history.html) again Danny Bennison. Not that it would’ve helped much for a non neurotypical kid being immersed in Daytop’s program fifteen years ago.

Understandably your knowledge of Daytop’s intake and treatment practices is also limited.

The larger point that you’ve missed here is that at Daytop no considerations toward developing an individual treatment plan for SEKTO were made. Daytop’s program by its very nature caused lasting harm to SEKTO in particular, because no considerations were made for his being non neurotypical. They targeted any differences in him as being character flaws and reduced them to damaging labels, while imposing on him a demand to accept these labels and conform.

Listen Inculcated before you run down the road with all your judgments about what I know and don't know, STOP. Deflate your huge ego and relax. I made one comment concerning MRI'S and I still stand by it. I happen to be in a family that just so happens to have (2) neuro-surgeons and 3 Cardiology specialist. So excuse me. I have a cousin that has Aspergers, which I grew up with. So that being said I asked and was told by my brother the Doctor, that MRI's twenty/ thirty years ago are not even close to what they are today. Analysis has progress the most from what he said.
Digital Imagery has come leaps and bounds.
Now your larger point that Daytop never considered a individual treatment plan (no-shit). Who did they do that with.
Did you get one when you were there. Last but not least intake policies ummmm...well if they didn't pick up his condition then we can assume they didn't have a policy. No different then any other center I was in, Oh that's right I was in Daytop.
 :shamrock:  :shamrock:
Danny....
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 05, 2010, 08:34:24 PM
My care and support is with you for sure SEKTO. I am sorry if this was not shown. I hope to correct that now.
Danny.... :shamrock:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 05, 2010, 08:43:08 PM
Thank you Danny.  

Please do not antagonize Inculcated (or anybody else for that matter), and stop with the bickering.  

You can refer to the forum rules (posted above) if there is any confusion in your mind as to what the acceptable rules of conduct within this forum are.

Don't use personal attacks on this thread, or in this forum.  

First warning.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Anonymous on March 05, 2010, 08:59:00 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Thank you Danny.  

Please do not antagonize Inculcated (or anybody else for that matter), and stop with the bickering.  

You can refer to the forum rules (posted above) if there is any confusion in your mind as to what the acceptable rules of conduct within this forum are.

Don't use personal attacks on this thread, or in this forum.

First warning.

First warning, stick this in your ass. SEKTO, I'll will retaliate whether it is your personal buddy or not. Get some freaking ethics pal. Never talk to me in that manner again. You have definitely overstepped your boundaries. I will bicker with who ever I want when I want. If this changes then kick me totally off this whole fucking web site.
SEKTO now you have managed to piss me off. Go check your authority.
 :shamrock:
Danny
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 05, 2010, 09:01:37 PM
You can refer to the forum rules (posted above) if there is any confusion in your mind as to what the acceptable rules of conduct within this forum are.

You are now communicating with the moderator.

By posting in this forum you agree to all the above rules and policies.

Second warning.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 05, 2010, 11:06:51 PM
Danny: if you have a problem with how I run this forum, then I'd advise you to call Antigen right away.

You have been posting redundantly, and I have deleted the redundant post.

You also have been flaming on this thread, and flaming is against the rules you agreed to before posting here.

Frankly, I think that you are here with your own agenda and not to engage in any meaningful exchange of ideas or dialog.

The recent flames demonstrate that.

Danny Bennison has been banned from this message board.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: psy on March 05, 2010, 11:16:43 PM
Quote from: "SEKTO"
Danny Bennison has been banned from this message board.

Sorry, Danny, but this is SEKTO's forum, he wrote the rules here, and he has more than enough authority to ban you from the Daytop Village forum.  Talk with him to sort this out.  Maybe you can come to some sort of agreement.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 05, 2010, 11:17:26 PM
Thank you, psy.  Goodbye, Danny.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 06, 2010, 08:28:39 AM
Sure, why not?  These threads should contain information that is specific to DAYTOP, however.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on March 13, 2010, 02:27:44 PM
Today, just this afternoon, I for no particular reason took a look at the DAYTOP website and saw that it was much different than the one I've seen in the past; this one is newer, updated, made in 2010.  It seems as if DAYTOP is going stronger than ever these days.  

