been doing alot of digging looking for answers validation at this point is important cause all my life i thought i was some crazy animal this was worthless horrible bad person which i now and realizing i'm not
These types of programs are quite adept at imparting destructive messages which can stay echoing around in a person for long after. These invectives are (by many proponents of tough love insistence) tactics integral to breaking the recipient open and in so doing creating a fissure that can be filled by the program. Consequently, as Awake mentioned on this thread:
The argument would always be more right that … “it is not the program that doesn't work, it is that you are not working hard enough on confronting your issues.” And I actually believed that too.
The irresponsible and cruel remark made to you by the Daytop social worker was by Daytop standards the norm. In reality it was a vicious message to send to any kid
i became very distressed and was let out to see the only trained staff they had who was a social worker where she sat me in her office and told me they were sending me back to the psych hospital and that i would be in an institution for the rest of my life.
She (the LSW) was in all likelihood desensitized to your distress and incapable of being reassuring or calming to you, because much of Daytop's methods rely on causing the recipient nearly constant escalations of heightened emotions. This can be seen in the mundane daily routine of pull-ups, haircuts, rageful house meetings, and in the venue of their other groups which also typically involved tears and screaming. A marathon is the fever pitch.
I am reminded of something Paul wrote on another thread
... The terms of my life were defined by an outside party. They owned me. There was nothing I could do about it. I watched them break the wills of so many.. It was usually quick, with like a "SNAP!". They were breaking mine slowly, and painfully.When I reflected on it, it scared me, and it felt like dying, and this wasn t just a feeling- thing. I had logic to back it. They were, in fact, bringing me closer to death. I was regressing. I was sufferring loss while under their care. I was no longer happy. I had nothing to look forward to on the horizon.. no purpose...just more Daytop.
In the moment she made that irresponsible and cruel remark she was in effect condemning you. Leaving you only bleakness "to look forward to on the horizon" You were a kid in a recklessly yet purposefully induced emotional crisis and this woman presumes that since Daytop wasn’t for you then you were irrevocably doomed to an institutional life. This is as anyone on the outside of the crazymaking setting can readily apprehend extreme and woefully ignorant --to say the least. However, it is a common theme throughout many programs where their narrow rationales break anyone who can’t be broken-in into categories of will be dead insane or in jail without the program.
So, this f*ed up feedback following your departing the marathon was the precipitating event for a suicide attempt made by a vulnerable sixteen year old kid—who needed support not condemnations.
