Social coping mechanisms(revised)

[starry-eyed pirate]

I don't know, but I just figured out how hard it is to live in a society without the right social coping mechanisms.  It's taken me all this long while to see the foreign patterns, of my mind, with any clarity.

Hmmm.  "Behavior modification"  ??

The way the program systematically stripped anyone who entered the program of all their defense mechanisms.  Their social coping mechanisms.  Their ways to deal with the harshness of the world.  These SCM are the results of many years of intention, practice, culture and experience by the individual who owns them, or you might say: who is attached to them.  Some SCM are visible and some not.  The program could not tolerate any SCMs and as a matter of course rooted out all SCMs amongst it's group members(stubborn and willful kid).  Only after that, could the otherwise stubborn and willful kid(group member) be made to give up his ground in a forced retreat, such as occurred in $tr8 Inc.  I have seen all kinds of kids have their SCMs mocked, made fun of, and generally brutally demeaned by staff and the group.  But these SCMs are completely natural and necessary social adaptations in a world that can at any time become brutal and cold.  So any 1st phaser or newcomer(stubborn willful kid, group member) exhibiting any SCMs could not advance, and anytime anyone, higher phaser or newcomer was stood up to talk about something, if they showed any sign of bein weak or exhibiting any SCMs they were confronted, and told to change their behavior.  

Say for example,  there's a rap and it's in the present part of the rap, so all the sad, shameful past has already been talked about, and some 3rd phaser gets stood up and asked by staff to talk about whatever(a 5th phaser has a concern about you){LOL!}...ah! but anyway, if the third phaser say hitches his pants a few times while he's talkin, that could lead to another place for the program to grab a hold, another place for the program to put down some roots and get more into you.  I know, cause they would look for any little personal habit you might have as a way in and if you showed any sign of not being completely open and vulnerable you were attacked for it.  The little things that people do, that give them their personality.  You couldn't have your personality in $tr8.  You couldn't have your own ways.  You couldn't socially cope.  And they controlled every aspect of the environment.  They monitored and punished or rewarded each and every group members behavior accordingly and they made every effort to detach us from any way we had to defend ourselves.  They purposefully stripped us of the very skills we would need the most over the course of our whole lives.  It's pretty bad when your 19 years old and you're supposed to be out on your own, keepin a job and payin your rent when you don't even understand how to behave appropriately in those situations.    

And then this is compounded by everyone around you askin you whats wrong and why can't you keep a job, etc.? and you know there is something wrong and it's the program but you can't see anything and you have no way to look at it, let alone tell someone what's wrong.  This leads to a desperate life.

[shaggys]

Yeah and because they had taken all that from me I went with all I had left, which was the ability to dissapear in a crowd. Thats what they left me with for any kind of new SCM. I can be so inconspicuous that you will never notice me at all. its my way of coping with being in groups of people. Remember being in group and getting motivated while at the same time attempting to hide behind the person in front of you, while at the same time pretending that you are really not trying to hide behind the person in front of you. Dreading what would happen if you got called on. Despite your best effort to be invisible you ineveitably get called upon to speak. Maybe you just dont feel good that day, maybe you are exhausted from lack of sleep and so you stumble over your words and the next thing you know those blue chairs start rumblin....

[Rusty Goat]

ok, I am following this for the most part and I think that those SCM's, while heavily damaged over decades ago, still exist somewhere in our persona. They have to. I think that for whatever reason, the more we think about how the program fucked us up, the harder it is to do what it takes to become better acclimated socially. It's almost like these SCM's would have to be re-installed somehow, albeit 25, 30 years later. Can you teach old dog's new tricks? I think so, to a certain extent.

Hey Pirate.. Did you get that letter?

RG

[starry-eyed pirate]

yeah, I got it. Thanks.  I sent you a pm.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Thanks for your response shaggy.  Yeah invisibility...whew, that would be cool.  Well, I guess disappearing is a little different than bein invisible, but yeah, I know what you mean.

