DAYTOP Did Me Great Harm in the Long Run

[SEKTO]

get "out of my head."

= we don't see too many of you intellectual kids. Quit hurting our brains with slightly advanced vocabulary. Stop talking smart talk. Get in to your feelings. Start flinging snot everywhere and swearing about your coerced program feelings".

 

Wat kind of shit is that to teach a kid?

"When you think you're looking bad you're looking good, and when you think you're looking good you're looking bad." What on earth does that mean?? I always wondered. Talk about confusion and lots of self-doubt.

HOly FuCK!!!!! 2+2 = 5
aka you you can try as hard as you want but you'll never get it or progress. You'll always be a degenerate teen worth $66k a year.
"I can't wait to yell at you next week about more senseless shite"

I know, I know...DAYTOP fucked us up, me and my friends, and we were only participating at the outpatient level.  

But, they had our parents in on it too, and back in those days (early '90s) at the height of the "Tough Love/Positive Peer Pressure" fad our Moms and Dads just ate it up.  

Look, I was just some kid that was smoking weed and experimenting with some acid, for goodness sakes, and they made me out a total dope fiend.

There were kids coming back from Athens (DAYTOP residential in TX) were really screwed up.  Lots of angry kids were coming back from Athens, let me tell you.

DAYTOP's TX branches eventually closed down in the late '90s; if I remember correctly, it entailed some scandal involving embezzlement and financial impropriety, and the subsequent withdrawl of state funding and support,  that led the program to be closed down there.  So DAYTOP has not operated in tX in 10 years or so if I remember correctly.  There might be an intake center there, but there's not an inpatient or outpatient facility open any more.

[psy]

I myself am not one for much confrontation, and find it hard to be mean to people, to yell and scream and such.  But I learned how to be, learned how to pretend like I was a lot more angry than I really was so that it was not me who was the one getting reamed out.

Yup.  You had to attack to survive.  A friend of mine who was in the same program I was in described it by saying that we were forced to become animals.  It was survival of the fittest.  Compassion was weakness.  Even outside of group, the politicking and incessant backstabbing was rampant.  The people weren't naturally like that but elements of the system forced them to adapt.  Either you learned to be a predator or you became prey.  It was a sick social experiment.

I see it now, or I am starting to understand what was really going on there.

I tend to think that once you understand about 70% of what was going on, most of the rest suddenly falls into place in a sort of "aha" moment.

But no, there were not any daily written reports that we all had to write out, or regularly-submitted moral inventories in a written form from what I remember.

The reason I asked was because some programs like the one I was in combine the ratting out with written lists.  The lists were then compared by staff.  Sometimes you were asked to rewrite them (often at random, sometimes because somebody else wrote something about you).  You would never know if you missed something, whether somebody had ratted you out, whether staff already knew...  You were even supposed to write down rumors.   It was like the secret police.  All in all it was very, very effective.  People would often end up ratting themselves out, not knowing if anybody else already did.  If you knew about something and didn't say, you could get punished as well. (and these were serious punishments, like losing your level).

2)  People were expected to rat each other out for minor offenses, yes.  Because, according to our indoctrination, if you know somebody is doing something wrong, breaking some rule or whatever, and you do not turn them in for it or at least persuade them to confess, then you were complicit to their bad behavior and might as well have been doing it yourself.  It became kind of a "feather in your cap" in terms of showing your "personal growth" if you turned somebody in for some small thing, say, if you catch them smoking behind the fence out back.  The more things that you could point out that you saw somebody doing wrong, the more you called them out on some improper attitude or inappropriate thinking, it showed that you had "matured" and must be gaining "personal growth."

Yup.  Where I was we were also taught that we were helping others to "follow the program" (so ratting was a noble thing).

If you still didn't go along with it, did too much complaining or asked too many questions, you might have to spend time in "The Chair" after a series of "haircuts."

The chair, I assume was a chair in the middle of a circle of chairs (the one in the center being the confronted one).. a hot seat technique.  We had this in the program I was in.  It was like a firing squad.

[psy]

Some programs used the phrase "in your head" to describe a person who was thinking too much (as opposed to in your feelings). The general theme was: don't think, just do what we do and you'll be fine... follow our orders blindly.

Boy, that takes me back man.  They'd always tell me that I was "stuck in my own head" and that the solution was to get "out of my head."

Yeah.  I've been trying to find out where that phrase came from with little success.  If you have any luck, let me know.

