I just got back from Island View RTC a few months ago, and although it did help me very much, I am finding out now that the program was very easy to "fake".
I am coming out now and finding other past residents of the program and finding that many of them have gone back to old habits such as drugs. I ask them why, and they tell me the same old bullshit about how they brainwashed me at Island View, and how I was incarcerated for a while. But looking back, Island View was a great experience.
Sometimes I don't feel that way, and frankly sometimes I am mad that I was sent there. But I am reassured in the way my life is running now as opposed to the way it was running then. One of the best pieces of advice, however, was to "take what applies to you, forget the rest." For example, if I was the girl whose therapist thought I was a Satanist, I would have done the best I could to ignore whatever he had to say about my "Satanism," and get what good I can from what he says. I gained very much self esteem at Island View, but like they always told me, it is only the beginning of the journey. It continues as you go, and you realize what truly applies and what is complete crap.
Also, I am somewhat angry over the way some of the former staff treated me; they cracked racist jokes, but yelled at me when I did the same; they pushed their political agendas on us...other stuff...but eventually they left, and I could continue with my treatment. The best advice I could possibly give for faulty staff is the Serenity Prayer...accept what you cannot change, change what you cannot accept...something like that...but there was a system of grievances, and had the program not worked out for me, I eventually would have realized that I needed to accept the situation as it was and deal with it. But lucky for me, I gained a lot from this program, and I recommend it to any parent who is having trouble with their child's harmful behavior. But, while it is not perfect, I have been thinking about taking action against some of the corrupt ideals that were at Island View...for example, if this girl really claims she was "touched" by one of the staff, that is totally unacceptable. But rest assured, staff there HAVE been fired for unnacceptable conduct.
As far as I am concerned, the program worked for me, and there was usually a system of checks and balances amongst the staff. But still, sometimes I feel like it was dangerous to have no control over what happened to me. The truth is, I am still trying to figure all this out.
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