This was posted by Jersey Girl on page 10, it also has a lot of good info I thought this survivors post had some good description of just what goes on "My admission day to the village, from the beginning i knew i was in for a wild ride. It started with being escorted to the. I arrived and had one of those bad gut instinct feelings. I knew before I walked in this was not going to be pleasant. I was taken to the nurses station where I met with a nurse and then was brought up to STU now known as GAAU ((girls admission and assessment unit)). the place in itself is depressing. You walk through the doorways of hell. I was shoved into a metal chair in front of the staffs desk. I signed my life away. when i went to ask a question, i was shut down. then they said that I needed to be strip searched. my immediate reaction was fuck you you pervs. They led me into the bathroom where I had to strip all of my clothing except my underwear. Then they told me to pull my underwear to the side, bend over and cough to see if i was hiding anything in a territory that was private. I was crying and was told to quit being dramatic. I sat my practically naked ass on the cold floor when they told me to stand up, strip completley and take a shower in which the shower stall had half of a shower curtain. they told me it was to monitor me. this shocked me. i had never had anyone monitor my shower time. with that i guess it infuriated them and two of the staff grabbed me by the arms and led me straight into the time out room. the room was bare. i had seen this shit in the movies but never actually experienced one. little did i know that that would become very familiar. I was told to sit with my back against the wall and not to talk. i needed to think about my actions. i was panic sticken. my anxiety was going through the roof. I threw up all over the floor in there which i was later made to clean up. then they asked me awhile later if i was willing to cooperate. i shrugged my shoulders and they showed me to my cubicle aka my bed. I was told once again to sit up straight with my legs crossed and not to look at anyone. If i could not follow this i would be escorted back to time out. Well I was exhausted, so i leaned over onto my elbow. Some fat chick who was a patient and apparently one of the "trusted" saw me do this. she asked for permission to confront the new girl for laying down. I was like uh so what?! she was granted permission and she called a group. everyone stood. i was shocked i didnt know these robot patients were able to move. everyone was like a zombie. I didnt stand, for lack of this phenomenon not being explained to me. i was barked at the stand whenever group is called. she confronted me and said thats all. everyone sat back down simultaneously. Drones i tell you. Later on, i didnt give a shit so i laid down. fuck that fat bitch. Staff came over and grabbed me by the arms and escorted me to the time out cubicle this time instead of the room because apparently the room was occupied. I was told to sit there not move and not talk and to stare at the wall of the cubicle. Well after awhile of sitting there, they gave me my meal which i ate on the floor. when i finished eating i stood up to go back to my coffin of a bed. Next thing I knew, I was grabbed, kicked in the back of the knees and fell to the floor. an extremely loud, obnoxious alarm went off. I was panic sticken worse than ever. what the hell is happening??? down on the ground I lay, face down with people sitting on me holding me down. one or two holding my legs, one on each arm, one sitting on my lower back, and one holding my head down when i tried to lift it up to breathe. I thought i was going to die. Felt my lungs collapsing. Still in shock, I vommitted once again. my face shoved back into it. ugh. What seemed like forever, they then picked me up, about 10 people. they carried me like some animal back into the forbidden time out room. i was stripped of my clothes by the staff and then dressed into hospital gowns with old blood stains on them. this is all while still being held down. later on, i was released and sent back to my bed. then there was group. i had to introduce myself and tell why i was in gowns. i had no idea why i was so i made some shit up. later on there were showers and then some other sort of groups. i was told to make my bed just like every one elses. i didnt know what the standards for intricate bed making were so i made it like i did at home. i was yelled and criticised for that by some 23 year old counselor. finally after other bullshit, we went to sleep. if only i had been aware that bed time was the only semi peaceful time i would experience for the next 6 months. damn what a day what a day Jersey Gurl"
For the record, = everything is timed and monitored, i.e. watched closely bathroom time, shower time, getting from point A to B there is no free time at all the teens have no time to read, or do anything but be abused 24-7, no free time at all! everything is scheduled and over scheduled they use going over time as an excuse to abuse the kids the times are so short that someone always goes over, everyone is punished together it's just another way they keep the level of stress at non stop you get very little time to use the restroom and you have to tell them what it is you have to do to quote Jersey Gurl again "there is no such word in the vocabulary such as privacy. It is completely invaded and is taken away from you. Our bathroom times were on their terms to and timed. Before you went into the bathroom you had to hold up either one finger for peeing, etc Jeez I dont know but being timed on your time to piss or whatever you needed to do, thats just flat out ridiculous.
Here is another quote from a survivor called Milkblood over on Cafety: I was in the lockdown unit for the first 4 months and in the cabins (in the winter) for the remainding 4 months. The lockdown unit is one room with 12 beds in it. You are not allowed to look up from the floor at anyone entering or leaving the unit. You are not allowed to look at other patients or talk to them. You have to sit in the middle of your bed all day, back to the wall, no sleeping, eyes open. If you are seen by another patient breaking a rule (which i never understood as you aren't supposed to be looking at other patients) you are then confronted by the whole group and are given a consequence. When I was on STU (the lockdown unit) I was restrained countless times. The very first time I was restrained on the bed, I had these huge mitts on my hands to keep myself from picking at my fingers. I will not deny that I had been harming myself by picking at my fingers. The nurse on charge put bandages on all of my fingers. As I was in my bed with these huge mitts on and bandages, I was touching the ends of my fingers to see if the blood was still flowing to the tips of my fingers as the bandages were way to tight. A staff saw me doing this and literally jerked me onto the floor as those horrible sirens went off. They hoisted me up onto the bed after about 5 minutes of holding me down (I wasn't resisting as i was terribly frightened). As they were strapping my legs and arms into the bed net I remember (and will never forget) the words that the staff said to me. She said "We are not doing this to hurt you." ALl i could think about at that time was why am i being strapped to this bed. I will never forget these moments. In the cabins we live in a small cabin with 12 bunk beds. We slept in our own sleeping bags as it was winter. There was no electricity in the cabin. There was one lightbulb over the staffs desk that was lit by a car battery. The cabin was heated by one woodstove in the center of the cabin. We were forced to clean every place we visited, (the YC, the bathhouse, the cabin) numerous times. If there were over 5 specks of dirt found in the location, we were made to clean it all over again. Repeat process if more dirt was found. Sometimes we spent the whole day cleaning the YC while the staff sat in the chair and watched. One patiend that was there was always vomiting her food up. She threw up in the woodpile and they made her clean it up. She even resorted to vomiting in the vent in the school bathroom. After a month it was discovered and they just ended up giving her a grocery bag to carry around and vomit in whenever she wanted. IF she vomited in the bag she had to carry it around with her until the staff said she could dispose of it. Is this sanitary??? NO. Eventually this girl passed out in the toilet and was taken to the hospital, probably from severe dehydration. Girls were put in straight jackets and walked around all day. We had to carry around bags of sand as a consequence. Our consequences as a group got so backed up that we had to wake up at 5am and do over 200 push ups for weeks. I was pretending to be asleep one night and I overheard the staff making fun of a few patients. When i told my mom about this in treatment i was brushed off by my therapist as being manipulative and lying to get attention. there were so many things that happened that i would love to forget, as they still give me nightmares to this day. I am 20 years old now.I have No doubt that this is life changing."
