Author Topic: Something About Straight...  (Read 2981 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline starry-eyed pirate

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3031
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
Something About Straight...
« on: January 14, 2012, 12:37:09 PM »
...makes it hard to relate.  The way they confuse you and attach you to the wrong notions.  When you go in you have no idea what your in for.  You're not prepared to defend yourself and you've never experienced anything like it.  The shock of your first day.  I, myself wanta say, that I knew the place was fucked from the minute I got there.  I already knew everything was a lie.  The cold intake.  The removal of all your personal affects.  Strip search.  Introduction to group and there you are on front row.  Bein made to sit up and be quiet and pay attention to the person talkin.  I was pretty well taken by surprise and wasnt  at all prepared for their tenacity.  What a subject for an oil painting! ... "The Newcomer On Front Row"... I remember one of the other new kids on front row spoke directly to me and asked me if I wanted to make a run for that door with him.  I didnt even respond.  I looked at him for a second and then played it cool.  I didnt motivate but I sat up and paid attention.

I ran from the host home on my first morning.  They wouldnt let me read the paper or use the telephone or watch any tv or even over-hear the radio.  All connection to the outside world was cut off.  That first night, they took my clothes and the host parents alarmed me into a dark furnitureless room with 4 other strange boys whom Id never met before.  We sat there in our underwear.  In the dark.  I listened as the others confessed their powerlessness and talked about their past.  The one kid talked about shoving the handle of a screwdriver up his ass.  I was a virgin, had never heard of such things.  It was a sleepless night for me.  

In the morning, after some breakfast, I was given my shoes to put on.  The oldcomer worked his hand through my back beltloop and twisted his hand securely around the waistband of my jeans and we were escorted out through the kicthen door, into the attached 2 car garage, but the station wagon was in the driveway.  We walked out through the open garage door and I bolted.  I guess I got a pretty good jump cause I turned around long enough to see my oldcomer on the ground holding out his arm after me and gripping my ripped sleeve in his hand.

...Anyway, I ran for the woods, but made the mistake of running across a freshly plowed field, which was like runnin on beach sand.  My oldcomer ran around the field and thereby made  time on me.  I made it into the woods but it was about noon on a Sunday.  I was trying to get to Burke Lake, where I knew I could find some friends or a ride somewhere.  But I couldnt believe the way this kid chased me.  I was a good runner too.  He was tenacious.  I regret to this day that I didnt just push on through those woods ahead of him that day, but I gave up with a pounding headache and no air left to suck and he caught up to me and threatened to beat the shit out of me and I told him to go 'head.  He put me in a head lock and started draggin me back through the woods, then his dad showed up and he got me in a head lock too, but from the other side and they both dragged me back to the station wagon and I got confronted all the way inot the building that day.  And when I arrived at the building I was thrown into an intake room, where I was made to sit straight up in a plastic chair, while bein violently confronted and spit on for about a half a day by 5th phasers and senior and executive staff.  After that I was re-introduced to group with full cop-out honors and heavily confronted and made fun of and degraded and humilliated again, this time by the group.  Who remembers starry-eyed pirate ??!!!!  

I was put back on front row and that night in dismissal line they gave me a different host home.  One way out in the MD countryside about 2 hours from the building, so I wouldnt try to run again.  That was my first 30 hours in the program.  The next day, I put in a withdraw and requested a conference with my parents, but they refused to meet with me.  I remember that other kid who came in right around the same time as me but his folks took him out after about 6 days.  By my 3rd day I had begun to fake it, even though you cant really fake it, because once you've compromised your values you've taken the fatal sip.

If you dont know from personal experience you can imagine the effect that such treatment would have on a keen and already troubled lad.  I tell you this story in order to demonstrate the way they attack the social coping mechanisms.  They way they open your psyche up to the knife, roll you back on your heels and take advantage of your inability to cope.  You are psychologically shocked out of your sense of self.  There is nothing to hold onto.  You dont exist, and you wont exist until you embrace the ideology of the program.

At this point in my life I am realizing the devastating effect that this treatment has had on me.  Specifically how the lack of any normal, organically manifested social coping mechanisms and a Straight instilled conscience, predisposed to guilt and shame have made me a slave.

Even when you can understand the dynamic it is very difficult to change such entrenched behavior patterns.  The cult expert Janja Lalich states that survivors of cults may experience many years of guilt confusion.

