I'm not in contact with them at this point.

Writing this on here and getting a very positive response was surprisingly therapeutic for me. Thanks for asking

My knee-jerk reaction to your statement that you're no longer in contact with your parents was "good!"

There's something about your story that really, deeply fucking bothers me. I think its the part where you're taken from your home in the middle of the night. I can't adequately describe how that makes me feel, and I wonder why. I'm sorry that happened to you.

Regarding the silver lining, as it were, do you think your parents could have arranged another sort of intervention or experience to give you those benefits, with resorting to institutionalized abuse? Would a better sort of "camp" have worked for you?

Yeah it's tough. I don't think my partents are terrible people. They are products of their own trauma and struggles and stuff. At the end of the day the relationships were just bringing a lot fo negativity into my life and I just didn't have the energy for it.

In terms of the other ways to produce my experience without the downsides, absolutely yes and if I have kids I intend to try to do exactly that. They would have the final decision on it and it wouldn't be a surprise but basically some kind of intensive month or two outdoor survival training or something like that. Maybe I'd even just do it myself with them.

Hey I think you have a healthy perspective about this all.

I think that doing it yourself (or participating at some capacity) is so much better than letting a third party you don't even know take custody of your kids for some months. The possibility for abuse is staggering.

But perhaps just joining boy scouts is cool?