Author Topic: When did you "wake up"?  (Read 10392 times)

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Offline AuntieEm2

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Re: When did you
« Reply #30 on: November 17, 2009, 04:57:59 PM »
Quote from: "AuntieEm2"
I have read many posts about a time lag between leaving a CEDU school and realizing that the program had had an abusive effect. If this was your experience, I am curious about what happened in your life that made you "wake up" to the abuse?

Related: Is there anything someone might have said or done to help you when you got out of your program? Anything that might have put the experience in perspective sooner?

Auntie Em
As long as this topic was bumped, it still interests me/is relevant. Any new perspectives?

Auntie Em
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Offline Anonymous

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Re: When did you
« Reply #31 on: December 01, 2009, 08:59:11 AM »
A lot of the time when I reflect on my time in CEDU, I am angry. I have dreams that smack of shame, or I need to save a person or a team. Sometimes the dreams are obvious- like being on the campus or with people who I remember from my time there. But sometimes they're not. And I wake knowing exactly what the dream is about, it can't be anything else in my subconsciousness, as the campus is intact and a strange feeling encompasses me.

But sometimes when I think of that time period of my life, I get very sad. I'm not exactly sure why, but it's these sad and quiet moments that I really remember the confusion and bitter feelings I had as a younger student. I thought Everything I learned there was true, and I believed what the staff said, and that the world gave a shit about individuals, but it doesn't. It saddens me that they had us do so many days of crazy crazy self introspection and forced self loathing. So many bizarre excercises to who knows what end. It actually hurts when I reflect on what I allowed myself to believe. To say and do and be things I AM NOT and still be driven, in many hard to articulate and personal ways, by those years in CEDU.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline AuntieEm2

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Re: When did you "wake up"?
« Reply #32 on: December 01, 2009, 09:47:51 AM »
Sorry you are still haunted by your CEDU experiences, and that you lost that time there.

If I understand correctly from what I have read here over the years, it is a sane response to an insane situation for a survivor to assure himself or herself that you went through that hell for a reason. And then after a time--6 months, 2 years, 10 years--you "wake up" to a realization that the experience was not good or beneficial, but abusive (even if there were some good experiences and friends there). Perhaps that makes sense to you, or perhaps it's been different for you.

Auntie Em
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Anonymous

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Re: When did you
« Reply #33 on: December 01, 2009, 10:38:54 AM »
Auntie Em: How is niece?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline AuntieEm2

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Re: When did you
« Reply #34 on: December 01, 2009, 10:58:30 AM »
Oh, sweetie, thank you for asking. She is home, the programs she was in did little or nothing to help her with her difficulties, and made them worse in several ways--things are only better because she is home and she is older. The rest I should tell you in a PM out of respect for her.

Auntie Em
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Tough love is a hate group.
"I have sworn...eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." -Thomas Jefferson.

Offline Anonymous

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Re: When did you
« Reply #35 on: December 01, 2009, 12:39:15 PM »
FUCK
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline JustWrit

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Re: When did you
« Reply #36 on: April 21, 2010, 08:52:37 PM »
Quote from: AuntieEm2
Quote from: AuntieEm2
I have read many posts about a time lag between leaving a CEDU school and realizing that the program had had an abusive effect. If this was your experience, I am curious about what happened in your life that made you "wake up" to the abuse?

Related: Is there anything someone might have said or done to help you when you got out of your program? Anything that might have put the experience in perspective sooner?

I am a once ignorant mother who put my daughter in one of these "programs". I am ashamed to say I was fooled by wonderful masters of marketing.
Back to topic, what I have seen to be most healing to my daughter is when people validate how wrong and awful her experience once. How none if it was her fault and that she is truly a survivor to have been through all that and come out in one piece. I believe this is true of anyone who has spent time in one of these places.
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Offline dishdutyfugitive

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Re: When did you
« Reply #37 on: April 21, 2010, 10:47:51 PM »
electrolite and her grammar?
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Offline AuntieEm2

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Re: When did you "wake up"?
« Reply #38 on: April 22, 2010, 09:48:09 AM »
Sorry, DDF, I don't quite understand your post...

(BTW, that's electrolyte's post, not mine about being a mom who sent a child.)

From what you all have told me over the years, electrolyte is correct that validating that abuse took place, and the teen did not do anything to deserve it, appears to be important to "waking up."
 
Auntie Em
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Anne Bonney

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Re: When did you
« Reply #39 on: April 22, 2010, 09:56:34 AM »
Quote from: "Electrolite"
I am a once ignorant mother who put my daughter in one of these "programs". I am ashamed to say I was fooled by wonderful masters of marketing.
Back to topic, what I have seen to be most healing to my daughter is when people validate how wrong and awful her experience once. How none if it was her fault and that she is truly a survivor to have been through all that and come out in one piece. I believe this is true of anyone who has spent time in one of these places.

That's what helped me the most.  It takes a lot of guts to own up to what you did, especially in that regard.  Hope your daughter finds peace.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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