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This was posted by Mokara 9, my wife found it and came close to vomiting after reading it and knowing her brain-dead boozer of an ex-husband had placed their daughter in PV, based on the pretty pictures on the website.  It's a long piece, but I know the people and places she names, she definitely went through the shit.

 Teen Behavioral Modification, please read, My 1st hand account
I was in Peninsula Village, a teen behavioral modification facility for two years from 96 to 98. They accept girls age13 to 18. I was 15. These facilities, in case you are not familiar, are not mental institutions, but basically prison camps for teenagers who's parents for one reason or another have decided to send them. You don't have to do much to get into a behavioral modification facility and the slick marketing on websites makes sure that pretty much all teenagers are included and welcome. Peninsula Village is a horrible place and should be shut down immediately. It is unbelievable how unregulated and abusive these places are, how undereducated most of the staff that deals with the children on a daily bases is and how systematic and horrible the abuse! I would not believe it except I lived it, I am still living it, unfortunately and I would swear before any jury everything I am saying here is true. I saw it with my own eyes. I don't know exactly why or how what happened to me is legal but it is and it is happening to some poor kid right now! I believe it might have something to do with the fact that these behavioral modification, or teen help facilities are privately run and poorly regulated.I was in the lock down unit for six months on arrival to the Village although I was cowed, completely subservient and did everything they told me to. I was physically restrained on the first day in a hospital gown by at least 8 large adults for nothing more than pulling away gently, it was an impulse reaction, when the large orderly fascist woman dug her nails purposefully into my arm. This was after the intrusive strip search, a full gynecological examine by a nurse in another building and being woken up at 5:30 in the morning by three burly adults who escorted me to Tennessee, it was more like being kidnapped. Once at the Village, still the first day, in the STU lock down unit, staff applied excessive pressure when restraining me, I couldn't breathe and kept repeating that I was choking, but they let no pressure off, I was bruised and sore the next day, the restraint went on for hours. I saw one girl with a nasty black eye which they said came from pressing her face into the floor, like that made it better. I saw other cases with bruised arms, wrists or legs. There is no doubt in my mind that they could have restrained my totally non-resistant sobbing 95 pound borderline anorexic teenage self between all 1400 pounds of the 8 of them without hurting me. I was not fighting at all, even at first, I was far too shocked. Each held a body part so it was not a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, they meant to hurt us. They also kept restraining you long after any fight was gone and even if none was there in the first place. I remember girls being restrained for what seemed like all night, although Im guessing it was really only about five hours. There was an isolation room in the lockdown unit, nice cold hard linoleum with cement underneath but they would restrain you anywhere, gravel, garden manure, whatever, and they used a straight jacket called a burrito. I can remember seeing one tough little state kid stuck in that damn thing for a day or more, they were leading her around. Other girls were strapped to a cot wrapped up in it, stuck full of thorzine and left to drool. There were about two restraints a week. I was once restrained because I couldn't stop crying , I really couldn't I would have stopped of course to avoided being restrained, I was about as resistant as a wet noodle and they still held me down choking for hours. They would restrain girls for nothing, for saying in group therapy, I dont agree with that, or for sitting down on work detail saying that we felt sick and needed to rest. We were not allowed to look at or talk to the other girls and we had to ask for permission to do anything, move even, of course go to the bathroom and we had to tell them what it is we had to do, they stood outside the door and timed us. The denouncement sessions began as soon as you were crying, that is later on the first day, after they had restrained you for a few hours and you were a broken puddle ready to confess to anything. I don't believe the staff was especially educated, other than the family therapists and some people we rarely saw, perhaps some BA's and associate degrees. The lights were left on all the time, we slept in cubicles and were watched by patrolling fascists every second, they were always right there. We were punished constantly, abuse was constant every second for those two years. We had level systems, I never got beyond the first level although I was completely compliant. I don't think I was as willing to rip into my fellow prisoners as much they would have liked. Group therapy was a communist denouncement POW experience, it was pure hell. They would find out your deepest darkest secrets and then browbeat you with them like you were disgusting dirt, we could say nothing to defend ourselves or we would face being PCId/ restrained. They liked sexual revelations of course. You would confess to things you didn't do and then they