Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Daytop Village

DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run

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Ursus:

--- Quote from: "SEKTO" ---Here's the story with Mike: Mike's parents confided to Marcia that they'd adopted him as an infant, but didn't know whether they should tell Mike of this, or how to go about it. They told Marcia this in confidence, and asked her not to tell him. But she did anyway. Marcia then broke their confidence, and "accidentally" told Mike that he was adopted. She sort of slipped it into a conversation with his as if she assumed that he already knew...she took Mike aside one day and it went something like "So Mike, how old were you when you found out that you were adopted?" The bitch thought she knew what was better for Mike than his parents did, and took it upon herself to tell their kid that he was adopted.

So Mike freaks out, steals a car with some kid who split with him, they get all coked up and drunk, wind up in Oklahoma, run a red, and Mike winds up getting his head removed, just a two or three days after Marcia spills the beans.

The other kid in the car got out of it without a scratch and told me about it himself at Mike's funeral.

We found out what Marcia had done only after she'd been fired; If I remember correctly the director of out facility told us about it.

So "Marcia" (not her real name) gets fired from DAYTOP over that shit and last I heard she worked for UPS. She'll answer to her maker someday.
--- End quote ---

F-U-C-K!!! Staff like that... hell, if they don't come clean and express remorse for their past misdeeds... I really wouldn't feel too bad to see their names splashed on the internet 'till eternity!!

SEKTO:
Yeah, I think she ought to be held accountable too, but it'd be irresponsible for me to go throwing her name around when I cannot absolutely prove what I say.  

I mean, I heard of all this through people I think are pretty reliable sources, but it still amounts to hearsay.  What is your opinion?

And the woman who was director of the place, the one who told us that Marcia had been fired?  She was HIV positive and never told anybody at the time, kids or parents.  

How'd I find out about her?  That's a long story that I'll recount tomorrow.

Once DAYTOP in Dallas closed down she went to work for Phoenix House.  I heard that she is dead now too, from an AIDS-related disease, so we probably can't ask her.

And the kid that told me that stuff at Mike's funeral?  I didn't know him that well, and cannot recall his name.

Off to bed now.  See you tomorrow, I hope.

Ursus:
There was a gal at Hyde who died not too long after attending  — a "car accident" they said. I heard that she was having trouble in her marriage and that she ran her car into a telephone pole. The source who informed me didn't seem to think it was an "accident." Knowing Nina, I didn't think so either.

Nina Carbone -- I write her full name in honor of her memory (as well as the hope that someone who knows more will come across this one of these days and proffer more info) -- attended AA meetings in Brunswick while at Hyde School. I'm not sure whether they were obligatory or not, but Nina was trying her best to work the program and basically did all that was asked of her. Knowing how seriously she took everything, and some of her battles with what nowadays would be called "major depression," it would be entirely in keeping for her to beat herself up unnecessarily over some perceived slip-up and go overboard in self-loathing.

In fact, come to think of it, she tried to commit suicide before Hyde.

SEKTO:
A few more thoughts this evening…

I should have perhaps named this thread "DAYTOP Did US Great Harm in the Long Run."  After all, I was not the only one.  When you get into the group mentality, and then try to get out of it it's not just MY story anymore, but OUR story.  You know?  But, it's MY therapy so here goes...

There was a sort of “core group” of DAYTOP grads that all graduated the program and left all about the same time.  We were about the only really solid group of grads that DAYTOP outpatient in Dallas had, and after we’d graduated the place closed down within a couple of years.  We all graduated within a few months of one another, went through second stage together for the most part and were in the same graduation ceremony…it was me, and some people I’ll call Billy, Carl, Ron, and Max.  Carl took two and a half years before they let him out of the place, for some reason.  And we all kept in touch with each other outside of the program too.  Except for Max; nobody is sure what ever happened to him, actually.  Anyway, Billy, Carl and I were all roommates off and on for the better part of three years after we’d graduated.  I moved away first, and Billy and Carl were roommates for another couple of years.  Ron would come around and hang out with us all of the time, but I lost track of him ten years ago or so.  We Datopians stuck together after we graduated, that is for sure.  I am still in touch with Billy and Carl to this day.  Carl and I spoke just yesterday, and Billy and I a few days ago.  We've had our rough spots over the years, but have always stayed in touch.  I have let them know about this thread, but I doubt that they'll participate.  Carl wanted to vomit, thinking about DAYTOP, it triggered him so bad.  

