The Parents Side of the Story

[Maximilian]

Thanks for your thoughtful, well written post Samara, I enjoyed reading it and learning about your perspective on programs.

[Samara]

Wow. You disarmed me. Man, I'm easy.

[Che Gookin]

I remember a story where a parent got so guilty about having their child abused in a program that they blew their head off.

 :suicide:

No loss really, good riddance.

[Samara]

wow, harsh.

But as a former staff member, you interacted with a lot of parents. I am curious about what you thought of most of them. A fair and balanced perspective.

[Maximilian]

I do hope parents will take the time to post their perspective in this thread. Hopefully now that this forum is moderated they might feel comfortable enough to share their experiences in dealing with their own "troubled" teenager.

When I was living with my family as a teen I really had no concept of love, or that we were supposed to love each other, and that my parents cared about me. So when they'd get calls from the ER saying I od'd again, or cops coming all the time to the house to question/arrest me, and all the other bullshit. I can't even begin to explain all the crap I put my family through, it really is quite unbelievable looking back. Yet, at the age, I thought everything was fine. To my warped world view back then, I was in control and things were taking place as I wanted them to. But the truth was I was losing control of my own life and acting out in ways that hurt everybody around me, not to mention myself.

 Now I can empathize with my parents, and I know they really did care about me, and putting myself in their shoes and imaging someone you love destroying themselves in front of you like I did to them, makes me extremely heartsick. I regret putting my family through that more than anything else in my life, I was extremely selfish and like a black hole my energy was devouring everything around me. So they isolated me away from the family in the program, and this was the best thing to do at the time. I realize this now, and even though it wasn't fun, I appreciate their position and respect their decision. I had proven I wasn't in control of my own life, and since I wasn't able to handle making decisions for myself, they had to be made for me.

So they told me when to eat, when to wake up, when to go to sleep, when to go to school, when to go to the bathroom, when to go to the therapist office, when I could have free time, when to clean, and everything else. I had lost the ability to make rational and healthy choices for myself, and had to be taught again like a child. The thing is I stayed angry at my parents for putting me through what I considered to be a waste of my time, but when I got out I asked them what was the point? They said, it saved your life , and that's the most important thing. I dismissed this is a program slogan, but they kept saying that whenever I brought it up. Eventually I realized what they meant, and you know what, they were right.

[Che Gookin]

wow, harsh.

But as a former staff member, you interacted with a lot of parents. I am curious about what you thought of most of them. A fair and balanced perspective.

Most of them directly contributed to their child's problems. A good half of them cared, 1/4th of them were just plain idiots and simpletons, and the other 1/4th were serial abusers in their own right.

However, all of them for the most part contributed to their children having the problems they had.

[Samara]

I don't know, M. I am still a little leery of the "saved my life" credo. I know too many people who credit a program with saving their lives in spite of the hot messes they continue to be with relapses, prostitution, etc.  I'm not attacking you, I just have  a hard time buying into that thought pattern in general.  

My brother was a heroin addict on the streets off and on for 17 years. My Dad tried everything and finally let him be. He's been clean for 21 years now. (He is a lot older... about 20 years older than me or so.) He just decided he was done.  But he also lives a very fear driven life where he won't step out of a very narrowly confined box afraid he will relapse.  Still, lives in fear over it. It actually is very constraining for his wife.

I wonder how much responsibility my Dad would take?  I know he is directly responsible for all of the low self esteem in our family, but there were also compounding factors. Our family has a lot of depression and anxiety as well as alcoholism.  My Dad sucked as a dad, but is a good guy outside of parenthood. Parenthood was just too mundane for him, not exciting enough.  We always felt like we were in the way of his life and he had an explosive temper, due not to mania per se but excessive energy. We could never act good enough, fast enough.  We could never live up to his perfectionism. My Dad is the type of guy who could not understand being an addict or sustaining any problem. He makes a decision and its done. The day he decided to stop drinking vodka, done. Same with cigarettes. Without a program or help. My brothers had especially low self esteem because on one hand, they could not live up to him and never would, and on another, he wasn't a parent to guide or nurture you. He had too many things to do.

My brother was big hearted. A kind person. But had hyperthyroid and I believe he started drugs as self medication to keep calm. He could not contain the energy in his body. He would explode.  the hyperthyroidism was discovered very late. Out of seven of us, only two of my brothers have wrangled with addiction issues.  Both of them extremely prone to over the top shake your leg can't relax anxiety.  I would hate to see either one in my program. One would badger the holy shit out of people, and the other would never recover his self worth. I don't know this factors into the topic, I got derailed.

