Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Straight, Inc. and Derivatives

Hello everyone! ...Atlanta Straight alumni here....

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kosmonaut:

--- Quote ---On 2002-07-22 15:50:00, ClayL wrote:
This happened just after I got out in Dec of 84. Apparently the Dir decided he'd had enough of the fucking misbehavers and decieded to confront the issue head on. With the help of several of the more gung-ho 5th phasers and some of the staff, the misbehavers were taken into the bathroom and shown what life in the gutter was like. From what I heard they had their heads flushed in the toilets and, with no pretense of restraining the client, had the hell beaten out of them. I think there were some broken bones. Several staff members were fired including the Director, all the participating 5th phasers were started over or thrown out of the program. Tom really could tell you more about it he was still there.



--- End quote ---

I think I remember that.  At least, I remember the people being abused, but I don't remember all the 5th phasers being set back and people being fired.  Although since I was a 1st phaser I wouldn't have known much anyway.  I was definitely there at that time.

Anonymous:
I remember her.... Abby Oar!!!!

Majiktrvls:
the bathroom incident did not occur until February of 85....my brother, James, was one of the 5th trainees and was set back completely. He was so set back that he left the program. It was a really bad scene, one that did permanent damage to not only my family, but to many others as well.

cram737:
I was there. It was May or June of 85. Days off were called in because the "condition of the group". No one could move up on phases and no one could could 7-step. Hell they had even taken our "singing privledges" away, which I have to say I was grateful for, I always hated that crap, still can't hear a James Taylor song without getting angry or depressed. But anyway, all that to say that staff had created a very hostile environment towards the 18 or so people that were "mis behaving" at the time. Thank God I was at school or work, can't remember which, at the time it happened. I was on 5th phase, so probally would have been involved if I had been there. Iremember coming in and seeing the blood, torn clothing, and holes in tahe walls in the guys bath room and asking another 5th phaser what happened. I remember his response to this day. He enthusiastically said it was "rightous" that Buttimer had given us the go ahead to kick some ass.Even in my brainwashed 5th phase S.S. metality, I felt sick. I it had gone way to far. Alot of people got really hurt that day... the kind of hurts that don't go away with stitches and casts.

enough:
Let me clarify some of this-

I was the only staff-trainee in the bathroom the entire day.There were four or five guys brought in over different periods of time.

NO bones were broken and NO blood was spilled while I was in there. Period. Whoever claims there was is repeating a rumour and talking without direct knowledge.

One kid had his head dunked in the toilet one time, that was Bob Ambrose, the youngest of the brothers. And although I was in the room when it happened, I stopped it after one dunk, because I had begun to realize that it was wrong at about that point.

We did make physical contact with clients that day, but no one was beaten, so to speak, we poked them in the chest, pushed them against walls. Frankly many many people were treated worse in open group, hundreds of times.

The stuff that happened in there was wrong no doubt, but it was by no means a license to beat people as some may have told you. Mostly we screamed and yelled and humliated people in a intense envronment similar to a boot camp.

 Mr. Tilly was the exec in charge then, and I have no idea if he was specifically aware of what was happening while it happened.

Monty Bingham is the Sr. Staffer that told me to take a list of people into the bathroom and do 'whatever it fucking takes, I don't care, but make them change'

He was also in the office the next day with Kris and others, all of the execs, while I was confronted for what happened. Ironically, the primary arguement against me was that this was not how I had been treated. I agreed, not having the nerve to tell the truth, that I had been treated as bad or worse- I was threatened with a gun as a newcomer, sexually molested as a newcomer, and had to ask for permision each time I wiped my ass in one home, just to mention a few things.

 To my knowledge only one other person was set back- Rob was dropped to a fourth phase refrsher as I was. Most of the rest were confronted heavily in group, but I do not remember any of  them being set back. I took full responsibility for what happened, except for Rob, who I believe was set back because he admitted leading the charge to dunk Bob's head in the toilet. Not that it makes it any better, but the toilet did not, as some have claimed, have any shit or piss in it at the time.

Mr. Tilly did leave the program shortly after I did, though whether he was fired or not I have no idea.

If it makes you feel better, I have spent 19 years living with nightmares almost daily that include the events in the bathroom. I can't hold a job, never went to school, am extremely uncomfortable around children, self medicated for the better part of 19 years, I have signifacant health issues because of the stress involved and the degree of self-loathing I feel, even as I write this I find myself wishing that I would simply die to escape the reality of what those bastards turned me into.

I have attempted suicide multiple times, I have commited myself at least twice, and to this day, I regularly consider suicide, and have to call my therapist and talk it out.

I have stress related back problems that are directly related to these events, I have been hospitalized twice in the past five years because of the pain.

 I do not live a happy life, I live a life in which I can not fall assleep, I mostly end up sleeping in the daylight, and only after being awake for 24-36 hours at a time. I dream of home invasions by former clients who come to kill me, and I often wake up screaming and covered in sweat.

 I was beaten up by a former client outside a bowling alley in 1986. He knocked me out cold and then spent some time hitting me in the face and stomach before I recovered enough to flag down a cop. He made it clear that he felt I was to blame for anything that happened to him because I was a ficking staff trainee- in reality I was jsut as affraid and compliant as anyone elee, and I had little or no power at all.

I moved around from state to state and home to home for a long time without filing a change of address form, for fear that the program or former clients were hunting me down to kill me.

As damaging as these events were to Bob, or to others that were brought into the bathroom that day, they were just as damaging to me, and I suspect to any of the fifth phasers that were in there.

So hate me if you want, if it makes you feel better. But do it for the truth, and not over some rumour that spread over the years and grew into something that simply is not true.

There were similar events in the girls bathroom, I do not know who was involved and I have no idea what became of it. I withdrew from the program within two days of these events.

 There is no way in any sense that I should have ever been left alone in the bathroom in that environment. I was a trainee, and as such I was expendable and a good scapegoat.

The program was by its very nature and design abuseive to everyone who was admitted. It was the very core of the program to humilate people and make them feel intense emotions of guilt and shame, and that was part of the modality far before Straight adopted it- as far back as the 1950's under the name Synanon, and before that as a thought reform process developed in China and Korean POW camps.

The only person to blame is Melvin Sembler, he was the driving force, he knew how the modality worked, and according to former members of board of directors, he was determined to avoid any kind of legitmate medical assesments prior to admission- fro mthe very start.

Everyone who was brought in was brainwashed, from exec's like Ann Crow whose own children when through the program, all the way down the group staff. Sure some people were more comfortable than others with the modality, but then all people are different and some people enjoy power.

Personally I think the Callum kid, who was turned into a walking bruise after breaking helen Mortons Jaw- was treated worse than jsut about anyone in the Atlanta group between 83-85.

I can never getr rid of the image of him being arrested outside that day, literally covered in bruises- and charged with felony battery- while those who had beaten him went scott free. But then the program had some kind of political connection with the sherriff of cobb county at the time, as well as local judges in their pocket.

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