Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones => Benchmark Young Adult School / Benchmark Transitions => Topic started by: psy on December 09, 2006, 01:04:49 PM
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Crap
Sounds like the staff get as brainwashed as the kids
And end up just as dysfunctional if they have a concience
it's such a shame that you can't even say that for every 1 child who suffers a 100 are 100% helped, healthy, happy adults today, even if it were a totally true statistic, that 1 is 1 too many, it's incredibly sad, not just for the child, but for the parents, the councilors and everyone involved, this si life altering stuff :(
Where I was, a CEDU clone, the staff used to go through the same workshops / Propheets the kids did, and on a more frequent basis. With est / Lifespring, which was designed to be strong enough for adults, I'm not sure if it's really possible to avoid the brainwashing. I don't know anybody from my "emotional growth school" who wasn't affected by it. Once you hack somebody's conscience into thinking abuse is good, hate is love etc., almost anything is possible.
I've never understood how, after absolutely destroying so many lives the staff could continue to think they were helping people. It's a good example of how much their concept of reality had been totally warped by exposure to the program and a constant cultist mentality.
For a while i tried to talk sense into them. I told them "Do you really think that this tough love bullshit is helping people. Look at the suicide attempts. Look at the AWOLs. Look at the kids you put on the streets. Look into their eyes." Some kids resisted longer than others but they all broke in the end. Once hope of leaving dies, it's over.
I'm actually quite surprised TSW was able to "snap out of it" and I wish more staff were like him.
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Whenever I read someone's account of a Lifesteps, EST, LifeSprings or any of the other seminars, I just get the chills. That is, to me, the most common and most dangerous part of these places. In Straight they were just called 'raps' :roll: (it started from The Seed which sprung up in the 70s). We had them all day long, every day. Before, after and in between we either recited the rules, the chain of command or sang infantile songs....all designed so that we had no time or opportunity to think for ourselves, at all. The 'raps' were supposed to force you to see the error of your ways and then talk about how Straight was helping you change your life and how grateful you were to have them care enough about you to point out all your faults and insecurities.......in front of 300-400 people in the most humiliating and confrontational manner possible. Break 'em down and build 'em back up. Yeah, they break you alright. That's for sure. I ended up doubting every instinct I had and those instincts had brought me through some pretty tough times. I didn't know where Straight ended and I began. I knew what they did to me wasn't right, but I couldnt' put my finger on exactly what had happened to me. It wasn't until I had kids of my own that I began to understand the depth of what was taken from me. I was just talking to one of my daughters about it last night. It's so nice to see her growing up. She caused herself a lot fo problems for about 6 years....I didn't know if I'd live through it but she made it through and watching her learn and grow is awesome. She's learning things about herself now at 21 that I'm just starting to at 41. Adolescence is the most difficult time in a person's life. That's when they start figuring out who they are. If you start fucking around with that process, you risk huge, permanent damage.
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Whenever I read someone's account of a Lifesteps, EST, LifeSprings or any of the other seminars, I just get the chills. That is, to me, the most common and most dangerous part of these places. In Straight they were just called 'raps' :roll: (it started from The Seed which sprung up in the 70s). We had them all day long, every day. Before, after and in between we either recited the rules, the chain of command or sang infantile songs....all designed so that we had no time or opportunity to think for ourselves, at all. The 'raps' were supposed to force you to see the error of your ways and then talk about how Straight was helping you change your life and how grateful you were to have them care enough about you to point out all your faults and insecurities.......in front of 300-400 people in the most humiliating and confrontational manner possible. Break 'em down and build 'em back up. Yeah, they break you alright. That's for sure. I ended up doubting every instinct I had and those instincts had brought me through some pretty tough times. I didn't know where Straight ended and I began. I knew what they did to me wasn't right, but I couldnt' put my finger on exactly what had happened to me. It wasn't until I had kids of my own that I began to understand the depth of what was taken from me. I was just talking to one of my daughters about it last night. It's so nice to see her growing up. She caused herself a lot fo problems for about 6 years....I didn't know if I'd live through it but she made it through and watching her learn and grow is awesome. She's learning things about herself now at 21 that I'm just starting to at 41. Adolescence is the most difficult time in a person's life. That's when they start figuring out who they are. If you start fucking around with that process, you risk huge, permanent damage.
We had raps where i was too (even called em that). but what i'm talking about is completely different. It's basically a 24 hour marathon workshop with food and sleep deprivation, disclosure circles, trance inducing guided imagery, nlp, bioenergetics, etc etc... It's a totally different ballgame. Raps made you feel like shit. These marathon workshops made you feel like shit to break you down. Then the counselors would comfort you, after they had made you miserable, and you ended up feeling wonderful, euphoric, and just plain high, when you finished with them. You loved your counselor after that. It was guaranteed. Never saw it fail.