would tell your family. Many of the girls were in there for not much or for something that had happened to them, somewhere, I think the website says the Village is an expert at helping abused girls. It was terrible to watch them torture some poor kid who was in there because she had been raped or molested. Many of the girls had been raped or molested, myself included, to be held up to shame, ridicule and denouncement in relation to sex at a place that was supposed to help you with your experience was a pure nightmare. They encourage the girls to pick on each other to rip into each other, but most couldn't, almost all, hell none of us did!!! There was some desperation mentality, though, we all struggled so hard to avoid being punished and they punished all of us together, I realize now that the punishments were arbitrary, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them they were still going to rain down on our heads. We would pretend to give feedback, their word for harassment and abuse, but how can you tear someone apart after listening to them scream all night while these pigs held their face into the floor. That happened all the time in STU, the lockdown unit, at least twice a week. I don't know why they kept me in there for six months I wasn't defiant or oppositional, hah hah. Maybe it was because of the frequent outbreaks of head lice that they didnt want to spread to the cabins.I wasn't in there for much, my parents are pretty conservative, my grades had dropped, I wrote a lot of wierd bad poetry, that my mother read to my shrink and they decided I was suicidal and maybe dangerouse. I had died my hair black, dressed out of a salvation army bin, gotten caught smoking pot and set up a pagan alter in my room and was apparantly practicing voodoo or something. Because my grades had dropped my shrink had decided I was ADD, which I'm not. They also did not like my boyfriend who was a sullen funny looking punk kid who would never take his hat off. My mother suspected we had had sex. I had also run away for a night to my friends house with her parents there. They also didn't like my friends or my music or anything else about me really, I was a bit loud about my view points in general. It was the grades that really bugged them though and the fact that I skipped as much as I could and the school kept calling. I was a real bad case. One or two of the girls were in for telling their parents that they were gay, like they were going to beat it out of them There were lots of anorexics and then the usual run of the mill teenage stories with some poor foster kids/ wards of the state thrown in. There was also a runaway here and there, usually one of thee foster kids. Really these were not criminals, not that any of this would have helped them if they were but many had never smoked pot or drank, some had done nothing other than get molested by a close relative, to the horror of their families or develop a case of anorexia.God it was hell, after the lock down unit with its cramped quarters and barred mesh covered windows for six months, actually it was more like nine all told, they sent me back for three months for some stupid reason, we had the cabins and work detail. Work detail is exercise digging up stumps, cross sawing logs, mauling logs, building endless things under constant abuse in the hot Tennessee sun drugged to the gills by some Nazi nut who gave lobotomies to rape victims in a past life. If sleep deprivation doesn't get you, they were fond of waking you up at two in the morning to drag you out to the log shed to show you how much wood you still needed to chop, the feeling of being betrayed by but having shamed everyone you love will, they were big on reminding you how you let down your family in any disgusting way they could. I used to fall asleep standing up. Marching around in lines, or holding on to a rope, still no talking or looking at the other girls, it was so lonely. Hauling around the Gott, a water jug that weighed so fricken much your arms would feel like they were going to fall off and you'd want to vomit but if you dropped it you knew you were in worse trouble, or farm tools or God knows what. They exercised you past the breaking point and then over a little, and then a little more. It was torture, I can't emphasize that enough torture, we did this all day most days, unless we were in school or on shutdown. We had no free time, we weren't allowed to read or anything, everything was tightly scheduled and we would always miss our schedule and be punished although we tried in pure desperation to make them happy so they would stop. Even our showers were timed usually ten minutes, five as a punishment with only cold water. Hygiene wasnt that great and there was no makeup or jewelry or of course shaving your legs, only ugly work cloths, no prom dresses for me. School was nice when you got to go, but it wasn't very organized and there was a lot of other stuff going on, we also only went half the week, so we could do more important things like dig stumps out of the ground, I guess. Most left with a GED, I think they really focused on GED training, which makes it real easy to get into colleges, especially if when they ask for high school credits you list a behavior modification facility. Often if something came up, like we went on shutdown or were sent to STU, the lockdown unit, we would miss school all together. Once they had us sit in a circle with our backs to each other and stare at the wall for five months only to turn around for group therapy and to be escorted