[dishdutyfugitive]

they tried that shit on the outpatient level?


for fuck's sake. They'll try anything

[Ursus]

2) People were expected to rat each other out for minor offenses, yes. Because, according to our indoctrination, if you know somebody is doing something wrong, breaking some rule or whatever, and you do not turn them in for it or at least persuade them to confess, then you were complicit to their bad behavior and might as well have been doing it yourself. It became kind of a "feather in your cap" in terms of showing your "personal growth" if you turned somebody in for some small thing, say, if you catch them smoking behind the fence out back. The more things that you could point out that you saw somebody doing wrong, the more you called them out on some improper attitude or inappropriate thinking, it showed that you had "matured" and must be gaining "personal growth."

Yup. Where I was we were also taught that we were helping others to "follow the program" (so ratting was a noble thing).

LOL. Hyde School's "Brother's Keeper." One of their "5 principles," if I remember the current terminology correctly.

[SEKTO]

The chair, I assume was a chair in the middle of a circle of chairs (the one in the center being the confronted one).. a hot seat technique. We had this in the program I was in. It was like a firing squad.

Yes, everything I am describing to you all took place at the outpatient level.

No, the Hot Seat technique was in the form of the encounter groups, which were done in a big circle with nobody in the middle and the all attention given to whoever was getting yelled at.  The encounter group usually consisted of, oh, 15-20 people, including at least one counselor, maybe two sometimes.  These encounter groups were conducted once a week if I remember correctly, twice sometimesand lasted an hour or two at the most, or until everybody felt properly ventilated, depending on whatever else we had to do that day.

Then there was another form of the hotseat, the more brutal  "haircut" sessions, in which you'd go into a small room and there would be three seats lined up on one side and one on the other.  The person receiving the "haircut" (a term borrowed from Synanon and going back to the early days of DAYTOP, also the term "splitee" for that matter, which was the DAYTOP word for somebody who'd run from or "split" the program) would face, from the single seat on the one side, the coordinators and/or counselors on the other and they'd take turns screaming at you and telling you what a fuckup  you were and all this, and it would go on for as long as they felt necessary.  

Also there were "dealtwiths" with were pretty tame, really.  You'd basically tell a person what he or she did wrong and not to do it again, maybe some light punishment, say, they have to do dishes for a week or something.  After somebody got two or three "dealtwiths" for this or that offense, they'd get a "haircut."  But, if it were a serious enough matter, they'd get a "haircut" right away.  

For example: say you catch somebody smoking out back.  No big deal, relatively speaking, give them a "dealtwith."  But if you catch them smoking out back on a regular basis, then it's time to give 'em a "haircut."

Now, The Chair was just that: some kid would be made to sit in a chair and face the wall in a corner like a child for a day or two, hands in their lap and both feet on the floor, not being allowed to speak and nobody allowed to speak with them.  They'd have to take their lunch in The Chair.  If some counselor deemed it necessary, sometimes the kid would be made to wear a paper sign taped to their back, with some message like "I am rebellious" or "Don't talk to me, I'm in The Chair."  Or sometimes, I remember now, they'd make a kid walk around with some sign all day but NOT make him sit in the Chair: "Ask me why I got a haircut today" or "I have issues" or "Ask me why I am so babyish" would read the humiliating message on the sign.

One time they made me wear a sign that read, "Ask me to bark like a dog" and all day long kids would come up to and ask me to bark like a dog, and I'd do it.

Another time Marcia made me dance around in Morning Meeting like a spazz, to "help" me "overcome my social hangups."  That stunt I recall to this day, and only added to my social hangups.

One time they made a kid walk around all week with a pacifier around his neck and whenever somebody asked him why he had the pacifier around his neck, he'd have to tell them "Because I am such a baby."

That particular kid is dead now.  He split from DAYTOP, stole a car, got drunk and high, coked up, went joyriding and ended up in...I think it was Oklahoma, and got he killed after running a red light.  Got broadsided by a truck and it decapitated the kid.  I still remember his name and went to the boy's funeral.  He was seventeen when he died.  That's a true story.

There are three kids who I was in DAYTOP with who are dead now.  I could tell you their names, too.

What do the people who come up with this stuff think they're going to accomplish (that is constructive) by making kids do this stuff?

More in a bit.

[Ursus]

If you still didn't go along with it, did too much complaining or asked too many questions, you might have to spend time in "The Chair" after a series of "haircuts."

