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Topics - Paul St. John

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31
Daytop Village / Three Words I Never Heard
« on: January 18, 2006, 03:25:00 PM »
Three Words I Never Heard


In all the non-stop hours of talking, ranting, raving, and philosophizing, that I listened to each and every day, there are a few words, I seldom, if ever heard.  A few are:


Discipline- Believe it or not, I never heard mention of the word ?Discipline?.  

Their basic attitude there would lead me to believe that that the probably considered it an out-dated concept, or something mystical and even exotic.

Happiness- Happiness was seldom mentioned.

Happiness was not really considered to be any type of goal there.  It was subservient to ? Sobriety?

It was easily sacrificed to ? House Rules?, or the common good ? the family?, or the greater good of ?sobriety?.

They really like you to understand that ? we got you now, and this is how it?s gonna be.  You don?t matter anymore, and we know better.?

In their minds, happiness is for babies.

Desire-Desire was pretty much never spoken about, and if and when it was.  It was at best secondary.

They would say something along the lines of: ? Now you are here, and this is your time to work on yourself, and you sobriety.  That?s all that matters right now.?

The weird thing was that they always said this in such a way that made it sound holy.
They would say it in such a way as if god had chosen this time for you to get sober, and somehow everything else would just magically stop for you , and the beauty of your great sobriety.

In actuality discipline, desire, and happiness are major constituents of the best path to sobriety, but they are also three things that in abundance would put TC?s out of business forever.

32
Daytop Village / Daytop: Looking From the Outside In
« on: January 18, 2006, 03:24:00 PM »
Daytop: Looking From the Outside In

It?s a dark place, and little light shines in, and somehow all the light that does shine in, becomes the property of the darkness.  So many negative acts carried out against one another. So little peace.  So little happiness.  So little silence.  Nobody is conciderred good enough, and all are considered worng.

And no matter how they act or seem everybody is scared.

All inside are scared.

33
Daytop Village / Punished for what crime?
« on: January 15, 2006, 03:55:00 PM »
Punished for what Crime..


It is established that TC?s are not only treatment centers, but also and predominantly so are they centers for punishment.  The government on different levels not only know about, but also support these programs, which leads to the question: Why are children who use drugs, being punished?  The success rate of these programs is terrible, and yet still these centers are in place continuing their worthless work, in their small corners of existence.  So what is their purpose?

It becomes clear that their obvious purpose is solely punishment, and not therapy of any kind.  I say that children who use drugs are being punished for quite simply disobedience.  It is very convenient for the government to have a place to put people who do not listen.. who do not obey.  A place to have their individuality beat out of them.

In entering a place, such as Daytop, one might quickly realize where they are.  The signs on the wall might be an indicator? comparable to political, or religious propaganda, or to that of a cult.  Next the similarity in language of all the residents might be an indicator.  They all seem to use the same words, and the same phrases, yet very few even know what the words, nor the phrases actually mean.  One might next then realize the God/ Principle/Ideology/Figure Head/ Higher Power..  In this case it is ?Sobriety?  Sobriety is given as the last line of defense to rationlise every wrong-doing within these places.

You quickly get the feeling that you are in some type of cult or oppressive governing body designed with the purpose of squelching out your identity, and individually.  Is it possible that the government views teen users of drugs a threat, because they have proven that they are people willing to, or with a tendency to disobey, make their own decisions, and ignore society?  It fits.  All throughout youth, you are told not to do drugs.  You are given reasons not to do them.  Programs are financed to influence you in the direction of never so much as trying them, and yet you did.  You have proven yourself a person who either cannot or will be controlled.  If a gentle prodding does not work, they must think, then perhaps, a genuine ass kicking will.  It is kind of like taming a horse.  They call it therapy, but is it in the best interest of the patient?  Was it ever believed that it would be?

Society?s loose noose is not working, and so they tighten the noose.  Hell maybe it will work.. maybe it will not, but no matter, as they are not the ones going through it.  Whether it is intentional on the part of the programs, and government or not is irrelevant though.  It is wrong, reguardless, and if I can see this, and so can any other reasonable person, given the proper information, how can the ?powers that be? not?

My hope is not for the government to shut these places down, or put further restrictions on them.  I would like however, to see the government withdraw it?s support from these places, and cease it?s favors. ( and there are very many favors, of which I know, and I am sure that there are far many more that I don ?t know).  Essentaily, I think what will be the end of these places is more people knowing their reality, better alternatives available, and all areas of the government, getting completely, totally, and entirely out of the way.  The Governmet has no role in the realm of professional psychological practice.  Of course, another thing that would help, would be parents taking more responsibility for their own children, and not looking for quick fixes to the ?problem? that is their child.  


Paul St. John

34
Daytop Village / Tough Love- nonsense
« on: December 29, 2005, 08:14:00 PM »
Tough love is basically the idea that help must hurt.. that it needs to be painful to be helped.

Picture this, you are on a boat, and you see a person drowning.. what do you do?  

Perhaps you will throw them a life preserver.

you then pull them up onto the boat.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

You wanted to help somebody and you did!

It worked...

So where the fuck was all the tough love?

You didn t pull them on the boat, kick them in the face, throw thwm back in again, and then help them out, but somehow it still worked.  You successfully helped them with absolutly no "tough love".

This is why it is so hilarious to hear a so called proffessional say that "tough love" is the only way to really help somebody.

In my opinion, it is a way of punishing somebody.  They don t mention it but these centers are not just therapy centers, they are punishment/therapy centers, with most of the punisment aspect outweighing the therapy aspect.

Why waiste the precious time of one's life?
If there is a solution, why not go directly there?

Paul St. John

35
Daytop Village / Old Daytop Posts
« on: November 20, 2005, 04:37:00 PM »

36
Elan School / Gold from Garbage
« on: December 24, 2003, 10:25:00 PM »
So you re there, right.. and it sux.. world falling apart around ya.. all a trip.


so ou find who thye are.. youu find what they need, and ya give it to 'em..

they leave ya alone.. the dogs, no longer bark

and thye take , and they take it

and ya sink in deeper, and ya find some more, and you give it to them, and they take you.. NOWHERE

Society tells ya to listen to them.  It tells your parents too.  It tells your teachers too.

and you fall in, and y0ou fall in deeper, and thye take more, and yet more, and thye appear tired, but still...

thye take more..

and some day they6 let ya out.  Thy drop ya back off into society, and you are changed,

but society is not.  You go in for aid in health, and thye break your arms, and put you back out, right back where you started,

but pain added, ripped, raped, and scarred...


and several lessons richer.. beyond the pain of the experience, are all the lessons learned.. a wealth of benefits, and rewards.



"Every Adversity, every failure, and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit"

-Napolean Hill.

37
Elan School / You all better watch it...
« on: December 08, 2003, 08:59:00 AM »
I hear the marines are on their way to blow up this site.

38
Daytop Village / Jared Louise
« on: December 07, 2003, 12:45:00 AM »
Jared Louise


Now, this was a funny-guy.  He looked kinda like a red-neck, lumberjack.  Well, actually not kinda, but very much.

tight jeans, flannels, always, red hair, tied back in a pony tail.  He was in excellent physical shape.. rather skinny, but tight and cut as hell.  

He had a really deep voic, and for some reason spoke with a southern accent, even though he lived on Long Island.  He was very well off.  If you multiplied my assets at the time by 25 or so, you would probably be in the ball park of his.

Ol' Jared.. he was a real anomaly.  When I saw where he lived, I was confused.  I always thought he lived in the wilderness or something..

He was a scary dude.  He was like Mr. Daytop.  He was only an expedier for whatever reason, but as trusted as any coordinator.  Staff knew you could not get away with shit with this guy.

I HATED that motherfucker when I first went there.  I use to make fun of him all the time. I did an excellent Jared impression.  Towards, the end of my stay though, we were actually somewhat friendly, and I did respect him in some ways.

In morning meetings, if you wante dto say something, you had to step to the outside of the family and stand up, but not Ol' Jared.  He would juts start screaming in that DEEP voise with the southern accent right from his chair.  Everyone was intimidated by him.  I just thought he was a dick.  It seemed like it really hurt him, when Daytop rules where not followed to the key, and he would scream to keep from crying.

You had to see it though.. Someone would play with a button their shirt or something, and the next thing you knew, you d hear screaming from the middle of the rows, and you look over, and their is ol' Jared with fire shooting out of his eye.. His neck tense, looking like the veins' would burts, and he was a relatively small guy too.. God, did I get a kick out of him.

He was the only guy I knew in Daytop, who actually took the Daytop rule book, and the guide for members home, and studied it.

He also bought the book by the guy who created Daytop, and studied that.  He really liked it too.  Most of the counselors had enevr even read that book, or even considerred buying it.


Mr. Daytop. That was Jared.

My friends, and I use to get some real kiciks out of him... in quite of course, or we woulda got fucked for "bad-mouthing"

Ol' Jared was a smart motherfucker, and ver manipulative too, but I don t knwo if he even knew he was being manipulative.. That fuck was out to get me from day one.  I think he loved the challnge of trying to break me.  The confrontations were srtrong and long-lasting.  I was SO bored in there, I think I some times enjoyed the challenge myself, even though I didn t like him.


In the end, I think we just became friendly to make it easier on ourselves.


Paul

39
Daytop Village / Some just went too easy...
« on: November 23, 2003, 05:04:00 AM »
It's amazing to me how easy people will break some times, when against the majority, and take on personalities that wer enot thier own.. Some took awhile, but some were broke in a single day, or less..



MY GUILT:
I always tried to grab each new member as they came in, and feed them with reinforcements before the place broke them.


I'd do it again, so fuck you, Daytop!

40
Daytop Village / Wasn't that a big issue with the Skakel case?
« on: November 23, 2003, 04:56:00 AM »
I remember the policy in Daytop.  You could confess to crimes, and shit and you wouldn t get in any trouble.. You'd only get in trouble, if you committed the crime while you were in Daytop.


A kid who admitted to killing people to me, in a group.. ya know.. "my superior" told me that Daytop staff knew about it.


Also, I remember this one time in a group, this guy confessed to raping a girl.. he told us all, in a group of close to 20 members plus a staff member the whole story in great detail.


He started crying, and I admit I could feel for the guy BUT WITHIN REASON.. What transpired afterwards was insane.. Everyone started treating him like he was the victim.. They started placating the shit out of him, as though he was the victim.. I swear to god, they were acting as though he were the victim.. EVERYONE in the group.


Fuck the nameless girl who he did it, too, right?

She's the person I was feeling sorry for.. Not him!


Ya know what else was fucked up, he didn t seem so much to me regretting the crime as he was regretting committing an act that might piss off his Daytop friends.. Two of the girls who were in the group had been raped.. he apologised to both of them for his actions, and they strongly forgave him.


I spent days in a fucking chair, got "haircuts", shotdown for over a month, once cause I refused to cut my hair as an "image-breaker"


He admitted to raping a girl, and he was a fucking hero.  There was something wrong with this place.. When I was a kid, I use to watch a lot of TV.. Whenever I saw shows that had something to do with cults.. I always got an eerie feeling.. that was the feeling I had my whole time in daytop.. It s that feeling of reality being so distorted that the good man doens t have a shot.. It's that feeling that life has no value..  just lost


Paul

41
Daytop Village / "Take orders from who?"
« on: November 23, 2003, 04:38:00 AM »
Again, I don't know how this comapres to ther programs, but in Daytop when I was there, there were rapists, theifs(including those who would assault old ladies for money), people who claimed to had murderred others, crack-herd, and pyros.  As a matter of a fact, there were a lot of them.


