I feel weird posting here or like i shouldn't with all the people saying how pathetic it is too. But I mean i made it through cedu. Yes it is in my past. It was not the worst experince ever. But what it made me feel like after and how it changed me, is something i will have to deal with forever, like a big scar. Noone will ever understand the way I am. I don't even understand the way I am often. I don't know if having friends is good or not even. It is all just confusing and weird that like all of a sudden i feel the damage left not for years after my stay.
I completely understand this. But just know, that here, we understand. We've all been through at least part of it. This is a community. It's so odd. I actually do have good memories about RMA. And just for the record, I do not think it's pathetic to come on this forum and talk about it. Some are more bitter than others, and so be it, but the ability to communicate with people who have experienced something similar is rare when out in the world. There are just a handful of us compared to world population. And scars aren't necessarily bad. They just are. Friends are hard, i think the longer you're out of the program, you start to figure out how to do it, but I know that my first 5 years were a VERY difficult adjustment for me. I was lucky that I had a group of people from RMA who graduated after me who lived in SoCal. And so we had eachother, but I can't imagine what it would have been like if I hadn't had that support.
And I've been really upfront and honest with everyone in my life, even people I've just met, who ask where I went to high school. I say, I went to a reform "emotional growth" school in Idaho near the Canadian border and it was really fucking cold. And those that ask more questions, I answer. I've tried explaining the school to my good friends, and they know as much as I can tell them, but they don't share the experience. And that experience made me me. So I'm babbling now, but I've read a lot of posts on here where people didn't really feel that traumatized until coming on here and reading the posts in this forum. For me the whole experience is really hazy. I remember vivid snapshots where I could tell you what people were wearing, and how cold it was, and what it smelled like, and then, nothing. Just brief flashes.
I guess that I just wanted to say to all the people on here that feel alone that you're not. There are many of us who share your struggles in one way or another. And this is a good place to connect, or vent, and fuck anyone who says that it's pathetic. Because no way. We're all human and deal with things in different ways, but if you have the ability to come here and feel connected somehow, especially if you don't have that right now in your life, nothing but good is going to come from that. Wow, that was a bit more of a tangent than i expected. Stina, over and out.
