Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones => Topic started by: blownawaytheidahoway on November 16, 2004, 11:26:00 AM
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Why is it that people say that the more time that has passed between exiting CEDU ed. and the present is equal to how "over it" we should be?
I think it works in the opposite way. For example, I have noticed in my observations of the quite elderly that there seems to be an increased interest in religious scripture. Naturally as one gets realistically close to death, one feels the need to read up on what thousands of years of spirituality has to say on the subject. In this way I now feel as I get closer to slaying the dragon inside of my mind labled CEDU, a dragon with a million scales covering it. Each peice of armor has "I can't", or "You Suck", or "Failure" inscribed on it. I find that the dragon grows larger as I grow closer. It takes up more room inside me than I ever really knew. There were times within my first year of leaving RMA that I suspected what I was going through was singular to people who had experienced what I went through. But I got lost trying to catch up and relearn how communication and relationships worked, were founded and continued outside of the CEDU model. I was thankfully distracted for TEN YEARS.
But why was I so emotional all the time? Had I forgotten that first year or so being "out" of RMA. A friggin' basket case, an emotional mass with the same metaphorical reaction of silly putty to newspaper. Tears and anger, and confusion and sadness, battled with shame and self hatred...I needed raps. I needed to hear what a dick I was, and be in the hotspot and finally to express my negativity. I needed to punch things and scream! I was pissed and very scared/alone. Why, it was like I felt when I first arrived at CEDU. The whole first 6mos- year.
Do you honestly believe that CEDU ed builds your 'positivity' up? WHY would I miss the abusive raps? To hear again what was wrong with me. To hear again how hopeless I was and how I would be a crumpled defeated mass without RMA? I had gotten so used to it at RMA, I created my own tape to play the constant screaming of my thinking whether I was feeling 'good' or 'bad'. If I was feeling good, bad was not far behind with a flaming paper bag full of shit...
Now, I know it's killing me. Literally thousands of messages have been playing in my head since RMA. At first there were some very arrogant ones about how noone knew anything about LIFE. About why they do what they do. I was so smart, so sure of my knowledge that these unenlightened hairless monkeys knew nothing of their reactions to jobs, family, love, fear, and 'agreement'. But it didn't last, because I didn't have the program anymore...all I had the expectation that I had been miraculously lifted up to fly!!!
It was bullshit. As soon as I understood CEDU's positive messages about how strong and FREE we were, my wings would be clipped with more psychological mumbo jumbo. More breaking down and more FEEL BAD mojo. There, there was a culture on inexpectation. You get used to your stomach flipping every MonWedFri at 1pm. Time to face the firing squad! And don't you people remember the unexpected rewards! Like I said before, I didn't really realize how screwed up the whole thing was... It didn't take long to be more of an asshole than I was before going to CEDU to try to cover up some of this new found abandonment. This new facade, and vision of the future that CEDU trys to endure. I had been lifted up where I thought was proud and beautiful, only to find that I was chipped, mangy, and very, very, alone.
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Exactly - and so well said
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and you're more "over it" now than you were when you first got out, right?
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On 2004-11-16 12:40:00, mikehunt wrote:
"and you're more "over it" now than you were when you first got out, right?
"
How could I have given you that impression?
The more time that passes, the more I can attribute certain experiences to reacting to my CEDU identity.
I'm just trying to purge this and it seems that the more I understand about method and reaction the more I can rewire myself for happiness and control. I'm trying to feel better about the experience. I know there is a silver lining to this pounding pillow. Maybe I can beat it out.
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what's your definition of getting "over" something?
read your last 2 paragraphs again... perhaps you'll see what i'm talking about.
it sounds like you were wrapped up in yourself and your masochistic inclinations (thanks to cedu) and that you gradually pulled yourself out of it... not that you've necessarily completed this task, but it's clearly something you've recognized and tried to combat.
you had an existential dilemma and consequently rejected what you'd previously accepted and believed to be true.
acknowledgement is the first step of such progression.
you then set out on a path to find something new, and the further you walk down that path, the further you are from cedu and that mentality.... also, the further you get from the source, you more you're prone to realize the parts of yourself that are still coherent with it. you can then renounce them too to liberate yourself.
if that's not getting "over it", then i'm not really sure what is.
