On 2005-01-29 09:53:00, Antigen wrote:
"I don't know about all that. The only contact I had w/ LIFE was going to school with a couple of girls from there and a 2 hour intake interview, which I walked away from.
In school, we weren't allowed to talk to them but they were allowed to talk to us. They were also allowed to wear makeup.
The intake was pretty much the same as a Straight intake, except that I was 18 and HRS and the local DA were hot on abusive practices in these programs at the time. I didn't know all that. I knew I was 18, though, and that I wasn't having any more of this shit.
I did get the feeling that they were a lot less brutal. More love bombing, less physical pain. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't a total mindfuck for those who did sign in. I have a hard time believing that Helen Peterman and George Ross somehow learned to treat substance abuse, quit accepting non addicted kids and quit being the berzerkers they were so prone to be when they worked at The Seed and/or Straight. They certainly took it on faith that I was an addict.
I'm guessing the girls you saw at school were 6th phasers or 7th steppers. I can't remember at which phase you were allowed to wear makeup, or even put lotion on for that matter.
LIFE Definitely took it on faith that everyone was a druggie. I certainly wasn't on drugs, and as I've said before, I spent more times trying to cover up my mother's habits.
There's is another post about Helen Peterman not saying "boo" unless you were misbehaving. Well, I guess I was misbehaving by keeping my mouth shut, and hiding behind my hair - usually crying. Petermann would actually interrupt raps in progress to stand me up.
She storms in one day. SARA _______ - STAND UP!
I was bewildered... I didn't do a damned thing outside of the ordinary. Hell, I didn't do shit to wind up there in the first place, so I was a little bit afraid that someone was actually going to produce of few kilos of drugs by this time.
I stood there while she said things like "you think you're so smart / you think we don't know what you're doing / we know just what you're doing, and if you think you're going to get away with it, you'll go straight to Palms (Psych hospital we were all threatened with)"
For the life of me - I have no idea what I did. She ended the "mini rap" by addressing the group "It's people like Sara that you have to look out for - they look like librarians, but they're up to something"
I never did find out what brought that on. At the time I was shocked that she would even find out I was singing a folk tune - "I Shall Be Released" in my head. That didn't even constitute "rocking out"!
I also watched her pull hair on other kids. This was
not a nice woman.
[ This Message was edited by: ~-=Sara=-~ on 2005-01-30 03:59 ][ This Message was edited by: ~-=Sara=-~ on 2005-01-30 04:01 ]