It was just a very co-dependent and abusive situation there for a while.  We learned how to re-create the group environment outside of the original group, but in a different situational context. None of us really individuated outside of DAYTOP.  We were all sort of co-dependent with each other.  And of course there was the one of us that developed the Alpha Dog mentality, and it turned into kind of a weird roommate cult of sorts.  I won't elaborate, you probably get the idea.  

We were kids; we didn't know what was going on.  

It's as if DAYTOP opened up the top of our skulls, scraped our brains and minds away, and replaced that with a bunch of "DAYTOP values" and "confront yourself in the eyes and hearts of others" shit, and then sent us out into the world again.  It'd be like being opened up, cut into during surgery, and then improperly sutured back together before being sent home.  Then you start bleeding all over the place, the would gets infected, bacteria gets into your blood, and then before you know it you have a systemic blood infection because of the botched surgery and the fact that the surgical team didn't close you up properly or give you any antibiotics or follow-up.  

That's what happened to us, but at a psychic level.  We weren't sutured back together properly individually, we got sutured together by DAYTOP and what started out as close friendships got warped into these purulent and toxic relationships and nasty patterns of behavior that continued for years.

That stuff totally stunted my emotional growth.

It's like I walked around with this big festering open wound for YEARS after the experience and am only just now seeing how badly the "doctors" botched the "surgery," you know?

And we did lots of acid and other psychedelics together in later years, too, to try and undo some of the DAYTOPian programming but that only re-enforced and strengthened the groupthink bond.  Taking a bunch of acid together in a tight-knit group like we were was like doing surgery on OURSELVES, like doing brain surgery on your buddy with a knife, fork, and spoon.  A different form of psychic surgery in an effort to try and correct the surgery that the non qualified "doctors" messed up in the first place.  Needless to say, crude, and very dangerous.  Very easily abused, or it's maybe more accurate to say, misused.

So I and my friends have had a lot of trouble adjusting to life outside of the group environment.  A lot of reckless, self-destructive behavior between us.  We've been to jail, other rehabs, I was in and around cults, you name it.

Again, it's all to show, to explain to you how my identity got undermined by being exposed to a philosophy that taught me that I was not who I thought I was, that I was who others told me that I am.  We were taught in DAYTOP to not trust our own minds, because (since we were convinced that were "dope fiends") our own minds were going to lead us down the road to self-destruction, so our only hope was to stay in a group.  That's why some of us stayed together as roommates, or at least lived close by to one another, for YEARS after leaving DAYTOP.  

It's analogous to the Christian twisted-Scriptural idea of there being no salvation outside of the local "Body", which usually in those circles means "our church," or "our group."  

DAYTOP philosophy totally got into my head, I personalized it and took it to heart, and as a result my boundaries were erased and personally I felt like a zero with the rim rubbed out for years after the fact.  Totally exposed, totally open, utterly vulnerable.  It's taking a lot of time and work to put that rim back.

--- Quote ---Eventually I came to the conclusion that what I do defines me, not the other way around,
--- End quote ---

Can you explain please what you mean by that psy?  Expand on this statement?

