Dear X-Safe-guy,
I for one, am extremely glad you found yourself here, that you are posting, and even putting up with insults and attacks. I have read your posts and I personally feel I have much to gain from reading them and engaging in a meaningful dialogue. Make no mistake, I perceive you as an enemy and a nemesis and that is why I find this so intriguing and the last thing I would want to do is scare you away or make you feel unwelcome here.
In my personal experience, I harbor my strongest feelings about Straight towards the executive staff, specifically, Amy Cameron, Lori Means, and Ms. Reily who were executive staff while I was a captive at Straight Dallas in 1989. The things I saw in the 15 months I was at Straight (I graduated) would offend and disgust and reasonable human being. I saw people beaten and bloodied. I saw a girl get her leg broken. I?ve seen people semi-starved and kept awake and continuously yelled at for hours or held restrained for up to 8 hours. I myself, was strip searched by about 12 very mean and unfriendly looking guys, I was confronted once with people holding down my hands so I could not wipe the spit off of my face. My best friend in Straight put a shotgun to his head. I have a loving family and loving friends. I grew up in a privileged family and received an education and was able to make a good life for myself. I have much to be grateful for. Having said that, I will tell you that in Straight, I have never seen so much hate, so much fear and so much pain, both for myself and others. I have known people that were happy pot smokers before straight and come out miserable and angry, whether they remained sober or not they were still miserable and angry. I lost my innocence and my naivety in Straight. I was exposed to cruelty and violence. I was once a true believer and said that Straight saved my life, Straight denied me all my former love and support from my family and friends and would only reward thinking that matched theirs. I had lost one of the most important things you could ever lose, I lost myself. I didn?t know who I was anymore, I couldn?t make a decision and was filled with self doubt as a graduate. Straight questioned my every thought and deed and I in turn question every thought and deed I had. Joy, love, and acceptance are born of freedom, self-acceptance, and experimentation. The sober and lifestyle that Straight taught me was a life of judgment, of anger and of hatred.
I?ll take your word for it Mr. X-Safe. I?ll give you the benefit of the doubt that people are not being beaten or unnecessarily restrained at SAFE and for that I?m very grateful and happy. It seems to me that you have good intentions and honestly want to do the right thing and I respect that. However, I think you are terribly misguided.
I?ve heard this over and over again that now we don?t beat people and now we don?t stare people and so that makes everything OK. As Survivors of this treatment modality, we make the mistake of focusing on the blatant abuse, the abuse that everybody can understand as abuse like keeping somebody awake for 72 hours. Things like that didn?t happen to most of us, it never happened to me so what in the world are we complaining about? It?s the entire treatment modality, the entire philosophy. Take away the physical abuse but the psychological abuse is still there. SAFE breaks our most sacred and fundamental beliefs about freedom and self-determination. If I went to an AA meeting tomorrow and said ?Hey everybody, I love to drink night and day and have no desire to quit drinking? most people would think, go right ahead and once you change your mind, you know where to come. It?s in peoples best interest not to smoke cigarettes, it kills people. Alcohol and drugs can be the same way and yes its sad, its unhealthy and perhaps even immoral but nevertheless, we still accept that people make these decisions for themselves. I fundamentally believe that coerced treatment is wrong, at least forced treatment without any recourse available to that person. As a community and through a court of law, we decide if we can lock someone away or put them in treatment but at least that person can defend themselves. The mentally ill have this right, the worst criminals have this right and the criminally insane even have this right but children don?t? How can we justify that?
Right now, Narconon
http://www.narconon.org/ is one the largest Drug Rehab chains in the states and is based on Scientology. I bet the Baptist church has gotten people sober and peoples lives have been improved as a result. I don?t even need to mention AA. I understand that there are people who are glad they went to SAFE and kids and parents alike are glad they did it but I absolutely guarantee you, in fact I utterly promise you that for every person that is happy they went to SAFE, there are people who talk about it in terms of the most horrific thing that has ever happened to them. We should never force anybody to get sober via Scientology, or SAFE or to become born again because ?its in their best interest? even if indeed, it actually is in their best interest. That?s simply not for you or anyone else to decide.
I am so puzzled and confused when I think about the executive staff at Dallas Straight. How in the world these seemingly normal people, educated people, adults, could stand by and encourage what happened there. I do have a clue though and I consider it a philosophy that both cults and terrorists alike live by and that is that the ends justify the means. Whatever it takes to get someone sober is OK(SAFE, Straight, The Seed,). Whatever it takes to save the Earth is OK (Earth Liberation Front), whatever it takes to stop abortion is OK (bomb clinics, kill doctors), whatever it takes to liberate Palestine is OK, you get the idea. It?s not worth debating whether the cause is admirable or not, its merely a question of the methods people are willing to use.
SAFE has a sordid and horrific history. It is born of Straight, The Seed, and the Synanon Church in a direct lineage. It?s a story of a decades long struggle between child welfare services, courts, community activists, counselors, doctors and other concerned citizens, organizations like ACLU and Amnesty International, etc to close these places down and these places closing down only to reopen again by the true believers of this treatment modality. I understand SAFE is less abuse that Straight but that?s not saying much. Children in these places are coerced, humiliated, and intimidated and I will struggle as long as I live to see places such as SAFE closed down. I care for and am concerned with the well being of these kids who are held against their will, who are scared, and who have committed no crimes.
~John
Straight Survivor
Dallas and LA Straights, ?88-?90
