A similar thing happened to me as well, Greg.
My sister escaped from the Seed on her third day, and as luck would have it, a kindly person who picked her up hitchhiking drove her to a benign halfway house for girls in Perrine. And at first, when the staff at the halfway house contacted my parents, my parents agreed to let my sister stay there. (Later they tried to bring her forcibly to the Seed through the courts, but failed. That's another story.)
Anyway, the Seed, upon hearing that my parents were leaving my sister to "another rehab", told my mom she'd have to take me out of the program too. So, on my seventh or eighth day, I was called out of the group and into the intake office, where my mom was throwing a fit and screaming at all the staff members. She got right in Art's face (among others). The gist of what she was shouting was something like "I will continue to crusade for your program, because your program is the best one, but I will go to every newspaper and tell them that you're forcing my son out!"
The Seed relented and kept me. But Susie Barker (whom I think of with great fondness to this day and I hope she is well and happy wherever she is) was worried about me, because she perceived that my mom was a little nuts. So after I was returned to the group, Susie B. called me out again to talk with me and "make sure I was all right." She was a very sweet young woman! At that point, I knew not to say too strongly that the Seed was not appropriate for me, but I did make my case. I told her that though I had used pot a few times, drugs were not really my thing, I was a good student, and I had a straight attitude, and though the Seed was obviously a terrific place and oh, I had learned a lot just by being there a week, I did not belong there. And as for my mom, I knew how to deal with her; I'd been handling her and her histrionics my whole life. Susie was sweet but firm; she indicated that she thought I should stay in the group all the same, because I had tried pot. But there was also something different, something humane going on with her that I hadn't encountered before in the Seed with my oldcomer or staff.
So the next day, Susie pulled me out of group again and said, "I would like to you talk with Dr. K--" (was it Kaiser? I only remember his name started with a K) This guy, the "Seed psychiatrist" politely told me to have a seat and began asking me questions about my life for five minutes or so in a rambling sort of way. At one point I leaned across the desk a little and saw that he was jotting down all my answers in some kind of shorthand on a big note pad. At this point he looked up at me with a kind of embarrassed sickly smile that I could not interpret. And he asked, "Well Marc, supposing I were to give you the choice, right now, to go home or stay, what would you do?"
And of course I had the same reaction you did, Greg. Was this a trap? He was asking a hypothetical question. I didn't hear it as an actual offer. I didn't want to appear too enthusiastic about leaving the Seed. The honest answer was "GOD YES PLEASE!" But what passed my lips was, "I don't know . . ."
So he smiled again and said, "I think you should stick with it," and that was that.
A few minutes later, in the group, it dawned on me that he had really been offering me a chance, and my head swam in self-disgust and horror.