"Are you still not over it?"

[Anonymous]

My mother and her counselor seem to be in agreement that I have no right to bring up Straight anymore or blame it for my current problems, and hence blame my mother for my current problems. After all, it has been sixteen years.

I sure would like to know other people's thoughts on this.

[2dogs]

Get over it. You can blame in one hand and shit in the other ....        Joey

[ehm]

It's been 17 years here. That's the human brain for you. Trauma has this way of staying with you. I still can't speak to my mom. It's what is best for you. I can't talk to my mom, she's a brick wall. It's a void I have to live with.

[chinrse23]

Sounds like your mom is still in denial of the situation.  As a parent, she was probably in denial of the situation when she put you in that place and remember they were brainwashed too.

Unfortunately, she may not be able to get over something like that.  Guilt can be very devastating.

And if she has gotten over it, just because she has doesnt mean that you have to.

[ClayL]

I don't even try to talk about any of this with my dad. He's the type person that I have never seen admit any mistake. I also believe that parents who began to understand what straight was doing and did nothing carry a ton of guilt and the ones that didn't still carry a bunch of guilt because they were incapable for raising their own children. Straight gave them a way to absolve themselves by blaming US for messing up the entire family instead of their parenting skills. On the surface, this sounds good also. I still believe that if my dad had been more interested in my welfare than looking like a perfect christian family, things would have been different. That is a whole different cans of worms though. As it stands today, my dad doesn't have to understand any of this. I do. If he wants to assist me then fine, but until I got back intouch with the other ex-clients of straight, I had been doing it on my own for quite some time.

CL

[Froderik]

I'm right there with you, Clay. Some things are better left alone. My mom is pretty much the same way as your dad is. I can't really see any good reason to try to 'win', so why bother? I also had been pretty much cut off from family (most of the time by my own choice) for a while, up until kids came into the picture (about 7 years ago.) So for most of my 20's, I was on my own, maybe seeing them on holidays...

[mcadaret]

Below is a post I sent on another thread, but it seems appropriate here. Clay sums up my life 16 years later. Over it - yes and no. Some things are great, others are not.

The old post begins here:
I post on this forum often, but I do keep a close eye on it. But, I've been reading this thread, and need to say that my father has his head so far up his ass on Straight that I don't think he'll ever see the light of day.

I actually searched out this and Wes Fager's site after my father talked about how great he thought Straight was for me. That was last July 4th. On the drive home after a long silence, I said to my wife, "Dad's full of shit." And the weirdest sensation went over me. "Full of shit." A wave of memories from Straight. I had always retained some limited memory, but over the passing of 15 years I had put some things away, so to speak. They were all coming back. My wife drove, and I told her stories, intermitently crying and yelling. She just drove with tears streaming down her face.

July 5th rolled around, and she asked what I was going to do about all this. I did a Google search and found websites. My wife and I read through them, and she observed that they explained much, my insomnia, nightmares, temper, insecurity, paranoia, and (that totally fucked-up straightling word) "awfulizing." (My step-mother constantly uses that word. After I pointed out to my wife that it was straight-speak, we agreed to strike it from our collective vocabulary.)

My wife comes and hugs me now, when she notices that it's 3:00am and I'm not sleeping. She never had given it any thought before. If she notices that I'm having a nightmare, she wakes me, takes me to look at our kids sleeping, and whispers "they're what's real to you now." When I am assuming that things are going to turn out shitty, she reminds me to have faith saying, "they can't hurt you anymore." She lets me sleep with a light on. I couldn't be more blessed than to have her be understanding the way she has been.

My dad. I love him, but we're not close. My kids love him, but they sense my tension when we are around him. But fuck him. We have a surface relationship - my wife and I do the obligatory crap. He doesn't really know who I am anymore and hasn't for some time. I don't rely on him for identity or esteem anymore. That makes me sad - that I could really give less than a shit that we aren't close. I wish it were another way, but it's not and probably won't be. That reality predates my entering Straight, but the fact of the matter is, my being in Straight was one of his deepest abandonments of me, his son. Sadly, I doubt that I will ever reconcile that feeling. I was pissed off righteously for what seemed like an eternity, and now I just feel sad. Sad that I would just say "fuck him," but hey, "FUCK HIM."

I recently have really hurt his feelings. I'm about to graduate from seminary and be ordained as a minister in the Episcopal Church. Neither he nor his wife are getting one of the limited tickets to my graduation, nor am I asking him to present me for ordination. He told me that he felt "disappointed." Guess what I thought? That's right let's say it all together now - "FUCK HIM." I told him that the people who helped to put my life right were the ones I asked to participate in these huge events in my life. I guess I am still pissed-off, but mostly I am sad that my first response to my dad is ... well you know what it is.

Anyway. Thanks for being so patient with my rant.

