Ok, I'll give it a crack.
On 2005-08-27 18:02:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Seeking survivors
If you are survivor of a residential teen program and would like to take part in this survey, please answer the following questions:
1. Which program did you attend?
Rocky Mountain Academy (of the CEDU school network)
2. How long were you in the program?
2 and a half years
3. Why were you sent there?
I was a discipline problem. Getting in trouble at school, my parents were scared of me. Anger issues. I had attempted suicide twice. I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. (A valid diagnosis, actually. I really do have bipolar disorder. But RMA certainly did nothing to address that. They weren't treating psychological disorders and dispensing medication when I went there. Probably to my benefit, since I heard there was a lot of overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis when it was going on.) I was also into wicca, and that scared my parents, but that is NOT a valid reason for sending someone away to school, but that's not the reason they sent me, that was only one extra thing that gave them pause. (But it was a stupid, prejudicial thing to be worried about.) I actually had a lot of real problems that had nothing to do with wicca. There was another kid who had been sent up there who was into wicca, too.
Oh yeah, I was a fag, too. That didn't help. I can't honestly say whether or not my parents were hoping that RMA would de-fagify me (although RMA sure tried) but they sure weren't happy at that time that their son was an out teenage fairy. They were much more concerned about my most recent suicide attempt and whether or not I would be successful the next time. But having me bouncing around school as an out queer didn't help my case.
4. Did you feel your parents were justified in sending you away?
I'm not sure how to answer that question. I know I had serious problems. I wasn't just some kid who had smoked pot once for fun, or cut school for kicks, or was a simple rebellious teen, I actually had some serious problems. (Teens don't try to kill themselves for no reason.) But I honestly don't know what would have been the best solution. All things considered, I think I turned out OK, even though the school was screwed up. I'm not a parent, and I haven't been put in the position of having to deal with a troubled child, so I honestly can't understand what it is like.
My parents just wanted to find a place for me that was better than a hospital and putting me on lithium. This place seemed nice. It was out in the woods. You weren't locked up in rooms and put in restraints. You went on camping trips. All the kids looked happy and they looked you in the eye when they spoke to you. Which program would
you have chosen? My parents also had no idea the kinds of things that went on up there. I was indoctrinated so quickly after I arrived, that I never mentioned to them the kinds of things I went through, because I didn't want to get pulled out and put in a worse place.
5. How did you get there? Escort service pick you up in the middle of the night, or did you go willingly.
I went willingly, but under false pretenses. I was told that we were going up there to tour the campus for two days and visit the school. I had no idea I wasn't going to come back for two years! They had a back up plan and the escort service set up in case I decided to bolt or get uppity, however. (Upon advice from the school.) A lot of kids got up to school this way, actually.
6. If you went willingly, do you feel the program was misrepresented to you? If so, how?
The program itself was not misrepresented, no. Mainly because my parents knew as much about the program as I did, really.
7. Education: Did you get a good education while you were in the program? Did you have teachers who gave lectures or was it all self teaching? Did you receive a high school diploma, or were you able to finish and get a diploma on time? Do you feel the education was adequate and helped you move on to college?
The academic education was mediocre, at best. Especially when I first got there. But we certainly got high school credits. We got credits up the yin yang. Raps were "interpersonal dynamic workshop" credits, wood corral was some sort of credit, wilderness expeditions were "experiential" credits. Just call them "bullshit" credits. We all complained about the quality of our academic education. It was so funny, because most of us hated school before we got there, but now that we were there, we actually missed having a decent education! As we got towards the upper school, our education got better, though, because they built a new academic building, and hired some new teachers, and the upper school families actually dedicated most of the daytime to academic classes, so I actually started to get some decent education towards the later part of my stay there, but nothing spectacular. We even got a computer lab and everything. (whoopdeefuckindoo.) I graduated with my high school diploma, (as did most of the kids when I was there) and did just fine grade-wise in college, but I don't credit RMA for that. I credit that to the fact that I'm smart.
Like I said, it was mediocre. My mom wasn't at all happy with the quality of the academic education that place had.