The chair, I assume was a chair in the middle of a circle of chairs (the one in the center being the confronted one).. a hot seat technique. We had this in the program I was in. It was like a firing squad.

I've read that Hazelton was using the "hotseat" in the early-mid 70's when they were incorporating Synanon techniques (Hazelton participated in trainings at Eagleville Hospital just outside of Philadelphia; Eagleville learned their stuff directly from Synanon). But the "hotseat" is a concept probably as old as therapeutic communities are, which predates Synanon by at least two decades.

We had "haircuts" at Hyde School too, literally, haha! That was one way of addressing a "phony image." Some of us also had to dig our own graves, 6x6x2 holes that - if the measurements were off - would need to be filled and re-dug. Again. And again. Joe Gauld got some of his ideas from Cool Hand Luke. It was required viewing for years. Perhaps it still is...

[Ursus]

...If some counselor deemed it necessary, sometimes the kid would be made to wear a paper sign taped to their back, with some message like "I am rebellious" or "Don't talk to me, I'm in The Chair." Or sometimes, I remember now, they'd make a kid walk around with some sign all day but NOT make him sit in the Chair: "Ask me why I got a haircut today" or "I have issues" or "Ask me why I am so babyish" would read the humiliating message on the sign.

One time they made me wear a sign that read, "Ask me to bark like a dog" and all day long kids would come up to and ask me to bark like a dog, and I'd do it.

Ah, jeez, the friggin' signs... Elan School was real big on the signs. Hyde School even had them for a while. I think I remember one particular awful episode where some kid was forced to wear a big diaper (he was quite overweight, and this was one of the issues he was being confronted about), and a sign reading "Ask me why I'm such a baby."

From an old Time article in 1975:

Faced with a rebellious applicant, Gauld once shouted, "Listen, I'm telling you either change your attitude around me or I will jam it down your throat."

Although annual fees for tuition, board and room add up to a hefty $4,700 [not any more! lol], life at the small (enrollment: 175) coed boarding school is almost as rigorous as that of a Marine boot camp. Many of the students are troubled, and short-tempered Gauld treats them like a drill instructor faced with a platoon of left-footed recruits. He occasionally slaps and routinely humiliates the kids--with their parents' tacit consent--in a no-holds-barred effort to toughen them up and build their characters. "The rod is only wrong in the wrong hands," Gauld likes to say. When he finds that a student has what he considers a "bad attitude," Gauld may order him to wear a sign saying I ACT LIKE A BABY, or tell him to dig a 6-ft. by 6-ft. trench and then fill it up. He has even conducted a public paddling ceremony at Hyde...[/list]

[SEKTO]

One time they made a kid walk around all week with a pacifier around his neck and whenever somebody asked him why he had the pacifier around his neck, he'd have to tell them "Because I am such a baby."

That particular kid is dead now. He split from DAYTOP, stole a car, got drunk and high, coked up, went joyriding and ended up in...I think it was Oklahoma, and got he killed after running a red light. Got broadsided by a truck and it decapitated the kid. I still remember his name and went to the boy's funeral. He was seventeen when he died. That's a true story.

There are three kids who I was in DAYTOP with who are dead now. I could tell you their names, too.

One of turned into a junkie after he left DAYTOP, and got shot while trying to steal a car for heroin money.

Another kid went into a gang, and I heard that he got shot and killed in a drive-by.

Mike (the kid with the pacifier) got decapitated by a truck after splitting from DAYTOP.

Truthfully, I feel bad about Mike to this day.  I myself gave that kid vicious haircuts and made fun of him and laughed at him in group with everyone else.  

You're either a predator or prey in that situation, like psy said.  

Mike had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and was actually a sweet-natured kid with problems, not some fuckup.  And I made the kid suffer too.  God, I wish I'd tried to be his friend now!

I am tearing up, remembering Mike at this moment.  It makes me emotional.  I hadn't though of this stuff in years, kind of blocked it out.  I remember the guy well.  He was a good kid, really.  He was so scared and vulnerable.  He didn't need to be there.  He didn't deserve that.  He should have been in Special Ed, not some brutal environment like DAYTOP.

Here's the story with Mike: Mike's parents confided to Marcia that they'd adopted him as an infant, but didn't know whether they should tell Mike of this, or how to go about it.  They told Marcia this in confidence, and asked her not to tell him.  But she did anyway.  Marcia then broke their confidence, and "accidentally" told Mike that he was adopted.  She sort of slipped it into a conversation with his as if she assumed that he already knew...she took Mike aside one day and it went something like "So Mike, how old were you when you found out that you were adopted?"  The bitch thought she knew what was better for Mike than his parents did, and took it upon herself to tell their kid that he was adopted.  

