I Have Something to Say

[Anonymous]

I was in the program in TB and then transfered out to SCL on transition. I stayed after I was 18 becasue I never finished anything in my whole life and I wanted to do something this time. I excelled in the program.. not because I was fake but becasue I really loved the people that I was surrounded with and I never felt more powerfull for doing it on my own. I am not someone that has all these pent up hatefull feelings about the program... I look back on those days fondly. The kids that I met there are still some of my very best friends. I am not saying that I don't think that bad things didn't happen there. THere were injustcices. They just didn't really happen to me, so if you want to jump all over me go ahead. What I want to know is do you guys want to shut down WWASP completely or just reform them? I know if there was one area that I really felt failed by the program was after I got home. I had spent a year and a half doing nothing but learning how to bond with these kids. THey became my friends, then they were taken away. We were not allowed to exchange info with the other kids and the only way I found people was either by slipping address to people or by scaling the internet for hours looking for people. I felt so alone when I got home and it was devistating to me. I remember that all I wanted to do was go back to the program beacuase that was where I was comfortable. Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for taking the time to write this out and explain your views. I will share my perspective as well. I found while being at SCL, that the kids who needed help the most (i.e. the kids with real drug, psychiatric and emotional problems) had it the worst, and they were the ones in need of the most help to begin with.

I ended up at SCL when I was 17 1/2, so I had no reason to buy into the program. Even if I had, it would have taken me a year longer than eighteen, and there was no way I could stay until I was 19. So I decided to not work the program. I didn't actively resist and start trouble so much as I just stopped caring and didn't try.

So I ended up in the hobbit a lot, worksheets a lot and got reemed at every seminar I went to. I got to experience the negative of this program first-hand. It didn't effect me quite as negatively as the younger kids, however, and that is what makes me so sad about SCL and the kids who are there.

Those who were older, and more socially adept could work the program, and have a relatively easy time at SCL. The younger kids were not as mature and had a much harder time, and they would receive the full brunt of the punishments. Not just the young ones either, but the really emotionally disturbed ones, who had REAL problems and should never have been sent to a behavior mod facility. IMO, SCL should have had the decency to send them to a psychiatric hospital and help them get better. Instead, they would let them rot in the hobbit for weeks, even months at a time. This is what really gets to me.

SCL feels that you can punish the bad out of a child and force them to comply. This is a horribly flawed ideology in my opinion. This was how mentally ill people were treated before the recent rise of psychiatric medicine. Schizophrenics were wharehoused, treated horribly and expected to get better -- or simply be wharehoused indefinitely. This is the same as WWASP. They pretend modern psychiatric care does not exist, that a modern therapy environment is not helpful, and the old ways work better. Most (if not all) psychological professionals would disagree with their thinking.
As do I. When I left SCL I went to a psych hospital and it was so different from SCL. I was still in the frightened and anxious program mindset, but being there and talking with real professionals who care about you and your well-being helped me realize what real help is. And how SCL lacks it sorely.

So, yes, I think SCL and other WWASP programs should not exist. I, personally am not going to crusade to shut them down -- but in my heart I believe there are better options, and as long as WWASP is out there, parents will be steered away from these more benificial options for their teens.

Yes, I made good friends while I was there, I can take some good from the experience, but it did not do what my parents paid for -- that is, make me better off psychologically or in any other way. I left worse off to be ready for life in the real world, and it took me time just to get back into the normal swing of things in regular day to day living.

I also lost a lot of my inherent trust in humanity, because I personally did experience brutality at SCL. Sure, maybe I shouldn't have chosen out of a seminar to spend time in a hobbit -- but just because I am not comfortable being emototionally torn down in front of a hundreds of strangers, does that mean I deserve to be locked up and given limitd meals and treated so poorly? I don't think so, and I would not wish this on any child, no matter how misbehaived they are.
The children I met at SCL either needed real help, or didn't need to be there at all.
 
I was physically and emotionally mistreated in SCL and I don't feel I deserved it. It made my life harder when I left, and has taken me several years to recover from and move on. After experiencing many different forms of treatment -- I was in about half a dozen different facilities besides WWASP -- I can honestly say, and believe this with my full heart, SCL is not helpful, and there are so many better options out there, I cannot see a reason for a parent to choose to send their child to a WWASP program. Modern psychiatric and therapeutic care is a much better treatment ideology than the old 'lock em up and scare the devil out of them' philosophy. I've lived both, and feel I have a right to make that distinction.



Thanks for sharing your experience. I am sincerely glad it was positive. I feel your pain about not being able to contact friends. I made two of my best friends ever while at SCL, and haven't heard a word since the day I left. And I probably never will. Closure of this whole incident might be easier to come by if otherwise. Until then... these forums are the best I've found.  :smile:

[69]

Forgot to sign in.