here is one from Socleansara, also from the same site: . It was treatment or a girls home due to some trouble i had gotten into. My mom told me to play up my drug use to the judge so he would give me the option of choosing. I went to PV and was on STU for 6 MONTHS! not because I was a risk or because I refused the program but because I didnt have anything to talk about. I never had any dark seeded desire to hurt myself or run away. None of that. I come from an upperclass family in the suburbs ... Finally after months and months of being on STU they sent me to the cabins because they needed the room on stu for someone else. I went to the cabins and once again had nothing to talk about. I was put on "Permanent Silence" and wasnt allowed to talk to ANYONE for months because I didnt have anything "worthwhile" to say. I was put on question cards which they tortured me with making me use a question card to ask for extra time in the restroom and with only 3 questions a day... I didnt ask for extra time very often. One day we were making a trail from one cabin to another and all the sudden I wasnt able to breathe. I started having terrible chest and back pains and couldnt move. They made me walk from one side of campus all the way to the other just to have nursing say i was fine. Shortly after I started vomitting and was unable to hold food down for quite some time. Once again, nursing said I was fine with out doing any tests or bloodwork. They wrote it off as test anxiety due to my upcomming ACT test. My teachers tried to explain that I wasnt nervous at all and that something else could be wrong. NO ONE LISTENED. I turned 18 and DCed AMA. I came back home and within weeks I was hospitialized on the verge of LIVER FAILURE. I had gall stones that had come out of my gall bladder and were blocking off the duct that my liver uses to expell waste. So all that TOXIN couldnt go anywhere. The doctor that treated me said had I waited a week, my liver could of ruptured and I could have gone into some kind of shock as my body poisened its self. Why wasnt I given the proper medical attention that I needed? Didnt my parents pay enough money?! They told me repeatedly that if I signed myself out and left that I would "relapse" and DIE within months. How encouraging right!?!?! When in fact its the opposite. Had I stayed any longer I quite possibly could have died. Obviously Im still very much alive. A far cry from the hopeless drug addict they made me out to be. My parents probably would have be interested to know all of these things but my family therapist didnt allow me to talk to my family often and when we did speak it was very brief and social. I wasnt allowed to write my father at all and all of my letters home we read very carefully. After going through them recently I have found that ALOT of what i was was blacked out with a marker. Its only obvious that they knew from the get go that it wasnt for me but the $$$$$ that my parents forked out was well worth the cover up. My parents sent gifts for both of my birthdays and I never recieved them. Infact the cake she paid for for my 17th on STU was givin to everyone but me. I was on "black out" again for not having anything "worthwhile" to say so everyone else including staff ate my cake right infront of me and I was never offered a piece. During my 14 months there I was never assisted or restrained. I never posed a threat or threatened to run. I never caused a problem for ANYONE. Why was I there for so long??? $$$$$$$ plain and simple. Im angry at the way I was treated. If there was something I could do about it I would in a heartbeat."
Here is some stuff I wrote, i was thinking about the hard labor i'm not sure anyone went into in great depth yet it was what we did most days once out in the cabins, in STU you don’t go outside at all just sit on your beds, We had work detail three days out of the week, two days of school with no homework. and work detail all summer, we didn't go to school in the summer. It was back breaking We carried around an enormous Gott water cooler everywhere, it took two girls to carry it, i wonder how much it weighed? i looked up Gotts and the biggest one I could find on Amazon was 10 gallons, which full, i did the math, gallon to weight, would weigh about 85 pounds. That's a lot to carry around all day. I couldn't lift the thing full by myself. it was our water supply for the cabins, again the cabins have no running water . We cross sawed logs with an actual old fashion cross saw and were timed and punished. It is really hard to cross saw a log with an old fashioned cross saw. We also mauled wood and dug stumps out of the ground. We did this a whole hell of a lot. We had to cut enough fire wood for the winter because the cabins have no electricity, only a woodstove. We had quotas for wood, which were ridiculously high, and we would be punished if we did not meet them If you stopped working saying you were tired and felt ill you were consequenced then restrained. We built things as well, and put in a big garden. This was hard because the garden area was a mile or so away so we had to carry all the gardening tools and wheelbarrows full of manure and such out there. Don't forget the cursed Gott! We dug up stumps and did all the grounds maintenance. On weekends, when we weren't doing our normal forced labor schedule We would clean everything, Again we had no free time to read or relax or sleep in or any of that normal stuff. we were made to exercise as consequences all the time, there are a lot of consequences in a day at the Village. Pushups a lot, over a hundred a day at least, on a good day. I, a thin small boned girl, had back muscles, pronounced scary back and neck muscles, there was all this digging stumps out of the ground and turning over garden beds with pick axes, this was not your mothers gardening. They had my group build a two story big work shed building and tar and lay shingles in July, nothing like training anorexics and foster kids to be roofers. In July no less! It was a mess and so hot.
