Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Scott Pickard? One of my oldcomers. What happened to him? What about Scott Simpson - Peggy's brother?

w

Awesome.

Evan made two great points:

1. 'Breaking down' someone deliberately (so they 'hit bottom') to soften them up for treatment is wrong.

2. Tying unregulated, non-professional 'treatment' to 'profit' is wrong.

The two points above he uses to contrast 'therapuetic treatment' programs to AA, which is (or should be) voluntary, non-coercive, and free. Many programs have taken the 12 steps and tied them to coercion, and to profit.

I read this on another thread regarding a christian academy, and I think it speaks to how shame, power and control can corrupt these schools and treatment centers. She writes so well; I wish her the best:

"Hey, all. I went to VCA in year 2002. I am now 18. My name Is Rachel Haygood. I am sure you remember if you went the same year I did. I was odd, that's for sure. Hehe.  
I would like to tell about a choice few of my experiences at Victory Christian Academy.
My first day at VCA, my father had paid my uncle and cousin I had never met to pick me up from a mental facility in Orlando, Fl and transport me to VCA. I was a cutter, had severe emotional issues from past abuse at home and at school. I was also suicidal. I had been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder over 6 times by different doctors. I was on paxil at the time. I was also ADD, and had a hard time in school. I had always been very intelligent and creative child, but needed a different approach on learning considering I learn differently from most people.
My Uncle and cousin sat on either side of me in their truck the entire way to Jay, Fl, where the school was located. Their doors were locked at all times, and when we pulled over to a rest stop they waited outside the bathroom for me. You would have thought they were taking me to prison. I didn't know where I was going. My mom had sent me a letter telling me they had found a nice, christian place for me to live with people who would get me on track. I did't know what to think. When i arrived at VCA, my uncle hugged me and left me with these people. The grounds were nice and well manicured. There was a big house-looking building.There were flowers. Little did I know it was the girls who were forced to keep up the entire place like slaves. The people there stared at me. Some of the younger girls seemed to look in envy at my pants. I wore a pair of my cousin's old kaki cargos. I then noticed what everyone was wearing. they wore these masculine-looking shorts that were baggy and came down to their knees. Some of the women who seemed older and in charge told me to come with them. They seemed, calm, and expressionless. They surrounded me and weren't at all phased by my fear and confusion of being dropped off at a cultic- seeming place where I was supposed to do what I was told with little explanation of where I was and who they were. They took me to a room and told me to undress in front of them. I refused. i was terrifed and they were all staring at me. Ms Charity and Ms Betty told me if I didn't undress immediately so I could shower they would make me shower by undressing me by force and throwing me in. I backed away and they grabbed me. It was so scary to me that I can't even recall all of it. I know my eyes were closed most of the time. They called in Brother John Kissel, who is male, and helped them hold me down and take off my clothes, then dump me in the shower and turn it on cold.I don't know if you can imagine being molested in that fashion by one, complete strangers, and two, someone of the opposite sex. But it caused me a lot of emotional problems in the future.
I was told if I didn't get saved, I would never go home. This is how they would manipulate us. No one got "saved". Girls were terrified. And they wanted to be cared for. Most of the girls there had been abandoned already by their parents, and they felt they only had their captors, being VCA staff to bond with and trust. They made many of us believe we wouldn't make it in the outside world, saying we needed them and the school to survive.Many girls got to a point that they were sick of being locked in the "Get-Right Room" For having their own beleifs or religions, or not going along with the brainwashing in the school. They were sick of being denied simple things like candy after meals, or soda on friday, or even their medications because they were a "sinner". I remember when I was denied my medication because I was "Misbehaving" by not walking fast enough for the girl who was watching me. Katherine Tillet was by buddier and was given permission to put her hands on me and push me whenever she wanted to, if I wasn't walking fast enough for her, or if I didn't get out of bed fast enough in the morning, she could drag me out by my hair. I remember being dragged by my arm down two flights of stairs by Ms Katie.Kathering was rough and took pleasure in the power she had been given by the staff. She would flatter them, suck up, lie, do anything to make them give her approval. They understood her grovelling, and even made fun of her behind her back for it. It was really sad. But she never saw it. Katherine got permission to punish me for swearing by making me lie in a thin gown with not even a sheet on the hard, dorm floor and with not even a pillow for three nights.Girls who had been in the school for much longer had no pity, most of them. Some liked watching new girls go through that; some laughed at me when they walked by. I was very cold, and got no sleep, as is to be expected.
