Concept House

The Concept House

I was both strangely committed and resigned to going to the Grovelands, I was only given a weeks notice from the day placement and so it wasn't a real wrestle now. It was just something that had been preordained and as much as I was petrified and scared I knew it was my destiny. I didn't realise the full extent of how much the place would get into my head, the feelings and pain I'd go through, the joy, the disappointment, the misery, the laughs, the extreme moments of comedy, the tragedy, the anger, the waste along with real fulfilment of potential that I'd witness there so many paradoxes and conflicts within resolutions. The way that my belief systems where overhauled and challenged, the bravery and cowardice together combined of other residents and my own frailties. The brochure does say intense feeling programme but never did I think to take it so literally, when I went to the Grovelands I considered myself quite an intelligent guy ' emotionally though I hadn't left kindergarten, I don't know if I was always that way, whether it was the drugs or I was somehow retarded in the respect of handling my raw feelings. I know that I'd built a 7 foot wall around myself full of silly intellectual platitudes and academic notions that detached from the dreadful and appalling reality of how I was living me life.

The idea of such Concept Houses is the pressure cooker phenomenon when things are really piled up on you, consequences are given out arbitrarily groups are very confrontational and it's to se how you cope and how you relate your feeling to past issues and experiences, all very clever if quite simple in essence. Discipline is the name of the game; responsibility is solely placed upon the residents who run the show (wit the staff forever moving the goalposts to the impossible in some cases.) What I learnt most at the Grovelands though was the dynamics of human relationships ' how we interact and react with each other, jealousies, fears, inadequacies and some quite negative and selfish aspects of how we behave. (Anthropologists would have field day at a place like the Grovelands). That aside though I realised the great capacity we have as human beings for caring for one another, for empathy and for most of all love. My peer group developed very intense feelings of care and 'love' for one another at some points, which is how the programme is meant to work. When I mean 'love' it's in the brotherly, selfless sense of the word rather than the sexual connotations. 'Love is as Love Does,' was a slogan I wrote down for the 'Word of the Day' ' in response to a major crisis that I went through at about 35 weeks through my programme. You see what almost ruined me is that I also 'fell in love' with a girl who was a peer of mine, and it was so tragic as I couldn't ever tell her how I felt. Out of my respect for her as a person in her own right, one who was vulnerable and emotionally insecure just like me - I had to let brotherly love win over any selfish notions of romantic love I had for her, every time they came up. It was a foolish mistake for me to make, but a totally human one in that matter - so I don't think I'm a worse man for it. Two years on I still feel so deeply hurt¦and as the story plays out it becomes more and more apparent why. Thanks to the Grovelands I learned that that's what makes life so special. It's as much about as appreciating and dealing with difficult emotions as about just basking in the instant gratification of good ones!

What I think also stands out most of all about my time at Grovelands was that it was an incredibly funny time, full of mad banter and insane laughs. As I detail what happened, the systems and tools the community employed were like a microcosm of society itself. The potential for the application of extreme satire and the sheer comedy that I enjoyed during my stay I will never forget. The line throwing (dashing out 1-liners to each other and witty rebukes), the ridiculousness of some of the themes of groups and general meetings are told in the conventional light of day now incredibly amusing ' no matter how serious and grim the real subject matter we were dealing with at the time.

It was the breakdown of the relationships formed in the community that also was the most heartbreaking to watch in the months after leaving the programme, as people relapsed or went their separate ways, there was often quite a bitter fallout. For as much to be said for the benefit of strong peer groups and loyalties in the community the outside world isn't quite so accommodating. There is a saying in the Grovelands which is the first of many for now that you "You make your way down the drive here alone and you leave here¦¦..alone¦¦¦¦. For much as the Grovelands lauded peer support, there is the strong current of thought that says that ultimately you can only be responsible for yourself.