Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Do photography, write, make jewelry, and sculpture. Did a large installation piece on my experiences once in 1988. Included sounds reminiscient of program, poetry, large scale works 1' x 4', and and lovely seafoam green walls just like my old facility was painted. Boy did folks get the feel! Seafoam green made them so affected immediately and then the piece about losing your freedom of speech really got them. It was a silkscreen of the statue of liberty with a prose piece like similar to Awake's "The Rap" but about loss of freedom of speech was  superimposed on a piece of glass  that was about 1' in front of silkscreen. It would be cool to brainstorm and try to get grant money to do this in a large space. That we divide up to be like an actual facility. Bring people to the "house of horrors" we witnessed. ginger

traveling art show (installation type). that way you inundate the recipient into the experience. i have done it and it was great to see people's reactions.

Bob appears to be deteriorating in the video shot of him at Pathways. Did he ever tell any of you his iguana story. Everyone around waited excitedly for it, and I cannot remember it. I bet he still carries it uses it as an example of something. They would turn the lights down, Meehan would take the mic and do his iguana story, then everyone would share their heart wrenching story of drug use and how it fucked up their families. I made up something and I will be damned if I can remember. Then everyone hugged me and said "luv ya". I think back on that farce and get ill.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOqKEKuCvXo&feature
and this second one I relate to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IySWhRO_39g&feature

Telling me not to take my medicine for bronchitis is crazy. I relate to everything in this second video. Ever do a ROAD inventiory? Can't remember what it stands for, but essentially you blame yourself for whatever abuse happened to you.

I remember McLean being in "Girl, Interrupted" written by Susanna Kaysen. I read it and felt like she caved into the system. But yes they like malleable girls in certain income brackets with specific insurance.

After HIH closed Medical Arts and Deer Park Hospital became PDAP associated. This guy ran Deer Park: http://www.dapahelp.com/

Dr. Sharma had Medical Arts and Laurelwood. There is some dirt out there on Laurelwood. I think someone died trying to espcape. Dr. Baron is now associated with West Oaks in Houston. Meehan, I don't know where he is. PDAP lives on: http://www.pdap.com/ PDAP is run by a CEO or something. Same people from Meehan days were still involved when I moved back here in 1996,but they were overthrown a few years ago.

Now we have this http://www.cornerstonerecovery.org/ and they are called APGs. Alternative peer groups, and they still run around saying "luv ya", I think. Really don't know much about it, though. I hear from ex-PDAP friends though. We support one another on some of the old tapes that still play in our heads.

Oops, left this out: http://www.lifewayusa.org/site/index.htm

Iamartsy
"

Excuse me the URL for the above piece is as follows:
http://tinyurl.com/55osdj
Whoever wrote deserves full credit, not me.

Were you treated in a "hospital" in the 70s,80s, or early 90s. that has been closed down or not (my tormentor is still open for business)? If so, where were you? Were they big on 5 point restraints for extended periods of time, and isolation techniques? Did you ever wonder what the hell they did in their team meetings.

I used to be scared to death of what would come out of the team meetings. I remember that was where they would decide who went on chair or room therapy or who could come off of it. When that door opened you knew there could be something awful around the corner.

I have often wondered what happened to the other alumni. Are they alive or dead. If you are out there then please speak up. I was in Texas where Devereaux, Brown, and hospitals were the places to send your loved one who needed "mending". I thing Texas was the worst of the breeding grounds for these places at that time. Am I right? You could go in as an innocent person and come out 1-2 years later very knowledgeable about how best to commit suicide, or how best to cheek meds, what drugs provided the most fun. How to have sex in supervised places. You definitely knew what sleep deprivation felt like since there were 15 minute bed checks. Someone was always shining a flashlight in your eye.  Did you study ways to get out of your window, and find none.

I was at three hospitals in the Houston area that were not too bad as far as abuse went.  Then there was Dallas, the mecca for all things bad. There were lots of hospitals there if I recall correctly. People would start at a short term one and get transferred by a "staff" physician to another hospital he was at that was longer term (like a year or two or three).

iamartsy

I was in one facility in 1982 that did this shit. It bored the hell out of me, and three of us got thrown out. We had to beg out way back into the next group so we would still get our levels. The guy was hardest on me, because I had nothing earth shattering to talk about so I did not talk. He thought there had to be something, but what was I going to say, nothing. Drinking and pot oh my! That would not pass a whole hour or ninety minutes.

Another night, while I was there I went through the confrontation thing and kept refusing to cry on demand. They were so pissed. I don't cry much. And even less on demand. Later my individual therapist there was pissed that I had not cried, and said how I thought I was so tough. I said nothing.

Then there was my last m.o. at the last facility I was in (1985-1986), I kept falling asleep from boredom in the middle of RAP. They used to grab me from my seat on the couch and throw me in a hard chair. It did not help. I sleep when I am sleepy. I have fallen asleep on the subway, at conferences, once in a job interview. I keep myself awake with humor and then get called inappropriate. Like I will notice that we are talking in circles and started imagining emoticons going in circles and then chuckle to myself (INAPPROPRIATE). Then I have to work harder at containing my chuckling.

Unfortunately, I am back in Houston where all this shit began and I feel the misery all over again. My parents live 3 blocks away and love to control me at the age of 44. I still feel like a victim. I need to leave here but don't know where to go. I am at a loss. Shit now I am depressed again. I now know why I found this board, I am back to where I started. DAMNIT