On the weekends, instead of work detail, they had us do aerobics. Really hyper nonstop aerobics for hours until you felt sick as hell. the aerobic were again on weekends. They wouldn't let us go to sleep after working like this all day until we finished all our consequence pushup or other exercises, I can remember standing against a wall with my knees bent till I fell over at like midnight. I also remember having to do 200 pushups before bed, and I hadn't even done anything. Staff was just picking on me. I was pretty cowed throughout, because I didn't want to be abused. The exercise hurt like hell. It was torture and they used it as such. I was really really really exhausted the entire time there. I used to fall asleep standing up and as soon as I sat down, and I would get in all sorts of trouble for it. Cleaning was top to toe carry all the mattresses outside scrub down the entire floor cleaning, the whole campus, every weekend. Everything is timed of course, getting from point A to B, with a wheelbarrow full of tools and manure or roofing tiles or wood or going to the bathroom or showering or cross sawing and so on, all timed. It was really hard work and they made it as unpleasant as possible. It wasn't work therapy it was just work detail and it was horrible and abusive and it hurt like hell. we were covered in dirt and sweat. we woke up very early. I believe 5:30am we didn't get to bed till late often so certainly not a full eight hours of sleep. and they would wake us up sometimes to be drug out to the wood shed to be shown how much wood we still needed to chop or something random. If you asked the staff to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, the porta potties are a good twenty feet from the cabin, you were sure to have an unpleasant day. this is additionally cruel as many of the medications have peeing often as a side effect.
they would with hold anything other then basic foods, no condiments and such, as punishment for not meeting work quotas. staff would hype it up and brow beat us with it, it was arbitrary like everything else there really anyway. I don't think food as a reward is an appropriate way to treat anorexics either, especially tied in with making them work past the point of all sense and abusing them who comes up with such things?
cold showers were also a consequence and really short showers, staff stands right out side the shower too when you shower, they also watch you dress, like they stand right there, it's supposed to keep the anorexics from vomiting in the shower, but as they let them carry around bags of vomit, it ends up just being another way they totally invade every private aspect of being human, like being timed and watched in the restroom. i say the above because staff thinks they have a right to watch you in the shower so they really do, it's not they just stand there, some were worse then others in this respect, some are practically on top of you, others just keep an eye on you. Either way they stand right there.
They also very much encouraged us to become angry and look down on peers that they were picking on too. They punish the entire group for the actions of each individual and try to breed as much anger towards the individual as possible. often it would have no reason at all, jill is not cross sawing fast enough, or something, we all must beat up on Jill? Poor Jill would be cross sawing pretty damn fast too considering because she didn't want to draw staff attention! it was just a way to keep the level of trauma high for some reason they think they need to keep the level of trauma at non stop they go on and on about breaking us down and such. never saw any building back up though.
here is what I wrote about sexual abuse in relations to PV on another site it needs to be said I think oh and again staff are Nazi sadistic monsters and what they do is an insane stupid farce they know this too, having foster kids who didn't have much by way of education go to school TWO DAYS out of the week! and not letting them read for years not to mention all the rest of the sick pointless crap that goes on in PV it is a scam to make millions of dollars duh, you think greed makes the evil peoples dreams come true i can abuse foster children teenagers physically, emotionally and pretty sexually too, and make millions for it! they are so into sexual abuse, the emotional sexual abuse is certain, and a lot of the stuff is pretty off, it seems like they are taking some restrained girls clothes off a lot in survivor accounts and there are real strip searches and people standing out side of showers and bathrooms always Jersey gurl says in her strip search that they told her to bend over naked and cough! How is that not sexual abuse! this is to some girl who was in PV because of PTS because her mother died! they stand right outside the stall door, which you have to leave open every time you go to the bathroom and time you and you get consequenced for going over your time could that be anymore Nazi abusive degrading and horrific? the teens have no privacy, any privacy they have is invaded completely rightly away, third or fourth day all the girls have a complete gyn exam, this is after being restrained for a few hours and strip searched and made to shower with staff standing there and treated more abusively then you ever have been before, staff saw us all naked everyday, they stand in the bathroom as you change and do all the other things people have to do without clothes.
Not to mention you sleep on wooden cubicle cots with no fronts in a medium sized open room with staff there breathing on you all the time, it's horrible, and so sexually abusive, not to mention the verbal sexual abuse in group.
It's like if some adult was able to watch you sleep, shower, go to the bathroom and beat all your secrets out of you, keep you completely isolated and locked in a small room with almost total power over you. and of course brainwash you into thinking you deserve the abuse. again for the millionth time some one from FOSTER CARE or the police needs to get a court order and go in and interview the girls right now sorry about how horrific the above is and it needs to be seen for how bad it is so it can be stopped who ever came up with the entire scenario, definitely is a very sexually abusive person there is such a total horrifically abusive invasion of every private aspect of just being human, every aspect and it has no point, kids who are anorexic or something, that level abuse did not help them, if you take someone who is depressed and torture them they become really depressed i think most of the girls, were really suicidal after a few months
i was right we did go to school Tuesday and Thursday not Monday Wednesday and Friday i thought so but i read another girls post and she confirmed it what the hell is that, they go to school two days out of the week!!!? i knew I remembered that we always worked on Mon, Wed, Friday we worked a lot, and we didn't go to school in the summer and we didn't go when we were on shut down, we were on shutdown for four or five months although they brought us work but not that regularly, maybe it was just on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that's not often really school was certainly not in the foreground it was sort of a uncommon thing, Especially when some other trauma was going on Which, like with all abusive situations and people, there is always trauma they would pull us out of school too if something happened? we also had no real take home homework which really prepares you for college!! not to mention listing a behavioral mod. facility as your high school with all the school shooter hype going on right now, makes it very very hard to get into affordable colleges trust me I have fought my way through hell with it!!
