On 2004-01-16 07:06:00, Antigen wrote:
"Given all that one can infer by the fact that these parents put their kid in a TBS to begin with and their response to this minor infraction, I'm guessing this kid is probably in a similar situation, intellectually and developmentally, as I was at around age 15.
I think telling Ben that he can't have contact with us would probably come as a relief to him at this point.
First, this statement is probably on track. When I was on my phases, I had no desire whatever to "earn" talk or to go home. I missed my dad the way he used to be when he was acting as my father and not as an agent of the Program. But I didn't expect to be seing that old man ever again. My mom had always been an agent of the Program just about as far back as I could remember. I didn't hate them. I wasn't mad at them. I simply had no preference wrt where I did my time till I could get out or who I was supposed to call Mom and Dad in the mean time.
Second, I had a very serious problem distinguising between different levels of risk and different levels of infractions. I had lived a very insular life as a kid. Everything was all very black and white. My mom made no distinction between petty and major issues. Just like these parents, anything other than 100% compliance with a smile 100% of the time was 100% proof of drug abuse and a need for treatment.
So I didn't slide gradually from good kid to 'troubled' teen. I tried my very best to walk the straight and narrow. When I just couldn't take it anymore, I started right down the list of "druggie" behavior that I'd learned from Open Meetings every Friday night for years. I had already smoked pot w/ my brother and taken the car out at night. I had not gotten caught, but I knew I would eventually. And I knew there was only one consequence; I'd be put in group at The Seed and come out the other end weird like my older brothers and sister and some of their friends.
So I packed a back pack, took my $137 out of the credit union and hitchhiked around the country for like a month, looking for someplace to land and stay hidden for the remaining 2 years+ till I turned of age. I really made no distinction whatever between smoking a joint to see what all the fuss was about and thumbing my way around the interstate highway system all alone. We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again---and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=circlofmiamithem&keyword=mark+twain&mode=books' target='_new'> Mark Twain
"
I'm sorry, Ginger, but given what your parents were like, hitchhiking as a runaway was *safer*.
Your parents were *already* the kind of psycho fate people warn hitchhikers against.
Getting murdered would have been worse, of course. But provided you didn't get AIDS, even being forced into prostitution would be no more damaging to your psyche and for no longer term than the abuse at The Seed.
And getting murdered and forced into prostitution weren't *certainties* like getting stuck in The Seed was. I do not believe that you could have avoided The Seed no matter how "good" you were, any more than a battered wife can avoid doing *something* that "sets him off." Because the thing that triggers the Program behavior, like the thing that triggers the battering behavior, is internal to the abuser, and actions of the abused are merely what the abuser points to as external excuses for his/her abusive behavior.
Thumbing your way around the country was *safer* than your personal home environment, as sad as that fact is.
No wonder you didn't consider it "unsafe"---you lived constantly with "unsafe" because your mother was a fucking loony who a sane person wouldn't trust to raise a hamster, much less a child.
I'm glad your dad's brainwashed foray into dangerous lunacy was only temporary, ultimately, and that he recovered, but at the time he was dangerously mentally unbalanced, as well.
Your sane childhood psyche made a *rational* evaluation at the time about relative risk.
Smoking pot was stupid, but a couple of casual joints was mostly only dangerous *because* it was illegal.
Running away was not a stupid misbehavior, it was a smart self-preservational action of a budding adult who realized, at least subconsciously, that she was *not safe*---running proportionally increased your safety by making serious harm merely a grave risk, rather than a certainty.
It sucks out loud that the grown ups in the surrounding government agencies at the time provided no safer options for you to get out of such a dangerous situation.
Running away would have been dangerous and stupid for most kids in most home situations. In yours, it was a sane and rational response to an insane and abusive situation.
Have you seen "Sleeping with the Enemy"? When the wife is lining up all the cans so carefully, and the towels so carefully, she's being just as abused as when he's actually beating the crap out of her---because she's living in a condition of constant terrorization.
Your home environment was lining up the cans and towels.