Saturday, May 11, 2013

Review of Straightling: A Memoir

Below is a book review from the April 2013 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine, Page 8 about a rehab form hell.
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Book Review

Book tells story of a straightened-out victim

Straightling: A Memoir
By Cyndy Drew Etler
Lucky 17 Publishing, 2012
Paperback, 229 pages
ISBN 978-1469902807
List: $9.99 Amazon: $9.99

By Richard Morchoe

Dissident Vladimir Bukovsky related a story about the Soviet regime, “One nasty morning Comrade Stalin discovered that his favorite pipe was missing. Naturally, he called in his henchman, Lavrenti Beria, and instructed him to find the pipe. A few hours later, Stalin found it in his desk and called off the search. "But, Comrade Stalin," stammered Beria, "five suspects have already confessed to stealing it."
We can only imagine the brutality of a totalitarian regime that could make people confess to things they never did and be glad it could never happen here, except that it could and did.  Not only that, those who admitted to things they never did, came to believe their own guilt.
There were no guard towers surrounding the installations in this country.  Barbed wire did not encircle the venues.  Rubber hoses and truncheons were not used to force confessions and yet, they occurred.  A Gestapo or KGB did not search for deviations from orthodoxy to ensnare the deviant.  It was much more effective because of whom the betrayer was, mom and dad.
Cyndy Drew Etler spent 18 months in Straight Inc.  She was willing to confess to near anything except the Soviet Dictator’s pipe and she might have done that if it could have conceivably held marijuana.  Not that she had vast experience with cannabis. 
Cyndy was a teenager from Connecticut with a few problems, but she was not a hardcore drug user or alcoholic.  Not untypical of her contemporaries, she had been drunk once and stoned twice.  She was guilty of having a troubled home life.   Her stepfather molested her and her mother was not notable for being aware or interested.
She dealt with the unpleasant domestic situation by staying away, crashing with friends until the authorities became involved.  Her time at Janus House for Youth in Crisis, a place for a short-term stay, felt like Nirvana compared to home. 
Given a choice, she chose foster care over being sent home.  Home has to be pretty bad for a child to want to be placed with strangers.  Most 14 year olds think parents the enforcers of unreasonable rules and regulations.  In spite of that, few would want to leave the familiar hearth for the unknown.
 It was not to be.  Apathy Mom all of a sudden got involved and signed her into an organization endorsed by Princess Di, already a living saint, but not yet a dead goddess.  Nancy Reagan had also given her imprimatur.  What could be more wholesome?
Sold to her as a boarding school, the truth dawned soon after arrival when the system of restraint, holding belt loops, was used on her.  There were no artsy, cool hippy type teachers as she had anticipated.  Instead, an intake interview was an inquisition to start the policy of breaking her down.
Cyndy didn’t have a clue as to what was happening to her.  For a while she thought that they would see she is not a druggie and let her go home.  That hardly worked so she figured to give them what they wanted. 
In one of the group sessions she “shares” her account of the beating and molestation at the hands of Jacque, her stepfather.  She felt support and understanding and that will lead to her liberation.
Boy was she deluded.  In the next group session, she was told to stand and was asked, “Why’d your father beat you, Cyndy” It does not go well.  The inquisitor screams in her face, “Parents don’t put a hand on their kid for no reason!  What did you do to make him beat you?”
In the same vein, he accuse her of initiating the molestation by being a flirt.  The Borg now has her soul.
Years ago, I read the book, Prisoner of Mao by Bao Ruo-Wang.  He was able to escape the Chinese Gulag because he held French citizenship, being half Corsican.  His account of how a prisoner is broken down is eerily like Cyndy’s.  Still, at its worst, he never believed in his own guilt as fully as Ms. Etler would.  Even when Cyndy is released, she accepts she is a druggie. 
Straightlings did not stay at Straight at night.  They were sent out to homes in the community for a good dose of family.  Just your average clan that locks and alarms every door and window through a confirmation process and observes even your bodily functions.  So what’s the point of dispersing everybody?  Why not just have a residential community?
This is where it gets really cute.  By sending the kids out, Straight was officially non-residential and thus needed only a day treatment license.  Inspections and oversight were lighter for that.  The creators of the program had thought of everything.
Cyndy and others who went through the programs generated enormous amounts of cash for Straight.  Her mother used the money her father, Smith College music professor and composer, Alvin Etler, had left her for her education.  
Did it ever do any good?  Judging by the number of suicides of former Straight attendees, the program’s efficacy may be in doubt.
Eventually, Cyndy was able to shake herself out of the Stockholm syndrome and realize that she had admitted to things that had not happened.  The result is her book.  Stylistically, it is almost stream of consciousness.  This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you feel you are with her.  If you are old enough to have been around the block a few times, you almost want to yell, “Hey, Cyndy, you’re being set up.” 
Cyndy’s relationship with her mom is minimal.   Jacque was litigated, but not prosecuted.  Straight is out of business, but successor operations are out there.  The question becomes is our national paranoia about drugs worth it?   One hopes there is a path that can be followed with more wisdom or less foolishness.  What is being done now is not working.

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