Micheal, why don't you contact the girl, below. She is a survivor of CC and uses her full name.
You can't discount this testimony of abuse..being that everything she accounts is confirmed by your experience of the program..
Like kelly, you weren't allowed to talk to Katie until Cross Creek deemed her "reformed" enough for that "privlege." Which was how many months, Micheal?
Like Kelly, Katie was not allowed to see anyone in her family for months until Cross Creek deemed her "reformed" enough for that "privelege."Which was how many months, Micheal? Like Kelly, Katie wasn't allowed to contact people on the outside world for as long as her stay at WWASP. So for three years Katie was denied any contact with the world at large...These violations are medically classified as psychological torture and abuse.
Also, realize that physically forcing a kid (and yes, physically forcing, how do you think they force them into those t-shirts if they refuse, Micheal? Well, the same way you forced Katie into the Cross Creek Torture Chamber)to wear ANY SORT OF CLOTHING that symbolozes their lesserness and designates that they are to by sexually, physically and psychologically abused because they deserve it is PSYCHOLOGICAL torture. Forcing "cutters or those in danger of hurting themselves to wear yellow t-shirts" is also psychological abuse.
If you don't beleive me, about the medical classifications of the Cross Creek violations you have admitted to, call the head of your local psychiatric hospital and see what she says when you describe the violations that you have described to us: the imprisonment, the disconnection from the outside world, the debasing outfits.
http://www.heal-online.org/crosscreek.htmKelly Adams
Houston, TX
kcadams1980@yahoo.com What can possibly be said or written about an experience so damaging it irrevocably altered the course or my life ?It's not an easy task for me to tell a sensual, chronicled account of my 18 months of incarceration at Cross Creek Manor in Southern Utah. I use the word "incarceration," because that is what it was - package the process in whatever manipulations you wish, but the reality is that we were locked up. If you remember nothing else, remember this: The proprietors of WWASP and other similar Behavior Modification "Schools" are master manipulators.
I was woken up in the middle of the night by 3 strangers. I was told to get out of bed and get dressed. One stranger followed me to the bathroom and watched while I changed. I was extremely disoriented - I'm not sure I realized I was awake - so I didn't fight my "kidnappers." I was instructed to get into a strange car. I got in the car without "incident," and heard the doors lock me in. I began to get very scared and I started asking my kidnappers, where they were taking me. No one would tell me. I guess I was beginning to raise my voice (I was feeling a bit hysterical), and that's when I was informed without a shred of sympathy if I gave them "any trouble" I would be put in handcuffs or otherwise physically restrained.
they told me I was going to a nice school for girls like me. I believed that I was going to some type of 90-day rehab, I would go back home, and my parents would love me again.
When we pulled up to Cross creek manor, I didn't think it looked so bad My kidnappers escorted me through the doors where 100 or so pairs of eyes all staring at me greeted me as if I was some sort of carnival freak show. All the girls were gathered out in the central foyer area for the nightly "Manor meeting." I was wary of all those girls in sweat pants and slippers who looked like a bunch of robots. I was taken to a room with a couple of “high-phase” girls who did my “intake.” I pleaded and insisted I didn't belong there, and they just started laughing. One of the girls told me, patronizingly, "Yeah, none of us belong here either."
Shortly afterwards I was strip-searched and "nix-ed" (de-loused) by a very scary , very large woman - I was unbelievably mortified. The other girls petrified me - when they spoke, it sounded to me like someone was playing a tape recorder, and they had absolutely no sympathy for me.
My first day in "Group" with Ron (he was the director of Cross Creek at the time) he asked me why I was there. All the girls were sitting around in a circle staring at me like I was a murderer, so I said "because my parents sent me here," COMPLETELY without a hint of attitude (I wasn't yet accustomed to the program double-speak). This sent Ron into a tirade - he yelled that I was a drug addict and ruining my family's lives, etc., etc. After a lengthy barrage of aggressive, mean-spirited "feedback" from the other girls in the group, I sat down, shaken and unable to process what had jhappened.
After I had spent about two weeks in Orientation (OR) Group with Ron, I joined my "home" group with the intimidating therapist at the helm, Garth. Garth was a very large man, which he used to his advantage to create a aggressive and imposing persona. Even before Cross Creek, men easily intimidated me, but being under Garth's "tutelage" worsened my fears.
