Care for Stockholm syndrome in long-term captives

[featherfire]

Setting: modern AU United States, southern California area (SoCal doesn't exist, but the area is based on it).

I think I've dug myself into a very deep hole.

Comments

[elenbarathi]

OMG, "don't put a nickel in the Rant Machine less'n you want a Rant." The fate of these poor boys at the hands of 'the system' is very likely to be even crueller than their fate at the hands of their captors.

"S is 20, I is 19" - "They are physically healthy, currently unhurt " - then they're adults, not disabled, not injured, and not entitled to diddly-squat. They'll be interviewed ('interrogated' would be a better word ) by countless strangers, probably including the press; processed through the system by ticky-boxes filled out by other strangers, and then released to their own custody as soon as the system is done with them.

"They'd need to be taken to some kind of long-term care facility?"

No. They're not psychotic, brain-damaged, retarded, demented, or substance-addicted - why would they rate beds in such a facility, on the State's dime?

"I know they will need extensive therapy. They likely can't even live on their own, right?"

They can join the millions of other Americans who need extensive therapy but can't get it, and who can't even live on their own but have to anyway, because there's nobody to look after them. They're young and strong, physically healthy and unhurt, with no dependents, and no developmental delays or cognitive disabilities... so... "get in line!", right? behind all the people whose needs are more obviously pressing.

Truly, a physically fit and healthy young adult male with no family and no documentable disability is pretty-much going to be on his own, because there are so many broken seniors, disabled people, teenage single moms, and children of drugs and violence in line ahead of him. So "get a job!", right?

What kind of job? Do people really think that 'sex workers' choose that career of their own free will? Sexually-abused children learn to do what they have to do in order to survive, and prostitution requires no certifications.

"Would S and I legally being adults have any bearing on their situation?"

Absolutely. They would be totally on their own, exactly the same as every other legal adult in the system, with no special claim to support or advocacy. If they were very lucky, they might get a social worker who took enough interest in their case to go above and beyond the phoning-it-in level of ordinary so-called 'services'.

"What about M, seeing as how he's underage? He does have a family, I just haven't quite decided on their living situation yet."

He is underage, he has a family; therefore he goes immediately back to his parents, and everything after that is up to them - whether he gets the best therapy money can buy, or none at all. The System will turn him over to them with alacrity, write him down as a closed case, and take no further notice of him.

[featherfire]

Ahh wow, thank you, this is very useful. I was so... scatterbrained when I wrote my initial post, I'm glad some people could take my half-formed thoughts and make sense of them and give me information I can use, cause I wasn't even sure how to ask for what I needed. This is wonderful, thank you again!

[elenbarathi]

Very welcome, hon. Really, one of the biggest problems your young men will face is the massive indifference of the system to their needs. A lot of the young people living on the streets were special-needs children whose 'kid ticket' for aid and accommodation expired on their 18th birthdays.

[featherfire]

Wait, so... where would they be staying while all this paperwork and red tape was happening? Someone would call K and be like, hey we found your brother... where do they stick him after the initial rescue?

[elenbarathi]

Presumably they'd all have been taken to the hospital immediately after their rescue, thoroughly examined, and held for observation for at least a week; probably longer. Remember, their medical condition is 'evidence' in a fairly big felony case, and there's also going to be considerable pressure on them to testify. A lot will depend on their doctor's recommendations, but they would probably go to a recovery-care facility once they were out of the hospital, if they didn't have family to go to.