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An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Whoops, that long anon post was me. It didn't log me in for some reason ^^;

 Many Cult leaders think they were/are doing good things, teaching their  followers his/her  understanding of God and how to best serve God. Often it is called The True way



PS-all the anons are not the same here, some of Pastor's responses have made me think he doesn't realize this. "

This made me think of Charles Manson for some reason..o.0

Also I wanted to add that you can't always pick out an abused kid from the crowd.

A lot of them are ashamed or just too afraid to tell anybody or let anybody know. You hide the injuries, you act like everything is normal, etc.

Also, for the kids from these programs, it's engrained on their minds to NEVER tell anybody so they just won't do it..However, some are not broken or "snap" out of it and tell somebody, however long it takes them.

After all is said and done, it's very difficult to actually spot an abused child because they hide it. Most of the time people find out because the kid decides to finally speak up about it.
In some instances a person will notice a kid getting bruises and will report it to someone, however usually the kid says that they got into a fight or got it from sports and it gets dropped..
There have probably been a few cases where someone has suspected it, reported it and it turns out they were right, but I doubt that happens often.

On 2005-07-14 11:04:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Your post tells the whole story and you still don't get it.



People in this country---parents, media types, CPS, whoever---just don't buy the line you're selling that putting limits on a kid is abuse.  



It's just a few malcontents like yourself who think that putting a defiant drug abusing kid in a program is abuse.



Oh you may find a scum bag lawyer here and there who will try to trump up a case in certain circumstances but without enough stupid gullible people on the jury, that case is going to go nowhere



Bottom line: reason there is virtually no criticism of Brat Camp (which btw I think should NOT have been televised  because these kids deserved privacy in working out their problems) is because the country (except for some posters here apparently) has collectively grown up and is no longer willing to let adolescents run wild and ruin their lives in the name of unguided self-expression"

Although everyone has already totally disproved your comments, I had to add in my two cents.

Personally, I feel that enrolling a child into any kind of program is a form of abandonment and thus abuse. If you can't handle your kid, you don't just stick them some place..that's terrible parenting right there.
Teenagers will rebel, they will do things that you don't like, they will feel all the emotions that you do. Just because they are not an adult, doesn't mean they don't feel the same things that you feel.

A defiant, drug-abusing kid is trying to COMMUNICATE something to you! They aren't trying to get you to ship them off and forget about them. They want you to love them, pay attention to them, UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE GOING TROUGH. You were a teenager once, I'm sure you know how hard it is!

And as far as I'm concerned, those "scumbag" lawyers are damned heroes. They don't want to just suck out your money, I think they genuinely want to help. Just because they are a lawyer doesn't make them a rotten scumbag.

Ignoramuses like yourself make me sick. How can you even say those kinds of things without feeling any remorse? You obviously don't understand a thing about this issue or anything about kids.

I really hope that you don't have children yourself, if you do, I hope they get the hell away from you.

Hello, I've been reading about these things here for a while and I believe that the teen help industry alone isn't all to blame.
I blame misinformation, uninformed doctors/practioners, social workers, etc as well.

When I was 11-12 my mother got a new boyfriend and lucky me, he was abusive. Most of the time he just verbally abused me and shoved me around, but occasionally it would get into full out hitting. So I told the counsellor at school and she in turn told social services.

That's where the trouble began. I got a social worker and everyone began to tell me I was wrong. I was the one who was the problem and that if I didn't change that'd be it. So I was forced onto Prozac and it made me very irritable. So I was switched Paxil, which has been addicting and still affecting my life horribly.

Anyways, I went to therapy and took the medication. However, things at home never improved. I never felt the need to do anything at all but sit alone on my computer. I wouldn't do chores, I wouldn't talk to anyone, I wouldn't even change my clothes or shower. I just did next to nothing. This did not make my stepdad very happy, in which case he would take the computer and most of the time in my fight to keep it, I would get hurt.
Basically at this point I had no friends at all anymore and I was completely alone because my parents just didn't care. So the computer was the only thing I had that made me feel happy at all.
So when they took it, it was like being completely cut off from the entire world.