Straight is closer to synanon's original implementation while CEDU's Mel Wasserman added Lifespring, est, to the whole mix for extra measure. Afaik, if Straight used these methods, it must have been later in their existence. Still. Everything seems to lead back to Synanon at some point.
I can definitely relate to not knowing exactly what they did. That was the point. If you could figure out what they were doing you could protect yourself from it. If you only realized it on a subconscious level (as they wanted you to) you were fucked.
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The food and sleep deprivation, isolation was just the daily routine at Straight. We stayed at 'foster homes' (homes of other kids further along in the program) at night and spent 12 hours a day in 'the building', having raps and singing those stupid songs. Mondays and Fridays were "open meetings" when the parents came. Those days we'd spend up to 20 hours at 'the building'. You're right, I don't ever remember anyone love any of the staff, but the premise was the same. Break them down to build them up in Straight's image. After anyone spoke in raps the entire group would shout "love ya so-and-so". This included when someone would get "confronted" (the most harsh, abusive, sadistic form of 'help'). The group would spend an hour or two on this one person, completely humiliating and degrading them and then when they sat down they got that group "love ya" and were told that the group and staff were helping them by forcing them to see just how awful they were and we'd thank them one day.
Synanon does seem to be the one common thread running through all of these places.
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RAPS came out of Synanon's "Game".
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=30 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=7179&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30)
Anne, is there a direct connection to Straight and Synanon, or was it coincidence that they called them Raps?
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RAPS came out of Synanon's "Game".
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=30 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=7179&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30)
Anne, is there a direct connection to Straight and Synanon, or was it coincidence that they called them Raps?
deb. check out my website for that answer. under the abuse section i sourced a good page on straight for some of my research.
I think you mean direct connection from Straight to CEDU. AFAIK Raps were called "games" at Synanon. I assume the word "rap" came from Straight <--> CEDU staff "cross contamination". I've never really looked into where the word came from.
here you go
this link here (http://http://thestraights.com/theprogram/synanon-story2.htm)
Yeah there's a direct connection.
Raps seems to be what everybody calls them. It's an implimentation of Synanon's "Game".
@anne:
Yeah we had raps every day, morning and afternoon. The workshop i mentioned was a special secret ritual nobody was supposed to talk about. I don't think anybody every broke that rule (at least not while I was there). The "vow of secrecy" was far far too strong.
Although most days were about breaking you down, the workshop was about loyalty. Powerful kool-aid.
@Deb: I interviewed jayne a week ago. She confirmed FSW is from CEDU's propheets. She confirmed Mel Wasserman incorporated est / Lifespring. She thinks it's wonderful. She couldn't shut up about how wonderful CEDU was and how many people it saved. She also confirmed Bmark was designed after CEDU. She denied CEDU was sued out of existance and blames it's demise on Brown school's mismanagement. She said "they ran it into the ground".
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WTF. "Happy Waygookin"?!?!
Why don't you just change it to "Gookie" like Deb keeps calling you (whatever that means). I think "Gookie" sounds better anyway.
:rofl:
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i like it. it suits. Why not "Darth Gookie"?
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RAPS came out of Synanon's "Game".
http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=30 (http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=7179&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30)
Anne, is there a direct connection to Straight and Synanon, or was it coincidence that they called them Raps?
Straight got it from the Seed I believe. GregFL has been looking for a direct link between Synanon and Seed for a long time. I don't think he's found one but it's obvious.
It's weird. I remember being a kid in the 70s and hearing my parents talk about EST or something like it. Damn hippies or something like that.
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@anne:
Yeah we had raps every day, morning and afternoon. The workshop i mentioned was a special secret ritual nobody was supposed to talk about. I don't think anybody every broke that rule (at least not while I was there). The "vow of secrecy" was far far too strong.
Although most days were about breaking you down, the workshop was about loyalty. Powerful kool-aid.
Yeeeesh :scared: . Fucks with your trust issues in all kinds of wonderful ways.
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Yeeeesh :scared: . Fucks with your trust issues in all kinds of wonderful ways.
Oh i don't trust anybody anymore. Not, my parents, not any girlfriend I have had since. Nobody. I don't sleep much anymore either.
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Two characteristics of ptsd.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=2745&forum=9 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=2745&forum=9)
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Two characteristics of ptsd.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=2745&forum=9 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=2745&forum=9)
Oh i have more than just those two. I'm extremely paranoid, and unless i'm on a plane, i'm... well protected...
I'm far more OCD than i ever was before. Not in an organized way but there are certain things that have to be a certain way.
I isolate. I sit in front of my computer. That's my life. I hate people (being around them). Group / raps were overload for me. I hate reality tv. actually i hate tv in general. Fucking inane, superficial shit 24 / 7.