also Jersey Chick, when I was in we saw a psychiatrist, the real doctor who prescribes medications once every six months right? for about a minute to discuss medications? then we saw the therapist in group once every six weeks maybe sometimes he decided not to show or put it off for a week or two extra? was this the same when you were in? i had no private therapy only group therapy i don't know why, i had good insurance? the every six week therapist was this creepy guy with bushy hair. very in your face and they made a big deal about it when he would come by. I wasn't overly impressed, although levels would be changed oh wow and then taken away again among more sobbing there was a hell of a lot of sobbing the rest of the time it was group therapy two or three times a day with regular daily staff, who you don't see on the website"
Also by me: they promoted food issues most girls were not anorexics or bulimics but if you had thrown us a pint of icecream we would have descended on it
they focus on food as a reward every work day its one of the only rewards we were given it was again pretty much the only thing talked about during work detail, work detail is what we did the majority of the days they made a big big deal over it, "YAY you guys earned condiments pass out the ketchup salt and pepper, good job group, reward yourself with food." It was nuts now that i think about it. "you guys were bad bad horrible teens and didn't earn your food today" they did this every work day, it was the main focus "If you meet your work quota you get cake or sodas, cake and sodas" cake and soda, cake and soda, cake and soda, again they repeated if you make your quota you get dessert or sodas or condiments throughout the day continuously, it was pretty much all that was talked about by staff on work detail days "your not going to make your quota you bad horrible teens, no condiments if you don't make your quota" "smack no cake and soda your a bad bulimic anorexic bad" how the hell is that "treating" anorexia and bulimia? seems more like torturing the anorexics and bulimics
they also took us on a field trip, a very very rare event, to Golden Corral of all places, we went on a field trip to just Golden fricken Corral, nowhere else. everyone hit the buffet like a bunch of tortured teens out of a prison camp where they use food as a reward, they let the girls who were in there because of food problems pile their plates at the buffet too it was nuts, I'm not anorexic but I was dreaming about food and I hit the fridge like one when I got out we were all weird about food in there. it probably killed a bulimic or anorexic or two. it was very effective we met the work quota's well enough to be allowed dessert rarely
i felt like Pavlov's dogs put it that way "here cake dog cake don't you want some cake" "well now that you mention it yes yes I do" "no cake bad dog" i kept waiting for them to hook up electrical wires to soda cans to shock us while they took notes. "the teens, when presented with the proper inticement, seem willing to attempt to reach the soda even inspite of the shock up to 3.6 times, then they resort to the use of crude homemade tools, very ineresting, also it is fun to watch them twitch when shocked, hah hah hah hah" I'm sure they would have if they could have gotten away with it. if social services ever decided to show up for even a staff led tour it might have seemed odd. Plus why resort to shocking people when you have so many other slightly less obvious ways to abuse them."
Here is a statement from an ex PV staff members "wow...been reading on here for about 2 hours. I worked at there for several years in the early 90's in both the boys cabin and STU programs. I oriented new kids to STU, did strip searches, wore the buzzer, participated in group therapy sessions, sat in treatment teams, worked with family therapists, slept in a cabin (hell, I actually helped BUILD one), drove a van to AA/NA meetings, chased down kids who eloped, restrained dozens of kids, and occasionally helped train staff to do the same. I guess I'm the enemy here. I worked with nurses who abused prescription and IV drugs, line staff who left work at night to drive to bars and then came back to work at 3am unnoticed, staff who met upstairs in the YC to screw at night, a counselor with a scab on the back of her hand from the back of her teeth (she got that from sticking her fingers down her throat to make herself vomit), aggressive STU staff who were quick to hit the buzzer to initiate a PCI (one kid called it "Patient Carpet Introduction"), and professional staff who seemed to set up line staff against each other at times, with the end result being a bunch of staff who were just as f&^ked up as some of the kids. I felt at the time that much of what we did (I did) was helpful but in the back of my mind, I always wondered what happened after kids were discharged. Some of them made it...we heard from them and trumpeted their successes. I attended reunions a couple of times in the early 90's. One kid actually walked the Appalachian Trail after discharge. Others just disappeared. Sometimes I read about their deaths...two boys that I worked with committed suicide. One was an Army vet who went to Iraq in 1991 and was playing Russian Roulette. The paper said that "it was unclear if ____ knew that the gun was loaded." I thought damn...if you're in the Army, you KNOW if the gun is loaded. He didn't care. Standards for staff were pretty high until (...) came in around 1994 or 95. They wanted to save money and if I remember, they cut the starting hourly rate for STU counselors by a buck and dropped the college graduate requirement. This immediately resulted in a less-talented pool of applicants and created tension among staff when they realized that the old guys, doing the exact same job, got paid a dollar an hour more. I left a while later. I took another job (not in the industry) and a few months later, a kid that I worked with saw me. I remembered him and said hello. He confronted me. He told me that he was not a bad kid but had made some bad decisions and that we had f^&ked him over and it took all he had to get out of there somewhat intact. He was angry but controlled. He made eye contact and measured his words carefully. He really needed to say what he said. I think I mumbled "thanks and I hope things are better for you now" or something like that. That's been 10 years, and I still remember it. Someone was asking about the placement of the pee tubes. When I was there, the pee tubes were at individual cabins and were rarely moved. I helped a group dig a new site once...the bottom of each hole was covered with gravel, the tubes were placed, and the rest of the dirt was replaced. Occasionally we'd throw lime in the tube to help with the smell. The boys would use the bathhouse bathrooms when we could, and the pee tubes at night. I don't remember ever punishing a kid or harassing them for waking me up at night to go pee. Not saying it didn't happen, but I don't recall doing it myself. I never saw anything that would constitute sexual abuse by any staff member. There was a program director (the one who crashed her car into a KPD cruiser on I-640) who was gay and seemed to hire a lot of gay women (and once really upset a counselor for implying that SHE was gay) but I don't recall any concerns or allegations at the time (early 90's) about that kind of thing. That's all for now."
Here is something I wrote again: "Here is is a quote I got out of my ethics class about rape, domination and pornography, I thought it was interesting in the context of how PV treats the kids ie. it tries to dominate every aspect of their lives and minds. "According to MacKinnon pornography celebrates and legitimizes rape, battery, sexual harassment and the sexual abuse of children. More generally, it eroticizes the enforcement of dominance and submission that is common to all of them" ( MacKinnon 45). If you look at it like this and watch TV for a while you realize just how sexist society today is as well. The things that people are taught they have to be in a society have great influence on how they have to see themselves. It also allows them to believe one thing and do something else completely. The way these programs work allows for sexual abuse but also allows the abusers to be completely guilt free and even respected in the society while they are allowed to put all their shame on the teens they abuse. They deserve it because they are bad teens. I am not watching them in the shower i am disciplining them because they disserve it. all I'm saying is legitimizing watching teens change, go to the bathroom sleep and shower while enforcing complete dominance over their ability to do anything, stand up or lay down for example, falls pretty well into the psychological reasons people rape. it batters the kids, it sexually abuses them, it even legitimizes rape and celebrates it. what counts for therapy far more qualifies as a sort of sick celebration of the behaviors that it says it treats. It promotes suicide very much in this way, it does nothing but talk about suicide in this insane cult like way, with horrible abuse and the same with drug use or self harming behaviors. "treatment" of these disorders instead promotes them, making them cult like and ritualistic. going into long details repeatedly with bulimics about buying the food they were going to use to purge for example. it legitimizes rape by saying the girls who were raped or molested were responsible for it and by abusing them horribly and telling them they are worthless and bad in relation to it. all of the programs that use these sort of criteria are sexually abusing the teens in their programs. and using the programs to justify their sexually abusing them to themselves. rape psych 101 the rapist always says, they were asking for it they really like abuse, PV says this a lot and they deserve it Also rapists want to dominate others hmm what does PV say about the kids it restrains constantly and watches in the bathroom, shower and changing?"
I forgot to tell everyone about the level system at PV There isn’t a great deal to it It’s just another sort of mindless abusive formula that PV follows The levels were pretty arbitrary and used simply to mess with the kids or in relation to where the kid was in the program as far as insurance funds went those nearer to being discharged or who were in for only few a months suddenly jumped a level or two You were supposed to get more "privileges" but they were limited In STU for example, you were able to change out of hospital gowns, into Scrubs, then eventually into real clothes. Very basic, less earning privileges and more fighting for scraps of your humanity back which they arbitrarily took away again to hurt you It’s amazing how important something like ugly work clothes can seem when your in a hospital gown. They would also rearrange our beds according to the levels In STU this was also very related to your basic comfort level The florescent lights were left on all the time but they would turn off the ones in the very back, it was bright everywhere but the few higher level beds were better than the lower ones What was worse you slept under the nurses stations nose literally, the lowest bed was right in front of the nurses station and they slowly moved back It was like being a mouse under glass in a snake pit, very good for a restful nights sleep Staff makes a huge deal about the levels, they really hyped them up it’s one of the major things talked about It was used a lot like desert and condiments on work detail Staff is very strange about the things talked about They seem to be following a formula, and cut off any other sort of talk in group, since that’s the only place you get to talk But they give the levels then take them away among a great deal of sobbing Levels were usually given and taken away after a visit from once every six week actual therapist not during the ordinary twice daily group therapy with the Appalachian nazi gym teacher goon squad. Everyone cries when their level is taken away Staff makes a huge abusive deal about it, staff again are not nice ordinary people Bullying doesn’t begin to cover them Again if you ever want to start your own gulag keep this in mind It’s not hard to reduce people to pretty basic levels by taking away their humanity and torturing them, focus on the little things, Like good foods if they make work quotas, less abusive sleeping arrangements, and less dehumanizing clothes It mattered very little if you are being a good prisoner or not A girl could be doing everything she was told and talking about her issues just the way staff liked and her level would still be taken away I saw this many times, it was really horrible because some poor girl would be trying to do the best she could and then wham So anyway that was the gist of the Village level system Sorry if the above is convoluted I’m tired It was just another way they kept the level of trauma at high They used them to encourage us to look down on each other too And they treated the kid who had lost her level like trash etc. Again, also did I mention that the nurses station was right under STU, the admissions unit, on the girls side. It is literally underneath, downstairs from STU.
For example if social services just made staff and a few interviewed teens answer questions like: how much time do they get in the bathroom, describe bathroom procedures and shower times, how many times a week is there a restraint in STU on average, how long does each restraint last, what are some of the recent reasons exactly that you restrained someone, can i see a record of those restraints, describe exactly what happens in the strip search, do they have any free time, do you use food as a reward on work detail, is this a major focus on work detail, how many days a week do you have school, do you have real homework, do you have daily homework time, describe the level system, describe work detail, does all the nonstop exercise hurt like hell, are you being abused, what are these "accounts" of their bad behavior they are writing, how often do you see anyone other than these goon looking people, do you have anyway to report abuse, what is group therapy like, how often do you get to speak to your parents, etc. more accounts
Everything in my statement is true. I give HEAL permission to use my statement. I swear everything I wrote here is to the best of my knowledge completely true and I will be held accountable for anything written here. I have personally witnessed the repeated abuse of minors at the facility and would be more than happy to testify or present evidence to this fact. These behavior modification teen wilderness camps are a controversial excuse for therapy at best, they are also exorbitantly expensive. PV costs 500 dollars a night, more if they are "forced" to restrain you, or if you are in STU, the lock down unit. costs over a 150,000.00 a year, the kids in PV either have very good insurance or the state, tax dollars, pay for them to be abused. Children’s parents can sign them over to behavioral modification facilities with no court order for "crimes" that no court would convict. The children are isolated in the facilities and have no recourse whatsoever. Many of the parents are abusive. When I started to research I was amazed to discover how completely unqualified many of the daily staff is. The job requirements to be a live in counselor are a high school education or a GED, associate degrees from community colleges are common. Out of the staff that PV shows on it's website, I don't believe I saw one member of the daily staff that actually lives with the kids. Therefore, it is obvious that this facility turns an excellent yearly profit. I will include the job requirements forI found on the Health website under job search. The purpose of this letter is to officially report and describe the abuses that I both witnessed and was subjected to, in the hopes that it will help the children still suffering under that nightmare. I was in from 96 to 98, I was in the lock down unit for six months on arrival to the Village although I was cowed, completely subservient and did everything that they told me to, i was in the lockdown unit with no outside time for eight all told. I was physically restrained on the first day in a hospital gown by at least 8 large adults for nothing more than pulling my arm away, it was an impulse reaction, when the large orderly woman dugs her nails purposefully into my