Shall I?
I shall.
Milk closes his eyes and says something unintelligible. When he opens them again he is flanked by two figures. One of them, Xavier, is a teenager- the other, the Operator, is more than three times his age, but not looking it in the least.Milk: You two ready for this crap?
Xavier: The preparations are looking to be worse than the event.
Operator: Yes. I haven't seen something this fundamentally awful in this sphere of human relationships since [deleted], and I don't think these people can outdo that.
Milk: Very well. Let the fun begin.
To VLA and other parents who have posted here
Operator: I'll assume this is a woman. How can she direct her message 'to' anyone on a public forum?
I, too have a child at HLA.
Milk: That was your first mistake.
Lance Henson is my child's counselor in PG79.
Xavier:
This Lance Henson? That was another blunder, but I don't know whose it was.
Milk: The facility's, and hers for not recognizing it.
Xavier: Ah. The facilities do have power of direct decision.
Operator: They could hardly conduct business otherwise. Would you expect them to be answerable to parents in this regard, considering who they are?
Xavier: Point taken.
The only reason I am not posting my real name, address, and telephone number is not because I want to hide my identity but to protect the identity of my child. My email address in my profile will tell you who I am.
Xavier: This doesn't make any fucking sense at all. She's attempting to protect her identity, but then gives it away?
Milk: Not in public. And Fornits isn't about to tell everyone what it is.
Xavier: So let me get this straight. She's hiding herself, but only to everyone
except the people who probably hate her the most?
Milk: That about sums it up. And since she could have made any email name she likes on the Internet, it proves nothing anyway.
Xavier: Retarded bitch.
I didn't go to MSN or Yahoo to make one up for you, so I ask that you respect my child's privacy.
Operator: If you're going to use your children as a verbal shield to protect yourself, why would we concern ourselves with your identity? Such behavior marks you as clearly not the sort of person whose opinions are worth considering, aside from educational mockery like this.
I have refrained from posting previously because I have seen how those who support HLA are treated on this board.
Milk: What were you
expecting, hugs and kisses?
I read the board because it contains information that concerns me
Xavier: One would hope!
and every legitimate concern raised I have brought to the attention of HLA and have received an acceptable response.
Xavier: Let me see if I have this straight as well. You've received information from this website about serious concerns about your children, as well as additional, corroborated information that the facility's management is untrustworthy. But when you act on this information and inquire as to the veracity of such things, you simply accept what they tell you and fail to investigate with other sources?! What the fuck is
wrong with you?!
Milk: Answer that one thoroughly and you'll have
my gratitude, that's for sure.
Operator: Such is only valuable due to its scarcity.
Milk: Can it.
Some of the issues raised do not bother me.
Operator: Now I'm quite curious as to what the issues that don't bother you
are, madam. Could you be more specific?
My child has done well in the HLA program.
Xavier: Where does that information come from?
According to her, the kids there are aware of the lawsuit and do visit this website
Xavier: That can't be right.
Operator: All of them, or just a select few?
Xavier: Aaaaah.
and one in her peer group posted in support of his/her treatment there and was castigated for it and accused of being one of Len's sweeties.
Milk: What were you expecting? You don't visit a sushi bar for the steak, you don't go to a mechanic shop to get your cat looked at, and you don't go to downtown Los Angeles trying to drill for oil. Why would anyone in favor of this sort of thing come here looking for support?
Some of you say that you hope the lawsuit is successful in bringing down HLA because you want to stop it from hurting kids (your assertion, not mine).
Operator: Well of course it's not your assertion, you're here to defend the place. Quite poorly, I must add.
Others of you want it brought down as a form of vengeance for your having been sent there.
Xavier: Okay, let me get this straight...
Milk: That's the third time you've said that.
Xavier: Well it's not making much more sense this time either. How can any sort of therapeutic facility be considered successful in any way shape or form if the people who have been released from there want to destroy it?!
Operator: Generational disconnect is probably the best way of putting it.
Xavier: If my charges wanted vengeance against me, I'd have my
head disconnected.
A lot of you say we're horrible, miserable parents for (a) having children with problems in the first place
Xavier: In your situation, there really isn't anyone else to blame, is there?
and (b) putting our children in HLA.
