Heritage RTC in Provo

[Nihilanthic]

Your point? Since When? Your point changes depending on what rebuttal you just had thrown at you!

Opinion is one thing, but hurting other people IS wrong and IS not a matter of opinion! Harming others for no reason, and standing up for the least invasive, least restraining, least coercive treatment NEEDED so that others do not have to go through it is called empathy, morality, and for that matter ethics.

It isn't OPINION that ISS equates to "isolation" and thusly whatever a program does related to isolation is acceptable, its a bullshit analogy and a logical fallacy!

Opinion stops being just that when it comes down to coercion and being forced upon others, especially unnecessarily.

In short, you can have your opinion, but you can't force it on everyone else. I'm standing up for people's right to choose for themselves... and that isn't forcing my opinion upon those who want to push theirs on others, that's standing up for those who it would be forced onto.

So, yes, the "POINT" about isolation with high schools and how they relate to programs is now the "POINT" of opinion vs fact, but that's after your "POINT" was about pushing views on others... right?

So, standing up for those who can't help themselves and need an outsider to help them is pushing my view on others?

What

[TheWho]

Your point? Since When? Your point changes depending on what rebuttal you just had thrown at you!

...and yours seems to flow from porn, to racism, to trolling to asking questions...seems you are trying to be serious today, so I'll bit:

Opinion is one thing, but hurting other people IS wrong and IS not a matter of opinion!

Exactly what I am saying.  If you convince a parent to do nothing to help their child then it is wrong, especially if that child ends up taking his or her own life, this isn’t a game.  Parents need to weigh all the options and not one of them should be taken away from them if it could help their child…the least invasive may be a sit down at home or a year in a TBS depending on the child.
You seem to be the one forcing your opinion on others…take a look at your experience with the industry and then compare it to those who have dedicated their lives to helping kids and then speak out about opinions and who should be heard.

Niles, don’t get me wrong, you have the right to your opinion and you mean well and seem to want to help the kids (except when you are posting racism stuff).  But there are many people out there who know a lot more about this industry than you or I and they are much more educated in the field and I think it wise to yield to their opinions occasionally also.
We have kids who go thru these programs and excel wonderfully and we have others who do not and we have to be fair to both populations and try to listen and protect them both.  We need to be the voices for these children, to help their parents decide on the best path and give them honest information.



...

[Anonymous]

::puke::

I'd rather read Brian Peppers' manifesto than try to navigate that sickening morass of text. Do you even read what you're spewing, Who? I got about as far as

especially if that child ends up taking his or her own life

Yeah, especially if it happens right in the middle of AAA. Or maybe afterwards, of psychological issues directly caused by being repeatedly, mentally and physically, abused. But you don't want to count those, do you?

God I hope your daughter finds Fornits. A thousand dollars to anyone who finds his daughter- assuming she's at all real- and gets her to read this shit!

[TheWho]

Yeah, especially if it happens right in the middle of AAA. Or maybe afterwards, of psychological issues directly caused by being repeatedly, mentally and physically, abused. But you don't want to count those, do you?

I understand your struggle and those conditions do exist.  The problem is how do we capture that information?  How do we quantify the number of kids who were going to take their life but were deterred by the help of the program and the therapists.    How many kids who took their lives would have done so regardless of whether they entered a program or not. How many kids took their own life as a result of the programs practices.  
If we could collect this information it would go a long way in answering many questions on the effectiveness of these programs and maybe exposing the more damaging models that are used.

God I hope your daughter finds Fornits. A thousand dollars to anyone who finds his daughter- assuming she's at all real- and gets her to read this shit!

My daughter reads here once in awhile, I think I have told people that.

[Anonymous]

I understand your struggle...

You can stop right there.

You understand nothing whatsoever. You have no idea who the fuck I am! And any time anyone starts telling what happened to them, you literally laugh it off. Again, and again, and again, and then make noises about how oh yeah, they're probably just lying and manipulating. Anything to avoid the truth, which you really ought to know. It's not even cute anymore. It's just plain fucking disguesting, especially when you start trying to use it on parents.

Parents, do you not understand yet? THIS MAN WANTS CONTROL OF YOUR CHILDREN. He would like nothing more for you to send them to some godforsaken hellhole where they can be treated like THIS.

My daughter reads here once in awhile, I think I have told people that.

Who, what you've told people and this little thing called 'reality' have nothing to do with each other.

[Nihilanthic]

Exactly what I am saying.  If you convince a parent to do nothing to help their child then it is wrong, especially if that child ends up taking his or her own life, this isn’t a game.

