Carlbrook

[Natalie Hills]

[Troll Control]

Posted: 2006-01-03 21:39:00  
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 After spending about an hour reading through the thread, I am surprised that I am the only graduate thus far that is displeased with Carlbrook. I have been out for more than a year now and can say that I underwent the typical 6 month euphoria period and then dropped. Since coming out, I have been much more fucked up emotionally. Using the therapeutic terms I've become so well endeared with, I now experience negative thinking and depression much more than I did before- to the point where I am thoroughly anti-social and confused about everything. The issues that were brought up in the Workshops (see LGA) constantly pervade my thoughts. I question myself much more so than I used to and all of my actions. I have become a much more indecisive personality and question my every motive, my every choice. Many people have said you are free to walk away at any time. This is true, but you are also forewarned and constantly threatened with wilderness and much more emotionally distressing programs. Many children are forced to take medication. I refused for a long while and was constantly confronted in group therapy (different than a workshop) about why I was being so unreceptive to something that would help me. The psychologist there will prescribe on the drop of a dime. If you are recommended, no matter what you say, he will state that you are in need of medication. Once you agree to take this medication, if you miss it during the appointed time, you are assigned a one hour work crew. Places like this should not exist. Your friends are turned against you at every turn and the simplest of things are blown up. You turn into the scapegoat for many kids own personal issues and if you disagree, regardless of whether or not you are the one being attacked, you are taking away from the "safety" of others in the group. It's a more realistic version of the group therapy portion of the book "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey. I too was once on the golden float of Carlbrook. I will admit that my life was headed down the wrong path. Well, I've graduated and I still don't know that I'm headed where I want to. Some of the things, I didn't connect with and I was bashed because of it. I will admit that some of the closest friends I've ever had came out of this school. It's a Utopian society that doesn't prepare you at all for life outside of the therapeutic bubble. As with any school, they do play favorites. They manipulate, they play mind games. You're not brainwashed in the sense that, voila, you can't think anymore. You're brainwashed in a way that makes it a struggle to live your life. I'll be posting more later.

[Troll Control]

Very nicely written. I'm sorry that you had to have this awful experience.

I have been saying since this program opened that it would take some time to get a realistic perspective from a former patient because it takes about a year for the reality of what you experienced to settle into your now adult mind.

The experiences you were led to believe would be helpful seemed hurtful, but the developing mind is unable to stave off the constant reeducation of indoctrination. There will be many more stories of abusive, unfair, unethical and nonsensical treatment that young patients were forced to endure at the hands of uneducated hacks, pseudo-psychotherapists, new-age pop psyche counselors, bm dominators and generally unbalanced people who subscribe to the program's methods.

It's unfortunate that people still refer to these RTC's as "schools," as it is abundantly clear that Carlbrook, like its predecessors, is nothing more than a BM warehouse whose primary purpose is conformity, NOT education. While they perpetrate fraud on desperate parents, they abuse the young patients with same methods used by their fellow programs: bait and punish, instill hopelessness, foster dependency, extirpate individuality, forced confessions, forced labor, forced medication, isolation, instilled fear, and no therapy by qualified professionals.

Their use of LGAT seminars on unstable children is appalling. This is an extremely dangerous, demonstrably ineffective and damaging practice.

Once more, I am deeply troubled about your experience at Carlbrook. You may rest assured, however, that the more data and personal accounts that are provided about the abuse heaped on children there bring Carlbrook ever closer to legal reckoning and inevitable closure.

It's going to take some time, but eventually they will be regulated by enforceable laws, stung with personal injury lawsuits and caught committing illegal acts against children in their care, just as nearly every single one of these programs has in the past.

Try to hang in there, get yourself right and, when you can, do what you are able to help future patients avoid the experience you had.

Good luck. Keep in touch.