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An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

This is from an old forum I once had.  A guy named Oreos wrote these posts.  He had a tendency to delete them after writing so I archived a bunch of the good ones.  It explains a good deal about what went on in WWASPs programs like SCLA.

Posted: 26 May 2007 03:32 pm    Post subject:    
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Quote from: "PsyAdmin"

Quote from: "Techdad"

Quote from: "Psy"

Quote from: "Oreos"

The younger kids and 'softer' programs, use a even more insidious means of manipulations, their parents love. The parents write those letters that indicate their love, from that point on, is conditional.

As soon as I got my first one of those, i totally lost any hope of ever talking to my parents again.  I lost the desire.  I didn't want their help...  It's surreal, reading that letter in retrospect.

There is a scene in the TB documentary where a father tells his daughter that his love for her is conditional and that if she doesn't finish the program, he will never speak to her again. I was blown away by that. WTF? How does a parent get so mentally twisted that they come to believe in that shit? I mean, I have been a desperate parent, I have done stupid things, but I just can't get my mind around that level of bizarreness.

Parent seminars.  LGATs....  Some programs are far more cult-like than others.  Some never intend to return the kid, but to keep him/her there indefinitely until the parents go broke, or become recruiters.

I think the parents who think this sort of thing might work sometimes also seek out WWASPS type programs. I know people want to believe that a parent would never act like this unless they were brainwashed, but my dad never set foot in a seminar and did the same exact thing. Many parents facing the situation had at most done 3 days of discovery. They go back to their normal lives, sleep in their beds. I'm not sure I am convinced that a three day seminar is going to change a parent all that much. By dismissing the parents as "brainwashed by seminars" it alleviates them of responsibility in the clear choice they had, or at least some did, as my own dad.

I remember the day very vividly It was four days after I Turned 18. I told them I wanted to leave and they had me on the phone with my dad (first time ever I got to talk on the phone) so Ia m in the office with the family rep. She has him on the phone, he's like.. they tell me you want to leave. I say yes, this place is a prison camp, start babbling and seven months worth of pent of shit comes pouring out trying to explain to him the scam right in front of the family rep. He isn't impressed and is obviously playing for the other team at this point.  Rolling Eyes

I want you to stay and finish high school.. I had like 2 credits left which took maybe a month to complete. I said no way i am leaving today. He started with his lies and shit about having me legally detained until 21 based on my unfitness psychologically. I called that bluff too and said no I am leaving anyways. So he pulls out the last card and says, that this is his birthday (it was and I forgotten) and that this was the worst birthday ever. If I left that I was on my own.. and did the same explanation all wwasps parents end up doing probably. So he's like you have to stay and do what they say otherwise when you take your exit plan you will not get anything only a ride to the Missoula homeless shelter. At least they usually gave $30 in cash for food or whatever. They weren't giving me anything but the clothes I was wearing. So basically I'm like fuck you, and walk out of the family reps office.  

But that was definitely not the only time. A couple months later after I ended up back in my home city, he agreed to let me live with him if I followed a strict contract which included no smoking drinking, etc. I broke it the first week and came home high and he called the cops on me and had me arrested. Then when they let me out he picks me up and takes me to a lockup psych ward. After two and a half weeks with those crazy adults (now I was over 18 and in the adult wards) they let me out on the condition I went to some kind of treatment center. So my dad found this sober living house. He dropped me off and it was a full on AA cult, group home with leader kind of shit. I walked out and left my suitcases in a dumpster hidden, and tried to find a pay phone. I got a hold of my dad, he was still on the freeway home I could hear. I said I can't live there with those people and begged him to come pick me up. He said no and hung up. I tried calling back but his phone was turned off. So it doesn't take a program for parents to do this shit, that's for sure.

Since I had been gone and in various programs and lockups for the previous year I had lost all contact with any friends, and I had no phone numbers or anything like that. I forget them all. So  I was pretty much left shit out of luck.