(by the way, i think you're expecting that you should be completely "over it" at this point, hence your statement about "being over it"... i think that you're focusing too much on the end result and not enough on your progress. well, you usually don't just wake up one morning like "ok, i'm over it now"; it's something you work toward... it's a process. when we get too wrapped up in where we should be, we lose touch with where we actually are and what's really important, and consequently, we end up hating our lives... life is much more beautiful when you're fulfilled by the present moment rather than reaching toward the future.
also, take into consideration that everybody is on a different path, and so your progress looks a lot different from anybody else's.)
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laura solomon[ This Message was edited by: mikehunt on 2004-11-16 13:49 ]
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:skull: :skull: :skull:
:tup: :tup: :tup:
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Tinker worse than ancient Egyptians did brain surgery. What do you think will happen if you put troubled kids from predominently affluent families in with men and women from bizarre backgrounds who were paid to make these depressed or spoiled kids with self confidence problems feel worse about themselves? Do you really believe that these "counselors" felt good about themselves? Did my parents think I was getting assisted by these people in issues in BUILDING self confidence and independance? YES. Instead they often send a extra ordinarily self assured, and at least independant kid off, and years later he is need of the same kind of structured environment...or the opposite. All I know for sure is when I was there the "counselors" had no trainging other than the program itself and it's influence done by older staffers. The few that appeared to have a degree in pschology either left soon after starting work, or thought that this fanatical approach to regression was the be all of every problem. It was crank. CEDU therapy dinkered with the most essential parts of our ego- super ego. If Wilhelm Reich were alive he'd be all over this shit. We have no organization to study the effects of our therapy. And it would be impossible anyway to do that kind of specific research, but I'll bet my last dollar that you can prove that Raps/Propheets handled the way they were done until WWASP bought CEDU (and afterwords, I'd venture too) that it did NO good, and in MOST cases, "CEDU therapy" done by non counselors DID more HARM!
Yelling and screaming at kids with ranging behavioral issues to do nothing but exact auto-emotional responses for the satisfaction/ideology of the "counselor" is the most absurd part of the program.
And they wolloped me...but I got mad words and logic to their emotional mumbo jumbo. My passion is resolute. They dinkered and had NO FUCKING IDEA what they were doing. SUICIDES are inevitable for some people BECAUSE of RMA or leaving RMA. Let's not forget about all those kids rma tried to 'help'. Where the fuck did they wind up? better or worse? again, the questions abound. But surely as day melts to night RMA is/was an ingredient in their lives.
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bump
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Recently it's become very clear to me that 1 of the harmful ways CEDU 'therapy' fucked me up is by forcing us to internalize everything. This instills the "concept of being broken and needing to be fixed" (every M/W/F). I look back over the last 20 years and realize that I approach most (interpersonal conflict) situations in the following manner: "I immediately assume I'm at fault for whatever is wrong and it's my responsibility to fix it".
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Recently it's become very clear to me that 1 of the harmful ways CEDU 'therapy' fucked me up is by forcing us to internalize everything. This instills the "concept of being broken and needing to be fixed" (every M/W/F). I look back over the last 20 years and realize that I approach most (interpersonal conflict) situations in the following manner: "I immediately assume I'm at fault for whatever is wrong and it's my responsibility to fix it".
I can relate. As a teen a certain amount of self- absorption is healthy in learning to associate correctly emotions, vocal clues, facial expressions, the limits of what is said in "normal everyday" conversation among other things. CEDU created very deep and immediate auto responses to insecurities. The ability to filter and recognize boundaries becomes permanently clouded due to the formation of these "not so natural" pathways.
As I read more about the adolescent mind the more I realize how detrimental our "education" was.
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Just think about it - it's monday at 12:30. What's the only thing on your mind.
Absolute fucking dread and fear for the moment between 1 and 5pm that you get your ass handed to you by a bunch of psychotic, unlicensed degenerates and brainwashed teenagers.
In this scenario you can only assume there is something 'wrong' with you. Why do you deserve to be yelled at and pummeled every M/W/F?