[Maximilian]

Thanks for taking the time to share about your family, I appreciate your posts a lot. I understand that the "saved my life" slogan seems cliche. I'll be honest and admit I had plenty of problems after the program, the same ones I dealt with before the program for the most part, for many years actually. When I say a program saved my life, I'm not saying the ideology or "brainwashing" is what helped me. I was so far gone, I barely could grasp what they were talking about.

 For me it was the simple act of physically removing me from home that did it. I've said I would have rather spent that time say, in a wilderness program, than a locked down program. But I can't really complain I feel, since it was my fault alone I ended up there. It was the end of the line, I consider it like a triage facility to keep me alive until I finally made the choice that I wanted to help myself, or at the very least stop actively trying to myself. So when I say it saved my life I don't mean that metaphorically, or even that they gave me the tools to succeed, or anything like that. I mean quite simply they removed me from a self destructive lifestyle and kept an eye on me 24/7. Like a babysitter, but for a teenager, and one that doesn't take any crap or let anything slide.

I'm really happy to hear you brother recovered. I don't think there is a fully effective solution to offer addicts that will be a sure fix, I think that people have to choose to stop eventually, in conjunction then other people can help at that point. As a teen, you can force a kid into a program until they turn 18 and that might keep them alive until then, but after that who knos what is going to happen. I was also diagnosed with hyperthyroidism while in the psychiatric hospitals, and when I saw I refused to stop taking medication in the manipulation thread, that is one of the medications I was talking about. I was also on Xanax, and a few others that you can't just stop all at once. So I used that at the program once to protest and see if I would get to leave, since I knew that refusing all my meds would cause me medical problems I'd thought they would have no choice but to transfer me to a hospital, and then I could find a way out from there. But it didn't work, they successfully manipulated me. I was up against people who really knew how to avoid manipulations from kids, and then do it right back even better. Thanks for your posts again, I like learning about other people's experiences and their familes.

[Hedge]

My parents are education professors. My mom was in early childhood education and my dad was in secondary education. I only mention that because it shows that no matter how educated parents are, they can still be baffled by teenagers and their problems.

For reasons I'll leave out of the Fornits discussion, I was suicidally depressed starting at age 13. I attempted suicide several times. My counselor tried to get me to "contract for safety." When I "broke the contract," she recommended that my parents (who were in the middle of a divorce) sign over custody of me to the authorities so that I could be placed in a state institution.

My guardian ad litem found Three Springs as an alternative to the state hospital.

When I arrived at Three Springs, I was thankful to be there. Except I learned that instead of escaping spending the rest of my life in a state institution, I could be spending the rest of my adolescence in a locked facility. I'll stop going down that road, though, and keep myself focused on my parents' perspective.

I wasn't allowed any contact with my parents.

Eventually, I had letter contact with my dad, and visits from my mom and sister.

Whenever I had a day pass and it was coming to an end, my mother and sister and I would cry and cry. My mom knew about the abuse - as soon as I was let on a day pass, I was able to be honest about what was going on, and I did. Because she was no longer my guardian, she had no authority to get me released from Three Springs. My dad wrote letters in which he fantasized about "springing me."

I went on another day pass when I was covered in bruises from the only time I was beaten there. My mom took me to the doctor to have the bruises photographed and documented.


I'm condensing a long story here. I wrote a report about the abuse I witnessed (in marker, no less, because we weren't allowed to use pens, and then we lost pencil privileges too) and I gave it to my mom to get to my judge while I was on a day pass.

After my judge got the report, I was moved to a group home on the same Three Springs campus. Then a few months later I was placed in foster care. (From staff members I remained friends with on the outside, I later found out that many of the people who had committed abusive acts were terminated as a result of the investigation. Another longer story for another day, or PM, maybe.)


My parents recognize that they made some wrong decisions that led to my time at Three Springs, and I recognize that they made the best decision given the information they had. They didn't know they were shipping me off to a place where kids were physically and sexually abused. They didn't know that they would be powerless to get me out.

Since Three Springs, my mom has used alcohol and drugs to the extent that she is barely functional. My sister doesn't bother having contact with her - it's too painful to acknowledge that we don't have a mother. But I keep in contact with her because even though she's obliterated her short term memory, she's still the woman who did everything in her power to help me. My dad just finished paying his part of the bill for Three Springs last year, eleven years after my release.

