Dead, insane, or in jail (general discussion)

[Samara]

What would motivate a parent to send thousands of dollars? Fuck, look at the way American has lived for decades. We  buy buy buy anything marketed. The home and cars and clothes we can't afford. The latest get rich quick or diet scheme.   We spend thousands upon thousands we don't have. Or we waste what we do have.

Even my kids - I can barely hold my own in our schoold district and yet I paid the least for the best district in some hopeful belief they will benefit later.  My life would be less stressful if I just lived in a so-so district.

Many of us buy emotionally, too. Programs tend to be emotional decisions. (Unless you are a cold stone prick.)

Some parents spend money because they want to help their kids and they don't know how. Others have the money and they basically pay the heft for the same reason men buy hookers - they pay them so they leave.   I can't even tell you how many kids got caught in some weird divorce-remarriage dynamics. Often it is just an ego/power thing. They have a very narrow vision of how kids should behave. There is no room for individuality.  Like pray away the gay camps. Some are just desperate and tired and done. And I get it. I would love to know what the good thing to do for that scenario, but how do you entrust your child in a program that is not transparent and carries unilateral power?

In any case, if you send your kid to a program, it is very, very, very likely you need to evaluate your own damn self.

[DannyB II]

 Hedge wrote:
In my facility, the mantra was dead-or-in-jail. Maybe because the "insane" was already presumed to be true.

    It's been hard for me to recognize this mantra as being an untruth. After all, many of us were already almost dead, and some of us had already been in jail. That's what made it look like a fact.

    I can see now how it was used to manipulate us. But I was wondering: how have other people dealt with this mantra as adults?

    How have you been able to get it out of your head, away from your expectations for yourself and for the other kids who were in programs with you?
 
DannyB II wrote:
I may not like the "quote" because for a lot of folks I knew this was the reality. It never was a mantra for me.

Psy, this was my original answer to her post and I am very comfortable with it. Why are you starting threads for me. I am not the one who derailed this thread. I just answered her question honestly for me and left it at that.
Hedge, I meant no disrespect nor was I playing games when I wrote this post.

[DannyB II]

how have other people dealt with this mantra as adults?

How have you been able to get it out of your head, away from your expectations for yourself and for the other kids who were in programs with you?

Ok folks.  These two questions were the focus of the thread.  Let's try to stick to it.

"how have other people dealt with this mantra as adults?"

[/b]

I have no problem with this phrase. I guess I don't take everything so literally, become over analytical or the big thing here is I don't have any negative past history with the saying.

 

How have you been able to get it out of your head, away from your expectations for yourself and for the other kids who were in programs with you?

[/b]

Well for me the expectations of a dope fiend/Alcoholic aren't good to begin with, throw in child abuse at home and incarceration from 12-18 for various offenses and your chances of success or staying alive dwindle to very low odds.
So as I said above this phrase made sense to me and others.
I actually used the phrase as a rallying cry, to be better then what this phrase was saying.

[DannyB II]

.

[DannyB II]

It's true! I was a straight A student, and captain of the debate team, and never did anything wrong. Then one day my parents gave me a ride to the airport and said I was going to summer camp. When I got picked up by two burly men, they took me to a program and there my soul was destroyed and I left a program robot. Now I can't work and am on disability for the brainwashing, and use drugs all day long because I was permanently damaged in the five thousand dollar a month treatment center my parents sent me to fifteen years ago.

You mock.  So you don't think there are innocent people who get sent to these places?  You don't think there are any who are telling the truth?  You don't think that there is anybody out there for who the whole experimental cult crap didn't mix well?  I guess what i'm asking is whether you think we're all liars in denial, or just the majority of us?

Sure some might be lying, but the details of their stories often makes such things hard to lie about.  If one kid describes being forced to, for example, give a lapdance in a french maid's outfit, and another person several years later who had never head of the first girl reports the same exact thing, and other students confirm the story, it's even less likely.  Because we know at this point the program will lie, it's worth hearing the kid's story out, especially if it is confirmed by so many else.  There are no secrets in program.

