GONE 14 MONTHS. home. 2yr aniv.

This statement was given on a Myspace blog. All rights belong to the original author.

I never blog.
I figured that today was a day worth it. Well today.. as in the date. June 23rd. Except for the fact that it was two years ago... and it was a Thursday. But a one time a year, June 23rd none the less.

Sunday, December 31, 2006
..> ..>
my story. and thanks to 2006<3

If you have been wondering about where I was for the fifteen months I "dissapeared" and you have the patience.. read on.

Thanks to friends etc on the bottom.

<3
I don't really know where to begin or where to end this. Considering I was in an all girls level three lockdown boarding school at this time last year, I guess I have a combined of 2005 and 2006. Things were hard. I was in an amazing relationship when I first left home in June of 2005. I had been with him for a while and I guess I would consider him my first love. Combined with my lack of motivation and ambition when it came to things I had always loved such as sports and spending time with my family, as well as dropping out of highschool, I was going down hill fast and my parents knew they had to do something to help me.

So I had been staying with my friends family, considering the circumstances of my home life, and my parents one day asked me to return home. I had been there for two weeks and then my family decided we were going to go to Arizona for vacation. Everything was cool, I packed, stayed up all night (considering we were leaving at 5am) and waited for my boyfriend to come say goodbye to me before he rushed off to work bright and early. It's crazy how you can seem to remember such vivid details on the days you would rather forget. I remember what I was wearing. A white wife beater with red gym shorts, no makeup on, drinking a capri sun sport. (The yellow kind) I had been downloading music all morning talking to Kyle Scaletta til 5am on the computer. I wrote my boyfriend a cute letter to give to him. So my boyfriend came over. He didn't want to kiss me in front of my parents while they were packing the car, his attempt at being a gentleman, so I begged my dad to let him kiss me. He agreed. He was wearing a white shirt with old white pants his dc hat and older shoes... such vivid details.

As I got in the backseat of our suburban and we pulled out of the driveway, I watched him walk to his car. For some reason I remember listening to seven years (saosin) and just crying as I watched him get into it. I didn't realize at the time why, but I soon understood why.

I guess, because of staying up all night, the exhaustion had caught up with me. I fell asleep quickly. I remember getting up out of the car to eat something at Burger King. Then we got back into the car and I fell asleep again. We were supposed to taking a trip to Arizona, but later I found out that not only had I been sleeping while we passed the Arizona Utah border, but I had also been sleeping long enough for my parents to set the time back on our car clock so nothing seemed fishy about driving so long on just an Arizona trip.

We arrived in some hick town. I saw the gas station and I had to use the restroom badly. We had parked in some sort of parking lot, abandoned looking, but not quite, and I darted across the street. My dad looked at me and went and grabbed me and told me to use the restroom in the building they were going in. He grabbed me with fear in his eyes. I should have realized it right then. My parents told me they were just going to grab some brochures, and I asked the lady at the front desk if I could use their restroom. As she grabbed my arm (I began to grow weary) and brought me into the backroom. She handed me a small cup and told me to pee in it.

She pushed me into the restroom. I looked all around the restroom trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I paced back and forth. The door had no lock and the side door on this old house which was now a business building, had been boarded up. I looked at a large sign on the side of the wall which read "Aspen Achievement Academy." I threw the cup inside the bag and tossed it on the ground.

As the lady ran into the restroom to make sure it didn't come out, I darted for the door. It was locked, outside in. It was one of those classroom doors with the small rectangular window on the upper right side. I saw her face, pale. She was balling and I was screaming. I had no idea what the fuck was going on and I didn't have any desire to stick around and find out. My sister and brother were sitting in the car, and my entire book of poetry was in there as well. I just wanted to say goodbye to my fucking sister. That's all I wanted! I was kicking screaming balling. Anything I could do. I had no idea where I was and I just wanted to say goodbye. My friends had no idea where I was. My boyfriend had no idea where I was. I just wanted to say goodbye to him. That's all I wanted. (Here I go crying again...)

