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Open Free for All / Writing story set in coercive rehab; have questions...
« on: July 25, 2003, 03:23:00 AM »
First off: I'm not trying to capitalize on your suffering...I understand you get lots of that around here. I'm just a hack writer who's never been published who writes stories set in fictional universes of her own invention for kicks, instead of writing "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets This Month's Trendy Anime Goddess" fanfic or suchlike.
My interest in the rehab experience is personal and multifaceted. I'm a 38 year old ex-junkie who's been been off heroin and all needle drugs since 1992. During the period from 1990 to 1992 I spent time in two different rehabs, Charter Hospital and Fair Oaks, both in Sacramento county. These places didn't use the Synanon modality. They were astoundingly ineffectual in actually treating anyone's problems - you were supposed to learn to face adult realities by doing Jigsaw puzzles and playing Parcheesi in the TV room for hours - but they weren't evil...for which I am quite grateful.
I have, however, seen what was left of a few friends after they did a stint at Walden House, a Synanon offshoot in San Francisco, during the late 1980s/early 1990s. One of them, an introverted guy I used to "chase the bag" with in the Haight, pretty much had his entire personality collapse after a half-year at Walden. Another friend, someone I'd known in college, fared better...but she became a nonstop bullhorn for "The Program". Going to dinner with her a few years back, I found she literally could not bring herself to discuss anything else with me for more than a sentence or two, especially since she knew I was on the methadone program--and therefore still an unclean leper outcast in her eyes. A third aquaintance showed up one day at the methadone clinic, with another woman holding her hand as if she was in kindergarten. When I asked her what was up with that, she jerked eye contact away from my face down to the floor and quietly said she'd "gone back to Walden". When pressed for more details, she said "I'm not allowed to discuss my Program with anyone." Her keeper gave me the dirtiest look I have ever received in my life.
When I first found the Straight Inc. Survivor sites I was astonished - although not entirely surprised - at the depth of the abuse that went on there.
In my stories, there's usually some sort of mind control going on - it's a theme I keep coming back to. I contrast the insidious forms of it with something else that I see as less evil - a sort of persuasive charismatic influence that some people can have which moves other minds to follow it, and which can be used for good, evil, or - as in the case of most of my protagonists - more neutral purposes best described as mischief. When you're in love or lust, for example, you can feel moved by the mind of the beloved...and might start doing things you would never have done before, like listen to the beloved's favourite band, which you've always hated...or start developing a strong urge to go to foreign movies, or watch stupid television programs, or eat foods you'd not appreciated the taste of before.
In the story I am writing currently I take the narrative voice of a 17 year old male who has taken a new and potent form of hallucinogen which has amplified his influence powers to the point of actual mind control ability. He is thrown into a rehab called Genesis Dawn by his father, whose company owns and operates it and uses the inmates for free construction labour for its many real estate developments. In the course of this adventure he meets a few other inmates who have various mental powers...and then, with each of them using his or her own particular gift, they proceed to turn the rehab firmly onto its ear. It has a little of everything: sad moments, funny moments, sexy scenes and out-and-out weirdness.
Now finally the questions I want to ask.
1. Was there ever a rehab actually named "Genesis Dawn"? It seems like there could easily have been, although a search has not produced any evidence of this. (I don't want scuzzy rehab lawyers breathing down my neck...)
2. Has any rehab ever been known to use the unpaid labour of its inmate population in such a way as to be a direct financial boon to its administrators...which would effectively amount to slavery? I seem to recall that Synanon in its 1970s form did something like this.
3. I've read the survivor stories, and heard about the "Game" people were forced to play on one another. How was it that the implicit understanding of the forced nature of this confrontational abuse got lost to the victims of it? I assume it was a cumulative result of sleep dep, bad food and reality-disorientation that caused people to forget that the guy who was berating you and shaking his fist at you in the TR was doing this because if he didn't do it someone was going to do bad things to HIM, and not doing it because he thought you were on the level of something you'd scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
I want to know as much as I can about exactly how these hell-houses operate. I'm going to postscript the story with a short note pointing out that while the rehab in the story is fictional, places just like it are not, and are operating without a whole lot of restraint. And considering the Bush climate we're in, they're undoubtedly slated to get even worse.
By the way, my former counselor at the methadone clinic I go to was a Straight survivor - I believe he said his Straight was in West Virginia, or North Carolina or South Carolina. (Definitely not Florida.) He escaped after a very short time there, he told me. His name was Woods and he was 15 or 16 at the time. This would have been in the mid to late 1980s. Just wondered if anyone remembers him because he was my favourite counselor, and after he left my clinic to go work at a different one, I missed him a lot.
I look forward to hearing from some of you.
