Theodurk at Cross Creek Programs - Part 3

This testimony was found on Reddit. All rights goes to the original author:

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Now this may not include everything, I am pretty tired right now. I also seemed to have misplaced the category sheet, so I have to go from memory. I still have all of my seminar info, but that will be in my story.

I will start with the level system. There are 6 levels; from 1 to 6. You need to meet certain requirements to gain each level. Some of the requirements are what made things a form of brainwashing. There is a merit system and you gain merits on your daily school and group performance. At the end of the day, we would fill out sheets 1-3 on how we thought we did that day. Then the staff would go through and rate us and the staff's answer was what stuck. For the group rating, up to 15 merits a day. Then school, up to about 18 merits a day. I think... Been awhile.

• Level 1- default level
• Level 2- 200 merits and group approval
• Level 3- 1000 merits and group approval
• Level 4- 2400 merits, group approval, upper level approval, staff approval, and Ron approval.
• Level 5- merits reset and 2000 merits, group, upper level, staff, and Ron approval
• Level 6- same as level 5... I think... I was too excited to get level six when I did. Freedom a month away and all.

Now for some general rules that will be mentioned a lot. There are five categories of rules. "Cat 1" being the least and "Cat 5" the greatest. There is "self" and "staffed" for punishments. Self is when you fill out the slip appropriately and staffed is when you refuse to or your entry isn't satisfactory. Self is less severe and staffed is more severe.

• Cat 1 self- 5 demerits
• Cat 1 staffed- 25 demerits
• Cat 2 self- 25 demerits
• Cat 2 staffed- 50 demerits and 10 worksheets
• Cat 3 self- 50 demerits
• Cat 3 staffed- This one I am unsure completely, but I think it is 150 demerits and 20 worksheets
• Cat 4 self- loss of 2 levels, 30 worksheets
• Cat 4 staffed- loss of 4 levels, 60 worksheets
• Cat 5 self- brought to level 1, merits reset, 60 worksheets
• Cat 5 staffed- level 1, merits reset, 80 worksheets

Now worksheets... Worksheets is almost what it sounds like. We get a work sheet of ten questions. We listen to tapes about popular books or popular people and we answer questions while we listen. Depending how many we get right, a certain number of "worksheets" is removed from our total. We can get a total of 3 per tape. I do not remember the rating as to how many you got. The maximum that you would have to do at any given time is 100 worksheets, unless you were forced to do the cumulative, which for me after I was done being bad, was about 2500, so 833 tapes. Week days you could lose about 9-12 worksheets a day and week ends about 18-24 a day. Now if you had 30 worksheets or more, you are considered what is called "staff buddy". You wear an orange shirt and you can only speak in certain situations. Generally, the only things you could talk about are: food, water, bathroom, meds, and school. Staff buddy is level 1, but lower than level 1's.

Now each level had privileges.

• Level 1- really not much
• Level 2-eligible for orientation and could crochet
• Level 3- could have a knickknack and could talk with level 1 and 2's out of therapy
• Level 4- could go off campus to the gym and to activities, if you are eligible. Can go on off grounds day passes with family. 2 knickknacks.
• Level 5- can wear a belt, watch, have a guitar. Special shirts. Listen to the radio in the room if everyone in the room is eligible as well.
Can go on overnight passes with family. Can order special snacks once a month, like fudge stripe cookies and pop corn and gummy worms.
• Level 6- can go on home passes, which means flying to your home state. Basically marks that within 2 months, you can go home... forever.

I may have missed some stuff, but that is the gist.

One of the most common rules is "crossing out", which is getting permission to pass through a doorway... Any doorway... We have to ask for permission to "cross out". Violating this rule is a cat 2.

Now I am getting a bit tired and just got a sudden bathroom urge, so I will continue this tomorrow.

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Cross Creek Programs is now closed. They tried to re-start the program as a non-profit program but the arrest of an employee who had been working there for a long time for sending photos of his naked body to students stopped any future activity.

The buildings have been rented to a new organization who will operate in the market for adopted kids who were sent to their adoptive parents without the full story about their emotional issues. The horror stories will continue with new independent management and new employees.

