Read it and Weep!

[Antigen]

On 2003-07-16 13:16:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

Were you in a WWASP school or do you just dislike help in general?

I was in Straight, Incorporated, which was based on the Synanon method just like WWASP is. I do not dislike help in general, but of course it depends on how you define help. If someone is drowning, for example, and they cry "Help! Help! I'm drowning!!" how do you help them? By throwing them a brick? Technically, you will have helped them. I've had about as much of that kind of help as I can stand, thanks very much.

That's a weird statement??  Parents may not like what their kid is doing to self destruct, but if they didn't like their kid, they certainly wouldn't spend a dime on them, much less do the inner work to change the dynamics to be a successful family.  

Believe me, when you get your kid back you'll be looking into the eyes of a completely different kid, a total stranger. While she's away getting a good brainwhashing and personality change, dreaming of going back home to familiar surroundings and rhythms, you're busy erasing every vestage of your home and family identity so she won't even have that to come home to. Lady, you are getting taken for the ride of your life. It's not just the money, they're taking so much more from you that you'll never, ever get back.

Whatever your story is, it's unfortunate you can't see past your own pain to actually help instead of attack help that is available - I have yet to see Resources as this site is identified.  

What "help" do you recommend for families in crisis?  It seems to me that WWASP programs actually help with parenting and family unity - and it's obvious it hasn't worked for everyone - but you gotta want it.  

Just the benefit of my own experience, ma'am. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. There is no fantastic process you can pay for that will miraculously turn your kid into the perfect kid. My parents bought into that same scam starting over 30 years ago. It was bogus then and it's bogus now; in fact, it's essentially the same schtick with very minor re-writes.

The Program dogma is, as it always was, that all complaints about the program are wrong, to begin with, and motivated only be bitterness and weakness.

Just meditate on that for a moment.

You have turned your daughter over to people who have been repeatedly and constantly accused of every kind of inhumanity and abuse; much of which they don't deny, but excuse. The people making these complaints are all telling the same stories over years and spanning continents. They don't even know each other. From a criminal investigator's point of view, that adds up to about iron clad, coroborated testimony. And yet, if your daughter tried to tell you about it, you'd immediately turn her in and ship her back there for punishment.

Doesn't that just clue you in a little bit that maybe these people have something to hide?

Now you should know something about the people who frequent these forums. You could spend hours and hours reading through these folks' life stories if you wanted to. And, frankly, I hope you will spend some time doing that, at least. But let me give you a quick sketch. Most of us graduated these programs anywhere from 2 - 30 years ago. We've been comparing notes. Little of importance has changed. Many of us stayed on as staff in these programs. Some of us were never in the program at all, but are parents who either got hoodwinked by the same slick salesmen who've got you lapping it up now or their children were placed in one of these gulags without their consent.

Why should we care? What realistic motivation could so many people have for saying these things or even being interested enough to read about it all these years later? I can only speak for myself, so I will. For me, it's asif I found out that the SOB who raped me as a child is running a day care down the street. What kind of cold hearted bitch would I have to be to stay quiet about it?

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trust either of them
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679737898/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'> P.J. O'Rourke

[FaceKhan]

Wow this is some interesting logic, If the parents force their kid to take dangerous drugs then that would be abuse. (and it probably should be considered that) But if you send your kid to a place where he is kept locked away without any rights at all. Can't speak, can't go outside, can't go to the bathroom, can't have personal music or reading material, can't have uncensored contact with his own parents, can't even tell anyone that the place is abusive. That is somehow not child abuse? One of WWASP's legal problems has involved forced medicating of students without a doctor's prescription as well as denying prescribed medication and needed medical care as a form of punishment.

You're just one more selfish babyboomer parent who can't hack it that your kid is a person too and is gonna make some mistakes. So lets just talk in the only language you understand, if you ever want a hope of a relationship with your kid you should get him out of wwasp now and try to get him some help and apologize for sending him in the first place. WWASP only provides one thing to a kid and that is a heavy dose of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, aka the same problem that all those veterans you see begging on the city streets have.

I have yet to hear of an adult who was at WWASP who no longer needs their parent's financial support praising the program. That is who I would be interested to hear from. Find a few and I don't mean through WWASP's own little network of paid testimonials.

[Antigen]

On 2003-07-16 15:45:00, spots wrote:

if SOMEONE is watching the little buggers all the time, then nothing abusive can be going on."  Such totally illogical reasoning and 100% reliance on somebody else to fix the problem she can't handle tells me that government (i.e., laws) are going to have to go in and protect this woman's child, because she certainly isn't interested in doing it.

