I'd like to keep the discussion limited to those of you who were in "programs" at some point in your lives. I'd like to hear the type of program you were in and how you feel about the services that were offered at that program. Were they adequate? Inadequate? Helpful? Hurtful?
We can create additional threads if need be to keep topics clear, but please keep this one limited to the services that were provided to you, if any, and how the program worked out for you.
I would also like to put one of those surveys up and see the responses, but I'm concerned about the survey being manipulated (I read one poster's comments that some posters have additional accounts which allow them to answer repeatedly), in which case it would not yield much useful information. I'm on the fence about that.
I'll be glad to tell you about my experiences, but I'd really like to know if you've had any previous exposure or experience with "programs". Many survivors have been duped before by people that purport to be journalists, only to have them turn out to be either EdCons or otherwise affiliated with programs in some fashion.I was in Straight for 23 months from 1982 - 1984 and was mentally and verbally abused the
entire time. Before I went in, I had smoked pot and drank and someone had slipped a quaalude to me, without my knowledge. I had never seen any hard drugs, was never diagnosed with any disorder, never in any real trouble in school other than grades dropping and skipping. No violence, no overdoses (although Straight convinced my parents that I had overdosed several times). I really was a typical teen of the late 70s/early 80s, as were most of the kids I was in there with.
There were about 350 - 400 kids in 'group' at the time I was there and many, if not most, were physically abused in addition to the mental and verbal abuse. The ONLY reason I wasn't physically abused is because I never 'misbehaved', which included things like not sitting up straight enough in my chair, or not having my feel flat enough on the floor, or not paying attention to the person speaking. I made damn sure I followed the 'rules' because I saw what happened to the kids who committed the slightest infraction and I did NOT want that happening to me. Most of the time it would be something stupid like I mentioned....like not sitting straight enough in the chair. Some kid would be "slouching" (not really slouching, but that was the excuse of 'staff'), so another kid sitting behind him would be directed to poke him sharply in the back. If there was the slightest reaction to the poking.....even turning to look at the person doing the poking.....the child was immediately slammed to the floor and other 'clients' were directed to sit on them (called 'restraining'). One on each arm and one on the chest/back, depending on the position. This could last anywhere from 5 minutes to all day (12 - 18 hours). If the kid was a little stronger and could withstand people sitting on them, they were thrown into the "timeout room" where staff directed other clients to beat the living hell out of the kid, sometimes for weeks on end.
There was very little sleep allowed, food was withheld, water was withheld, no contact with parents at all until we "earned" it and even then it was closely monitored by staff to ensure we didn't let on what was really happening, and zero contact with the outside world, even to the point where we'd get in trouble for reading the back of a cereal box or billboard. It wasn't until we were sufficiently indoctrinated that we were allowed to speak to our parents alone. We knew that if we said ANYTHING about what was going on, our parents had already been conditioned to not believe us and to report what we said immediately to staff and we knew what would happen if they did, so we kept our mouths shut.
There were 7 "phases" to Straight, each gaining certain "privileges", which on its face sounds fine, but the way it was really used was truly abusive and did much damage. It followed a chistled down version of the 12 steps of AA, confession and redemption but the confession part was particularly cruel. If they didn't think we were being "honest" (which was pretty much always), we were "confronted" by the group in order to "help" us get honest. Confrontations lasted anywhere from a few minutes to hours on end. The girls were all called sluts, whores....told things by the guys like "I wouldn't have even fucked you with a coke bottle in my past"....all in an effort to "help" us realize how "bad" we really were. Guys were usually called "faggots" or "pussies". We could tell the god's honest truth and almost guaranteed staff would accuse us of not being "honest", so we learned to fabricate stories about our "past" and to exaggerate how "bad" we really were to satisfy the bloodlust (I'm not using that term loosely either) in these confessionals. Then, after we had been sufficiently "honest" and confronted to the point of people actually spitting in our faces, we were sat down and the entire group would say in unison, "love ya Ann". Then those exaggerations were presented to our parents as fact, when all they were were attempts to get them (staff) to leave us the hell alone.
Most of us either had to fake our way through or we genuinely were brainwashed and began to believe the things Straight told us about ourselves and that's where I believe that a lot of the deep and lasting damage came from. When we got out, either by graduating, being pulled by parents or running.....we had a very difficult time reconciling what Straight had taught us with the reality of life and the outside world.