I never said that I did everything alone, on the contrary I had lots of help from good people, I just had to find them and ask for it. As for my parents, they eventually came around and were good enough to pay my college tuition, although my living arrangements were a different story (I worked full time all through school so I could afford to live on my own).
I really didn't have it all together back at cedu. When I split, I was a stupid kid like everyone else. All I knew was that I wasn't going to stay at CEDU. The experience of living on my own and having to fend for myself completely, made me grow up real fast. Sometimes a little fire under your ass is all it takes (at least for me anyways). Three months later, when I did get off of the streets, I can honestly say that I was a man.
Had I stayed at Cedu and graduated, at 17 I would have left the same way I came in, a confused, totally dependent, ignorant child, with no idea of how things work in the real world. Much like all the people who I did see graduate, and later found out that they became junkies, mental patients,convicts, and/or suicidal. It's much harder to deal with reality when you've been removed from it for so long, when you get out of cedu (even for me) it hits you like a brick in the face. Not everyone can cope with that. The longer you are removed, the harder you get hit.
I liken my experience at cedu (1 year and 7 months), to that of someone who wakes up from a long term coma, with the exception that my muscles and motor skills did not atrophy (although my social skills sure as hell did!!!). In essence the world moved on for over a year and a half, I didn't. It was 1992 when I got out, but to me it was still 1990. Very hard to deal with, as I'm sure you are aware.
That being said, if you gave a coma patient the following choice: "do you want to remain asleep for 2 and 1/2 years, or would you prefer only a few months?"...what do YOU think their answer would be??? It's obvious...they would want to wake up as soon as possible and go on with their life (at least everyone I know would!)
I would put this same question to current cedu students....Perhaps some kids do wish to remain "Asleep", but I believe that most of them (upon knowing what is in store when they get out)would want back into reality as soon as possible.
We are all what circumstances make us, and most of us have no idea what we are truly capable of, until we are put in the "live or die" position
so to speak. And this was certainly true in my case. So all I'm saying is this: Don't be so quick to sell these kids short.
Lastly kids have always split from cedu, and they always will. There are a lot of sickos, freaks, and perverts who frequent that mountain at RS. There is also a very dangerous "backside path" down the mountain that leads to nowhere (believe me I tried it once and almost killed myself). Unfortunately, many kids see "the backside" as an atractive alternative to hitching rides with total strangers.
Knowing that kids will split from cedu-rs as they always have and always will, I am comforted by the fact that there is at least one person out there who these kids can trust (namely Bryan)to safely take them off of that mountain. Most of us didn't have that luxury.