Psy, honestly now, don't you and many here believe the same way toward folks who don't see things they way you do. Folks around here call them liars, cons, cruel, hateful, delusional, suffering from Stockholm's ect.....
Your example of the "lapdance" is posted on at least 7 different web sites and has been there for awhile. That story has been handed around like a bastard child. Folks take a story around here no matter how old it is and present it at times like it happened yesterday.
Programs don't lie, certain staff members lie, today. Children also lie but I would personally allow for the benefit of the doubt until I found out the truth.

@Robert, children don't lie..... :rofl:

[RobertBruce]

Programs exist because parents want them, not the other way around.

No, programs exist because programs capitalize on the fact that many parents are either scared, stupid, or lazy.

[DannyB II]

Programs exist because parents want them, not the other way around.

No, programs exist because programs capitalize on the fact that many parents are either scared, stupid, or lazy.

NO, Max's was right, parents want these programs. Keep your ears open, you'll hear it.

[RobertBruce]

The reason is because the same kids who ended up in programs as teens are the people who also grow up to be the people who end up insane, in jail or dead from drug overdose. How many teens do you know who were straight A students with no issues, that suddenly developed a drug addiction in their 30's? Being a troubled teen is a symptom of a problem that has a good chance of lasting a long time, so they try to intervene and help before it gets out of control. If you were in a program you belong to a population of individuals who have more issues than people who didnt' go to programs as teens, sad but true.

You are an unabashed liar. Again, I seriously doubt you were ever in a program as a teen, perhaps you work in one though now.

My own life proves you wrong. I was sent to HLA for no reason, I never listened or bought into any of their nonsense and am infintely better off for it. I live a happy healthy life without drugs, criminal record, or mental instability. Whatsmore I know many, many people from my time locked up in HLA who are living the same life. In fact I know far more kids who escaped and are living stable lives as adults now versus kids who stayed locked up and still have issues from their incarceration.

[RobertBruce]

No, I'm right. Parents only turn to these places because they're afraid, naive and desperate, or because they are stupid, lazy and bad parents.

A market never needs an ineffective abusive industry. It just tolerates ones that can temporarily get away with it.

[psy]

Why is it this is the only website, where people who went to programs post, that I see people openly bragging about illegal drug use? So why did your parents pull you out of Space Camp, and send you to a program, when you were doing so well? This is called the program paradox, every kid claims they were there for no reason, yet programs are still filled with kids. It's a paradox!

It's not a paradox at all.  What you're doing is making the assumption that programs are popular because they provide good services.  They're popular because they run an effective con.  They market to all sorts of problems such as adhd, aspergers, cutting, eating disorders, and the list goes on and on, none of which would require institutionalization.  They make it sound like if they don't get their kids "fixed", they're on an inevitable path towards death, insanity, or jail.  The kid's don't leave until they believe it either.

If you are telling me that nobody in program with you didn't belong there then i'm going to have to seriously doubt whether you were in a program.

As to the actual topic.  What helped me was realizing my future is for the most part what I make it, not some fatalistic drift on a self fulfilling prophecy towards oblivion.  What helped me was understanding how the program really worked and that they lied to me in so may ways.  What helped me was questioning everything and being determined to prove the fuckers wrong.

[Maximilian]

It's not a paradox at all.  What you're doing is making the assumption that programs are popular because they provide good services.  They're popular because they run an effective con.  They market to all sorts of problems such as adhd, aspergers, cutting, eating disorders, and the list goes on and on, none of which would require institutionalization.  They make it sound like if they don't get their kids "fixed", they're on an inevitable path towards death, insanity, or jail.  The kid's don't leave until they believe it either.

If you are telling me that nobody in program with you didn't belong there then i'm going to have to seriously doubt whether you were in a program.

