as small as a world and as large as alone

3:50pm July 18, 2014

madeofpatterns:

youneedacat:

madeofpatterns:

institutions can and do hurt people just by existing

I was never in one.

but a lot of adults in my life made damn sure I knew they existed

and that there were ~worse places~ I could be

Yep I’ve always told people that institutions did serious damage to my life long before I’d ever been in one.  People don’t always understand.

and many of the things I *did* experience had similar dynamics

institution survivor descriptions of institutions are the only things I’ve seen that come close to describing some of what I’ve experienced

I have gotten a lot of shit for saying that schools are institutions.

Except they are.

Except whenever I say that people go “ha ha ha sie doesn’t know what a REAL institution is, OBVIOUSLY, if sie would trivialize it by comparing it to a school.”

No seriously, schools are institutions.  They may not work exactly like other forms of institutions, but no form of institution is exactly like any other.

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