to the bathroom. We had no school for those five months and five months is a long time to sit in a circle starring at a wall only to turn around for a denouncement session. We almost welcomed work detail when we came off of Shutdown.From all the restraining you are probably thinking the girls were always acting up. I can not stress how completely not true this is. For the most part they were more like zombies than wild teenagers. Ive done some research on prison camps and abuse and I don't believe there is a teenager girl out there that isnt going to turn into a limp half dead dish rag in the face of no escape, constant abuse; mental, physical, emotional and sexual although not physically so, denouncement sessions, sleep deprivation, sadistic people four times her size watching her constantly and being drugged. The only opposition I saw was closer to nervous breakdowns than defiance. These people certainly knew how to turn your ordinary obnoxious teenagerinto a cowering prisoner in no time flat with little relapse, Im still something of a cowed prisoner. Dont even tell me, either, that obnoxious behavior is not ordinary in a teenager, I go to college with a bunch of eighteen, nineteen year olds and they annoy me everyday. No-one crossed the staff at the Village ever except in really sad to watch ways, like protesting the denouncement sessions, no my rape wasnt my fault, or sayingI cant work anymore I feel sick or I cant stop sobbing Im trying but I cant stop, Im just going to sit here and not move and you cant make me. I never saw anyone physically fight back, I never saw anything that posed as a danger to staff or the other girls but I sure as hell saw them restrain people a lot.The Village is ridiculously expensive costing about 500 to 700 dollars a night, they charge more when they are "forced" to restrain you, as this requires more work or something. Everyone in there had really good insurance or was a ward of the state, so thank you tax dollars, people this is the best they could come up with for these kids. I have lasting scars from this experience, I have nightmares almost every night not always about the village just in general that the world is a horrible place and all the fascist monsters are going to eat me and all the people I care about and I'm going to be completely at there mercy. I forgot to add they, of course, won't let you talk to your parents except after I think it was six months, even then just by phone with a family therapist on conference call. They laugh at you when you say you want a lawyer. Your parents have of course been told you are a lying manipulator and not to believe you and that you just want to come home so you can go out with boys and smoke pot. It is life in the fricken neo-conservative fascist twilight zone totally. Kids wetting the bed because they are too scared to ask to go to the bathroom at night, either that or all the abuse was manifesting in weird ways. I wouldn't believe it except I lived it and I swear on my life everything I said is 150% true. Also living under people like that is a farce as far as therapy goes I never wanted to smoke pot so bad in my whole life, or drink, date rebels and I was never wanted to die before the Village but I sure as hell would have chosen a synide pill over that place, two years seemed like an eternity, one day was like an eternity. One girl jumped out of her parents moving car on a return trip, not at a stop light but on the expressway, she knew she wasn't running anywhere, talk about a cry for help. A month or two later saw her sitting in STU in three casts I think, all sorts of skin gone. Stupid parents.I'm still a mess, besides the nightmares I shake uncontrollably, these little fits happen any time I am nervous, about once a day, this is very helpful when trying to convince people at work or school that I'm not on drugs. My family doctor, says that I have a good case of post traumatic stress disorder. He doesn't know the half of it, I never told him about the Village only about my four year relationship with an alcoholic fiance with a good job and a college degree who used to get up in my face and scream at least once a week. How about some Stockholm syndrome for you. I have finally gotten over, somewhat, my overwhelming social anxiety at least enough that I don't care who sees me shake if it means I get a college degree and have a life of my own. The Village taught me nothing other than how to be cowed and subservient and to think it was ok when someone abuses me, I still am completely incapable of making eye contact with another human beings, dogs and cats Im ok with. It also taught me what it's like to live under fascist rule for two years, all I'm saying is that we should all be damn careful because it is pure hell and please do something about this somebody before it hurts more people, these places have to close down!!! God bless all my sisters out there, please don't die, don't let the bastards get you down, your not alone and I'm sure we all love you, I know I do and I pray for you to a God of good things that are not fascist!!! I cant emphasize enough how bad these places are, I dont even think that Peninsula Village is a worst case scenario. I was amazed that we had no rights while in there. I asked to speak to a lawyer or someone from the outside, I heard girls ask to have the police called repeatedly, and they laughed at us. I am so serious I am not a happy camper! I still feel like a worthless person who deserves abuse even though I know this isn't true. It's just an all too