More later.  I'll be looking this one over.

http://www.daytop.org/ (http://www.daytop.org/)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: friendofbill on April 02, 2010, 11:43:21 PM
Well. Imagine you tried pot a few times or even were a casual smoker, got sent to a program like Daytop, and ended up being programmed into believing you were some sort of uncontrollable drug fiend (they would reframe the actions in your past to constitute grave flaws and signs of "illness"... that's the history revision I'm talking about). Two things would then happen on leaving the cult: you would become an uncontrollable drug fiend the likes of which do not occur naturally and you would see other casual pot smokers (or even those who experimented) as destined to inevitably become uncontrollable drug fiends. In their best interest (especially if you were a parent) you would then coerce or convince the hapless pot smoker that: you were just like him, he is destined to become an uncontrollable drug user, and he needs treatment (you would then refer to the program). Without realizing it, you're performing a missionary action as a deployable agent of the cult.

Ironically, this just repeats the cycle and does far more harm than good, simply resulting in one more debilitated human being.

PS: if you've done this, don't beat yourself up about it. I've done it before I realized what was up. Nobody should be blamed for what they do in ignorance, IMO.


IM GLAD YOUR NOT MY COUNSELOR IN TREATEMT...I GUESS YOU HAVENT DONE MUCH WORK WITH HE PARENTS AND THEV STAKEHOLDERS THAT SENT THEM TO TREATMENT...POOR INOCENT BABIES THAT INNOCENTLY SMOKED POT, DOSRES[ECTED THERE FAMILIES, ROBBED THERE NEIGHBORS HOMES....YOUR A FUCKIN IDIOT...
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: Antigen on April 03, 2010, 12:21:13 PM
Quote from: "friendofbill"
IM GLAD YOUR NOT MY COUNSELOR IN TREATEMT...I GUESS YOU HAVENT DONE MUCH WORK WITH HE PARENTS AND THEV STAKEHOLDERS THAT SENT THEM TO TREATMENT...POOR INOCENT BABIES THAT INNOCENTLY SMOKED POT, DOSRES[ECTED THERE FAMILIES, ROBBED THERE NEIGHBORS HOMES....YOUR A FUCKIN IDIOT...

Dude, calm down. By your typos, it looks to me as if you're either very stoned/drunk or just very rageful right at the moment. But this is exactly what the original poster seems to be talking about. Do you honestly believe that smoking pot leads to robbery or that any kid who disrespects their family in some way needs intensive behavior-mod treatment?
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on April 03, 2010, 02:24:43 PM
Quote from: "Antigen"
Quote from: "friendofbill"
IM GLAD YOUR NOT MY COUNSELOR IN TREATEMT...I GUESS YOU HAVENT DONE MUCH WORK WITH HE PARENTS AND THEV STAKEHOLDERS THAT SENT THEM TO TREATMENT...POOR INOCENT BABIES THAT INNOCENTLY SMOKED POT, DOSRES[ECTED THERE FAMILIES, ROBBED THERE NEIGHBORS HOMES....YOUR A FUCKIN IDIOT...

Dude, calm down. By your typos, it looks to me as if you're either very stoned/drunk or just very rageful right at the moment. But this is exactly what the original poster seems to be talking about. Do you honestly believe that smoking pot leads to robbery or that any kid who disrespects their family in some way needs intensive behavior-mod treatment?

FOB: please refer to the forum rules (posted above) for a description of what the acceptable modes of conduct within this forum are.

Personal attacks and other forms of flaming (like calling psy a "fucking idiot") are not allowed here, and are counterproductive to the discussion.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 12, 2011, 06:50:24 PM
DAYTOP did me great harm in the long run.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on February 25, 2012, 12:54:01 PM
DAYTOP did me great harm in the long run.  But I am much better now, and getting better all the time.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on August 21, 2013, 12:10:27 PM
DAYTOP did me great harm in the long run.

But it's all good.  My life is better than ever now.  I have finished my degree, was in grad school, and am now married and looking for a job.  I'm still here, and am still standing.
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on August 27, 2013, 10:27:52 PM
http://www.daytop.org/ (http://www.daytop.org/)
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on September 03, 2013, 09:34:31 PM
:bump:
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on October 27, 2013, 10:43:13 PM
Thanks, admins, for the update.

To whom it may concern:  my life is better thank ever now, thank you very much.     ;D

Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on November 11, 2013, 05:48:58 PM
Happy Veterans Day, all! 

All is well in my world.  Did I mention that I got married recently?       :-*
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on April 24, 2014, 04:38:09 PM
Hi there, Smurphy!
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on October 07, 2015, 10:47:26 PM
bump
Title: Re: DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run
Post by: SEKTO on November 24, 2020, 10:50:13 PM
https://www.blogtalkradio.com/ocgradio/2020/11/25/treatment-recovery-it-is-not-always-peaches-cream