After a few minutes my eyes were so swollen I could barely see out of them. The lady took my blood (my biggest fear) missing the first two times. I looked back out the window on the door and saw the empty window no longer filled with my parents faces. I felt so alone. After that they took me out the the back room where I met up with a girl who had arrived just a few minutes after me. There they had us strip down. Squat and cough. The whole deal. They dealt us out our 10 granny pannies that we had to make deal with for the entire time we spent there. We had to take out all of our piercings. They gave us long johns, one thermol, three plain blue t's (the aspen uniform) green wool pants, cacky cargo pants, converse and hiking boots.

They took us out onto the field. Here is the confusing part to follow along. So the facts. We were in hicktown Utah, and they drove us in an old beaten up truck for two hours out into the wilderness of Utah. They dropped us off there.

Two/three staff which change every wednesday, and on average 8-10 girls per group. 4 levels. mouse, coyote, buffalo, and eagle. Mouse is the transition level when you arrive out on the field (there phrase for when you are pushed against your will into the wilderness of Utah) on average it takes two days to move up to coyote, which is when you can eat real food, and talk to the other girls in your group. Until then you are just a bystander, silently watching the other girls. It took me five days. I was stubborn. You only have to be on level two (coyote) to graduate, and each level that you move up to has more priveledges, but more requirements as well. I made it to coyote. And I spent the lot of my 8 weeks at Aspen Achievement Academy on coyote.

It isn't easy. On average hiking 5-6 miles a day. This isn't your treadmill 5-6 miles. This is your up moutains, puffing your inhaler every 10 minutes 5-6 miles.

Sleeping outside every night, under a tarp, with only your sleeping bag to keep you warm. You only slept as good as you attached your tarp to the tree. If it was raining and it flew off, you either tuffed it out or got out in the freezing cold to fix it. You had to bust a fire with sage on sage, or you ate cold. (which usually consisted of oatmeal no sugar=] )

Thursday is graduation day, which means the girls that were going to graduate soon left on Thursday, they met up with all the other graduates from the other twelve groups out on the field (no the girl groups never saw the guy groups, let alone any other group) then on sunday the parents would come out and stay til graduation on Tuesday, where the kids reunited with their parents and showed them everything they had learned while they had been out on the field.

I was there for almost eight weeks, but the time it takes you to graduate just depends on the progress you make. My therapist at AAA, I hated with a passion. My parents were hoping that I would learn my lesson during my eight weeks, and regain my ambition for life, and I could return home. My Therapist convinced them that "I was like wet cement and needed to set" so my parents made the decision to send me to a boarding school named Copper Canyon Academy, in Rimrock, Arizona. I was first convinced this program was a 3-6 month program, but later came to find out that most girls who graduated, did so in about 14-16 months. This hit me like a bullet.

I was in highschool. Missing my entire sophmore year, and it was probable i would be there through junior year as well? fresh summer, soph year, soph summer, and junior year? I just couldn't comprehend, or understand, what I had done to bring my life to this. I knew I had made mistakes, and I realized a lot of my wrong doing during my stay at Aspen, but still. 16 months? Wow.

When I first came to CCA. They had one house for highschool girls (about 35) and a junior high campus on the other side of town. (much smaller) They were building two new houses on a huge lot of land they had about 500 feet from the house we were currently living in, and they were planning on making the two new houses for the highschool girls, selling the house on the other side of town, and moving the junior high girls into the one we were currently living in. There were four levels, just like the other program, but much different. We had strict uniforms, pants no more than an inch under your belly button, cacky or blue bottoms, pleated skirts only. no shorter than two inches above your knee. Level ones wore red shirts, level two wore blue, three wore maroon, and four wore green. These shirts were all shirts that had been previously used by other girls at the school. You had seven shirts, and had to do your laundry once a week. You could also be on probation which meant you still wore the color of the level you were on, but had the priveledges of the level before. There was staff buddy, which wore a green highlighter shirt, and had to be two feet from staff at all time. You usually got this as a result of self mutilation, or attempting to run. (You are probably wondering why I didn't try? No one ever got away. The school had private detectives.) Even Mexico couldn't save you.

There was also the "silence vest" you know those bright orange things that crossing guards wear? If you were caught gossipping you had to wear this silence vest for twenty four hours. This meant no looking at ANY OTHER PERSON at the school in the eyes, unless they were an adult and you were simply asking them for direction. Crazy huh...

