my relationship w/my parents was estranged after str8....especially my mom and i....she never let up on me after str8!in fact she was harder on me after than while i was in there!until recently,she was still in denial of what the program did to me!about 5 months ago,we had a heated discussion about str8,where she stated that i deserved everything i got in there! i blew up and asked exactly what did i get in there....you see,i never told them what happened to me in there...we weren't allowed to while we were in there,and after i graduated,i just wanted it to go away.....little did i know it wouldn't!when i confronted her,she just stammered....i looked at my dad as if to say the same thing to him...he spoke up and said to my mother,that it was true that i never told them anything about what happened to me in there.....because of that arguement,i wasnt allowed to go down to va to see him...my mother didnt want me around....about a month later,my dad called me up and asked me to come down and restain the deck for him....i was down for 2 weeks.then one day we found him on the floor in the kitchen....although he seemed ok,we took himto the hosp. anyways.....he was there 2 -4 days and came home.then he didn't feel good a day later....he never left the hosp. after that!he died on oct. 14th of this last year!thanks to str8,i missed the last month of really healthy life in my father.....my dad is the only reason i didn't leave str8....i wanted to make him proud of me....thanks to str8 i never had the relationship i shouldv'e had with him....i was always in some dire staights.you know what str8 did to him?it made him worry about me all the time....even on his death bed,he didn't want to die because he was worried about me! i had to assure him i would be ok.....i'm scared of what my relationship with my family will hold in the future....he was the only reason i came down!that and my daughter! after str8,i felt like a crimminal who had just gotten out of jail,and the way i was treated by my family,the kids in my neighborhood and my extended family etc...didn't help either....i tried to ignore it but that was very hard to do.there's so much more,jeez,volumes, i could say on this topic but shit,well, i think you get the picture....you know the craziest thing?that place down right bragged about its ability to make the family "healthy" again!from what i've seen,it did more harm than good.....there might be somone out there that it did help,but in my case and others i've known,it did just the opposite of what it was supposed to do.....talk to you soon,your friend hippie564