got2bme, I relate very much to your story, and like you had a disturbing experience when I finally stumbled upon some information that triggered my memory of what happened. My program, Cedu, had quite a bit in common with Daytop, one such thing was the marathon group. They pressured you in different ways, and used trickery even, to get you to reveal early traumas, shameful acts or feelings of inadequacy. It’s hard to explain because generally in the program confession was such a constant demand that you always had to be armed with something to say, but somehow in the marathons (we called them propheets) they very strategically got me to say some things I really didn’t want to, and there were lots of things I did not want to hear about others. It was traumatic to me for different reasons, but it mostly left me with a lot of anxiety and destroyed my faith in myself and others. There was no real ‘help’, the promise was a sham. But I had already handed them my soul, submitted my defective nature before theirs. The argument would always be more right that …” it is not the program that doesn't work, it is that you are not working hard enough on confronting your issues.” And I actually believed that too.
Thanks for offering your story on here got2bme, it is tragic. to me it is sort of classic reason for why forcing therapy on someone, making them confront a trauma before they are ready, is dangerous and wrong, especially using such methods as marathons. I think a lot of kids were harmed in a similar way.