daily mantra there, how everything is your fault, your rape, your parents problems, your anorexia, your life in foster care, the fact that youre a slut, dont forget that you are a disgusting alcoholic slut even if your knowledge of either thing is very limited or non existent. God the poor girls who acted out their problems through sex or were just naive and ended up there. The sexual advances of men can be a pretty overwhelming even for a grown woman much less a depressed, my parents dont understand me or I dont have parents youll love and give me affection right, sort of kid, they made you feel like a slut even if you were raped. I bet half of them have committed suicide by now, the suicide rate is pretty high coming out of these places, I bet a lot of the girls have committed suicide. It ruins your life, its like having sound bites from hell running through your head. I feel like Im diseased or something and I know I hadn't done much, what if I had you know, what if I believed them, it's bad enough they were my rape counselor. I still feel that Im so abnormal and horrible, that no one could love or understand me, that i'm a pariah an untouchable, this isn't a feelin I can control it's just there, the result of years of constant abuse. I also have painful stomach ulcer, my Doctor says due to stress and I am in daily physical discomfort from it, thanks again Village. I have their indoctrination in my head and its there whether I like it or want to believe it or not. I dont know if you have read A Handmaidens Tale by Margret Atwood but you should. The facility where they put the women before they send them out is a lot like the Village except they get to talk in the bathroom. I never got to talk to another girl the entire time I was there, other than with asked permission and staff listening, even then it was just about mandatory things, like, put the piece of wood down here. This tells you how closely we were watched every second of everyday. I have done some research on how these places are legal and I believe the legality has to do with the fact that these are privately run facilities, are put in States that have lax laws on institutional child abuse and they lobby congress and donate a lot of money to the Republican party, sorry Republicans, please dont not read this because of that but that is what my research turned up. Look up Behavior Modification Facilities and Mel Sembler and the Straight Program, Bushs current appointed ambassador to Italy, its scary really! Please look it up, Im not crazy or affiliated with a party I just have a different perspective because of my experience. You can look up the Village too but their website is pretty slick so you might not believe me about the abuse. Peninsula Village is also privately run it is just is part of a franchise that is why they list Peninsula Behavioral Health and some others. Go to the program description or the frequently asked questions on the web site its great really wonderful, it says all the abuse is up and running. Thanks for listening, there is a lot of good info. on the internet, and please dont send you kids to one of these places!!!! if you go on the web site the staff shown looks real fine until you notice that they are all family therapists, we saw once every couple of weeks if that. The only daily facility staff shown is Bob Pegler Program Manager and he doesnt even have a BA, instead he is a certified addiction specialist and a ROPES course facilitator, he's licensed though, thank you community college, I remember him, look at his eyes, doesnt he look evil, trust me he his! Or the large young woman,who's built like a tank, the program manager on the boys side, she has a BA in business and is a Certified Therapeutic Crisis Intervention Instructor. I remember her too, Stephanie M. Vanover would have made a good Nazi. There is a nice mom looking lady with degrees on the boys side that I bet they see once every six weeks maybe. The administrator of Peninsula Village we never saw once, he sounds good on the website I bet he put together and Im sure he makes a good amount of money. It wasn't good for us though. It is an evil, horrible place that should be shut down and they should all have any licensing stripped from them and be brought up on child abuse charges. There is maybe one other person listed who actually has any contact really with the girls in their lives. In each of the three cabins there are at least eight staff members that actually live with the girls and in the lock down unit at least twelve more, this is just on the girls side. Where are these other fifty some staff members and where are the lists of their credentials, these are the people who are actually going to have the power of God over your children, these are the ones who are going to be supervising them night and day, and pressing them down into the floor and running group therapy. Its nice to have a principle of the school with a degree but what good is it if the girls dont get to go to school for months because they are being punished, digging up stumps and are too busy being abused or starring at a wall, we didnt get to talk to the teachers, we were just marched in and marched out we saw them only during the designated day time hours if at all. It?s also pretty easy to tell from the shear number of family therapists that this is only a part time job, and therefore the facility does not have to fork out as much of the girls tuition? to pay for the ability to list the family therapists as staff. I wonder if any of them think that its weird that the students dont get to talk to their families for months when they first arrive or very often after, or that as soon as one of them breaks out of the party line and says save me its a nightmare, large burly orderlies quickly cut the interview short and escort the child out for more abusive indoctrination. ecided to send them. You don't have to do much to get into a behavioral modification facility and the slick marketing on websites makes sure that pretty much all teenagers are included and welcome. Peninsula Village is a horrible place and should be shut down immediately. It is unbelievable how unregulated and abusive these places are, how undereducated most of the staff that deals with the children on a daily bases is and how systematic and horrible the abuse! I would not believe it except I lived it, I am still living it, unfortunately and I would swear before any jury everything I am saying here is true. I saw it with my own eyes. I don't know exactly why or how what happened to me is legal but it is and it is happening to some poor kid right now! I believe it might have something to do with the fact that these behavioral modification, or teen help facilities are privately run and poorly regulated. I was in the lock down unit for six months on arrival to the Village although I was cowed, completely subservient and did everything they told me to. I was physically restrained on the first day in a hospital gown by at least 8 large adults for nothing more than pulling away gently, it was an impulse reaction, when the large orderly fascist woman dug her nails purposefully into my arm. This was after the intrusive strip search, a full gynecological examine by a nurse in another building and being woken up at 5:30 in the morning by three burly adults who escorted me to Tennessee, it was more like being kidnapped. Once at the Village, still the first day, in the STU lock down unit, staff applied excessive pressure when restraining me, I couldn't breathe and kept repeating that I was choking, but they let no pressure off, I was bruised and sore the next day, the restraint went on for hours. I saw one girl with a nasty black eye which they said came from pressing her face into the floor, like that made it better. I saw other cases with bruised arms, wrists or legs. There is no doubt in my mind that they could have restrained my totally non-resistant sobbing 95 pound borderline anorexic teenage self between all 1400 pounds of the 8 of them without hurting me. I was not fighting at all, even at first, I was far too shocked. Each held a body part so it was not a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, they meant to hurt us. They also kept restraining you long after any fight was gone and even if none was there in the first place. I remember girls being restrained for what seemed like all night, although Im guessing it was really only about five hours. There was an isolation room in the lockdown unit, nice cold hard linoleum with cement underneath but they would restrain you anywhere, gravel, garden manure, whatever, and they used a straight jacket called a burrito. I can remember seeing one tough little state kid stuck in that damn thing for a day or more, they were leading her around. Other girls were strapped to a cot wrapped up in it, stuck full of thorzine and left to drool. There were about two restraints a week. I was once restrained because I couldn't stop crying , I really couldn't I would have stopped of course to avoided being restrained, I was about as resistant as a wet noodle and they still held me down choking for hours. They would restrain girls for nothing, for saying in group therapy, I dont agree with that, or for sitting down on work detail saying that we felt sick and needed to rest. We were not allowed to look at or talk to the other girls and we had to ask for permission to do anything, move even, of course go to the bathroom and we had to tell them what it is we had to do, they stood outside the door and timed us. The denouncement sessions began as soon as you were crying, that is later on the first day, after they had restrained you for a few hours and you were a broken puddle ready to confess to anything. I don't believe the staff was especially educated, other than the family therapists and some people we rarely saw, perhaps some BA's and associate degrees. The lights were left on all the time, we slept in cubicles and were watched by patrolling fascists every second, they were always right there. We were punished constantly, abuse was constant every second for those two years. We had level systems, I never got beyond the first level although I was completely compliant. I don't think I was as willing to rip into my fellow prisoners as much they would have liked. Group therapy was a communist denouncement POW experience, it was pure hell. They would find out your deepest darkest secrets and then browbeat you with them like you were disgusting dirt, we could say nothing to defend ourselves or we would face being PCId/ restrained. They liked sexual revelations of course. You would confess to things you didn't do and then they would tell your family. Many of the girls were in there for not much or for something that had happened to them, somewhere, I think the website says the Village is an expert at helping abused girls. It was terrible to watch them torture some poor kid who was in there because she had been raped or molested. Many of the girls had been raped or molested, myself included, to be held up to shame, ridicule and denouncement in relation to sex at a place that was supposed to help you with your experience was a pure nightmare. They encourage the girls to pick on each other to rip into each other, but most couldn't, almost all, hell none of us did!!! There was some desperation mentality, though, we all struggled so hard to avoid being punished and they punished all of us together, I realize now that the punishments were arbitrary, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them they were still going to rain down on our heads. We would pretend to give feedback, their word for harassment and abuse, but how can you tear someone apart after listening to them scream all night while these pigs held their face into the floor. That happened all the time in STU, the lockdown unit, at least twice a week. I don't know why they kept me in there for six months I wasn't defiant or oppositional, hah hah. Maybe it was because of the frequent outbreaks of head lice that they didnt want to spread to the cabins. I wasn't in there for much, my parents are pretty conservative, my grades had dropped, I wrote a lot of wierd bad poetry, that my mother read to my shrink and they decided I was suicidal and maybe dangerouse. I had died my hair black, dressed out of a salvation army bin, gotten caught smoking pot and set up a pagan alter in my room and was apparantly practicing voodoo or something. Because my grades had dropped my shrink had decided I was ADD, which I'm not. They also did not like my boyfriend who was a sullen funny looking punk kid who would never take his hat off. My mother suspected we had had sex. I had also run away for a night to my friends house with her parents there. They also didn't like my friends or my music or anything else about me really, I was a bit loud about my view points in general. It was the grades that really bugged them though and the fact that I skipped as much as I could and the school kept calling. I was a real bad case. One or two of the girls were in for telling their parents that they were gay, like they were going to beat it out of them There were lots of anorexics and then the usual run of the mill teenage stories with some poor foster kids/ wards of the state thrown in. There was also a runaway here and there, usually one of thee foster kids. Really these were not criminals, not that any of this would have helped them if they were but many had never smoked pot or drank, some had done nothing other than get molested by a close relative, to the horror of their families or develop a case of anorexia. God it was hell, after the lock down unit with its cramped quarters and barred mesh covered windows for six months, actually it was more like nine all told, they sent me back for three months for some stupid reason, we had the cabins and work detail. Work detail is exercise digging up stumps, cross sawing logs, mauling logs, building endless things under constant abuse in the hot Tennessee sun drugged to the gills by some Nazi nut who gave lobotomies to rape victims in a past life. If sleep deprivation doesn't get you, they were fond of waking you up at two in the morning to drag you out to the log shed to show you how much wood you still needed to chop, the feeling of being betrayed by but having shamed everyone you love will, they were big on reminding you how you let down your family in any disgusting way they could. I used to fall asleep standing up. Marching around in lines, or holding on to a rope, still no talking or looking at the other girls, it was so lonely. Hauling around the Gott, a water jug that weighed so fricken much your arms would feel like they were going to fall off and you'd want to vomit but if you dropped it you knew you were in worse trouble, or farm tools or God knows what. They exercised you past the breaking point and then over a little, and then a little more. It was torture, I can't emphasize that enough torture, we did this all day most days, unless we were in school or on shutdown. We had no free time, we weren't allowed to read or anything, everything was tightly scheduled and we would always miss our schedule and be punished although we tried in pure desperation to make them happy so they would stop. Even our showers were timed usually ten minutes, five as a punishment with only cold water. Hygiene wasnt that great and there was no makeup or jewelry or of course shaving your legs, only ugly work cloths, no prom dresses for me. School was nice when you got to go, but it wasn't very organized and there was a lot of other stuff going on, we also only went half the week, so we could do more important things like dig stumps out of the ground, I guess. Most left with a GED, I think they really focused on GED training, which makes it real easy to get into colleges, especially if when they ask for high school credits you list a behavior modification facility. Often if something came up, like we went on shutdown or were sent to STU, the lockdown unit, we would miss school all together. Once they had us sit in a circle with our backs to each other and stare at the wall for five months only to turn around for group therapy and to be escorted to the bathroom. We had no school for those five months and five months is a long time to sit in a circle starring at a wall only to turn around for a denouncement session. We almost welcomed work detail when we came off of Shutdown. From all the restraining you are probably thinking the girls were always acting up. I can not stress how completely not true this is. For the most part they were more like zombies