arm. I know that this was purposeful. I was sitting on the floor in the isolation room looking up at the staff member when I pulled away but only instantaneously as a sort off knee jerk reaction and not violently, she had hurt me. She then stepped back looked at me again and pressed the buzzer staff wears around their neck to signal a restraint. There was absolutely no need to restrain me other than to prove a point, we can hurt you if we want to, which I don’t believe they are allowed to use restraining for. I was already in the isolation room all she had to do was walk out and close the door, I also wasn’t at all violent or had even thought to be, I regarded her as a teacher or some other adult authority figure, you certainly do not react violently to a teacher. I was not in for any form of violence. I wasn’t even defiant, mostly I was scared, crying and sitting on the floor of the isolation room in a ball. This was after the intrusive body search and being woken up at 5:30 in the morning by three burly adults who escorted me , it was more like being kidnapped. While being restrained the staff applied excessive pressure, I couldn't breathe and kept repeating that I was choking, but they let no pressure off, I was bruised and sore the next day, the restraint went on for hours. I saw one girl with a nasty black eye which they said came from pressing her face into the floor, like that made it better. I saw other cases with bruised arms, wrists legs and faces. There is no doubt in my mind that they could have restrained my totally non-resistant sobbing 95 pound borderline anorexic teenage self between all 1400 pounds of the 8 of them without hurting me. I was not fighting at all, even at first, I was far too shocked. Each held a body part so it was not a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, the individual staff member meant to hurt us. They also kept restraining you long after any fight was gone and even if none was there in the first place. I remember girls being restrained for what seemed like all night, although it was really only about three hours. There was an isolation room in the lockdown unit, nice cold hard linoleum with cement underneath but they would restrain you anywhere, gravel, garden manure, wherever. They also used a straight jacket called a burrito. I can remember seeing a state kid stuck in that thing for a day or more, they were leading her around. Other girls were strapped to a cot wrapped up in it, given what must have been a lot of thorazine and other drugs, and left to drool. There were about two or three restraints a week often more. I was once restrained because I couldn't stop crying , I really couldn't I would have stopped of course to avoided being restrained, I was about as resistant as a wet noodle and they still held me down choking for hours. They would restrain girls for nothing, for saying in group therapy, I don’t agree with that politely enough , or for sitting down on work detail saying that they felt sick and needed to rest. We were not allowed to look at or talk to the other girls and we had to ask for permission to do anything, move even, of course go to the bathroom and we had to tell them what it is we had to do, they stood outside the door and timed us. There was no reading, and no free time, Group therapy was more like a denouncement session and began as soon as you were crying, that is later on the first day, after they had restrained you for a few hours and you were a broken puddle ready to confess to anything. I don't believe that many of the staff that actually lives with the girls on a daily basis is especially educated, perhaps some BA's and associate degrees, These are the one’s who actually deal with the children and run group therapy and restrain them, I don‘t believe there is one daily staff member pictured on the internet and they are the ones who actually live with the girls. . The lights in the lockdown unit, STU, where I spent the first six months, were left on all the time, we slept in cubicles and were often woken by the staff patrolling , they were always standing over us. We were punished constantly, abuse was constant every second for those two years. The cubicles had no fronts and the room was small. We were not allowed outside, until we were ready to move out to the cabins. This was horrible, after sitting on a bed for six months we were suddenly made to do back breaking physical work all day. We had level systems, I never got beyond the first level although I was completely compliant. I don't think I was as willing to rip into my fellow prisoners as much they would have liked. Group therapy was a cult denouncement experience, it was pure hell, and I am not exaggerating. They would find out your deepest darkest secrets and then browbeat you with them like you were disgusting dirt, we could say nothing to defend ourselves or we would face being PCId/ restrained. They liked sexual revelations and would ask you everything about them, specific details and more details, it was not appropriate, odd and used to induce shame. Many of the girls were in there for something that had happened to them, the website, says the Village is an expert at helping abused girls. It was terrible to watch them torture some poor teenager who was in there because she had been raped or molested. to be held up to shame, ridicule and denouncement in relation to sex at a place that was supposed to help you with your experience was a pure nightmare. They encourage the girls to pick on each other, to rip into each other during group therapy so bullying is greatly encouraged, in fact the level system is based strongly on it. There was desperation mentality, as we all struggled so hard to avoid being punished and they punished all of us together, I realize now that the punishments were arbitrary, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them they were still going to rain down on our heads. We would pretend to give feedback, their word for harassment and abuse, but how can you tear someone apart after listening to them scream all night while staff held their face into the floor. There were also frequent outbreaks of head lice while I was in STU. Many of us wanted to work with the staff, I personally wanted sane educated adults to help me. It was extremely confusing and terrifying. It seemed very odd that some of the girls were in a behavior modification facility at all and it was hard to tell how all this abuse was going to help any of them. The treatment did not seem at all relevant to the problems the girls were having? One of the girls was there for telling her parents that she was gay and that was really it. There were a lot of anorexics. Worst of all some had done nothing other than get molested by a close relative, to the horror of their families. The website says that is an expert at helping girls deal with issues like rape and molestation. I want to know whether or not the relative being accused was being investigated? It most cases I saw it was being somewhat brushed under the rug or almost completely brushed under the rug. There was very limited contact with the outside world, especially for girls who's families had signed them over. It did not seem reasonable that these girls were treated as if they were being punished or were in jail for more serious offenses. I thought too, that a lot of the girls who were in for more serious things were acting out more serious problems in their lives, like the kids who had unfit parents and were in foster care. It is a very hard world out there for a teenage runaway with drug addict, alcoholic, abusive parents. It really is, I lived with them for a long time, the stories were pretty typical. Perhaps better educated staff would have been more aware. The counselors run all the group therapy sessions and group therapy is the only kind of therapy we had at the Village. We had brief individual therapy once every two months maybe less and group therapy two or three time a day. Some girls were good students, there were also a certain amount of custody battles. The Village likes to add as much social stigma as possible to the teenagers there because it keeps them in business. I'll include the criteria for admissions to PV at the bottom of the page it is so broad as to be funny if it wasn't horrible. After the lock down unit with its cramped quarters and barred mesh covered windows for months, we had the cabins and work detail. Work detail was exercise digging up stumps, cross sawing logs, mauling logs, building endless things under the constant abuse of the staff in the hot sun. I believe I was also suffering from sleep deprivation because we were often woken up at two in the morning to go out to the log shed to be shown how much wood still needed to be chop or for some other arbitrary reason, we also always woke up before dawn and didn't get to bed till late because we always had endless chores or punishments to finish. I used to fall asleep standing up, literally on a daily basis. We marched around in lines, or holding on to a rope, and there was still no talking or