What Kids Say

[HandsOutLight]

What you say makes sense though I have never heard of the Stockholm Syndrome. You are right when you say that the staff began to replace the place of my mother. We really had no choice since all communication with the outside world was controlled by these same staff members. Every telephone call that we made was monitored. When I returned home and began telling my mother what went on there she was outraged. Her next question to me was to ask why I never told her any of this from the beginning, during our telephone conversations. This question seems to be typical of people who are looking at these institutions from the outside. They don't understand that all communication is monitored (both telephone calls and letters). It was easier to tell her that everything was going well than face being punished for telling the truth. The other part of not telling the truth is that after a while the truth seemed to change. I know this will sound strange, but being in an oppressed situation became a way of life. We new nothing else and so came to expect nothing better. There was the flip side of this as well. The staff for the most part were extremely nurturing. You have to understand that most kids in the school came from families that were often too caught up their professional and social lives to give much thought to their children. Most of us went home everyday to a house void of parents with only some sort of domestic staff to fill that void. So to be in a situation that gave us more attention than we had ever known was sort of nice. We finally had someone in our lives that seemed to replace that nurturing we were not receiving at home. I guess what I am trying to say is that there was a feeling of family at this school. It just wasn't unconditional. You were always aware that the tormenting and abuse were right around the corner.

Melissa

> Melissa,

> I am curious about your statement saying
> that you developed a dependency to the staff.
> I have read about kids who are in abusive situations
> developing something called the Stockholm Syndrome.
> This is what they say Patty Hurst had. You bond
> to the abuser and try to please him. Lots of these
> behavior modification schools try to make the
> children detach from their parents by cutting
> off all communication and belittling them. They
> break them down to build them up. Unfortunately,
> with children, they remain broken down. The abuser
> then becomes like a parent. Having been in a situation
> like this, what are your feelings? Have you heard
> of this? Do you think there is any validity to
> this theory. No one knows better than a past student.
> Some call it brain washing. I don't know what
> to think.
> Donna
>



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> Donna,

> What you say makes sense though I have never
> heard of the Stockholm Syndrome. You are right
> when you say that the staff began to replace the
> place of my mother. We really had no choice since
> all communication with the outside world was controlled
> by these same staff members. Every telephone call
> that we made was monitored. When I returned home
> and began telling my mother what went on there
> she was outraged. Her next question to me was
> to ask why I never told her any of this from the
> beginning, during our telephone conversations.
> This question seems to be typical of people who
> are looking at these institutions from the outside.
> They don't understand that all communication is
> monitored (both telephone calls and letters).
> It was easier to tell her that everything was
> going well than face being punished for telling
> the truth. The other part of not telling the truth
> is that after a while the truth seemed to change.
> I know this will sound strange, but being in an
> oppressed situation became a way of life. We new
> nothing else and so came to expect nothing better.
> There was the flip side of this as well. The staff
> for the most part were extremely nurturing. You
> have to understand that most kids in the school
> came from families that were often too caught
> up their professional and social lives to give
> much thought to their children. Most of us went
> home everyday to a house void of parents with
> only some sort of domestic staff to fill that
> void. So to be in a situation that gave us more
> attention than we had ever known was sort of nice.
> We finally had someone in our lives that seemed
> to replace that nurturing we were not receiving
> at home. I guess what I am trying to say is that
> there was a feeling of family at this school.
> It just wasn't unconditional. You were always
> aware that the tormenting and abuse were right
> around the corner.

> Melissa
>  

 

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[HandsOutLight]

. The school was a breakoff of the Casscade School and followed Casscade's model (CEDU). I don't know the exact reason for the schools closure by I know from having attended that there were many problems with abuse (physical, emotional and sexual). I know from my experience that the daily abuse was never perceived as anything out of place. We were made to feel that we had screwed up our lives, we had made poor judgements and therefore we in no position to question what was being done to us.

I have been out now for over seven years and still have nightmares. I can not perceive the day that I will ever trust myself again. We were made to feel that we had screwed up so badly that we were no longer able to make decisions for ourselves. The only problem with that is that they never tought us how to make correct decisions for ourselves (we were to just blindly follow the staff). Basic daily life was taken out of our control and placed in the hands of others. Sure this fixed the problem in the short term but what about the long term? After years of having life lived for me I don't know how to do it for myself. Sure, to all others I appear to be perfectly adjusted. I have a good job, I own a home and support myself in everyway but I know that the fears I have today stem from the fears that were instilled in me at that school. I lived every day not in fear for my life but in fear of being tormented and demeaned.