Nobody said that you should do nothing to help a child that needs it, nor that it was a game, except you. I have never said not to help children who need it, but since programs have had 30 years to prove they actually do or help anything and have yet to do so, they're clearly NOT a good choice for help when necessary.

The vast majority of children in programs do not need to be anywhere at all, and the people who genuinely need help need to get genuine help in the least restrictive environment there is. People who need to be stabilized do not spend a year going through personal growth bullshit isolated from their parents, they get stabilized and released!

Parents need to weigh all the options and not one of them should be taken away from them if it could help their child…the least invasive may be a sit down at home or a year in a TBS depending on the child.

Unfortunately "TBS" do not actually do any good or provide any help and in the last three decades have STILL failed to demonstrate any positive effects or even NOT having bad ones! The only thing they do is isolate and harm.

You seem to be the one forcing your opinion on others…take a look at your experience with the industry and then compare it to those who have dedicated their lives to helping kids and then speak out about opinions and who should be heard.

No, I'm standing up for people forced into year long stays at programs for no good reason. THEY had something forced on them for no reason! It does not take a fucking year of isolation and confinement to do anything, period. That long of a term is simply for punishment and control and everyone with their brain on straight knows it!

Also, for people who dedicate their lives to helping kids? Good for them! People who dedicate their lives to working in the program industry and hurting kids but SAY they're out to help them can go to hell.

Niles, don’t get me wrong, you have the right to your opinion and you mean well and seem to want to help the kids (except when you are posting racism stuff).  But there are many people out there who know a lot more about this industry than you or I and they are much more educated in the field and I think it wise to yield to their opinions occasionally also.

I don't care what someones opinion is, frankly. I deal with facts, unless its not related to our particular issue, then opinions are relevant. It frankly does not matter how much experience someone has if what they're saying is flawed intrinsically or based upon a bullshit notion, such as it taking a year in isolation in confinement in a LGAT environment to stabilize a child, or that such a term in such an environment actually does anything at all.

IT DOESN'T. I don't care if someone is a 60 year old mathematician, 1+2=3 and what programs do does no good, prevents them from getting real help, and if they have no problems unnecessarily harms them and prevents them from normal social development.

We have kids who go thru these programs and excel wonderfully and we have others who do not and we have to be fair to both populations and try to listen and protect them both.  We need to be the voices for these children, to help their parents decide on the best path and give them honest information.

There are people who survive traumatic experiences and do fine and people who have not and do horribly. Your point about a kid going through a program and doing fine and a kid being fucked up who didn't seems to indicate a bias that programs are useful.

Show some fucking proof, and justify yearlong confinement and isolation and being put through a PROGRAM'S ideas of "therapy" and prove they work with some data, or shut up.

[TheWho]

People who need to be stabilized do not spend a year going through personal growth bullshit isolated from their parents, they get stabilized and released!

This has proven to be totally ineffective, if it worked everyone would be doing it.  Stabilization is just an initial phase

Unfortunately "TBS" do not actually do any good or provide any help and in the last three decades have STILL failed to demonstrate any positive effects or even NOT having bad ones!

Talk to the parents of the kids who attended, or the kids themselves.  The TBS industry has grown exponentially during the past decade all because of the proven effectiveness of these programs.

No, I'm standing up for people forced into year long stays at programs for no good reason. THEY had something forced on them for no reason! It does not take a fucking year of isolation and confinement to do anything, period. That long of a term is simply for punishment and control and everyone with their brain on straight knows it!

Nothing worth while can be accomplished in a short time.  You can't complete highschool in 30 days, why?  You can learn to play golf in a few weeks but to become really good at it it takes years of practice.  This applies to every aspect of life…..many of these kids have had years of heading in the wrong direction and this cannot be taken lightly or corrected in a few weeks…I know first hand, I have seen it…I have seen many kids still struggling after a few months…time and nurturing is the key Niles.

I don't care what someones opinion is, frankly. I deal with facts….

I think we can agree here…I listen to people opinions here and from people outside fornits which gives me a “level of the waterâ€

[Anonymous]

Talk to ... the kids themselves.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t= ... c&start=60[/url]

There were more kids who were dangers to themselves. I honestly think ASR is very lucky in that no one has succeeded in committing suicide. I can tell you first hand that for someone with major depression ASR could drive you past breaking point easily. It seemed like they pick and chose who they took seriously about being suicidal. I was not taken seriously, and had my roommate not been in the room one day, I may well have taken my life. I do not say that to evoke pity or anything else like that, and I was not using it to "manipulate" ( a favorite ASR term) [/quote]

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t= ... c&start=60
Three Springs Waygookin wrote:
1) What is self-study?

