A sick concept is alive and strong among us. Logical people stating in public, "My program wasn't as bad as Tranquility Bay so it must be ok." What is happening in this world when abuse of any kind is tolerated? Can we put a measurement of abuse that somehow makes it acceptable? Do we now have a numerical system in place to measure the abuse levels of programs?
Perhaps Tranquility bay can be the worst at a 10.
I will put the mythical creature called the Elysian fields of programs at a number 1. This dreamie paradise has no abuse what so ever by the current legal definitions of the term.
So if your program falls at a 5 or higher some how it is ok?
Lets try this logic out for size shall we?
"My program falls at a 4. I am not to complain because it could have been much worst and according to the program staff I am fortunate that I wasn't sent elsewhere."
Excuse me??? Abuse is abuse no matter what the level. AS if you can measure abuse on a numerical scale anyway.
DON'T feel sorry for not being abused in some cesspit like Tranquility Bay! Feel enraged that you were abused by the place you were sent to! No matter what you endured, no matter how harsh the treatment, no matter what the methods it is all wrong!
You can't justify abuse in terms of severity. The ends to not justify the means. The statement, "My child's school isn't as bad as Tranquility Bay. Ergo it must be ok and Junior does seem to be acting better so the ends justify the means."
This is a false statement PEOPLE!
DON'T accept abuse no matter what, where, how, who, and why the form and severity!
thank you.. just ranting..
Its a common psychological attack tool or whatever used in programs, and from what I can tell in everyday life. You compain about something, and the other person brings up an even worse situation that you could be in, in an attempt to shut down your complaints and criticisms. Like when youre a kid and complain you didn't get what you wanted for chrismas, but then your parents remind you that most of the world doens't get anything. For the most part, this kind of argument seems to work. Now that same argument is being disingenuisely used on this industry and I agree its pervasive. I also it involves survivors guilt, and just not wanting to think about memories youd rather leave untouched for the remainder of your life.
one of the hardest things to do, that should be the most simple, is to convince a former program graduate that other kids were abused in the program they thrived in. its uncomprehensive to them, for something they like, something they attribute their very life to, for that wonderful thing to be capable of murder, sexual abuse and negligence is something they don't want to know. reminds me of religious people who just don't want to hear the other side of the argument. Not because they are stupid, because they're arrgument cannot stand the free market of ideas. If they don't control the conversation, the argument and even the vocabulary used in programs, they won't work. These kids who come out and say these things, it's because they went through a program. If you sent a group of normal teenagers up to a WWASPS program and asked them to do a schol report on what they saw, you are going to get a completely different report than if you asked the kids who were locked up to do it.
I feel the same way too. I was at SCl while High impact and TB were open. I was in the hobbit when there were younger kids in there with me waiting to be transfered to one of those facilities, and if I had not been so close to 18 I would have been sent too. So yeah, I feel lucky I didn't spend a summer at High impact (casa), but I don't think that gives anyone the right to lock me in a cage just because of what I say or wont say during a seminar, or for refusing meds. When you are in a place that will lock up in a cage for your words, you know somethings amiss.
I think what tsw describes is normal. I am glad I was not treated like Layne, or was driven to suicide like Karlye, or killed trying to escape or something off the blacony at TB like that other girl. These kids weren't crazy they were driven to madness by their situation. the same reasons dogs start losing it after a while at the dog kennel. I don't think we would be complaining so much if it were just called PRISON and we wer given sentences for things we did wrong. But a lot of kids never did anything wrong other than hurt themselves. So now their parents pay a fortune to have them hurt even more, and if theyre lucky they will be dredged from rock bottom and built back up in the program image, and that's fucked up.
TSW the reason why we say things like "i wouldnt give up the experience in the world because I am the person I am today because of it." or " even though I saw abuse, I was nenver abused and it made me stronger". or "the kids who had a hard time were the ones who really didnt want to work it". If kids in abusive programs say things like this its because they are hiding from themselves. They might have become an upper level who bought into it and helped the program thrive. How can you become an overnight critic when you spent a year of your life as a upper level staffer for the program!
Just like our society is divided between the haves and have nots, so are programs like WWASPS. The ones who have it all will never understand the going ons of the ones who have nothing, and still get what little they have taken from them for no reason... get it completely but know the ones who have power will never get it. They can get it if they fall down into the lower levels, of program or society, but then they can't help anymore because they are just another screaming voice ina choir of disenfranchisement.
And with that said, thank god I didnt end up in TB. :wink:
