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« on: November 12, 2005, 05:44:00 PM »
I have been thinking about what is was like to be the person I was while in Straight. I have been trying to recall specific results of peticular asspects of Straight. I mean, How I responded to them While it was happening. I know how I am responding now to it all, but how did I respond then.
One thing that I keep thinking about is ~ What it meant to be frozen on Day Zero. I have some memory blocks there. I know I could not progress, could not apply for T&R, lived on "consequences, deprived in so many ways of the tools to physically exist w/integrity. But ONE thing that I am having faint memories of is: I wasn't allowed to speak. I was allowed to express my ~needs(asking for food, drink, etc..) even at Host homes. But I wasn't allowed to actually speak, *unless I was ready to comply. So staff would "stand me up for the ritual breakdown of my soul", then try to coerce a compliance from me after. Of which I would deny or be inable to pretend to comply. On those days....Host home would become hell..No sleep nights, "suicide watch nights", extreme restriction of nutrition. Exhusted, I would continue on, sitting there on my hands looking at the floor. During these times is when some person next to me would try to force me to motivate or face forward, etc.. Then that would lead to the violent restrainings for hours. Which in turn lead to the "standing me up degrading me once again" And the cycle would start again.
I look back and have to think: What was I thinking during all that, What made me ~inable to pretend to comply. How was I affected on a daily basis, what coping mechinism did I use to escape enough to just sit on my hands. What was it really like to be there with no way out and restricted to speak for 6.5 consecutive months.
See, I hear many of you saying you made some kind of progression, but I didn't. I was literally frozen at Day Zero for all that time. There was no "set back" for me. See for me, I was deprived and abused that entire time. I'm trying to express, I didn't get a break from the abuse.
Was it diffrent for those who progressed (even a tiny bit) psychologically? Did you get any relief from having some privledges(sp)? Like School, phone use, a little bit of freedom, some responsibilities. I read here about "phasers" having some diffrent issues than I. Like having to "be aware", constanly getting honest, making "straight-approved" choices in public, having responsibility of newcommers(other lives), feelings- due to having to show compliance by participating in the treatment of lower phasers. I see how all that was just as torturing as what happened to me.
I am in no way trying to minimize anyones experience. But I do see how it was diffrent, and how we all responded diffrently. But what asspects of our individual experiences influenced and ultimately harmed us.
For me, I think I was most influenced by Day Zero, because the consequences of Day Zero lasted the entire time for me. It never stopped or lightened up. Then poof! One day w/o notice, My parents took me home after an open meeting. I had shut down almost entirely for 6.5 months deprived of humaness and upon arrival home, I was expected to ~preform like a perfect teenager. I never had any therapy or professional decompression. I was scared to death, I didn't even know how to be a human anymore. I had not had any type of schooling during that time, and w/in 3 days I was back in school. I had no idea how to act or who I was anymore, Yet I was expected to perform "normally". I failed miserably. In some ways I am still failing and still unsure how to perfrom acceptably in social situations.
We're we supposed to get some "re-training" on higher phases? Is that what happened? I mean, I know phasers say they were Straght-trained, and that is how you acted in the world. But what if you had ~No re-training? What effect would that have? Is that where we differ? Is No re-training diffrent than Phaser-training? Or is it the same with the same long term consquence? I am truly not understanding. All I know is Day Zero. I have read 2 words over the past couple days "Decompression" and "re-training/learning". These are the 2 things I have been deprived of entirely. Was it because I never left Day Zero?
*Disclaimer- I do not wish to minimize anyones experience or seperate Straight Survivors. I do want to understand what happen to me diffrently, because I never left Day Zero.
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