What I hate the most about the whole experience is that today, after all I went through there, I would return in a heartbeat. My only understanding of this is that I became dependant of the school and have never broken that dependancy.

I hope this post helps parents make the correct decision in dealing with there troubled tee. I only ask that before you send your child away you think beyond the short term "quick fix".

Melissa

[Antibody?]

Yep, SHE'S ALUMNI

HOW ABOUT THAT FOR AN EXAMPLE OF INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL GROWTH

HA HA  :roll:

[Jack1963]

[ This Message was edited by: Jack1963 on 2004-08-01 15:34 ]

[Anonymous]

Where is Melissa. If there are any kids out there who can answer the issue of this Stockholm Syndrome Please enlighten us.

My understanding is that SS this is a dependency that develops where an abused cult member, having nobody but the abuser with which to bond, bonds to the abuser as a psuedo parent.

This would appear to be what happens to students after being under CEDU program stress "break" and become compliant drones.

[Anonymous]

Stockholm syndrome is alliance with a cruel or threatening captor as a strategy, often thought of as unconscious, to prevent further harm. It is not really identifying with captors as parents - that's called "transference." Here is an excellent bit on it that I pasted from
http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/stockholm.html

Is the 'Stockholm Syndrome' used to describe reactions to traumas other than hostage situations?

The Stockholm Syndrome: Not Just For Hostages
by Dee L.R. Graham, Edna Rawlings, Nelly Rimini
The Stockholm Syndrome is an emotional attachment, a bond of interdependence between captive and captor that develops 'when someone threatens your life, deliberates, and doesn't kill you.' (Symonds, 1980) The relief resulting from the removal of the threat of death generates intense feelings of gratitude and fear which combine to make the captive reluctant to display negative feelings toward the captor or terrorist. In fact, former hostages have visited their captors in jail, recommended defense counsel, and even started a defense fund. It is this dynamic which causes former hostages and abuse survivors to minimize the damage done to them and refuse to cooperate in prosecuting their tormentors.

"The victims' need to survive is stronger than his impulse to hate the person who has created his dilemma." (Strentz, 1980) The victim comes to see the captor as a 'good guy', even a savior. This condition...occurs in response to the four specific conditions listed below:

o A person threatens to kill another and is perceived as having the capability to do so.

o The other cannot escape, so her or his life depends on the threatening person.

o The threatened person is isolated from outsiders so that the only other perspective available to her or him is that of the threatening person.

o The threatening person is perceived as showing some degree of kindness to the one being threatened.

Victims' Observed Strategies for Survival

Victims have to concentrate on survival, requiring avoidance of direct, honest reaction to destructive treatment. Become highly attuned to pleasure and displeasure reactions of victimizers. As a result, victims know much about captors, less about themselves. Victims are encouraged to develop psychological characteristics pleasing to captors: dependency, lack of initiative, inability to act, decide, think, etc. Both actively develop strategies for staying alive, including denial, attentiveness to victimizer's wants, fondness for victimizer accompanied by fear, fear of interference by authorities, and adoption of victimizer's perspective. Hostages are overwhelmingly grateful to terrorists for giving them life. They focus on captor's kindnesses, not his acts of brutality. Battered women assume that the abuser is a good man whose actions stem from problems that she can help him solve. Both feel fear, as well as love, compassion and empathy toward a captor who has shown them any kindness. Any acts of kindness by the captors will help ease the emotional distress they have created and will set the stage for emotional dependency of Counterproductive Victim Responses

Denial of terror and anger, and the perception of their victimizers as omnipotent people help to keep victims psychologically attached to victimizers. High anxiety functions to keep victims from seeing available options. Psychophysical stress responses develop.

NOTES:

Excerpts from, Domestic Violence Response Training Curriculum, November 1991, by Jeri Martinez

[Anonymous]

Interesting, If you just remove the threat of "death" and replace it with "punishment" "isolation" or depravition of human contact and love" then an Emotional Growth Boarding School or any of the religious and/or psychotherapy cults would be evoking the same response in exactly the same way but without any actual threat to life (though to a teenager it may seem like actual death) but more of a percieved social death.

Any feedback from survivors would be appreciated.

[Hell on Wheels]

[ This Message was edited by: Hell on Wheels on 2004-07-11 01:23 ]