Here is where things began to get really messy. In my 18 months at Cross Creek, there were so many harmful and traumatizing incidences that occurred - it would be impossible for me to recount every one. With that in mind, I will try instead to paint a general picture that will illustrate the kind of experience that I had.
Unlike many of the girls at CCM, I was never "restrained," but I witnessed this incredibly disturbing spectacle too many times to count. I was too paralyzed with fear to ever consider doing anything that I thought might cause me to be "taken down" by staff. I remember watching girls being taken down that were simply arguing with a staff - not physically endangering themselves or others - and they would be dragged, literally, kicking and screaming downstairs and into ISO (the 12 ft., locked "isolation" rooms). I also remember seeing a girl sitting in ISO who had cut herself and smeared blood all over her face and arms.
There were other girls who I saw with broken noses and injured arms/shoulders that were put into makeshift "slings" that consisted only of an Ace bandage. I knew several girls who had sustained physical injuries as a result of being taken down - i.e., broken noses, dislocated shoulders, torn ligaments, etc.
There were plenty of girls who I saw sitting in ISO for days, weeks, and even months at a time.
From my first day at CCM, I was told (and screamed at) that I was a worthless person, a disappointment to my family, a hopeless drug addict, a bitch and slut, a waste of space, a horrible human being and whatever other disparaging remarks the staff and other girls could muster. When I first arrived at CCM, I wasn't addicted to drugs however, I, like many other girls, was coerced into proclaiming/believing that I was hopelessly addicted to drugs. It was made very obvious that if I did not affirm the program's assessment of me that I would never advance past level one, so I played along (at first), and eventually began to internalize and believe everything that they said.
The infamous T.A.S.K.S. seminars & group "processes" were especially hurtful. One of my "issues" that I had to deal with at Cross Creek was childhood sexual abuse at 11 years old, and.
During one of the Focus "processes," (which I have been sworn to secrecy never to tell about) I was physically held down by four other Cross Creek girls (high phase girls who were seminar staff) while a fifth girl screamed into my face that "HE'S ON TOP OF YOU AGAIN!!! AREN'T YOU GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?? ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LET HIM DO IT TO YOU AGAIN?? WHAT KIND OF SLUT ARE YOU??"
I was crying and screaming so hard that I could barely see - I kicked and thrashed as hard as I could, but the four other girls just kept pinning me down to the floor, and I was unable to get out from under them.
There was another "process" that Garth facilitated, during which we had to write our own tombstones (the idea was for us to experience that we had died due to our "behavior"). After we had all written them, Garth and a few high phase girls from our group went around the room and screamed into our faces anything hurtful that they could manage to make us feel like worthless and horrible human beings.
When it was my turn, Garth approached me calmly and told me, coldly & without emotion, that my grandfather (my mother's father, whom I loved very much) was dead. My grandfather had emphysema and was repeatedly in and out of the Emergency Room, so this was hardly a stretch. Garth and the other girls shouted inches away from my face that my grandfather died knowing that I was a worthless bitch, a drug addict, and that I had ruined my family. They told me that he died knowing what a horrible person I was. By this point I was sobbing uncontrollably and finding it difficult to remain standing, so one of the high phase girls was holding me up for the continued barrage of abuse. After they finished with me, Garth and the other girls moved on to their next victim - and the scene continued on, as it had with me.
The next day, Garth called me into his office and told me that he was "mistaken" about my grandfather, and that he hadn't really died. I sobbed from relief that he was still living. l do not believe that Garth made an innocent "mistake." he purposefully used my grandfather's illness to traumatize me during a process. it worked.
I was never one of the girls routinely taken down, but it still took me months to advance in the program. Let me explain - although the program cronies would say like to say otherwise, unless you cry in group and painting a very melodramatic picture of your "issues," you will not advance, and you will not go home (which is where we ALL wanted to be).
I had a hard time expressing emotion -especially when put on the spot in-group. Thus, my inability to "be real," (translation: cry) held me on the low levels for a good seven months.
As I stated earlier, I was always very bright. My intelligence, apparently, was something to be ashamed of. I was routinely punished and chastised in-group for being "better than," and being "in my head". I was specifically reprimanded in-group for using "big words". This was all brought on because I was trying to help some of the other girls with their schoolwork, which was, apparently, a bad thing. After being "confronted" about my "intelligence issue," (yes, they actually called it that) I remember trying to dumb myself down in order to not incur the group's criticism.