Really? I see it from entirely the opposite side. There's a broad, gaping logical flaw in the idea of government oversight as a remedy for abuse. Namely, once we hand over authority to government, who's watching the wathcers? If you called up WWASP and asked them to tell you why you should trust them, how would they respond? Why, they'll point to whatever licensing and credentials (bogus though some of them may be) as proof that they're government certified wholesome and safe.

I don't think more regulation is capable of keeping anyone safe. I think the illusion of it can foster a dangerous false sense of security, though.

I think the best solution lies in a healthy, vibrant, grumpy and mean media. They're starting to catch on to that, too. Not only as regards WWASP, but they're starting to address other important matters in a more critical way just lately.

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is
proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in
everlasting ignorance- that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
--Herbert Spencer

[Antigen]

On 2003-07-16 16:23:00, Anonymous wrote:

"By effective treatment, what do you mean?  We've been to a psychologist, psychiatrists, parent's anonymous, drug rehab (joke) and the best they could do (the pyschiatrist and the school counselor) was to suggest medication for ADHD.  Sorry,but that's NOT an option and one that I consider abuse and neglect. Instead of fearing what I read here, I am convinced that regulation would only provide more of what we DON'T need. I'll check back with you soon. There's no cure for ADHD, but the results of behavior modification (anger management, inner work) have a better change of being successful than medication the rest of one's life.    "

That's it! You're torturing your kid because you don't want him taking Adderal??? And I bet you typed this little nugget of wisdom while sipping a cup of coffee, huh?

So the kid needs stimulants, or maybe not, maybe pot works better for him. But NO! I'm an organic, vegan super boomer mom and I will NOT have a CHILD who is DEPENDANT on DRUGS! NO! That's not good enough. MY kid will be better than that!

God, this is so tragic and so frustrating! Give the goddamned kid some speed, for Christ's sake, if that's what will help him get along!!

...it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate,
tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds..

--Samuel Adams

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
American P.O.W. 10/80 - 10/82
Straight South (Sarasota, FL)
Anonymity Anonymous

[MORSEGLASS]

anon- you said meds wasnt an option, well my daughter was in cost rica, and she said she  was given meds, without my consent! the night of the riot they gave her 2 small white pills, i have talked to a number of kids that have said they were given pills and injections.  they told her (after she was taken back to the school that night) that the little white pills were allergy pills, because of the bites and scratches on her legs. no one yet has verified what all these pills were, anon you need to do some research. not every child from all the schools and all over the country would be telling the same stories, please for your child check every detail, i made some bad choices, and i regret it everyday!

[anon]

[ This Message was edited by: KarenZ on 2003-10-17 08:53 ]

[Deborah]

Here's an example of the reality of State Oversight and Regulation of programs folks. Things have to get really bad for officials to take any action.
Deborah

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/con ... brown.html
Excerpt:
When Moody died in October after struggling with three counselors while being restrained at the Brown Schools' On Track facility, there were no fines levied, although On Track was cited 28 times. And regardless, the maximum fine would have been just $100.

"We have a lot of kids in our care who are a challenge to care for, and it's our philosophy to work with these facilities to try to bring them up to the standards," said Geoffrey Wool, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. "We'd rather work with them . . . and know that there are places for these children instead of punish these facilities and force them out of business."

But some advocates suspect the system in Texas is bogged down by what amounts to a conflict of interest: The Department of Protective and Regulatory Services also oversees Child Protective Services, which depends on these facilities to house troubled children who are either removed from their homes or orphaned.

At any given time, of the 6,000 beds available in Texas facilities, about 1,500 are filled with Child Protective Service placements, Wool said.

"The state has a conflict of interest because it both licenses and relies on the care in the residential treatment centers," said former state District Judge Scott McCown, who in his time as a judge became familiar with residential treatment centers and other youth-oriented programs and is now executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities.

Wool said his bosses see it differently: "Who better to regulate these facilities than the people who are actually placing children there?" he said. "We have a vested interest in making sure that these facilities provide a minimum standard of quality and that the children who are in these facilities are getting the care and treatment that they need."

Still, some treatment providers have said for years that the state does not pay enough to provide the necessary care for troubled youth. The rates run to more than $100 a day for the most challenging cases, a fraction of the cost of many private facilities.

McCown acknowledges that may be the case.

"What do you do if you don't want to pay a reasonable rate?" McCown said. "You ease up on regulations."

The alternative, he said, is to "pay decent rates to take care of the kids, then you hold people accountable."
*************************************

I don't think paying decent rates is the solution to better regulation and accoutablility.

