"Are you still not over it?"

[METALGOD8]

::bangin::

Ah, shit,  :smokin:


PS. I go about 3 times a day myself, nowadays, I can't hold it either, LOL....but, I think STRAIGHT, INC. bullshit treatment ruptured my colon. If that deserves no justice, then what does?  :rofl:

[ClayL]

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.

You are wrong here. All the runaway malpractice suits have done is remove a few Dr.s who would have climbed from the gene pool anyway and drive up the cost of good medicine for everyone.

I have a question. So what are you going to do? Have everyone, including your parents and family members thrown in prison for doing what they thought was best for you? That they were completely wrong is not the point. To live life, I have to take responsibility for the things that have happened. Until I do this, I will be unable to grow and mature in ANY meaningful fashion. Caterwalling about how my parents shitted me is not going to help me grow or be an adult today. Is there pain there, hell yes. Is it going to kill me? In a word NO. I have lived through MUCH worse. What I experience today is a pimple on the ass of the universe compared to what I experienced in that place. I also believe in a just and equitable God and my firm rule is I have to treat people the way I would like them to treat me. That includes people telling me when I am wrong. Doesn't say I have to believe them.

Let me ask you this. say you go to a financial advisor and they get you to invest a good deal of your hard earned cash into something. Something completely legal, but risky. You end up losing all the money you put in the investment. Are you going to continue using that advisor? Are you going to find another advisor that you can trust not to lose your money? Less risky, more stable.

Why do you do the same thing with you parents? Pounding your head into a brinck wall is not going to cause the wall to fall. Or put another way, if you keep hitting trees, stop driving in the forest.

Here's some more food for thought. Perhaps your Mother likes setting you off, a control issue. Perhaps this is her game. My sister used to do the same thing to me up until I figured out that I am an adult and I can play  or not play. The choice is entirely mine. When I took the control, the game ended.

Lastly, the Nazi comparasson fails. The Nazis killed 10 of millions of people. The "crimes" committed against us are of a more esoteric nature. Straight was no Buchenwald, Bergen-Belson, Auswitz, or Treblinka. Staff did not decide who lived and who died on a daily basis. To draw such a comparason belittles the Holocaust and what happened to the gays, jews, jehova's witnesses, gypsies, and mentally handicapped. In my enitre experience with straight I can remember no one starved, beaten, frozen, shot, gassed, electricuted or otherwise killed in a brutal and systematic manner. Straight was brutal, but completely fails when compared to the nazi atrosities of World War 2. You ought to read up on it. You didn't have it so bad.

CL

[like a bird]

Clay, you did not read my post very carefully.

You say: "I have a question. So what are you going to do? Have everyone, including your parents and family members thrown in prison for doing what they thought was best for you?"

I specifically stated that I do not believe in prison time for our parents.

You say: "Lastly, the Nazi comparasson fails."

Okay, but what about the bank robbers from the sixties they continue to pursue? Drug dealers from a decade or two ago who have relocated under aliases and are living decent lives?

Also, in the beginning of your post you say: "You are wrong here. All the runaway malpractice suits have done is remove a few Dr.s who would have climbed from the gene pool anyway and drive up the cost of good medicine for everyone."

You seem to be unaware of real live people who have been injured, and who, without insurance payoffs and lawsuits, would be left without medical care for continued problems, further operations, physical therapy, and so on.

And as for the mention of Nazis, I don't think there is a soul here who believes that what they went through compares in intensity of horror to what the Nazis put the Jews and other groups through. I think we continue to bring it up because it resonates with us, to be kidnapped, locked up, and abused by people on a power trip, plus the elements of mind control Hitler used to get an army and a whole nation behind him.

I do not understand the fervor of your replies to me. Why does it get you so angry? Why the vitriol?

[like a bird]

Reply to 2dogs:

You say: "How can you blame your parents?"

Because they were in their forties, college-educated adults. I know a lot of people here think that the parents were just as brainwashed, but I have a hard time really believing that. If they were locked up along with us, sure. But they could see the control, they knew we sat in blue chairs all day long and never saw the sun, they knew we were led around by our belt loops, and they could have and ought to have done some research and discoverd the lawsuits that had already been brought against Straight.