So Mike freaks out, steals a car with some kid who split with him, they get all coked up and drunk, wind up in Oklahoma, run a red, and Mike winds up getting his head removed, just a two or three days after Marcia spills the beans.

The other kid in the car got out of it without a scratch and told me about it himself at Mike's funeral.  

We found out what Marcia had done only after she'd been fired; If I remember correctly the director of out facility told us about it.

So "Marcia" (not her real name) gets fired from DAYTOP over that shit and last I heard she worked for UPS.  She'll answer to her maker someday.

Like Forrest Gump said, that's all I have to say about that.

[SEKTO]

Gauld may order him to wear a sign saying I ACT LIKE A BABY, or tell him to dig a 6-ft. by 6-ft. trench and then fill it up. He has even conducted a public paddling ceremony at Hyde...

DAYTOP outpatient would do stuff like that too, make us wear signs, sit in The Chair all day, carry around baby bottles or wear pacifiers, make you bark like a dog, I never saw somebody made to dig a hole though, nothing quite so extreme; after all it was outpatient and we didn't have time for that...I remember they'd make kids walk around and pick up exactly 500 cigarette butts or exactly 500 blades of grass, some number like that, and label them all with tiny pieces of paper and tiny pieces of tape.  Lots of humiliation and degradation.  And then put you on the van and send you home.  And our parents let them do it.  DAYTOP had them thinking that this was all a good thing too, same as us kids.  Crazy, right?

[Ursus]

Here's the story with Mike: Mike's parents confided to Marcia that they'd adopted him as an infant, but didn't know whether they should tell Mike of this, or how to go about it. They told Marcia this in confidence, and asked her not to tell him. But she did anyway. Marcia then broke their confidence, and "accidentally" told Mike that he was adopted. She sort of slipped it into a conversation with his as if she assumed that he already knew...she took Mike aside one day and it went something like "So Mike, how old were you when you found out that you were adopted?" The bitch thought she knew what was better for Mike than his parents did, and took it upon herself to tell their kid that he was adopted.

So Mike freaks out, steals a car with some kid who split with him, they get all coked up and drunk, wind up in Oklahoma, run a red, and Mike winds up getting his head removed, just a two or three days after Marcia spills the beans.

The other kid in the car got out of it without a scratch and told me about it himself at Mike's funeral.

We found out what Marcia had done only after she'd been fired; If I remember correctly the director of out facility told us about it.

So "Marcia" (not her real name) gets fired from DAYTOP over that shit and last I heard she worked for UPS. She'll answer to her maker someday.

F-U-C-K!!! Staff like that... hell, if they don't come clean and express remorse for their past misdeeds... I really wouldn't feel too bad to see their names splashed on the internet 'till eternity!!

[SEKTO]

Yeah, I think she ought to be held accountable too, but it'd be irresponsible for me to go throwing her name around when I cannot absolutely prove what I say.  

I mean, I heard of all this through people I think are pretty reliable sources, but it still amounts to hearsay.  What is your opinion?

And the woman who was director of the place, the one who told us that Marcia had been fired?  She was HIV positive and never told anybody at the time, kids or parents.  

How'd I find out about her?  That's a long story that I'll recount tomorrow.

Once DAYTOP in Dallas closed down she went to work for Phoenix House.  I heard that she is dead now too, from an AIDS-related disease, so we probably can't ask her.

And the kid that told me that stuff at Mike's funeral?  I didn't know him that well, and cannot recall his name.

Off to bed now.  See you tomorrow, I hope.

[Ursus]

There was a gal at Hyde who died not too long after attending  — a "car accident" they said. I heard that she was having trouble in her marriage and that she ran her car into a telephone pole. The source who informed me didn't seem to think it was an "accident." Knowing Nina, I didn't think so either.

Nina Carbone -- I write her full name in honor of her memory (as well as the hope that someone who knows more will come across this one of these days and proffer more info) -- attended AA meetings in Brunswick while at Hyde School. I'm not sure whether they were obligatory or not, but Nina was trying her best to work the program and basically did all that was asked of her. Knowing how seriously she took everything, and some of her battles with what nowadays would be called "major depression," it would be entirely in keeping for her to beat herself up unnecessarily over some perceived slip-up and go overboard in self-loathing.

