hello! everybody! I am not dead!!

The main friend I am thinking of, the place they went was pretty focused on compliance training. The person was also sent not at all voluntarily. They had some pretty serious mental health stuff going on, which their parents decided was associated with their queer identity and community. Different circumstance, and more than a decade ago now as well. I am happy to hear not everyone has experiences like that.

 

Oh, sorry then. I've heard of other people who had terrible experiences with this exact thing (tbh, just using gooning points to massive issues), among with, well, I don't know which therapeutic boarding school you went to but basically all of them I've heard of, so I probably made too many assumptions.
I'm not gonna say your experiences aren't valid, you might, however, want to know that processing this sort of stuff often takes a while after getting out (especially since I assume you're still living with your parents?)
People here will probably be available for support no matter what.

 

I'm super glad you had a good experience and that the places you went to were good places. That whole kind of camp thing gives me a lot of concern in general, but it's good to know that there are ones that actually walk the talk, so to speak.

 

alix, i know this probably isn't your intent, but you sound very condescending and dismissive of what eP is saying.

 

Yeah, sorry about that. It's really hard to phrase things in a way that's not dismissive of anyone's experiences there, unfortunately.

 

unsure of what everyone's personal thoughts on ep's lived experiences and how he weighs them has 2 do w/ a welcome back thread, i'm sure if he's got stuff he wants to discuss he'll make a thread in a relevant forum :)

hey dude super nice 2 see u again! glad you're doing better. did you see any chickens in hawaii???

 

WELCOME BACK! \o/

 

Yeah, it's a relief to hear that you're doing a lot better. I'd guessed it was something close to what actually happened, but it's good to know.

AFAIK none of the D&D games you were in got very far (I can get into what happened with the Maze in PM if you like, don't want to drag old problems into your welcome back thread), but if and when you feel up to DMing, I'd love a chance to play with my Bastard-saint again. :)

 

yeah, this isn't really the place for a heavy discussion, huh. I don't mind if people want to talk to me about this whole shebang, or talk about these kind of practices—it's an interesting discussion!—and if people want a thread elsewhere let's start one, but I don't. know where? that would go? Brains, or?? anyway I'm not sure of the level of interest in that.

thanks, man! I did, but only briefly, because while there are a lot of feral chickens they tend to be where the people are, and the program was very definitely where the people weren't. but I spotted a few on outings or driving to the clinic or w/e, and I interacted with some excellent, very large Beach Ducks on one memorable occasion. one of the teachers at the school kept chickens, though! he was trying to cross Seramas and Icelandics, and he had the incubator/the young chicks in his classroom, ostensibly so his biology class could study them, but mostly I think because people like chicks. all the ones that lived looked mostly Icelandic, so I dunno how successful the crossing part was, but they were very nice anyway. :P

sure, I'd like to know what happened there! :P I got a good character concept out of it, anyways.

yeah, Marian's great! that game is great! all the exciting changes I have planned are great!!! I'll see what I can do. ;)

 

Ahhh, I'm so glad you're back and doing okay! Been wondering, from time to time, so it's nice to know for real, and just... yay~!

 

It seems the discussions of residential things, obviously more geared on inpatient care, have historically been in Brainbent, Brains, and I think maybe ITA too. ITA would have implications but might be a bit safer re: triggering people, Brains might conversely be a better place for general discussion with more people getting involved (and potentially getting harmed, but oh well), and I guess Brainbent is more of a venting space now. So I guess ITA or Brains depending on what kind of discussion you want to have?

 

I would say Brains, considering. Theres still tags and the ignore button or it can be moved if it goes ITA wards.

 

Also: I'm sorry for being confrontational on this, again, I was mostly reacting to the experiences of other people, and was stupid in assuming yours was the same. I understand it was invalidating, condescending and just overall rude. I also apologize for the things I've said about this in other threads.

 

@palindromordnilap I realized that my suddenly dropping this thread may have looked like I was deliberately ignoring your apology (as opposed to dropping off the face of the forum for a couple weeks, which is what actually happened), which is definitely not my intent. I'm sorry if it came off that way to you; that would be a very unpleasant thing for someone to do after you've just apologized. thank you very much for the apology! (I didn't actually know you were talking about this in other threads, but I'm happy you apologized for it nonetheless.) I don't think what you said was unspeakably rude or anything, and I really wasn't that upset by it, but I'm glad you took my feedback as graciously as you did. I guess I'm not yet used to people actually apologizing in arguments, or being reasonable about feedback, or just generally being courteous. :P it's nice! I like it! the only thing is that I don't think it was "stupid"—presumptuous, sure, but not stupid. don't get down on yourself and apologize for something you didn't do, all right?

I also realize that this conversation, and what I've said about my experiences, is probably pretty frustrating to you, because I'm sure it looks like I've been brainwashed and will inevitably look back once I've been out of the environment long enough and be like, "wow, that was actually terrible and abusive." I really don't think that's true right now, and I don't particularly think I was brainwashed, but I expect that's what someone who was brainwashed would say and think, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk. I should also explain that I associate that "treatment sucks and is punitive and pointless and terrible" (which people there generally expressed as "this place is a prison," because the kind of people expounding that attitude tended to be completely unaware of and not conversant in issues re: abuse in that specific term) attitude with people who a) were attending the exact same treatment I was and which I thought was not punitive or pointless, b) lacked any self-awareness but had what I thought were definite problems that could be addressed by treatment, and c) were confrontational, very rude to adults who were just trying to help, and generally angry, and therefore, because of my issues, were extremely unpleasant for me to be around. because of that—not because of anything the program staff said or did—I did not vocalize my discontent with how I ended up in the programs I went to around other kids, although my parents sure got an earful. anyway, you more or less expressed that attitude (although you are otherwise not anything like the kids who were loudest about it in treatment), and so I reacted as though you were one of those people and got defensive. but you're not, so I apologize for reacting the same way just because you said similar things. that was uncharitable and irrational of me.

 

It's fine! I'll be honest, I actually am a lot like these people in some situations, from what you describe, so it wasn't that irrational of you. (I've got a history with institutional abuse and behavior modification, which leads to me reacting to anything that pings me as that with a defiant and aggressively confrontational attitude. Which, yes, really isn't ideal, especially when false positives happen.)
I did notice you were overall pretty inactive these last few weeks, and while I did get a bit worried (as I usually do when people stop posting for a while), I didn't think you were deliberately ignoring that apology or anything.