If 2 1/2 years of that doesn't freak you the fuck out I don't know what will.
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it is so nice to hear this. yeah, we get addicted to raps. that definitely happens.
you needed to be in raps when u got out, in that you experienced an ongoing sense of this is missing and i 'need' it, clearly you needed the opposite, because your brain had been wired to beleive that the act of doing work in raps was what qualified you to have access to social interaction.
they taught us this through action, not words.
why do we get addicted to these kinds of social processes? because that is the biological function upon which all of society and culture has been built, and like a kid with a loaded gun, these fuckers stumbled upon their power when they pull the trigger, and shot the shit out of their own brains and all of us and every staff they touched.
we are all just humans. no different. you and i are no different than mel wasserman or rudy benz. we are luckily enough to be the ones who learned the lesson, and not the ones who tested the boundary, it is far harder to grow out of and realize your wrongness from being the one who decided to try something different and having it go horribly wrong and then you clung to it from the rush you got, than being the one who got the shit beat out of them by the guy with the rush and then getting a rush from copying him.
i copied them. i became the ass hole they wanted me to become but that is not the ass hole i am.
rudy benz has his own demons and as a christian i feel it important that my thoughts towards him continue to hope for his peace and healing so that he can find a way to stop abusing people. but i can't talk to him. i don't have any desire to ever talk to that person ever again. thats the closest i have ever come to hating anyone
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Recently it's become very clear to me that 1 of the harmful ways CEDU 'therapy' fucked me up is by forcing us to internalize everything. This instills the "concept of being broken and needing to be fixed" (every M/W/F). I look back over the last 20 years and realize that I approach most (interpersonal conflict) situations in the following manner: "I immediately assume I'm at fault for whatever is wrong and it's my responsibility to fix it".
God I hear this in a big way. Talk about a mindfuck. I have a hard time, not standing up for myself necessarily, but calling people out when I know I'm right...it's like there's small nagging voice in my head telling me to just suck it up and deal, that it'll get turned back around somehow. Now the untrained eye may not see this, and neither did I until I started checking out these forums and paying attention, but does that not perfectly encapsulate a rap?
Your first instinct is to fight for what you know is right, but that eventually gets replaced by the instinct to just get through it with the least amount of conflict possible. Damn.
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I think the opposite is true with me... I call people out when I should probably keep quiet and let things work themselves out. I can be very unnecessarily confrontational at times, which is a "skill" I believe I aquired at RMA.
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I used to go aggressive...my first few weeks there I would challenge and react, eventually it just became finding the path of least resistance. I even made shit up once or twice just so it would be over quicker. It got to the point where there was nowhere left to retreat, those black plastic chairs didn't provide much in the way of a cave. Plus, a heated exchange with one person and a heated exchange with a bunch of people who've moved across the circle to join said heated exchange are completely different animals.
I guess that just shows that people cope and adjust in different ways.
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I love Karma and how it affects things! One day, all CEDU clone's employee's will get what they deserve, A 6 feet prison cell.
-king random
all of CEDU Consulars and their clones program's counselors should make amends, but I think they will not, because they're all self-righteous a$$holes.
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They won't make amends in many cases. Statutes and disbursement and all that. More recent cases have a better chance, but it seems that all cases falter.
The best bet is to publicize, use staff names (fairly and accurately), and go after current institutions. Hard.
But it has to be with directed, proactive anger, channeled for maximum efficacy.
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what else does it need?
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One way would be to compile a list of felonies comitted by staff memebers or former students that are working with CEDU like institutions (assholes like Russ Decker)
Felonies that staff had comitted pre-CEDU. Felonies that staff coped out to in raps/propheets. If we have enough detail, compile it and send it to the police in the county that the crime was comitted we could start to turn this ship around.
we didn't sign any confidentiality agreements in those raps. The staff may have but the student's didn't sign shit.
Or we could do the same for student disclosures. I remember 1 gnarly disclosure of a former student. I don't want to fuck with the kid about his disclosre - i feel bad for him in many regards. But the way RMA forced him to confess it to his parents on a parent visit was, in my book, wreckless endangerement and is prosecutable. Is that a word?