There are certain times when i'm emotional about things but most of the time i'm pretty frigid. This might be due to the prozac. I feel pain, but I don't necessarily mind it. it reminds me i'm still alive.
I can't concentrate when i think about certain experiences at bmark. I lock up. i freeze. My speech pauses for no reason. I forget where i was in my sentences. It's so fucking hard to write about some things. My memories of some events are scattered, full of holes. I try to pry my mind open but it's so hard. I remember somewhere but my mind just won't let me recall.
Somehow there is a lot of guilt inside. I left somebody behind. I begged my parents to help him. Taboo it was, for me to be bi (big reason why i was sent there in the first place), and for me to have fallen for another guy. I left him behind, and took my parent's offer of rescue. Then he was raped on the streets after I left. His parents stopped paying and he was dropped on the streets. I should have been there. I would have gutted the motherfucker who did it.
I feel guilty for not saying more earlier. so many people i knew...
For some odd reason, I feel comfortable talking pseydonomyously on the internet but not to my shrink. He was chosen by my parents and it's really hard for me to trust him because at benchmark, everything went back to the parents.
At this point i really don't care who knows the nitty gritty details of what happened to me. I see very little of people anyway and most of the ones who do know me don't know about this.
Deb
your link mentioned moral codes. At bmark they had this "coat of arms / ethics" project where you had to list your current beliefs / ethics, and they would help you create new "healthy" ones.
The more i discover the more i'm just blown over by how they can get away with this shit. How any of these shitholes can.
At this point I think i'm finally at the "survivor mission" point. A few years ago I wanted to fight them but my mom kept saying "just focus on school. after you graduate you can do the benchmark thing" after I graduated that college with an associates, she said "just leave it in the past now. just forget about it". I never let her push my personal life around like that before program. Well i can't anymore. The shit I went through is still happening. About a month ago, i said ENOUGH. I'm going to bring them down whatever it takes.
So then the research started, and the posting... and i'll probably get a few B's this semester... and i'll probably get yelled at for it... but i feel better now and i'm not going to stop.
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I would imagine it is really difficult to find a doctor who is the right match for you first up. Perhaps you can talk to your family about letting you shop around for one better suited to you. Hang in there
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Acceptance of the program, some sort of ritualized group meeting, a stage system giving residents greater levels of power as they progress up the chain of command, unconditional compliance of staff and these people still don't think they are dealing with cults?
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Don't forget absolute blind obedience from parents as well.
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ok whose the smart ass mod who gave the thread the funny name... fixed anyhoo.
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Some days I wonder who on fornits DOESN'T have PTSD to some degree or another.
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Probably would have been better off using shock therapy, as in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" style shock therapy. Not the pussy crap they have today.
I dunno, it's still pretty disturbing to be see it, or be around people who have it done on a regular basis. Sometime after scl I ended up in this day treatment place for dual diagnosis adults who are people with drug or alcohol problems and mental problems. I was the youngest one and the people were pretty nice, crazy as fuck, but a nice group of people. Out of about maybe ieght or nine of us there were two that were etting shock therapy. I even got to lay down on the machince once when they took my EKG because it was in the same room and I asked a bunch of questions. They said when people have seizures after they regain consiousness they feel a little bit better, less depressed. I figured smoking a bowl is a hell of a lot easier to get the same effect, but these people were in the NA mindset so whatever floats your boat I guess. When they come out of it they stumble around in a haze, like a completely drunk person, with a weird smirk on their face and unfocused eyes, competely out of it. That was the funny part, when they would come wandering out into the smokikng/lunch area and the nurse attendant would come running after them and shuffle them back inside. :P
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When I was searching for a job in college and came upon Three Springs as a place to work and obtained an interview, I was extactic. When I got offered the job in short order, I was even more excited. Here I was, ideallistic college student out to save the fucking world. I mentioned to a few people at my college about my new job that I would have once I graduated. One of them warned me about Three Springs, but I didnt listen. He said: "That place is really primitive and I'm not sure if its a good place to go." But me being the happy go lucky person that I was, wanted to give Three Springs a chance.
I regret it from the moment I got there.
I didnt realize how much of an effect Three Springs had on my mental and emotional psyche. What was termed as "treatment" was nothing more than emotional and mental abuse on the children. What we did as counselors to "force" the children to comply was nothing short of inhumane. It surprises me they didnt give us cattle prods and shock collars to make them comply. I can see how the environment breeds breakdowns, hysterics, and anguish over the thought of having to stay there for longer periods of time.
