Never went to Cedu, what's the deal?

[Polarbear]

I got out of RMA over 10 years ago.  I didn't like it, but I did all right.  I always heard strange stories about Cedu, but I never had any first-hand knowledge of it.
Then I found a couple sites with info from angry CEDU students.  I still don't know much.  
Can you people tell what you saw?
Do they use the same program they used to years ago?  And is that program the same as what goes on in other schools?
How do they get away with all the stuff you're talking about?  
I'm curious because I can understand hating them for being strict or whatever.  
But I've seen allusions to murder here, assault, rape, and other things.  
Are the students all victims in this?  Or are some of them aiding it?
Enjoy-Polarbear

[shanlea]

I've written a lot on this topic and it's repetitive but I've got no problems with strict. I have HUGE problems with false promises, unethical therapeutic practices, psychological and verbal abuse, badgering kids to the point they make false confessions, lying to parents, sham academics, and failure to provide treatment, along with exacerbating pre-existing conditions.  YOu don't take a kid with anxiety issues into a rap and blow them away for hours several days a week; you don't over medicate kids who don't need it to keep them tranced out; you don't tell someone who may or may not have had sex (or who has been raped) that she had her legs spread to the world.  You don't cross certain therapetic boundaries as a staff which involves over disclosure.  But most of all you don't systematically scream at, curse at, belittle, and demean kids in an effort to promote emotional growth.  

What the place is good at is providing kids with such intense experiences in an insulated environment that everything from the outside REAL world is no longer real to you.  How do you make regular friends after going through the psychologically manipulative and hyper-intense experiences with your CEDU peers?

I could care less about strictness. Big deal.  It's the very real abuses of therapy in an unreal environment that pisses me off.

[Polarbear]

I have to say, I don't support verbal abuse either.  But it sounds much more extreme than my experience at RMA was.  Course, it's been a good decade or so, and time improves all memories, but most of the actual injustice I remember was generally from ignorant people who didn't know what they were talking about leveling accusations.  Fishing expeditions looking to get people to open up.  And those were usually easy to spot.    I won't say there wasn't BS there.  We all knew there was a lot of manipulation of the parents.  Most of the failings of the institution I saw then are the same failings of other institutional settings I've been in since.  as the dead man said, "They who wear the boot know best where it pinches."  But I never saw anything like the licking accusation, beatings, rapes, or anything like that.  

Now, if Cedu is dedicated to the same things RMA and the others are/were (whatever) can you tell me exactly how that was warped to become the last stop on the insanity train?  Enjoy-Polarbear

[Polarbear]

"everything from the outside REAL world is no longer real to you. How do you make regular friends after going through the psychologically manipulative and hyper-intense experiences with your CEDU peers?"

I think you over estimate the effect of the community there.  Sure, it is intense.  Most average people would not be able to handle the pressure they put you under there.  I may be the exception, but my experience informs me that you can survive leaving that program.  Sure, you go through a period of decompression.  You may even be different frm when you went in.  But you shouldn't be incapable of functioning.  

I haven't read enough to know this, but when did you get out?  I can assure you, at least from my experience, that you can live a completely normal life.  I found my experience in that system made me stronger than people around me.  

When a smooth talking USMC recruiter tried to use headgames to recruit me-I was 18 or 19 then and fresh out-I was able to spot everything he did, play along, and avoid his manipulative approaches when it came time to say NO.  His first maneuver was to try and convince me that I was breaking a promise I had made. (It was all an issue of symantics-I never promised anything.)  His last method was to tell me I would learn so much about myself and my limits.  I was happy to tell him that I already knew that stuff.  He was impressed.  For some reason people tended to beat around the bush with him.  (I have no idea why.)  

My experiences did not in any way weaken me, but made me stronger.  I don't think I was ever in an "Institutional" mindset.  I always tried to figure out what they were doing, the motive and the method, and make it to the end.  I feel like along the way I dropped some baggage, gained some skills, and mastered myself in a way I wouldn't have otherwise.
I don't think I'm unusual in this regard, but it may be possible that I turned out the way I did in spite of the program.  I don't know.  I discarded most of that stuff over time and built my own life.  Enjoy-Polarbear

[Polarbear]

One last thing-I also agree with you on the meds thing.  I could have sworn the doctrine at the time was not to take kids until they got off the meds.  Maybe this was just the Idaho thing, I dunno.  Enjoy-Polarbear