Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Daytop Village

DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run

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Inculcated:

--- Quote from: "SEKTO" ---On the Dresser building, DAYTOP Dallas mid-'90s (emphases added by myself):

Yep, that's it, that's the Dresser building I remember, all right.   I went through second stage there, and we had Guadenzia there in October '93.  
 
I remember that the Dresser building had that huge recessed sunken fireplace, and the garish '70s design, all of the mauve taupe, burnt orange, and lime green carpeting and wallpaper.  It was obvious that nobody had renovated the place in years.  When DAYTOP moved in, it was a dump, dusty and trashed out, and looked like it had been frozen in time, circa 1978.  It had been unoccupied for many years.  When it was given to DAYTOP (technically sold for a dollar, so I heard) they had kids from Richardson (myself included) go over there from time to time in the van in order to help clean it out.  
--- End quote ---

Well SEKTO, you have your predecessors to thank for the garish locale of 2nd stage.

During a smoke break some few of our then small number were rounded in to a room and called a choir. Langstein trained us to project something like holiday cheer in English and Spanish.
On the day of our big performances, the onset of my developing bronchitis caused me to lose my voice. I was not allowed to break formation, even for my fever. (We formed a tree or a bell for the secular)
We went to the Children’s Hospital and they pimped our adorable troubled teen routine to some other places. ( 'stopped at a gas station for some cough drops) We ended up at Halliburton’s party. It was Halliburton that sold the Dresser building to Daytop for a dollar.
I remember one lady who had enjoyed our wassailing voiced her concern that “the little one in front seems flushed” (me)

Thank you, Dick Cheney and Daytop for the Pucci designs and cigarettes and for my chronic asthma.

Inculcated:
Dwelling, mulling, ruminating…
SEKTO:
If I had to rank the more unpleasant of the Daytopian group therapy venues I’d say that while the encounter groups were brutal, the extended groups were (and in some ways still are) interminable nightmares.
 
In the early days we were a smaller population with no senior members and an overwhelming swell of staff to kid ratio. They actually told us to expect our first extended group to be “like a sleep over”. Naively we clutched our pillows and swilled sodas. It was too late once I realized why so many boxes of Kleenex were strewn about the room we were in. None of us slept.  

By the time the almighty marathon group was assembled some of us were bitten and shy. We pursed our lips into tight smiles belied by the fear in our eyes as newer members were told to “bring their blankets”. :nods:

Worse than even these was the gawd awful ghastly “Girl Group”. This is where they expanded on the deadinsaneinjail theme to include the caution that we may well all end up as prostitutes, if we did not embrace the “Girls Group Guidance” being extended to us. In fact some of the girls were coaxed,goaded, cajoled…  to “realizations” (skewed condemnations) that perhaps having sex while high or sex with anyone they might’ve gotten high with somehow translated into sex for hire. I dodged the bullet on this, but other shots were fired. (It wouldn’t be long anyway until I was stood before the “family” in that last house meeting called in my honor and pariahed like a 14 year old Hester Prynne). Watching my friend decide she had “sold herself” to her freshmen year boyfriend was gut wrenching.
 
 Beyond even the understandable enforcement of the second of the three cardinal rules (No F,F, OR F’), having even slightest normal adolescent curiosity and drives was discouraged and held as proof of weakness. We were all advised (and for good measure preempitvely admonished) for not "taking ownership of ourselves". Also,that we were to watch ourselves against being sexually manipulative (lest our inherently promiscuous junkie sell out natures be exploited out there in the big bad world).

Acknowledgement of abuse also came hand in hand with this theme.In the same breath as "thanks for sharing that with the group you’re so brave", there was added a caution that this meant some permanent mark was there. This is particularly messed up as it reinforces the blame the victim message and anything internalized by the original perpetrator. It sure as hell taught us to try and blend in with the scenery in those groups, because “support” was just preamble to judgment.

These messed up methods were applied by incompetent drama ghouls. The more they could wrench out of a kid by way of revelation and confession the better. Never mind how these brutal tactics amounted essentially to revictimization in their own tearing ways. The scar tissue left in the wake of such extractions make it damned near impossible for even a competent practitioner to help to heal.