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What's really freaking shocking is that students confessed to crimes committed against them, and nothing ever happened. Why? Because the bottom line was more important than the kid. Staff weren't going to piss off the family to protect the kid if it threatened the Almighty. (Dollar, that is.)
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when i split from cedu and hitchhiked back to my parents' house i got raped. it was like it didnt even happen. it was so all my fault
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when i split from cedu and hitchhiked back to my parents' house i got raped. it was like it didnt even happen. it was so all my fault
Jesus. That's unbelievable.
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I'm so horribly sorry that happened to you.
Hugs.......
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i was raped again after i got back from cedu and i was like, whatever, cedu was way worse.
i feel like they raped our minds. thats what i think it is, the brainwashing, it shouldn't be called brainwashing, it should be called mind raping. it's wrong. really wrong. it makes you not be able to think or reason or trust? why would you want to turn a person back into an animal? because you were trying to turn them into a slave maybe? someone who wouldn't notice they were a slave?
thats what the owners of cnn want to do to everyone, i think we can see that. i am so angry truly i feel like i could burn down the world. but i want to create a new vision of what people can also be, sure we can be cruel demons, but we can also be beautiful angels, we just have to understand tolerance and diversity in a way western society so far has not been able to, largely because of the overly simplistic ideas and rationals of man that came to dominate his mind beyond where it should have.
brainwashing it seems to me is the root of all society. it has been demonstrated in its most horrific way at cedu, and in america in general, and throughout much of western history, but that doesnt mean that it has to continue that way.
i feel that a clear vision of a new way of thinking is the best way to assure that these behaviors arent repeated in history.
fucking behavior modification. they wanted to do behavior modification on us??? they are the ones who need behavior modification!!! the few crazy sadistic fuck heads capable of exacting this abuse indisciriminantly on anyone who wanders into their presence.
we must finally fight back in society against the same mindset that ruled the vilians of our youth. dont we just have to do something? like write a book or something!! god i wish i could stop procrastinating right now....
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and thank you, i appreciate your sympathy. we all need sympathy and i know you understand pain. we all felt more pain there than most people feel in a lifetime. most people die on their way to feeling that much pain. and they just inflicted on us for 2 years and then gave us back to our parents.
do you feel like they were trying to make us hate our parents and beleive our parents hated us? cause thats what i feel like.
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Alia, my sympathies as well. It must have taken a lot of courage to survive.
It makes my blood run backwards knowing my niece is at BCA and probably going through what you all went through. For months I've thought, "Maybe she'll run away, and call us." Easy for me to say, until I read more here about how dangerous it is to run away. (Have you read this thread? http://http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22840)
I also share your drive to DO something about this. I have two battles I need to fight.
The first is to get my niece to safety, and to a loving home.
Second is the human rights battle that needs to be fought. I am hopeful about the GAO report and the hearings in the House. I know many people here have doubts, but it is a very big deal that the GAO has issued this damning report, and there are actually very few issues that get as far as a hearing in Congress. Now the GAO and Rep. Miller need to finish what they've started. As I've said before, it won't be a cure-all, but it is vital that students have legal recourse when they've been wronged/harmed.
I would rather fight for prosecution than amends. But that's just the opinion of one angry Auntie.
AuntieEm
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It is absolutely outrageous this continues to thrive and flourish. Public awareness must be raised. We need a visual representation to show the public exactly what we went through. More stories must be proliferated via media. We should challenge those "self help" to study the flip side of the coin. Seriously study them, take testimony, feature investigative journalists, such as Maia, etc.
What continues to blow my mind is why these places were not prosecuted when THOUSANDS of students/parents were deceived by:
1. A promise to deliver academics. Cedu and RMA were called schools and academies. When I was there, there were NO schools. It is designated as a group home.
2. A promise to deliver individualized therapy. Abusive group interrogation/coercion based on experiential cult like anti-therapy practices (Lifespring, EST, and Synanon) is neither individualized nor therapeutic.
3. A promise to deliver emotional growth. Is this even possible through systemic verbal and psychological abuse and coercion?