I went on about only a few of the physical abuse situations I encountered. Now I will tell about some emotional abuse.
Daily, either Brother Palmer or Brother Brown would scream at us during chapel, telling us we were "dirty, discusting pigs and whores" and that we were "going to hell" and that if we were homosexual God hated us more than anything else. I remember one time when Brother Palmer took a poor girl, Amy F., and had her sit in front of the chapel, facing the entire room. He told her she had slept with her boyfriend back home, and that she was worthless and sick. He screamed at her and about her, cutting her down until she cried violently.She cried until her entire face was red with tears. He was mad at her because she was caught talking about things besides God, and her parents. We weren't allowed to talk about radio, movies, friends, games, TV, bands of any kind,music exept for hymns, and we couldn't even say the word 'Pants" Because good women didn't wear pants in their opinion, and they were a sign of a rebellios women who didn't follow after her husband like a stupid sheep. Ironically, they taught us to be housewives, have kids, and worship our husbands, when the women there did none of this. they weren't humble, they weren't a crown to their husbands; instead, they were overly-bold and controlling women-staff. They were manipulative to the men, and then told us differently. Ms Betty always told me that the husband would come first. That we were to work for the men and let them make all the choices and decisions in all matters; that we had no say. She claimed to be a humble and meek wife, always respecting her husband and being by his side. Ms Betty was loud, controlling, nosy, talked all the time, loved to intimidate girls and make herself look like someone to be afraid of.She would make sure she got her way,all the time. I never saw God in her. One time Brother Brown was preaching chapel on homosexuality. He said that if we thought it was wrong and they were going to hell,to stand up in chapel. The girls that didn't stand up, he made other girls yell at and put down, and make fun of. It was cruel, sick, and satanic in my opinion. He was very intimidating when he wanted to be. He would scream. He had a very loud voice, and quite a temper.It was like one big mind-bubble. It was trance they had you in. And if anyone broke that trance of belief, they would be silence, one way or another. They wouldn't let you voice your thoughts. They would go through my things periodically and throw my writings (poems, stories) away because I wasn't "writing about scripture". We had no privacy at the school, no way to contact anyone or anything from the outside world. It was all forbidden, and "Worldly". You were not permitted to make friends. If you did, they would put you on separation, where you would have to wear a pink shirt every day. Girls who were a suspect of talking about things that weren't VCA subjects, like God, Bible, how much you loved VCA and how it helped you, etc, were put on the pink shirt rule, and were looked down upon and ridiculed by other girls. No one wanted to talk to you because you were "bad" and it would make them look bad if they were too nice to you.It was hard having few friends and people to rely on and talk to.I know for a fact many VCA girls begged God every night to show their ignorant parents what was really going on at the school. You may have gotten closer to God there, but it wasn't because of their torture and cultic practices. It was because of the pain of being left with people who acted nice and civil in front on your parents, sane, even. And when they left, the real horrors began.Many girls grew to hate God because this was the only thing they knew of him. They actually thought these fanatics refelected our loving God. These people are tools or satan because they drive people from how God really is, making them think God must be hateful, because they claim God is on their side.Of course girls will be turned away.This is so damaging. I remember watching a girl being forced to eat her own vomit because she couldnt finish her food. It was horroble to watch.Many of us wanted to fight back, and many of us did. But it never lasted for long. They always won. If you tried to stand up for another girl in the school, you would be given the same punishment as her, basically.