So, anyway, I go in there, and I am pretty good guy, and they got me taking orders from rapists, and such.  Their logic was that these people had been in the program longer then me.  I have to surrender my self-responsibility to some pice of shit, and treat him as though he has some type of earned athority over me... and their logic for this is... He has been in the prgram two months already.. he has shown much growth.


Well, that is nice, but I have been on the earth over 16 years at the time, and I had yet to rape anybody, nor had I ever hoped to have to keep company with a mother fucking rapist.  

I can t belive that they were tryinfg to sell me on the idea that their program was so good, that in three months, they oculd turn a rapist or a murderrer, into a person who was fit to give me orders.

God, I hated that place.. and it really was stupid too.. I mean you got 13 year old pot smokers, whose parents bugged out when they found out about their kid's habit and sent them to Daytop, in the same environment as rapists, theves, etc.


Fucking Place!


Paul St. John


Reprise:

Ya know, there was this one guy, who ran groups.. He had been there three months.. he was strength, and he ran a lot of induction groups for people like me.. You tell he loved me.. He flet like such a big shot.. he got treated like a king, compared to many cause he manipulated his way into status.. He was a slcik, charasmatic fuck, but I mainly always noticed what a dick he was.


Anyway, he told me in a group, that he had killed a few people.. he seemed rather pride.  


I don't even know where it came from, I was a rather peaceful guy, but I remember sitting behind him, some time shortly after, in a morning meeting.. all snug in as we were, stiff backs, and motiuonless, eyes ahead.. and I could see his stupid bic-shaved head, right in my veiw.. and all I oculd think of, was pounding that smug fucker's skull in with my fist.. giving him the beating of a lifetime..  I swear, if I moved a muscle at all, I woulda been all over that fuck.


Those types of thoughts increased my whole time in there.  I never really had thoughts like that before.. But my whole time in there.. they just kept increasing.. i oculd not shake the feeling that I hated where I was, and most of the peole around me.. I felt that most of them had escaped the system, and the innocent ones, paid their price for them in some ways.


Rapists, murderers, hadcre theives, and pyros, are usually pretty destructive people.. You take away their vice of choice, and give them new tools, and they will use those tools to destroy.


Again, I was there.. I know what I saw.


Paul

42
Daytop Village / Dave Pitts , and my CNS
« on: November 20, 2003, 07:15:00 PM »
I got the shit scared out of me once in an encounter group.  I don't know about in other programs, but in daytop, How loud you oculd scream, was like almost your worth in a way. iT was the way you asseted yourself.  Like if compared to a male ostrich, the vloume and visiousness of your scream, was like the size and beauty of feathers.. So the dudes there, worked a lot on their scream, and refined it to perfection.

Anyway, I remember this one time, we were all packed into a staff member's office for encounter group.  I don't know why.  It wasn y usually in there, but resulatantly, our circle was not a perfect circle.  In Daytop encounter groups, there was really no warning.. People wouldn t always give a intro, so to sp4eak.. They would judt start screaming out of nowhere.  The way this circle was organised, I had a guy sitting kinda behind me.  He was a good screamer. His name was Dave Pitts.  

He was funny.  There was the rule, that you couldn t get out of your seat, just so everyone knew you weren t gonna hurt nobody.  Dave use to hold onto his chair, with one arm, and violently swing his other harm while he screamed.. LOL.. His chair use to slide forward from the swining of his other arm, and he use to just sit there and go for the ride, and by the time he had worked his way into the middle, he'd stop for an instant, and slide himself back with his feet, while symultaneously catching a breathe, and then he'd start again.  I use to always say he was like a humna type writer.. He had his system down pat.

Well, at that really had nothing to do with anything.. just thought it was kinda fuuny.
But anyway, this one times I was sitting behind him, and the dude starts screaming out of nowhere.  I belive my nervous system almost died on that day.  I nearly jumped out of my fucking skin.. I think it took me about 5 minutes just to catch my breathe.. I had no warning that was coming.