You could not only go on probation for your level, but also get dropped. Every Tuesday we voted for whether or not people should move up to the next level, but people could also get dropped if they had shown through with one of their old non-working behaviors (manipulation, stealing, lying, cheating etc.) I never got dropped, but I spent close to four months on level one due to my lack of motivation. I kept my head on strong once I reached level two and kept working my entire time there. Because of financial issues (the eight grand a month started to wear on my parents) they decided to pull me from the program a month early of graduation. I needed to start a new school, because I would not be allowed to return to Rancho High School, and they wanted me to spend a month at home before school, as well as go see my grand parents in Oregon. I left CCA on July 29,2006. I came home August 1, 2006, after spending some time with my family in Arizona.

Although I didn't go into depth on the emotional issues and problems I encountered during my stay at AAA and CCA, it was extremely intense. All of this is a soft spot for me and I usually don't like to go into much detail with people, because it's tougher for me to relive it all then many of you could fathom. Now I'm at home, and although I have relapsed on a few of the things that had me down before all of this, I have quickly picked myself back up. I am doing extremely well in every facet of my life, and am simply enjoying it!

Source: GONE 14 MONTHS. home. 2yr aniv. (Myspace blog)

Q & A about Missanabie Woods Academy

Missanabie Woods Academy was a wilderness camp and not exactly a mainstream wilderness program where the minors only live in tents and hike. However elements of the treatment the staff inflicted on the minors were the same as in any other wilderness program. Here is an interview with one of boys who were there for many years ago.

• Your name, first and last.
  Brian Fey
• To which institutions were you sent?
  Missanabie Woods Academy
• How old were you?
  14
• Date you entered The Program/ Date you left.
  1980; I was only there in the summer.
• What was the highest level you attained?
  I don't recall such levels. We had ranks. Perhaps they had not started using these levels, or I was there too short a time for it to matter. I did advance in rank and usually had second rank in my squad. Everything was handled by rank; things such as what food you got to eat... when there was a bread roll there you had to ask: “Would any one before me (higher rank) like this roll?” And starting with the squad leader going on down the line people would have the option to eat it. If they didn't want it you could have it.
• Please describe the circumstances that got you sent to The Program, i.e. trouble with law, issues with parents, problems at school, etc.
  No problems at all. I was a pretty innocent little guy. Grew up in a loving environment.
  
  The trip was to be to a survival camp in Ontario and was a reward from my parents to me for good schoolwork. I had a lot of wilderness experience. The brochure was total misrepresentation of that the place was about. After I arrived it was obviously not what was advertised and my parents called to get me out. Most of the students there seemed to have been sent my the courts.
  
  Oddly, I chose to stay. And I did try to use the place for my benefit regardless of its messed up nature. I had been kinda of wuss and the experience did make me tougher, though I think it damaged me emotionally as well. I didn't mind the hard work as I was used to that. If I recall right, I got runner up for student of the year. My name should be on a plaque somewhere. The other students thought I was wacked for choosing to stay.
• Which house were you in?
  Squad 3. We had a bunkhouse over near to the canoe docks. The other two squads shared a bunkhouse I believe. My impression was that Squad three was for sort of smart guys. Squads 1 and 2 were divided by wusses, and tough guys. I was happy I was not placed in the wuss squad. There were girls in a camp across the inlet, but I had no contact with them though we went over once to put out a fire in their camp.
• Please describe instances of abuse you experienced while in the program, if any.
  Program director Bud Teare is the only person in my life to assault me. (Except a drugged out dude on the street once and a girlfriend who hit me once.) Our bunkhouse was not clean so they lined us up and each of us was hit on the face. I think it was the side of the face. I fell down and didn't want to get up because I didn't want to get up again. They told me to get up so I did because I was afraid they would kick me. They had kicked another student (Kent) in the stomach when he was already lying on the ground earlier. I wrote how I thought that was wrong in my journal. They read the journal and then Bud and a tall guy with a beard whose name I forgot came to correct my thinking and show my why they need to use these techniques.
  
  I never agreed with them inside but I didn't argue anymore and certainly wasn't going to be honest in “my” journal.
  
  I got punished for some little things like I asked if the water for post-meal cleanup had arrived... I had just walked past it without noticing it so I had to go walk off the dock. Certainly walking off the dock is no big deal; just kinda cold. I was kinda a spaced out person and still am. It is just how I am by nature.
  
  I do not appreciate being assaulted.
  
  There are many other examples of their violence and ineptitude. It is all pretty classic brainwashing techniques being used by less than skilled people.
  
  James Leach(?) was a sadistic man there. I recall that right after my 48 hour survival solo he demanded that I take my axe test. My whole body was weak and I said I didn't wish to be he was in charge and made me. I did poorly of course not having eaten, except for a few plants, for a couple days. He really enjoyed watching me fail. I had no lack of skill with an axe as I grew up cutting wood and trees.
  
  There was also a sadistic assistant squad leader from another squad but luckily I only had contact with him when were were out on some multi-squad hike. It is the same kind of sadism encouraged in fraternities when they haze pledges. One generation of abuse breeds another.
  
  Other students had a far worse time that me because I was cooperative and did not fight the program. “Fronting” is the term used, I believe. Some students apprently had experience with “Mr. Black” a rubber strap they were hit with. I have no personal knowledge of that though. I just cooperated and worked hard while knowing these people were seriously damaged. It took one guy three days to convince them that he has broken his leg on the ropes course. They should have better medical training. Eventually they took him out and got his leg set and put in a cast. He was kinda a whiner so maybe that makes it understandable.
• Describe abuse of other students you witnessed, if any.
  They had kicked another student (Kent) in the stomach when he was already lying on the ground. I got the impression that my squad was generally less trouble than the others. I did not see many cases of actual physical abuse and it is harder to tell what mental abuse is. Certainly some kids do need some tough experiences to get them in tune with civilized behavior. The program directors could use some help in that area as well.
• Do you have any good memories of The Program? What are they?
  We jumped off some cliffs into the lake. That was fun and scary.
  
  I liked the competitions and did very well in them. Memory is fuzzy on this... but I recall first place in Orienteering and Survival Solo. Second in a canoe race. I don't remember the rest.
  
  There were some nice people there as well. An older guy who taught me how to build things a little. I think his name was Garret. I wish I could have spent more time with him. I assume he has since died. He was a real Christian.
  
  My squad leader was named Brad I think. He was ok.
  
  I kinda wonder what happened to the other guys in squad 3. They were odd people. I never got to know them too well though. we were not supposed to talk about personal things. I was only 14 and not very socially skilled either.
  
  The work was hard. We carried heavy logs that cut the skin off our shoulders. And I was on the saw squad working long hours trying to break out records for making boards out of logs. That was pretty fun in a painful kind of way.
• What is your overall impression of The Program - did it “help you”?
  It helped me be less weak and be able to handle pain well. It helped me to crush my emotions.
  
  Certainly the experience taught me how twisted “Authority” can be.
  
  These people have serious problems. These kinds of people should not be in the business of “helping” youth, especially not youth who are having some problems. Maybe it is different now. I doubt it. It does seem like they couldn't get away with such stuff as they did when I was there in a world of internet etc... but maybe they can. When I was there, there was supposely a Canadian mail strike so there was no contact via letters. The only time I had outside contact was the phone call from my parents.
  
  I do not see the program as christian in any way. They just use the words of christianity to support they messed up program. Christ would hate to have his name associated with this stuff. It isn't a good survial training program either. Maybe it can teach city kids something but it certainly isn't very advanced.
  
  I was never really the same after that. I was no longer was open with people and I never told anyone about the things that happened there. This letter is the most I have ever said. There are many other small stories, but I don't care much about this stuff. They are just a tiny part of the messed up world of violence and hate.
  
  Though the program was good for me in some ways, I think I would have been a much healthier person and been better off not having gone.
• What do you think of the quality of education you received?
  Unimpressive. I was expecting a wilderness survival school. Not a brainwashing survival school. They lied about what the program was. Most of the activities and training listed in the brochure never happened.
  
  We did build a pretty big dining hall. They didn't really try to teach of how to do it though. We were just the labor.
• How old are you today?
  38
• Did you go to college afterward? If so, what degrees do you have?
  I went to the University of Washington and have a degree in Editorial Journalism from the School of Communications.
• What is your profession?
  I am an artist. Painter.
• Do you consider yourself a Christian today?
  No. The actual words of Christ I am fine with, but the rest of it and a lot of the church don't seem to be Christian. I like Zen a lot. Perhaps I am an Anamist or Pantheist. I am mostly a philosophical materialist.
• What effect did “The Program” have on your faith?
  I no longer believed in a judeo-christain diety after I was 12 years old.
  