2) Describe this Escorting more please?

3) Why was a student doing the escorting of a self-harming/suicidal resident and not a staff member?


A self study was the worst of the three major consequences. (reflection, challenge, self study). You had work projects, all free time was spent at your table, facing the wall. Lots of writing assignments. Loss of all privileges. Standing during all meetings. You most likely had strict bans

Basically I had to take her back to the dorm and be with her while she gathered up her things and changed, etc. I don't remember if she showered or not. I was basically there to make sure she didn't attempt again.

I don't know why they had me do it. I was "trusted" at that point, and honestly... probably a better choice than some of the staff.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t= ... r&start=15
yes, they did. to a large degree. Dean Kent (the staff mentioned in the article) was gone by the time i had arrived. (he was there in 1997, and i got to ASR in Cummington, MA on January 5th of 1998) i had heard from other students about Dean, that he was a really nice guy but fired b/c he'd called DSS on them. Brett Carey was still the Dean of Student Life when i arrived, and his wife Lisa also helped in the fitness department & was pregnant when i first arrived. They had 2 other daughters, Madison & Carly. The whole thought was a bit frightening, because when we had the 2 hour group "therapy" sessions 2 times a week, they were harsh and abusive to say the least. All of us students would be split into 2 groups, and we'd be rounded up in a circle to get screamed at, belittled and dehumanized. They called it "confrontational", although it was more like verbal abuse and intentional slaughtering.
i was very afraid while i was there, as a student with an extensive sexual abuse history involving rape & incest, i was constantly the target of this slaughtering, esp. b/c i was overweight at the time. needless to say, i left ASR with anorexia some 19 months later.
Brett & other students were all allowed to scream vulgarities at you, called you a "fat bitch, slut," and all. at the age of 15 i learned the word "dildo" while playing scrabble with Brett. One of my roomates claimed that Brett had forced her into sexual operations.
Most of all, it was excusable for students to haze each other.
It was almost looked at as funny. One Staff named Kristen Merhoff gave me funny looks and made sarcastic and patronizing comments when i'd opened up to her about my eating disorder.
Later on, a staff named Amy Robichaud would scream at me for ruining my life, pushing everyone away, talking about how i was a disasterous person, unworthy of being loved. To say the least, she was an abusive person, much alike a person in the throws of an addiction like alchoholism & drug addictions, both of which she admittedly had. There was a great deal of favoritism there, even staff who seemed to want to gain the approval of certain students.
The labor & sleep deprivation that was mentioned in the article is most likely in reference to the "Lifesteps". These were so called "workshops" it was mandatory for all students to attend. Staff and students would be expected to open up there deepest and most unknown
secrets for the sake of "growing". It's true, there was little sleeping allowed & often i myself left feeling shamed & ridiculed.
i was one of the main targets in that school the entire time i was there, a target of hazing & was even blamed for a student breaking into the med office and comsuming large quantities of my prescriptions. For the first 5 months i was there, you could litterally leave, go smoke 1/2 a pack of cigarettes, drop a couple tabs of acid, take like 5 hits off a joint come back & they wouldn't even realize it.
ASR is, to say the least, a very very fucked up place. i have several more things to say, but this whole thing would take eons.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t= ... r&start=30

I am a former student at ASR. I was in the first peer group, 97-98. My experience there haunts me to this day. I have read many articles that refer to the "old staff" and "new staff". I cannot speak for the way ASR is run now, being 2004, but I can speak for how it was run in 97 and 98. Let me start by saying that I am not an angry, defiant kid who is trying to start trouble for ASR. I have graduated high school and am about to graduate college and enter law school. I don't get into trouble, I am a productive member of society, and want people to know the truth. We were badgered, belittled, sworn at, made to stay up all night during "life steps" and given only small rations of food, had all calls to our parents monitored by staff and had the phone hung up on us if we tried to complain to our parents about these things, scrutinized and humiliated on a daily basis. Our mail was read, staff lost their voices by yelling so loudly at us, I personally was called a "slut", a rich little Daddysgirl, a doormat, told my dad tried to buy my love with money, made to discuss personal sexual and private experiences in group sessions with other peers, made to write a ten page paper by hand about what my "issues" were, and if the staff didn't like it, I started over ( this was because I was too close to my friend there, and they put us on bans so we couldn't talk to each other). People, whomever wants to hear specific stories about all of these things, I would be more than happy to share with you!!! email me at gilligansisland636@hotmail.com i bet i can help you get her out of there