4. A promise to protect us with safe caregivers. Let's face it, there is NO alumna who can say that these staff members contributed to an overall atmosphere of emotional safety. Verbal abuse aside, there were no boundaries. How appropriate is it to give power to staff members who are inappropriate sexually, and who have admitted--boasted!--of committing all manner of crimes and deviances? And we had to trust them with our most vulnerable psyches? Only to be exploited, humiliated, and coerced?
I. Just. Don't. Get. It.
In addition, there was no unbiased, regulatory party to investigate student issues or complaints. And let's not even get in fraudulent licensure/advertising.
I know there are some who believe in forgiveness, and I'm not one to advocate dwelling in bitterness, but by the same token, I can't forgive those who don't repent. (And no, I'm not religious.)
PS. I'm sorry, Alia, to hear about your rape. When I split CEDU RS, I was so afraid that it took me 6 hours to go a few miles. I was trying to avoid capture from law enforcement, cultists, and deviants. I spent more time hiding than moving. What happened to you was my worst fear--but CEDU scared me more.
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i was raped again after i got back from cedu and i was like, whatever, cedu was way worse.
i feel like they raped our minds. thats what i think it is, the brainwashing, it shouldn't be called brainwashing, it should be called mind raping. it's wrong. really wrong. it makes you not be able to think or reason or trust? why would you want to turn a person back into an animal? because you were trying to turn them into a slave maybe? someone who wouldn't notice they were a slave?
This sentiment is something frighteningly similar to something julie said in a thread I posted regarding sexual dysfunction in survivors.
Think of the forced intimicy like a skilled dom that you didn't choose and didn't want and would like to get away from inflicting scenes on you unwillingly and pulling the strings right so that you have to respond to the scene with the endorphins that feel good.
You get the pleasure, but you know darned well you didn't choose this and didn't want it---except with the pleasure, there's that little voice that has to wonder if you did want it---except you really did say no and mean it---except at some point in that when it started feeling good did your response constitute consent from then on---except....
Round and round it goes. Below the surface of your mind even if not consciously.
Which the Program does with its coercive techniques for getting you all keyed up in a negative way and then forcing the endorphins out with some kind of release of tension technique, usually accompanied by some variant of love bombing (or approval bombing---"Oh, you're finally making progress! We're so proud of you!")
Screws you up in the same way as if you'd been imprisoned and raped or imprisoned and subjected to scenes by a skilled (but criminal) dom--for months or years!--you said no to.
Recovery for me as a rape survivor has included realizing that no really did mean no and I had a right for it to be respected, but that some human responses are push-button and someone who takes physical control over you and can push those buttons regardless of your having said no. I still did say no, like other rape victims, and the bastard succeeding at pushing my buttons makes his crime worse. It doesn't make me complicit in my own victimization. Everybody has buttons that can be pushed whether we want them to be or not, and it screws everybody up when that happens, which is why imprisoning another human being and pushing their buttons is such an evil thing to do.
Being imprisoned and mentally raped for an extended period screwed up all your intimacy relations across the spectrum.
Rape victims do not become mostly-recovered survivors without some sort of treatment, either professional or through a damned skilled shade-tree counselor who is a professional in all but name and pay.
It wasn't your fault. You said no, you meant no, and you were forced anyway. That's rape, whether psychologically or sexually. It does the same damage, so it really doesn't matter a damn how they damaged you. You said no, they forced intimacy on you. That they succeeded in pushing some or all of your buttons does not make you complicit in your own violation in any way whatsoever.
You know that intellectually.
Not knowing it in your gut is why your sex life is still fucked up.
Get treatment.
It might be a great idea to seek out therapists who treat a lot of rape victims. Among that set of therapists, you'll probably find one fairly quickly who can generalize from treating rape victims to treating you, because, again, psychologically it's the same damn thing.
It would be just like treating a rape victim who had been imprisoned and raped repeatedly over however long you were at CEDU.
What does long-term psychological damage from rape is not the physically having a dick poked in a hole or two--that is, frankly, no different from getting punched out by a drunk bully in a bar. What does long term psychological damage from rape is the psychological forced intimacy.
Same damned thing.
