Graduate of Carlbrook

[Anonymous]

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.

[try another castle]

Thank you so much for posting this. I was getting really sick of all the pro-Carlbrook crap from supposed alumni and satisfied parents, which pretty much sounded like it was all coming from the same person.

I'm all for dissent regarding the validity of programs, but the "people" who defended carlbrook all sounded alike, refused to answer or address questions posed to them by other fornits' members, and I felt like I was the designated dupe in a mirrors trick.

Welcome to the "disorientation" phase of deprogramming. i.e. the part where you start to feel really depressed and isolated and try to use the tools you learned at school to help your situation, but sadly, realize that they have lost their "magic" that they seemed to have had within the environment of the campus.

I call it the disorientation phase because this is the point where you go "what the fuck?" As in, "what the fuck happened?" and "what the fuck am I supposed to do now?" and "what the fuck is going on in my head?"

Followed closely by the "why the fuck"s. As in, "why the fuck do I feel so miserable?" and "why the fuck is it so hard for me to make friends and act properly with others?" and "why the fuck do I feel so alone?"

Then you'll get mad, and go through the "who the fuck?"s as in "who the fuck did those people think they were, anyway?" and "who the fuck's idea was it to 'help' teens in this manner?" and "who the fuck is ever going to understand what I went through?"

I went to RMA, part of the CEDU schools. One of your deans, Tim Brace, was the headmaster of my school when I went there. He was a weepy, melodramatic git who talked out of his ass most of the time and had no grasp on reality.

Based on alumni's descriptions of the Carlbrook curriculum, it sounds a lot like a fancy, prep-school version of the CEDU education.

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[ This Message was edited by: sorry... try another castle on 2006-01-14 18:55 ]

[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.

[Anonymous]

The problem with Carlbrook is that there are the SAME people in charge that ran or worked for Cascade, RMA and so many of the other bullshit "treatment" centers.  It is all about who is fucking who and is plain to see even to the kids.  One of the owners is fucking one of the advisors and has the balls to BRAG about it in one scene and then be all holier than though trying to tell the kids to be moral--HA!  Then you have the ever-wise DEAN of advising fucking his little associate director in his office and has her sitting on his lap damned near every day at some point or another with his face in her breasts grinning.  Ummmm....these are our leaders and teachers? The ones WE are supposed to listen to?  And now to top everything else off there has been an alumni suicide...one of our own lost with his parents really still believing in the good of Carlbrook.  I am going to barf.   I am so sorry for all of the people out there suffering through the trama caused by these programs...