Remember how if you weren't completely honest about every little detail of your thoughts and/or emotions the guilt would surface and you would be revealed as FOS.  People were constantly confessing their dishonesties to the group.  Sometimes when this dynamic was taken to the extreme people would experience what were called "head-games".  These were the manifestations of neurotic guilt and those suffering from this effect would have to stand up in group and confess their doubts about their own honesty and even self-honesty, etc.

I'm just sayin this attack on the social coping skills combined with the establishment of the guilty conscience and the confusion that results will result in endless unnecessary suffering if it isnt recognized for what it is.  The chains of the slaver thrown over the youth.

Fuck Straight.  Fuck Authority.  People are not commodities.

 :poison:  O0  :poison:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline Froderik

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 7547
  • Karma: +10/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2012, 12:31:59 PM »
Quote from: "starry-eyed pirate"
If you dont know from personal experience you can imagine the effect that such treatment would have on a keen and already troubled lad. I tell you this story in order to demonstrate the way they attack the social coping mechanisms. They way they open your psyche up to the knife, roll you back on your heels and take advantage of your inability to cope. You are psychologically shocked out of your sense of self. There is nothing to hold onto. You dont exist, and you wont exist until you embrace the ideology of the program.

At this point in my life I am realizing the devastating effect that this treatment has had on me. Specifically how the lack of any normal, organically manifested social coping mechanisms and a Straight instilled conscience, predisposed to guilt and shame have made me a slave.

Even when you can understand the dynamic it is very difficult to change such entrenched behavior patterns. The cult expert Janja Lalich states that survivors of cults may experience many years of guilt confusion.

Remember how if you weren't completely honest about every little detail of your thoughts and/or emotions the guilt would surface and you would be revealed as FOS. People were constantly confessing their dishonesties to the group. Sometimes when this dynamic was taken to the extreme people would experience what were called "head-games". These were the manifestations of neurotic guilt and those suffering from this effect would have to stand up in group and confess their doubts about their own honesty and even self-honesty, etc.

I'm just sayin this attack on the social coping skills combined with the establishment of the guilty conscience and the confusion that results will result in endless unnecessary suffering if it isnt recognized for what it is. The chains of the slaver thrown over the youth.

Fuck Straight. Fuck Authority. People are not commodities.

Well said. It was a goddamn peckin' party! Straight Inc. insisted you thought and felt certain ways about what they wanted you to believe about yourself and the world around you. Their process required you to adopt and assimilate Straight's version of 'you' into to your life and consciousness (or at least appear to). The key propaganda was right there in the lingo: You were to believe (and profess openly) that you were in fact "powerless over drugs," and "make a decision to turn your will over to your higher power," which in this case was "the group." If you didn't agree on this, you were considered to be "in denial of your drug problem." This was one of the essential things they pushed on you, and for some it was the most damaging when they got out...

Oh yes, how can anyone really depict the relentless and intensive peer pressure to "get honest" with the "group." You had to talk about everything; if you didn't, that automatically meant to them that you were "going against your program," which was not something you wanted to be accused of doing in there. Better tell them everything! You saw time and again how people would get blasted in group when it was revealed (or falsely determined) that they didn't disclose EVERYTHING about themselves. You knew it might show on your face; you knew they would detect that there was "something going on with you." (If you fell asleep in group it was because you were "holding something back," and had NOTHING to do with the amount of sleep you weren't getting and how tediously boring group could be.) STRAIGHT INC. intended to have you reveal everything about or related to your "drug problem" and your sex life too, because according to them your sex life was part of your "chemical dependency."

You had to "get in touch with your feelings" in front of the group, or you probably weren't getting out of there. I had certain "incidents" that I thought about and thought to myself, "Ok, I think I can muster up some convincing 'scared feelings' about this one... or some 'disappointment' or 'guilt' and 'shame' about  that one... " Hell, there were a couple things that I really ~did feel bad about that happened in my "past," so I would use those whenever it "related to the rap." I got sat down plenty of time before I 'got anywhere.'

