Which is it?

[Mamma Bird]

Sitting here looking at the emotional mess I am and the shambles my marriage is (and every relationship amways is even though I somehow never see the obvious coming), and considering how fucked I am and have been since I was 8 or so, I have to wonder: am I this fucked up today because I was in Straight, or was I in Straight because I'm this fucked up?
  Don't get me wrong, I'm positive Straight made me worse. And that it was absolutely the worst place in the world for a shy, confused and extremely angry 13-year-old with emotional problems to be. I'm just wondering if it was ever possible for me to be a healthy and well-adjusted person. I guess I'll never know.

 I doubt I'm the only person here to have wrestled with this question...I would love some input.

 Wishing us all a little peace,

 Erin

[Idreamofnewtonsburning]

You may have had some problems before Straight, but Straight made them worse and caused new ones, too.  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Recovery Group Disorder, and Stockholm Syndrome (victims sympathizing with their victimizers) are a few I've seen in Straight victims.  You exhibit a little bit of all three by the very nature of your post.  I'm particularly amazed at the number of Stockholm Syndrome cases I've come across here...people who say "I got SOME good from the program"--BULLSHIT!  You were just indoctrinated to believe that.  THEY FUCKED YOU UP!  They did it to me over 20 years ago and I'm still pissed!  Telling me, or any other Straight Survivor or Victim (many did NOT survive the ordeal) to "get over it" would be like telling an Auschwitz survivor to "let bygones be bygones".  Hell, at least they weren't telling you "Love Ya!" every five minutes in Auschwitz!

NEVER FORGIVE!! NEVER FORGET!!

[Mamma Bird]

You know what, you're right. The fact that I feel like I need to "go to the group" instead of figuring this shit out for myself is classic, isn't it?
 
It's scary once when you finally figure out that actually, no one has a magic formula that can be applied to life in order to be a happy and succesful person. Or that no one has all the answers and I'm just going to have to get to the bottom of whatever is eating away at me myself, or maybe even accept that the teeth are part of me and will always be there and learn to adjust.

Erin

[kaydeejaded]

yes it is classic, because I keep coming back here too again and again and ....

even if we were fucked up, we were young and that place was rough. If our parents were so concerned about the company we kept they should of thought a little harder before they fed us straight (pardon pun) to the wolves. I was timid for a second before I went in there, and I was 14. Like you young, too young for that place.

Changed forever by it too. Like everyone else.  But damn, drug addicts at 13 and 14?? I don't think so. Please! I'll tell you one thing though I hate my parents as much today as I did sitting in front row all those years ago. That is one thing they got and got to keep forever. Hope it was worth it.

Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins.
-- Scrope Davies: Letter to Thomas Raikes, May 25, 1835.

[Therion]

Nope...Straight fucked you up..

 Sure you may have been a bit rebellious..But I know alot of people that went from rebellious to sucess...
 My sister said to me "But Brad, you were "fucked up" when you went in"
 Which I was not...mabey from having an Insane Mom who was abusive with split personalities..other than that I was fine..

 Drug addict? Fuck...please..Tell your parents to fly down here and Ill show them some real drugg addicts..

[Therion]

Im going to answer your Question with a song
 Think of your parents and Straight as "Disentegrator"


he lives inside my mouth
and tells me what to say
when he turns the trains
on he makes it go away
the hands are cracked and dirty and
the nails are beetle wings
when he turns the trains on he
unties all of the strings
[The worm:] "tell me something beautiful,
tell me something free,
tell me something beautiful
and i wish that i could be."
(then i got my wings and i never even knew it,
when i was a worm, thought i couldn't get through it)
[Jack: (not spoken)] come, come
the toys all smell like children
and scab-knees will obey
i'll just have to kneel on broomsticks
just to make it go away
[the inauguration of the worm]
(then i got my wings and i never even knew it,
when i was a worm, thought i couldn't get through it)

[a voice we have not yet heard:] "because today
is black/because there is no turning back.
because your lies have watered me/
i have become the strongest weed" weed...
[through jack's eyes:]
the taste of metal
disintegrator
three holes upon the leather belt
it's cut and swollen
and the age is swollen
[boy:] " there's no one here to save ourself."
[the disintegrator: (to himself)]
this is what you should fear
you are what you should fear

[ehm]

I have asked myself the same question, and I always answer, "It was both." to myself. We were children who needed help, but didn't get it. We were tortured, and forced to earn the privilege to be accepted through abandoning our identities. I've always felt lost and confused about who I was after the camp, and then straight. I was cheated out of the individuality, and taught to doubt my true nature. I could go on and on, and I've suffered confusion my whole adult life. I fell very lucky for the marriage I have, and my life right now, yet I still have a tendency to go through depressions. Have you ever been diagnosed with anything else? Are you in therapy of any kind?

I'm truly sorry you're going through a hard time, but you are not alone.

Take care.

::heart::

It takes a village idiot to believe that a family needs instruction from the government to raise a child.
-- Anonymous homeschooler

[Mamma Bird]

The identity thing is so hard, isn't it? I am so good at sensing what someone whats to see/hear and playing to that, that I often get the playing confused with who I really am. And then I'm furious at whoever is expecting me to play the role that really I can't deny, I created and encouraged them to believe. But of course I do that, that was basic survival in Straight. I wish I could stop it, but frankly I don't know how.