Sources:

• The original testimony on Reddit
• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Theodurk at Cross Creek Programs - Part 2

This testimony was found on Reddit. All rights goes to the original author:

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So I remember when I first walked in the door with my uneaten cinnabon. I walked into a set of doors and there were the seperate doors leading to other parts of the building. I was told to wait in that waiting area and I ate my cinnabon. There was a staff with us. Large, heavy set fellow. I think his name was Ken. Nice man, when you were not underneath him, which is later in my story here. A very kind woman walks in, who is an admission specialist. I wont say her name, because we are like family now. She was very kind and talked with me until they used their key card to take me inside the main facility. We walked up a set of stairs and there are two main hallways here. One that leads to rooms, the other to therapists and classrooms. I am taken to one of the bedrooms where I am told to go into the bathroom and change into a new set of cloths. They first search my pockets for illegal items. The gum was in that super tiny pocket on the right side that no one ever uses. It was the listerine tangerine orange flavor. I had to take my pants off in the bathroom and had it to them through the door. Before I did so, I took the gum and hid it under my socks. I had to take a quick shower with lice shampoo. I got out, changes, and hid all the pieces of gum in my sock. I am wearing khakis and an orange shirt.

They then take me to a group of rooms near the staircase. Three back to back and one across from the farthest. I go into the middle room and am told that it is my group.

Now, I was a bit blinded by Christian obsessions for a time, so I was a mad homophobe... Which ironically, I am bisexual now... Also, while the story progresses, you will see how much bonding there can be. Bonding with all guys... You will see what I mean. If I can't remember a name, I will make a new one, so I am not just saying, "that guy".

So, I was in group three out of 13. A kid, Jared introduces himself and tries to hug me. My homophobe self punched him on the shoulder. We just sat in silence until we got with the rest of our group in another room at the end of the other hall. I was told that I had a HOPE buddy, who would tell me the rules and the way of things. I was fine for a while that day, until we went outside. I asked how long the program was.

He pointed at an india indian looking kid and said, "He came in when he was 13, he is 17 now. This fastest is about 13 months, but the longest can be like him."

I had been under the impression of as long as six months, not four years. So I am sure you can imagine my anger at that moment. This is the start of the example of my earlier statement about holding in your anger. You can lose your sanity slowly or quickly.

Day 2, My blood was boiling. I was supposed to learn the rule quickly so that I could attend the upcoming orientation seminar. I wasn't listening half the day. I go to lunch and my mind was in a daze. I didn't want to eat, but was told I had to. I take my tray and sit with "my" group. After thirty minutes, lunch ended and my group got up to leave, but I stayed. I was pissed and fuming. Cussing under my breath. Crying because I know I am losing control. Clenching my muscles. A fluffy black guy a few tables away asks if I am alright and I nod my head. Then I snapped, I felt my hand raise, then I blacked out. I know this because that man would have had to take 15-30 seconds getting to me, yet when my eyes opened, he was right next to me. I had slammed the tray with my hand and pineapple had flown everywhere and a kid in my group who was wiping the table had be right across from me when I did it and to be honest, his face was pricelessly funny. He was a small skinny kid we came to know as snickers. Anyways, there was that one staff next to me, and a man whose position was called "radio 1" and the only staff I had ever been afraid of at my time there. He wasn't a bad man, but intimidating to have to face off with an ex-prison guard. He used the all famed cliche implication, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way." I was curious what the hard way was again, because that would imply that they carry me out and carrying a fat kid out is never easy. I was 252 at the time. Again, I chose the easy way.

They took me to the end of the main hallway that I mentioned before that leads to the classrooms. There is a small room, kind of hidden away with two small cubicle like rooms with hardwood floor and plywood walls. I was told to sit in one, indian style, until I was told I could leave. This room would soon become a very familiar room and one form of abuse, which you will see later. I was later released after a few hours of boredom. Two staff just sit in there and take note of everything you are doing wrong.

Day 3 was mostly uneventful. I was told how school worked and some more rules. Can't look at the girls for more than three seconds or out the windows for more than three seconds, and it cant be 1.2.3 look. 1.2.3 look... etc... Learned I can't crack my knuckles. My group wasn't allowed to say "pissed" or "piss".

