Allow me to indulge a bit of self pity here, then I will move on to more positive things. I hate this side of me when I get going on this Straight stuff but maybe it just has to come out and someone else is in the same space and will actually appreciate reading this.

A lawsuit says: “What you did was not ok.”

Just like confronting your rapist in a courtroom. The things that happened to me were not ok. I should not have had my head slammed in to the wall repeatedly resulting in a bloody gash that got me a trip to the hospital, and possibly a concussion (still trying to track down those medical records). A trip out of the Building I was very happy about by the way- a trip out anywhere was a good thing- then what could have happened? A cracked skull, broken nose, slipping in to a coma?
At the time there were so many others being restrained, I was lucky that someone was there to catch her and stop her.

I hate them for this. For the risks they took with us. There were so many other things; being kicked, slapped, punched, all “in the line of duty”. My glasses were broken so many times they were always taped up. I haven’t read anything in my parents stuff yet about their thoughts on that. The medical conditions that got worse and worse due to the fact that no higher phaser was able to get me up and out of group as often as was necessary for my problems, and then the infirmary was somewhere only the lucky (too far gone) few made it to. Most things were just considered an excuse to get out of group and largely ignored.

The risks I put myself in were bad too, but they were my decisions. Some lunatic was calling himself a doctor and was able to pass himself off as treatment and put me in that position. My parents thought (hoped?) I was safe.  If I was on my own and I got in the car with a creep, well that was it. My college fund didn’t pay for what came next.

How many times could something really bad have happened? More often than the amount of times I put myself in harm’s way. Restraining kids was a daily thing, often multiple times per day.

Anyway, mom’s letter said we met with someone after Straight and it looked like we could have filed a lawsuit but I and she “agreed” Straight had done something for me so there was no reason to do that. EXCEPT, I didn’t know any better as a scared kid, terrified that if I went all the way over to the other side they would really do something bad to me. For years there was still the fear that I would wake up there, and if I somehow got sent back, if I had sued, I can’t imagine what would have happened if I had had to go back. My position in the household was none to safe at that time. All mom would have had to do was send me back to dad, and he still believed very much in The Program.

I also believed in something I will call Straight Karma. If I kept saying it was good, it was beneficial, maybe I could exist outside without drinking, doing drugs, running away, or spontaneously combusting. If I said anything negative, all bets were off. I might then end up going off the wrong road and get drunk, high and dead. There were so many years where I believed that I had no control over my behavior and I would just be struck drunk or high and back to the old stuff but worse. Especially as an adult this was scary to imagine, especially as my life began to improve.

There was also the fear that I would end up back there somehow. I always had the sneaking fear that I would eventually be incarcerated, as if I was born to be in jail, that somehow my soul was meant for imprisonment. This sounds so simplified but when beliefs like that are so much a part of you, you don’t question them. We were sleep deprived, ill nourished, terrified, and the mantra was, over and over, "Jails, Institutions, or Death." if you didn't follow The Program. You don’t think anything of it and to question it and believe that something different is possible  took years and years of proving the opposite to myself before I believed it.

As a 15 year old, there was so much fear and there was no way I wanted to mess up my chances. I will always love my friend, years later, who told me that I was the source, I was the one who made the changes. She reminded me of this and kept at it even when I didn’t believe it. Straight’s legacy in my mind was that if something bad happened it was my fault, if something good, it was blind luck and it wouldn’t last long.

As I grew older, I started to listen to my  instinct, not listening to the things that had been had been planted in my head, that was the voice that steered me so subtly, the little voice that kept speaking up:  

“Isn’t it time to get back to school, isn’t it time to quit smoking, get in shape, stop overeating…Start writing and just keep doing it."

It is horrifying to discover that ideas and beliefs in your mind are not your own but there nonetheless. The only thing I can see to get them out is years of proving them wrong, almost like you have to make the argument to yourself, and win it, like running. The voice keeps saying you’re weak, you’re weak, but your legs keep moving anyway, even saying sure, you’re right, but in the end proving it wrong.

My whole life after Straight was this exact type of thing. There were times when I screwed up and gave in to the thoughts and acted on the belief that they were right and I was doomed to failure. All the times I didn’t were a testament to my faith in myself and something better,  even if I didn’t think it was possible, just doing it anyway. Thank God for that.

There was also the thinking that I had to be tough. If I sued it would make me a wuss in my eyes and everyone else’s. I couldn’t have this; the other thing Straight gave me was a perverse feeling of superiority. Nothing else could match that experience and I got through and somehow  endured it for a over a year. How many people can say that? Certainly not all the little wimps in AA who went to cushy rehab places where you got to watch TV and smoke.

 I still clung to the idea that it helped and maybe it did. Maybe it scared me enough to get me to stop my behavior. Then I read somewhere that behavior often naturally changes over time and a year older is a year wiser. Who knows, so in this case I am not sure what to say in the end.  If  “the treatment”  wasn’t mixed up with all the negativity and my brain wasn’t permanently messed with then would it have been so bad? Straight left behind stuff that was so much worse than seems necessary. I was never violent until the third time I was brought back to Straight (hmmm), what had I done to deserve the things that happened to me in there?

The drug  “war” was done to the exclusion of any other solution which would have been more applicable. Instead of it being a symptom of something it was the cause which made no sense. Dealing with it that way left no room to fix the underlying problem and many times made it worse. But then…

That which does not kill you makes you stronger. Right?

My sister said that she found a picture that showed me right after I got out and I was so pale and that everyone in there was like that. Pale, not healthy looking. Wouldn’t that have been a sign after a few months that something wasn’t right?

I had a thought: What if when I was 14 someone asked me what was going on at school and I gave them an honest answer. The bullying, humiliation, the stealing and why and what was I doing it and explained to me that there were positive things I could do with myself. I could feel better about myself and the mean people were wrong, not me being wrong for not being able to “beat” them. I am sure that some of that went on but because there is the mistrust of adults, the fear of being judged as more of a weakling, and the ever loving shame about the whole business, I am sure I wouldn’t have. So if Straight's method of kids helping kids was so right then what if kids were helping you see that there was a better way? That you could stick up for yourself and here’s how. Here’s how you talk to your parents, whatever.

A bit of a fantasy right? You don’t see stuff until it’s advantageous to do so but in all that time I was there, supposedly being therapeutic and recovered and all that, if the information and help was there when I was ready for it, wouldn’t that have been nice? What if instead of drilling negative messages in to my unwilling head they drilled positive ones? What would have been the result then?

This is what kills me is that I was told and my parents were told that this would make me better and this was therapy. There’s a certain amount of skeptical faith there, for the parents at least who are doing their damndest to help even if they are ignoring their own part in things missing a diagnosis simply because they don’t want to face it, or maybe they did try. What if that was what PI was all about? I would love to look at my records from there. See how much therapy I actually got as I really don’t remember much but I do remember liking part of my time three. I was out of school and that was a good thing. I was with misfits like me, that was good and I always will remember most of the kids in there with a real fondness. If only Straight could be like that.

And why did I have to push the envelope all the time? A few of the times I ran away  were me sneaking out, getting caught, mom and dad were looking for me, and then me taking off so as not to face what I was going to get for sneaking out in the first place. I always had to up the ante. Why was that? I piss myself off. What were my parents supposed to think really? I was stealing money, sneaking out, getting in trouble; everyone everywhere blamed drugs for everything. It was only a matter of time until that one was laid at my feet.

And so it goes, the internal debate:

“You deserved it, no you didn’t that was BS, well, what’s  done is done, yeah but I am tired of feeling that it was all my fault, that I deserved to be put in there, that I wanted it…”

Did I ask for It?