Can't believe WWASP is still up and running. This is gonna be ranty cause I haven't spoken about it in years but I just need somewhere to vent for a little while; I'm hoping this is the best place to do it.
I remember when I was 15 and I was Tranquility Bay (I was there from Jan 23 1998 - Jun 29 1999) and I would think "If I could only tell people what went on here, they would shut this place down and get this of this stupid program entirely." It never occurred to me that the same thing had happened before and there were already stories out there about Tranquility Bay and WWASP. Wish I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have been so hopeful. I remember me and the other girls talking about how we were going to sue when we got back and there was no way we would lose...HA. Justice is a freaking joke.
That program did absolutely nothing for me except give me severe PTSD. When I got there at first I was able to lie my way through everything. I lied through Discovery, Focus, and Accountability. (Remember how they would have you set goals for the next seminar, and then at the next seminar you had to stand on a chair and tell everyone what your goals were and if you accomplished them all or not? I always made sure the school goals were good but the rest I lied about. I was able to get away with it because I was the only one from my family in the seminars I was in so no one was able to say I didn't do 100 push ups everyday. Ah, the good old days...) Anyways, so I'm about to go up for Level 4. I have half the signatures I needed. Then they fired my family rep because she got into with Jay Kay. So they dissolve my family and put me with a new one. My new rep decides that because of the drama of being reassigned families that I have to wait a minimum of one month before I can go up for level 4. One week later my family rep makes every single person in the room stand up and confess to any rules they have broken since the first day we came that no one has ever found out about. I tell her that I've told everything I've done except that when I first got there I lied that I didn't know the girl I came from Brightway with so they would assign us to the same room. She gave me a CAT 5 for it!!!! She said that since I was new I was subconsciously trying to make run plans!!!! I got sent to OP and dropped to level 1!!! Such BS!!!!!!
I still have nightmares about that place sometimes. I'm friends with some of the girls I was at TB with on facebook and one of them posted a picture of me from my 16th birthday. I started crying when I saw it because I remembered how I spent my 16th birthday: spending the entire day secretly crying in despair. I still never understood the whole concept: I'm supposed to become closer to my parents by being kidnapped and sent to a foreign country in a private prison and I can only write letters that are monitored by staff? How the $#@! are families supposed to become closer by being thousands of miles apart and cut off from all communication? And I don't want to hear about "That's what PC 1 and PC 2 are for!"
I got lucky, my dad had a heart attack and the doctors thought he was going to die, and his dying wish was to see me again. (He survived for another 10 years thankfully.) By that time I had been there 18 months and I was going up for level 4 again. This time though, I had been approved by everyone except Jay Kay because he was out of town for the weekend. I had already been acting like a junior staff anyway giving people consequences and watching other kids for staff members and stuff like that. So there was no question that I was "working the program" and doing what I supposed to. After hearing about my dad's heart attack, my mom rushed to the hospital. When they told her my dad was likely going to die and he wanted to see me, my mom called up TB immediately, who transferred her to Jay Kay immediately.
My mom originally wanted to know if there was a way if she could take me out of the school for one day to see my dad and then come back. They told her no way, that doing that was against policy. Once a student leaves, the only way they can come back is if they start all over again at level 1. My mom asked if she could pay for a staff member to escort me to Chicago to see my dad and escort me back to Tranquility Bay they told her no. My mom begged and pleaded with them if there was anything they could do. She really really really really wanted me to graduate the program. They told her that it was in the contract; the kid has to stay in the program until they graduate and seeing my dying father was definitely not part of the program. So my mom took me out.
I was so frightened when I first came back. I was afraid at night of the dark and quiet. I had to have a nightlight and some kind of noise (a fan, my computer, something) in order to fall asleep. I would have vivid nightmares and sometimes wake up sobbing. I contacted a lawyer, Alexia Parks, the first night I got home. She wanted me to file a lawsuit immediately and do press interviews and all this stuff...I was so scared if my mom found out I was speaking out against the program she would send me back. I sent Alexia an email that explained to her that I needed at least a few weeks, if not a few months, before I would be ready to do something like that. She seemed very very irritated by that and basically said I wasted her time. I was glad I said no, it made me realize that she was more interested in the fame and possible lawsuit money than she was with helping victims. I put a post on a discussion board all the things that had happened to me and the other girls at TB, hoping to get them out...well, as much as I could write anyways. I ended up writing for 3 hours straight and I finally got tired and figured it would be good enough. I said I would post part 2 but never did...writing part 1 was draining enough and plus it definitely gave a clear picture of TB and WWASP.
I know I'm rambling here but it's just that I have so many memories I've repressed for so long...It's crazy. I won't think about it all for a week, maybe even a month, then all of a sudden I have a nightmare again. The nightmares involve different people now, but it's always in that same awful school with that awful smell. It's weird.
Hope one day WWASP gets shut down permanently and every single person involved in from it from the Litchfields on down all burn in hell for eternity, although even that is better than they deserve
for WWASP -- :moon:
