Author Topic: Alex Asch's Story (Read 12561 times)

Deborah · « **Reply #15 on:** November 25, 2003, 11:08:00 PM »

Well, we've got- Bartleby, Papillion, and Cool Hand Luke. None of which have a happy ending if life, freedom, and liberty are important.

I lean toward "counting the waves", but could imagine the Bartleby or CHL options in certain scenerios.

Resistance can land one in deeper doo doo. Not sure which would be worse- in a locked psych ward zoned out of my mind or in a program. Come to think of it, they are pretty similar.

Was reading a post at We've Been There where the kid took option 1 (psych hospital) and it worked well. Told his story to the shrinkydink who recommended he not go back. Guess it would all depend on the sanity of the one making the call.

I think those who fare the best have a good sense of who they are going in, can see through the bullshit, and let the majority of it roll off. But even best case scenerio, two years is a long time to be under the control of crazy people. There's bound to be some ill effect.

Froderik · « **Reply #16 on:** November 25, 2003, 11:34:00 PM »

Quote

4. Passive resistance. Another way to make them think you are psycho and let you out. Simply shut down. Refuse to speak, refuse to listen, refuse everything. Passive resistance (for a good example read "Bartleby") is probably the most frusrating thing in the world for a person to deal with. If you really want to scare them, refuse to eat.

When I was in straight there was a guy who went this route, and then some. Todd Bagley. He had pale blue eyes and looked kind of like a goat (I don't mean this depreciatingly..you know how people sometimes remind you of animals) or maybe a little like Zachary Taylor (played Dr. Smith on "Lost In Space.") Anyway, right from the start, he refused to walk. In was a major hassle for anyone to take him anywhere. I can still remember him being held up by the beltloop while he sagged stubbornly in the rows of chairs. He got put into intake rooms frequently. He would start in with completely surreal monologue. Like pretending he was holding twinkies, for instance. He got called on to relate once and said, "I AM Straight Incorporated!" I nearly fukkin died laughing inside at that one. It was hilarious, especially under the circumstances. Christ, he was weird. He would stand up and start talking about something absurdly typical and then pretend that he was crying. Matt Lyle started confronting him once and he kept repeating everything he would say. He'd also do things like stay awake for days on end, making life hell for whoever was lucky enough to be his oldcomers. They needed to do shifts with him. I felt sorry for Mike Salvini when I read an obs he had written begging staff to do something about him. Todd got out in a couple weeks. It was when the lawyers were there in VA straight. (Anyone else remember this?) I even overheard them interviewing him telling them why he thought that he shouldn't be there. He sounded as normal as could be.

FaceKhan · « **Reply #17 on:** November 26, 2003, 05:31:00 AM »

Also along with the passive resistance thing, I hear that singing a song in your head is a good way to ignore just about anything. They can be yelling at you and you just space out with your song all the time. I guess its like counting the ceiling tiles but perhaps a bit less boring.

The violent route could work well if the place can't get much worse. If I were in some WWASP hell hole I would just be so dangerous they couldn't keep me. I'd stab a staff guy with a pencil or pen or the nurse with a thermometer. Any staff member is fair game. Fight to maim, go for the eyes, the chest, the throat.

The people who just struggle and fight all the time and get restrained just end up getting beat up a lot from the accounts I have read here. On the other hand a person willing to maim just for spite with no warning or provacation (other than being held prisoner) is just more trouble than the $5k a month is worth.

This may seem sick, I have not been around the boards as much and I think that anger is rekindling itself about this industry again.

Its true Bartleby and Cool Hand Luke didn't survive but Bartleby died because he gave up on life. No one was really hurting him. Luke was imprisoned by the state, a program can't kill you for attempting escape.

Personally, if it were some kind of wildnerness program I would just refuse to hike. Passive resistance until they kicked me out. If it was some kind of lockdown or cult indoctrination center, fuck em, I am walking out of there and the first one who tries to stop me is gonna be called one eyed jack before they can pile on me. They can't keep me and prosecute me for assault so they gotta choose between being eye gouged one at a time or exposing their operation in a trial or kicking me out of the program.

Antigen · « **Reply #18 on:** November 26, 2003, 07:26:00 AM »

In Straight, there was actually a rule against "rocking out in your head". Being the consumate band geek and church chior member, I had a ready list of extremely non-rock songs to confess to whenever I got accused.

That had worked pretty well before my formal intake, too. I'd noticed that my mom was extremely confused by Jesus Christ, Super Star and just freaked out by Tubular Bells. So I acquired both albums and played them pretty often.

It really puzzles me to see Marijuana connected with Narcotics - Dope and all that crap?it's a thousand times better than whiskey - it's an Assistant - a friend.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002ORZ/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>Louis Armstrong

FaceKhan · « **Reply #19 on:** November 26, 2003, 01:47:00 PM »

I know why this is bothering me more lately. Cause my friend Alex who got kidnapped and thats how I ended up in this cause is now telling me that the over 18 program that he openly admits is not very helpful for him and after 18 months at 5500 a month his Dad has put his foot down on his Mother's delusions that she is a perfect mother and just has an evil kid. Now the program owner offered him a "job".

I don't even want to get into the argument with him over the fact that the owner as well as my friend have no qualifications whatsoever and regardless of how much or little money they actually make from this program its still a scam. My friend always says they pay a lot of insurance. That may be true but not for an over 18 program the way they do for a juvenile program. The owner is like a failed stand up comic. Place is called AIM House in Boulder Co.

Thats a great tactic, take a guy who has trouble finding a job and does not really want college at this point, and basically provide little more than a place to live for a year and a half for 5500 a month and then offer him a job to keep him in the cult.