If you wrote things to your parents that the staff didn't want them to know about,they would sometimes blot it out with white out or black permanent marker if they thought it would be taken as truth. But If what was going on at the school was being expressed to the parents in letters, the staff would explain to the parents the girls were lying and just wanted to get away from their problems.They would leave it there in the letters to make you look bad. They told the parents that if they took their child out of the school before their year, things would never be successful between them and their child. It was their way of getting more money.
The staff always chose favorites with the girls. It was really wrong because there were some girls who were naturally more dull, or less pretty than other girls, or were less likely to suck up. These girls were ignored and were only given attention when the girls called their name, or had a question about a rule or something.But besides that, they never helped them with their problems, talked about working through problems that got them to VCA in the first place, or anything. There were certain girls they would pick to hug and spend time with. They would only hug certain girls, and others who desperately wanted attention might have tried to hug a staff member and been reprimanded for it in front of the pet girl. It was twisted. Of course that girl would get it in her head that she was special and would treat the other girls in a mean and rude manner. This was tolerated because she was a favorite.
If a girl was sick, oftentimes the staff would say she was faking it and make her carry around a trashcan to school and everything when she vomited. It was sad to watch because you would many times, see that a girl really WAS sick and had a fever, but they didn't care. The school system was a joke. The staff knew little about school, and how to teach. A lot of the time they didn't even know the workbooks, themseleves. It was just another situation where no one was qualfied. I was suicidal. I had depression. Was I given therapy? No. Was anyone? No. According to them, medicine was for weak people who didn't trust God. We were made fun of almost daily by the staff for taking meds for legitamate reasons. Our parents had sent us the meds and requested us be given them. This is the only reason they gave them to us. Even then,they would use it against you, as I said before, as a tool of manipulation. I failed school utterly at VCA. Some girls did good working for hours and hours in cramped cubicles with no breaks. I didn't. I left VCA so behind in my schooling due to their failure to teach me and help me with my subjects, I couldn't return to public schools. I had to be homeschooled until my graduation. They said school didn't matter, anyways, and that we should be focusing on out daily chores and bible, more than anything,anyways. I left VCA with more emotional problems than I had when I went in. Thankfully, I have been able to work through them. I care about these girls, and want them out of there for good.
If you are a parent and are thinking about sending your child to a place like this, please think twice about it-LOOK INTO THE PROGRAM. If a place tells you you can only visit your child at certain times, like, for an example, you can't see your child for 3 months straight, there is a problem. I want you to be able to contact your child whenever you feel the need, and not be manipulated by the people who run it. I want you to be able to write and recieve letters from your child without them being read. It's privacy anyone deserves. Think for yourself. I am sure it's hard to have a kid who doesn't connect with you, maybe doesn't listen to you, maybe is experiencing some really bad things at school, home, with a boyfriend, or maybe experienced sexual molestation. I spoke with many girls at VCA who had been sexually molested. You would be suprised at how many of their parents overlooked this and just sent them away thinking they were bad. Maybe you have no relationship with your kid, and you think sending them away to a psyco- cult commune where they are treated like animals and not even given the right POW'S have when they have their little fucking prayer mats to pray to Allah on 1000 times a day. At least they are given the right to think about which god they want to pray to. At least they are being respected enough to have a right to think. And these people are the types that jump in airplanes and blow up trade centers. It's only right. And look what is happening to our childen in our own country. These staff members are unqualified, there is no doctor on campus, there is nothing safe about the place. They will hire anyone as staff without background checks. These places are not accountable to ANYONE. You never know what they are able to do to your child.Think first.Don't be another rash parent and give your child to these dangerous people. A lot of parents meant well, and now their daughers are sluts and strippers on the streets and are dying from meth and heroin. These places take girls with potential and destroy them emotionally and spirtually. They don't help.If any of you have gone to VCA and need to talk or just have questions in general, feel free to IM me anytime. OrnaDuyessa.(AIM SN)
~Rae"

