I've changed the names in the sories below.
For the record, none of them are me.
Coordinator: Julia Connoly
- a theif- stole from people while in Daytop
- A bully - angry and stubborn
- A well known liar
No Status( Often Shot down): Bill Moranis
- a nice kid -an overall honest guy
- Intelligent - never attacked anybody, but always defended himself
Daytop is society on drugs.
Backwards and unearthly.
It turns people's minds against themselves, making a person their own enemy, but also their own greatest controller.
The more you watch, The more you start to see. They steal from others and give to themselves.
They are not capable of making a genuine living, and so must steal one.
Sam Jordan-
Drank 'Christ's Blood' at easter mass with family.
Got screamed at by about a dozen different people in front of a crowd of over fifty.
He then was given the assignment to write an essay about how wrong he was in hios actions, and read it to the entire 'family', along with an apology to the 'family'. It was never asked if he actually thought he was wrong, but he did indeed comply. Where had his mind been changed? I talked to him before the public humiliation, and he didn' think that he was wrong. Could it be that he had suirrendered to the threat of further humiliation, and so agreed, and carried out the actions of first renouncing his own self on paper, and then publicly renouncing himself before the etire 'famil'.
Daytop considerred it a 'cleansingf'.
I considerred it 'disgusting'.
Chad Zackarocki-
A nerdy sort of guy, who was very honest, and had a good conscious. I liked him. For the most part, he did what he was told, but having a strong beleif in Christain ethics, always stayed midway in status. He was pretty obedient, but did not have it in him to be an ambitious bullshit artist. I swear he took all the good out of Christianity, and made it his moral code.
He had gotten into an argument with his mother who had told Daytop. I do not know what the argument was about, but surely he did not mean to harm his mother in anyway, and had noticed he had seemed upset about something. He really was a good kid.
Daytop's Response-
Chad had to scrub every garbage can in the facility 'til they were clean, throughout the whole morning meeting. It wasn't until he finally broke down hysterically crying, that anyone inquired if anything was botherring him. Until then everyone just soaked in the scene in morbid enjoyment.
Are humiliation and degredation really a productive form of treatment? He was never even asked what the argument is about. Maybe he was in the right, or maybe something had been botherring him that led to the argument.. When all is said and done, it is not even their business, which is why I never even asked, even tyhough I was curious. But if you are going to be judge, jury, and executioner, it would help to have some of the fact.. Hell, maybe, even at least one fact, but no.. As they beleive in Daytop, that they are above reality.
and when mom says, " I am paying good money, and my child, still doesn t agree with everything I say, rather then act with consciousness, they act with haste, to keep mom hapopy, and the cash coming. they don t care what the fight was about. Chad was gonna learn his lesson.
So when mom says, " I'm paying you for a perfect son.", Daytop says," Cahd, you better break, or we will break you!"
It's not psychology. It is bullying.
It's not therapy. It's conquerring.
If I was in their place, I might not hace suspected that the actual problem might have been with Chad's mom. Afterall, if you are to assume the role of a responsible advocate for child welfare, a little responsibility wouldn't hurt.
But put simply," THEY COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THE WELFARE OF A CHILD. THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR PAYCHECK, and that's it! "
How hard of a job is bullying and conquerring really? You just keep thinking of more and more fucked up things to do to a person, until a person fibnally gives way. The person is a sitting duck. they cannot leave.
Compare this to the world of actually creating something, and the difficulties, and effort involed in actually doing something productive, and beneficail. Yet somehow, they have so thoroughly pulled the wool over everybody's eyes, that they are veiwed as saints, benefactors of society, and athorities to all.
-The mailman or the engineer is just another cog in the machine, but conselors answer a "calling".
They are specail people, who give up their own lives to help others. -
I think people some times forget that these counselors are being paid. They didn't give up shit. they are taking an easy way through life, and many teens, myself included, had to pay the price fopr their laziness, and society's ignorance.
Drugs do their damage slow. Daytop does it's damage swiftly. Drug usage is a choice. daytop treatment is suually forced. A person can choose to stop doing drugs, while person usually cannot leave Daytop..
People say drugs leave you powerless. Bullshit. A person always has the power to change or continue in their current direction.. whatever they opt. But a person has very little power to do anything at all of will, when in living a totalitarian structure such as Daytop.
For me, Daytop was hell. I fought each day to maintain my idea of self, and my convictions, but as a result I can tell the story better then any former Daytopian,whom I have met so far.(Not to say noone can, but just that I have yet to meet anyone who has as of yet.)
At the time I seemed a glutton for punishment but today I am more then happy that I persevered.
I never accepted that it was my fault, or that I belonged there.
Paul St. John