Do you blame your parents because they sent you to a program?
I'm assuming you're speaking to me. Yes, I do. I was a normal teenager doing normal teenage stuff. I did not have a drug problem, never been in any legal trouble, screwing up in school a little but nothing major (I went to private school grades 1 - 8 and then switched to public for high school). My parents got divorced and my father didn't like the fact that he couldn't completely control my every action anymore, so he sent me to a place where they goddamned-well would control every action. Including when and how long I could sit on the can and take a shit. I was the 'lightweight' of my group of friends before going in. I had smoked some pot and drank. That's it. I was told, however, on my intake by the director that I had done cocaine numerous times and he could tell that I had done it the night before my intake. His diagnostic process?? Looking in my eyes. Somehow all those friends that I was hanging out with, the ones that Straight told me were horrible people and would end up dead/insane/in jail....ALL of them, who were doing much "worse" (using that term loosely) things than I was, turned out just fine and are living great lives to this day. They were encouraged through their troubles, not degraded and humiliated on a daily basis. They didn't have to live under a microscope. They weren't told that they were fuck-ups. They got out of adolescence with their self esteem intact. They didn't have to suffer through the PTSD that I did from my two years of incarceration. I didn't think it could get much worse than Straight. The beatings, extreme sleep deprivation, isolation from the outside world, the daily humiliation..... then I found Fornits (eons ago now) and found out that kids are actually DYING in these places. We are "helping" our children to death now.
Fact is, most of the kids I was locked up with were normal teenagers whose parents were scared out of their wits by the big bad Drug Warriors. Just like today. Look at any of the online "assessments" at the various programs' websites. They're a joke! The "symptoms" they list could apply to pretty much any teenager, which is what they want. More clients = bigger profits, which is their bottom line.