It's a truism in the psychological community and the rape survivor community, for damned good reason, that rape victims don't recover without treatment---the trauma just gets shoved below the surface and festers.
That's you."
She then adds in a subsequent post:
"Another BTW since this subject punches all of my hot buttons.
I've heard Program survivors say, "At least I wasn't raped."
Yeah, you were. Same forced intimacy, same damage, same kind of treatment necessary for recovery.
Yeah, you were.
And it wasn't your fault.
Saying you were a bad kid is like saying a woman was dressed slutty so "she was askin' for it."
It's just as much bullshit when your parents, the Program, or even you say it as it is when people say it about a rape victim.
You could walk down the strip at two in the morning stark naked and you still wouldn't deserve rape.
You could be the wildest teen, or the worst criminal, and you still wouldn't deserve mental rape.
Do criminals deserve incarceration if they're convicted in a fair trial? Sure. Society needs to do that to protect the rest of us.
Do criminals deserve to be subjected to the mental rape of the Program while incarcerated? Absolutely not. Criminals do get raped in prison, but they don't deserve it and any humane way society can figure out to reduce the risk and incidence of inmates raping each other we are morally obligated to do.
The Program is mental rape.
Nobody deserves that, no matter what you did or do.
So, "At least I wasn't raped"? Yeah, you were. And like all rape, it was completely and totally not your fault.
But nobody can no that in their gut without post-rape-type treatment of some kind from somebody good at what they do.
Pay 'em or don't pay 'em, diploma over the door or no, self-selected treatment is self-selected treatment.
That last was the generic "you" referring to Program survivors in general."
I'm sorry, I don't have a link to the thread. The search feature is busted. I grabbed this from my journal.
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It is absolutely outrageous this continues to thrive and flourish. Public awareness must be raised. We need a visual representation to show the public exactly what we went through. More stories must be proliferated via media. We should challenge those "self help" to study the flip side of the coin. Seriously study them, take testimony, feature investigative journalists, such as Maia, etc.
What continues to blow my mind is why these places were not prosecuted when THOUSANDS of students/parents were deceived by:
1. A promise to deliver academics. Cedu and RMA were called schools and academies. When I was there, there were NO schools. It is designated as a group home.
2. A promise to deliver individualized therapy. Abusive group interrogation/coercion based on experiential cult like anti-therapy practices (Lifespring, EST, and Synanon) is neither individualized nor therapeutic.
3. A promise to deliver emotional growth. Is this even possible through systemic verbal and psychological abuse and coercion?
4. A promise to protect us with safe caregivers. Let's face it, there is NO alumna who can say that these staff members contributed to an overall atmosphere of emotional safety. Verbal abuse aside, there were no boundaries. How appropriate is it to give power to staff members who are inappropriate sexually, and who have admitted--boasted!--of committing all manner of crimes and deviances? And we had to trust them with our most vulnerable psyches? Only to be exploited, humiliated, and coerced?
I. Just. Don't. Get. It.
In addition, there was no unbiased, regulatory party to investigate student issues or complaints. And let's not even get in fraudulent licensure/advertising.
I know there are some who believe in forgiveness, and I'm not one to advocate dwelling in bitterness, but by the same token, I can't forgive those who don't repent. (And no, I'm not religious.)
PS. I'm sorry, Alia, to hear about your rape. When I split CEDU RS, I was so afraid that it took me 6 hours to go a few miles. I was trying to avoid capture from law enforcement, cultists, and deviants. I spent more time hiding than moving. What happened to you was my worst fear--but CEDU scared me more.
i agree with this very much. the sad thing is that i never even thought of it, i was so naive, and trusting, i thought anyone i met would just want to help me. but i guess it was my parent's also being overly trusting like that they trusted cedu at all. its sad, they were good parents for the most part, they were not intimate enough with us, its true, but overall they nurtured me and i was smart and loved. they got scared by all of society into thinking that because i was smoking pot at 14 and had lost my virginity that they had completely failed as parents and had to hand their child over to ANOTHER PERSON to raise them because anything they would try to do was hopeless. god what low self esteem my parents must have had to make that decision. how depressed where they the day they made that choice?
what do you think of that?
