Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum

The Seed compared to Str8

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starry-eyed pirate:
Fuck, this is openin' my eyes.  If the Seed was a voluntary program then no one was there who didn't want to be there and so it makes sense to me now that some former seedlings have expressed gratitude and have fond memories.  At str8, if you were under 18, which nearly all clients were you had no rights. You were held against your will indefinately.  If you refused to comply with the rules you were made to suffer to the point of bein' psychologically traumatized.  The difference between a voluntary participation and a forced incarceration is the difference between freedom and oppression, like the difference between consentual sex and a violent rape.

i am grateful for your responses to my questions. Thankyou.  i am hungry for more information about the Seed.  Please tell me anything else about the Seed that you think would help me understand the history of the relationship between the Seed and str8.

Peace.

Anonymous:
How old are you now? & how old wereyou when in str8?

starry-eyed pirate:
i'm 37 now.  i was 16 when i went into str8(springfield, VA). i was in the program for 23 months + 6 months of aftercare.  i copped out(ran away) from the program 4 times and was finally court ordered becuase on my 4th cop-out i stole a truck with my host bro who copped out with me and we drove it to N.J. to try and get as far away from str8 as we could.  After my arrest i was returned to str8 under a suspended 1 year jail sentence.  Which meant if i failed to complete the program i would have to serve 1 year in jail.

Anonymous:
Did you ever like str8 at all?  Were there any good things about it? Like kindness or goodness at all?

Antigen:
Pirate, our anon here is a little foggy on the details. The Seed wasn't voluntary at all when it started out.

I don't remember the doors and windows being locked at our house. But then we only had newcomers a few times and briefely at that. Others from the same time (`72 - `74 and `78 or so) do remember locked foster homes. And I remember hearing about oldcomers and oldtimers going out and tracking down splits, just like the goon squads of Straight. They still do that, btw, at GT, KHK and SAFE. They're just ever so careful to pretend it was all the kids and parents' idea, nothing to do at all w/ staff.

I've also heard from a few ppl now who were court ordered by program friendly judges or lied to so they thought (some for years) that they had been court ordered. There was even an arrangement w/ the police to allow Seed staff to confiscate and hold illegal drugs and pipes and such found on newcomers or in their homes by their parents. These items were sometimes used to blackmail the kids. And there's a story on Wes' site from a guy who claims they used someone else's stash to blackmail him.

However, I have to agree that Straight was more strident and more punitive than The Seed in Ft. Lauderdale. But I don't believe it was due to rebellious parents any more than I believe the one about the 16yo rich girl w/ a $1k/dy h habit.

Anyway, from all I hear about The Seed after they lost NIDA funding and Bobby DoPont and his cronnies turned their hands to the Straight cause, involvement was as voluntary as any other cult. Sure, you could leave at any time. But ask anyone who left after a couple of years what that was like. Or just read what some of those people have already posted about that.


If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana.
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