Also, there was this neat page that I found the other day.  It explains how it is that eventually one starts playing the "psychological coin trick" on oneself.  This one really sent me on a head trip.  It's from:

http://www.piney.com/sky1.html

--- Quote ---Mind Manipulation

A Psychological Coin Trick In my work at Wellspring in helping victims of cults and spiritual abuse understand what happened to them I often demonstrate a simple coin trick. I place three coins on a table and keep a fourth in one hand. Let's say the coins on the table are a quarter, a nickel, and a penny, and the one in my hand is also a penny. I don't tell the person what coin I have in my hand; rather, I say, "I can read your mind, and I have already predicted what you are about to do. The coin in my hand will prove to you that this is so. Now, what I want you to do is to pick up any two of the coins on the table." Let's say he picks up the quarter and the nickel, leaving the penny on the table. As I show him the penny in my hand I say, "Was there any way I could have known you would leave the penny on the table?" The answer, of course, is "No," and he begins to believe that maybe I do have ESP. But then I tell him to pick up a different combination of coins. So he picks up the quarter and the penny, leaving the nickel on the table. Now I say, "Give me either one of the coins you just picked up." Let's say he gives me the penny. Then I say to him as I again show him the penny in my hand, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would give me the penny?" Again, the answer is "No." But by now he's beginning to see what I'm doing. Finally, I tell him that there is only one other possible outcome of the trick. Instead of leaving the penny on the table, or picking it up with another coin and then giving it me, he could have picked it up but then kept it while giving me the other coin. I explain that in that case I would have shown him the penny in my hand and said, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would keep the penny?" Now he understands that all I'm doing is interpreting what he does after he does it. I don't say at the start that the coin in my hand will be the same as the coin he leaves or gives me or keeps. I wait till he makes his move and then I only interpret what he does afterwa seem like I have psychic powers.

--- End quote ---

--- Quote ---I believe what this shows is that our behavior is often at least partly a result of the way other people treat us, and is not necessarily a true measure of our character or intellect.
--- End quote ---

Any thoughts?

SEKTO:
Here's a little more:  

I remember now, thinking about all of this stuff, pulling up old memories that I have not thought about or processed in years (this is really taking me back) that one thing phrase that got thrown around a lot in one form or another, whenever some kid was acting rebellious or being disobedient or "copping an attitude" in any way, went something  like this during the haircut or whatever:

"THE SIGN ON THE WALL SAYs DAYTOP, NOT PLAYTOP, SO IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU CAN LEAVE, AND DON'T LET THE DOOR SWAT YOUR BUTT ON THE WAY OUT!!!"

Or, sometimes instead of the "It's not PLAYTOP, it's DAYTOP" line they'd use  "It's called DAYTOP, not DAYCARE, so if you don't like it why don't you LEAVE and see where you end up!!!"

...or some variation like that, therefore erecting the bars in our minds.  A lot of us were forced to go into DAYTOP by our parents, and some were probated there.  If we leave, split, where are we gonna go, the streets?  Deadinsanejaildeadinsanejaildeadinsanejail...and our parents were duped into believing us to be a bunch of fuckups, too, so who's going to believe their kid when the kid comes home at night and says "I hate that place.  I'm being abused and degraded there.  They're trying to brainwash me."  You know?

My Dad would say, "It's tough love, not a recreation center."  At the center, Marcia would tell me not to think too much: onedayatatimeonedayatatimeonedayatatime...And I started to actually to be grateful for the ongoing punishment.  It was just one long coercion in DAYTOP.

A couple more DAYTOP values, too, that I recall now are these, maybe these people will be held accountable one day, according to the very principles they taught us:

IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH (Yeah, I'd like to see it all come out in the wash, all right.)  Also

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND  (Yes it does, Marcia, yes it does...)

Or when somebody would ask about how DAYTOP came up with its methods, they'd tell us about Synanon (I heard about Synanon there and the literal haircuts in DAYTOP's early days, I think that the old director there was in Synanon) we were told that a lot of this stuff was borrowed and adapted from Synanon, but then (and this, remember, was before the Internet existed) they'd tell us "But you know, Synanon was a cult, and we just took some of their best methods and adapted them; Synanon was abusive and fanatical, but DAYTOP is humane and nurturing and here's why..."  

After all, the head guy is a priest, he must be keeping our best interests at heart, right?  Yeah, right.  Not an abusive cult my ass.

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