So after putting up with the shit you had to put up with in Straight, having to deal with 'similar things' in the real world, in present daily life, can be a lot to take. It can be enough to make you want to get away, or lash out, depending on the situation (fight or flight). Straight supplanted our entire lives. When I got out, I to some extent built a wall between myself and the rest of the world so that I could live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life's emotional troubles. At times I will have a tendency to do this now, in effort to protect my sanity.......I know the feeling of wanting to recede from society, or just from people who demonstrate a lack of respect for personal boundaries...fight or flight...I can be cagey, don't like people checking up on me, or commenting on stuff i do so i keep to myself......but it gets better if you can find ways to cope...think solutions, not problems...domestic tranquility.. etc.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline none-ya

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2103
  • Karma: +0/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2012, 12:49:34 PM »
And if it was anything like the seed, they preached honesty over and over again. And the only way to get out was to become better at lying and deceiving.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
?©?€~¥@

Offline starry-eyed pirate

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3031
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #3 on: January 18, 2012, 08:25:24 AM »
Quote from: "none-ya"
And if it was anything like the seed, they preached honesty over and over again. And the only way to get out was to become better at lying and deceiving.

Copy that.  Even lying to and deceiving yourself, until you even believe your own lies, that you tell yourself, cause you know you have to convince yourself before anyone else is gonna believe it.

I remember bein copped out from the program for the 3rd time.  I'd made 3rd phase and bolted the second I got back to school.  I was out for a month that time.  It was November.  I dyed my hair the darkest black and I lived in the woods between the subdivisions within earshot of Old Keene Mill rd., one of the main arteries from the rich suburbs of Fairfax county,VA into the beltway around DC.   I tore down some kids tree fort and dragged the boards away to make myself a rectangular shelter on the ground, near a storm drain in the woods, below the road, and so I spent a lot of time there, just sitting there invisibly.  Quiet, eating little, hungry and hiding and not doing much.  I could hear the traffic goin by all the time.  I hid out there during the day completely alone and broke and hungry and I was just glad to be out of group and have my privacy.  I took some LSD on that cop-out trip.  Man, you talk about stillin the mind.  After bein in Straight for a year and runnin 4 times and then coppin out and sittin in the woods like that, while the world went by.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline none-ya

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2103
  • Karma: +0/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #4 on: January 18, 2012, 08:39:31 AM »
Man I can't imagine tripping while homeless. Although I did do it in jail once. Tell me after all that you didn't go back to the program.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
?©?€~¥@

Offline none-ya

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2103
  • Karma: +0/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2012, 10:20:34 PM »
How about it? Anybody else have escape stories? I was successful on my second attempt. Sitting in group that's all use to think about. If we all rush the door there's no way they could of caught us. Stupid sheeple!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
?©?€~¥@

Offline starry-eyed pirate

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3031
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #6 on: January 21, 2012, 07:06:40 AM »
Thanks for your response Froderick.  I had to look up "supplant" in the dictionary, just to make sure I understood it correctly.  The first definition I have for it in my big Websters Encyclopedic Dictionary is:  To take the place of (another) especially by force or treachery.  I like the way you used it.  That is exactly what I'm tryin to get at.

Some people have said things to me before, as I've posted over the years, to the effect that I should just "get over it" or "stop living in the past".  It's not that simple when you're not in control of your own behavior, when your own natural will has been supplanted by Straight Inc. programming and your intentions to socialize only result in alienation and confusion and pain and darkness.  One friend, who was in St. Pete back in the day, suggested to me that she had suffered much greater tragedies since Straight like the death of her husband and father, etc.  The implication being made, that I was just stuck in the past or creating obstacles for myself or that maybe I'm just immature or something.  I think comments like that just reveal an ignorance of what behavior modification is and how it works.  There is no doubt that the death of a loved one is tragic and painful and even traumatic, but it is not behavior modification in the least.  It's not at all the same type of tragedy.  When your behavior has been program modified the pain and confusion is ongoing, in the present, and the mourning is never over until the behavior is understood and re-modified into something that is genuinely and truly useful in achieving ones intended social goals.  This is a long road, especially since there was no social support or understanding from anyone after I was finally released from Straight Inc., in fact it was just the opposite and I was blamed and held responsible for the program-instilled behavior that I neither intended, nor understood.    

Believe me, if I could'a avoided decades of alienation, social frustration, economic struggle and lonesome confusion by just wakin up on the other side of the bed, I would'a' done that.

