Fornits

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An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Your Nun story reminds me of my first Serenity Prayer in AARC when someone yelled at me for looking at the floor because "GOD ISN'T IN THE CARPET!"

lol...Did they say that in The Straights?

What they said about it being inspired by things during the Bush administration I would think it is slightly connected. Most of the film industry in Vancouver is American.

There are a couple intensive outpatient programs for kids on drugs or with "behavioral problems" in Vancouver which have been compared to brainwashing. As far as I know they focus mainly on the "peeling the onion"  strategy and are about "digging". The most popular one is fairly secretive. Friends in child and youth services have only hinted to me that it's a bad place and won't go into details.

Sure, I'll try to keep this short.

I was in AARC for slightly over one year and like most I never wanted to be there. I'd been told that I could not leave because I was underage and if I tried I would be restrained and set back. Later on social services informed me that there was not supposed to be any age limit and AARC had no right to restrain anyone or keep us from leaving.

A few months in I started to abide by the rules or as the term goes "fake it till you  make it", which is easier said than done. It meant I had to change my personality completely. I wasn't good at faking tears on demand so I had to put myself in an altered state and try to beleive that I felt the things that they wanted to feel. I had to make myself believe that I was happy when they wanted me to be happy, or angry, or "hurt" or whatever the acceptable emotion for the step was. Though I thought I was only hiding myself not loosing myself I lost very much of myself. Being in raps for anywhere from six to thirteen hours a day autamatically changes you. The way you talk, the way you act, the way you feel, the way you think. Do you ever question the excess?

Though a bit niave I was a very brave young girl. I didn't care about what other people thought of me, I didn't question myself in a negative way, I was self evaluating, I didn't need to fit in, I didn't keep deep secrets or get embarrassed easily. All that changed by the end of AARC. Having been critisized and yelled at all year taught me to fear everyone and taught me to critisize myself terribly. I deffinately lost innocence in AARC. I had never been exposed to such dishonesty and brutality as I was in AARC. Verbal venom is the only way to describe what I experienced.

As a part of step one I had to admit (and not just say it but cry and all to prove that I really meant it) that I was the result of my families destruction. If you knew my family you would be utterly repulsed, or at least should be. What a terrible thing to have a child say. And Talks only feeds all of that. If the child doesn't feel singled out or targeted in the family already, Talks will do the trick. No regualr communication at all, just targetting the one member of the family as having the problem.

I hardly had a sexuality at that age, but was accused of all sorts of "sick" sexual issues. The things that I witnessed in Girls Rap were worse than pornography. I clearly recall a girl describing being gang raped at a party and the "counselor" and the group telling her that if she hadn't been such a drunk she wouldn't have gone to the party and none of it would have happened, therefore it was her fault for the rape. I believe the girls was 14 or 15 at the time of the rape. I'm still scarred from having to hear such hatred, I can only imagine how the girl feels.

I kept contact with a lot of graduates (considered healthy ones) for a fair amount of time after AARC. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM said to me at one time or another "I know AARC is a cult" or "I feel like I've been brainwashed" but yet all of them returned to the AARC circle, to staff, or never left it at all. They were so afraid of the outside world, or some of them had tried their hardest at school or jobs but could no longer fit in and so gave in an adapted. The same staff I've seen publically promoting AARC have told me how much they hated it. I eventually abandoned all of my graduate friends so that I would never end up that way, even though I loved some of them (and still do).

The longer I'm away and the more I grow up and can see things in a better perspective, the more I am shocked about what I experienced there. At the time all that I could think about was getting out. It was a huge part of my developement, and so thinking of messed up teens as "defected" and "sick" seemed so normal to me for a long time. I am very glad to say that today I don't speak to anyone in the manner I had to speak to newcomers in AARC every single day. I'm doing very well considering the things that I have been through not only with AARC but with my family, though I've put a lot of work into dealing with it and it is still a struggle.

I think in order for you to understand what it is like for your son in AARC, you'd have to put yourself in his shoes. What if you were sent into AARC or lets say a prison of sorts and you were never given a proper trial for it? What if you didn't get any chance to appeal it? What if you were denied your civil rights and given no approximate time as to when you'd get out? What if instead of being able to go to your cell and absorb all of this you were stood in front of a room of strangers who don't know one thing about you but still look delighted as they raise their hands to call you dirty names and accuse you of things you'd never done? If I said "You are a child molester" and you are not, would you bo okay with agreeing with me for a year or two just to get away? You have no idea what your son might confess to that he never did, or what he may be accused of doing.