They really need to take the word "love" out of the phrase "tough-love" because there's nothing loving about it. It's all about control and coercion.

I always found it strange how over a relatively short period of time "helping a kid" goes from traditional treatment finally descending into the idea of leaving them on the streets with nothing.


Posted: 26 May 2007 03:55 pm    Post subject:    
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All of them. It's not like there were 10 rules hanging on the wall, if you followed you would be okay. If people think that is what a program is like, they are misreading the entire situation.

A private program like SCL consists of leadership who are the seminar trainers, parent trainers, the owners, the staff, the 18 year old kids, the junior staff kids, the lower levels. In that order. The seminar facilitators are the "priests" of WWASPS. Fanatical program parents strive to become these facilitators, as seen in the Montana PBS video.

So imagine an ideology based on , let's call it the robot child syndrome. You can't swear, you can't masturbate, you can't look at the opposite sex, you do not deserve any privileges (including compassion and love) and must thank your captors for this treatment. You must be willing to snitch on your closest friend at any given time if asked to do so.

This is a group of people, living in tremendous fear they might be dropped back to the starting point. Kids make it up by stepping on the backs of other kids. If they're lucky they can "prove themselves" in less hurtful and dramatic ways, but that's the way it usually goes down. Betraying your best friend by telling program staff during a seminar shit aout your closest buddy is a sure way to make yourself look good. Or is it? They might drop you too for "snitching". You never really know.

Because that's how it works, there are no rules. The only rules is that you must act like they want you to act. If you are too stubborn or too stupid to figure out yoru lines in this sick sadistic live action theater you are forced to partake in, you will be isolated and deprived until you are so physically and emotionally uncomfortable you will look at a normal day in the program as a good day. A good day because your definition of good and bad have been altered. A good day is a day that you are not treated like an animal and kept in a small disgusting cage and fed a handful of lettuce and 2 spoons of kidney beans, forced to eat with your dirty hands. Some kids get to the point where this treatment is redefined as tolerable simply because it allows them the comfort of psychological intactness. A intermission in the theater, if you will.

So rules... shit, there weren't any rules. The only rule was to move up the program, that was the rule. Bullshit, lie, act, confess, betray, crawl, and fight your way to freedom.

It really defies explanation as to why anyone would subject their kid to the type of treatment I witnessed, it really does. A logical response simply does not illustrate the true reality as to what occurred.

Posted: 26 May 2007 04:24 pm    Post subject:    
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Quote from: "techdad"

Quote from: "Oreos"

Think if you were sent to jail for smoking pot or doing a few lines, how much you would hate the system for that? Well now assume that system is your parents and you might get an idea of how the kids feel.

Good point. Would it make any difference if your parents were deceived and had no idea how bad it was? Parents have some idea of what jail is like, and all the bad things that can happen there. But some of them are really clueless that the so-called therapy at a TBS (especially the one you went to) is really just punishment, behavior modification and breaking kids down. I'm remembering the dad at the beginning of "Who's Watching the Kids?". His son went to the same shitpit you did. He said something like, "I never would've imagined my son would come home from boarding school with two broken teeth."

It doesn't ease the pain, but would it change how you feel about them if they really didn't have a clue?

Hell I wouldn't really of been all that angry if my dad had simply lived up to his side of our original agreement, when he dropped me off there. I agreed to stay until my 18th birthday. He agreed to pick me up on my 18th birthday. This was very clear from the beginning.

Over time I sent letters home explaining I thought this was a mistake I was placed there. What we called the hobbit, my dad called "special needs" in his letters. But by the time got close I was turning 18, he addressed my concerns about my own treatment as being a spoiled brat, manipulative, and needed to work the program. Along with other program cliches I never heard from him ever in his life. Then he sent letters saying I had to stay until I was 21. If not by choice, they would start the legal proceedings. He wasn't fooled, he was actively working against me, from my perspective.