_________________
-dmt
[ This Message was edited by: demitria on 2003-07-25 00:29 ]
My interest in the rehab experience is personal and multifaceted. I'm a 38 year old ex-junkie who's been been off heroin and all needle drugs since 1992. During the period from 1990 to 1992 I spent time in two different rehabs, Charter Hospital and Fair Oaks, both in Sacramento county. These places didn't use the Synanon modality. They were astoundingly ineffectual in actually treating anyone's problems - you were supposed to learn to face adult realities by doing Jigsaw puzzles and playing Parcheesi in the TV room for hours - but they weren't evil...for which I am quite grateful.
I have, however, seen what was left of a few friends after they did a stint at Walden House, a Synanon offshoot in San Francisco, during the late 1980s/early 1990s. One of them, an introverted guy I used to "chase the bag" with in the Haight, pretty much had his entire personality collapse after a half-year at Walden. Another friend, someone I'd known in college, fared better...but she became a nonstop bullhorn for "The Program". Going to dinner with her a few years back, I found she literally could not bring herself to discuss anything else with me for more than a sentence or two, especially since she knew I was on the methadone program--and therefore still an unclean leper outcast in her eyes. A third aquaintance showed up one day at the methadone clinic, with another woman holding her hand as if she was in kindergarten. When I asked her what was up with that, she jerked eye contact away from my face down to the floor and quietly said she'd "gone back to Walden". When pressed for more details, she said "I'm not allowed to discuss my Program with anyone." Her keeper gave me the dirtiest look I have ever received in my life.
When I first found the Straight Inc. Survivor sites I was astonished - although not entirely surprised - at the depth of the abuse that went on there.
In my stories, there's usually some sort of mind control going on - it's a theme I keep coming back to. I contrast the insidious forms of it with something else that I see as less evil - a sort of persuasive charismatic influence that some people can have which moves other minds to follow it, and which can be used for good, evil, or - as in the case of most of my protagonists - more neutral purposes best described as mischief. When you're in love or lust, for example, you can feel moved by the mind of the beloved...and might start doing things you would never have done before, like listen to the beloved's favourite band, which you've always hated...or start developing a strong urge to go to foreign movies, or watch stupid television programs, or eat foods you'd not appreciated the taste of before.
In the story I am writing currently I take the narrative voice of a 17 year old male who has taken a new and potent form of hallucinogen which has amplified his influence powers to the point of actual mind control ability. He is thrown into a rehab called Genesis Dawn by his father, whose company owns and operates it and uses the inmates for free construction labour for its many real estate developments. In the course of this adventure he meets a few other inmates who have various mental powers...and then, with each of them using his or her own particular gift, they proceed to turn the rehab firmly onto its ear. It has a little of everything: sad moments, funny moments, sexy scenes and out-and-out weirdness.
Now finally the questions I want to ask.
1. Was there ever a rehab actually named "Genesis Dawn"? It seems like there could easily have been, although a search has not produced any evidence of this. (I don't want scuzzy rehab lawyers breathing down my neck...)
2. Has any rehab ever been known to use the unpaid labour of its inmate population in such a way as to be a direct financial boon to its administrators...which would effectively amount to slavery? I seem to recall that Synanon in its 1970s form did something like this.
3. I've read the survivor stories, and heard about the "Game" people were forced to play on one another. How was it that the implicit understanding of the forced nature of this confrontational abuse got lost to the victims of it? I assume it was a cumulative result of sleep dep, bad food and reality-disorientation that caused people to forget that the guy who was berating you and shaking his fist at you in the TR was doing this because if he didn't do it someone was going to do bad things to HIM, and not doing it because he thought you were on the level of something you'd scrape off the bottom of your shoe.
I want to know as much as I can about exactly how these hell-houses operate. I'm going to postscript the story with a short note pointing out that while the rehab in the story is fictional, places just like it are not, and are operating without a whole lot of restraint. And considering the Bush climate we're in, they're undoubtedly slated to get even worse.
By the way, my former counselor at the methadone clinic I go to was a Straight survivor - I believe he said his Straight was in West Virginia, or North Carolina or South Carolina. (Definitely not Florida.) He escaped after a very short time there, he told me. His name was Woods and he was 15 or 16 at the time. This would have been in the mid to late 1980s. Just wondered if anyone remembers him because he was my favourite counselor, and after he left my clinic to go work at a different one, I missed him a lot.
I look forward to hearing from some of you.
Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance when our public morality is consistent with our private one.
http://www.tatteredcover.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp?s=showproduct&affiliateId=000095&isbn=0618334661' target='_new'>Eric Schlosser, Reefer Madness
_________________
-dmt
[ This Message was edited by: demitria on 2003-07-25 00:29 ]