I knew a kid...

[Pile of Dead Kids]

[Paul St. John]

I knew a kid....
growing up who seemed normal enough. His parents found him hanging in his closet one afternoon, dead at 13.

I knew a kid....
started drinking and partying and ended up dying in  DUI car crash while in high school.

I knew a kid...
did great in school and college until his father found him OD'd on heroin just before graduation in their house, they had no idea their child even had a drug problem.

Perhaps these people would be alive today if their parents recognized the signs, however insignificant seeming, and got them the help they so desperately needed.

Perhaps, and perhaps not.  You do not know that a program would have saved these people.  

Ya know, if I really speak from my heart, I would have to say, that some of us make it and some of us don't, and that's a sad, fucked up thing.

But in my view of life, we are better off all of us living, but some of us for not too long, then to tie every young kid down in programs as quick as possible, and strip them of genuine life experience for a guaranteed, but dull existence.



Even the fucking word "program"

There is so much talk going on here.. this person needs .. this person don't.

I would say that at least 90 percent of the time.. a person does not need the center, just as I would say, that kids don t need all these fucking drugs, that society tells parents to put their kids on.. Live a lil!  Take a fucking chance!

I am not claiming to have solutions to all the world problems. I am only saying that "programs" are not the solution, and there is ample evidence that they often make things worse.



Paul

[SUCK IT]

For some troubled teens programs do seem to be the solution. There are people just as passionate about making the argument that an intervention in their adolescence helped save their life, but they will not be found on fornits. If programs did not exist, then what would of happened to these people? If you could somehow calculate how many say it worked for them based on whether it didn't, that would be great. I personally believe the number that are helped, and even say it didn't make them worse off is much, much greater than the people who say it didn't work, or the even smaller percentage who say it was 'abusive'.

Based on my own personal analysis I would venture to guess the numbers are something like this:

Improved life: 80%
No impact but no negative effects: 18%
Made things worse: 1.9%
Say it was abusive: 0.1%

Anne Bonney describes people who went through treatment as  walking wounded, and can't function due to their broken psyches. I have a hard time believing this is the typical result and believe this is rare. As indicated in a recent poll the experiences in treatment on fornits are rather dated, and it must be acknowledged that treatment centers have improved since then. Where are all the kids who have been abused in programs recently, why don't they post here? They are more internet savvy than the older people from programs decades ago, the answer might be a clue to something .

[Paul St. John]

For some troubled teens programs do seem to be the solution. There are people just as passionate about making the argument that an intervention in their adolescence helped save their life, but they will not be found on fornits. If programs did not exist, then what would of happened to these people? If you could somehow calculate how many say it worked for them based on whether it didn't, that would be great. I personally believe the number that are helped, and even say it didn't make them worse off is much, much greater than the people who say it didn't work, or the even smaller percentage who say it was 'abusive'.

Based on my own personal analysis I would venture to guess the numbers are something like this:

Improved life: 80%
No impact but no negative effects: 18%
Made things worse: 1.9%
Say it was abusive: 0.1%

Anne Bonney describes people who went through treatment as  walking wounded, and can't function due to their broken psyches. I have a hard time believing this is the typical result and believe this is rare. As indicated in a recent poll the experiences in treatment on fornits are rather dated, and it must be acknowledged that treatment centers have improved since then. Where are all the kids who have been abused in programs recently, why don't they post here? They are more internet savvy than the older people from programs decades ago, the answer might be a clue to something .

I don t know what you re personal analysis is based on.. I m just gonna leave that alone.

I think that that the reality would be more like-
There are certain places that cause the majority of people harm, and maybe there a few new ones that help.

I would like to go with my gut  here, and say that even the newer ones are mostly bullshit, but I admit I don t have the facts about ALL of these newer places. I do know that I would not recommend them to anyone whom I know and care about.

I always thought that this site is mostly based around abusive places, and that that is what people are talking about.

I know people who did 2 month stays in pshc wards and drug hospitals and shit.  Again, I oouldn t send my kid there, but you won t hear me complaining much about them.  If anything, they sound like a vacation, but I also have noticed that people who go into them, seem to end up bouncing around from one to another, and they start to live a program-lifestyle, with all the terms and non-esxistatnt issue that comes with... which tells me, there really wasn t any solution here.

Either way, the focus, here, is mostly on TC's and such, which are not worthy of your's or anyone else's defense.
And just because you can find a handful of places that may have helped people does not mean that everyone here  is wrong.  And again, I am skeptical.

There also is an argument for the idea that many of the people who claim to have been helped were, to an extent, brainwashed.  I know, that from your perspective, that is a crazy idea, but it is true.

You can t break a person down and rebuild them.  You can "break" them, and then while they are broken, program them with acceptable behaviors, which they will then carry out, because they know it is safe, and that if they keep doing it, they will not have to go through being broken anymore.  Eventually, people start to believe that they are the act that they are carrying out... It is easier for the mind to believe that, then to re-experience the trauma.

 It's a very old science.  People who want unearned power have been using it for a long time.

The upsetting thing, is that the people who experience this have to lose touch with their actual selves, which to me is a crime.
In my view, most of this self-growth is an illusion, or trading one vice for another.  

Paul

[Paul St. John]

You always bring up AA here, to show how crazy people in this site are, that they are even against AA.

I can only speak from my point of view.  i don t think that it is the worst thing in the world.

But I do think that it is cult-like.  I do think that it is trading one vice for another.  I do think that it probably takes up as much of your life as the drugs did.

I do think that it is not for me.. If someone wants to go that is their choice.  If someone wants to be scientologits , that is their choice too.  

I won t knock anybody 'bout it, so long as they do not try to force their ideas  on me, but if  I am in a discussion in a place like fornits, I will probably come out and give  my person point of veiw, and have every right too, just as everybody else does.  I think it is bullshit!  I think you quit drugs, by quitting drugs.  If you want a power grid, that is your choice, and I won t knock anyone for it, but I am entitled to my opinion that it is stupid.

People who have been through programs can see more clearly, the trends in these places.

Where as you say might say, " Ph that beverage is not bad.  It is mostly juice"

A program survivor might say, " All I know is cyanide is cyanide, and their is clearly some cyanide in that drink, and so why should I drink it.  I have  already been down that road. I understand the nature of cyanide in any quantity"

Do free thinking survivors,  probably some times overreact to it , almost like an allergy?
.. that is possible.. But if so, it is only natural.  better to be like that then to be oblivious

Paul

[MorganMDC]

Well, I don't think I could've said it better myself.
Not to use "smilies" but... All these academy's, programs, institutes.. whatever you want to call them options are just absolute  :bs:
The only way I could see anyone needing to go to a "program" is if they were so messed up on drugs that they couldn't function, and instead sat on the couch drooling all day - rarely does it go that far in teens, however... - in which case they'd need a rehab type thing.
A "therapeutic boarding school" or anything similar to it is useless for anyone.
Why take a child away from their friends, and their youth due to some minor issues?
Just had to put in my two cents.

[Vic Zealot]

There might be some merit in taking someone away from a destructive environment, but not against their will. Change is something that must come from the inside, and if in any circumstance you coerce someone into enacting that change you are wrong, plain and simple. An argument against reckless behaviour is not an argument for any specific approach to that behaviour - certainly not a heavy-handed one that stomps about on someone's identity and human rights.