than wild teenagers. Ive done some research on prison camps and abuse and I don't believe there is a teenager girl out there that isnt going to turn into a limp half dead dish rag in the face of no escape, constant abuse; mental, physical, emotional and sexual although not physically so, denouncement sessions, sleep deprivation, sadistic people four times her size watching her constantly and being drugged. The only opposition I saw was closer to nervous breakdowns than defiance. These people certainly knew how to turn your ordinary obnoxious teenagerinto a cowering prisoner in no time flat with little relapse, Im still something of a cowed prisoner. Dont even tell me, either, that obnoxious behavior is not ordinary in a teenager, I go to college with a bunch of eighteen, nineteen year olds and they annoy me everyday. No-one crossed the staff at the Village ever except in really sad to watch ways, like protesting the denouncement sessions, no my rape wasnt my fault, or sayingI cant work anymore I feel sick or I cant stop sobbing Im trying but I cant stop, Im just going to sit here and not move and you cant make me. I never saw anyone physically fight back, I never saw anything that posed as a danger to staff or the other girls but I sure as hell saw them restrain people a lot. The Village is ridiculously expensive costing about 500 to 700 dollars a night, they charge more when they are "forced" to restrain you, as this requires more work or something. Everyone in there had really good insurance or was a ward of the state, so thank you tax dollars, people this is the best they could come up with for these kids. I have lasting scars from this experience, I have nightmares almost every night not always about the village just in general that the world is a horrible place and all the fascist monsters are going to eat me and all the people I care about and I'm going to be completely at there mercy. I forgot to add they, of course, won't let you talk to your parents except after I think it was six months, even then just by phone with a family therapist on conference call. They laugh at you when you say you want a lawyer. Your parents have of course been told you are a lying manipulator and not to believe you and that you just want to come home so you can go out with boys and smoke pot. It is life in the fricken neo-conservative fascist twilight zone totally. Kids wetting the bed because they are too scared to ask to go to the bathroom at night, either that or all the abuse was manifesting in weird ways. I wouldn't believe it except I lived it and I swear on my life everything I said is 150% true. Also living under people like that is a farce as far as therapy goes I never wanted to smoke pot so bad in my whole life, or drink, date rebels and I was never wanted to die before the Village but I sure as hell would have chosen a synide pill over that place, two years seemed like an eternity, one day was like an eternity. One girl jumped out of her parents moving car on a return trip, not at a stop light but on the expressway, she knew she wasn't running anywhere, talk about a cry for help. A month or two later saw her sitting in STU in three casts I think, all sorts of skin gone. Stupid parents. I'm still a mess, besides the nightmares I shake uncontrollably, these little fits happen any time I am nervous, about once a day, this is very helpful when trying to convince people at work or school that I'm not on drugs. My family doctor, says that I have a good case of post traumatic stress disorder. He doesn't know the half of it, I never told him about the Village only about my four year relationship with an alcoholic fiance with a good job and a college degree who used to get up in my face and scream at least once a week. How about some Stockholm syndrome for you. I have finally gotten over, somewhat, my overwhelming social anxiety at least enough that I don't care who sees me shake if it means I get a college degree and have a life of my own. The Village taught me nothing other than how to be cowed and subservient and to think it was ok when someone abuses me, I still am completely incapable of making eye contact with another human beings, dogs and cats Im ok with. It also taught me what it's like to live under fascist rule for two years, all I'm saying is that we should all be damn careful because it is pure hell and please do something about this somebody before it hurts more people, these places have to close down!!! God bless all my sisters out there, please don't die, don't let the bastards get you down, your not alone and I'm sure we all love you, I know I do and I pray for you to a God of good things that are not fascist!!! I cant emphasize enough how bad these places are, I dont even think that Peninsula Village is a worst case scenario. I was amazed that we had no rights while in there. I asked to speak to a lawyer or someone from the outside, I heard girls ask to have the police called repeatedly, and they laughed at us. I am so serious I am not a happy camper! I still feel like a worthless person who deserves abuse even though I know this isn't true. It's just an all too daily mantra there, how everything is your fault, your rape, your parents problems, your anorexia, your life in foster care, the fact that youre a slut, dont forget that you are a disgusting alcoholic slut even if your knowledge of either thing is very limited or non existent. God the poor girls who acted out their problems through sex or were just naive and ended up there. The sexual advances of men can be a pretty