ABDUCTIONS

[nuiloa]

Hi Antigen,

Yes, I agree, it's the ways in which they go about things that make me think of POWs.  In fact, I think it's more similar than people realize.  Being forced to behave a certain way under an uncertain punishment, where people are being brutalized, raped, and murdered around you...starvation, power trips, etc.  Seems very similar to me.  The POWs also had reactions to coming back to 'peace' as I did.  I just felt a kind of cameraderie with them, even if they wouldn't see the parallel.  

I also agree that the more people know about these things, the better.  Thanks, especially to everyone who hasn't been in the 'homes', for understanding.  That's more than I usually get out of people; mostly it's a frustration that no matter how much I tell them, they still seem distant from it, and tell me they'll never understand.  I'm sorry for you, who had to have a kid abducted in the night from their home.  Other adults offered me shelter as well; I learned very quickly that they could not protect me.  However, I have always appreciated the fact that they tried.  I'm an adopted child; I could never figure out why my parents took me in only to send me away.  It's sort of a pound-dog feeling, I guess.  I've never felt so guilty as when I had to return a dog I recently adopted from the pound; it's weird, but the idea of a 'dog group home' kept going through my mind.  Funny how those experiences seem to follow us in the strangest of ways.

-nuiloa

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry for you, who had to have a kid abducted in the night from their home.  Other adults offered me shelter as well; I learned very quickly that they could not protect me.  However, I have always appreciated the fact that they tried.  I'm an adopted child; I could never figure out why my parents took me in only to send me away.  It's sort of a pound-dog feeling, I guess....


-nuiloa"

Nuiloa, thanks. It was a horrible feeling knowing that we had no control. I want you to know that you are not alone. I've heard many kids who were adopted have been sent to these programs, as well as many who were not. I personally know a girl who was adopted who was sent to Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica. The experience was horrible or her, as for many others, and she suffers from the same thing you do - the dog-pound feeling. I am sorry for you both, and all of the other kids who must endure this.

[nuiloa]

That's so sad.  In a way, I'm glad that I'm not alone; in a way, I'm not.  I wish I was, because that would mean that no one else had to deal with all these things.

-nuiloa

[The Liger]

At the place that I went to, about a third of the girls there were adopted (including myself).  I always thought it was sort of eerie.  One of my big fears growing up was being reabandoned.  So that feeling of being reabandoned is one of the biggest things that I took from being sent away for three years.  Not only that, but being sent to a brainwashing camp is the ultimate abandonment.  It's a rejection of who you are.  You're sent there to have your entire personality changed.  It took a long time after leaving to accept that I had not failed to change, but that this is my personality and some people appreciate it.  (One of the things that was supposed to be a big issue was that I am sarcastic and make jokes all the time.  I don't like to be serious very much.  I had weeks where I wasn't allowed to talk because of it.)

Somehow I went from adoption to sarcasm.  

Nuiloa, if you don't mind my asking, are you Hawaiian?  I only ask because I live in Hawaii and your (screen)name is a Hawaiian word.

[nuiloa]

Hi,

If you live in Hawai'i, you might have heard that there have been reports going around this week about abuse in a home on O'ahu.

No, I'm not Hawaiian, I'm white.  I love Hawaiian culture and the Hawaiian people, I'm for sovereignty, etc.  Yes, nuiloa means 'very much'.  Where are you from in Hawai'i, if you don't mind my asking?

I agree that it is the feeling of failure that's the worst; that it really isn't that you failed to change but your personality.  I've always had this nagging feeling from those days that there's something intrinsically *wrong* with me, and other people can see it, but I can't.  It's still hard to get over that feeling.

-nuiloa

[Anonymous]

Aloha Youth Academy was shut down a couple of years ago on Oahu.  It had ties with a program in Samoa called NEW HOPE ACADEMY which was run by some Utah businessmen with ties to the infamous Steve Cartisano (CHALLENGER)

What's the name of this other program you say has reports of abuse on Oahu?

Thanks!

[Antigen]

On 2005-11-14 12:22:00, The Liger wrote:

At the place that I went to, about a third of the girls there were adopted (including myself). I always thought it was sort of eerie.

There seemed to be a lot of adopted kids in Straight too. Isn't that strange? What do you make of it?

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
--Philosopher, Blaise Pascal

[nuiloa]

Hmm....I'm adopted too.  Wonder if there is anything to that?

Huh.  I just looked at the email I got about it again, and it doesn't actually give out a name.  It just says 'the youth correctional facility on O'ahu'.


-nuiloa

[bandit1978]

I was adopted (at age 2 months), but no one ever made a big deal of it...until I went to Provo Canyon School!  They kept insisting that I address my "issues regarding adoption".  

What they fail to realize is that, for a 14 year old girl, who is dealing with adolescense, school, friends, a changing body, ect... not to mention the trauma of being sent to a place like PCS...adoption was the very last thing on my mind.  

My parents were always open and honest with me about my adoption (probably the one thing they were honest about).  It was never a big thing, I just always accepted them as my parents.  Seriously, I already had 2 crazy parents to deal with, I certainly wasn't concerned with the existance of additional parents.

Of course, though, PCS capitalized and exploited this subject for as long as they possibly could.

