When I started wondering why I still feared eventually being locked up again after so many years of being a good upstanding citizen, I started thinking I needed to finally look at this and get over it if that was at all possible.
Reading posts exactly like this one- describing the exact same phobias and compulsions that have been stinking up my personality for years proves the truth that the place effected me NEGATIVELY.
I would be interested in hearing more from an ex staff member in case it was someone I remembered from there. There was one staff above all others who I thought was the best to me and seemed to be less concerned with inflicting humiliation. He spoke about being epileptic which may or may not have made me feel the he tried to be more honest - who knows. Another friend of mine remembers things differently, she wrote a poem about this guy. I was 14 and up until that time only had experienced being screwed with on a very basic level, guys at parties, my mother and her vieolent ravings etc.
Until Straight I had no concept of real hopelessness and desperation. I was terrified that all the things they told me would happen when I left, however was convinced that I would never finish the program anyway.
I went to AA, drank on 6.5 years of sobriety when I turned 21.
I have not attend an AA meeting in over 10 years. Since I stopped all the "recovery"; I stopped smoking, graduated college, married, had a child, and have a career that I enjoy and my life is better than I would ever have hoped.
I am most interested in moving forward, being as positive, useful and productive as possible.
I resent the *&^% out of the fact that I still feel I am doomed to failure because I am not "in recovery" attending meetings every night and the like.
I could go on and on, suffice it to say that I have definately been affected by that place, negatively, not to mention the rest of my family.
I do believe in moving ahead and only want to finally get those negative thoughts out of my head - thoughts I know wouldn't be so deeply rooted if they hadn't been planted there when I was totally vulnerable and unable to fight back.
Until I started looking at these posts, it never occurred to me that all the unpleasant things about that place, absence of light, lack of sleep, and food at times, were intentional.
I have succeeded in life IN SPITE of that place, I have formed normal relationships IN SPITE of that place. My sisters are still talking to me IN SPITE of how much they hated me when I got out of there. One of my sisters, a straight A student - never did anything wrong before this, tried to kill herself less than a year after we left there.
I wasn't the only one effected, they had no choice about graduating or not.
I do sincerely hope to hear, however, that people who really believed in the place- enough to turn around and make their living there, are capable of seeing the truth at some point too.