Now I forgot to mention the daily weekday mornings that we would have with Ron, which I am sure you have heard from other Cross Creek stories. A particular group hosts it each week with their therapist and Ron. New kids go, staff buddies: which I will explain later, and people asking questions to Ron. He asked me why I was there, I said, "nothing". Then everyone in the group just laughed, as if it was some joke that I wasn't aware of.

Day 4 my anger was growing again. Just thinking about how long I was going to be there for. By this time, I knew I could leave at 18. Near the end of the day, I was fuming again. I had left the room and was in the hallway, facing a wall. My HOPE buddy was trying to calm me. (by the way, HOPE, stands for Helping Orient Partners for Excellence)

Eventually, the kid, justin, gave up and told the staff and I was taken to that small room with the hardwood floor. The room was called "SN" or "Special Needs". My anger building again, more and more. I snap and I punched the wall once, but remained seated. Ken says over the radio, "We have a wall hitter her, send some help." Him and another staff, Justin, approach me. I had learned of restraint, so I took off my glasses. Ken grabbed me and spun me around so I lay on my stomach and he laid on my back, while Justin "tried" to hold my legs... "tried"... The help came to "try" to hold my legs as well. Meanwhile, I resisted with my upper body, trying to fight off Ken, struggling under his weight. He kept telling me to keep my hands on the floor and when I didn't, he held them, then when he held them, I jerked my head around. He would then force my head down. Once with enough force to pop one of the ear pimples I had at the time, inside the ear. It started bleeding quite a bit. Then my nose was running from all the crying. Essentially, I was there struggling and resisting for two hours while my face was being rubbed in a puddle of my own blood and snot.

Day 5 was when I officially lost my mind. It was the day when you never want someone with anger problems to say, "fuck it". To cease to care about anything or anyone; Not family, not friends. Essentially, I lost most of my conscience. This happens when kids shoot up school. Their anger at a bully makes them snap and rational thinking ceases and they don't care who they hurt. This was like that, just with very limited options. I just said fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. They tried to give me a "category" which is the slip of paper you get when you break a rule.

Under the section where I am supposed to put what I will do to change, I just wrote, "I am not going to fucking change for your fucking bitch ass school. I will keep on fucking cussing all the fuck I want, so you can fucking kiss my fucking ass."

Now, I think this will be the end of part 2 here. The next part will be about the 2 1/2 months of me being a dick and the fun I had. Also, if you would like and I likely will anyways. I will write out a lot more details about the rules and the punishments, so things will make more sense later on. I still have my main notebook from that place and it still has the list of rules, including all or most the papers from the seminars. I can also go over the basic routine and schedule, so you can get an estimate about what time of day things happened.

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Cross Creek Programs is now closed. They tried to re-start the program as a non-profit program but the arrest of an employee who had been working there for a long time for sending photos of his naked body to students stopped any future activity.

The buildings have been rented to a new organization who will operate in the market for adopted kids who were sent to their adoptive parents without the full story about their emotional issues. The horror stories will continue with new independent management and new employees.

Sources:

• The original testimony on Reddit
• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Theodurk at Cross Creek Programs - Part 1

This testimony was found on Reddit. All rights goes to the original author:

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So I felt like writing today. I am deciding to write about my past, about my time in a program. The programs name is Cross Creek Academy. I will write as much as I can remember about my time; my emotions, actions, relationships, struggles, etc. Ahead of time, I apologize for any spelling errors or grammar errors. I am doing this in notepad since windows 8 is utterly confusing. Hence, I do not have auto correct or grammar check. It shouldn't be too bad though. I have scored pretty high in writing.