  The faith of a child did not become the faith of a man, though the culture and ethics of much of loving chritianity I retain to this day.
  
  The program did not affect my faith in any way though I did see a pretty ugly side of christianity in some things there. Bud Teare told us he was in favor of the deuteronomy solution to homosexuality which he said is to put a millstone around their neck and throw them in a lake.
  
  But... I tried to see the loving christianity I was exposed to growing up as pretty different than the twisted version that these folks seemed to be following.

Source:

• The original interview on NHYM-ALUMNI
• Datasheet about the program on Fornits Wiki

This testimony was published by Kimberly on another Blogspot blog. All rights goes to the original author

Joy

Have you ever gone with out showering for 57 days? I don't think so. Well if you consider billy baths a shower than you are crazy! A billy bath is when you get two small containers filled with creek water and two drops of concentrated camp soap. You got to have a "billy bath" once a week. A billy bath was the equivalent of a shower at Wilderness camp.

I had to deal with this because I was sent to SUWS of the Carolinas. SUWS of the Carolinas is one of the most prestigious wilderness camps for teenagers. It is sort of like Outward Bound but much more intense, and it isn't voluntary. I was sent there for partying a little bit too much.

Throughout my time at wilderness I had many crazy experiences. A normal day consisted of getting our pants and shoes brought to you in the morning (you had to give your counselor your pants and shoes evernight to prevent people from running...which it didn't accomplish).

After you woke up you would go get the bear bags with your group. Bear bags was an area at every site that you would go to, far away from where you slept to hang your food, toothpaste, and trash at night so bears wouldn't come attack you. You would everynight thrown a rope onto a very high tree and have to tie up all the bags and hoist it up there.

So after retrieving your food we would all walk back to camp and start to take down camp. We were given about 35-40 minutes to take down our tents, pack up our packs, destory the loo, and get breakfast made. Breakfast was a cup of oatmeal with a pinch of brown sugar, a scoop of powdered milk, and raisons if you were lucky. Not a very appetizing Breakfast to say the least.

After breakfast we would start are hike. These hikes were trecherous, strenuous, and grueling. Our packs alone weighed about 50 pounds and then we had group gear which added another 20 pounds. We would hike for hours, miles at a time up steep mountains. I think the worst mountain we had to climb was called heart break. The name alone gives you a slight taste of what we endured. I also am saying mountains because we were not climbing baby hills. We weren't climbing hills at all. When we climbed heartbreak our counselor was set on our group breaking the record for climbing this mountain. Therefore instead of taking a 5 minute break every 20-30 minutes we were going for a 2 minute break every 30-35 minutes. This was heartbreak number one.

We became reliant on those 5 minute breaks to take of our 70+ lb packs and drink the some of the four full one liter water bottles that we were required to drink everyday.

SUWS was started in the early 1970's and it one of the oldeste wilderness programs still in operation. It was purchased by Aspen Education Group in 1990's. Two boys have died there so far.

Sources:

• The original Statement by Kimberly
• Datasheet of the program on Fornits wiki
• Gregory Owens Jones - 1985 (Today a child died blog - about one of the deaths)

Sarah at Second Nature

The Author Sarah wrote this comment on the webpage "Troubled Teen Blog", which is a kind of marketing page for the Troubled Teen Industry. All rights belong to the auhtor.

I was sent to Second Nature when I was 16 for what my parents thought was a good reason, but none of my other friends were sent away for the same reason and for them this teenager stage blew over like it always does.

I think a parent must not overeact to teenage rebellion and risk taking, it is in fact very normal. Do try your best to keep them safe, but sending them away can be riskier than whatever the problem is at home.

Many kids have died out there-do your research! Don’t google ” wilderness program”. There are thousands of websites making money off of this. To find some news google ” wilderness program deaths” Unfortunately most of the teens I was with out there were in the program for ridiculous reasons. Most smoked pot and talked back to there parents. This is not a good reason to send your teens away!

I am now a parent myself and one thing I know for sure is I will never ever send my boys away to the middle of Utah to be watched by people I don’t even know. How can you trust these people with your child? They can’t even contact you if something is wrong.