And, yeah, None-ya, they took me back to the program after that and put me back on front row.  I misbehaved and sat with my hand down and wouldn't write my M.Is, was on consequences , including sleep deprivation, where I was kept sitting up straight in a wooden chair, in my underwear, in the newcomer room, at the host home, for all but 3 hours every night. The oldcomers took shifts keeping me awake and making sure that I wasnt slouching.  The laws of the commonwealth of VA required that I be allowed at least 3 hours of sleep per night, so I would finally lay down to close my eyes around 3am and have to be up for the trip into the building by 6.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2012, 08:58:36 AM by starry-eyed pirate »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline none-ya

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2103
  • Karma: +0/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2012, 08:20:09 AM »
Were you court ordered, or family placed?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
?©?€~¥@

Offline starry-eyed pirate

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3031
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2012, 09:21:23 AM »
ey none-ya.  I started off family-placed, but ended up court-ordered.  I was charged with grand theft auto on my 4th cop-out.  My host-bro and I stole a work truck from the landscaping co. that we were working at and were arrested in Monmouth co. NJ.  I spent about a week locked up in Freehold detention center up there.  What a trip.  Crazy muthas in that joint.  I could tell ya some stories about that place too.  They extradited me back to VA and I spent another 3 weeks in the Fairfax co detention center, but that wasnt scary or bad at all, it was all cushy.  Fairfax co. is a bunch of totally wussified and subservient-fraidy-cat rich folks, livin in fear of nature. ... :rofl:  :roflmao: ... Anyway, 22 years later, having been out of touch for all that time, I talked to the kid who I stole that truck with, and actually he did the driving, cause I'd never been behind the wheel before, and he told me that when he went to court for it up in Monmouth they let him off, cause the judge up there thought that Straight was fucked and he ended up having to spend 4 months in some Mickey Mouse rehab where he snuck in the sacred herb an stuff and got high in there.  The Fairfax co judge I went before was all about Straight Inc, wish I could remember his name now, anyhow, He sentenced me to one year in jail, but he suspended it upon the condition that I graduate from the program, so thats what I did.  I was young and intimidated by the system at the time.  I'd heard adults stand up in group and extremely nervously talk about bein gang raped in jail.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline starry-eyed pirate

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3031
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #9 on: January 21, 2012, 09:39:39 AM »
Yeah, you're makin me remember how I put my blue jeans on under my khaki work pants that morning.  It made my pants look all puffy and I was nervous taking my newcomers into the building that day.  I dropped them off in an intake room and was in turn, dropped off at work with my host bro.  Once at the landscaping garage he straight up asked me..."what's with the jeans underneath??"

and I just told him I was boltin.  We had already been testing each other for weeks.  Talking about our old "druggie girlfriends" out of ear-shot of anyone and stuff like that.  So we both knew we were gonna leave soon.  He was also a serial cop-out.  So that's when he said..."I was gonna wait for a pay-check."

But I told him I couldn't wait and we both left together and stole that truck a couple a days later and drove it to NJ and I already toldja what happened.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline Froderik

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 7547
  • Karma: +10/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2012, 11:34:39 AM »
Quote from: "starry-eyed pirate"
Fairfax co. is a bunch of totally wussified and subservient-fraidy-cat rich folks, livin in fear of nature. ... :rofl: :roflmao: .

 :rofl:  :rofl:  :rofl:  :roflmao:  :notworthy:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline starry-eyed pirate

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3031
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #11 on: January 21, 2012, 01:12:58 PM »
Of course, I'm generalizin, but you get my point.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
If you would have justice in this world, then begin to see that a human being is not a means to some end.  People are not commodities.  When human beings are just to one another government becomes obsolete and real freedom is born; SPIRITUAL ANARCHY.

Offline none-ya

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2103
  • Karma: +0/-1
    • View Profile
Re: Something About Straight...
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2012, 11:54:44 AM »
If it was only is easy as it is on television to get a fake ID. After I split from the seed I had to look over my shoulder for almost a year. But they finally got me anyway. But by that time I was legally an adult, and all they could charge me with was violation of a court order misdemeanor. While I was in jail I was re interviewed by the seed. I told him to go to hell I'd rather stay in jail! They gave me credit for the time I spent at the seed,and sentenced me to a whole 10 days in jail. I was homeless for a while myself. Thank god for friends. And in my family finally let me come home. Man those were fucked up days.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
?©?€~¥@