I been chewin on all this for quite a while now.  Some folks says I'm irresponsible, but it's called dysfunctional.  I remember back to the days before $tr8, in the boys room at school, what was written above the urinal: "Straight is a pussy factory", yeah, that's what it said.  I wasn't, shall we say, "aware" of $tr8, had only just moved to VA from CA  a few months before.  And when I got to $tr8, cause I was such a wild, uncontrollable, unintimidatable force of nature, I looked around, and noticed some of the wierdos from school.  Some of my classmates were in group.  They weren't druggie friends.  I never had no druggie friends in the program.  They were my classmates.  Maybe 5 or 6 that I recognized as the really plain and unsocial people who seemed to be withdrawn from the mainstream.  And when I got to $tr8 they all acted like they'd been expecting me for some time.  It's strange how even now I can remember former staff as one of those weird kids standing at his locker as I walked down the hall, and at the time I didn't even know he was in $tr8 or even what $tr8 was, but I had read the bathroom wall.  I didn't know he'd once been a cool kid, but had been turned into a subservient slave of babylon-wuss, Pinnochio becoming a donkey under the whip of the fat master, by $tr8 Inc.  I 'd a long ago left the image, of him at his locker, looking completely isolated in his neatly conservative appearance, out of my mind if I hadn't then had to go through group while he was on staff.  Yeah, what a trip. And there were a few others I had similar memories of, that I recognized over my first few days in group.  Of course I drew the heat, cause I ran on my first day and nearly got away, and all these MFs had been waitin for me.  If only I'd had some way to heed the uncanny warnings the universe had provided for me...

[starry-eyed pirate]

My point bein how strange that I should think back now and put together such memories...the weird kids in school who were somehow mal-adjusted, but not in the usual sense, but it seemed they were in some kind of a state of repression that I recognized as unusual, were in fact phasers from $tr8.  How weird to be considering the effects on my life of having all my basic fundamental social coping mechanisms systematically and intentionally and even maliciously stripped from me by $tr8 Inc and to now see myself as that weirdo from $tr8!

Remember all the nervous tension in group.  We weren't allowed to communicate with each other.  Of course we found ways to do it, through sound and gesture but it was against the rules, anyway, remember how many kids were sittin up straight in their chairs, payin attention to the person talking and nervously bouncing their knee or what-not ??  there was a lot of tension in group most if not all of the time.  The social pressure was a real heavy weight.  If you were stood up as a newcomer on day 10 your mind was bein crushed.  Every time you stood up and talked about yourself you conceded that much more of yourself to the program, you lost your way and lost the tools you would need.  Those fuckers took 'em.

I been tryin to figure out for decades what's wrong.  Now I see I've had no way to deal with social pressure.  I been too psychologists too and they were unable to see the patterns and see what really happened to the kids in $tr8.  When you've had all your coping mechanisms stripped you cannot succeed in work or school and you become isolated and desperate.  I think anyone who was in $tr8, long enough to still carry such effects, is entitled to any compensation they can get.

[starry-eyed pirate]

...if even from the gov'ment, cause $tr8 was supported by the tax payers, and was used as a political platform by the republican party, and pro'ly the dems too, although it the republicans that I remember.  I was there when that stupid bitch, ... um,... o yeah, Princess Diana was there with Nancy Reagan endorsing our treatment to the world.  Idiots, I wasn't sad when she died.  yeah, anyway...

I'm not sure people are understanding what I'm tryin ta get at here.

An I just shake m'head now and wonder at the world.

[DannyB II]

...if even from the gov'ment, cause $tr8 was supported by the tax payers, and was used as a political platform by the republican party, and pro'ly the dems too, although it the republicans that I remember.  I was there when that stupid bitch, ... um,... o yeah, Princess Diana was there with Nancy Reagan endorsing our treatment to the world.  Idiots, I wasn't sad when she died.  yeah, anyway...

I'm not sure people are understanding what I'm tryin ta get at here.

An I just shake m'head now and wonder at the world.

 :shamrock:  :shamrock:

Some of us get it loud and clear, Pirate.

Danny

[starry-eyed pirate]

I'm not kiddin, this is something I've been tryin to figure out ever since then.  

Of course I didn't wanta be no Babylon slave anyway and that's how come I landed up on front row, but they made me one, see my hooves and long ears now.

