Hi, I just started reading about STRAIGHT and this terrible treatment of young people; I don't have a login for this site but wanted to say good luck and share a similar experience I had in Canada.
In 1976 I joined a group which originally seemed to have the well meaning aim of spreading information about the mind and a biological basis for religion. These are valid aims, but what happened within the group quickly turned everything sour.
What actually happened over time was that the young impresisonable people who joined up (I was 18) started to become valuable assets.. we had jobs, we signed up other people and so on. The group started to take on a personality which excluded the outside world, and got to the point where we were told that 4 hours sleep per night was enough, so we could carry out our work for the organisation as well as our daily jobs. Outsiders were negative and to be avoided, and that included family, old friends, and so on.
In the end there was an atmosphere of violent emotions and confrontations, and times when a person would be torn to pieces verbally to ram a point home. The fear in some of the group meetings was tangible, and the relief when the leaders declared something ok, was part of the typical "good cop, bad cop" routine. Believe me, this sort of thing over a long period of time has a caustic effect on your self-esteem. It doesn't have to be brutal, just constant.
The group disintegrated in 1981 and I was immensely relieved, though it took 2 years before I stopped feeling twinges of guilt every wednesday (wednesday was introductory seminar day, and you'd have to have a bloody good reason for not supporting it or being there).
The brain takes 2 years to recover from physical trauma (head injuries) and, interestingly, also from emotional trauma, such as infidelity, psychological abuse and so on. The connections and neurons have to recover and revive their original state, in both instances, and there is usually an impairment of function in the recovering period.
I sympathise greatly with people who have been through the STRAIGHT experience which I'm sure, was far worse than anything I saw. What I experienced was bad enough to separate me from my family for 5 years, and to this day, we don't talk about it.
I hope for the day when uncritical acceptance of anyone with "authority" is over and done with. nobody has the authority to tell you how to live your life, under any circumstances, and all the medals, badges, hats, qualifications, support by the masses, imposing buildings, long lived institutions, government support, or wealth do not alter this fact.
Kind regards
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