Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Straight, Inc. and Derivatives => Topic started by: Rachael on February 13, 2007, 10:25:16 PM
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In another recent topic, someone wrote the following to me:
Pray you are well [...]
In this case, it is entirely possible that this was meant sincerely and genuinely. Chances are, it was. And in writing the following, I mean no affront to the person wishing me well.
That being said, in most cases on this forum or in the outside world when I've run into an AARC grad/staffer, it is not meant in such a nice way.
The implication underlying this type of statement is that since I have not graduated AARC and embraced the AARC way, I could not possibly be doing well. The belief is that us poor AARC strays must be having such a hard go of it being "dead, in jail, or in the gutter".
So, having heard this one too many times, I'd just like to say:
I'm fine! I am happy! I love my life and the people in it!
I am doing well, at one point a year or two ago I listed some of the things I've been doing since escaping AARC, maybe it's time to do so again...
I work for an Oil and Gas company playing on computers and making more than any other person I've met my age (and it just gets better with pending raises). I absolutely love my job and the people I work with; I can't wait to get to work in the mornings. I spend my day fixing complicated technical problems, responding to emergency situations and speaking with interesting people from across Canada in French and English.
My partner and I celebrated our three year anniversary on Boxing Day 2006, and we are expecting a baby girl to be born anytime now (due March 3). We are both completely ecstatic to be starting a family together and it's all fallen into place just at the right time. Both of our families are closely involved and also very excited about the first grandchild/great-grandchild.
I am a semi-professional athlete and spend part of my summer every year traveling across N. America going to races with my partner and also my youngest sister who's just started competing with us. I compete in speedboarding and streetluge.
I'm on the Board of Directors for a non-profit organization that promotes safety and our sport. As well, our non-profit is now in the second year of putting on an event with a budget of just over $110 000.
And of course, the only point which most AARCites seem to care about... I have not used any mid-altering substance since two weeks before I entered AARC. That is to say, I have not used any drug at all, with the exception of the very occasional glass of wine or beer (never more than one, and certainly not at all since I've been pregnant). I didn't smoke before AARC and still don't, and I even stay away from caffeine, save the occaisional tea that may have a bit. Of course, before I entered AARC I had already decided not to use drugs again (and stated so on many occasions), so take that as you may.
So... that being said, thank you all for your concern, but I am doing marvelously.
Rachael
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I'm going to beat the next person to this so we can avoid future negative responses.
But all this means is that you're a dry drunk.
You're clearly a "hurt'n unit" or you wouldn't come to this forum and post such an angry topic.
You're in denial.
The disease is cunning, baffling, and powerful and it will catch up with you.
You can write coherently and you seem perfectly sane online, so this must mean that you're "in your head" in order to hide from your true feelings.
You're lying. Someone who's not an addict stays in AARC until graduation and then attends AA afterwards because they are not afraid to live without addiction. If you leave AARC it means that you were afraid of the the truth. You're an addict and you posted this because you're so ashamed of yourself.
Did I miss anything?
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racheal,
have you considered pressing charges?
(PLEASE for the ones that arent as strong as you)
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I think it can go both ways. There are always differing perspectives even when the facts are presented in only one fashion. You can say something and tell it exactly how it is, and depending on who's reading it or who sees it, it is going to get judged based on that persons perspective/life experiences. So either:
Rachael is doing extremely well. Or
She is a dry drunk doing extremely well, but like it was stated before, it will eventually catch up to her. Personally, I don't know her at all. But my story is kind of similar.
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Is this for real? Seriously, are you people still this washed or is this satire? Sometimes it's hard to tell.
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what is a dry drunk?
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Dry drunk is an AA term for someone who doesn't drink or use mind altering drugs but rejects the cult's philosophy or is critical of the cult in any way.
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Not really....a dry drunk is someone who does not use but still lives and feels the same way.
I don't think Rachael is a dry drunk and its good to hear she is doing well.I worked on staff when she went through and its good to hear she is happy.
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I have a close friend who was in AARC for an extended period. This person is a graduate. On two occasions we have encountered former staffers in public, once in a mall and once in a grocery store. On both occasions, immediately upon recognizing my friend, the staffers became visibly agitated and fled. The condescending tone I have witnessed from pro-AARC posters is disturbing in light of the indisputable proof that Vause falsely calls himself a psychologist, the indisputable links between Vause, the Union Institute and Miller Newton, and Newton's verifiably criminal practices.