Personally I don’t think that a cure for depression is to take away everything they know and throw them out into the snow to sleep on the ground. I did not shower for 10 weeks! I had ticks all over my body and a flesh eating fungus all over my feet that burned like you wouldn’t believe. This did not help my self esteem at all. Many terrible details to this experience I don’t even want to think about, but I honestly still have nightmares more than 10 years later.

All the teens have different experiences depending on the teen themself and especially the staff that is with the child. Maybe some have a good experience, but this is not what I saw going on around me. You don’t want your child to go through what I had to go through even if they are driving you crazy right now. Try to find more patience and understanding in your heart and remember that they won’t be a teenager forever. You made it through alive didn’t you??

Source:

• The page with Sarah's comment
• About Second Nature Wilderness Program on Fornits Wiki

We are looking for escape stories

We are seeking escape stories from people who have been at wilderness programs. Please tell you how it it went.

Did you succeed?

Did you get caught?

If you was caught, what was then the punishment?

Please comment this blog-entry or use the threads listed below on various messageboards:

• Did you try to escape from a wilderness program (a thread on the message board of Fighting Institutional Child Abuse Network)
• Did you try to escape from a wilderness program (A thread on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)

This story was originally written on the message board called the Fornits Home for Wayward Webfora. All rights and credits goes to the author known as vagrant

I was a pretty rebellious teen.... I would ditch school frequently, While I wouldn't call myself addicted I used drugs a little more than casualy (Pot, Cocaine and Alcohol), The real issue was my homelife. My folks and I could not get along, I was the oldest kid by 8 years and naturally my folks tried a variety of different parenting techiques in an effort to see what worked and what didn't... They couldn't get along with each other to save their lives and I couldn't get along with them... Screaming matches would ensue on an almost daily basis at one point.... It was an emotional nightmare for a 16 year old and for my folks I'm sure.

It was around 4 in the morning... I awoke to my dad and 2 men I'd never seen before.. My dad told me I needed to go with them and that they were going to take me some place I could get some help... I was disoriented and kind of not with it, as I was still waking up.. I saw handcuffs on each of their hips and knew I didn't have a chance to make a break for it... I got dressed we walked down the stairs my Mom told me she loved me, I was confused, angry, scared, and felt betrayed and with all of these emotions running through my mind at once I couldn't muster a reply to her. We got in the car, I sat in the back next to the bigger of the two escourts, doors locked, we drove into Chicago (I'm about 40 min out) they offered to stop at McDonalds for me but I was the furthest thing from hungry... We got on a plane to some other airport then flew from that one to Salt Lake City. Once there we got into another car and drove to Vernal UT (Never in my life have I ever seen a stranger town, and I play in a touring band...) They fed me, we went into the office, the doctor gave me a physical, had me give him a urine sample, and without warning jabbed my finger with some needle thing for some sort of reading... They then drove me from the office to Colorado where I was greeted by maintenence staff and taken into the mountains...

Get into the mountains, change out of my clothes, into the MHYR student uniform. (Yellow shirt/sweater, camo pants) Was given my mountain supplies and given a student mentor (you get one on your first week to kind of tell you how the program works)

19 Weeks later I left. You're supposed to pass 12 or 15 weeks to graduate from the program (Many students don't and stay there until the parents run out of money) I passed 15 weeks, I also acheived my GED there..

Yeah I'd say some things stick out... Watching a kid fail every week because he didn't want to eat the food, couldn't physically complete the hikes, and was really just miserable, the other students in the group would constantly get upset with him because he would slow the group down, The week before he left I awoke to him wimpering in his sleeping bag, lips chapped, he had defacated himself, Looking back on it now I realize just how wrong that was....They did call him a faker.....After reading Aarons tragic story.... There was a pretty legitimate similarity between the two.. (But he was pretty damn far from a skeleton) His parents pulled him later that day... I'd like to think the mountain called them and told them of his deteriorating physical state and advised they come get him.... But I doubt it... They told us that more than likely Matt was being transfered to a more punitive program..... My god that is so fucked.... And the students nodded and we were never allowed to speak of him again.... JESUS CHRIST HOW DID I NOT REALIZE HOW BAD THAT WAS AT THE TIME!?

I've never seen paler faces then when a counselor came back into camp with a student who was on Solo.... A Mountain Lion had apparently passed by the students solo camp site... The student was sent right back out on solo that night... Why?... Why the hell does that make any sense at all? An extremely dangerous animal passes by this kids site and you send him back out there to spend 3 days alone....