I'm trying to get therapy. My husband is not supportive and as I don't work outside the home right now, I need his financial if not emotional support...he's pissed off, but I think I've won this one. I was diagnosed as manic-depressive(my mother saw a show about it and decided that was wrong, I found tons of COC's between her and staff with her trying to convince them I had it) in Straight after one 5 minute consultation with their shrink, when I was misbehaving and doing a lot of self-harming. I am certainly depressive, but manic, I don't think so. They put me on lithium which DID make me crazy and took me off it after a couple of months. Also after my daughter died a doctor prescribed anti-depressants but I never took them, I wanted my grief with all its edges, if that makes sense.

Thanks for making me feel less alone.

[Therion]

Mamma why do you think Im single?

Im not ugly...and Im very nice...



But Im fucking nuts...

Women love me the first mmm month or so then they start to notice and ruuuun like hell..

[ehm]

If my husband wasn't supportive, I don't know what I'd do, It would be very hard on me. You need your husband's support, 100%! I would try talking him into therapy, because without mutual compassion and communication, your marriage may suffer. Being unhappy with it is a big warning sign to seek counseling of some kind.

That feeling you describe of feeling fake is common among BPD sufferers.
 http://www.borderlinepersonality.ca/bpdletter.htm  
I was diagnosed with BPD after straight, along with PTSD, ADD, and depression, but am recovering now. Straight made all of my problems so much worse. The feelings of self doubt, and self hatred due to being trained to think I was nothing without the program. Never did I have a chance to get help for the abuse I'd been through before straight, or the abuse inflicted by straight.

Overcoming all the setbacks straight caused in our lives takes two main things: Consciously deciding to to think differently about ourselves, and then changing the behaviors that don't agree with our lives.

It's good to have people who understand in your life. I'm here if you ever want to talk: [email protected]



 :smile:

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much
liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

--Thomas Jefferson, 1791, in a letter to Archibald Stuart

[Anonymous]

On 2004-02-13 03:40:00, Mamma Bird wrote:

"The identity thing is so hard, isn't it? I am so good at sensing what someone whats to see/hear and playing to that, that I often get the playing confused with who I really am. And then I'm furious at whoever is expecting me to play the role that really I can't deny, I created and encouraged them to believe. But of course I do that, that was basic survival in Straight. I wish I could stop it, but frankly I don't know how.



I'm trying to get therapy. My husband is not supportive and as I don't work outside the home right now, I need his financial if not emotional support...he's pissed off, but I think I've won this one. I was diagnosed as manic-depressive(my mother saw a show about it and decided that was wrong, I found tons of COC's between her and staff with her trying to convince them I had it) in Straight after one 5 minute consultation with their shrink, when I was misbehaving and doing a lot of self-harming. I am certainly depressive, but manic, I don't think so. They put me on lithium which DID make me crazy and took me off it after a couple of months. Also after my daughter died a doctor prescribed anti-depressants but I never took them, I wanted my grief with all its edges, if that makes sense.



Thanks for making me feel less alone.





 

"

Sounds like you've been through alot even post Straight. I'm so sorry to hear that you lost your daughter. That is just tragic.
I can't imagine that helps with all else you've been through.

I know that feeling too well...always sensing what someone wants to see or hear and giving it often at my own expense. Little by little, year by year I've gotten better with that, but that longing to "go to the group" and get feedback still lingers...the anxiety that persists, the approval seeking...But we were trained intensively and we were told you can't survive without the group.

I was only 15 and already in a hospital when I was tricked into the program and my doctors lied to. The doctors at the hospital said I was fine and wanted to send me to a boarding school because my mother was nuts. I guess she didn't like that so... there I was.

What I was getting at was that many of us were simply young and at an age when we were supposed to be learning how to socialize and interact. It's no wonder that learning the crazy shit we learned about how to interact, react, and treat each other, that we come out trying to grasp the world and all our relationships in the same way.

Post Traumatic Stress PTSD is a big one for sure. I can't imagine too many people escaped that one.  

I've found that now, if nothing else seeing a therapist makes me feel a bit less alone in what I'm going through and also affirms that I'm alot less crazy than I sometimes feel at times. I was able to find someone who was willing to see me cheap on a sliding scale since money is a bit of an issue for me at the moment.

I don't expect to ever conquer all the effects, but they become more subtle as time goes by.
 There is hope but the progress is slow. Talking to someone might help. Just remember there is hope.

[Therion]

Always, known in, all my time,
A little left of center now
Reflect as I realize,
That all I need is to find the middle pillar path to sit like the sun by a star in the sky and
Just be.
Sinners, casting stones at me

I... I stand, not crawling, not falling down
I... I bleed the demons that drag me down
I... I stand, (for nothing), not crawling, (the center), not falling down (of calms within the eye)
I... I?ll bleed, (for no one), the demons, (but myself), that pull me down (for me and no one else)

Goodbye, sunshine, I?ve put it out again, sad
I?m over, personalities, conflicting, I don?t need you, or anyone, but me, I?ll just be, living
My own life
I feel my glowing center grow, infecting
I feel alive
Shovel dirt over lime, plant it in myself to sit like a seed under covers of earth and just be
Sinners, pointing fingers at me

I... I stand, (for nothing), not crawling, (by myself), not falling down
I... I bleed, (for no one), the demons, (but myself), that drag me down
I... I stand, (for nothing), not crawling, (the center), not falling down (of calms within the eye)
I... I?ll bleed, (for no one), the demons, (but myself), that pull me down (for me and no one else)