[Anonymous]

Myself, I think the answer is to imprison the perpetrators.
I think this is the answer.
There are always going to be situation in society where one group of people will have power and authority over another.
If, in this circumstance, those with power and authority, use it to inflict pain and humiliation of the degree we have become familiar with; then those people should be charged with assault and battery and sent to prison. Actually, I think we need a whole new sort of charge - something describing the use of position to inflict pain - where the party in question is in a position of trust and responsibility, and uses it to systematically brutalize their charges.
The idea of these pittely fines, and dismissal of the guilty party is an absolute joke.
In my opinion, these programs have become a haven for sadist.
In much the same way a pedofile may seek employment were they will have access to children, I think the sadistic among us appear to be seeking employment with these programs.
How else to explain the kind of thing we read about in the Go Media link, and here, and elsewhere?
Just as we need the pedofile in prison to protect society from them; we need to lock away these sadistic persons as well.

[Anonymous]

we are here to expose them for what they are and to somehow bring attention to the matter so that some how changes can be made and the kids that need help can get real help.  if i hear of one more kid who asphysiated from being so-called restrained

[Anonymous]

I'm amazed that people will believe anecdotes from people who say good things about WWASP, ignore anecdotes from people who say bad things about it-- and completely write off the entire body of scientific literature on Ritalin.

Sure, medications are sometimes overused.  but at least Ritalin has been repeatedly studied for decades and found to *reduce* the odds of later drug abuse by at least half.  There's no evidence that it causes any kind of harm when properly prescribed.  And studies that have directly compared medication as treatment for ADD with behavioral treatments have found that medication is *more* effective-- and when you compare meds plus behavior mod to meds alone, unless there are co-existing conditions, the results are equivalent (ie, the behavioral stuff doesn't add anything to the effects of the meds).

Please, look at the research-- there's a group at Harvard that has done much of it.  Search on Medline, available free from the National Library of Medicine and this will all come up.

And yeah, some rehabs are lousy-- the whole field of drug treatment suffers from the fact that parents have never demanded anything more than anecdotes as evidence so the people who run drug programs have never been held accountable.  But at least in rehab, there are regulations which at least offer some patient protections.

WWASP, OTOH, has never been independently studied and is totally unregulated.  

Do you want your kid to be more likely to take drugs, not less?  If so, go ahead and send him to a program like WWASP that will traumatize him (PTSD doubles odds of relapse), send him to one which will confront him (another significant increase in relapse risk), deny him Ritalin (and the chance to cut risk of addiction by 50%)-- and oh yeah, put him in with more serious drug users (another thing that WWASP does which has been demonstrated to be harmful).

Think about your standards of evidence: the only evidence there is favoring WWASP comes from people who are *paid* to refer others or who have been so terrorized by their experience there (and who haven't been permitted to graduate until they declared the program wonderful) that they will say anything not to get sent back.

Is that really more believable than dozens of peer reviewed studies published over decades?  Would you really send your child for cancer treatment based on such flimsy evidence?

Sure, there are plenty of problems with research-- but there's also no doubt that it's more reliable than anecdotes from self-interested parties presented with out any attempt to reduce bias.

[Anonymous]

Just a curious question.  It's a little confusing what I'm reading. You talk about people dying in a WWASP facility from being restrained?  Or maybe not, it's not real clear and I've never seen any newspaper articles on this.  Has a child ever died in a WWASP facility?  Wait, I take that back, I saw a report where a girl was attempting to escape and jumped to her death - before anyone could restrain her.  So has a student ever died while in a WWASP program or even been injured other than that unfortunate incident? I saw the other thread and didn't see WWASP listed as having "casualties."

[FaceKhan]

A WWASP student shot himself while at home after his mother threatened to send him back to WWASP for a "refresher". The boys older sister had also spent years in WWASP facilities and has no contact with her mother.

That death and the death of the girl in Jamaica are ethicaly speaking, far more reasonably considered murder than WWASP programs are considered legitimate therapy.

Pull your kid. I promise it will not be "the hardest thing you ever had to do." (the program parent mantra) unless you have issues with admitting you were wrong.

[Deborah]

Anon wrote:
Please, look at the research-- there's a group at Harvard that has done much of it. Search on Medline, available free from the National Library of Medicine and this will all come up.

Anon,
Ritalin and other "legal" Schedule II Narcotics are yet another "quick fix" promise by the biomedical mental health industry (psychiatry), of which behavior mod facilities are also a part of. Another way parents can abdicate responsibility.