I was going to elaborate on my recollections of girl’s sexual trauma histories being used against them. Instead, I’m going to go binge eat my way out of the size four skinny jeans, because I’m not allowed to have sedatives anymore.(I’m being told I’m learning to cope. Unpacking memories is good for me? It’s supposed to hurt right?) ::puke::

You will likely remember how the rules were applied differently for girls than for the boys. I wonder, did they ever have anything like a boys group?

Also, is it me or is clicking on the “return to daytop village” forum option a little unnerving?

Inculcated:
To put it more succinctly, it’s that tune stuck in your head, you can’t quite remember the words…but there you are a lifetime later humming along.

SEKTO:
Inculcated:

Personally, I remember the haircut sessions and encounter groups as being much more brutal and traumatizing than the Extended Groups that I was part of.  In my day ('92-'94) of DAYTOP Richardson/Dresser we did two Extended Groups the whole time, and I do not remember those as being all that "in your face."  It was a bit like a really long encounter group session, but without the yelling, and a lot of crying, in which we'd talk about all of our deep dark personal stuff and discuss these things amongst ourselves.  I really do not remember these too well, actually; I have pretty vague memories of these sessions and they really did not impress me that much.  Greg facilitated one of the groups that I was in, and Ruben the other.  I remember well, however, Marcy's violently confrontational Encounter Groups, and the way I remember receiving and later giving the haircuts.  I remember distinctly Mike Gomez crying like a baby and how scared he was.  Nobody spent the night in the building for those long groups; they'd start at, like, nine or ten AM and go into the afternoon, at which point we'd go home.   So these groups were six or seven hours long and were by DAYTOP standards realtively pretty tame.  

They'd probably toned down some of the more psychologically invasive elements of the DAYTOP outpatient "therapy" by the time I was part of it, believe it or not.  And I though we had it bad in my day, holy shit.  We never had a single Marathon, for example, and I get the impression that the DAYTOP Richardson I went through was sort of like "DAYTOP lite" compared to the way they were in your days there in Richardson, when they first started out in TX.

What angers me the most about my time in there, what I resent the most, is the fact that none of these people were in any way, shape, of form properly trained or degreed professional counselors, and had any of them been as such they could have picked up on my PDD, made an appropriate referral to a specialist, and gotten me some real help instead of their soul-warping BMod nonsense.  I'll bet you that none of them knew anything about autism other than what they had seen in Rain Man. As it was, they labelled me a "space cadet" who had eaten too much acid and fried his brain.  "Nothing's wrong with you, you just need to grow up, ya baby.  We don't like the way you are, so stop it or else." is what I was taught, basically.  That's right, the counselors' explanation for why I was that way, was attributed to my eating too much acid.  As it was, I was made to feel broken and "weird," and DAYTOP instilled in me a sense of not liking myself, of not being OK with who I was/am.  And I still struggle with that, of simply being OK with B.  DAYTOP would have been one of the worst kinds of places to put some kid like me or Mike Gomez.


--- Quote ---Beyond even the understandable enforcement of the second of the three cardinal rules (No F,F, OR F’), having even slightest normal adolescent curiosity and drives was discouraged and held as proof of weakness. We were all advised (and for good measure preempitvely admonished) for not "taking ownership of ourselves". Also,that we were to watch ourselves against being sexually manipulative (lest our inherently promiscuous junkie sell out natures be exploited out there in the big bad world).

Acknowledgement of abuse also came hand in hand with this theme.In the same breath as "thanks for sharing that with the group you’re so brave", there was added a caution that this meant some permanent mark was there. This is particularly messed up as it reinforces the blame the victim message and anything internalized by the original perpetrator. It sure as hell taught us to try and blend in with the scenery in those groups, because “support” was just preamble to judgment.

These messed up methods were applied by incompetent drama ghouls. The more they could wrench out of a kid by way of revelation and confession the better. Never mind how these brutal tactics amounted essentially to revictimization in their own tearing ways. The scar tissue left in the wake of such extractions make it damned near impossible for even a competent practitioner to help to heal.
--- End quote ---

Nor do I recall being part of an all-male group while I was there.  We could have had one, and probably did actually, but I do not recall that.  Nor can I recall the girls being separated and taken into an all-girl group.  When I was on second stage, by coincidence all of the second stagers were males and we'd engage in a lot of "guy talk" type stuff, we'd speak on not compromising our sobriety for sex or relationships, and so forth.

