Moral clarity

[Nihilanthic]

well, i would say how could anyone say that whatever they say helped them could not be achieved by local resources or whatever. that is part of the brainwashing,  we are saving you etc., we are the only ones who can save you, also there are many programs who are close to tb in terms of abuse.

ALL 'programs' (isolation-based culty BM warehouses) are traumatizing becuase of the isolation and daily fear, humiliation and emotional attack, physical injury or not.

Tranquility Bay is worse because they can get away with more, and its apparently filthy, the diet really sucks and they do lots of restraint, O.P. and tropical diseases, but saying "not as bad as tranquilty bay" is like saying "not as bad as auschwitz". Its still double-plus-un-good!

But at any rate the whole "you need saving" thing can be easily drilled into someones head who has been stuck in 'saving' for a few months...

[exhausted]

It still seems you don't completely grasp how a program works, and what it does, to do what it does.

I am trying to learn Niles

Additionally, I remember someone saying most kids who "go off the path" do so for 18 months said and done. Most people just need to act out in their teens anyway becuase they're teenagers and they're going from being a child to an adult even though society and thier parents don't want them to, and there is a lack of maturity as well.

Programs are very good at presenting themselves as a fix to certain death or failure (dead insane or in jail) but humanity got by fine without them, MOST people get by fine without programs (never heard of them or just can not afford them) and when they're gone we'll be fine as well.
Well yer, in the UK we have serious teen yob culture going on - but we don't have programs here, yet (God forbid, read my post) and most teens turn out okay in the end, although there does seem to be a huge mental problem culture going on once into adulthood...me thinks it's because one can claim welfare rather than work due to mental health probs, either that or the fact we don't have programs, who knows? Hope we don't find out!
Sorry to be so long winded but there is a lot to say.

Not at all, I asked because I wanted to know, thank you.

[Nihilanthic]

I explained that long winded reply because you're still learning. It wasn't an insult, just... you're still learning  

It took me a long time to fully grasp all of this too, I've been here since about April 04.

UGH... I bet the programs have had at least one and a half full 'classes' of program kids come and go since then. Yuck.

But yeah, the UK is messed up, but on the OTHER side of the spectrum it seems. And just between you and me making light of actual mental problems is not a good thing. Whining and taking advantage of mental health programs and making everyone with actual issues look like whiners or not be able to get help isn't going to help anything

[Covergaard]

About suicide and age. Having lived next to a person about 35 years of age who just had been to the hospital for a slow suicide attempt (Stopped taking vital medicine - would have killed her in two weeks), I will state that being suicidal has nothing to do with growing up. People at old people's home are commiting suicide. They just stop eat and drink. It took the grandmother of a relative 5 days to die from fluid in the lungs and she was 94 years old. (She had been partly paralysed due to a stroke and refused to eat and drink.) As it is custom in Denmark the hospital staffs accepts such a wish, so they allowed her to die.

Then there is alcohol and sex. I have told you about our laws in Denmark. A lot of children are introduced to alcohol at their confirmation. In old days children in Denmark were going to their first job as housemaid etc. when they were about 14-15 years old. They were regarded as partly adults. So until they reachs 16 years of age it is regarded as acceptable if the parents provide them with alcohol. When they are 16 years old, they can buy a ID-card at the city hall which enables them to buy alcohol on their own. It is a kind of trial period. Can they manage to drink and do their schoolwork? Most of them can and their parents can invest in a driving license for them. It is rather expensive in Denmark. (About 1000 dollars covering time a racing tracks before being trained in the streets.)

Our 16 years limit has resulted in the lowest casualty figures in the trafic since 1950, so it do work to let them find out how alcohol works at that age.

Why finds children it acceptable when they are sent somewhere? It seems that the staff in such places often are the first ones to talk with them. Some parents can not talk with their children - only to their children.

So they are sent away. It is a shock. But once many of them has overcome the shock, suddenly they find that someone is actually talking with them. Of course it is a skilled person (therapist) trained to make them believe that the staff at such places cares for them. They are simply tricked into believing that the staff cares for them.

The children are not faking it. Their own minds trick them. I have talked with several soldiers with have been in winter storms 30 years back losing toes in the cold. All they can remember now is the good time with buddies. Why is it so? Because our brain has a kind of protection mechanism. Hard times are wiped out, if the memory can hurt you. Even rapes done by sick parents are blocked out of a childs own brain so the child can survive.