overwhelming even for a grown woman much less a depressed, my parents dont understand me or I dont have parents youll love and give me affection right, sort of kid, they made you feel like a slut even if you were raped. I bet half of them have committed suicide by now, the suicide rate is pretty high coming out of these places, I bet a lot of the girls have committed suicide. It ruins your life, its like having sound bites from hell running through your head. I feel like Im diseased or something and I know I hadn't done much, what if I had you know, what if I believed them, it's bad enough they were my rape counselor. I still feel that Im so abnormal and horrible, that no one could love or understand me, that i'm a pariah, an untouchable, this isn't a feelin I can control it's just there, the result of years of constant abuse. I also have painful stomach ulcer, my Doctor says due to stress and I am in daily physical discomfort from it, thanks again Village. I have their indoctrination in my head and its there whether I like it or want to believe it or not. I dont know if you have read A Handmaidens Tale by Margret Atwood but you should. The facility where they put the women before they send them out is a lot like the Village except they get to talk in the bathroom. I never got to talk to another girl the entire time I was there, other than with asked permission and staff listening, even then it was just about mandatory things, like, put the piece of wood down here. This tells you how closely we were watched every second of everyday. I have done some research on how these places are legal and I believe the legality has to do with the fact that these are privately run facilities, are put in States that have lax laws on institutional child abuse and they lobby congress and donate a lot of money to the Republican party, sorry Republicans, please dont not read this because of that but that is what my research turned up. Look up Behavior Modification Facilities and Mel Sembler and the Straight Program, Bushs current appointed ambassador to Italy, its scary really! Please look it up, Im not crazy or affiliated with a party I just have a different perspective because of my experience. You can look up the Village too but their website is pretty slick so you might not believe me about the abuse. Peninsula Village is also privately run it is just is part of a franchise that is why they list Peninsula Behavioral Health and some others. Go to the program description or the frequently asked questions on the web site its great really wonderful, it says all the abuse is up and running. Thanks for listening, there is a lot of good info. on the internet, and please dont send you kids to one of these places!!!! if you go on the web site the staff shown looks real fine until you notice that they are all family therapists, we saw once every couple of weeks if that. The only daily facility staff shown is Bob Pegler Program Manager and he doesnt even have a BA, instead he is a certified addiction specialist and a ROPES course facilitator, he's licensed though, thank you community college, I remember him, look at his eyes, doesnt he look evil, trust me he his! Or the large young woman,who's built like a tank, the program manager on the boys side, she has a BA in business and is a Certified Therapeutic Crisis Intervention Instructor. I remember her too, Stephanie M. Vanover would have made a good Nazi. There is a nice mom looking lady with degrees on the boys side that I bet they see once every six weeks maybe. The administrator of Peninsula Village we never saw once, he sounds good on the website I bet he put together and Im sure he makes a good amount of money. It wasn't good for us though. It is an evil, horrible place that should be shut down and they should all have any licensing stripped from them and be brought up on child abuse charges. There is maybe one other person listed who actually has any contact really with the girls in their lives. In each of the three cabins there are at least eight staff members that actually live with the girls and in the lock down unit at least twelve more, this is just on the girls side. Where are these other fifty some staff members and where are the lists of their credentials, these are the people who are actually going to have the power of God over your children, these are the ones who are going to be supervising them night and day, and pressing them down into the floor and running group therapy. Its nice to have a principle of the school with a degree but what good is it if the girls dont get to go to school for months because they are being punished, digging up stumps and are too busy being abused or starring at a wall, we didnt get to talk to the teachers, we were just marched in and marched out we saw them only during the designated day time hours if at all. It?s also pretty easy to tell from the shear number of family therapists that this is only a part time job, and therefore the facility does not have to fork out as much of the girls tuition? to pay for the ability to list the family therapists as staff. I wonder if any of them think that its weird that the students dont get to talk to their families for months when they first arrive or very often after, or that as soon as one of them breaks out of the party line and says save me its a nightmare, large burly orderlies quickly cut the interview short and escort the child out for more abusive indoctrination.
posted by mokara9 at 3:40 PM 0 comments  

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