In fact, come to think of it, she tried to commit suicide before Hyde.

[SEKTO]

A few more thoughts this evening…

I should have perhaps named this thread "DAYTOP Did US Great Harm in the Long Run."  After all, I was not the only one.  When you get into the group mentality, and then try to get out of it it's not just MY story anymore, but OUR story.  You know?  But, it's MY therapy so here goes...

There was a sort of “core group” of DAYTOP grads that all graduated the program and left all about the same time.  We were about the only really solid group of grads that DAYTOP outpatient in Dallas had, and after we’d graduated the place closed down within a couple of years.  We all graduated within a few months of one another, went through second stage together for the most part and were in the same graduation ceremony…it was me, and some people I’ll call Billy, Carl, Ron, and Max.  Carl took two and a half years before they let him out of the place, for some reason.  And we all kept in touch with each other outside of the program too.  Except for Max; nobody is sure what ever happened to him, actually.  Anyway, Billy, Carl and I were all roommates off and on for the better part of three years after we’d graduated.  I moved away first, and Billy and Carl were roommates for another couple of years.  Ron would come around and hang out with us all of the time, but I lost track of him ten years ago or so.  We Datopians stuck together after we graduated, that is for sure.  I am still in touch with Billy and Carl to this day.  Carl and I spoke just yesterday, and Billy and I a few days ago.  We've had our rough spots over the years, but have always stayed in touch.  I have let them know about this thread, but I doubt that they'll participate.  Carl wanted to vomit, thinking about DAYTOP, it triggered him so bad.  

It was just a very co-dependent and abusive situation there for a while.  We learned how to re-create the group environment outside of the original group, but in a different situational context. None of us really individuated outside of DAYTOP.  We were all sort of co-dependent with each other.  And of course there was the one of us that developed the Alpha Dog mentality, and it turned into kind of a weird roommate cult of sorts.  I won't elaborate, you probably get the idea.  

We were kids; we didn't know what was going on.  

It's as if DAYTOP opened up the top of our skulls, scraped our brains and minds away, and replaced that with a bunch of "DAYTOP values" and "confront yourself in the eyes and hearts of others" shit, and then sent us out into the world again.  It'd be like being opened up, cut into during surgery, and then improperly sutured back together before being sent home.  Then you start bleeding all over the place, the would gets infected, bacteria gets into your blood, and then before you know it you have a systemic blood infection because of the botched surgery and the fact that the surgical team didn't close you up properly or give you any antibiotics or follow-up.  

That's what happened to us, but at a psychic level.  We weren't sutured back together properly individually, we got sutured together by DAYTOP and what started out as close friendships got warped into these purulent and toxic relationships and nasty patterns of behavior that continued for years.

That stuff totally stunted my emotional growth.

It's like I walked around with this big festering open wound for YEARS after the experience and am only just now seeing how badly the "doctors" botched the "surgery," you know?

And we did lots of acid and other psychedelics together in later years, too, to try and undo some of the DAYTOPian programming but that only re-enforced and strengthened the groupthink bond.  Taking a bunch of acid together in a tight-knit group like we were was like doing surgery on OURSELVES, like doing brain surgery on your buddy with a knife, fork, and spoon.  A different form of psychic surgery in an effort to try and correct the surgery that the non qualified "doctors" messed up in the first place.  Needless to say, crude, and very dangerous.  Very easily abused, or it's maybe more accurate to say, misused.

So I and my friends have had a lot of trouble adjusting to life outside of the group environment.  A lot of reckless, self-destructive behavior between us.  We've been to jail, other rehabs, I was in and around cults, you name it.

Again, it's all to show, to explain to you how my identity got undermined by being exposed to a philosophy that taught me that I was not who I thought I was, that I was who others told me that I am.  We were taught in DAYTOP to not trust our own minds, because (since we were convinced that were "dope fiends") our own minds were going to lead us down the road to self-destruction, so our only hope was to stay in a group.  That's why some of us stayed together as roommates, or at least lived close by to one another, for YEARS after leaving DAYTOP.  

It's analogous to the Christian twisted-Scriptural idea of there being no salvation outside of the local "Body", which usually in those circles means "our church," or "our group."  

DAYTOP philosophy totally got into my head, I personalized it and took it to heart, and as a result my boundaries were erased and personally I felt like a zero with the rim rubbed out for years after the fact.  Totally exposed, totally open, utterly vulnerable.  It's taking a lot of time and work to put that rim back.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that what I do defines me, not the other way around,

Can you explain please what you mean by that psy?  Expand on this statement?

