How you couldn't really "fake it"

[Anonymous]

To smvmg:

I am sorry you had that experience. I know of many spouses and significant others of "programees" who share it... I did not go to Straight, but to a similar program where you are warehoused from any outside influence and emotionally and psychologically abused for the duration.  The problem was they called it love and "just being honest."  But it wasn't.... You tried not to fall into it, but it is difficult to level up and get out unless you become what you hate, to varying degrees. Of course, there were always a few sociopaths who seemed to acclimate with ease.

The program is 24/7 communication. Bad communication.  If you didn't follow suit, you became more abused... Since everyone around you seemingly condoned it, it became the model paradigm. You actually grow to believe you are helping people when you abuse, manipulate,and exploit their feelings. You begin to equate "depth" with over emotionalism. It takes a LONG time for some people to realize what they are doing post-program. Usually at the expense of many relationships.  

Another common thing is being too direct - this is a problem I have.  I don't nag, hound, yell, or get into drama, but I will make very abrupt observations without much sensitivity.  People need a little clothing in the cold light of reality.  I still struggle with this.

Fornits is here because the pain far outlasted the program.  Our program experiences occurred at a pivotal point in our social/personal development and had a stunting effect. The damage is not just to ourselves, but to the people we love afterward.

I certainly would hesitate to date anyone recently out of the program.  Maybe in 20 years' time.

[Withdraw]

Woof -

This, "The moment you compromise your values, anger and rage most follow." is a completely correct statement. In Psychological analysis - when someone experiences this..  it can be called or cause - called Cognitive Dissonance. This occurs when a person has to do things they do not believe are right, but they must do them anyhow for one reason or another. I just researched (this week) a scholarly journal article about ICU nurses who experience high levels of MORAL DISTRESS, caused by cognitive dissonance. This study shows potential reasons why there is a nursing shortage. Cognitive dissonance causes plenty of emotional anguish, but it also causes noticeable physical distress (Like sleeplessness, or lowed immune responses) and of course issues with self image and depression etc.

Once someone experiences cognitive dissonance, they began to evaluate their motives and question their own character. This leads to low self worth and poor self appraisal. Which obviously leads to many, many more negative manifestations within the persons life.

I can see how most of us experienced this, during and after Straight, Inc. I wonder if this is the prime cause for the PTSD, that the VAST majority of us still endure. Interesting, I hadn't connected the dots from my research paper to this, until tonight. Thanks =)

If you g00gle Cognitive dissonance, there is a bunch on-line to read and videos showing how this theory is applied.



PS- Yay! My 3rd math exam and.. the cat muscle exam is over! (Today). I mean, wth kind of morbid college exam begins with .. you walk in and there are 30 dead (dissected) cats laying on trays around the room with their muscles marked with numbered pins.. UGH.. but yay, It's over and I am pretty sure I passed it w/ an A =)


Good discussion, Pirate!

Oh and I still say Cop-outs are MeOw ^.~

Peace2uall!
<3

[seamus]

The effect that I still fucking suffer from the ol monkeyfarm goes like this:
                                                                      We got told your feelings this your feelings that ,share your feelings,how do you feel about that,dont you have any feelings,I bet you have a lot of feelings,feelings,feelings feel, felt,feelings fucking feelings...........and so it became that I was too(god I hate to use this word) aware,of my own emotional bullshit to the point of It running my fucking life,clouding every tiny decision,complicating every aspect.This is str8s most profound and troubling effect on me.I spent the better part of a decade,shooting a lot of dope,and trying like hell to be well...LESS in touch with all that touchy feely bullshit.
    As for faking it,yeah I did a shit-load of that,I mean I never got high on my phases,but when I started school again I was fucking girls there,and strangly not feeling guilty for it.I was concerned that Id get busted for it and started over,but MY thinking went something like If I dont go into group looking all panic filled,these fucks aint gonna know.I just went into group like everything was groovy,and for me it was.I mean I was like the cat that swallowed the canary. I always knew my whole program I would get high again,but I sure as fuck wasnt gonna spout that truth off in some horseshit therapy. Now the wheels of life Do turn,and I do drink,(some would say too much) dont get high,but thats my idea,my choice.I would say I didnt get much good from str8,but I do see the point of not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Anonymous]

I remember in KHK they always would tell us to "Fake it 'til you make it". I guess this was their way of saying it's ok to lie as long as you are working your way towards becoming brainwashed.

[Anonymous]

You all had me convinced! I was always like, how can they just go along?!

I wouldn't get too righteous, as to answer your qhuestion, it  was you they used to convince us.  Does that help ?

I never got it. Then staff would say to me... If you really were normal w/o a drug problem, you would just go through the program easily and accept it as a great learning experience... And since you can't conform, you must really need to be here...

yeah, that was a common line from staff.

