My friend is home

[FaceKhan]

My friend is home My friend Alex, who was sent to Alldredge Academy in WV is home after 2 months. He says that the experience was beneficial and that despite the information that led me to believe the place was unsafe, it was not really bad there. He says he had enough food, the staff was competent, and overall a good experience. His complaints were mostly related to the coercive element of being there, and how the school tries to prevent escapes, like taking the kids' shoes at night and such.


 I don't think my friend was brainwashed or harmed there but, my other friend who has gone on one of these came home similarly impressed by the staff and program, but today (2 years later) is a bit resentful of his parents tricking him into thinking it was a regular Outward Bound sort of trip when it was really a coercive therapy trip which he did not need.  

Slavish discipline makes a slavish temper... If severity carry'd to the
highest pitch does prevail, and works a cure upon the present unruly
distemper, it often brings in the room of it a worse and more dangerous
disease, by breaking the mind; and then, in the place of a disorderly young
fellow, you have a low spirited moap'd creature, who, however with his
unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend tame unactive
children, because they make no noise, nor give them any trouble; yet at
last, will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he
will be all his life an useless thing to himself and others... Beating them,
and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments, are not the
discipline fit to be used in the education of those we would have wise,
good, and ingenuous men...
John Locke, 1692

[Kathy]

Yeay!!!!yeah!!! I'm sooo glad he is home already.  Though, I must commend you once again on being so smart.  When the people first come home from any of these places they may think they are really impressed with the staff and the program... That usually is part of the brainwashing.  Look at me, I did speaking engagements for the abusive program I was in.   Also sometimes there is the element of fear.  Sometimes they are afraid if they speak out about the program, someone will hear and they will be sent back.  The part that bothers me is the taking of the shoes and keeping them there.  That is one of the same elements that are present in many very abusive programs.  Even if there was no physical violence, it sounds like some mind-raping did occur.  


At least he is back and if he ever happens to come to you later on with questions or complaints about the program you know where you can direct him.  


Take care, Kathy

[tommyfromhyde]

I'm still going     You remember what we talked about.

[Antigen]

Yeaaaaaayyyyy!! Good to hear it, Face.  

-If there's a worse idea going than locking kids up for victimless crimes, it's probably locking them in close proximity to some tyrannical altruist bent on helping them even if it kills them.http://trebach.org/conference.html'>Saving our Children from Drug Treatment Abuse

[KimberlyNJ]

WoooooHooooooo!!!!!! I am soooooo glad to hear your friend is home.  I can say from my experience, all you need to do right now is be a freind.  He is still THERE mentally and will not say that anything really bad happened out of fear.  Or perhaps nothing really bad did happen,, I can pray for that.  All you need to do is be a freind.  Don't ask a whole lot of questions, don't act like he was in a "fucked up" place.  He doesn't want to hear it right now and probably wouldn't hear it either.

You ARE a true friend for worrying like this about him.  I hope all is well.  God Bless

[j]

mind raping The message is: "you don't get to be free until you do our therapeutic thing."  Even in a setting that has none of the other characteristics of the Straights, and thus does not seem too bad at all, this is still the prime element of abuse.


I was mulling this over: what if a person was shipwrecked, say, on a tiny island in the South Pacific, where there was a small tribe of people who took her in, and no way of leaving the island or radioing for a rescue.  Say she was there for two or ten years.  Say the island people were mostly "live and let live" folks, who didn't mind her many wierd ideas and ways of doing things.  Alone in a vastly different culture, she would probably change a great deal, and come to agree with many of their customs, even if they went against her former beliefs.  She would see the world  very differently.  The islanders, as well, would be changed by her and by what she told them of the rest of the world.


So, I was thinking, that is kind of like being put in Straight, with some crucial differences.  First of all, I was "put" into Straight by my parents.  This was not an accident of wind and weather.  Hence the terror and rage of abandonment.  Second, in Straight there reigned the very opposite of the "live and let live" ethic: Straight and all the people I was there with had an agenda for me.  I had no freedom to go to my grass hut and mull things over.  I had no freedom to enjoy the people for themselves around the evening fire.  There was no honest give and take of information and knowledge.  It became clear: it is not possible to survive in this situation.  I do not have the basic necessities for healthy human survival: love, sunshine and the outdoors, the freedom to make my own life, time to myself to think, free exchange of ideas with other people or at least through books and other media.  Since it is not possible to survive here, I must escape.  I can either escape literally, and risk the consequences, or I can escape by graduating.  (I don't think many of us realized the inherent consequences in that choice.)  To graduate, I must completely assimilate into this society.  I do not get to question anything.  Assimilating meant, among other things, having no privacy of mind or emotions.  What should have been my private space was subjected to continued assualt.  I think we are all familiar with the specifics: staff had our private journals, we had to talk about our "pasts", we had no right to "get into our heads" or stare into space thinking, we had to talk about sexual experiences, in fact, we had to talk about everything, lest we be accused of withholding information and being "full of shit."  We were subject to ridicule.  We were told what we were feeling and given no right to disagree.  We were told what we were not feeling.  We had to have certain emotions while talking about certain things.  We had to stand a certain way while talking: arms down so we didn't "hide".


In the Straights, this was all very extreme.  We had no break from it at all.  But in any coercive so-called therapeutic or rehabilitative program, freedom comes only through submission to therapy or rehabilitation, and that is the rotten core.  That is mind-rape.