It was kinda good though, cause I interrupted Dave right in the beginning of his flipping out, and he actually couldn t continue, and for about the same 5 minutes where I was recoverring Dave was laughing his ass off.. maybe even longer then that.. The whole group was laughing their ass off.
It was the first time I saw good natured laughing in an encounter group, and it lightenned up the mood of the whole scene. I always hated those groups.


LOL.. I guess sometimes ya gotta take one for the team.

Paul St. John

43
Daytop Village / TC's- The Psychology of Anti-Psychology
« on: November 20, 2003, 05:33:00 PM »
TC's-  The Psychology of Anti-Pscyhology



     There are hackers  in the institution of psychology.  They hack into what is real, and noteworthy, and they spread dangerous memes, that work against the individual, the sole purposeful beneficiary of the study of psychology.  They exist like leaches in a field in which they do not belong.  The purpose of psychology is to benefit the individual.  Their pseudo-psychology harms the individual, and harming individual, consequently harms society as a whole.

     The nature of an idea, is to "go", or spread.  Ideas always move.  You can see this if you observe long-term effects of environments brought into contact with certain ideas.  One such group that spread these ideas, through individuals, families, and societies, is this group of pseudo-practitioners, who hide behind the term, "TC".  Well, what is a "TC"?  It is a therapeutic community, and that is what they fall back on.

     Most often, all the presuppositions worked upon, by these witch doctors, lead back to nowhere, and nothing.  The practitioners themselves cannot back up there own conclusions in a scientific manner.  They just fall back on the idea, that that is the way of a, "TC", and they are a "TC"  Well, that is great, but that does not mean anything.

     There is a phenomenon, that almost the entire psychological community has acknowledged by now.  It is a state that many, if not all people live in some of the time.  It goes by a few terms.. "stimulus-response", "reactive-responsive", "Fight-Flight"  At this point, almost all of the predominant forms of psychology attempt to free a person from this state of mind, which is believed by most, to be brought about by lower levels of our brain.. the reptilian, and mammalian positrons of our brain.  They are the least "man"-part of the man brain.  From New-Age Psychology, to Objectivist psychology (many consider these to be at opposite ends of the spectrum), the focus is psychological practice these days, is to free a person from these states, thereby allowing the person to become the creative force in their own life.

     The TC's do something very different.  There is a clear distinction between the TC's form of psychology, and all the working forms of psychology in the world today.  While most psychology's attempt to free a person from the state spoken of above, the "TC's" attempt, to keep a person in that state.  The objective is to utilize it, and make it so dominant of a force in the person, that it appears, that the person is their own flaws.  Once this has been done, the person can then be rewritten to appear as the administrator wishes.  Of course, the person is not actually rewritten, but the person is trapped in a maze of responses that obscure, the person even from themselves, so that fear based programs, take over, and are so dominant that they seem to take the role of the person's submerged ego.

     The purpose of therapy, is to better the person/individual.  "TC's" ,be it on a subtle, or blatant level, attack the individual.. attack the ego... attack the person, and  identity.


By Paul St. John

44
Elan School / Quote of the Week
« on: November 19, 2003, 10:13:00 AM »
Quote
Unregistered coward users have no genitals.!!!!!!!


-Artman11111

45
I remember it was like my second day, there, and I'm sitting in this group, and all of a sudden, I hear this screamiing like I have never heard in my life, and look around like, " Holy Shit!" LMAO!

.. and I'm waiting for someone to get up, and call the cops ya know, but the group just went on like nothing happenned.

I was just coming off of a lot of drugs at the time, and I'm sitting there like, " Am I tripping out or something?"


Then all of a sudden, I see like a guy how I knew as a coordinator go running into this room, going, " Stop!  The guy from 'Donahue' is here! "


It's right about then that I said, " What the fuck have I got myself into?" LOL

Paul St. John

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