Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Benchmark Young Adult School / Benchmark Transitions

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abarada:
I am amazed at these responses. PLEASE let me make this clear: Benchmark was the WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

Everything that I have achieved, everything that I have succeeded at since then has been IN SPITE of Benchmark (with the exception of one or two staffers who regularly broke the rules to help me).

I saw people try to commit suicide there. I saw staff having inappropriate relationships with students. I learned to hate myself and never trust anyone ever.

PLEASE PLEASE UNDERSTAND that my post IN NO WAY is a post in support of Benchmark.

none-ya:

--- Quote from: "abarada" ---I am amazed at these responses. PLEASE let me make this clear: Benchmark was the WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

Everything that I have achieved, everything that I have succeeded at since then has been IN SPITE of Benchmark (with the exception of one or two staffers who regularly broke the rules to help me).

I saw people try to commit suicide there. I saw staff having inappropriate relationships with students. I learned to hate myself and never trust anyone ever.

PLEASE PLEASE UNDERSTAND that my post IN NO WAY is a post in support of Benchmark.
--- End quote ---

Please abarada, I think that most us us pretty much understood your post. Please disregard
 any response from the whooter troll. and welcome!

Wh??ter:

--- Quote from: "abracadabra" ---Everything that I have achieved, everything that I have succeeded at ...
--- End quote ---

You would never have gotten or succeeded at without the program's help.  Face it, abracadabra, you were on a bad path and you parents saw that and helped you to succeed by placing you in the program.  Just because people like none-ya try to tell you all programs are bad doesn't mean you have to start flip-flopping like a democrat, lol.

People like none-ya who were in a program for one week spend their whole lives blaming everything on the program.  Must have been some week, eh none-ya?  Just kidding lol



...

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "none-ya" ---
--- Quote from: "abarada" ---I am amazed at these responses. PLEASE let me make this clear: Benchmark was the WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

Everything that I have achieved, everything that I have succeeded at since then has been IN SPITE of Benchmark (with the exception of one or two staffers who regularly broke the rules to help me).

I saw people try to commit suicide there. I saw staff having inappropriate relationships with students. I learned to hate myself and never trust anyone ever.

PLEASE PLEASE UNDERSTAND that my post IN NO WAY is a post in support of Benchmark.
--- End quote ---
Please abarada, I think that most us us pretty much understood your post. Please disregard
 any response from the whooter troll. and welcome!
--- End quote ---
Yes, I echo none-ya's sentiments.

What can you tell us about the suicide attempts and "staff having inappropriate relationships with students," abarada?

abarada:
In I believe late 2001, a new student arrived at Benchmark--we were warned that he would be a bit woozy, since apparently his problems included extensive drug use, including acid and LSD. Over the course of the day, we noticed that he seemed to be getting more and more out of it--he wasn't responsive, but not in a rude, I'm-ignoring-you way, more of a eyeballs-can't-focus way. We tried to tell the staff that he seemed to be in some trouble, but they told us that he was just 'being dramatic.' By the afternoon, when the time came to get in the vans back to the apartments, we had to help him get in the van and fasten his seatbelt for him--his co-ordination was completely shot. Again, we tried to explain to the staff what was going on, and they told us to stop indulging him and warned him that he would be put on house restriction when we arrived if he didn't stop messing around. When we arrived, he basically fell out of the van. The staff yelled at him and took him up to his apartment and told us he was on restriction and we were not to attempt to speak with him.

About half an hour later, all of us who were outside were told to return to our apartments until further notice. We saw ambulances pull up to the front of the complex, and we saw him get carried out on a stretcher. All we were told was that he had tried to hang himself and throw himself out a window. He came back after a week, but he never talked about it. Apparently no-one on staff ever thought that it might have been a traumatic and horrible thing for the rest of us, or that perhaps there should have been an open and transparent discussion of what had occured. I really hope he is ok.

As for inappropriate relationships, during my tenure in my program two girls independently brought allegations of inappropriate behavior against one of the staffers--specifically a male night watchman who had been going into their rooms. The girl with whom I was closest said that it started out innocently enough--when she was being punished for a minor infraction by not being allowed outside or having her cigarette money taken away, he would let her go outside after everyone was asleep and let her bum a cigarette. Then he started trying to wake her up at night--when they were talking, he started trying to hug her, or touch her leg, and so she decided to just pretend to stay asleep so that he would go away, but he got more and more pushy and more and more touchy, even when it must have looked like she was asleep. She was on seven different kinds of medication at the time--when she came forward with her allegations, Benchmark turfed her out to one of the junky motels and made her take a lie-detector test. The lie-detector test came back inconclusive, which the administrator of the test told her was not uncommon when the subject was on such an enormous range of uppers and downers simultaneously. Nevertheless, she was left in the motel--no one ever spoke with her about it, and as far as I am aware she never even knew if his employment was terminated. NO offer was made for her to see a different therapist, and she was at NO POINT made aware of her legal right to consult a lawyer or file a police report.

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