Religion is just mind control.
--George Carlin, comedian

[Anonymous]

What I want to know is do you guys want to shut down WWASP completely or just reform them? I know if there was one area that I really felt failed by the program was after I got home. I had spent a year and a half doing nothing but learning how to bond with these kids. THey became my friends, then they were taken away. We were not allowed to exchange info with the other kids and the only way I found people was either by slipping address to people or by scaling the internet for hours looking for people. I felt so alone when I got home and it was devistating to me. I remember that all I wanted to do was go back to the program beacuase that was where I was comfortable. Any thoughts?

No, I dont want these places to exist or be reformed, either.

Turning a WWASPS program into something that provides therapy without coersion is like trying to replace the parts in a Ford car and make it into a Honda in the sense of "three new handles, two new heads, same old axe" - that would NOT be true in this case, except that a totally new program would exist on the same property and have the same name (if it didnt change it) as whatever WWASPS program you were 'reforming'.

To break the will of anyone, especially children, via coersion, punishment (if not just outright torture in these programs) mind-control in the LGAT seminars based off of the EST/lifespring type schtick from deacdes ago thats long been debunked, "the hobbit", turning their parents against them, being forced to teach yourself out of a book and take BS tests until you pass it and call it an education, and then cutting off all communication with their own parents, the authorities, and the outside world and all advocates is inherantly wrong, NOT therapeutic, and arguably downright eivl.

As far as feeling comfortable there and forming bonds under teh duress and contrived nature of the program... thats another bad thing. Taking a bunch of strangers, cutting off their access to the outside world, contrived circumstances being forced upon them so theyre made to "bond" is not learning how to make friendships. You dont make friendships under any of the same rules you would in a WWASPS program! Its totally inapplicable to the outside world, and I doubt many of those friendships would last very long.

As far as the loss you felt upon leaving - stockholm syndrome is well documented. BY DESIGN, the program became your entire world. Its how it does what it does - break you down and "brainwash" (or will your head with whatever the hell they want, including love and adoration for the program) and reduce or eliminate your ability to think critically about it.

BTW, why do you think they wouldn't let you keep contact info with the other kids? Sure speaks volumes for themselves regarding what they dont let YOU speak about. Was talking about tranquility bay punishable when you were in SCL? it is now - same for talking about anyone who died in a program, or your own feelings... or anything except "WE LOVE SCL AND WE'RE BAD KIDS".

You'll get over it, heal, and form real friendships in time. I hope that includes your family - without the program bullshit getting in the way.

Anyway, no, screw it. you cant reform it and still have it a WWASPS program, You'd just be putting an actually therapeutic place within the walls of "SCL" and calling it the same thing if you chose to. You might as well say we should reform Saddam Hussein and put him back in power.  :silly:

[Nihilanthic]

I also forgot to sign in  :roll:

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.
-- Dave Barry

[BuzzKill]

A lot of people begin by thinking "reform".
In time, as a person learns more about the history of the individuals, as well as the treatment mode, they tend to come around to wanting it all abolished.

Ask yourself why the strict prohibitions against having phone numbers and addresses? Why wouldn't they want you to keep in touch with your friends?
Doesn't that seem strange?

Of corse your lonely.  I know from my time on the BBS - the parents of grads often worried about how lonely they were. S/he's doing fine - but so lonely, was a very common concern.

It will get better. You'll become more comfortable with talking to the non-programmed - and you'll make new friends, or re-connect with old ones. Hang in there.

[Antigen]

Welcome, Anon. Thanks for posting. Yeah, basically, I think TOUGHLOVE is a hategroup which should be rejected. I differ w/ most other ppl on the topic in that I don't think regulation is going to help. However, in the process of pushing for said regulation, advocates of it do a whole lot of what I think does need to be done, and that is robust dialog, research and education.

Another good question to ask yourself. If TOUGHLOVE is so good an wholesome and effective, why all the deception and obfuscation? Why is it so hard to nail them down on business ownership and ties, program history and all the rest? Doesn't that directly contradict their call for accountability?

They never give the parents the whole story, always springing something on them. That commitment letter you got? More than likely, your parents wrote it at the endo of their very first seminar because the facilitator instructed them to do so. They didn't mean it and, if they had any idea what the WWASP staff and fellow inmates were really putting you through, they probably never would have even said any of it.