There was when I was a coordinator a girl that once told me when we were speaking one-on one, a twelve or thirteen-year-old mind you, that she was being molested by the youth pastor at her church.  She told me that she was being touched inappropriately and demonstated to me exactly where and how he was touching her.  Horrified, I found and told Ruben of this right away, that very day.  But I do not know whatever became of that incident, the youth leader fellow, or of the girl.  She was in foster care, and out of Letot.  I think that she made it to second stage, but am not sure of whether she graduated.  Her name was KH.

There was another time when a boy of sixteen or seventeen told me of being molested by a male stranger who had picked him up while he was hitchiking.  He told me that he was terribly ashamed about what had happened.  I never did tell anyone of this, and in retrospect wish that I had.  The kid's name I do not recall.  

Me, when I was 18/19 years old, believe it or not, I was pretty asexual and for the most part oblivious to the more prurient aspects of male/female relationships.  I just simply didn't think about sex that much when I was a teenager (odd as that may sound to some of you who who are reading this) and so any of that kind of sex-ed, sexual trauma talk etc. at DAYTOP, as far as I was concerned, would have gone in one ear and out the other.  These things were just not a part of my consciousness at the time.  There were DAYTOP females who I was friends with while on second stage, and we'd go to dinner together sometimes, go to AA dances or movies or whatever, but nothing physical ever happened between any of us.

I did not "get" flirting while in DAYTOP and was very socially awkward.  Now that I am 35 I am much, much more socially savvy, adapted, and have vastly improved my skills in reading non-verbal cues, body language, and also in matters pertaining to theory of mind/empathy.

DAYTOP did not know Asperger's or anything about PDD/ASD.  They just called me "weirdo" or "space cadet."  That affected me the most in the long run, I think, that's what's been the most harmful element of my experience with them.  They just weren't equipped for kids like me.  They simply instilled in me a deeply ingrained sense of feeling "abnormal."

And I like your quote about humming the tune, too.  Sort of like "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail" eh?

Inculcated:
SEKTO:

--- Quote from: "SEKTO" ---What angers me the most about my time in there, what I resent the most, is the fact that none of these people were in any way, shape, of form properly trained or degreed professional counselors, and had any of them been as such they could have picked up on my PDD, made an appropriate referral to a specialist, and gotten me some real help instead of their soul-warping BMod nonsense.  I'll bet you that none of them knew anything about autism other than what they had seen in Rain Man. As it was, they labelled me a "space cadet" who had eaten too much acid and fried his brain.  "Nothing's wrong with you, you just need to grow up, ya baby.  We don't like the way you are, so stop it or else." is what I was taught, basically.  That's right, the counselors' explanation for why I was that way, was attributed to my eating too much acid.  As it was, I was made to feel broken and "weird," and DAYTOP instilled in me a sense of not liking myself, of not being OK with who I was/am.  And I still struggle with that, of simply being OK with B.  DAYTOP would have been one of the worst kinds of places to put some kid like me or Mike Gomez.
--- End quote ---
That’s a lot of how their methods were so messed up. They would slap a label on people (even quite literally in the form of a sign to be worn) and that was that. It was always some reductive dismissal such as junkie hyphen this or that.

We were taught to accept this. By then such words were really a reflex.They would  spout a lot rhymey one liners. One size fits all slogans. I don't know if I was even moved to flinch by the time I was told (as was the “family”) that I was toxic. I thanked them for this. It was explained that my being sent upstate was a second chance I was being granted. It’s interesting how the “you don’t know how good you have it here in Daycare” snarls and the ominous threat of being sent up state got repackaged as my opportunity. I was also being made an example of. I'm sure other girls there got the message.

If they for whatever reason eased up on the orgies of tears by the time you did your time then I’m glad, and I hope that continued to get phased out. I’m sure you’re better off having only scant memories of the two you attended.

I hope K.H. got some intervention for her situation and that they didn’t salt her wounds with any of their version of supportive feedback.


--- Quote from: "SEKTO" ---And I like your quote about humming the tune, too.  Sort of like "when all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail" eh?
--- End quote ---
Hmm, not quite.It's not a quote. It's my attempt to describe the subliminal messages in the “old tapes” that become white noise for a while. Then one day you hear it and wonder why am I humming this? Damn,that’s not my theme song.

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