8. How was the food? And the cleanliness of the place?
The food was actually very good and healthy. (except that it made you fart like crazy) It had to be, because we had to work very hard physically, and raps, propheets and workshops would take a lot out of you, because it was all about breaking you down as much as possible. If we got no nutrition, the kids would have just fallen apart. The students actually helped out in the kitchen, too. The place was kept pretty clean, since the students had to clean it constantly. (As clean as you can get wood, anyway, since every-fucking-thing there was made of wood.) Every single day we had to clean, and then on saturday, was a super-cleaning day. I wouldn't say the cleanliness standards were military-grade, because it's impossible to get wood that clean, but they liked to keep a tight ship.
9. Were you abused? If so, how? How many times? By whom?
There was no physical abuse in the sense that there were no beatings or restraints. However, there was plenty of verbal abuse and humiliation. The very structure of "raps" (the group confrontational therapy meetings that we had three days a week for several hours) and the "propheets" (overnight workshops) involved lots of browbeating, airing of dirty, embarrassing secrets that were nobody's business, and faculty screaming at students. The raps were incredibly abusive, in my opinion. People just screamed like crazy at each other, and none more than the faculty. Some faculty had a reputation for being particularly sadistic, too. There was also regression therapy mixed in with primal scream (which was dubbed "running your anger"), something else they called "diads", and bizarre physical exercises done in the propheets and workshops, that involves things like shoving each other, punching cushions, being held down on the floor by your peer group, running in place to the point of exhaustion, excluduing two members in your peer group from a group circle and having them try to force their way in while everyone else tries to keep them out, biting down on a towel while pulling on the ends as hard as you can, and holding that position for two to three minutes. You know, stuff like that.
CEDU also bought out the copyright to use Lifespring as their final workshop. Lifespring is a now defunct white-collar cult which was popular in the early 90s. They had a five day workshop that cost several hundred dollars. Mel Wasserman made a deal with them that allowed him to use it at his school, so he bought the copyright, and added a day of his own stuff. He called it the Summit. That workshop was hideous. Dr. Phil does stuff from it now, (the extremely mild stuff) did you know that? He does the red/green game, and that whole bit about "are you a giver, or a taker?"
CEDU was all about breaking down resistance, both physically (through exhausting physical labor and bizarre "theraputic" exercises) and mentally, so they could make you more receptive to their own ideology.
10. Did you witness others being abused? If so, what form of abuse and how often?
My peers went through the same things I did.
11. Overall, was your experience positive or negative?
Mostly negative. Although I did come out in a better situation than I went in there, so I have to give RMA props for that. I graduated from there ready for college. And I have some good memories from the wilderness expeditions.
12. If it was positive, please summarize your experience.
It is very hard to remember any positive things from there. (I don't really even care about any of my old friends from there.) Mostly I remember the scenery. It's in a nice part of the country. I liked rock climbing, and skiing. I remember seeing a really wicked sunset on my Wilderness Quest that I have a slide of. The nicest memory I think I have from RMA is from my solo on my Wilderness Challenge. (We went to the Owyhee desert in southern Idaho.) I just remember that for four wonderful days, I was in this beautiful canyon, and I didn't have to talk to anyone from my peer group, or speak to any faculty from the school, or listen to anybody's crap, and I could get up when I wanted, and go to bed when I wanted, and nobody screamed at me, and I wasn't at that horrid school, and I didn't have to hike anywhere or carry my pack, and it was quiet and wonderful. I just sat around, ate my trail mix, and wrote stupid silly naive things in my journal that make me laugh now when I think about it. I was so sad when those four days were over and I had to go back and deal with all of those assholes again.
13. If it was negative, please summarize your experience.
It was extremely disturbing and alienating. I think I covered most of this in the "abuse" section, though. However, when I was there, I was totally brainwashed, and thought the program was great. But I was of two minds. I was terrified of being sent anywhere else and totally wanted to be at that school, yet I was constantly tormented mentally and was always struggling and paranoid. Every rap day was a day filled with anxiety. The physical labor wasn't shit compared to the mental crap I had to go through. It just wasn't normal.