So all the hundreds of programs, and wilderness programs and treatment available for teenagers, it's all a big con? I think that's a bit of an over reach, even for fornits. How am I qualified to judge whether a kid should have been in the program with me? I didn't live with them at home, I don't know their parent's perspective, or even why they were sent. People kept secrets, and they weren't tortured into revealing it like some people here claim. The program I was in was like a boarding school, with group therapy every couple of months. That's like saying you believe everyone in jail who tells you they are innocent, without having knowledge of their case or the evidence, how the hell should I know if they should be there or not. There parents spending thousands of bucks per months was a fairly good indication there must be some reason.

As to the actual topic.  What helped me was realizing my future is for the most part what I make it, not some fatalistic drift on a self fulfilling prophecy towards oblivion.  What helped me was understanding how the program really worked and that they lied to me in so may ways.  What helped me was questioning everything and being determined to prove the fuckers wrong.

Prove them wrong? By succeeding in life you are showing that they do not permanently damage people, and that maybe you were helped. to prove them wrong, you'd continue being a troubled person with drug addiction or whatever issue you were sent there for. Dead, insane and in jail isn't designed to push kids to take that path, it's exactly the opposite. It's like reality is turned upside down on fornits and called the truth, unbelievable.

[Maximilian]

So because people had negative experiences in programs that existed 20-30 years ago, it makes it impossible that newer contemporary programs might offer something those people unfortunately did not receive? For me it's amusing that people who went to programs decades ago telling me that it's impossible I went to a program, or that I was abused but am programmed to say otherwise. As if time stands still in programs, and the experience of those in long shuttered programs of lore, somehow represents the average experience today. Contemporary programs, and wilderness programs exist because parents wants them.

It's not a scam, the parents pay a lot of money because they feel it's needed. To call it a marketing scam, simplifies an entire industry, and ignores so much of the reality of issues facing families dealing with troubled teens. Parents pay good money for programs because they are needed, and for the most part effective. Sure, some bad things happen in  programs. It seems fairly rare that these negative events happen, and judging by the population here on fornits, was more common in programs that existed decades ago. It's time to accept the fact that programs have evolved into an effective and safe option for parents dealing with a troubled teen.

[Froderik]

If this were true across the board, this argument would be difficult to counter.

I guess then I'd say, "Well what do you know...the programs improved over the years, maybe something good grew out of evil.." or something like that..

But there is still just too much bullshit going on even today that you read about (no, not just here, Max), and in reality this would be mere wishful thinking.

Max, I really do wish that what you were saying was true, and that there was no danger in putting a kid in a program.

I can't buy it, though.

[Whooter]

If this were true across the board, this argument would be difficult to counter.

I guess then I'd say, "Well what do you know...the programs improved over the years, maybe something good grew out of evil.." or something like that..

But there is still just too much bullshit going on even today that you read about (no, not just here, Max), and in reality this would be mere wishful thinking.

Max, I really do wish that what you were saying was true, and that there was no danger in putting a kid in a program.

I can't buy it, though.

Saying programs are still the same because there is danger in sending a child to one is Black and White thinking.  Its like saying cars are still dangerous because people still die in car accidents.  But when you look at all the improvements in safety that have been made over the past decades we see there has been great progress.

If you shelve the black and white thinking  look at programs the same way you will see that they have come a long way also.  They use to serve the kids rotten food, monitor phones calls, were very secretive, surrounded by fences, didn’t listen to kids concerns , very few went on to college, just to name a few.

Now there are programs which have very healthy menus, allow unmonitored phone calls, allow people to come and go and conduct studies and observe the programs process, they got rid of the fences and listen to criticism and implement changes to the program based on feedback from graduates and parents.  Staff are better trained, many kids move on to college  etc.

So the industry is not where we would like it to be but we can see that it is improving and moving in the right direction.



...

[Shadyacres]

It seems to me that those programs have gotten more abusive, not less.  LIFE was horrible, but they didn't have a hobbit, they never left us in dog cages for a week.  According to you Max, it is apparently impossible to be a bad or irresponsible parent.  This industry is indeed one big con job, jails institutions and death is just one small part of how they convince parents that hating their kids is the best thing for everyone.