I have the right to be private.  I have the right to understand my life and myself in my own way.  


Essay question: How is Susanna Kaysen's experience in a mental institution, as told in "Girl, Interrupted", like or unlike the Straight experience?  Would the shipwrecked woman experience a similar sense of being "interrupted"?  Why or why not?

[FaceKhan]

Well he seems about the same I have not spent a whole lot of time with him, since I went out of town a day after he got back, but I saw him yesterday. I think he is still adjusting to being back, he said as much when I saw him. A few little things trouble me, some of the things he says when he talks about the program sound so much like the testimonials for these kinds of programs that I am not sure they are really his words. The best example I can give is his description of  how in the 2nd month he would scream at this one counselor in the 'village' and now he thinks he is a great guy.  Which is quite similar to "The first day they are screaming at me and the last day they are hugging me." which is a staff testimonial that is heard a lot from these programs.


I have not noticed much of a change in his overall personality, except that some of his attitudes towards his parents, drugs, and authority have shifted back to what I remember he was like a few years ago and he seems generally happier.


  I have not really asked much about the program except for a few little details, like what the school's 'hearbeat model' is supposedly about, and he said he had not even heard the phrase used while he was there, which was a little strange considering the founder claims it as his intellectual crowning achievment.


  I guess only time will tell as to whether his newfound 'sobriety' (not so much in the drug sense, as in the attitude and behavioral sense) is natural or unnatural. I got a bad feeling that even if this program was in fact beneficial, it will not change very much on the longterm because his parents still have their share of the family's problem.

Slavish discipline makes a slavish temper... If severity carry'd to the
highest pitch does prevail, and works a cure upon the present unruly
distemper, it often brings in the room of it a worse and more dangerous
disease, by breaking the mind; and then, in the place of a disorderly young
fellow, you have a low spirited moap'd creature, who, however with his
unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend tame unactive
children, because they make no noise, nor give them any trouble; yet at
last, will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he
will be all his life an useless thing to himself and others... Beating them,
and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments, are not the
discipline fit to be used in the education of those we would have wise,
good, and ingenuous men...
John Locke, 1692

[FaceKhan]

Re: I'm still going Yes I remember, I am most interested in anything you find.

Slavish discipline makes a slavish temper... If severity carry'd to the
highest pitch does prevail, and works a cure upon the present unruly
distemper, it often brings in the room of it a worse and more dangerous
disease, by breaking the mind; and then, in the place of a disorderly young
fellow, you have a low spirited moap'd creature, who, however with his
unnatural sobriety he may please silly people, who commend tame unactive
children, because they make no noise, nor give them any trouble; yet at
last, will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his friends, as he
will be all his life an useless thing to himself and others... Beating them,
and all other sorts of slavish and corporal punishments, are not the
discipline fit to be used in the education of those we would have wise,
good, and ingenuous men...
John Locke, 1692

[Imone]

Do not be fooled At least when i was there, this program was not right,


-graduate of Alldredge December '99 [email protected]

[Antigen]

Do tell Chances are that, right now with all of the media and state regulatory attention, they're behaving themselves.... sort of. They'll make whatever changes to the rules and structure they need to to show effort to address whatever specific complaints they're getting. It doesn't really make any difference, in fact it can be more of a mind f*** than blatant violence.


Please, do tell what goes on up there in WV. I have some property in Doddridge Cnty and a good relationship with at least one newspaper out of Charleston. Even if you don't want your name attached to anything, it might help if we could give journalists and state investigators some specific things to look for.

-If there's a worse idea going than locking kids up for victimless crimes, it's probably locking them in close proximity to some tyrannical altruist bent on helping them even if it kills them.
http://trebach.org/conference.html'>Saving our Children from Drug Treatment Abuse

[Anonymous]

So, do you guys think that using drugs is okay? How exactly would you prefer parents to intervene in their childs development when they are using drugs, lying, stealing, becoming abusive, depressed, angry, self-mutilating, etc.?

[ladyjerrico]

Using drugs is o.k. ONLY IF used for medical reasons, such as a dying patient with a disease or things of that nature.. NOT for recreational purposes.
If my parents weren't so abusive in my adolences, I probably wouldn't have never been on drugs and been a good student.
One thing I found out in life with drugs is that there is ALWAYS an underline reason for using, I found that out AFTER I left Straight.
I would have appreciated if my parents would talk to me instead of yell, hug me instead of slap the crap out of me.. and best of all, explain to me for reasons of abuse and punishment (my father tried his best to do so, but my mom would never listen).. so I ended up in rehab regretting the day I set foot into that deathcamp insane cult!

[Anonymous]

Save yourself and your child a lot of heartache and use the money to take them on a long cruise. Take it from a parent who has been through it already. I wish to God that's what I had done. Your odds of gaining any benefit for money spent is better at the craps table in Vegas than a "speciality" school.

[ladyjerrico]

I never thought of it that way.. but I would say if my child had that much of a problem.. I would probably show them all the Straight Inc. footage I could find.. if that wasn't enough, I would need to find out how severe the problem, what drugs he/she is taking and do some corrective action.. not as corrective as Straight.. but I know that I would find a way because I was there too!

[Anonymous]

"Using drugs is o.k. ONLY IF used for medical reasons, such as a dying patient with a disease or things of that nature.. NOT for recreational purposes."

My lady, What the fuck??