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Alia: Being naive and trusting doesn't mean you deserve to be hurt. You were just a girl. It makes me so mad you went through that and were only re-victimized back at CEDU.
The reason I was so careful was they fill your head with horror stories to discourage splitting. Also, I was a wuss.
By the way, thanks for sharing the Valentine apology. It helps. I wish more would come forward. For me hearing from staff or affiliates, like Sabro and FCT helped. I wish one of the Big Wigs would show contrition.
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To Castle, Alia, Shanlea, et al,
I'm about to rant, so just take what you want and leave the rest.
You were not miniature adults. You were children. Teenagers. None of the decisions that were made about what happened to you were your fault. These were not kid decisions. These were adult decisions. Adults can make bad decisions.
Many of you were placed in these programs without your participation in the decision, against your will, and with the use of bodily force. These were adult decisions. It was not your fault.
If you were angry, you had good reason to be. If you were compliant while at the program, you had good reason to choose compliance. If you found some part of the program helpful, or found people there whom you valued, it is good that you found some comfort in a bad situation. If you were harmed, it was not your fault.
From what I've read--from you and many others here--many of you came from complex family situations. That is not your fault. You were not the boss.
Unfortunately, in complicated family environments, it often happens that one person gets singled out to be the "problem," aka the scapegoat. I don't know you all, but I believe that is what happened to my niece, and perhaps it happened to you. It was easier to send her away than to deal with the harder, more complicated problems at home. I believe my niece's parents were in over their heads, but made a bad decision when they sent her away--they could have asked for help from our family.
It breaks my heart to know that at a time when you--you as children--needed competant, caring support, and education and mentoring, you instead were abandoned (knowingly or unknowingly) to incompetant and often malicious caretakers.
I repeat: These were not kid decisions. These were adult decisions. Adults can make bad decisions. It is not your fault.
AuntieEm
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Thanks. That's good to hear that from someone with limited exposure to the place has the common sense to see it for what it is.
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i've been wondering why there is not more support from our friends, spouses, parents, teachers, shrinks, etc at this site.
i've tried to get the people I care about to look here and it's like prying teeth sometimes. But I think some of those times are changing. The word is finally getting out, and people are more curious about the thing that is still CEDU.
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Blownaway,
By "support" do you mean posting here?
For me, I am aware that I am an outsider. I did not experience what former students experienced. I don't even know for sure what my niece is experiencing, and I may never know. So sometimes I hesitate to comment. (And woe be to an outsider who posts something whiney or ignorant late at night on a weekend...)
Don't know why they wouldn't be willing to read, except that there are so many pages. For family members, etc., I will often send a link to a specific post or thread.
AuntieEm
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Well, Blown. My folks are pretty cool. (Now.) I can tell 'em almost anything. But we don't talk CEDU. They believe me, because I don't tend toward histrionics, but its 20 years later, my Dad is 80, and a lot of things have happened in the past 5 years with health etc. I know my Mom already feels she and my father have failed me miserably, and to delve into the abuse that occurred at CEDU at this point would be overkill. It's enough that she doesn't deny my experience or gives me one of those bullshit "We were trying to save your life" type excuses. As a parent, it hurts to know that you fucked up in the first place and then compounded when you were trying to seek help for your parental ineptitude.
I'm not really an apologist for my folks, but I understand how they were desperate and duped in the pre-Internet era. (If they denied my experience, I'd be livid.) They were straight out lied to and manipulated, and fear and isolation rendered me helpless. I can only thank my Dad for refusing to send me back when I split the last time. (He had a harder time drinking the KoolAid.)
I have a harder time understanding parents of Straight where the program happened right under the parent's noses--in their homes! But even then, the desperation, the societal demand for conformity, the deft manipulation of program staff, as well as the criminalization of youth all formed a confluence of factors against us. Youths labeled "troubled teens" are automatically denied credibility no matter how much personal integrity the individual may possess.
When I first found this site, I was more interested in sharing with my folks, but now, not so much. I have shared with a few close friends, and they were wonderful, but it is a little too Twilight Zone to expect full understanding. Some wonder how this could even happen in our country.