In my view, the program gave him a tool, and he used it. He was always a control freak. I was just his latest victim in his sick twisted fantasies of saving people. He's the AA/NA fanatic who won't be friends with 'normies.' He's the type of dad that took us to the national AA conventions on vacation. He's the dad who used Alanon to drive our mom away when I was five. (according to her) Is it any coincidence that people living with him end up resorting to alcohol or drugs to escape his madness? I don't think so anymore. But really the worst part of it, is when he tries to "save you" after he finds out about it. Then the fun really begins.

So no, he was not "fooled" in any way. If that were true he would of apologized a long time ago. Instead he tells me that I needed it. I needed to be treated the way I was treated for some reason. That is still a mystery to me.

I no longer have anger for him. He does this kind of shit to everyone who makes the mistake of entering his life and becoming close to him. Problem is I never had a choice. Now I do, so I choose to stay away from that mess.

The line had been crossed long before SCL though. The reason I talk about SCL so much is because so many people went there and have heard of it, it's a warehouse of a program if I've ever seen one. I was in isolation in questionable facilities prior to SCL, so it was no new thing to my dad to be told over the phone, your kid is being held in isolation for whatever reason.  So to him it was nothing new. It wasn't anything new to me either.

I was at a psych hospital prior to SCL, for a couple months actually. The reason I was there for so long is because they were "Experimenting " with my meds to find the "Right fit".  Rolling Eyes  Very Happy Well they had me on 4mg a day of xanax, 25mg (thats a lot) zyprexa, effexor, buspar, klonopin, ppu, and some other pill that was supposed to curb cocaine urges (even though I was locked up lol). So they had me fucked up 24/7. I was falling asleep at 3pm and in a daze all day long. They kept tweaking my drug regimen, and at some point I start seeing shit, hearing voices. Well this freaked me out, I think I was justifiably freaked out, and I had an "panic attack" they said. They said I was incoherent and refusing to take my meds and screaming they were poisoning me, and starting banging my head against a wall.

So this is the first time I experienced a takedown psych hospital style. It was actually very orderly! They handed me a small drinking cup with some liquid in it, and then showed me this big needle. They were like, we can do this the easy way or hard way. So I drank the cup. I pretty much fell over within a few seconds. It was liquid Thorazine. It completely shut down my muscles or something, I was jello. So they carried me into their isolation room which is a small white room with a skylight. A metal slab bed type ting bolted to the floor and a small window on the door. A small video camera in the corner. So they lied me face down and tied me down to the metal bed with the leather straps. They said be quiet and stop yelling about meds for a while and we'll let you go. I passed out and fell asleep from the Thorazine .

Woke up a couple hours later and didn't scream or anything because I wanted to be let out of the straps. A nurse came by and looked in and saw I was awake and came in. She asked if I would be good, Is aid yeah. So they let me out of the straps. But I had to stay in the white room (isolation) for the rest of the 24hrs. This was also a way of punishment. A way to reinforce the fact I had to take my meds. That I had no control over what was going on. So both my parents actually saw me in this isolation room that day during visiting hours. My dad actually saw me in the straps at a later date when this whole scenario repeated itself again for a different reason.

So my dad had a pretty good idea what goes on behind the scenes and when they say isolation what that means. At least in psych isolation it is somewhat more managed, and you get the same meals you normally would. The temperature is monitored, you get to use a normal bathroom, although monitored. At SCL the isolation room was freezing cold. We had to sleep on the hard ground with no pillow in just a sleeping bag, it was still very cold though. The time line was completely on the whim of staff. A three day stay could be extended to five or six days simply because they lose count (happened to me). You only got a small plate of lettuce and beans and no utensils and a banana and tortilla for the whole day. Other kids in there sometimes lost it and would throw their shit on the walls, and everything else you can imagine gross that can happen when you treat children like animals.. .so it was gross.