Things just got worse and worse. One day at school they thought I was trying to jump off the roof (i wasn't) and i was expelled and sent to secure treatment. Which is a place where you are under somewhat "lockdown". I was only there 3 days. It wasn't completely awful, no abuse or anything. But being under lockdown is not very fun.

Then I had a lady who would come and visit me once and a while to talk. Things at that point were really escalating. Then one day I just snapped and smashed a bowl and started cutting myself with the pieces..in front of that lady. Which was obviously a really bad idea. So my social worker came in with the police. They grabbed me and cuffed me and hauled me off to the car. Then I had to sit in the back of a police car with my hands behind my back for two hours. Where they took me to secure treatment again.

I was in secure for about a month, which seemed more like 6. It wasn't all bad, there were some cool kids there. Only one seemed really messed up (meth addict), the others were okay. I must say that after being locked down for such a long period of time really wears on you.

Then I was let out and I went home. Things stayed the same. Then I was told I was being sent away to a group home. So I went there for a few months and looking back it wasn't bad at all, but all I wanted to do was go home. After my stay there I was taken to a place called TRACC which is on Hull campus (in Calgary). It's a behavioural adjustment place, but it's not abusive. It's just a horribly concieved idea.

TRACC basically made you have a really strict routine, you had to go to the school on campus (which is only up to grade 9, I was in grade 10 at the time), etc. If you got in trouble (which happened every day, it was impossible otherwise) they sent you to your room. If you really messed up, you had to sit in a cold room and write a long report about how you screwed up and how you could fix it the next time.
I ran away at one point and lived on the streets but that didn't last very long. It was an incredibly cold, bitter winter (at least -25 to -30) so I had to go back.
Also, you HAD to go to therapy, otherwise you would be put into that damned room with that report and have to do hours of chores.

The worst part about it was that you were inside most of the time in a small, very institutional building. They allowed you to have whatever you wanted in your room, including your stereo (unless you were in trouble) so that was okay. I read a helluva lot of books that's for sure.
Also, the staff didn't have one set of rules. Every staff had a different idea of what was right and what was wrong. One staff member would send you to your room for swearing, while another wouldn't. One staff member hated me because I told her that religion is mind control and that it's all just BS..She found every way she could to send me to my room.
Etc etc etc.

Throughout all this, it was always my fault. I was the one who wasn't taking charge, I was the one who made them get angry, etc etc. Not once did they ever wonder why I called the cops on my stepfather so much or why I was extremely withdrawn and skipping school 4 days of the week.
Sure, I have severe manic depression, OCD and probably some other crap, but it's hard to do anything about it when all you get is yelled at and told what a worthless piece of shit you are.

So after TRACC, I went home and not even a month later my stepdad pulled it again. I pulled a knife on him and phone the police. Then he literally ripped the phone out of the wall (completely severing the cords). The police called back however and I went downstairs to answer. When they came I went to my dad's house and I've been here since.

The worst part is my mother defrauded the government over this and she got child support when she wasn't supposed to. So it was really hard for me and my dad, I have a really hard time working (or doing much of anything really) so we had very little money.

My mother still treats me like dirt. I try to be civil and maybe even nice but I'm still worthless to her. She's giving a lot of money so my sister can go to a private school and live in the city, and what do I get? zilch.

She also still seems to think that I "need" the paxil. Even after all the evidence I've shown her proving otherwise. It's also apparent that things took a turn for the worst AFTER I began the paxil.

Anyways, all I want to say is that it's not only the bad programs in the wrong. It's the ENTIRE system. Social workers never actually listen to the kid, they listen to the parents. In my case my stepdad would lie and my mother would lie AS WELL, right in front of me. No matter how much I argued that they were lying and even when my sister said she saw it, nobody believed me.

The kid is always the one to blame, it's nobody else's fault huh? Pft. [ This Message was edited by: Cidsa on 2005-06-30 19:17 ]