Ok - well I might as well throw my hat into the ring on this one. I have been waiting to see where this is going to go and for the record I don't really see either side conceding.
However - I do feel I have a few significant points to contribute.
To the "Good Dr" - Anytime you participate in public banter and initiate threats or articulate your thoughts with garbled and misspelled punctuation, it takes away some credibility. I hope you can see that.
Nonetheless - I do think you have a very valid point. Was Cedu the worst place in the world? No. Were we fed, clothed, housed, and taken care of to some degree - yes. (Especially with regards to medical) If someone was sick or injured themselves, they were certainly treated.
However, may I offer this - I ran away from Cedu and lived ON the streets in the cold mountains of Running Springs for 6 weeks. I begged for food, slept in forests and abandoned houses, starved, hung with some shady characters, and put myself in a great amount danger.
I am certainly not comparing it to your story. I was not shot nor beaten.
Why did I put myself in such a predicament? Because the thought of going back and being fucked with day in and day out, yelled at, mentally abused, forced to live by their bullshit ways, and isolated was so appalling to me that I would rather freeze and starve.
That's how much I hated Cedu.
Then - when I was put in Juvenile hall - I asked to stay there! Even though the characters in juvie were way more tough and scary at age 15, it seemed a little bit more of a primitive survival to me. They were actually cooler to me then the fucks at Cedu. I wasn't made to do stupid work and I wasn't getting yelled at. (The food at Cedu was way better)
They wouldn't let me stay because I hadn't done anything wrong. So I had to go back to what I viewed as the worst place ever - Cedu.
See - we can compare my stay at Cedu to a child in Africa and I will be the first to say that I had it better.
But in this world - all we can deal with is OUR REALITY.
My reality was that I absolutely despised being fucked with to that level and knew that I was in a freakish cult and that is was wrong.
Why am I on this website - 17 years later?
Because I am trying to bring some closure to something that is quite unsettling from my past.
Because I still have dreams about that hell hole
Because I still act in ways that were a learned survival mechanism from that school
Because it was a reality for me, it was a cult and very wrong. It feels good to speak with other survivors. We have a language and type of experience that no one else can really relate to unless they went through what we did.
So - I don't see myself as "pathetic." I see myself as continuing to try and better myself...just as you are with your career.
So - Go easy fellow and good luck.