looking at the other girls, it was very lonely. We had to haul around the Gott, a water jug that weighed so much your arms would feel like they were going to fall off and you'd want to vomit but if you dropped it you knew you were in worse trouble, we carried around many heavy things. The Gott was our water for the cabin. The cabins have no running water or bathrooms only porta johns. They exercise you past the breaking point and then over a little, and then much more. It was torture, I can't emphasize that enough torture, we did this all day most days, unless we were in school or on shutdown. We had no free time, we weren't allowed to read or anything, everything was tightly scheduled and we would always miss our schedule and be punished although we tried in pure desperation to make them happy so they would stop. Our showers were timed, everything was timed. Hygiene wasn’t that great and there was no makeup or jewelry or of course shaving your legs, only ugly work cloths. I only mention this because it is very dehumanizing for a young girl. We had no free time whatsoever, I did not speak to another girl the entire time I was there, without staff permission, which was rare. We weren't allowed to read, that was the worst for me because I love to read. No books, how are you suppose to learn without being able to read. School was ok when you got to go, but it wasn't very organized and there was a lot of other stuff going on, we also only went half of the school week, so we could do more important things like dig stumps out of the ground, I guess. Most left with a GED, I think they really focused on GED training, which makes it hard to get into colleges, especially if when they ask for high school credits you list a behavior modification facility. Often if something came up, like we went on shutdown or were sent to STU, the lockdown unit, we would miss school all together. Once they had us sit in a circle with our backs to each other and stare at the wall for five months only to turn around for group therapy and to be escorted to the bathroom. We had no school for those five months and five months is a long time to sit in a circle starring at a wall only to turn around for a denouncement session. From all the restraining you are probably thinking that the girls were always acting up. I can not stress how completely not true this is. For the most part they were more like zombies than wild teenagers. I’ve done some research on prison camps and abuse and I don't believe there is a teenager girl out there that isn’t going to turn into a limp half dead dish rag in the face of no escape, constant abuse; mental, physical, emotional and sexual although not physically so, denouncement sessions, sleep deprivation, sadistic people four times her size watching her constantly and being drugged. The opposition I saw was closer to nervous breakdowns than violent defiance. There was some defiance but it was only verbal protests of the abuse, that I saw. The girls crossed the staff in really sad to watch ways, like protesting the denouncement sessions, no being molested wasn’t my fault, or saying I can’t work anymore I feel sick or I can’t stop sobbing I’m trying but I can’t stop, I’m just going to sit here and not move. Saying, "this is wrong" was enough to get you restrained, or showing any annoyance at the abuse. I don’t think I saw anyone physically fight back or even threaten too except by pulling away or as they were already being restrained and this was usually accompanied by a very believable, remember I saw many bruises, you are hurting me I can’t breath. The only time I saw anyone fight, or squirm from underneath eight gigantic adults, is when they were already being restrained. These were usually the girls who had suffered long term serious abuse and it is not surprising they would become upset when being abused again. They staff was far too eager to restrain people and unbelievably cruel and abusive in their daily treatment on the girls. I never saw anything that posed as a danger to staff or the other girls but I sure as saw them restrain people a lot, at least two or three times a week. I also thought it odd that if the girls are so dangerous that they would have them marching around with hammers, cross saws, mauls, axes and other pretty dangerous things. I believe there is an abusive criteria for staff that they are told to follow, they show no sympathy and harass the girls constantly. I believe the idea is to keep the level of stress extremely high. There was a good deal of talk about breaking us down to be built back up although I saw no building back up, and I was there for about eighteen months. Also, I believe behavior modification involves rewarding good behavior. The punishments at the Village were completely arbitrary and rewards involved things like being allowed to use salt and pepper on your food. Staff would do things like walk around and mess up your bed and then yell at you while you tried to remake it while being timed, this is a slight example but it would happen, or something like it, twenty times a day sometimes at two in the morning, and was extremely nerve wracking. It was completely odd arbitrary stuff that basically allowed for you to be abused no matter what, and it taught you that no matter what abuse is constant. It was much like living in an extremely abusive family I believe. Not very helpful to victims of molestation, or abuse? One of the counselors, extremely undereducated, she had a associates degree from a community college, was found on My Space to belong to a community that photographs women in bondage. There were many pictures of young women in bondage on her website. In another instance, a director of the girls side, was arrested for driving extremely drunk, I believe she tried to back down a highway entrance ramp and hit another car. It turned out she was an alcoholic. they of course, won't let you talk to your parents except after I think it was six months for me, even then just by phone with a family therapist on conference call so if you break out of the party line and say "please get me out it’s a nightmare" large orderlies can appear and march you back for more abusive indoctrination. They also read your mail. They laugh at you when you say you want a lawyer or to please call 911. Your parents have of course been told you are a lying manipulator and not to believe you and that you just want to come home so you can go out with boys and smoke pot. Kids wet the bed because they were too scared to ask to go to the bathroom at night, either that or all the abuse was manifesting in weird ways. I wouldn't believe it except I lived it and I swear on my life everything I said is 150% true. I have lasting scars from this experience, I have nightmares almost every night, not always about the village just in general, that the world is a horrible place and all the scary fascist people are going to eat me and everything I care about and I'm going to be completely at there mercy. Besides the nightmares sometimes I shake uncontrollably if I am frightened or nervous, it is very embarrassing and is not helpful at work or in school. I have finally gotten over my overwhelming social anxiety enough that I am well on my way too having a college degree and have a life of my own. They taught me nothing other than how to be cowed and subservient and to think it was ok when someone abuses me, I still am completely incapable of making eye contact with other human beings. They teach you to give in to peer pressure and let your self be influenced by those around you even if they are going against what you think is ethical. I can’t emphasize enough how bad this facility is. I was amazed that we had no rights while in there. I asked to speak to a lawyer or someone from the outside, I heard girls ask to have the police called repeatedly, and they laughed at us. Therapy there is a horrible lie. They take abused girls and tell them that they deserve abuse. It's the daily mantra there, how everything is your fault, your rape, your parents problems, your anorexia, your life in foster care. I never got to talk to another girl the entire time I was there, other than with asked permission and staff listening, even then it was just about mandatory things, like, put the piece of wood down here. I can understand how people are taken in , from the outside it looks ok, my parents trusted and had no idea that such things even exist in America, they believed as I did that it was a safe and caring program that would help their daughter like most school and health programs. People don't believe that something this insane, this Gulag like, would exist in America. No-one sees it from the inside except the daily staff and the girls really and us they do so much to discredit and keep down that we do not believe anyone will believe us or care. I feel as if I have just recently woken up from the nightmare and it has been seven + years. It is an evil, horrible place that should be shut down and they should have any licensing stripped from them and be brought up on child abuse charges.