The most disgusting article I ever read on AARC quoted a mother who said she'd severed contact with one of her sons in order to stick to the program and save her son in AARC. She said "But it's a small sacrifice". I hope that you don't ever consider loosing one of your kids as a "small sacrifice" because I doubt anyones kids would find it "small" for their parents to abandon them. So perhaps that is what Kilgore has been fearing. Please read up on programming and brainwashing, I'm sure things will look familiar. Perhaps I'll post some on here.

Take care,

Velvet.

I know, I thought about it and worried for your relationship with your family. I hate to break it to you but you are officially considered dangerous to your families health (especially your brother) because you have posted here and AARC staff reads this board regularily. I'm sorry that that puts you in a distant place. I don't know what level your brother is on, but when he reaches the level where he can make phone calls he will most likely not be allowed to speak to you, and probably encouraged to never speak to you again because you are "unhealthy". But you still have your parents and I hope that you hold on to them. I personally would feel that the most important thing for you to do for them would be to not respond to them in there new lingo, remind them how much you care for them, enourage them to take the little time they now have tothemselves to meet with people outside of the AARC circle, and keep them reminded of reality. All of a sudden they believe that they have always been "unhealthy, enablers, codependant, sick, self centered, people pleasers" and so on. While some of this may be true I'm sure that you'll know if they are blowing things out of proportion and suddenly being way harder on themselves that they need to be, or in the opposite case suddenly believing that they were doing the best they could but their kid was terribly "sick" and destroying them.

Oh the "doctorate". Here it is; He is not a psychologist. He had a doctorate in physical education, and had worked as a school counselor. Then he worked at Kids Centers of America (new jersey location). Then he did a correspondence course through The Union Institute of Cincinnati. The unique catch to this school is that the student makes their own guidlines for their own doctorate, instead of following and exact course load and living up to those expectations. Dean used ex Kids patients to help write the workbooks used in AARC (I know someone who wrote an entire one of those workbooks) and submitted those as his thesis. The title of the doctorate he was aiming for was Educations Psychology. So not only did he not recieve proper training for this doctorate, but he did not even write the thesis on his own! He is not a registered psychologist and never has been which is why he does not have to live up to the standards of a psychologist (such as keeping client confidentiality). He is legally allowed to be a liar, just not legally allowed to have a sign on his door reading "psychologist". That's why he is the "clinical director". Miller Newton who ran the Kids Centers of America (which have all been shut down) also recieved a doctorate through the same school.

One more thing, I forgot an important number! Please call 416-971-8555. This number is for anyone who is aware of an abusive drug treatment centre in Alberta, and is suspicious of programming, brain washing, keeping kids unlawfully and so on.

Within Canada you can call 1-866-34-ABUSE

Please keep us posted. If you fail, there will always be reminders to your brother on the internet that you cared.

"and I will sit here and continue being happy, productive, and deal with the normal struggles of life."

"Hey Dan..I am going to rape your wife,cut your balls off and shove them down your throat"

Wowsers, did anyone else notice that these two quotes are from the same post? Was it in Poltergiest where the girls head spins around all crazy? Violent threats say one thing about a person. Mention of sex crimes and genital mutilation say a whole lot more, no matter what context they are used in. But those must be some "normal struggles of life" that he's "dealing" with.

On 2002-06-28 15:00:00, Anonymous wrote:
Reaity isnt pleasant


Like I stated in the past..there were, by my estimates..2250 people to be in Elan for at least ten months...theres four or five who snivel and moan about it 10 even 20 years later...what the hell are the rest of them doing?

I find reality quite pleasant.

The rest of them are living in fear, or still under the Elan infulence.

Lock five flies in a jar for one month, poke a few holes in the lid and feed them. At the end of the month only two out of the five flies leave the jar, the rest of them become accustomed to their environment and forget about the world outside. Maybe flies are smarter than humans, I think only one out of ten humans would fly out of their jars.

Why did you copy and paste this? For those who don't know, this is a post from the old "banned" ezboard. And a bunch of bullshit too, but that rings pretty clear. Thought you guys were "too busy" to "waste your time" here?

It's been my experience that those who are truly serious about suicide work very hard on not letting anyone in on it. From your story it sounds to me as though he'd been planning on it for some time, and that it was very important for him to see you and the other friends that he invited, one last time. With all of the determination it must have took for him to not let out a tear or a flag sign that he wanted to die, and all of the determination it must have took him to go through with it, he could have used that same determination elsewhere. He could have gone back to AARC one last time, and faked that he was ready to seek help, just to say goodbye. I would assume that it wasn't what he wanted.

Even though I hardly knew Brian, it's still heartbreaking. I wish that all of us, from The Straights, or Kids, or AARC, or whatever, could come out surviving together.

"Mini Vause" did my assesment, and ran most of the raps until I was on about level three. A new Mini Vause is taking P.S's place, returning to school and all incase Miller Light retires.

Thank you for posting your story.