I will start with just before my time there. The incident that created the choice for my parents to send me away. It was about two weeks after my birthday. I had been getting more and more angry and rebellious as time went on. Getting bullied in school, my dad's bad issues with hard liquor, and my step mom and her always repeating everything three thousand times. The thing about holding in anger is that it does eventually crack and break. It can slowly change who you are or in certain circumstances, the change can be instant. At the time, I was slowly losing myself; getting meaner and more violent. My step mom had asked me to fold the laundry and I didn't. So she proceded to rag on me for several minutes, which happens to annoy me since you can get the point across in 30 seconds. I flipped out on her and yelled until she started crying. My dad sees what is happening and he grabs me by the neckline and throws me into the sliding glass doors and proceeds to hold me there, borderline choking. He had done this before when he was plastered, but this time it was fair enough reaction for making his wife cry. He screamed and yelled and sent me off to my room.

I go there and lock the door as i wasn't supposed to. I knew he would still get in after removing the door knob. I sat on my bed pissed and thinking and thinking. I thought for a moment to take a block of wood in my room and hit him over the head with it, but even when I am being an idiot, I am still smart. Yet there was that thought, that brief bit of imagination. When he finally got in, he tried to grab me and throw me on the floor, but the way he grabbed be allowed me to use my legs as leverage and being a fat kid, your legs are pretty strong. He quickly caught on and grabbed my legs and flipped me off the bed and he stayed there making sure I don't go to bed until I fold the laundry. This whole mess over laundry. Teenagers for ya.

Then one day. They both go with me and say they are taking me to a doctor. I end up at a hospital where they do some blood tests. Then we move to a different facility that seemed odd to me. It didn't seem like a hospital. There was steel doors and the mesh windows. My parents did some paperwork and they took me to another building. I walked through two sets of doors and they ask me to remove my shoelaces and belt. I come to discover, they took me to a mental hospital. They did this because of a suicide threat months before when my step mom's answer had been, "ok". She knew it was an empty threat, but for me, it hurts that she didn't even attempt to fake concern. They send me way later as an "excuse". I was locked inside for a week. I med some pretty crazy druggies. A girl that decided to play a game with friends. Who ever could take the most triple c's and not die wins. She won. A guy whose pregnant girlfriend cheats on him with is best friend. He attempted suicide with opium. As I do a lot, I checked out the security and possible escape routes. I knew how to escape the place. There was a flaw in their outside area. We had 4 pm nap times. One day I calculated, without paper, how to tell time by the angle the sun is in the sky, which I later made a formula for. Depending on location and the exact angle, you can calculate the exact time, so long as you know when the sun rises. Anyways, enough of the mental hospital. My parents called and told me that I was going to a program for troubled teens. I was shown a website and it said for about 60 days. So I accepted it and figured I could use some time away. The transporters tend to come in the early morning, two if
them. It was about 4 in the morning for me. They enter through the first set of doors and I exit the second set.

They said in the cliche tough, bad ass voice, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

I asked, "What is the hard way?"

They reply, "handcuffs."

For a moment, I thought it would be fun to watch how people reacted as I get walked through the airport in handcuffs, but I chose the easy way. If I wanted to escape, better to have your hands.

The men themselves were not bad men. They just chose a bad job that maked them look like bad men. Some of the transporters may be sadistic asses, but mine were nice. For that, I chose not to run. I knew how and when I could, but I didn't.

After the flight, I was driven through Las Vegas, into Utah, and eventually we pulled up to an odd white building with iron meshed sold sheets covering the windows. I was led inside with my cinnibon and Dr. pepper. I never did get to finish the dr. pepper, but I did manage to keep a pack of gum.

Perhaps I will make this a brief cliff hanger of sorts. Though there is no guarantee when I get back to writing. Perhaps if I get enough requests for more, but the rest is a very long story. I stayed longer than most and one of three ever to stay past 19, which I will explain why that happened later as well. Now the next part is actually the worst I have ever been and also the most fun I had in years. Basically, the website said 60 days, the transporters said six months, and the program said something else.

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Cross Creek Programs is now closed. They tried to re-start the program as a non-profit program but the arrest of an employee who had been working there for a long time for sending photos of his naked body to students stopped any future activity.

The buildings have been rented to a new organization who will operate in the market for adopted kids who were sent to their adoptive parents without the full story about their emotional issues. The horror stories will continue with new independent management and new employees.

Sources:

• The original testimony on Reddit
• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)