Operator: Considering what goes on there, I'd have to say that 'horrible' and 'miserable' are adequate descriptors.
I read a post in another thread where a mother whose son has severe drug problems was advised to just bring him home, stay out of his business, love him unconditionally and without expectation, and he'll come around.
Xavier: Well, if the choice is between "no treatment" and "bad treatment", I'd have to recommend the former as well.
Milk: Actually staying out of his business is a sort of therapy that is working decently well for another parent on this site. What's more, it's free.
Xavier: How much
is sixty thousand dollars a year, anyway?
Operator: Enough to hire a full-time live-in bodyguard who will make sure the kid doesn't get within a hundred feet of a joint.
Milk: No giving them ideas, Operator. They'll corrupt it like they do everything else.
I suspect that mother, just like others of us, has already tried that.
Xavier: Isn't that chronologically impossible?
Milk: Considering the 'eventually come around' usually comes after the kid's 18th birthday, yes.
I don't know if any of you are old enough to have teenaged children yet, but if you are, or if you know somebody who is,
Xavier: I know somebody who's old enough. I think everybody here does.
Milk: Don't bother with her grammar. Focus instead on the fact that she's repeating the tired old fallacy "you haven't been in my shoes!" I don't think I ever could be. If my kids ended up so hopeless that they had to inject toxins into themselves, I'd probably have eaten a bullet long since.
the phenomenon of one troubled kid in the midst of siblings who don't have drug, self injury, or sexually acting out problems doesn't seem to be explained by either good or bad parenting.
Operator: Actually, it can be more than adequately explained through the ideas of jealousy, sibling rivalry, and complementary sibling traits, along with favoritism and its resulting estrangement, treating children differently in early childhood, significant lifestyle changes at key parts of the child's development, failure to accept the child's chromosomes, organic chemical imbalances, genetic differences, and other concepts far, far above your head.
Milk: How could you explain something like that with good parenting?
Xavier: Now you're the one mincing her words. I'm just curious how 'sexually acting out' is supposed to be a
problem...
Most of you will have teenaged children someday, and I wish you the very best.
Operator: My, I can almost taste her spite. Goes with the irony quite well.
In any event, I don't know if anybody can comprehend the love for a child until one becomes a parent.
Milk: Or, in your case, the thinly-disguised contempt.
You cannot comprehend not only the fear for his or her safety but also the despair that comes from knowing your child suffers from such intense pain and nothing you have been able to do has made it better.
Xavier: Haven't you already tried this fallacy?
Milk: And isn't it a whole lot more fun making the decision to make your children's lives
worse, instead? See? That, you can do. Play to your strengths.
Parents worry because we know our child has a safety net within the family but know they're approaching the age when they'll face a world that doesn't know them from Adam, doesn't care
Xavier: Considering the people here have done significant research about the facility you've sent your child to and you have not, I surmise that your safety net is made of barbed wire and the rest of the world cares far more than you do.
will not tolerate their behavior, and will kick them to the curb when they fall.
Operator: So the goal here is to give them a precursor to that, or rather something much worse, so when they
do end up hopeless addicts, it won't seem so bad?
We who love our children would crawl (and some have) over broken glass for them.
Milk: Video please.
We would give our last dime and our very lives for them.
Milk: You honestly want to help children? Donate your last dime to Fornits and jump off a building.
I don't care than Len makes a profit, we all expect, or at least hope, to make money in exchange for our services. I have no problem, and take no ethical issue, with paying bonuses and commissions to counselors and edcons.
Xavier: This will be the fourth time: So let me get this straight. This woman has absolutely no problem with the profit motive interfering directly with a professional judgment of her child's placement, to the point where the person making this decision will not get
anything unless the child is placed in a facility like HLA?
Milk: Indeed, but it's not a professional judgment, as these people have no real credentials.
Xavier: You're kidding.
Milk: I'm not.
Xavier: Fuck this.
Those with the financial wherewithal send their children to places like HLA.
Operator: And a serious dearth of common sense.
Milk: All money, no brains.
It's the last gift we can give them
Operator: Considering many of you spent their entire college funds on it, I'd have to agree.
but it's their choice what they do with it.