LOL, You all fooled me

 My compliments, but I don't care for your condescension.

ps: I admit though, I was secretly glad to see the people who did run get put back into group.. Because... I knew there were people out there in those blue chairs who knew what I knew. It was like finally a validation.. and there were people "on my side" who were in there with me.

...o.k., hm.  sounds fucked up to me.  seems like the validation would've come from knowing that people were attempting to escape.  

I don't know how to explain that easily, but it made me feel safer knowing people who ran were back in there with me. It made me feel protected somehow, it let me hold on to some of my sanity.

I don't intend to be too harhs, nor do I intend to take the blame for the abuse you took, Withdraw.  Don't lay it on me.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, Withdraw, you didn't dserve all that, but my point is not unfounded.

[shaggys]

I agree, your point is not unfounded. Withdraw is obviously a very nice person but the tone of her posts are frequently condescending. Its like there is some special moral high ground occupied by those who went through Straight but never complied in any way. Somehow they passed the great moral test that the other 99 percent of us failed. I saw permanent "misbehavor" types who had been locked up on 1st phase for years. Some of these folks were very violent, I am sure driven mad by their imprisonment. However, many times I saw these complete non-conformist types lash out blindly at those around them. Smashing faces, sucker punches from hell etc. Was that somehow justified cause they were just lashing out at their tormentors? What about when a misbehavor hit someone at random, another 1st phaser who had never done anything to deserve that? Somehow that behavior occupies a moral plateau above the abuse dished out by an oldcomer? In my opinion it doesn't. I will go a step further. For those of you who never conformed or "drank the kool-aid" in any way, consider yourself lucky. Yes, I said it : lucky. At least you don't have the guilt on your back the other 98-99 percent of us do.

[Withdraw]

Brainwashed - Maybe what you don't understand about me is, I thought I was more fucked up than the rest of you because I couldn't conform. Everyone around me tried to convince me on a daily basis that I was the one who was broken. It took me years and reading posts here to realize that most of you even experienced guilt at all. That is what validates me so clearly. I don't experience that same guilt...because all I did was stare at the floor sitting on my hands and the only time I "lashed" out at anyone or anything around me was in an attempt to protect my physical body. You know, like when the people around me would try to force my head forward or try to pry my hands from under my legs... When people (who were doing what they HAD to..) would stand me up and scream and spit in my face while 2-3 other people held me against the wall... I just stood there.. DAY AFTER DAY. I don't know why, but I just gave up.. entirely. I was trying to express to you that I envyed the "fight" you guys write about. I didn't have it. It was a very lonely, traumatic existence. So, you can post all about how you have justified your actions all you want.. I could care less. I post about my experience and you post about yours.. so what, we were different. It is a shame that my posts make people question their own self approval morality, that is not my intention at all.

Your experience of guilt says a lot about how you feel about what you did in there. You can try to make me out to be someone who thinks of themselves as morally above you, but I do not feel this way at all. What is clear is that you have taken on the characteristic of feeling morally below me. That is all on you.

Shaggys - No, I never said that misbehaviors who randomly lashed out violently at innocent newcomers.. blah blah.. were more justified in their abuse of others as oldcommers working the program. Of course, I would think that anyone who abused anyone else in Straight was under the distress of the brainwashing...and it was what you HAD to do in order to get out. What you don't get is that, I never put that together..That reward system they had in place. I refused to accept their reward. Do not blame me that most people did. Their idea of reward was twisted and profane. I didn't want anything to do with. Get over it.

When I say Peace2u, i mean that. get over the drama and let everyone express their own experiences. I have no desire to conform to some idealized model some of you all have, so dont bother.

.......................................

[Anonymous]

You all had me convinced! ... LOL, You all fooled me

Sorry if you weren't very perceptive, but that is not on me.

[Anonymous]

You all had me convinced! ... LOL, You all fooled me

Sorry if you weren't very perceptive, but that is not on me.

u dont really believe that

[shaggys]

A quick war story to illustrate a point. Anybody who was locked up in Atlanta during this time frame will remember this incident. A kid I will call D was set back to 1st phase from 3rd or 4th due to smoking at school. D had already been in Straight a long time. The startover seemed to just completely crush him. He immediately became a "misbehavor" and a pretty violent one at that. I was working on my 5th or 6th month of 1st phase about this time. I was sitting behind D in group when he suddenly produced a steak knife ( obviously stolen from the host-home ) from his sock. He plunged it all the way into a guys back seated directly in front of him. D then threw the knife over his shoulder. It landed behind the group making a metallic sound as it skipped across that hard tiled floor. D did not know the guy he stabbed. Did not know him at all. He was another 1st phaser fairly new to the group. He spent over a month in the hospital. The knife had punctured a lung and barely missed his heart. D was brought to the front of the group where an intense confrontation began that culminated an hour or two later with the police removing D. We never saw him again. The group was told weeks later that D had been given 5 years in Milledgville Prison for the attempted murder. My guess is that D would have never ended up like that without the mind-fucking that Straight put on him. He was probably not a violent person at all before being put in straight. He had reached a point where he would obviously rather be in jail than in Straight. That place brought out the absolute worst in all of us. My hate is reserved pretty much excusively for those adults who created and perpetuated that system. Ultimately even D is not to blame for what he did ( even though it was particularly vicious and hard to forgive ) because he was a victim of an extremely abusive situation. He was driven mad by the adults who should have known better. My God, how I still loathe them.

