Look, this argument happens again and again. Doesn't matter which program we're talking about or how overt some of the known abuses. There were people there in the same place at the same time wittnessing the same events but who perceived them very differently.
"Was there abuse" is just not a yes or no question. Even been to an ICU ward at a hospital? If you're ever unfortunate enough to have occasion to spend time in one, you'll see all kinds of painful and degrading proceedures performed by people who exist somehow at the high end of the stress range.
Is that abuse? Most people say no because we all understand these are needed, life saving procedures. And, when you're in a program, you're instructed and pressured in a thousand ways to view it like that.
Well, when I was in Straight, I only saw a little abuse. Why I happened to see it that way at that time had more to do with their accidentally letting me connect w/ the victim on a personal level prior to the event than anything else. But I didn't even wittness abuse when my point of view was from flat on my back on a very cold concrete floor under the weight of 5 or 6 other girls. Took me awhile to realize just how fucked up that was.
So have patience w/ each other. Talk about what you did see and experience. Never mind who thought what about it at the time. This is a public forum and one of the benefits to that is that we can tell our stories and let ordinary people who have not been subjected to the dogma weigh in on these events. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, that's really the whole point.
I was born a heretic. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
--Susan B. Anthony, U.S. reformer and suffragist
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Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Seed sibling `71 - `80
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity AnonymousSome days, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