When I was a teenager, I needed help. What I got instead was abuse to myself and an emotionally and financially battered family.

[Maximilian]

Wow, that was an impressive post. If I was a parent and read that I definitely would think twice about sending my kid to the program you attended. I'm sorry for all you went through, thanks for taking the time to share some of your story with us.

[Samara]

Jesus, it kills me your dad would pay that bill and that a judge would return you to any part of the three springs campus.

Fucking disgusts me.

[Samara]

Max, this is why program abuse needs to be heard. And, it is very hard to describe how we couldn't speak out against the more insidious abuses and lies of other programs that do not cause physical abuses. But students are isolated from the outside and then parents are turned against their kid in staff reports.

The one thing my parents and I had going for us pre-CEDU was it wasn't a relationship based on lies. CEDU changed that. I became non communicative because I knew if I discussed what would happen, CEDU would say I was manipulating and they would make me pay for it for the duration.  My parents were told to lie to  me by staff,and staff lied to my parents about me, which unnecessarily complicated family dynamics. This was absolutely not isolated. We also forced to make confessions - many exaggerrated or patently false.

That is why the isolation and lack of transparency bothers me.

In any event, Hedge has bruises and documentation and still could not disentangle himself easily. Not to mention that his parents basically paid (unwittingly) to have him beat.

Like, I said, I can't tell you what happened with your program, but program abuse is widespread and once you put a kid into an isolated situation, you really have no idea what is happening.  One of the topics ex-CEDU kids talk about is how we had to pretend to buy in and give program tours and espouse the merits of it when we were shouting, "RUN!!" on the inside. But we would absolutely never even THINK to publically denounce the program.

And if you give up parental rights, you are really screwed.  Then you are the program's bitch.

[RobertBruce]

It just occured to me that Max is the name of Whooter's son. We also know Max Reuben was locked up in a program, HLA to be exact. I wonder if there's a connection there? Anyone elses thoughts?

Far too often parents take minor or even non existent issues and rather than deal with them, they take the lazy route and pay someone else to deal with it for them. Don't have kids if you aren't willing to deal with them. So many of the kids I was locked up with in HLA were there under those exact circumstances. There were no self destructive behaviors, it was just a matter of parents not caring.

[Whooter]

There are so many facets from my point of view.   The initial placement, the time she spent there and the transition back home.   But my daughter initially went to SUWS so I should share that first.

 The initial time that she spent there was heart wrenching for my wife and I.   We were well aware that there would be little to no contact for the several weeks she was in wilderness, but the phone calls from here counselor and therapist really helped to ease the anxiety.  We spent many an evening pondering the next step for her and wondering if this therapy was even going to work for her.  It was a very difficult few weeks to say the least.

At the end of her stay we went down to North Carolina to meet her and to pick her up.  We met with the therapists, counselors and other parents to review what had transpired over her several weeks stay.  Many of the parents had a chance to share their stories and expectations.

The biggest moment was when it was time to meet her.  We headed down a trail and we could see them all coming up the mountain (maybe 9 kids and a few counselors) and she was carrying this huge backpack with all her stuff and she looked so healthy my gosh I couldn’t believe it, all the color in her cheeks again and she had put on a few pounds.  After the initial hugs and kisses were over  I asked her if the backpack was heavy and she said “Yeah, it is!” and smiled.   The counselors said we were all heading to a campsite together and then spending the night.  Your child will feed and shelter you.  I asked my daughter if I could help carry anything and she said something like “Well since this was mostly your idea why don’t you carry the backpack the rest of the way and see what it is like for me the last few weeks!”  and she laughed.  So she helped me on with it and we walked a mile or so to this old camp area.  She set up a lean-to and started the fire.  As she prepared dinner we talked all about her time there, what she did.  She told me about her counselors and the therapist that she saw a few times which provided some testing for us.  She liked the counselors for the most part except one which she said was always angry (there seems to be always one in the crowd).  We slept under the stars in sleeping bags and the next morning we participated in some activities together which were designed to test your trust of each other.  There were some demonstrations on starting fires, local lore and the counselors gave their final feedback to the group and parents.  A few of us went into town and met up for lunch with our kids and then headed home.

It was an amazing experience from my perspective and the before and after was very apparent.



...

[RobertBruce]

Something I often asked when locked up in HLA, and Max maybe you can help me out on this one, is why the unlicensed counselors never have the parents sit on a peer group session. Show exactly what it is their kids are subjected to. Funny how I never got an answer to that question.

Any of you parents get to sit on your kids being berated?