You say: "All that horse-shit about sueing someone is so fucked-up"

I am curious, do you think that those who were in Straight and other such programs should not sue Mel Sembler and the other big Straight people? Do you really think that is "horse-shit"? Even if it never works, if it never happens, do you not think we would be just in suing them?

You say: "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"?"

I toed the party line, so to speak, because I was terrified not to, as we all were. If at any point after first phase I put in for a withdraw, I would have been set back or terrorized in the intake room. I was playing their game, and I lost my own sense of the truth because I was too afraid to speak the truth, even to myself, for a long time.

You say: "You NEED someone to be hurt or give you money to be ok?"

I know I never said that I needed someone to be hurt for me to be ok. Never ever, go back and read my posts, did I say that? Don't say I said something that I didn't say. You are doing the same thing Clay did.

I will say that money would help with a lot of things. Of course it doesn't necessarily make things okay, but anyone who has been on skid row knows the power of money to help.

"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" "

Joey, I did feel your reply to me was harsh, and I am having to defend myself on a number fronts. I appreciate that you seem to want to help, and that you are sorry that you don't know any other way than by giving me shit.

I don't really think I need help here. I just kind of posted this topic originally because I felt tangled up about the whole thing. I agree with people who responded, albeit harshly, that I cannot waste my life waiting around for my mom to come through. It is a very old beef I have with her, from years and years of family patterns. That is mine to work out.

I disagree with the personal attacks, the rude mischaracterizations ("No cash for like a bird", among others), the sentiment that we are not owed anything, in short, the bizarre harshness.

I do find it interesting. It does remind me of both the way my family fights, which I am completely sick of, and it also reminds me of the rebuttal-by-intense-attack method we learned in Straight. Reading through the responses, I find myself flashing back to the building and the blue chairs. I am glad that I am not in person with several of the people who responded. I am glad this is a written forum so I can respond more rationally than I would be able to in person.

peace 2dogs,
bird
 
p.s. just curious about the origin of your moniker if you want to explain it

[like a bird]

thanks for gunning for me, brother.

[ehm]

Posted: 2002-09-30 12:12:00 by Antigen: How to raise kids.

What would I do? Well, if I had the kind of money at my disposal to send my daughter to one of these places, I might take it and go hike the AT WITH her. With the cash we'd have leftover, I suppose we'd go and pursue whatever interests we may have discussed during the walk. But I never had that kind of money. So, instead, I just kept the lines of communication open and kept reminding her that, contrary to what her psycho boyfriend kept telling her, we do still love her very deeply and her old friends do too. The bottom line, though, is that when a kid decides that they'll no longer accept the authority of their parents there's really not a whole lot we can do to control them. You have to let them go sometimes and take their own lumps. What's so hard about that? There are 6 billion of us on this planet with several thousands of years worth of history that do not include Synanon based thought reform. How do you suppose the human race has managed to survive this long without the convenience of paying professionals to rough up our children when they step out of line?

I've for years told my mom how destructive the TWO thought reform centers she sent me to were. She always says, "What was I supposed to do?" My responce has always been, "Why not love me enough to raise me yourself?"

I agree with Ginger 100%. COMMUNICATION is the only way to be a good parent. There is no expiration date for parenting. I have a 12 year old daughter, who knows she can tell me anything a.k.a. she trusts me, and knows I love her. I was online yesterday looking at Sunhawk Academy,(not because I wanted to send her away), after filling out their questionaire on-line, I was reffered to a list of options for placement of her. According to the answers I gave (which were honest), my daughter qualified! So I called, asking about legal rights of the child, still maintaining that I was looking into their program. Then came the Red Flags..."You as a parent have to trust us, the program will not work without your trust, and children have many different manipulation tactics," blah, blah. This woman's name was Stacy Bradley. Okay, thank you very much but no thanks. Wilderness resedential therapy or Boot-camp etc, same thing, I was in one for 18 months, and then in Straight inc another almost 2 years. They chewed me up and spit me out! Salesmanship club, Sunhawk, Straight, same difference. Handing your kid over for someone else to fix is NEGLECT!!! Especially when these places are not hospitals, with real Med. professionals, but instead, greedy, moral-absent con-artists with education degrees! Education of: How to run a child consentration camp! Qualifications matter. I'm shocked at people's ignorance. My daughter is a well adjusted, bright, beautiful little girl, and I give myself some credit, I am raising her, I am an authoritative parent. Life has its ups and downs, but LOVE rules. Neglect is the opposite of love and screams irresponsability!
Love,
Morli

[ClayL]

Imagine my dismay, I think I am having a discussion and I am in disagreement, when (POOF!) I am all of a sudden accused of spewing vitriol like lava from a primordial volcanoe. I have come to the conclusion that an extremely dry whit does not translate well to email. I am not angry in the least and just think you are wrong. I just happen to believe that wishing for vengence and compensation, although they would be nice, are a complete waste of time. Would you like to know what my siblings were doing while I was in straight? My sister, who was in college, had my parents paying all her bills, gave her a credit card for expenses, food and gas, provided her with a new car. My brother, wasn't in college yet, but he got the same things and they let him leave highschool everyday just after lunch. He won a perfect attendence award that year. They also sent them both to europe for 2 months one summer.

I did get a car when I got out of highschool, but straight bitched at them for this. So I lost two+ years of my life in that place while my siblings were smoking dope, snorting coke, and dropping acid amoung other things all while living the life of Riley. Whoever he was. Once I went to college, it was all I could do to get help with tuition. I, to say the least, am a little bitter about this lack of equity in my life.

I have a BA in history, so that's where the disagreement over the Nazi thing comes from. Historical inaccuracies drive me nuts.

No vitriol, just a difference of opinion. Last thing, you will most likely be unable to sway my opinion on the runaway malpractice settlements. Medicine has been VERY good to me. Please note, I am not saying ALL malpractice suits are bad, just thngs like $100 Million for an ingrown toe nail and the like. Do you realize that an OB-GYN cannot get malpratice insurance in Nevada anymore?  Not even through a hospital. The insurance companies have decided it is to much of a risk for them. That is what I mean by "runaway".

I am fairly certain that this wouldn't come through the same way in a face-to-face conversation.

CL

[Majiktrvls]

Clay,
Thank you for the rational responses that you offer.I am in full agreement with your opinions, especially the ones about the fact that we are adults now, and that we have the right to choose to be living in blame and resentments, or living in forgiveness and peace with our pasts. We all had some shit thrown at us years ago, indeed we did. I, for one, do not choose to live with such hatred of my tormenters, whether they be the staff, executives, my parents, or myself. I include myself because if I had not behaved in the ways that I did, my parents would not have been forced into a desperation state to try to save me. I cannot blame them for the desperation that they suffered thru, I caused the desperation by my own actions. I know that back then, treatment centers were not on every corner, there was only one hospital that had anything to do with addictions or the like in the town that I am from. It cost an enormous amount of money, and was not exactly proven to be effective. So, my folks took a chance on the program offered by Straight/ATlanta. They were duped into believing that it was a miracle center, and they were desperate enough with my behaviors to fall into the clutches. How in the world can I blame them for making an attempt to help me. They did not know. For me, I do not choose to live the rest of my life caught up in the blame/resentment way of thinking. It is not conducive to my current well being.