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As a former staff member I see graduates in public and am fine talking to them. Sometimes I get weird looks from them and will not approach if I sense they are uncomfortable. I talk to graduates who are not in the sober lifestyle and I do not judge them for it. I live my life the way I choose and they do the same.None of us are wrong or right for how we live. I love AARC and I am not ashamed of the place that helped me but unfortunatly not everyone feels the same way-so what?!
Just my 2 cents
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As to your question "so what?", one of the staff members to whom I referred earlier was involved in the coercion of my friend to recant an accusation of abuse in one of the host homes. Years after my friend's graduation, this counselor acknowledged that my friend's assault was irrelevant to her recanting. Specifically, my friend had been bitten on the face, yet this was dismissed as self-mutilation in order to cover up the abuses inherent in a program of sending kids into the homes that have produced extremely self-destructive children. So yes, some of us are wrong in how we live if we assault kids or force kids to lie to cover up serious problems. The suicides, the lack of staff accreditation, the vast amounts of money that went into a program run out of a warehouse beside a seismic yard with no medical staff and no residential facilities; all of these things are real and not a matter of opinion.
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have you gone to the authorites ajax?
Confronting people on fornits will not redress what was done to you or the other kids. It certainly wont make them stop their abuse- its way of life for them
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The victim to whom I referred was, as I said, forced to recant. This was not a recent incident. Vause has had run-ins with the authorities, but he is in a very safe position. The system is really quite brilliant. Use former clients as counselors and put the clients in the homes that produce the clients. If a young person comes forward with accounts of abuse, everyone involved but Vause is tainted and can be discredited based on their status as a drug user.
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still, yes its hard. But surely you can try? Just file a report? Gather a group of survivors through this site and go together? Find people who specialize in cult abuse
inform the authorities of the system and why Vause is too blame.
Im not unappretiative of the difficulties of getting the authorites involved, or the difficulty of simple coming foward, but surely there has to be some way or no one gets justice and the system continues.
try going WITH a lawyer and a journalist and a cult specialist to the authrotites
The authorites will be forced to be responsible by their precense.
have u gone to them with your experience yet?
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As AARC has been used by the authorities in lieu of incarceration for young people, a more evolved method than calling the cops and/or a lawyer and/or a journalist. Some readers may be familiar with an incident out of the distant past wherein a young woman alleged that she had been stabbed after an inappropriate relationship with a particular authority figure. The authority figure was absolved of all wrong-doing by the authorities and the young lady's injuries were attributed to her own acts. This type of incident with the resultant response of the justice system is not unique in the annals of AARC.
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You guys really want to see something happen? Check out this site.
http://ideas-canada.ca/ (http://ideas-canada.ca/)
Read over the history a little bit and get an idea where things stand w/ the various players and who is really protecting these gulags.
Here's another piece of the history puzzle. When I first discovered the many connections between the Program and American drug warriors, I thought that, naturally, drug policy reform organizations would be pleased as punch to have this kind of smoking gun evidence against their political and social policy opponents. What I didn't know at the time is that the drug policy reform movement is just lousy with stepcraft practitioners. They had already jumped on the (coerce) "treatment not incarceration" bandwagon. For a good long while, I continued posting to various Usenet groups and discussion lists w/ the tag line "If there's a worse idea going than locking people up for mutually consensual activity, it's locking them up in close proximity to some sadistic lunatic bent on saving them even if it kills them."
But money talks and, among other things, my wonderful, Super Seedling Awareness has left me less able to lay hands on that stuff than most people. So I juts started Fornits instead.
What if you guys were to contact the drug policy organizations and leaders in some numbers and try and explain to them just how fucking nuts are their strange bedfellows? It's not entirely hopeless. Jerry Epstine, for one, was willing to concede after some lengthy debate, that the treatment providers were not at all what he thought when the movement first joined forces with them. Most of Canada seems to me to be a whole lot more sane on these issues than my country. In fact, most of the drug warriors in Canada (outside of your own province, anyway) are American made anyway. The way things are going down here, one of the most rabid drug warriors ever, Bob Barr, just signed on as a lobbyist for his former arch nemesis, Marijuana Policy Project.
No better time. Think about it.
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As AARC has been used by the authorities in lieu of incarceration for young people, a more evolved method than calling the cops and/or a lawyer and/or a journalist. Some readers may be familiar with an incident out of the distant past wherein a young woman alleged that she had been stabbed after an inappropriate relationship with a particular authority figure. The authority figure was absolved of all wrong-doing by the authorities and the young lady's injuries were attributed to her own acts. This type of incident with the resultant response of the justice system is not unique in the annals of AARC.
OK i am in no way attempting to mitigaate your impresion of the dificulty in getting the autorities to respond.
But response is not impossible. Recently the most corrupt administration on earth- the bush administration- fired Mel Sembler as ambassador becasue a gourp of survivors got together and protested. The last straight spin off- KIDS was shut down, depsite incredible GWB level (43 million in donations) connections.
Cedu has been closed and charges would have been pressed if more kids werent interested in simply moving on with their lives.
That girl may have been intimtidated away fro speaking but YOU cant be and if you explain the circumstanses surrounding how she was inimidated into scilence anyone who isnt on the take will understand.
the point is if nothing can be done than why bother posting? they can be stopped. It just takes strong dedicated people like youself to do it
get a lawyer a journalist go to the authorites. If they dont respond- than thats a great story fo rthe journalist right there
call every person you can think of under the sun ...eventually people will listen . They are not all corrupt
You know how cults work by makin the victem feel powerless? Well the feeling doesnt end simply because you escape it.....You are not powerless anymore
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The plan is to get an institution that misuses charity, government and private funds while running a treatment centre using discredited methods overseen by unqualified people shut down. The examples of the Straights and Sembler's removal from the Villa Sembler in Italy are good examples. The situation in Alberta is a little different than in the US, where it is in the intersts of those opposed to the GOP to bloody their noses once in awhile. There is no political opposition in this province, so a slightly different approach is required. But it's coming.
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as long as there are dedicated, BRILLIANT, and strong people- as you clearly are-to fight for us, I know the AARCs time on earth and Vauses' time out of prison is limited. tic toc tic toc tic....
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I just want to respond to an earlier question regarding why victims of abuse in AARC don't go to the authorities.
I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the program so if I am simplifying this too much I apologize, I am writing to an unknown audience.
I am ajax13's "friend" who was abused in AARC. When I reported the abuse to staff I accused of self mutilation and put on zero club (this ended my visits with my family, thus removing any contact with the outside world or anyone who cared about me).
I was on zero club for a long time. I finally figured out that to get out of AARC I would have to play along.
Many months later I did my step 5 (a day-long meeting where you spill your past to one person in an effort to let it out, let it go and move on) with my clinical (she is no longer with AARC and has since contacted me to apologize for her involvement with this issue but has refused to help me take this any farther). Near the end of the Step 5 she produced a document for me to sign. The document declared that not only had I self mutilated, I had also invented incidents of sexual abuse and had coerced other girls in my newcomer group to do the same. I just wanted to get out. I had been court ordered there so it was up to AARC to release me. I had been alienated from my family and was told on that day that if I did not sign this I would not get to progress and therefore would not move any closer to being released and starting the real therapy I desperately needed.
I signed. I cannot legally accuse AARC of anything. I have received verbal apologies from a few of the men and women (many of them just girls and boys at the time) for their involvement in the incidents but they have refused to help me beyond that.
It has been over ten years since I was in AARC. I was deeply troubled when I finally graduated. I played the game, I said what I needed to, I thanked everyone at my graduation and the next day I started looking for a qualified therapist to help me let it out, let it go and move on.
I survived in spite of, not because of AARC. I have no legal recourse and that is why I cannot get a lawyer, police officer or journalist to help me. I know for a fact that I am not the only person who signed one of these agreements to progress through the program.
I know this didn't happen to everyone, so before you attack me and say I am painting a grim picture for me it was. I am not saying this is a common AARC experience, but it did happen and may still be happening.
I hope this answers some questions.
Please remember everything is not black and white. In the gray of this organization children are being hurt and lives and being ruined and the truth is being hidden in the quest for the almighty dollar.
Thank you for your time
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i beleive you. Anyone who has any education will beleive you.
You were tortured. You were forced to sign a document declaring guilt under duress of torture and fear of future imprisonment.
This story is as old as power itself.
If you explain all this to people they will beleive you. If you contact survivors form this place- find them through this site- they will back up your story. even if they did not witness it themself, it is the TYPE indeed the TYPICAL experience of that gulug. It differs in specificality- forced to recant and sign, not just to proclaim insanity responsibility for rape terrible crimes, torture other children but it is still REPRESENTIVE Read the descritions of that place. Your experience is entirely reflected.
Go to journalists, lawyers, politicians, health care professionals, therepists, doctors, people who oversee or have interst in or are conected to the AARC in anyway(especially with a group of other survivrs) and you will see people wil beleive you!!
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Thanks for posting "Friend".. While I can't offer any real advice or comfort I do have a few things to say....
- What they had you sign is illegal and would never stand up in court. This little tactic is something programs are known for. They get families to sign phony "If child dies you can't sue us" contracts or contracts like what they had you sign as a way to cover their ass. However the ass covering is not done to appease the courts, it's done to scare the SURVIVOR(you) from using the one thing they fear, your testimony(Voice)..
- It's your choice when, if ever, to aggressively fight AARC. That is a choice that not I, nor anyone else, has the right to judge or scrutinize. Do keep in contact with those who will support you if you decide to take on AARC. Do keep in contact with those who will support you if you chose to just forget and move on. The point that I'm trying to make is that the right choice is your choice, so do not fear the consequences of that choice... what ever that choice happens to be.
- You're not alone, check out the Straight, inc. section of fornits if you doubt me. The stories of places like AARC are all the same and the abuse leaks out in till it reaches critical mass. As you know program champions will try to bash you till the very end, however due to advances in technology you can drum up support from others far far away in physical reality but forever linked by similarly horrific life experiences.
I know this all may sound so cliché and I truly cannot say that "I've been there" or "I know what you're going through" because I haven't been there and I don't know what you're going through. But with that said I still feel that it was important for me to say what I said for the benefit of being able to say it to you.
Goodluck, and keep in touch......
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Hey "Friend", first of all, thank you very much for writing. Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one who seems to acknowledge how very wrong AARC actually is.
Secondly, I would very, very much like to speak with you. My story is quite similar to yours in a lot of ways, but I don't really have anonymity here and I not very good at speaking about it yet anyway. But I would like to talk with someone who might understand. So PM me and I'll give you my email address if you like.
Also, as the above poster mentioned, the forms you were made to sign in AARC are in no way legally binding. Anything signed under duress (that includes intake forms signing away your right to leave) are not valid. More so, you can never sign away your right to prosecute for a criminal offense.
Please do contact me.
(and thanks again, I feel not so alone now)
Rachael
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Racheal, you should not feel alone at all. The vast vast vast majority of survivors feel the same way you do .Many have not found there was to this site is the only thing.or are still too scared to post their ecxperience. It took me 6 years to find my way to this site after my program The people who say ridiculous comments to you are the exception to the norm- people still involved in the cult who are instigated by their leder to harrass you. Look at velvet Myletea, Mel the other anon guests. People see them for what thy are-broken malignancies meriting pity censor or repulsion; and you for whom you are. A brave and brilliant and honest young woman.
Hope that isnt to corny to be helpful sorry
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I am ajax13's "friend" who was abused in AARC....
Regardless of what you decide to do re. legal issues, have you thought about telling your story and putting it on the International Survivor's Action Committee site? This way it will be always accessible for future views by other kids and parents... and a permanent source of humiliation for AARC. Just a thought...
http://www.isaccorp.org/ (http://www.isaccorp.org/)
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I wanted to thank the people who responded to me.
Thank you for your kindness, support and advice.
Racheal-I tried to send you a private message but it seems not to have worked. I set up a temp email so send me a msg with your contact info and I will get back to you.
[email protected]
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YES, that document is meaningless, ilegal, irrelevent.
There are very specific rules for a contract to have any validity in any fashion, and this clearly does not meet those specications.
In fact, that document endangers only on the AARC. It is abnormal and ilegal to have people in your "facility" sign "documents" stating that you lied about abuse within the "hospital" It looks disreputable and violates all accepted protocall
I wont be suprised if the aarc has "lost" the document entirely
Good luck CG and Racheal.
The support you hear in this forum is the norm. The cults make you think that no one will beleive you and that lie is carried in ones' heart after one leaves. But it is a faulsity like all the absudity they spew
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The real issue here is that Mister Doctorvause takes lots of money and does very little with that money as far as providing for the needs of kids left in his care. Mister Doctorvause is not qualified to provide treatment to adolescents suffering the causes and effects of drugs abuse. In addition, Mister Doctorvause sends the children left in his care into situations that have caused and will continue to cause the children to be harmed in many ways. At the centre run by Mister Doctorvause the children are subjected to harmful behaviour from other children who are encouraged in this by Mister Doctorvause and his staff. In order to keep this little machine running, Mister Doctorvause needs more kids and more money. It is time now to shut off the money tap and stop the kids from going through the doors. With operating budgets in the neighborhood of a million and a half, and thirty kids, that's around fifty thousand per kid per year. To provide what again? To pay the minions like Lirenman and Campbell who graduated from fodder to drones. To pay what on that old Forge Rd building? And lunch. Mister Doctorvause, in addition to the fifty grand per kid per year also needs people to donate undies and sweat pants, because he can't afford to pay that out of the fifty thousand. That doesn't include the recent nine plus million to expand into the old seismic yard next door.