I pray we all find peace somehow, someway.
This is where I left the old post.


your brother,
Michael Cadaret

In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.
-- Richard Bach

[like a bird]

no comprendo, dude

[like a bird]

thanks mc, clayl, morli, and everyone

money is the big sticking point for me with my mom. I feel like she owes it to me to get me through school because my schooling has been confounded by all the compounded poverty and PTSD and all leftover from Straight. but SHE talks about how much $ I owe her. that's what starts me saying "wait a minute, you put me in Straight. There are people who got million dollar settlements from that." I would not NEED the money from her if I had not been made so crazy by that place.

the other funny thing is that I can hardly remember Straight these days. I think it comes from living with her.

all I am saying is she fucked up putting me in there, why not just admit it and take responsibility by paying for school, at least.

[2dogs]

What are you...12? No one owes you shit. How long have you been out of Straight? I would bet it's been long enough. Parents are only responsible until you become an adult. Yes, it would be so sweet to see my folks break down in tears begging for forgiveness for putting me in some shit-hole instead of just being better parents, but how fucking long are you willing to live the life you are living while you wait for that fantasy to come true. Don't mean to be harsh ,but fuck dude thats so weak.

   No way am I going to sit around obsessed with trying to figure out what everyone "owes" me while I fuck-up the life of my kid.  Hey I'm way better off than a lot of parents because I've got a huge amount of information on what NOT to do.   ( I don't know if you got kids , I'm just talking about myself.)
  I know this didn't make much sense at this point . Don't worry about it.

     ....Joey

[Anonymous]

Let me respond to "No one owes you shit" and "Parents are only responsible until you become an adult."
Oh really? I think someone does owe all of us. You are right we can't sit around waiting for it. I guess after all these years I am still not tired of bringing up Straight and hearing her tell me to get over it. Years and years of this. Why should my parents get amnesty now just because a number of years have passed? If you shot your kid in the knees when he was sixteen, would you quit owing him reparations when he was 18 or 21? No. If you really hurt someone you owe them, no matter how long you run away and deny your responsibility.  
Why does it seem different when it is our parents? Because parents have this wierd amnesty. If you hit or molest your neighbors kid, the repercussions are a whole lot harsher than if you do it to your own kid. (although this might be changing)
Should all those people suing the priests for molestation just "get over it"? I think they have every right to expect compensation from the church. At the VERY least, money for whatever counseling type thing they might need to help them get over it.



Your post sounds confused -- like you are still really pissed at your parents, but don't want anyone talk about how mad we are at our parents.

Also, dude, I gotta point out, that was a wicked harsh come back.

And for another thing, yes, I am like 12. Get to know me. On the other hand, keep your distance you big potty mouth.

[ClayL]

Who says  my parents have an amnesty? There are huge parts of my life that I will not let my parents into. All the work I've done to "get over it," being the primary thing that comes to mind. There is an incalcuable amount of knowledge and experience that has come from having to learn how to grow up on my own and clearing out the emotional wreakage that strgight left me with. These are experiences that few have and have left me with an obsidion will. Straight also left me with some life long scars and quite a few unwanted, for lack of a better word, habits.

I, when I am being a participant in the great game, have no time for the blame game. If some of these efforts grant me a windfall then fine by me. Nobody owes me anything. Shitty things happen and I had the right number, in the great cosmic scheme of things, for them to happen to me. I have seen worse happen to better people and I have seen better happen to completely underseving people. To me, life has to be neither equitable nor fair and I have to live with whats in front of me. I believe this is what 2dogs was saying. I, also enjoy the fantasy of never having had any of this happen, hell I even work it out to where there was one choice I made that could have changed the whole thing. But you'll notice it was still a choice I made. I was a shithead when I went in there and was even a bigger, know it all, shit head when I came out. I did know a couple of things for sure:

1). My parents were under the impression that straight saved my life. (GAK!)

2). I never wanted to be in that position again.

After a long while I learned that because of that place, I was full blown bat-shit crazy. At least now I can hold down a productive job, but I am still a little nutty.

I am not going to say "get over it." I am not sure that is something that will ever happen, either now or in the near future. I am going to say that the pain all this has caused me is my responsibility to deal with. Accepting the responsibility or denying it will not change this. Taking it out on others, no matter how culpable, will never help me to live my life and is not a healing process. I guess this is true only because I was the one with my ass in the little-blue-chair. Someone not having their ass in the little-blue-chair will never understand and trying to make them is impossible.

Clay

[ehm]

I don't think we can sue our parents for malpractice, although that would be nice. My mom has nothing left anyway. Fuck her.(in the nicest way possible)
I wouldn't waste your mental energy if I were you. You have to many other important things to do, than wait for something that quite possibly will never happen to happen. Especially if she thinks you owe her for handing you over for some one else to raise! Bad Parents! Sure Mom, just garnish my wages for your ignorance!
     
