emotional abuse / mental hell
Posted: 2004-09-22 00:55:00
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This is in response to another topic: on the teen help industry---but I would love to discuss this program with others.
I was sent to the DR in 1990---stuck there for 2 years. At the age of thirty, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and am finally getting the help I need---help I should have gotten fifteen years ago.
I, like many of the students there, am the product of a dysfunctional evangelical family. My parents sent me there for my authority problem. My parents, like their parents, believed in corporal punishment, and beat me for any misdemeanor. They sent me away in large part because I resisted being beaten at the age of fiteen (among other things). They sent me to the program to break me--and while there---intergenerational family abuse was never addressed.
As a family we needed intensive counseling but NHYM (and a private hospital in which I was "treated" previous to NHYM)instead deemed the solution to be a long term facility. My parents chose Escuela Caribe on a recommendation from Focus on the Family, James Dobson's organization.
I did not receive the help I needed, and the "treatment" I received in that unregulated place where all contact was monitored damaged me for years.
For you staff who have trouble believing that staff have not been abusive: sorry, you are not "facing reality" (one of the many categories on the students daily point sheet). Really think about what you have seen. Many of you were not trained to treat students with issues. If you go to nhym-alumni.com, staff(who are to be working with groups of 8-10 troubled youth)are required to only have "some" college experience.
Housefathers are given unquestioned authority over students, who have no advocate. This is not a program monitored by outside authorities.
When I was there, some girls were sexually abused...we were all emotionally abused, and physically abused by excessive physical exercise as punishments.
Nazis used physical consequences as punishment in concentration camps. New Horizons Youth Ministries use the same tactics on their students.
If "the program" really were helping its students, it would give them logical consequences for their actions. But then that would entail having logical rules, which would entail throwing out all the humiliating ones like having to ask to step into rooms etc.
Look, If you want to be involved with this program, then address the issue of abuse of students with the board of Directors at New Horizons. If you want to be involved with this school, be advocates for its students. Talk with them one on one, and DO NOT discuss the results with the staff down there. Take any concerns straight to parents.
Many alumni have posted testimony of abuse on this website: nhym-alumni.com. You should read it.
You should also read Jesus Land, by Julia Scheeres. Just go to Amazon.com. It's a great book, detailing the experience of her and her brother at Escuela Caribe.
Hope this helps!
Dre