My point is that I believe, my dad found a system which he deemed acceptable because it lined up with his longtime cherished beliefs of AA/NA and that more subtle form of coerciveness. To him, all these isolations, and dehumanization is logical consequence of using drugs. He always would repeat this AA mantra that "it takes a full two years to get drugs out of your system". Well biologically we know that's not true. But this was his thinking, completely and fully. That's what started it all, I overdosed and ended up in the hospital. So at what point does a parent question whether drugging a kid into oblivion, and treating them like their crazy going to help? They are so off base on why teens use drugs, it's not even funny. It's scary actually.

Here's the video link:
http://fornits.com/PsyAndHalAtNYRA.m4v

Playable with VLC, iTunes, iPhone and PSP.

I'm not sure yet whether NYRA as an organization is going to take a more active role in going after programs, but based on the reactions of some I spoke to after the Q&A ended it seems likely.  Let me know what y'all think.

My mom sent me this article on JRC and I really appreciate it.
http://http://blacklistednews.com/?news_id=8538

Notice the "kids really need it" argument and the prediction of how the kids will turn out without the program.  Now to think of it.  I haven't seen Whooter defend this school.  Where are you Whooter?  Read that.  What's your take on JRC?

A former employee of  the center told an investigator, "When you start working there, they show you this video which says the shock is 'like a bee sting' and that it does not really hurt the kids. One kid, you could smell the flesh burning, he had so many shocks. These kids are under constant fear, 24/7. They sleep with them on, eat with them on. It made me sick and I could not sleep. I prayed to God someone would help these kids."

Even if you don't answer, ask yourself this: So are there bad programs, Whooter?  OK?  Do those parents know what's going on?  No.  Of course not.  It's called propaganda by the school and the parents swallow it.  Videotapes disappear.  Disgruntled employee, they've probably said.  My point being that if you agree JRC is a bad school you also have to accept that it is impossible for a parent to tell a good program from a bad one.  I mean parents get up and defend the place and that ends political pressure to end the school with most politicians who only care about their own careers.  The parents are how they get away with it.

Maybe you've already thought of this and that's why I've never heard you speak ill of a program.  If you admitted you believed that then you'd also have to admit that their programs are often very successful and remain open for a long time.  Think of Tranquility Bay (BTW, I still know a parent who defends the place).  Think of the CEDU series of schools.  If you admit that than you also have to admit that it's likely the staff of such places migrated and brought their practices with them (Aspen, for example).  It's repackaged crap is what it is and it hurts kids.  You're either blind, stupid, or a malicious sociopath is what you are, Whooter.  You've seen the consistent independent accounts over time.  The kids are not lying at MBA, for example (same stories at CEDU, especially in regards to propheets, and I've seen the french maid outfit myself at benchmark).  This is not coincidence.  The possibility of such intricate detail being identical happening at random is very very remote.

Or perhaps you're the kind of moral busybody who believes the ends justify the means no matter what and he has the right to "insert ethics" (as Tom Cruise might say) into other sovereign individuals.  If that were true you'd also believe that lying about the program, distorting the facts, and playing damage control would be a justified act.  I think I've figured you out.  You're a true believer as you claim.

Dear Fornits,

I've come to see the error of my ways.  The Troubled Teen Industry is a good thing.  It's sometimes necessary to hurt people in order to help them.  You see.  Without forced treatment every one of you reading this will be dead, insane, or in jail soon.  Very soon!  I know this because I've seen it with my own eyes.  Not sure where or when, but I've seen it, and it's anecdotal evidence so it must be true.  I don't even need that.  I have the truth and I know it to be true.  It's the truth and I don't need any damned evidence.  Programs help people.  There is plenty of evidence of that.  Whooter told me so and he must have reliable sources because he's a sweet, honest, man.

I've also realized i've been so opposed to the industry because of my deep denial.  I really have a disease.  I've watching Lost and can't stop.  That's proof!  Folks, I'm an addict.  The program was right.  I have a spiritual sickness and for all this past time i've just been "dry".  I've been merely abstaining, and I realize now that i'm powerless.  Therefore, i'm making a spiritual commitment to drink and do as many drugs as possible so that i'll hit rock bottom: a necessary step towards recovery so that I can be brought back into the good graces of the Holy Church of Bill Wilson.  Anybody know where I can get any smack?  I advise you all to do so as well immediately.  After all, you're all powerless too!  If you're unwilling to accept this, perhaps you need a program to help re-educate you into the correct way of thinking.