There are no quick fixes or guarantees. The job of helping someone restore their hope and self esteem and acquire social skills is usually a long journey (or long wait). I've known a number of kids on psych meds. They all had chaotic family situations. And the boy I'm closest to is fine when he is with me. It is not beyond his ability to focus and "behave appropriately" as his mother contends. It's just easier to give him a pill every weekday before school. Meanwhile, he never eats, and when he does it's junk; and gorges on the weekend. Complains of stomach aches, headaches and resently had a mild seizure. But hey, the school officials are off her back.

I put this challenge to you or anyone else here.

Post the research results which prove that ADD/ADHD/ODD and all the rest, are real biological "diseases" that will benefit from medication as say, a diabetic benefits from insulin. Hint: you won't find it, doesn't exist. It's pure and simple fraud, perpetrated by the pushers of the Psych Pharm Industry. But searching for it might be a good exercise for those who have bought the line fed to the public about these so-called diseases. Just more Psychiatric Fraud.

Post the research that proves there are no negative side-effects to children and teens who take these addictive, Schedule II Narcotics which are equivalent to cocaine. Particularly in regards to brain development and heart health. Just as the BM facilities are able to abuse children in ways a parent can't, so can psych professionals. If I gave my son THC because "it worked", I'd be jailed and loose custody. Any shrinky dink or MD can prescribe him legal cocaine.

Looking at the stats (500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today) on the number of legal users and how that number has exploded in two decades, I have to wonder if the "War on Drugs" is not really an attempt to eliminate competition. Gov't doesn't want us "self medicating" but wants our money going in the pockers of the pushers they can tax.  Psych Pharma's goal seems to be to medicalize every possible human behavior and emotion and have as many folks as possible addicted to their drugs to "manage" their "illnesses". They are claiming to be able to diagnose depression in infants. Give me a break. An infant would be on psych meds for the rest of his/her life because the meds inhibit the body's ability to create it's own mind altering chemicals, eventually creating a total dependency. Some are lethal if discontinued cold turkey.

Can you tell us how many children/people have died directly or indirectly from the use of legal Schedule II Narcotics?

How many have committed homicide or suicide while on psych meds?

Can you tell us how many kids are selling their Ritalin and Adderall for $15+ a pill?

If you think these drugs are safe, you have more research to do. This thread and the post from Anon Mom seem to limit the options to DRUGS or PROGRAM. There is SOOOOO much more out there. May not be as easy to find, but with DRUGS and PROGRAMS you are rolling the dice in terms of your child's health and well being.

While you're searching for the answers to the questions I posed, you might check out:

http://www.wildestcolts.com
http://www.wildestcolts.com/links.html
http://www.breggin.com/
http://www.ritalindeath.com/
http://www.adhdfraud.com/
Be sure to scroll down and read the Special Report on the right side. Click on Dr. Baughman's testimony.
Here's a little taste:
In 1980, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) was invented, in-committee, for DSM-III [4].

In 1987, ADD was revised, becoming ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) for DSM-III-R [5]. Any 8 behaviors from a list of 14, qualifies a child for the ?diagnosis.?

In 1994, ADHD is again ?re-conceptualized?, this time for DSM-IV [6]. Six of the nine behaviors from one of two lists qualifies for the ?inattentive,? the ?hyperactive-impulsive? or the ?combined? type.

On July 15, 1996, Congressman Christopher Shays [7] testified: "In ADHD, we are trying to draw the line between personality and pathology, and we are placing millions of children and adults on either side of the social, medical and legal boundary that divides the healthy from the sick. We should do so only with the greatest care, and with particular reticence to make our children medical patients because as a culture we have lost our patience with them."

At the same hearing, Jensen [8], of the NIMH and CHADD (he is a member of their Professional Advisory Board), assured the Congressman: "?studies have consistently pointed towards disturbances in brain functioning, particularly in brain areas responsible for attention and memory."

Jensen used the wording: "pointed toward disturbances in brain functioning" because there was no proof of brain malfunction at the time. Just as there is none today.

On September 23, 1993, Baughman [9], testified to the Panel on NIH Research on Antisocial, Aggressive, and Violence-Related Behaviors and their Consequences: "If, as I am convinced, these entities are not diseases, it would be unethical to initiate research to evaluate biological interventions?unethical and fatally flawed scientifically.