Here are the admission criteria for PV I took of the Peninsula Village website, obviously girls who are admitted after undergoing sexual abuse or a traumatic experience do not need to be tortured and have daily abusive therapy with counselors who may or may not have a high school diploma:
Admission Criteria / ADMISSION CRITERIA Patients come to Peninsula Village with a wide range of problems, diagnoses and symptoms including, but not limited to the following: Depression, Anxiety, and other Mood Disorders
Alcohol and/or drug abuse/dependency
Disordered conduct and oppositional behavior
ADD/ADHD Effects of traumatic experience
Disrespect of adult authority
Inability to tolerate frustration or boredom
Unhealthy self-centeredness
Unwillingness to adhere to conventional values/standards
Inability to behave independently and autonomously
Self-mutilation and/or other self-harming behaviors
Pattern of excessive passivity and clinging dependency in relationships
Eating disorders that are medically stable
Mood disorders
Behavioral disorders
Character pathologies
Difficulties in school environments
Sexual abuse issues
2. Exclusionary Criteria, EXCLUSIONARY CRITERIA
these are again the EXCLUSIONARY CRITERIA,
PV has been known to take people with some of the below and to encourage them to bully their peers during group therapy if they have the money or insurance to pay for their stay
Peninsula Village is unable to help every adolescent. Some problems that we cannot treat are: Intelligence below the average range (Full Scale IQ below 90)
History of fire setting and pyromania
Sexual Offenders / Sexual Disorders
History of chronic/severe physical aggression including use of weapons
Physical or medical condition that would hinder participation in vigorous, outdoor activities (diabetes, epilepsy)
Homicidal intent at time of admission
Psychotic Disorders
Pregnancy (females)
ANOTHER ACCOUNT
I want to remain anonymous for now. I was sent back in Sept. 2004 Many things were horrible... just to name a few for now, because I do not want them to know who I am if they read this because I am working on trying to form a large lawsuit against them so yea but here are a few things I experienced there for about 6 months: Being Physically restrained about twice daily on average where there was no reason for it whatsoever. An alarm kind of like a car alarm except much louder would be turned on and about 20 staff would come running into the unit and all basically jump me, throw me to the ground and sit on me to hold me down.... a few times they really hurt me.. I remember one instance in which they performed Xrays on my jaw and wrist from my restraint. I would also be mechanically restrained when I "struggled" meaning when I was trying to escape my restraint because they were hurting me. I would be tied down to a bed and sometimes they would leave me there for hours or just about the whole day. If I had to go to the bathroom they would put a bedpan underneath me. disgusting. Also if I fell asleep they would come kick my bed and tell me to wake up. they said that being tied down was a punishment and not a treat of naptime. But it was a no wonder I was so tired. They had me way over medicated. I was put on Abilify for my agitation.. Every time they would restrain me, they would increase my dose. I was up to 120 Mg daily. But thats not all... when I was restrained they would give me large dose shots in my ass of Klonopin, Haldol, Thorazine, etc. They would make me so tired I could have slept for days. We had to eat on our beds, we didn't even get to sit at a table. Bathroom times were on their terms... If we had to go when it was not bathroom break, we had to wait, and if it was a real emergency they would allow it but then you would get consequenced for it later on in consequence group. Who ever thought of being consequenced for having to use the bathroom? We were not allowed to talk except in group therapy or if we raised our hand and were actually called on. You had to sit on your bed with your back up against the wall. If you got off your bed, you would be restrained. There were level systems which always made me feel bad about myself. When you were restrained they would strip you of your clothing and make you wear hospital gowns until you contracted to move up to wearing scrubs then contracting to wear your clothes. In my stay there i must have been restrained over 60 times and they were all completely unnecessary. We were forced to participate in their AA or NA groups. i never had an addiction problem but they said I did. they said I liked tranqs. they were wrong, i never had one of them in me until I came to PV. i was forced to participate in Medicine wheel groups in which we had to learn and were tested on some kind of Native American Stuff. The director of my unit at the time was not licensed he was actually denied by the board of health so he was misrepresenting himself. He told me once, "if you think you are smart enough to get kicked out of here and escape it here you are wrong" I would not see my dad for weeks sometimes over a month. My family therapy sessions would get taken away from me in which I could not talk to my dad much less see him ` if when i was talking to my dad and i tried to tell him how bad it was there they would end the family therapy session right there. they also told him I was incompetent and did not know what I was talking about when he heard me tell him about my bruises. I was covered in bruises from the head down. My mail was monitored by staff both outgoing and incoming. That is all i am going to say for now. The reason i was sent was for PTSD from my mother passing away when i was 14. If i would cry about it, they told me I was attention seeking. My PTSD worsened alot from being there.
to this day I still have nightmares and flashbacks from that place. not "Girl Interupted" for sure more like a fun day under stalin
From I Speak of Dreams -
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_d ... 5cf490970c I was in PV in 2002, and I am still having nightmares. They rank high on the warning lists for abusive program watchout sites. They hated me too. I don't know why. They knew I was turning 18 so at the end they just ignored me, I stayed in the locked unit for 4 months, gained 60 pounds from sitting on a bed and doing nothing.I found out later I had sustained a concussion when they slammed my head into the floor during a restraint so hard I was left with a cut and abrasions across my forehead. Why? I sat up. That's it. I had been laying on they floor, they dragged me there, and I sat up, intending to raise my hand and ask to use the restroom, where they would have to examine my shit and piss before I could flush it, a method of humiliation, and was immediately tackled. I have never had a violent day in my life, never raised a hand to anyone. I had low self esteem, I let men use me and