The impact letters.... Your parents wrote you a letter about how much you've hurt them, all the pain you've caused your family, and why they sent you.... The students then were to read this aloud during group in the evening... Staff would read the letters before group to make sure you didn't leave anything out when you read it. There's recognizing that your actions have had negative effects on people, and taking accountability.... And then theres self degredation and humiliation... I guess it's a matter of opinion but I think MHYR's "Impact letters" were leaning towards the latter...

Come clean letter: Self explanatory... They even had a formula you would plug in to confess how many times you've used profanity in your life.... We read these aloud infront everyone as well... Again... Very humiliating... I believe the emphasis on these letters is also self degredation... You write all of these things down, to the last ludicrous detail and you think "My god I am such a fucking piece of shit", I should be dead,which then turns to "I'm so lucky I came to this program"" Really manipulating shit man.... I think thats what bothers me the most now.... Is all the subtle ways of manipulation

Runaways came in waves.... Typically if you had a bunch of new kids there at once and a problem student or two, you could expect a runaway. Staff DID NOT restrain students who ran, they followed them until they wished to come back, (realized there was nowhere to go)....I actually thought this was prett metaphorical and cool.... But now I can't help but think it was yet another way of manipulation.. A student told me when he ran he somehow got closer to the road and staff then threatened to "restrain" him if he proceeded... I never ran..

I failed 4 weeks... One a staff member handed me my laundry past the fire circle (where you need to have gloves on) I grabbed it and he failed my week...

The other week I failed was during my "2 in one" where you get ONE oppurtunity to do two weeks in one week to make up for failing a week. (Again you only get this oppurtunity once) A female staff, who was on for 2 shifts and we never saw her again after that had told me to speak up when helping another student with her book report, "I've been speaking up I thought you could hear me... Ugh.. Gettin Pissed" She had thought I said "Fucking Bitch" Now guys.... 3 years later... I swear on my sons life I never called her a fucking bitch. My words were "Getting pissed" which was ok to say.. I had absolutely no track record of disrespecting staff or using profanity whatsoever in the 10 weeks I'd been there to that point. I begged and pleaded with her to see I hadn't called her that. To no avail. The head staff sympathized for me and asked my "Therapist" if we could pass one of my weeks for the "two in one" instead of failing both of them (This had been done before for students)..... Now because I still claimed I had not said that, He refused, stating I was refusing to take accountability.

The third one, my parents and I had bickered back and forth a bit on a phone call, no name calling or cussing or anything just not agreeing on the rules for me when I come home, my Mother told me she was going to put my little brother and Sister on the phone to say hi but Now she wasn't going to because of the conversation we had.... I replied with "Oh great cause you know I don't want to talk to my little sister or anything" In obvious sarcasm. My therapist then suddenly got upset and hung up the phone call and told me that I had failed my week because of the phone call.

Now each of these were a little suspicious, but when put together... I honestly believe, because of the amount of money my folks had, and the rate i was progressing through the program, they wanted to keep me longer.... Longer stay = more $ and my folks had more money than alot of the other kids... You can put two and two together... I really hope I don't sound like some bitter child about this.... I'm not. I would absolutely love to believe that when I failed my weeks, it was to help me progress as a person and about personal accountability... But It wasn't.. It was about money.. and the inconsistency in treatment of students proves that to me..

Food was Oats, Germade, Rice, Lentiles, Spam, and ...ashcakes.... I actually puked the first time I tried to eat rice and lentiles, the first month I would go to bed feeling hungry at times..If you moved up to the ranch phase you got to cook on a kerosene stove with eggs, noodles, sauce and some other not "shit" tasting food.. We had to drink a quart of water with each meal and half a quart in between.... When you first got there, every 10 minutes youd have to pee....

Speaking of peeing...

I don't give a damn what anyone says.... There is something disturbing to me and degrading... About having to piss and shit in a hole in the dirt filled with other peoples piss and shit while you call out your number every 5 to 10 seconds.... The mental image of me yelling out "4" while flies swarm around me and I try to block out the stench of everyone elses waste and not fall in...

Thats not therapeutic... It's fucking wrong....

But again.. Thats my opinion, not the legal systems.