I've also realized marijuana is a tool of the devil.  The devil made it and that makes it bad.  God told me so to my face.  It also leads to hard drugs.  Ignore all that you've seen. Every long term pot smoker you know will turn in to a smack junkie one of these days.  After all, drug use is abuse, drug abuse is a disease, and AA teaches me that it's a progressive disease that will get worse and worse, leading to the lowest depths of depravity... and munchies.  I know this because PDFA told me so, and Betty Sembler, sweet old woman that she is, would never lie to me.  Also, If you smoke too much marijuana you'll go blind and grow hair on your palms.  Also, as seen on South Park last night, it causes testicular cancer and drive by shootings by KFC Colonel Sanders.

I've also realized Elan is the best program out there.  They managed to create a legion of the most eloquent, insightful, enlightened program graduates I have ever seen.  Honestly they're little darlings that are so sweet and get along with everybody.  They're like fluffy little bunnies.  Whatever they did at Elan to get such a result *must* have been good and necessary.

And about Benchmark: Oh Jayne. I'm so sorry.  I was wrong to ever doubt you.  I know now how necessary the abusive elements of your program were now...  I mean helpful elements.  How else are kids going to hit rock bottom if you don't help them along.  I realize now it was OK for you to lie to people in order to get them to enroll their kids in your program...  I mean school.  After all, They need the help and the ends justify the means.  If they didn't need help they wouldn't be in your program to begin with.  Your program taught me that, and i'm sorry I forgot that important lesson.

Oh.  And Ginger is possessed by the Devil.  This site is therefore evil.  Please stop reading immediately at the cost of your immortal soul.






















































To be very very clear in case you're a complete fucking idiot, this is an April fools joke

He's the same flooder we've been having issues with for the past several months.  Sorry we didn't catch this earlier.

399fe499a80716593c06c8623dba45e6 Hi Guys, I am newbie in the internet stuff and I dont know if I am writing on correct board on this website. I
   have got problem with activating my account. I received email but when I click on the link it was not working, is this link is correct?  http://fornits.com/?2dc1eb3c8092,

You're posting from a registered account.  It looks like it worked fine.

From the amazon previews of her book (search for Alex)  Ginger appears to be "Smith" and Carey Bock is "Clark".


Here she admits to taking kickbacks (kids for cash...  what else do you want to call it) from programs:



She even comments on my Fornits signature!



There she slips and uses my first name.  No doubt her lawyer insisted she refer to me as "Alex" to avoid a lawsuit over the book.  What's wrong, Scheff?  Worried another defamation lawsuit will expose your dirty little secrets?  Plus.  This way nobody can check her story.

Apparantly, i'm also a bona-fide thorn in her side.


...


Oh, the flattery

Complain all you want, Scheff.  Sueschefftruth.com is still the number one result for your name on a google search and that is not something that you have the power to change. Maye there is a 12 step group for that.

And she quotes a good deal of Encyclopedia Dramatica which she, of course, blames on me.  Various Fornits postings too.

Anyway.  If you're looking for a good example of how this site can put program supporters' panties in a bunch, drawing attention to the issue, check out that book preview feature and type on Alex, Smith, or Clark.  Even Dysfunction Junction is named.

Due to popular request, high demand, increasing traffic regarding CALO, and an expected further increase in traffic, a Dedicated CALO forum has been set up as a subforum to the moderated Facilities Questions and Anwswers forum.  Like F&A, the new CALO subforum will be strictly moderated by both Ursus and Che Gookin.  You're free to post what you like but personal attacks will not be permitted.  Other rules may be instituted by Che and/or Ursus at their discretion.  This is their "sandbox", not mine.  The forum can either be accessed through the above links or from the index by locating and clicking on the following:



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