Xavier: She's going to send her kid to a place like this and then tell her
it's her choice?!
Milk: Yup. This is the usual.
Xavier:
Fuck. This.I concede that not every program can be everything to all children
Operator: Considering that your child is there 24/7 and they claim to be able to treat every child in there, no matter what their actual problem is, doesn't it kind of have to be?
but in the case of my child, HLA has been a Godsend.
Milk: The god of this world, maybe.
Operator: I assure you that-
Milk: No, not them, I mean Beelzebub. Lucifer. Old Scratch.
Operator: This whole business does have that sort of feeling, doesn't it?
Lance Henson has demonstrated his dedication to my child and to this program, and has assured me he will continue to do so at considerable personal sacrifice, considering the paycuts and additional duties.
Xavier: He's also demonstrated a lot of other things, most of which can be discovered by searching for his name on this board.
Milk: Child abuse uber alles.
I really don't care what he and his wife look like (frankly, I think they look fine)
Milk: "You look fine" is damnation with faint praise in most circles. And it's what they look like on the inside that matters.
Xavier: Why am I envisioning horribly malformed genetic mistakes?
Operator: Because we're conversing with one.
and don't see what their appearance has to do with their competence.
Milk: They don't succeed very well in either.
There has been no problem that I've heard of associated with his being married to his co-counselor.
Xavier: Under normal circumstances it would be an excellent arrangement. Here it's simply doubling the pain.
My child is looking forward to graduating the program and high school in May.
Xavier: Looking forward to 'graduating', or looking forward to
leaving?
Her only worry right now is that this website's prognostications that HLA will close in February might be true.
Milk: I doubt that. Isn't it great to put words in your kid's mouth when they're not around to contradict you?
She wants to finish what she started and graduate from high school with her friends, because that's what the kids at HLA have become to her - just like any other kid in high school.
Operator: Human beings can get used to all kinds of things. With enough exposure, people can be led to believe that the way HLA conducts operations is normal and acceptable.
Her Dad and I reassure her that HLA will not close (at least not in February)
Operator: Considering you have absolutely no factual basis on which to make these assurances, I'm curious why you bother. If this place
is closed, particularly if it's done by the government authorities investigating it, won't that simply prove you a liar?
but that, regardless, she will finish her high school education and proceed to college, to which she is very much looking forward.
Milk: You just keep right on telling yourself that.
Operator: Interesting way of verbal patching. No matter whether the facility is closed or not, you paint yourself as a wonderful parent either way. Unfortunately, you are not.
Xavier: Of course, if her daughter ends up addicted to meth or something, she'll be singing a different tune...
I doubt this will stop the diatribe to follow,
Milk: This is Fornits. Dragging retards off their high horses is one of the many things that goes on here.
but so we can cut through some of the intial speculation:
Milk: I'll let your kid do the cutting through.
Operator: Why do you insist on making such unlikely hypotheses?
Milk: I reserve the right of wishful thinking.
1) I am not Len, Lance, or Melanie
Xavier: Can she be trusted on this account?
Milk: No.
Xavier: Then why does she bother saying it?
2) My IP address is not in Dahlonega
Xavier: Can't she easily use a proxy to hide it?
Milk: Of course.
Xavier: Then why does she bother saying it?
3) I don't plan to commit suicide, regardless of how compelling the ensuing suggestion might be
Xavier: That's a shame.
4) I don't care if you call me a troll (or anything else)
Milk: Would you really have written that if you, in fact, don't care?
5) If I never post here again, don't break out the champagne - you haven't run me off
Operator: If this forum is inhospitable enough to make you leave permanently, then, by definition, haven't you been run off?
Milk: She's saying that she'll still read it.
Xavier: I don't think I've ever seen a threat that worthless.
I appreciate the comments of those on this site, and there are few, who have responded respectfully to the posts of others.
Operator: I wonder why you think you're worthy of respect.
Xavier: Are we done here? Trying to follow this woman's excuse for logic is like trying to touch your right elbow with your right hand.
Milk: She's not
using logic. She's just blindly following anything HLA tells her because she isn't smart enough to figure out anything else to do.
Operator: And her daughter is suffering for it. Old music, different notes. Let's get out of here.