[nuiloa]

The same thing happened to me!  I also was adopted at 2 months, and my therapist kept telling me I had to work through 'adoption issues' (because of my anger).  Nobody wanted to admit that there might be some reason that I was angry BESIDES adoption, which was only a big deal when I was in my first group home- I kept having weird nightmares that my biological parents were going to kidnap me.  I have no idea why.  

Since then, I've contacted my parents, sort of.  I met my mother's stepfather, who informed me that everyone in the family- EVERYONE- is dying or is dead from muscular dystrophy.  My mother and father want nothing to do with me (my father apparently said it was because he's a 'prominent businessman and important member of the church' and if anyone knew the truth it would scandalize him.  I think 'member of the church' stands out the most in that comment!) So not only did I already have 2 crazy parents to begin with, I ALSO had 2 crazy parents adopt me.  Luckily for me, I'm the only one in the family without MD...but it took about a year and a half of me being absolutely convinced I was dying a horrible death (because I oddly have all the symptoms, but they're apparently unrelated) before I was able to afford the DNA test.

However, I didn't know any of that while I was in the home; I was fine with being adopted aside from that my parents always seemed to make me KNOW that I didn't really belong.  When I was 5, she told me if I didn't stop doing whatever it was I was doing, she'd send me back to the adoption agency.  Then she picked up the phone and started to dial.  That's when I knew we weren't 'family'.  That was also about the time she sent me to my first psychiatrist, who was foolish enough to think that children are stupid.  I knew exactly what she was trying to get me to do with the Little People she wanted me to play with, so I played with her mind a little bit.  People say it's because I was very precocious for a five-year-old child, but I don't think so.  Kids are smarter than people give them credit for.  

Sorry for the long, tangenting post.  My point is, I didn't mind that much that I was adopted except for a few instances.  Not until I wound up in the home.  An interesting thing to note: if the therapist, during family therapy, even INSINUATED that my parents might have something to do with the way I was acting, they'd walk out in a huff, and I wouldn't see them for a very long time.  Makes you wonder just how badly they wanted things to get better, doesn't it?

-nuiloa

[Anonymous]

I also noticed there seemed to be a lot of adopted kids and kids sent by their step parents.

[Anonymous]

I think that a huge reason parents raising adopted kids and step-kids find it easy to send the kids away is that they don't have that biological tie that parents who gave birth to their own child have. I'm not talking about all adopted parents, there are someone wonderful ones who take kids in and give them love and a home. But, for those who adopted a child for the wrong reasons, or decided it was too much to handle when the child developed a mind and a will of their own, it might be easier for them to make the decision to send the child away.

Of course there are plenty of biological parents sending their children away - it's harding to swallow that for some reason. I can reason away the adopted parent thing and the step-parent thing, but biological parents - well, that makes me even sicker. All of it is sickening, it just makes you wonder how they can sleep at night knowing they have shipped their child away to a place most often they haven't even visited, with strangers. Makes you kind of wonder how they could do that, huh.

And for those who are adopted as an infant, you'd think these parents would develope a strong bond with the child, not the desire to send the child away.

Something I would like to say to all of you who have been sent to programs, adopted or not. Perhaps you weren't the perfect teenager, but who the hell was? Perhaps you had some "issues", but who doesn't? I think the people with the most serious problems are the parents who send their kids away. If they would only stop to think about how their child got to where they are, maybe, if they would really take a look, they could track it back to their lack of proper parenting, their busy lives, and so on.

Kids are not something that should be easily disposable. I know it's a disposable world we live in, but come on! Not kids, please!!

For you who feel you were sent away to change who you are, the very core of you, because the program was all about that, please understand that you don't need to change the core of you. That is what makes you YOU. The programs are wrong, the parents sending kids to the programs are wrong, wrong for thinking they have a right to change a person, to change their personality. I can see that sometimes in life we have behavior that might need some changing, but no one has the right to ask you to change who you are.

Stay true to yourselves, don't give up, and fight for what is right and for what you believe in.

[Anonymous]

and ps - I don't promote "behavior modification", please don't misunderstand when I said sometimes we have behavior we need to change. I think at different times in our lives we behave in ways that might not be the best and yes, we can work on ourselves. But by no means do I support sending kids away to find the tools they need to help themselves be the best they can be. Tools can be found very close to home.

[nuiloa]

I'm not sure I would've had a good time either way.  Neither sets of parents were that interested in me.  At least the ones who adopted me gave me love and a home for a while.  I think they really thought they were helping me, too.  That's the scariest part about it.  CS Lewis said the worst thing you can ever do to a person is something you think you're doing for their own good.

-nuiloa

[Anonymous]

You know, I think CL Lewis had a good point. Hang in there, and remember that when you have kids, if you don't already, you can make their lives different. I didn't exactly have an easy childhood myself, and one of the things that I did was that I vowed when I had children it would be different. I did not want to repeat the things that I didn't like, and I didn't. I managed to raise two great boys who seem to be well adjusted and very kind and loving. They're normal, don't get me wrong, but we made it through the tough teens with relatively few issues. I count my blessings every single day!

My point is that we don't have to repeat the crappy behavior that was done towards us. I know it's difficult for many girls, and guys, who have been put into the programs. They are made to think that there is something wrong with them and that the main goal is to change who they are. That's just wrong. At this point you can't go back and undo what happened, but you can see to it that history does not repeat itself and that you make the most of your life. And most of all - don't sell yourselves short. You are wonderful people, let yourself be you and if anyone doesn't like it, tough. We can't be liked by everyone in this world.