Regrettably our brains store even the bad memories in our subconscious mind. They can come back by being provoked by a therapist or through nightmares.

Another sideeffect is the feeling of being abandoned. Some former students are unable to bond with people. The reason is very clear. They have lost their family once, so they will not bond to new people because then there is a person more which they could loose.

Generally I wont say that one named program is worse than others. But I will state that programs that allows both parents and the child to go the program together is way better than programs where the childs goes alone. I miss observation houses in your country as a method to fix a broken family. A lot of Danish family are ordered to leave their home a live in a semi-locked up environment where therapist look into how they live and interact. Some problems calls for a removal of the child from its home(drugs), but there is nothing that prevents the parents from following the child.

Then there is the lenght of the stay in a RTC. In Denmark our laws dictate both the length of the stay and to who a report of the use of restraints are going to. Every incident where restraints is used in a RTC has to be reported to authorities outside the facility. Every stay beyound 6 months has to be reported to the city hall. Politicians - not therapist - from the childs home town can come a visit the facility unannouce if they like to. And of course the most important detail: It is not the parents which sends a child to a RTC. It is our authorties (In fact politicians in the city hall based on reports from therapists.).

[exhausted]

Is that how I came across...making light of peples mental problems?    Oh no, no no no, what with the mental issues my own son has? Not at all! mental illness is to me, worse than physical, I'd rather a smack in the mouth every day than mental torture

But it is fact that in this country, many many ppl take advantage of the can't see it so can't disprove it - and claim welfare on the back of that.....it's not caled the nanny state for no reason...really

[Nihilanthic]

Seems the state of Denmark isn't so rotten anymore.

How did Denmark turn itself into what it is now? Whats the socio-cultural trigger for it? Learning the lesson the Nazis and the Eastern Bloc taught us for the better part of the 20th century or just some sort of post-modern enligthenment?

Exhausted - no....

What I was trying to say is I'm afraid that when the inevitable political REACTION happens they will come accross as anyone with mental illness will be a whiner trying to get out of this or that and severely cut any benefits, including those to people who need it. Not that YOU come accross that way.

And just FYI the USA is turning into a nanny state but in other ways. Mostly censorship nonsense. I really hate how people flip out about kids using "cuss words" (can't you say CURSE? You're a teacher!! anyway...) but then curse at their own children at home and to eachother. It really helped undermind my whole childlike awe of adults at an early age  :rofl:

[exhausted]

What I was trying to say is I'm afraid that when the inevitable political REACTION happens they will come accross as anyone with mental illness will be a whiner trying to get out of this or that and severely cut any benefits, including those to people who need it. Not that YOU come accross that way.

Denmark's programs are government regulated? That seems to be the reason why it's all so different

The UK government are already cutting benefits from the people who actually need it because of the ones who dont, it's becoming more and more difficult to get welfare here, this country does seem to have adopted a huge over diagnoses problem though, everything is down to stress, anxiety, PTSD, I'm not saying these things don't exist, they do - but the average guy can die of a brain tumour quite easily because his headaches are generally put down to stress, we live in a stressful, fast paced world with technology racing ahead every day, life is stressful! Going to the doctor is stressful here, you get 3 minutes and you're out the door, wether you're dying in front of him/her or not (there is a story behind that) There does need to be some kind of balance here

[White Cracker Man]

what niles said is right of course but just to add you have to consider some kids are more sensitive than others. one kid could stay at tb for a year and be better off than a kid who was in foster care for a year. that is something that is not talked about alot. INDIVIDUAL CHILDREN. But the main point is as niles said abuse is abuse one program is NEVER Beter than the other.

[exhausted]

Has anyone ever made an unbiased film about boot camps, programs etc? A factual one that takes in all sides of the story?

[Anonymous]

How can you?

That's like trying to tell the history of Cambodia when giving the pro-massacre side equal weight.

[exhausted]

I don't know do I? I was just wondering if anyone has done a documentary or a film gathering as much evidence as possible, in the end it would of course come down to the viewer's own decision on what the 'right' thing to do really is.

[Nihilanthic]

Has anyone ever made an unbiased film about boot camps, programs etc? A factual one that takes in all sides of the story?

Fornits is as close as it gets. The unfortunate side is someone can say "OMG THATS BIAS!!!" when we don't come up with non-existant facts supporting them, when they're intrinsically ineffective and abusive, and we don't spin stuff to support it for them!