Before I go there are a few things I want to clarify.

The escorts were in no why violent, degrading, or cruel. They were nice guys, offered to feed me a bunch, we listened to Howard Stern in the car, cracked jokes, and they wished me well. The traumatic experience of being yanked from your bed, forced to travel across the country, and allowed no contact with anyone you know the whole way.... That was the cruel part...

MHYR did not help me... But I benifited from my stay there.....I survived the most mentally and emotionally grueling experience I've ever been through... I learned to better myself in spite of the actions of others, I learned how to survive in the wilderness, I learned how to motivate emotionally distraught kids, and I learned about one of the most impressive scams I've ever seen.... MHYR didn't help me.... I helped me....They just cashed the check...

Field Staff is a mixed bag... Some genuinely care and want to help, Others are there for a pay check, a few are in between. Please do not make the false assumption that anyone who works at this place is a bad person...

I do not seek any sort of compensation from MHYR or to press charges on them... I can't even begin to handle that whole ordeal... Theres so many "what ifs" and "Yeah but technnicallys" and.... It just feels wrong to me to do that.

This isn't a cry for attention man... I just started dealing with this and really just need to write about it so thank you to anyone who read this, thank you to this site and thread, apologies to anyone I may have offended.

That's all I'm gonna write for now feel free to ask more questions, I'll write more later.. Theres so much more about the maniulative genius that is MHYR I plan to eventually write a book on what I went through and my thoughts on it.

Source:

• Mountain Homes and Beyond..., a thread on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
• Mountain Homes Youth Ranch on Fornits Wiki

Wilderness therapy: Shouldn't 2012 be the end of this

Another human rights organization called "Secret Prisons for Teens" wrote the blog-entry below december 2011:

Kurt Hahn developed the early basic for so-called outward bound education before the second world. These ideas were picked up by several schools.

In the 1970's the first wilderness therapy programs began to emerge. However they took only volunteers in and while the survival gear was somewhat primitive compared to the equipment at hand here in 2011, most teenagers who entered these programs made it home.

This all changed when the Reagan and Bush administration in the 1980's declared war on drugs and raise the age of alcohol consumption to 21 in the United States. Such a war demanded strict punishment and when the parents discovered that even minor violations of the law could put their children in jail for decades - in some cases even life, a market for alternative private punishment marketed as therapy was pushed in business based on parental fear for the future of their children.

The first wilderness programs where teenagers were forced into entering the program appeared. Then deaths of such teenagers in the wilderness became headlines in such a number that they eventually were something you could read about on page 34. It was an accepted risk because the alternative was claimed to be a life on drugs and as result deaths or life in prison.

One of the first programs of this new type was named Challenger. It was as almost every modern wilderness programs outdoor adventure combined with boot camp mentality. In closed a few years after it opened because a young girl named Kristin Chase died during the program.

One of our volunteers looked the program up on Facebook and found a group of survivors of the program. While some praise the program despite its harshness there are also those who to this day recent all what did take and basically blame their experience for all the suffering they have experienced in life since. What is true? Is it just something you should get over with or should you speaks up against the lack of fairness?

Life goes on but just as people have to endure scars and injuries from traffic accidents it does meant that you should forget all what was wrong. A girl died in the program and only pure luck prevented others from joining her.

Second those who praise the program forget one thing. It is a basic function in the brain which enables them to select the good things and make them forget the bad elements in the program just as rape victims often are able to hide the ordeal and function relatively normal.

But what about the deaths? Wasn't something learned from Challenger?

No, nothing was learned from her tragic death. In the years since the program closed not a single year has been without deaths in residential treatment programs for children. Several of the deaths in wilderness programs have been exactly copies of her unfortunately death - Deaths which for sure could have been avoided if just the tiniest piece of teaching had been learned from her ordeal.

Wilderness therapy is not safe. It doesn't matter what kind of regulations which are introduced. Records show that there will always be the next set of parents who will receive a coffin instead of a cured child.

Taking teenagers out of their comfort zone should be controversial and the very last resort.

2011 brought awareness of the risk and the suffering among teenagers who are being removed from their homes.

2012 should be the year where the use of wilderness therapy for children who are not willingly entering the program should stop.

That is our simple New Year wish.

Source:
The original blog (Secret Prisons for Teens)