Maybe when the job falls through as it often does, he will start to get his head cleared. He says he is moving into his own place in Denver by the end up the year. Maybe 30 minutes of distance will get him back to thinking for himself.

Froderik · « **Reply #20 on:** November 26, 2003, 02:01:00 PM »

$5500 a month? Shit, My family of 4 lives on about HALF that amount...I don't get it. Why pay that much $ out per month for someone to "live?"

FaceKhan · « **Reply #21 on:** November 28, 2003, 02:00:00 PM »

Thats what these programs charge. Figure that at most it costs maybe 1k a month for the kids room and maybe another 500 for food maximum. That leaves 3500 some of which goes to insurance and most of it probably just ends up in the guys pocket.

Antigen · « **Reply #22 on:** November 28, 2003, 04:05:00 PM »

No, the room would be a whole lot cheaper than that. My whole 3 bdrm house only costs a couple hundred a month. I'm sure they own their buildings fee and clear, so now we're talking property taxes an utilities. The labour is provided by clients and low pay graduate staff.

Yes, just a few miles of distance and the freedom of association goes a long, long way toward helping someone snap out of it. If he does, of course, he'll be considered a failure and probably cut off from family support. From my point of view, the sooner the better! I think I had a much easier time of it, over all, than ppl who spent 20 years being the family scapegoat.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism--how passionately I hate them!
--Albert Einstein

FaceKhan · « **Reply #23 on:** November 29, 2003, 04:35:00 AM »

Well in terms of the cost of the room and stuff, currently the program has 12 kids and they expecting to double in size. They just moved to a very large house. And Boulder is an expensive area to live from what I have heard from a lot of people.

Still a lot of potential profit for a guy who has very few qualifications and apparently did at one time work for CEDU but supposedly quit because of what goes on there.

Anonymous · « **Reply #24 on:** January 30, 2004, 08:24:00 PM »

Fighting and escape WORK! I've had over a dozen friends that have been there, done that. When I was 19, I met a friend also named Alex(no relation to Alex Ashe) who was also locked up by his parents, in his case for being bi, as I am. He escaped by destroying the electrical system in the hospital, only to have to turn back as he had no wilderness skills(far rural location). Fortunately, the Enemy had had enough, and they ordered his parents to come get him. His father simply abandoned him on the interestate, and he's been on his own ever since9now for another 19 years!)

In the following years I met over a dozen more Gay youth who'd been through this, and every one of them either escaped or got out of it through pre-emptive resistance.

In an escape, if you have to kill somebody, it's better than staying in psych, but you will then have to get out of teh country if you are in the US. If you are NOT in teh US, getting back, or to Mexico may be enough if you abandon your old identity forever.

If you do NOT inflict death or a lifelong disability, you will be officially home free aftert age 21 or 22 and unofficially home free, at least out-of-state, after age 18. There is a lot of questionable legality about these places, so they are unlikely to resort to teh courts after, say, having a wall knocked out with a truck from the outside so you can get out. Of course, if you've concluded getting out alive is impossible, all restrictions go out the window.

Similarily, if your parents send "teen escort" thugs armed with guns after you and you treat them as armed kidnappers, you will certainly get away with it if you allow them to retreat. In the face of armed opposition,weill simply back off and in at least one case of which I am aware surrendered their (illegal) handguns to better armed(2 w/shotguns) anarchists. Nobody was ever prosecuted in that incident, and the woman involved never ended up in a psych ward. I guess a shotgun speaks loudly about determination in that case.

I never thought of that idea of screaming"bomb" at the airport, though. The ultimate at an airport might be this: Tell the screeners that your escorts are Al Quaeda, your parents love Bin Laden, and you are being taken against your will to a training camp.Make up a plot. Not only will they not let you on the plane, but the escorts AND your parents will likely rot in jail until it is sorted out, which with Asscrotch and Bu$h could take over a year! This is making one of your enemies(homeland security) fight another one(the mental hospitals).

Anonymous · « **Reply #25 on:** February 12, 2005, 10:30:00 AM »

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... &forum=9&6

cmack · « **Reply #26 on:** January 02, 2012, 12:49:24 PM »

In the video below Alex Asch talks about being locked up for 16 months at Stillwater Turnabout.

http://vimeo.com/13009311

The video runs for about 1 1/2 hours and appears to be a Q & A at a bookstore. At the time the video was made Alex had been out for about 1 month.

Alex gives a rambling account of his stay at Stillwater Turnabout. The BM techniques he describe sound very similar to those employed by Straight. His account was sometimes hard to follow, but it seems detainees weren't allowed shoes until level 4. Alex said he was searched 4 times a day on lower levels and twice a day on higher levels.

He got in trouble for writing. Apparently his anarchist philosophy wasn't well received by his Mormon captors. He said of the ~500 pages he wrote much was taken or destroyed by staff. At a certain point Alex apparently decided to try to play the system in order to get out. He talks about pretend tears and talking about his relationship with his parents in group. If I understood correctly Alex had level drops 15 different times.

Alex's intelligence allowed him to game the system and he doesn't appear to have bought into any of their propaganda. In fact he says that basically he became more manipulative and deceitful in order to get out. It seems that the outside attention Alex's placement had caused as well as his father's growing disillusionment with the program also hastened his removal.

Ursus · « **Reply #27 on:** January 11, 2012, 11:11:47 PM »

From the article copied out in the OP (dated August 2003):

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Fwiw, here's a thread about Zak Eveland, another young anarchist activist and great animal lover, who also got sent to a program ... in this case, two: Adirondack Leadership Expeditions and Hyde School:

MISSING student: runaway
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=29057

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