There are two kinds of people; those who's lives have been somehow touched by harsh tragedy and those you don't know very well.
-- Ginger Warbis

[BuzzKill]

The commitment letters get written before the seminars. They want those written ASAP - Soon as the kid is enrolled.
The first one I wrote wasn't considered firm enough and I was asked to write another. Funny story about that. . .
I wrote an email (so as to expedite the receiving of said letter, as requested by the FR) but attached, was a letter to the FR, explaining he was coming out after a year, no matter what level he happened to be on - b/c that's all I was budgeted for - SO - don't be yanking his points for no good reason - lets try and let him graduate. After all, Teen Help had told me a kid with my son's history could expect to graduate in 6 to 12 months. (total bull shit) So anyway - the FR printed out the Commitment letter - and gave it to my son - with the note attached, explaining the financial realities!
I understand all the boys got a laugh out of that - and to this day, we wonder if the FR realized what he had done?
But anyway - the commitment letter is among the very first things they have you do - and the seminars may not roll around until several months later.
However - it is at the seminars that they have the parents write the glowing - "we love the program - it saved our family" letters.

[CCM girl 1989]

On 2006-01-30 14:26:00, BuzzKill wrote:

"The commitment letters get written before the seminars. They want those written ASAP - Soon as the kid is enrolled.

The first one I wrote wasn't considered firm enough and I was asked to write another. Funny story about that. . .

I wrote an email (so as to expedite the receiving of said letter, as requested by the FR) but attached, was a letter to the FR, explaining he was coming out after a year, no matter what level he happened to be on - b/c that's all I was budgeted for - SO - don't be yanking his points for no good reason - lets try and let him graduate. After all, Teen Help had told me a kid with my son's history could expect to graduate in 6 to 12 months. (total bull shit) So anyway - the FR printed out the Commitment letter - and gave it to my son - with the note attached, explaining the financial realities!

I understand all the boys got a laugh out of that - and to this day, we wonder if the FR realized what he had done?

But anyway - the commitment letter is among the very first things they have you do - and the seminars may not roll around until several months later.

However - it is at the seminars that they have the parents write the glowing - "we love the program - it saved our family" letters."

I have a question that I think you might be able to answer for me.

At the seminars.......for instance the one in San Jose, CA. do the parents already have their kids enrolled without them really knowing, and the seminar is just a type of evaluation so they can recommend one of their great programs to send there poor kids to?

Or is the kid already in the program, and while on a homevisit they attend together? Kind of like the seminar is a requirment for them to graduate?

Please enlighten me, I am totally confused!!!!

[Anonymous]

Parents are "invited" to attend the seminars after they enroll their child. The kid goes through a tougher version of the same seminars at the facility in which they are incarcerated. Seminars are the core of the program. You can't progress and move up the levels unless you complete them. It is in the seminars that people are changed from normal, thinking human beings to newspeak-spouting WWASPies.

The seminars are based on the LGAT model, and they are basically the same as EST, Landmark, etc.

[BuzzKill]

///Parents are "invited" to attend the seminars after they enroll their child. The kid goes through a tougher version of the same seminars at the facility in which they are incarcerated. Seminars are the core of the program. You can't progress and move up the levels unless you complete them. It is in the seminars that people are changed from normal, thinking human beings to newspeak-spouting WWASPies.

The seminars are based on the LGAT model, and they are basically the same as EST, Landmark, etc.///


Yeah - what she said. . .

The seminars are something discussed prior to enrolling a teen - but not in any kind of detail.
Exactly what takes place is never discussed.
You begin to get an idea of what an ordeal it is going to be, only after the teen is enrolled, and you get a copy of the rules.
Also, if one is active on the BBS, they can get an idea of the basic nature of the ordeal - but again - no details. Its all a big secret - but the overwhelming message is how great they are. How life changing. (let us remember, life change is not always a good thing)
The first seminar is required. If you want to visit your kid, anyway. You must attend Discovery to attend the parent child weekends.
I can hardly believe I went for this crap now! But at the time, it seemed to make sense - I can't explain it.
But I can say, once I got a load of the seminar rules I began to baulk. I didn't want any part of what I was beginning to understand them to be.
As to your question - Yes, the parents will have their kids at one of the wwasps programs by the time they attend the seminar. Depending on which one it is - maybe just for a month or two - or maybe for a year or more. There are a series of them, and naturally if it is second or third of them, the kid will have been in longer than if it is the first.
And yes - for the teens, the seminars, all of them, are required to graduate.
All the program is really, is a place to warehouse the teens while they are put through the seminars. The treatment of the "students" is designed to condition them to be more receptive to the purpose of the seminars. Its all about the seminars.

*[ This Message was edited by: BuzzKill on 2006-01-31 11:56 ]

[CCM girl 1989]

Muchas gracias!!!! That's the information I was looking for :smile:!