You can't 'comprimise' something bad into something good for the sake of an arguement or some fallacious middleground.

This is the only place this is discussed openly, with no limits, with people who KNOW what is going on present, exhausted. This is what it is, this is how it is, this is what it does to people.

We're here during Christmas instead of with our families. That alone speaks volumes.

[psy]

*phew.  fuckin dinner party finally over...*  two in a row.
okay.  now to answer this:

How do we know if there are really kids who aren't faking it?

Most of them, if they are out of program, aren't faking it.  They believe program saved their lives.  The BM (brainwashing) is still effective for a while after "release".  Watch those "pro program" kids for a while.  Most of them "blow up" after a few months / years.

I love quizzing these pro-program kids.  it usually goes something like this:

Program kid:  Program saved my life.  If i wasn't sent there i'd be dead now.
Me:Why? How do you know that?
Program kid: Because i was headed in the wrong direction.
Me: How can you possably predict the future: what might have been? And how did program change that future for you?
Program kid: Program gave me the tools i need to succeed... they saved my life.
Me: What tools exactly are you talking about?
Program kid: .... look... i don't know... but they helped me and i know that?
Me: *bangs head on keyboard*  So you think being publicly humiliated helped you?  So you think making your [private issue] subject to public discussion and ridicule helped you grow emotionally?  You think living on the streets, having never done any drugs before that, yet turning into a junkie because you had nothing left to lose, helped you?
Program kid: Those things had to happen to make me who I am today, and I am thankful to be given the opportunity to learn those lessons.  I'm stronger for it. Look.  I know they helped me and there is nothing you can do to convince me otherwise.
Me: Are you truly Stronger? or completely numb...  shut off...  Can you live without your Saviour holding you up on crutches: on the beliefs know are false but cling to to survive?  Can you face the pain... the knowledge that those who you looked up to were actually just using you?

To explain the above:  In program, every problem, from depression to ADHD becomes an "addiction".  "falling back into old behavior" is called a "relapse". They emphasize the AA philosophy that recovery never ends, that there is no cure for [generic problem].  They emphasize that without the program: you will die.  Many program kids, after leaving program, fear that if they reject the program or it's philosophies, they will doom themselves.  The program becomes the reason you are alive.

Another possability.  There is usually a different story behind theses "testimonials" or positive responses from ex-program kids.  There are some, however, that were allowed to suceed:

[quote=""my website's intro"]You may wonder, ?well what of the 'success stories?'? in which the program completion time is carefully emphasized. If you've ever spent time at a carnival you know that that any carnie can easily demonstrate that somebody ?can? win in order to lure you into playing more or avoid getting arrested. You might even be allowed to win the first time, to hook you into thinking you can win more. Benchmark always makes sure there is at least one or two exceptions so they can easily deny accusations of fraud with brainwashed eye-witness students who repeating obediently on command: ?I love it here, they treat us fantastically and are fair in their punishments. They've saved my life. Without them I'd be dead, insane, or in jail.? From that student's perspective, the assessment is probably correct, however it is most definitely not the norm. The student allowed to succeed, carefully cherry picked for maximum marketing impact, is often oblivious to just how easy he has it. As an ?investment? the chosen student more than makes up for the lost tuition by the new batch of warm bodies the testimonial brings.[/quote]

[psy]

"cuss words" (can't you say CURSE? You're a teacher!! anyway...)

This has a Biblical origin.  Somewhere in the old testiment (i forget where) it says not to "curse" so people that take the bible literally ( :silly: ) believe that even the word "curse" should not be uttered.  Of course the definition, context, etc.... were all different but ...

I know this because i grew up in and around a lot of fundies and was corrected on many occasions for not saying "cuss" instead of "curse".  I got a good long lecture when i blurted out "asshole" one time.  It's probably good I never learned the F word until i was 11. (homeschooled)

[exhausted]

So the kid in question has survived the program and is doing well in life....does it matter wether they in that state of mind because they have been programmed to believe it or wether it is fact or not?

Personally I'd love for someone to be able to implant something in my brain and take away all bad memories, fears, worries from the past and present if it made me more stable & happier in myself

I'm not suggesting abuse makes it okay to get the end result before y'all start jumping all over me, I'm saying, if they truly believe they have been helped and are happy, then why not let them think that?