[Anonymous]

Hi like a bird,
My sub-topic "no cash for like a bird" was in no way meant harshly. I'm sorry if you read it, and took it that way. I've been where you are, but you just can't get 'blood from a turnip', so to speak. The mental anguish of pursuing such compensation would  just not be worth it to me. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was mocking you, I promise I wasn't. When I was 10 years out of Straight, I wanted to sue the hell out of my mom,(when she still had some money) but 10 years later, I'd rather just love my family, the family I've made for myself. Like I said in my first post, I can't even talk to my mother, she's a brick wall, trying to climb that wall just to see the emptiness on the other side is just not worth it to me anymore, my heart has been broken enough. I'm so tired of fighting with her, it's only destructive to my mental health. Hence, a waste of my precious time here on Earth. I even used to say, "Well, at least I'll get some money out of the life insurance policy when she dies." I don't care about that anymore either. Money can't bring back what was lost.A little over two years ago my dearest love, best friend, husband and the Father of my beautiful daughter, was killed in a car accident. My daughter was only nine. Our lives are forever changed. I receive social security now for the both of us, and I don't even need to work. People who don't know me, or my situation, who ask me where I work, and I reply, "I don't." Almost always say, "Must be nice." I don't respond. Nothing can make up for losing Darren, nothing. Please understand, I was not saying that to be mean. I'm not a mean person. I am, like you, a survivor. I hope you accept my apology.
With deepest sincerity,
Morli

P.S. Karma will catch up with parents who wrong thier children.

[ehm]

Oops, that post was from me.

[velvet2000]

There are a few people who come here and say that they are "over" what happened to them and people who aren't "over it" are "weak". Why then would someone who is "over it" spend so much time here? Why would that person look up "the straights" on their search engine in the first place?

It doesn't matter whether you have emotionally healed, if you are currently healing, or if you are completely torn apart. It doesn't matter if you have a happy family of your own and a great job, if you struggle to further yourself every day, or if you are a transient. Abuse is abuse and the abuse that happened here has had presidential support and government funding, and there are still programs like it getting government funding, and that needs to be made public and the abusers held accountable for it. If you were abused by somone it is your RESPONSIBILITY to do the best that you can to stop that person from abusing someone else.

[like a bird]

Thanks Morli, for saying that. I also appreciated your earlier post on responsible parenting.

I am sorry for your and your daughter's loss.

[like a bird]

In an earlier post, I said: "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."


And then you replies: "You are wrong here. All the runaway malpractice suits have done is remove a few Dr.s who would have climbed from the gene pool anyway and drive up the cost of good medicine for everyone."

Now in this post you say: "Last thing, you will most likely be unable to sway my opinion on the runaway malpractice settlements. Medicine has been VERY good to me. Please note, I am not saying ALL malpractice suits are bad, just thngs like $100 Million for an ingrown toe nail and the like."

I wasn't trying to sway your opinion on the "runaway" malpractice suits because I never mentioned "runaway" malpractice suits.

And another thing, I never even mentioned "vengeance".

I apologize for accusing you of vitriolic postings, but your words did feel very caustic. You do not read what I say carefully, because in your posts you twist my words and say I said things I didn't say. It feels like an attack, not a disagreement.

In your most recent post you even talk about the injustice of the scene with your parents and you and your siblings. It seems like, and I am not going to say for you how you feel, but it SEEMS like you understand about having lingering resentment.

Why can't we just have the feelings we have about what happened, including having various feelings about it to this very day? Why do some people have to go on at length about how wrong I am, and --especially 2dogs -- ridicule me for thinking a certain thing, or feeling a certain way? THAT right there is what I don't get, and as much as I got your ire up by characterizing your replies as "vitriol"-ic, you can understand then my ire at being not only misunderstood but attacked.

I do sense that you don't mean harm, but perhaps you can understand some of my perceptions about your posts.

[like a bird]

thanks

[Anonymous]

"Why can't we just have the feelings we have about what happened, including having various feelings about it to this very day? Why do some people have to go on at length about how wrong I am, and --especially 2dogs -- ridicule me for thinking a certain thing, or feeling a certain way? THAT right there is what I don't get, and as much as I got your ire up by characterizing your replies as "vitriol"-ic, you can understand then my ire at being not only misunderstood but attacked."

Because our teens are a highly developemental time for us, and we spent that time in an environemnt where people used cruelty to attack other peoples emotions. Then in order for us to get out of that environment faster or to be accepted we started attacking the way that they did and were rewarded for it. It's very, very hard to get rid of all of those habits. We all have a few Straight habbits tucked in us that we can't see.