Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: Anonymous on December 23, 2005, 05:38:00 PM
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What do state or federal laws say regarding the rights of a minor when placed into a treatment program against his or her will? I was told repeatedly during my intake that I had no say in my predicament. I was a minor, they said, and could be confined in any program without my consent for any duration simply if my parents wanted it to be that way, regardless of whether or not I signed the paper. When I told them what they could do with their paper, they said it didn't matter because they would simply contact a judge and have me court-ordered into the program. They said it would be as easy as a phone call and that my parents didn't even have to give their consent.
Can anyone confirm or refute these assertions? I?m aware that legal nuances may not lend to easy answers, but I'd love to acquire even a slightly better understanding of this issue. Also, does anyone know for a fact what I signed? I never looked at the paper, just scribbled a signature and then asked for a final cigarette before going to my fate. Request denied.
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Also, I remember some very long intakes. The duration was always determined by how long it took them to convince the future inmate to sign. There must have been a reason besides the psychological impact of signing one's life away for them to have been so adamant about getting a signature.
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I keep forgetting things. My intake was in 1983. Kids Helping Kids.
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I also wonder about that anonymous piece of paper and why we had to sign it. My intake was about 6 hours, give or take - I'm guessing at it because I got into that cell in the a.m. sometime and by the time I got out they had just finished serving up the liverwurst slab on plain bread for evening meal - and I kept telling them if I was going to be admitted with or without my consent, just fucking DO IT! why do I have to sign this? I don't want to be here so why do I have to put my name to it if it's not my choice... There was never an answer for that question and so we just kept going round and round about the drug list and "what got me there" or whatever. I never read the papers either, and have always wanted to see all that shit and whatever other 'files' they kept on me.
I also want to touch on how little control anyone has, who goes to see a counselor of any kind, over what that person writes down about them. Not saying all counselors are sketchy, but I would suggest requesting they don't write what you are saying down, but summarize at the end and allow you to see it...
My parents had taken me to a couple of psych's before going to the program - since our fucked-up family dynamics were not on trial, but as the only one rebelling against them, I was - and only in a Girls' Rap a while later, some shit was brought out to surprise me with, from some documentation they had gotten FROM THE FREAKIN PSYCHIATRIST, and it wasn't even what I was talking about to that fucker! I went 4 times, 3 without speaking a word, and the 4th I tried to verbalize something about what was happening. That shithead was obviously not even listening anyway, to have taken what I said and twisted it like he did... I am glad it was the only thing I said, 'cause right after it came out, I had that sense of futility you get when you are talking to a brick wall, so I stopped... didn't stop him from writing some shit down that later I got blind-sided with... The part that galled me was that they took what HE wrote for truth, not what I said, like that guy was god for being the doctor and my thoughts were negligible as the 'patient'. Fuck. I remember how livid I was trying to defend my own truth against what they said I did, and of course that was the story the group kept. Same as when they used to dredge up shit later on to confront you with and twisted it around. I used to cringe listening to something someone was confronting another person on and I'd think 'that wasn't what they said/did' but you couldn't say that or the rabid pack would turn slavering on you... Wow.
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It was never even fully explained to me that I was in a drug treatment. I went in, tricked by mom of course...and sat with an executive who took a real condescending attitude with me even though I had exhibited no rude behaviour. I was trying to find out what the hell was going on still. She told me something about a 14 day evaluation and then in waltzed two oldcomers to begin the interrogation. I dont think I ever questioned my incarceration because I was still struggling to understand exactly what the fuck was happening. I was blindsided well into my group introduction...it wasnt until I was going home that night that I realized what was going down. THEN I got scared. I put in for withdrawl the next day, of which I am certain my mother never new about. 14 days came and went and I was never "evaluated".
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These are good stories, and I appreciate them. But I'm looking for the legalities behind the enforced incarceration of minors. For example, how were any of us placed into these facilities against our wills, with no legal oversight or drug-use evaluations? I'm not after speculation. I want to know what the laws have to say. And, again, why was the signature so important?
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I also wonder about that anonymous piece of paper and why we had to sign it. My intake was about 6 hours, give or take - I'm guessing at it because I got into that cell in the a.m. sometime and by the time I got out they had just finished serving up the liverwurst slab on plain bread for evening meal - and I kept telling them if I was going to be admitted with or without my consent, just fucking DO IT! why do I have to sign this? I don't want to be here so why do I have to put my name to it if it's not my choice... There was never an answer for that question and so we just kept going round and round about the drug list and "what got me there" or whatever. I never read the papers either, and have always wanted to see all that shit and whatever other 'files' they kept on me.