Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Straight, Inc. and Derivatives
Growing Together of Lake Worth, Florida
LESTAT49203:
Re: Father knows best For your son's sake, I hope your right. Best of luck to both of you.
Antigen:
Fifteen year trigger Up until a couple of years ago, there wasn't anything permanent, indepth or well used on the net about Straight, Inc. This in spite of the many lawsuites, investigations, books and so forth.
Now, all of a sudden, there are sites springing up all over the place. And if you look into the material on the nature of thought reform, you'll find that it takes just about 15 years for most people to 'snap' out of it completely.
I'll tell ya'll a little secret. I called GT posing as a parent concerned about a troubled teen. They actually said 'we have a lot of experience dealing with teenagers. They can't manipulate us like they can their parents, we know just how they think.'
But just remember, only 4 years ago a young boy was gang raped by a group of other boys in a foster home during a hazing ritual called 'the Naked Crusader.' I have to wonder if that's still going on. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but under Florida law, if you have cause to suspectchild abuse and fail to intervene, you can be charged as an accessory to the crime.
If you really believe that dog and pony show, I guess you'll fall for anything. Good luck and I pray for your son and all the other kids in Group.
Elle:
silent Some places are more calmed down than The Straights or Kids of America, so it really is harder for parents to see what their kid is going through. The place that I was in (Alberta Adolecent Recovery Centre) is a Straight spin off. We learned very quickly how to make the parents think that we are doing okay, because if we didn't we would be in quite a bit of trouble, and only kept there for one more week at least. Physical abuse and restraining didn't happen during open meetings where everyone could see. They didn't happen every day. The thing is, that even if they didn't happen at all, those things are the least harmful bit. It's the programming of your mind in order to become more pleasing to society that kills you. Having to make emotional or sexual confessions in order to see yourself as sick, in order to make you think you have to behave as the others in order to recover. Not allowing time alone is a form of abuse. It is one of the key ingredients for brain washing. Those group or "rap" sessions that all of us had gone through are extremely popular in cults. They look like modern day therapy, but in excess they become ways to achieve altered states.
No, there shouldn't be more reports just because it's been open for so long. One reason for that, because kids feel ashamed. They don't know if they really are bad kids for disagreeing, because in the center they weren't allowed to disagree.
Another reason is that usually these centres make friends with Judges, make friends with the police, make friends with social services, make friends with all the other resources available where kids could turn too. Trust me, I have been trying to get my story heard for years now. Some people don't want the centre taken away because it succesfully gets rid of kids who have been in and out of prison, and others won't help because they are afraid of the controversy. I know of many peopel with the authority to close the place down who are aware of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, but they won't do it.
There are plenty of treatment centres out there where you can sit down with yoru son and talk for a few hours a week, and where he can have intense positive therapy. Not all relaxed treatment centres aren't doing there job.
Elle.
Antigen:
Dear old uncle Joe Ya' know, this reminds me of the sad tale of my dearly departed great uncle Joe. It was just prior to prohibition and he had a job cleaning up at the brewery. One day, he fell into a full beer vat. Uncle Jim and Uncle Thom were there. They dove in and tried to fish him out, but he fought `em off and subsequently drowned.
Blopa, I heard it through the grape vine that you have far more concrete evidence of abuse than just the Program's lineage. If you fail to protect your son at this point, there's no going back. He may forgive you one day, but he'll never ever trust you again.
Blopa:
Re: Dear old uncle Joe Thank you very much all for your interest in helping my son and I. I am not in anyway downplaying what you been through (and still are) and I know you do not have any secret agenda as you have nothing to win or lose by sharing on your traumatic experience. After clearly establishing that I will discuss the present situation that started this Topic. The first thing that comes to mind is that several of the most openly troubling practices of Straight are absent on the practice at GT: special diet, food and sleep deprivation, isolation (not access to Children and Family or police by phone), kids locked with key on bedrooms. Those I know to be true as I saw first hand while fostering out (visiting host family houses with the kids there). Other things I was told by kids and parents is that they do not sit on kids, they are never locked alone, they are not insulted, spited at or humiliated screaming at their faces, etc.