How come I been so fucked up ??  I mean yeah I've always been on a different path but I never meant to be this messed up.  No psychologist could see the trouble I was havin.  I didn't understand either.  No one could tell me, I had to struggle to know for myself.  Now I'm seein the pattern clearly and realizing the whole course of the trouble.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Thanks Danny :shamrock:  :poison:  :peace:

[Froderik]

I been tryin to figure out for decades what's wrong. Now I see I've had no way to deal with social pressure. I been to psychologists too and they were unable to see the patterns and see what really happened to the kids in $tr8. When you've had all your coping mechanisms stripped you cannot succeed in work or school and you become isolated and desperate. I think anyone who was in $tr8, long enough to still carry such effects, is entitled to any compensation they can get.

I have yet to talk with a psychologist about Straight.

How would things be different if these coping mechanisms hadn't been stripped away from you (and from me)? Not having any experience to compare with, I guess I don't know...I don't get to go back and see how things would have been had Straight never happened to me, so I'm in that same boat now...

No way in hell I was getting any school work done while I was dealing with being in there (mentally), and the only "career" I had going was washing dishes. I would doodle on the back of my schoolwork instead of bothering to complete it, and I'd fall asleep in first period without caring what anyone said to me.

I still don't see how Straight was supposed to help me, or anyone. Straight was like amputating on a drowning man; it did me no good per se.

I agree about the compensation; anyone carrying these effects is entitled to compensation, by the government and others responsible for Straight. In a just world, there would be not only an apology but monetary compensation as well as psychological de-programming provided for survivors of Straight.

How come I been so fucked up ?? I mean yeah I've always been on a different path but I never meant to be this messed up. No psychologist could see the trouble I was havin. I didn't understand either. No one could tell me, I had to struggle to know for myself. Now I'm seein the pattern clearly and realizing the source of the trouble...

I guess it is not surprising being fucked up as a result of having been in Straight. But I would like to fully understand -- to be able to put into words -- just what effects this stripping of SCMs had on the average person in there, and how this loss of social savvy affected me and my life specifically...what sort of 'for instance' would exemplify these effects in my present situation (which is a little better than usual maybe, but still by definition desperate). Like I said before, I don't know what existence to compare mine with. I know there's an answer to the question "How come I been so fucked up ??" in light of all of this...

I guess dysfunctional about sums it up...

[Rusty Goat]

A buffer zone... I think is one thing that is needed. This link: http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~scohen/buffer84.pdf  may, if read somewhat thoroughly, at least pinpoint some ways in which those "lost" SCM's can be restored. You can't go back, you can only go forward, just keep that in mind... Meanwhile, I noticed when researching for links that this Fornits thread is number 5 on the GOOGLE "Social Coping Mechanisms" search page. I hope this helps. I think you can get the SCM's back if you really want them. FUCK STRAIGHT!!!  Take em back!  ::unhappy::

Another thought here is that in the beginning, you might be relegated to networking more with folks in a similar predicament (ie Survivors) as a main source of your support/social pool. At least that's the way I see it, but I also think you can step outside the box as well and out there, the sky's the limit!

RG  :cheers:

[Samara]

Part of the problem is 2o years post program, some people are just more comfortable in the status quo of dysfunctionality. And then you have to ask yourself, as shitty, and stripping and traumatic as the program was, when did it become your Excuse for Everything?

[Samara]

and when I say this, I don't mean it in a horrible, cruel, or mean spirited way... I am trying to understand. And I've been through the Program. But whatever my scars are, I have come to some sort of terms (not acceptance)....

And Diana really was just a foreign visitor who knew nothing about the inner workings of Straight and just thought of it as a place to help kids. And guess what? Every visitor that came to our program (celeb central) did the same thing. And we were forced to be complicit in the This Place is Fucking Great lie. But I wouldn't wish Di dead over it.

I would have NEVER have guessed what these programs were all about unless I were in one.

[starry-eyed pirate]

In $tr8 we weren't allowed to "avoid" our feelings or ourselves, but this is something you have to know how to do sometimes in the course of work or just catchin the bus or personal relationships.  Man, $tr8 just "F"ed us up good.  They brought so much social pressure against your coping mechanisms that eventually your coping mechanisms, were atrophied and incapable and in this way you were made vulnerable to the program.  Now in the real world, there have been times when I reacted to certain social situations in ways that I shouldn't have but, now I see what had been so confusing to me for so long.  Now I see why I have trouble.  I see the cause of so much stress and misunderstanding.  You have walls around your heart for a reason.  $tr8 was a rape.