WWSP "school" system is, at best, laughable. I was a very good student. At Cross Creek (or "Browning Academy" as WWASP likes to refer to the fictional "school" associated with their programs), I was given a remedial level textbook for each respective class and instructed to complete the chapter exercises and a chapter test. This was the extent of our "education," and it was a mockery of my intellectual ability. I learned absolutely nothing my "senior year" in "high school"
Eventually, I advanced to level three. But let me first let you know that I wasn't allowed to speak to my parents on the phone until I had been there for four months, the first time I saw my parents was after seven months, and the first time I saw my two brothers was after nine or ten months.
I was not allowed to communicate with anyone from the outside world besides my parents - not friends, family or anyone besides my parents & brothers.
After I began to advance in the program, I became one of its most vocal supporters. I was notorious for giving "hardcore" feedback to new girls, and "not taking any crap," from anyone not subscribing to the program's mantras. I became a bloodthirsty Pitt Bull - anxiously awaiting the opportunity to tear another girl down, the way that I had been torn down before. I'm sure that I probably caused a lot of girl's pain, and this is something that I feel intensely remorseful for to this day.
After I had been at CCM for 10 months or so, I was on level five and able to take an off-grounds pass with my family. I missed my family so much by that point that I thought I might break in two. The pass really broke down a lot of the brainwashing, and I eventually reached a point where I felt I would literally go insane if I had to remain in the program.
Basically, I cracked - one night I spent three hours pacing around my room trying to figure out how I was possibly going to complete the program without losing my mind. by then, I was 18, and was able to walk out of the program if wanted to - however, my parents had made it clear that they would not let me come home if I left Cross Creek without completing the program.
My "exit plan" was pretty similar to other kids in WWASP programs - if I decided to leave after I turned 18, I would get $10 in my pocket and a bus ticket to Denver (not Houston, my native city), and my parents would not accept me back in their house.
So, back to that night when I lost it - I eventually decided, after a couple of hours of pacing, that I had to leave the program, despite the fact that I would probably be homeless.
I went to the head staff and told her I wanted to leave. She attempted to change my mind for an hour or so, but I wouldn't be swayed. Then my parents were called. We had a gut-wrenching phone conversation during which my mother said "goodbye" - at that moment she believed that she was talking to me for the last time. After my parents couldn't get me to change my mind, my 17 year-old brother, Cory, was put on the phone. I remember him sobbing and pleading with me not to leave the program, because he "didn't want me to die." I cried my eyes out during all of this, but still, my parents and I held firm. after a few hours of this, I spoke to my case manager, and she told me that I could still change my mind. I was petrified of being abandoned in a foreign city (not to mention the fact that I had no way of contacting any of my other family members, since it was forbidden to record any phone numbers), so I acquiesced, and remained at Cross Creek.
After this incident, I was ostracized and forced to "regain trust" from my group members.. If I had been under 18, I would have been dropped down to level one, but due to my age, I was allowed to remain on probationary status at level five. After a couple of weeks of groveling and enduring numerous group sessions during which I was the object of ridicule and criticism, I eventually convinced Garth and the rest of the high phase girls that I was "ready to work."
And so, I was cemented into the system -I was completely brainwashed into thinking the program had saved my life and that I would be dead if my parents had never sent me there (the same robotic mantra of all brainwashed WWASP kids). I became a cruel and ruthless high phase girl - like the ones who had hurt me when I was new at CCM, and I extolled the virtues of the program that had caused irrevocable damage to my soul.
The rest of my incarceration at Cross Creek was fairly smooth, and I graduated two months before my19th birthday. Afterwards, I returned to Houston to live with my parents for a couple of months before being accepted to the University of Texas - Arlington
I entered college a completely conflicted, damaged, neurotic, depressed and anxious person - with the next few years ahead of me to experience levels of depravity that I never came close to prior to my incarceration at CCM. I don't feel comfortable getting into all those details now, but suffice it to say, that the program DIDN'T work. To this day, my parents still do not believe me when I try to tell them about what went on at CCM. The fact that they take the program's side over mine - their own daughter - is something that I will probably feel and carry with me for the rest of my life.
Please Contact Kelly Adams for any questions for comments at the email above.