[shaggys]

So, you can post all about how you have justified your actions all you want.. I could care less.

Your experience of guilt says a lot about how you feel about what you did in there.  

 I refused to accept their reward. Do not blame me that most people did. Their idea of reward was twisted and profane. I didn't want anything to do with. Get over it.
......................................

Arrogant beyond belief!! Freaking Mother Theresa over here. I never heard of anyone being voluntarily let go after just 6 months. The best that a permanent misbehavor could hope for was a transfer to another Straight facility. I saw people who had not spoken to their parents in years. Straight didn't just let them go. But then again, Mother Theresa is the exception to every rule. At 6 months in I was still alternating between misbehaving and cooperating. I still had another year to go before figuring out how to leave permanently. I think my experience reflects a pretty typical Straight stay. That is why I started posting on this site. I wanted to hear from those 99 percent who at least to some degree, shared my same experience. I am looking to understand what happened in there but that is difficult when these kind of postings come from those who didn't share that same experience at all. Anyone who was let go or encouraged to leave after 6 months falls into a category of less than even 1 percent. In fact that experience was completely unheard of while I was there.

[Froderik]

I think my experience reflects a pretty typical Straight stay. That is why I started posting on this site. I wanted to hear from those 99 percent who at least to some degree, shared my same experience. I am looking to understand what happened in there but that is difficult when these kind of postings come from those who didn't share that same experience at all. Anyone who was let go or encouraged to leave after 6 months falls into a category of less than even 1 percent. In fact that experience was completely unheard of while I was there.

That's a fair enough assessment over all, I think. Me? I was there two years, went in when I was 16 finally done with the place for good when I was past 18. I got taken in late 1982 when the VA branch had just started up after splitting off from St. Pete. I learned early on that misbehaving was not how I intended to deal with the situation I found myself in; during the first "open meeting" I tried to run across the room to my parents, and it didn't pan out. I saw kids getting fucked with all the time, and I got my share of abuse in there early on. Stick around, there are plenty of people who were in longer than six months (not that there's anything wrong with that....I wish I could say that was my experience.)

[shaggys]

This post was just to clarify. I do not think that 6 months in Straight was a joke or anything. I know of people who were in there for less time than that and are deeply traumatized by what happened to them. I was just responding to a particular person who keeps insisting that somehow we could have gotten through Straight by kind of passively resisting until they just let us go. My point was that they didn't just let you go.
 
 I can't believe I am forced to debate something that virtually anyone who was there already knows to be fact. Straight Inc 101: This is how it worked. All newcomers were screwed over. All newcomers were abused. Eventually the newcomer would seek to lessen their abuse by conforming with the cult. Usually this started out as faking. After beginning to conform, the newcomer is abused less(relative) and at some point will begin to identify with the message of the cult. Since the entire program at Straight was built on having the inmates abuse each other, this was the message that was absorbed and acted upon.

  Look, there are many people out there who went through Straight, who are just now realizing what happened to them. Wouldn't you like to have a place here for those folks who are looking for answers about that terrible time in our lives. When these people seek a place to discuss their experiences they should not be met with any self-righteous indignation from a small handful of those 1 percent who never "drank any of the kool-aid". The vast majority of us that had a similar experince should try to make sure Fornits stays a receptive place for those needing answers.

Thanks for your post Froderik.

[starry-eyed pirate]

  Look, there are many people out there who went through Straight, who are just now realizing what happened to them. Wouldn't you like to have a place here for those folks who are looking for answers about that terrible time in our lives. When these people seek a place to discuss their experiences they should not be met with any self-righteous indignation from a small handful of those 1 percent who never "drank any of the kool-aid". The vast majority of us that had a similar experince should try to make sure Fornits stays a receptive place for those needing answers.

Well, what about Withdraw then ??  Wasn't her experience valid ??  She's a $tr8 survivor in search of answers too, and just because her experience was different than the majority, that doesn't disqualify her from describing her experience on this forum, on the other hand comments like "you all fooled me" and the like, place the responsibility for what happened to her on the rest of us, who were either conforming outright or giving the appearance of conforming, while waiting for our chance to run.

So, while I'll defend her right to post about her experience and seek understanding, I also think her judgment, fair or unfair is harsh, and not altogether endearing.  We were all being manipulated by the same force.  

Peace.