Another issue, central to the big picture, is the brain washing. In principle, I am personally against all forms of brain washing. The caveat is that my son (and probably most people with self-destructive behavior) have already been brain washed and that is why they are actively seeking to kill themselves (and others) by abusing drugs, breathing AC gases (freon?) and other toxics that are known to destroy brain cells and terminate their lives at different paces. Or by driving at very fast speed while high or drunk, etc.
So the starting point of this treatment is not a happy Kids that is having a safe life. We started with a kid that was way on his way to kill himself and maybe others. We did not chose to disrupt a life, our aim is to get him to stop killing himself. Now, it is not an easy job to have someone abandon his most precious and valued beliefs: the entire drug culture, self mutilation and destruction, complete contempt for all the rules (right or wrong) that make his existence in the community possible, his absolute repudiation for any advice or even possibility of having a normal life (work, earn a living, stay sober and do whatever you chose to do with your life within the boundaries of the law).
How do you change all that without washing the Kid's mind? I am speaking from my mind and for myself as no one in any of the treatment centers we visited (including GT) ever admitting to resorting to brain washing. But I think that some sort of serious re-programming of the mind (aka brain washing) would have to take place to make such a radical change in someone concepts, thinking process, feeling process, etc. I know that simply talking to that person does not suffice. We tried that, we used psychologists, psychiatrists, medication, outpatient therapy, church, gifts, contracts, treats, you names. While doing all these, our son kept running in the opposite direction at an increased speed, doing more drugs, hanging out with very dangerous characters, getting in fights, cursing and screaming at us, breaking things, closing his mind more and more.
I do not think that we could just sit on the side hoping that he will get better by himself, as he was going to kill himself, possible others including us. It was impossible to talk with him about anything. He was deeply sad, even suicidal. He was stealing from us. This is the scene in most homes of troubled teenagers of the other parents we spoke with. So, with all honesty, what is there to do for a parent in this predicament? Is easy to blame the medicine at hand, but is there any other REALISTIC medicine? As ugly as it sounds, I think that you have to de-program and re-program the patient's mind to get them out of that rut. It sounds horrible, but what is the REALISTIC alternative. The person in on an accelerated path of self-destruction as thousands do die every year from this disease, drug abuse, suicide, etc. Talking won't do it since he would not listen, therapy as outpatient did not work either. Eckerd Youth Alternatives worked, but for a year or so. COPAC threw him out. La Amistad was a mad-house that he hated. South Miami Drug Rehab Center could not work with him. What else to try? Do I give up on him? And he is not seating still waiting for us to find a good solution, he is trying to kill himself with the drug use, etc. while we think and consider the alternatives. What will you do in such a case?
He will have to unlearn a lot of crap he learned, change his taste in music, friends, thought process, motivation, decency, etc. How in the world do you achieve all that?
I wish there was a pill he could take and get well, a book he could read or some magic words that someone can spell and make such fundamental changes as he needs to make to stay alive. Short of that, I think that some serious reprogramming of the mind would have to take place and I am surely no expert to judge and decide what it would entail. In the meantime I am glad he is safe and seems to be making progress.
Worse case, if he survives this treatment and will take him (as you say) 15 years to get right again, that implies that we will be alive 15 years from now, and that is good news. It certainly beats the alternative.
Those are my considerations at this time.
Regarding allegations of abuse (I just read your posting), no, I do not have anything more than allegations and it will be very easy to convince me otherwise: I you know any case that resulted on a conviction against GT, and you care to, please give me the case number, decision on the case, judge,etc. I will research such case/cases. So far I found none.
Thanks again. Edited by: Blopa at: 10/22/01 1:08:34 pm
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