Cut the cord!

It will make room for better relationships to come into your life. Heathy ones. Real ones. Caring ones.

Guilt is not a family value.

Tell your mom to go buy the newest issue of "Parenting", or to sue you!!               Sometimes it's just best to laugh.
I've been there.
Take care.
Morli

[ This Message was edited by: Morli on 2003-03-08 16:18 ]

[Anonymous]

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

okay, here's what I don't get. you go into a hospital, say, and they botch your surgery, and it leaves you handicapped.

isn't someone responsible?

and say that you were not sick with what they said you were sick with, so the surgery was completely unnecessary.

isn't someone responsible?

and let's say that you had been feeling sick and were in pain but your parents got tired of dealing with you so they sent you off to the wrong kind of hospital and they never checked in to who your doctor was or how the place was run, they just dropped you off and signed you over. and then they did come to visit you, and never cared that you had on a blindfold and a gag when you were supposed to be healing.

do they not then enter into responsibility?

and when this hospital leaves you too sick to deal with what healthy people are dealing with in their twenties, and otherwise dramatically affects your life leaving you homeless and so on,

is not some sort of justice and compensation in order?

when people HURT people in this society, unless it is pure accident, we expect them to "pay their debt" with prison time or fines or something else.

I am not sure what effect this version of justice (the prison time and fines) is supposed to have. Punishment never changes the original crime.

However, malpractice awards DO serve to help people put their lives back in order. They pay for a person's continuing medical care, for one thing. They also, in my opinion, serve by taking away from the offending party a significant portion of their wealth, which serves to deplete their power.

Doesn't anyone else see it this way? I don't think it is that hard. What is hard is how many times we have brought up Straight, never mind any money issues, and had our parents throw scalding water on us.

Oh, you know what else I think it is, I think that because emotional problems are invisible we think that they are not real. Because we often eventually do find our way out of them, after years and years, we think that we could have done so all along, and so we tell other people who have those same problems that they could get over it if they wanted to. I know that people on this board know Straight victims who have had to be hospitalized for psychological assistance because of the damage that Straight did. I know that people on this board know that they have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that it deeply affects their lives, making ordinary things very difficult.

WE do not take Straight seriously. I bring it up, once in a blue blue moon to other people and they cry while I try to brush it off. It is not nothing. Minds and hearts are real and can be tortured just as bodies can. It is not something to "get over", it is something to heal from, in loving kindness.


I think that my emotions where my mom is concerned are a tangled mess. I think she could undo a lot of the tangling by taking responsibility for putting me in Straight.  I hear another part of what everyone is saying here -- that she may never do this, and so it would be better if I did not wait.  

However, I think it is very different to say to someone "you are owed justice, and you have not been granted justice, so I understand your frustration, but you may never get justice so it might help you to come to terms with that"
and to say "well you're never going to get any cash so grow up" which is what people seem to be saying here.

I am not looking for "cash". I am looking for justice, which means those responsible "pay their debt", make reparation. To repair! In large part this will have to mean money. I don't advocate prison time for our parents. I do for those in power at Straight. I also suspect that the government owes all of us because it was culpable for allowing (encouraging?) Straight to operate.

I feel that my parents are in a way more responsible than anyone at Straight. Straight was a big crazy institution running on the momentum of a bizarre power trip -- I don't expect such an instution to care.

Clear it up, make it right. They are still hunting down Nazis, and bank robbers and murderers from the sixties, and priests who molested kids thirty years ago.

Or, do we not believe in justice?

[2dogs]

This is the most valiant effort I have ever seen of someone trying to blame everyone else for where they ended up. You didn't get out of Straight yesterday...did you?  
  I said "when you become an adult" not "18 or 21". And by adult I mean responsible for ones self. You should try it . It really does feel good. All that horse-shit about sueing someone is so fucked-up it even makes a good tree-huger like me sick.
 I have no anger at my folks, shit my dad is dying and I'm his care-taker, and he still loves to talk all "tough love". Hate to say it but Straight was right when they said that whole bit about "resentments only hurt YOU."
   How can you blame your parents? They were just as dupped as you , only that generation is way more prone to serious denile. Besides how many times did YOU sit in your "phaserized" home and sell the program to your mom in the days after you joyously yelled "COMING HOME"?
  Everyone knows it was wrong , even your Mom. So now what ? You NEED someone to be hurt or give you money to be ok? I don't get it. Well I kinda do , I mean I felt the way you do back in the 80's after I graduated when the brainwashing was wearing off. Sorry you still feel the injustice so strongly around you. I wish I had better words than just giving you shit. I really would like to say the right thing to help but I'm not sure what to say to someone sitting where you're sitting so I'll have to settle for just giving you shit...sorry....Joey