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Auntie Em
Don't hesitate to post. Your contributions are valuable
Shanlea
I hear you. I'm really starting to feel that way. I am thinking of speaking with my father and telling him about it in a professional mature way. I will tell him that I don't hold a grudge against him and that all is forgiven. I think it'll bring some much needed family healing and it will lead to a bigger discussion. It'll definitely help my peace of mind and since he's not a good communicator (he doesn't initiate) it'll provide him a chance to share his thoughts which in the end will bring us closer together and lighten the load of the turbulent past.
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Shanlea wrote:
Youths labeled "troubled teens" are automatically denied credibility no matter how much personal integrity the individual may possess.
Bingo. And the corallary to that is that "parents of a troubled teen" are assumed to be credible.
I have been watching how our family history is getting rewritten in my niece's absence. These days the narrative goes that my niece "was always a handful," and "has a disease." Some family members seem almost scared of her now, wary. I find myself saying repeatedly, "That's not the girl I know. I've known her all her life. I never saw this behavior. She never did that around us."
Auntie Em
P.S. Thanks, Dishdutyfugitive.
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Auntie Em
You're welcome. Keep on scrubbin' - and never forget the benefits of a 'heated dry' at the end of the wash cycle.
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No, I don't blame my parents at all. Those brochures were very well-done. Smiling teen faces, photos of horses, and a beautiful log mansion were very luring.
My mother is 80, as well, and I have no interest in throwing this back at her. It's been 28 years anyways, and her husband of 25 years died up there during a visit with me.
However, I have sent her links to CEDU support groups, such as this one, and she understands. She's also expressed how sorry she is.
I hold Allgood and his cronies to blame, and always will. Happily the worse offends are starting to die off. :rofl:
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I know this is completely (sort of) off topic, but have any of you heard of the Stanford prison experiment from the 70's? You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment) (or just google it) and there's also some video on you tube. I'd write more about it but I'm sleepy and going to bed. More tomorrow.
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I know this is completely (sort of) off topic, but have any of you heard of the Stanford prison experiment from the 70's? You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment) (or just google it) and there's also some video on you tube. I'd write more about it but I'm sleepy and going to bed. More tomorrow.
Stina check this out. it's a long informative help.
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:kp ... d=12&gl=us (http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:kp2gnHBLfJEJ:www.culthelp.info/index2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26do_pdf%3D1%26id%3D961+charles+diederich,+synanon&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12&gl=us)
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Stina,
I am familiar with the Standford prison experiment. Absolutely chilling. Philip Zimbardo, who constructed the experiment was so horrified by how quickly student volunteers became either sadistic guards or traumatized inmates that he ended the experiment. He now says he deeply regrets that his experiment caused harm. He also stresses that all the volunteers were "good apples": the participating students, Standford undergrads, were screened for psychological problems before the experiment.
He has a new book out called The Lucifer Effect:
From Amazon.com
Psychologist Zimbardo masterminded the famous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which college students randomly assigned to be guards or inmates found themselves enacting sadistic abuse or abject submissiveness. In this penetrating investigation, he revisits—at great length and with much hand-wringing—the SPE study and applies it to historical examples of injustice and atrocity, especially the Abu Ghraib outrages by the U.S. military. His troubling finding is that almost anyone, given the right "situational" influences, can be made to abandon moral scruples and cooperate in violence and oppression. (He tacks on a feel-good chapter about "the banality of heroism," with tips on how to resist malign situational pressures.) The author, who was an expert defense witness at the court-martial of an Abu Ghraib guard, argues against focusing on the dispositions of perpetrators of abuse; he insists that we blame the situation and the "system" that constructed it, and mounts an extended indictment of the architects of the Abu Ghraib system, including President Bush. Combining a dense but readable and often engrossing exposition of social psychology research with an impassioned moral seriousness, Zimbardo challenges readers to look beyond glib denunciations of evil-doers and ponder our collective responsibility for the world's ills.
Zimbardo has received both praise and criticism for defending an Abu Ghraib guard. I haven't read the book. I saw an interview with him, and when asked whether people are inherently good or evil, he quoted Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipeligo: "The line between good and evil cuts through the center of every human heart."
Auntie Em