I also graduated from ASR very recently on August the 6th. And I can tell you right now that any kid who complained, their parents were manipulated right out of believing them. There was extreme emotional abuse there, and the only reason anyone's behavior was modified was because they were scared shitless of staying there longer or going to a worse program. We were so scared, your own friends turned against you and you couldnt trust them. The group sessions were awful. One of my friends who had issues with sleeping around was in group and the counselor in the room told her that she might as well keep a mattress tied to her back. Daily, I heard awful things about myself and everyday I was just so sad. Places like this are awful and they need to be stopped. ASR isnt even the worst of them but they all need to go.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t= ... r&start=60

I am a an ASR graduate. I graduated in October of 03. At the end of the program I believed that ASR had done a lot for me. Looking back I am shocked that I ever thought that. I was made to turn against my friends and turn them in for the slightest rule breaking (for example listening to music). In group we were often degraded and yelled at, supposedly to make us better. Several times I was suicidal and instead of worrying they told me I was lying and being manipulative. In one group eveyone was allowed to go around and say their judgements against everyone else things like "youre a fat slut". That group was horrible. You were scared into being good and behaving. I'm not sure why I thought this place was so great, I feel as if I was brainwashed in a way.
The wilderness experience was horrible. I spent over 40 days in the outdoors being punished for any little thing we did wrong. My first day I had to run 20 minutes and when I stopped the counselers screamed at me and when i vomited they didnt care. just told me i shouldt have drank so muich water.

Otherwise we need to yield to what we know from the graduates.

Or the kids whose parents wised up and pulled them.

Or maybe the escapees.

[Anonymous]

No, I don't mean those kids. I mean the kids who it worked on and are now singing the praises of their program. When I say "the kids" I most certainly don't mean the ones on the Internet telling the truth about what happened to them!

[TheWho]

Sorry, I seem to have struck a nerve with some here,  I am talking about the thousands of kids that have graduated.  Unlike the majority here I realize that there are kids who dont do well or that the program does work for them...its not 100% effective for everyone.

One of my suggestions is to focus on better matching the right child with the right program so that success rate can increase.  I think one way this can be accomplished through more detailed testing prior to acceptance into the program.

[CCM girl 1989]

Niles, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed my friend! Look here, and think about what I am about to tell you......

Schools suspend kids for fighting, smoking, truancy, mouthing off, what have you! Then the kid gets home, and guess what? If you have a normal parent they are going to be a little upset. They are more then likely going to put you on some type of restriction. That's if it is a healthy parent. If not, you could get the old belt if you know what I mean! J/K, but the kids would probably have their privelages taken away. Such as TV, phone, video games, cell phone, car.

Do you not agree with that? Or do the parents go.....oh who cares do what you want kid!?!!

[Anonymous]

graduated

This is another word you have no right to use, same as "school". You don't actually graduate from a program, same as you don't graduate out of prison. You're either pulled by your parents, leave when you're 18 (whether you talk to your parents again or not is really irrelevant here), or the program and your parents finally agree that your soul rape is complete and hand you a meaningless piece of paper- not valid anywhere- and send you to wherever.

Who, since you love statistics so much, why don't you ask your bosses at Aspen Group what percentage of kids get such paper?

One of my suggestions is...

One of my suggestions is that you jump off the 75th floor of the Empire State Building with a rope around your neck, tied to some solid object, forty stories long.

[Anonymous]

Watch CCM Girl compare ordinary punishments with isolation, loss of everything, and permanent mental harm.

Go CCM Girl, go!

[Nihilanthic]

Niles, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed my friend! Look here, and think about what I am about to tell you......

Schools suspend kids for fighting, smoking, truancy, mouthing off, what have you! Then the kid gets home, and guess what? If you have a normal parent they are going to be a little upset. They are more then likely going to put you on some type of restriction. That's if it is a healthy parent. If not, you could get the old belt if you know what I mean! J/K, but the kids would probably have their privelages taken away. Such as TV, phone, video games, cell phone, car.

Do you not agree with that? Or do the parents go.....oh who cares do what you want kid!?!!

What the fck does that have to do with year long isolation from their FAMILY (wait, "restriction" means stuck in the house with the parents! Shit...), Legal representation and the outside world?

NONE.

Because... they're not isolated and trapped inside an institution for a year if they get grounded.

So, again, what the fuck?

[CCM girl 1989]

See how charming you all are! Pure hatred!!!!!