Rae, you write beautifully about your experience. I stumbled upon this post, actually I was at another program, called the Seed, in the late 70s. I left and 20 years later, started reading and posting here. Your experience differed from mine in that the Seed had no Christian theme, and was perhaps a bit less abusive, especially when I was there BUT - the shame, humiliation, control issues are the same.

Have you seen the movie about the Magdelen houses they ran in Ireland for unwed mothers? It's all the same - shame, control, and abuse, all in the name of love.

Take care, keep writing.

That's an interesting question - what would my life be like, if I had never entered the Seed.

Well, based upon Maia's interview, I was one of the kids that would have been most damaged - a non-drug addicted, long-term Seed resident.

I also had some serious emotional issues. Like many of us, I came from a deeply damaged family environment. A very unhappy, alcoholic, divorced, messed up environment. I turned a lot of my pain inward, and became depressed, anxious and socially withdrawn. What I had would now be called Social Phobia, but there was no diagnosis like that then.

There are more opportunities for someone who is suffering today, to connect with others and to learn about issues, via the internet. An unhappy 17 year old today can find a lot more support then I had, I think. Of course, there are just as many quacks and false prophets around, too.

So, if I could have found a happy family-type environment, based upon friendship, AND found help with the overwhelming feelings of panic and shame that were choking off my sense of happiness with life, then YES - I would have loved to have spent seven years more productively, going to school, making friends, exploring careers. As it was, I had to jump back into life at (it felt old then) at 26 years, and scramble to 'do' life again. My Seed years were pretty much a dead end - although I have reconnected with a few of my friends through this forum, it's 20 years later and we aren't connected in the same way that my wife is with her college friends, who are life-long friends. I don't have any lifelong friends, and my family life has that 7 year gap that might never be bridged.

So - what a question.

Marc,

I too feel the need to think and talk about the Seed quite a lot, after keeping it buried for many, many years.

Why?

I don't know. From this forum, I have had contact with eight or nine seedlings from my era. Without naming anyone, here's a tally:

1 - female, was a newcomer when I was an oldcomer. Posted a few times here, was ambivalent but mostly negative about the Seed. Currently married with children and owns a very successful business. We emailed a few times, but her career takes priority.

2 - male, was a staff member when I came in. Posts here, we've talked on the phone and emailed. I think he was initially shocked when I had anything negative to say about the Seed, because he is one who feels it saved his life. We're in touch - I think he's a great guy, and we agree to disagree.

3 - female, was an oldcomer before me at a nother Seed branch, moved to Ft. Lauderdale when I was there - posted here a bit. We emailed quite actively, and she had been a long-term Seedling, and kept up with a lot of people. She is pretty open to both positive and negative Seed aspects, and feels that the biggest flaw was that the Seed kids by and large did not have children, even after they married. She cut off contact because she felt that it was living in the past. Married with children.

4 - male, newcomer with my brother before me, posts here regularly. Very anti-Seed, was a staff 'side-kick' for a long while, left about the same time I did. He, like me, went on to become an artist. We email from time to time.

5 - male, long-term Seedling, currently an academic. Struggled to find an identity post-Seed, came to terms with being gay, which was something the Seed had trouble with. Posts here on occasion, we've spoken, he's aware of good and bad effects. Still close to some Seedlings.

6 - male, was on the front row with me. Engineer. Posts here from time to time, we've emailed, he's pretty anti-Seed, but shares with me some good memories. Has kids and is married, sounds very happy.

7 - male, newcomer when I was an oldcomer, successful business owner. We've spoken and emailed, he struggled with the Seed hierarchy and leaving was hard, he does feel that it saved his life although he has been critical, that's his bottom line.

8 - long-term seedling, oldcomer when I was, we lived together then, he's had a long career in a technical field and stuck with the Seed for a long time. We emailed, but he didn't reply after I made a comment critical of the Seed. Nice guy, but I don't think he wants to have anything to do with me on that basis at present. Pro-Seed.

9 - female, oldcomer when I was, was forced out of the Seed for some infraction, VERY anti-Seed, has posted here, but not recently.

10 and 11 - these are two people who I didn't know, one posts here and has written eloquently on the Seed, is very anti-Seed; and another, who started emailing me but has stopped, was on staff in early Seed days and is very perceptive about the process of the group - essentially anti-Seed but mostly because he feels Art screwed up.

I've had contact with one or two others, but the above are the main ones. Looks like an even division - one each, very anti-Seed, one each, very pro, and the rest divided. These are the people who, at least for a while, wanted to talk about this experience and reconnect. I am aware that there are others, many many others, who would just rather not talk about it. I think because it confuses them, they are not ready to deal with ambivalent feelings, or perhaps anger, or other disturbing emotions. They prefer to remember vaguely that it was tough but they did it, and maybe they're better of for it, or maybe not, but the past is the past.

For whatever reason, I needed to dredge it all up and have a look at it...

W

Marc Polonsky wrote about the same feeling:

http://www.insidersview.info/theseed.htm

Pretty amazing. I had to read Marc's version to recapture the exact feeling.

"The one thing I remember distinctly about my first full day at the Seed was that the morning rap was on "conning." It was a horrifying and awakening experience for me because when people stood up and said things like "I thought I could con the Seed by just saying everything they wanted me to," I realized that the Seed was after a very different, more fundamental kind of change than I had thought. I was scared."

"But for some reason, the only point on which I did not eventually give way to Stan was that I was happy before I came to the Seed. This was enough to enrage him. He would demand, "What about those nights when you lied awake in bed, wishing things were different somehow because you knew you just didn't feel right?" and I would reply that there had been no such nights. And he would tell me what an asshole I was, and so on. It was in fact this very argument that, on the night before I was finally allowed to go home, led him to comment, "You've made some progress but you're not even in the same ballpark as being allowed to go home."