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You guys really want to see something happen? Check out this site.
http://ideas-canada.ca/ (http://ideas-canada.ca/)
Read over the history a little bit and get an idea where things stand w/ the various players and who is really protecting these gulags.
Here's another piece of the history puzzle. When I first discovered the many connections between the Program and American drug warriors, I thought that, naturally, drug policy reform organizations would be pleased as punch to have this kind of smoking gun evidence against their political and social policy opponents. What I didn't know at the time is that the drug policy reform movement is just lousy with stepcraft practitioners. They had already jumped on the (coerce) "treatment not incarceration" bandwagon. For a good long while, I continued posting to various Usenet groups and discussion lists w/ the tag line "If there's a worse idea going than locking people up for mutually consensual activity, it's locking them up in close proximity to some sadistic lunatic bent on saving them even if it kills them."
But money talks and, among other things, my wonderful, Super Seedling Awareness has left me less able to lay hands on that stuff than most people. So I juts started Fornits instead.
What if you guys were to contact the drug policy organizations and leaders in some numbers and try and explain to them just how fucking nuts are their strange bedfellows? It's not entirely hopeless. Jerry Epstine, for one, was willing to concede after some lengthy debate, that the treatment providers were not at all what he thought when the movement first joined forces with them. Most of Canada seems to me to be a whole lot more sane on these issues than my country. In fact, most of the drug warriors in Canada (outside of your own province, anyway) are American made anyway. The way things are going down here, one of the most rabid drug warriors ever, Bob Barr, just signed on as a lobbyist for his former arch nemesis, Marijuana Policy Project.
No better time. Think about it.
::cheers::
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I just want to respond to an earlier question regarding why victims of abuse in AARC don't go to the authorities.
I am not sure how many of you are familiar with the program so if I am simplifying this too much I apologize, I am writing to an unknown audience.
I am ajax13's "friend" who was abused in AARC. When I reported the abuse to staff I accused of self mutilation and put on zero club (this ended my visits with my family, thus removing any contact with the outside world or anyone who cared about me).
I was on zero club for a long time. I finally figured out that to get out of AARC I would have to play along.
Many months later I did my step 5 (a day-long meeting where you spill your past to one person in an effort to let it out, let it go and move on) with my clinical (she is no longer with AARC and has since contacted me to apologize for her involvement with this issue but has refused to help me take this any farther). Near the end of the Step 5 she produced a document for me to sign. The document declared that not only had I self mutilated, I had also invented incidents of sexual abuse and had coerced other girls in my newcomer group to do the same. I just wanted to get out. I had been court ordered there so it was up to AARC to release me. I had been alienated from my family and was told on that day that if I did not sign this I would not get to progress and therefore would not move any closer to being released and starting the real therapy I desperately needed.
I signed. I cannot legally accuse AARC of anything. I have received verbal apologies from a few of the men and women (many of them just girls and boys at the time) for their involvement in the incidents but they have refused to help me beyond that.
It has been over ten years since I was in AARC. I was deeply troubled when I finally graduated. I played the game, I said what I needed to, I thanked everyone at my graduation and the next day I started looking for a qualified therapist to help me let it out, let it go and move on.
I survived in spite of, not because of AARC. I have no legal recourse and that is why I cannot get a lawyer, police officer or journalist to help me. I know for a fact that I am not the only person who signed one of these agreements to progress through the program.
I know this didn't happen to everyone, so before you attack me and say I am painting a grim picture for me it was. I am not saying this is a common AARC experience, but it did happen and may still be happening.
I hope this answers some questions.
Please remember everything is not black and white. In the gray of this organization children are being hurt and lives and being ruined and the truth is being hidden in the quest for the almighty dollar.
Thank you for your time
I love this one too!
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we believe we have put in place the checks and
balances that will encourage and offer a program in Alberta that meets with the laws of this land and also the integrity of the people that will utilize this program. Additionally, Mr. Speaker, the society that is running this program are people of integrity in the city of Calgary, and I'm sure they would not want their personal integrity put at risk by running a program that would not be in keeping with the well-
being of Albertans.
Maybe they should have thought of their "personal integrity" before endorsing something that would eventually jeopardize said integrity?
Then again, does a person like that really have any?