I've never read the book "An American Gulag", but I saw the movie "Not My Kid" about 6 months to a year prior to being dragged to 5515 Backlick without ever even smoking a joint!
I remember being in the lobby waiting for the "warden" to come and take me back to the intake roon. Right before I was walked back into the room, I saw the fresh picture on the wall regarding the arrival of Nancy Reagan and Princess Di only several weeks earlier. I remembered the incident in the news, along with the movie "Not My Kid", and suddenly started laughing at my parents for bringing me to a place for drug addicts, when I did not have a drug problem and was a regular Church going individual. Sure I had my rebellious attitudes, but I think this was more directly related toward my parents relationship with each other, and their consistent disagreement on how to raise me. Needless to say, I was "inducted" after a lengthy intake and forced confessional, totally fabricated mind you.
Within a year of my departure from Straight, right after I turned 18, my parents were divorced and I learned several things about their feelings towards me, which I never had known before. Needless to say I had been "converted" or knew I had to create this lie to move through the system, or start to think of a way to escape. I escaped four different times. I was dragged back three, and returned home after a lengthy departure on the fourth on an agreement I was not going back.
I've been out close to 15 years and only recently have begun to realize the impact of what happened to me, and how it affected the rest of my life. I certainly never saw myself as having been in a cult, but I know now the truth of what happened during this time. I find myself occasionaly thinking about another movie, "Mr. Destiny", and what would have happened if I could have changed that one incident in my life. Only now, 15 years later, after the rather recent postings I have seen regarding Straight Inc., have I begun to comprehend how deep and damaging this place has been. I know I have since moved on with my life and I am not one to linger on the past, but I have recently found myself very interested in this "chapter" in my life.
Brent Lewis
American P.O.W.
5/17/86-12/2/87
Straight - DC