"But that progress I had made had already cost me dearly. I felt like I had betrayed my friends and my sister and that I was no longer the same person. Even if I were to be completely pulled off the program at that point, I could not go back to being the person I had been. I could no longer think clearly or reflect on things in the privacy of my own mind, the way I had used to. My mind was too cluttered and confused and reflexively frightened of being invaded. Stan [oldcomer]had always been asking, "What are you thinking?" when I had least expected it. This "What are you thinking?" ploy of Stan's had been very effective in breaking down my resistance and cutting me off from my internal resources."

"It took me well over a decade to understand what had happened to me, what the Seed had done to my psyche, and what I'd done to myself while I was in the Seed. I strongly suspect that my internal process was very similar to that of many other Seedlings, though I cannot speak for others.

In a nutshell, the Seed forced me to "mean things that were not true." Under the combined pressures of sleep deprivation, lack of privacy, and constant haranguing both at the Seed and in Stan's charge, I eventually, with my words, betrayed everything that was sacred to me at that time in my life. I felt that if my friends on the outside still had any good feelings for me, then I no longer deserved them.

The obvious question, though, is why did I have to mean it? Why couldn't I simply say what I was being forced to say, but hold the words more lightly? Why couldn't I, or anyone else for that matter, simply "con" the Seed?"

"The strategy I believe most Seedlings adopted (including me) was to try and persuade themselves that the Seed had to be right. Maintaining a consistent lie, a conscious subterfuge, under such stressful conditions was a tall order for an unsophisticated young teenager. Also, I saw other Seedlings getting "busted" for conning right and left in the group. (I have no idea how many of those accused of conning were actually deliberately conning, any more or less than the rest of us.)

I remember a moment of horror, on the evening of my seventh or eighth day, when I realized that I was unable to "think" any longer. I had lost the ability to retreat into the sanctuary of my own mind and think things through, because I had grown so accustomed to being intruded upon without a moment's notice. It was as if I'd had a sealed off room in my head that had previously been accessible only to myself, and now even I could not enter. (I think I may known even then, in my heart of hearts, that I would regain access to this room at some point in my life, but it would be a long time, much longer than I could accept at age 14.)

During my time with Stan, I put a great deal of energy into resisting him. I set up a psychic force field, as it were, between us. To keep from being devoured, I had to maintain a certain tension, a precarious balance between overt resistance and total surrender. So I emerged at last from his dominion with a certain meager sense of myself intact. But still, I felt horribly guilty and empty, as if I had been pillaged and broken.

At some point shortly after being allowed to go home, I was sitting in the large warehouse room, in the group, at the Seed, pondering how I still believed myself to be "different" from everyone else there, and wondering what good it did me to feel this way. I could see how it was causing me pain. I could not see how it would ever serve me. My fate, as far ahead as I could see, was locked. There was nothing for me but to be a Seedling. I might as well be one then, and wholeheartedly embrace whatever attendant rewards there were. There were some: I could feel a part of something larger than myself. I could be part of an (albeit self-proclaimed) elite. I could have friends, a community, an identity. Why hold out for some other ambiguous set of rewards that I had already sold myself out of anyway?

And here is where I made a strange decision. I decided to make myself a true Seedling. All the energy I had put into resisting Stan, I now directed at my own resistance. I now became my own primary oppressor, working to deny and even to change my genuine feelings. After all, I already felt that I had betrayed myself (and all of my friends), I was already lost; one step further would not make a difference. I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In one sense this "strategy" worked brilliantly. I moved through the rest of the program very quickly. Perhaps it was only an extension, really, of what I'd been doing in the Seed all along up until then, nothing fundamentally different in kind. Whenever the tension between what I really thought and felt and what I was "supposed to" think and feel became too apparent and unbearable to me, I had to deny the conflict and push it out of mind. I was unable to "ride out" the discomfort of being divided. My choices were either to consciously live a lie, or start working internally against my own emotions. I didn't see myself as capable of the former."

I don't care if you thought the Seed was a great experience and you are a happy ex-Seedling, if you thought the Seed sucked, or if you are ambivalent. I believe that everyone went through a similar internal process, and Marc really captured it.