To the editors:
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I was at the O.S. from 1967 till 1974, and still I fight with the consequences of my time there every single day. All the feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem that I had when I arrived there were strongly reinforced by the staff, until I assumed they were truth. I was told I was crazy, that I could not function in the world, and that there was something intrinsically “wrong” with me. A part of me knew there was something wrong at the O.S., and I rebelled. For this I was rewarded with more blows, both physical and psychological.
Recently NBC news did a piece about children who are put in institutions by their parents just because their parents did not know what to do with them. Their conclusion? That these kids were going through normal growing pains. They were not sick or crazy, and neither were most of us at the O.S. We were looking for love and trust and self-esteem and a little direction to our lives. We did not find it in Bettelheim’s terrorist fort.
