Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Teen Challenge
I personally escaped this Cult
cum guzzler:
.
Anonymous:
.
N.O.S.O.B.:
N.O.S.O.B.:
cmack:
--- Quote from: "TC_Saved_Me" ---Thank you Very much. It's very refreshing to get an open-minded and respectful response from someone on here.
I just cannot understand how people think they can argue with someone's personal experience. "No! That's not what you experienced! This is what you experienced!" :beat: It's hilarious! :seg:
--- End quote ---
Some people were so traumatized and harmed by their program experience that they are unwilling or unable to accept that some others received any benefit at all. I am opposed to any kind of forced or coercive treatment. I think that many who run programs are in it just for the money and they lack the skills, knowledge, or heart to truly serve the individual needs of those placed in their care. I also realize that some people's pre-program life had become so bad and desperate that they were/are willing to overlook the faults and shortcomings of programs and cling to any tiny morsels of help they can find.
You have to realize that there are people on this forum who've lost years of their lives in programs who had done nothing to deserve being removed from their homes.
For a different perspective read this: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=36821&p=398796#p398796
Here's a brief excerpt:
--- Quote ---The well hidden secrets The Seed used were in reality fear, intimidation, brainwashing, rape, violence, imprisonment, confinement, ratting on peers for reward, and kidnapping. This was the daily life of anyone unfortunate to have been forced into Barker’s web of deceit.
Unfortunately, the author of this article’s mother was one of the parents that attended a Seed parent indoctrination. “My mother had done no research, or investigation into what the program was really all about. Parents that attended these meetings were given license plates to put on their cars to show their support for a program they actually knew nothing about. They were also expected to turn over their wallets. Those that couldn’t afford to pay large “donations” spent their time making hundreds of peanut butter sandwiches, and gallons of Kool Aid, which was the program’s main source of nutrition.”
“I was fourteen-years-old and oddly my mother volunteered to give me a ride to the beach so I could go surfing. This would be the first, and only time my mother ever offered me a ride to the beach. Instead of going to the beach, I was taken to an old abandoned blimp hangar that The Seed now called its home. This was to be an initial stop under the pretenses of paying a visit to my sisters, who had disappeared only a few days earlier. My mother drove into a well guarded gate and stopped as the barricades were removed. The guards waved my mothers car into the compound. These “guards” didn’t look like your typical security guard, they looked instead like low-level body building thugs. Once inside the gate, I was informed that I would not be going anywhere. That night would begin my indoctrination were I would spend twelve hours a day confined to a single chair, and then turned over to a complete stranger where I would spend the nights intentionally being deprived of sleep. Welcome to The Seed.”
“During the entire year I was forced to remain at The Seed, I wasn’t allowed to attend school, or to socialize with any of my friends. If one did so, they did it at their own peril, as this meant starting the entire program over from day one.”
“Earlier that same week my thirteen year old sister was removed from her junior high class by complete strangers, and dragged to a awaiting car where she would be rolled up in an old rug, thrown into the trunk, and ushered off to what would become a nightmare that stole a full year from her life. My older sister, who was sixteen at the time, had also been duped into the program.”
Having never used drugs or alcohol — a popular kid that loved to surf, play sports, run track, play music, and bike ride to the beach was suddenly forced to spend full days, day after day, after day listening to “druggies” tell horror stories of how drugs had turned them into sex slaves to obtain the cash they needed to get their next high. “My father who had no idea what was happening to his kids, was out of town in the northeast, and to make matters worse my parents were in the throws of a nasty divorce.”...
----------
Unlike most when I was incarcerated/imprisoned at The Seed, I refused to conform. I never participated in any of the mandatory “rap sessions,” instead I remained silent and oppositional. If they sat facing North, I sat facing South. If they stood up, I sat down. When they put their arms around each other singing stupid songs in praise of Barker, I would push their arms off of me. When they shouted “I love you, Jack.” I shook my head in disgust. When they kicked me and yelled at me, I refused to show any signs of fear. And to think I was merely fourteen years old at the time. I spent countless hours watching spiders make webs up in the rafters.
After about six months of being in that mess, The Seed staff decided to send me to a psychiatrist to find out how they could “reach” me. After being kicked, beaten, starved, deprived of sleep, and screamed at for months they couldn’t figure it out? Really? They were never going to “reach” me.
Upon entering the psychiatrist’s office I told him, “Lay down (on his sofa) and tell me your problems.” This surprised him; he asked me why I didn’t like The Seed. I said, “They force me to lie, and say I used drugs when I hadn’t. They told me if I don’t admit to using drugs, I’d never be allowed to go home or school again.” I told the “doctor, “I wanted to go to school, and I wanted to go surfing, but they wouldn’t let me.” I left the appointment with a letter from the doctor giving me “life-long” permission to surf. Wasn’t that very nice of him?
When it was someone’s birthday, they’d force us to stand, hold hands and sing happy birthday. On my fifteenth birthday, they sang, “Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more, no more. Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more.” I stood up and defiantly proclaimed that I had had enough and I was never going to come back ever again. Ever again! They had a good laugh about that, but, I had decided that I was never going back to that place and I didn’t. That was the best birthday gift I ever received and I gave it to myself. In reality, my mother probably couldn’t afford the long drives to south Miami, and then Fort Lauderdale, and probably lost interest. I’m sure the staff was equally as tired of a kid that they knew was not going to conform. After all, what did I have to lose as I was already not allowed to attend school for an entire year.
I stayed true to my word, and like nearly ever child that left The Seed voluntarily or throught the “graduation” process, never returned. Like most kids that left The Seed, I never returned to live with his family either.
I will never stop hating that pedophile known as Art Barker, and his demonic staff of criminals who thrived on causing pain and anguish to countless children. To this day, I can still see several of those constantly crying faces, and the stream of tears that often flowed down their faces, out of sheer helplessness....
---------
If Dante’s Inferno became a reality, no doubt Barker would face the gallows one day, a firing squad, lethal injection, and the electric chair in following succession. In a more humane hell, Barker deserves to be beaten to death, again and again by the scores of children that he physically, psychologically and emotionally raped in that experiment that had gone bad. But, then again… Who am I to judge? It’s not like after 35+ years that my time spent in that grotesque experiment had any long lasting and lingering affect on me. Right?
--- End quote ---
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version