Also, there was this neat page that I found the other day.  It explains how it is that eventually one starts playing the "psychological coin trick" on oneself.  This one really sent me on a head trip.  It's from:

http://www.piney.com/sky1.html

Mind Manipulation

A Psychological Coin Trick In my work at Wellspring in helping victims of cults and spiritual abuse understand what happened to them I often demonstrate a simple coin trick. I place three coins on a table and keep a fourth in one hand. Let's say the coins on the table are a quarter, a nickel, and a penny, and the one in my hand is also a penny. I don't tell the person what coin I have in my hand; rather, I say, "I can read your mind, and I have already predicted what you are about to do. The coin in my hand will prove to you that this is so. Now, what I want you to do is to pick up any two of the coins on the table." Let's say he picks up the quarter and the nickel, leaving the penny on the table. As I show him the penny in my hand I say, "Was there any way I could have known you would leave the penny on the table?" The answer, of course, is "No," and he begins to believe that maybe I do have ESP. But then I tell him to pick up a different combination of coins. So he picks up the quarter and the penny, leaving the nickel on the table. Now I say, "Give me either one of the coins you just picked up." Let's say he gives me the penny. Then I say to him as I again show him the penny in my hand, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would give me the penny?" Again, the answer is "No." But by now he's beginning to see what I'm doing. Finally, I tell him that there is only one other possible outcome of the trick. Instead of leaving the penny on the table, or picking it up with another coin and then giving it me, he could have picked it up but then kept it while giving me the other coin. I explain that in that case I would have shown him the penny in my hand and said, "Ah, ha! Was there any way I could have known you would keep the penny?" Now he understands that all I'm doing is interpreting what he does after he does it. I don't say at the start that the coin in my hand will be the same as the coin he leaves or gives me or keeps. I wait till he makes his move and then I only interpret what he does afterwa seem like I have psychic powers.

I believe what this shows is that our behavior is often at least partly a result of the way other people treat us, and is not necessarily a true measure of our character or intellect.

Any thoughts?

[SEKTO]

Here's a little more:  

I remember now, thinking about all of this stuff, pulling up old memories that I have not thought about or processed in years (this is really taking me back) that one thing phrase that got thrown around a lot in one form or another, whenever some kid was acting rebellious or being disobedient or "copping an attitude" in any way, went something  like this during the haircut or whatever:

"THE SIGN ON THE WALL SAYs DAYTOP, NOT PLAYTOP, SO IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, YOU CAN LEAVE, AND DON'T LET THE DOOR SWAT YOUR BUTT ON THE WAY OUT!!!"

Or, sometimes instead of the "It's not PLAYTOP, it's DAYTOP" line they'd use  "It's called DAYTOP, not DAYCARE, so if you don't like it why don't you LEAVE and see where you end up!!!"

...or some variation like that, therefore erecting the bars in our minds.  A lot of us were forced to go into DAYTOP by our parents, and some were probated there.  If we leave, split, where are we gonna go, the streets?  Deadinsanejaildeadinsanejaildeadinsanejail...and our parents were duped into believing us to be a bunch of fuckups, too, so who's going to believe their kid when the kid comes home at night and says "I hate that place.  I'm being abused and degraded there.  They're trying to brainwash me."  You know?

My Dad would say, "It's tough love, not a recreation center."  At the center, Marcia would tell me not to think too much: onedayatatimeonedayatatimeonedayatatime...And I started to actually to be grateful for the ongoing punishment.  It was just one long coercion in DAYTOP.

A couple more DAYTOP values, too, that I recall now are these, maybe these people will be held accountable one day, according to the very principles they taught us:

IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH (Yeah, I'd like to see it all come out in the wash, all right.)  Also

WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND  (Yes it does, Marcia, yes it does...)

Or when somebody would ask about how DAYTOP came up with its methods, they'd tell us about Synanon (I heard about Synanon there and the literal haircuts in DAYTOP's early days, I think that the old director there was in Synanon) we were told that a lot of this stuff was borrowed and adapted from Synanon, but then (and this, remember, was before the Internet existed) they'd tell us "But you know, Synanon was a cult, and we just took some of their best methods and adapted them; Synanon was abusive and fanatical, but DAYTOP is humane and nurturing and here's why..."  

After all, the head guy is a priest, he must be keeping our best interests at heart, right?  Yeah, right.  Not an abusive cult my ass.