The Only Way.
The Insight Program Survivor: 2017 - 2019
While in the Program, I cycled through manic and depressive episodes as a result of being stripped of all mental health medications and therapy. June of 2019, at almost 11 months sober, I has reached absolute rock bottom with my mental health after a chaotic visit home. I felt I was incapable of even closing my eyes without triggering a trauma flashback. I was so depressed, I was unable to eat or even move. I was constantly having more nightmares and I felt horrific.
At the advice of my sponsor, I began having weekly meetings with the senior counselor. These became mandatory and I risked being kicked out of the Program if I did not attend. The senior counselor would ask me what was wrong, he would listen and then ask me what’s “really wrong?” I was told I was living in a “victim complex.” I heard the phrase “no victims, only volunteers” so often, it still stings my ears a year and a half later.
During these weekly meetings I would be asked to share (in extreme detail) about the extent of my sexual trauma. If he felt I was withholding, he’d call me out on it for “not being honest” and “lying by omission.” Week after week, I’d come into his office broken down, lifeless, traumatized, and unstable.
I would share about how I felt like I couldn’t eat because I was so upset and how I couldn’t sleep because I was so anxious. The counselor’s response to some of this was “if you can’t sleep, why aren’t you going to hangout and reach out to other kids? Partying will help you clear your head.”
I felt broke - prayer and partying was not fixing me. I would have anxiety attacks in front of all my peers at these hangouts. I would bring up the idea of medication to my counselor, but it would be quickly shut down. He would say things such as: “Medication is for people without the willpower or connection with a higher power to recover on their own.”
My only allowed route for recovery was hanging out with people in the program and praying everything away. I was repeatedly told I wasn’t praying hard enough and that’s why I still felt this way.
One day, I was dead set on suicide. I was quickly getting bad. I decided I needed help and went to The Shop. I sat down in the senior counselor’s office and cried about how miserable I was and how I can’t do this any longer. I shared with him how my sexual abuse made me feel disgusting. In an attempt to comfort me, he told me that “you must have been desirable” and I shouldn’t be upset about feeling unattractive.
My counselor told me I was choosing to feel like this and it was making me “relapse on my attention seeking defects.” I told him I thought I needed separate therapy ASAP. I was sobbing and shaking on the floor, begging for help. I was told I had two options: stay in The Group and restart the steps or leave The Group and go to therapy. I would not be allowed to live in my Group house if I left for therapy. I told my counselor I planned to leave and to sign myself into treatment after I received my year-sober fist the next week. His words were “why do you want to even stay for that if you’re leaving?”
A week later, three of my friends presented me with my Year Fist. I left and within 24 hours, I lost everything. All of my friends, my house - my whole support system. All of this because I was suicidal and wanted help.
- The Insight Program Survivor, Atlanta. 2017 - 2019