A quote from Dr. Baughman:
"They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive--termed them a 'disease.' Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term 'research.,' has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease. Tragically--the "epidemic" having grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today--this remains the state of the 'science' of ADHD."
*****************************

Please, don't promote Big Psych Pharma. And certainly, know what you're talking about before you do. Our kids deserve better. I'm actually proud of this mom for refusing drugs. I'm sorry she's considering a option that could potentially be equally abusive.  :cry:
Deborah

[Antigen]

On 2003-07-17 16:03:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Just a curious question.  It's a little confusing what I'm reading. You talk about people dying in a WWASP facility from being restrained?  Or maybe not, it's not real clear and I've never seen any newspaper articles on this.  Has a child ever died in a WWASP facility?  Wait, I take that back, I saw a report where a girl was attempting to escape and jumped to her death - before anyone could restrain her.  So has a student ever died while in a WWASP program or even been injured other than that unfortunate incident? I saw the other thread and didn't see WWASP listed as having "casualties."    "

I don't believe anyone who was not in a state of blind panic would try to escape any place by jumping, head first, from a fourth floor window.

Check out this topic:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... &forum=9&8

All the damned time in these places, kids are offing themselves, trying to off themselves or getting killed by staff and by other clients.

This is not true of their peers who are doing all the same things but who do not get sent to a gulag.

I know of one program graduate who beat his mother to death with a baseball bat, stuffed her in the trunk of his car and then picked up a few friends to go joy riding. Last I heard, he's on death row in Texas. I know of another who killed himself on his mother's bed surrounded by the dead-bolt locks she had used to turn their home into a prison. Being a good, "strong" Program parent, she had dutifully severed all ties with her twin boys when they left the cult and "opened" her home (by making it a prison, availaboe for you) to the Program to warehouse clients who had not earned the "privilege" of living in their own homes with their own parents.

Finally, I don't think I've ever heard or read a WWASPie claim that WWASP doesn't kill kids. Their usual retort is that they've never lost in court. Big fuckin' deal! Neither did Ted Bundy for some 15 years! And it looked like Charles Manson was pretty close to skating free till the very end.

The Internet is now safe for free speech.
-- Christopher A. Hansen on the overturning of the Communications Decency Act

[Anonymous]

Re: ADD, depression, etc.

The criteria that define psychiatric conditions-- when properly used-- are as valid as those used for physical diseases.  There are many physical diseases-- MS, for example-- which cannot be defined by objective tests, they must be diagnosed by ruling out other conditions.  There's no objective test for schizophrenia, either, but no one denies it's a real disease.
Most psychiatric diagnoses are replicable from one physician to another at the same rate as physical diseases are-- so there is no evidence to undermine the validity of all of them, and none to rule out ADD and depression as real and replicable.

Re:  Ritalin/antidepressants.  All drugs have side effects.  Big deal.  If the side effects are problematic, stop the drug or try a different one.  That tells us nothing about whether or not these drugs help-- and there's abundant evidence that when properly prescribed, they do.

Drug war hysteria and the labeling of drugs by the government in "schedules" is completely invalidated by the fact that tobacco-- the most harmful known drug-- is legal and not in any schedule, while marijuana, which is far less harmful than cocaine or morphine, is put in the category of having no medical uses, despite research by the National Academy of Sciences and numerous others showing how ludicrous this is.  When dying people can have morphine but not marijuana, something is so wrong that using the schedules to argue anything makes no sense.

Again, while some people do abuse Ritalin (and some people abuse aspirin!), that doesn't mean that it doesn't help some-- and there have been two large studies finding that people prescribed Ritalin for ADD are half as likely to later become drug addicts as those whose ADD is unmedicated.  There is no similar evidence on behavioral treatments for ADD, which come up short when compared directly to drugs.

People may not like this idea-- but what I don't get is why people who would be delighted to pop a pill to fix a physical condition like cancer feel that people with mental conditions should have to suffer and work at their recovery.

Further, most of the people who crusade against psychiatry are influenced-- whether they are aware of it or not-- by Scientology, which funds much of the "all psychiatric drugs are bad" propaganda and the litigation related to these drugs.

Mr. Anti-Prozac, Peter Breggin himself frequently testifies for the Scieno's in these lawsuits.  His books make the ridiculous claim that all positive effects of the drugs are due to placebo action-- while all negative effects are due to the chemical nature of the drugs.  This cannot be.
Either the drugs have some good and some bad effects or they have no effect-- they can't have both and you credit them for the bad but not the good; that's not science.

And I'm not saying that drugs v. inpatient treatment are the only options.  What I am saying is that you shouldn't rule out automatically the option with the most research support and go for the one with the least!

The best first option is always the one likely to do the least harm-- individual counseling, with someone who knows Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Motivational Interviewing.  And such evidence based counseling is not easy to find because so many counselors just say they are "eclectic" and do what the heck they want, rather than using stuff proven to work.  But at least ordinary counselors can't do the harm that is done in places where the owners have absolute control-- and they won't cause the harm that comes from mixing kids with mild problems with those with severe problems.