I was in a very interesting part of the facility. I wasnt in the main program at all. They placed me in the "shelter" which was the "short term" program. The kids were placed there up to 90 days. Some of them were sentenced directly to the program (for example, they only had 90 days or less to "serve"), others were sentenced to long term programs, but they needed somewhere to put them, so they placed them in the short term program temporarily. I got to witness how some kids reacted when they got sent down the hill to the main program. Many were devastated because the short term program was run the same way as the long term program. The only difference was that the girls in the short term earned points to obtain "levels" or "stages" and the main program is more subjective to the girls attitudes and such.
Because the program they were initially in was a short term program, many of them would just suck it up and deal. Some complained to their probation officers and I found myself defending the heinous ways of the program as therapy and that the girl was just being manipulative. I was required to monitor phonecalls and keep an eye on the girls at all times. Therapeutic? no... Heinous and horrible? yes!
Luckily I snapped out of it and refused to take part in Three Springs manipulations.
They took a sweet and caring person and turned me into a monster.
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It surprises me they didnt give us cattle prods and shock collars to make them comply.
Don't go there.
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Hey, I'm just in this business for the grateful teenage girls.
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Ya know, I really wonder if that lack of trust thing is really a disorder or if it's just that we learned enough about human nature to know better? Personally, the best way I've found to deal with it is to just not expect that much from people.
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Ya know, I really wonder if that lack of trust thing is really a disorder or if it's just that we learned enough about human nature to know better? Personally, the best way I've found to deal with it is to just not expect that much from people.
Without sounding like Ned Flanders, I would like to think it is a disorder, or at least a learned behaviour. I guess there is a fine line between being savvy and paranoid. Sure people can be shitheads but they can also be downright decent.
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Thing is, though, everybody has their breaking point and it's nowhere near as far from where you are as you'd like to think. And then there's the really harrowing reality that people can justify doing anything, and I do mean ANY kind of behavior at all, if it's something you have to do.
Case in point; look at the Aspen restraint video recently posted or the Bay County Boot Camp snuff flick that came out on US and international news affiliates around this time last year. In both cases, the perpetrators knew full well that they were being filmed. Look at their demeanor. Clearly, these people, all of them, believed that what they were doing was The Right Thing®
And you don't have to go into the Twilight Zone realm of fucked up programs for an example. Here's another glaringly obvious one. Most Americans don't think they're racist, do they? Of course not. Check out these two photos and their captions:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/01/191113.php (http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/01/191113.php)
When the 'news' broke about the rampant rioting, baby raping, murder and mayhem going down in the Super Dome in the aftermath of that storm, the media and public ate it up and swallowed it down and asked for more. I was watching a couple of local blogs from inside the area at the time. Fact is It Simply Didn't Go Down That Way At All! There was one murder and one death due to dehydration and one joker had been shooting at the heliocopters as they flew over. But that happens when the blimp overflies Overtown during Orange Bowl events. No baby rapers, no rampant mass murder. But no one ever questioned the story. It was so easily accepted by all that, when the coroner finally showed up at the super dome, he came with a full staff and 400 body bags. I think there may have been one or two other deaths due to all that duress among all those people. So 2 to 4 bodies, not 4 fucking hundred!
That's what scares me about people the most. Not that they usually or even very frequently intentionally do wrong, but the mighty awesome power of self delusion. Hitler was pretty good at plying just that quirk of human nature, and we all know how that story ended. I wonder how this one will end. I really do...
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Ya know, I really wonder if that lack of trust thing is really a disorder or if it's just that we learned enough about human nature to know better? Personally, the best way I've found to deal with it is to just not expect that much from people.
Without sounding like Ned Flanders, I would like to think it is a disorder, or at least a learned behaviour. I guess there is a fine line between being savvy and paranoid. Sure people can be shitheads but they can also be downright decent.
As far as I'm concerned, trust has to be EARNED, not expected. Makes me think of that stupid Summit/Lifespring exercise: "I trust you, I don't trust you, or I don't know if I trust you." We are then made to feel bad if either a lot of people told us they couldn't or didn't know if they could trust us, or if we said that often to others. (As if it was pathological.) We were supposed to trust everyone.
Doesn't mean I am going to assume the worst of everyone, nor do I feel it's a valid justification to micromanage an employee or a child, it just means, like Ginger said, that I'm not going to have huge expectations. It's a boundary issue.
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I agree. Trust, just like respect, has to be earned, on an individual basis, regardless of what you say or think you are, what anyone else says or thinks you are, what you have accomplished or what a sheet of paper decrees you to be.
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If you ain't skeert-n-pissed off ye just ain't been payin' attention.
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You'd be proud to know people here are pissed about that guy getting shot on his lawn down the road from where I work.
Damn proud.
:nworthy:
Florida's got some hope just yet, it'll just take the govt going away.
SADLY, that will not be easy, who the hell is gonna run against them?