This testimony was found on a message board. All rights go to the original author known as Tesserac
I am so sorry
I was in Peninsula Village in the late 90s, for depression, mostly. I was one of the ones who climbed the level system by persistently "confronting" other kids for breaking the rules. I want to say how much I regret doing that. I participated in something terrible because I believed them when they said this was how we could help each other. I did it because time there was hard and I wanted to make mine easier. I did it because I thought that if I did, they would let me out sooner. It didn't work. They kept me for 16 months.
When I first arrived at the Village, I had the same reaction that everyone else did: You can't do this to me, this is abuse, if the cops don't step in, my parents will. They laughed and pointed out that the program had existed for a decade, several false accusations of abuse had been made, and the police never found anything. They said if the police were going to shut them down, they would have done so by now. Still I believed the cops would come. But weeks, then months came by, and they never did. Then I believed my parents would take me out, once I could finally see them and explain what it was like. But they had prepared my parents for that family session for weeks. They knew I would appeal to them to take me home, that I would say things like "If you really loved me, you would take me out of here." They explained that these kinds of statements were a manipulative attempt to prey on my parent's affection, and if they wanted to do what was right for me, they would keep me there. My parents believed them.
I'm saying this not as an excuse, but because I want to explain what I was thinking at the time. I simply could not believe that both the authorities and my parents would allow my placement in an abusive facility. The reality was incompatible with a teenager's naivete. So instead, I reversed my position and decided the Village could not be abusive at all. I tried as hard as I could to succeed in the program, and that meant watching the kids in my group for any kind of infraction I could confront them over later. The rules were so extreme, it wasn't hard to find infractions. Glancing upwards while someone else is being restrained. Taking 1 minute 36 seconds to go to the bathroom instead of 1 minute 30. if I couldn't find any infractions, I'd confront people over intangibles, like "being entitled" or "ignoring the focus". And sometimes I'd flat out make things up. I don't have the words to express how terrible I feel about that.
Ironically, none of my persistent ass-kissing seemed to do any good. I wanted so badly to be out, and could not understand why they kept me so long even though I was doing everything they said. They would grant various privileges for cooperating, then strip them away for reasons I didn't even understand. "Not confronting your issues." I was trying as hard as I could to confront my issues! Hell, I even made up some issues I didn't have, just to be able to confront more things. Based on the stories on this forum, it was not uncommon for them to keep those who could afford it as long as they could. I don't think it will surprise anyone when I say my parents were paying out of pocket.
The worst part is that when I got out, I continued to buy into their shit for the next 15 years. I can't believe what a colossal fool I was. I can't believe how blind I've been. I can't believe any of it, really. I still wobble back and forth between "it wasn't that bad" and "jesus christ, how could this have ever happened".
I just want to say again how very sorry I am for the harm I did to the other kids while I was there. I really wish there was some way I could make amends.
Peninsula Village has been sold and renamed to The Village under a new management and maybe a new program structure.
Source:
I am so sorry (The original testimony)
Showing posts with label Peninsula Village. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peninsula Village. Show all posts
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Adam7448 at Peninsula Village
This testimony was found on a message board belonging to Fighting Institutional Child Abuse Network. All rights go to the original author known as Adam7448
My name is Adam. I was there in 93' at the Village. I was your usual pain in the ass teen that smoked pot and drank on occasion. My parents moved me to Chapel Hill NC where I was put into MacDowell unit of Duke Hospital. Dr. David Jones Recommended to my parents that they send me to Peninsula.
I had NO IDEA what I was in for. I spent almost a year there. 8 months of that were in STU (special Treatment Unit) the first time I went out to the cabins was to group 4. we were on shutdown for two other kids escaping (eloping) before I got out there. the second time I went to the cabins was when PV opened the "STU cabin". I was one of the first "screaming pioneers". I got sent back to STU again. I don't remember why.
After another month in STU the Village let me out. I had NO WARNING. I was told to pack up my stuff. and two hours later I was put on a plane back to a group home in NC. It was a crazy transition. at the group home I kept dreaming I was back in 5 points in the Quiet room. Or I was getting PCI'ed again. I got PCI'ed my first time because I refused to go to group. I think it was my first week in STU. I NEVER was violent or tried to fight with any staff. They didn't like the fact that I got up without permission. I remember getting an injection of Haldol. I don't know why they did that. I sampled every single "Intervention" the Village had to offer from the rope and the 4x4 that had to be carried everywhere, to a backpack filled with rocks. The wheelbarrow filled with rocks that I pushed all over the village was a nice touch too. Todd Roberts (Staff) gave me That little gift.
Bottom Line: Should I have ever been sent there? ....NO. Did I learn anything good form being there? ...YES. It DID screw me up a lot however. It made EVERYTHING I did after that a lot harder than it should have been like getting into a good school. I turned out good but not because of the village.
Peninsula Village is under new ownership and marketed as the Village
Sources:
My name is Adam. I was there in 93' at the Village. I was your usual pain in the ass teen that smoked pot and drank on occasion. My parents moved me to Chapel Hill NC where I was put into MacDowell unit of Duke Hospital. Dr. David Jones Recommended to my parents that they send me to Peninsula.
I had NO IDEA what I was in for. I spent almost a year there. 8 months of that were in STU (special Treatment Unit) the first time I went out to the cabins was to group 4. we were on shutdown for two other kids escaping (eloping) before I got out there. the second time I went to the cabins was when PV opened the "STU cabin". I was one of the first "screaming pioneers". I got sent back to STU again. I don't remember why.
After another month in STU the Village let me out. I had NO WARNING. I was told to pack up my stuff. and two hours later I was put on a plane back to a group home in NC. It was a crazy transition. at the group home I kept dreaming I was back in 5 points in the Quiet room. Or I was getting PCI'ed again. I got PCI'ed my first time because I refused to go to group. I think it was my first week in STU. I NEVER was violent or tried to fight with any staff. They didn't like the fact that I got up without permission. I remember getting an injection of Haldol. I don't know why they did that. I sampled every single "Intervention" the Village had to offer from the rope and the 4x4 that had to be carried everywhere, to a backpack filled with rocks. The wheelbarrow filled with rocks that I pushed all over the village was a nice touch too. Todd Roberts (Staff) gave me That little gift.
Bottom Line: Should I have ever been sent there? ....NO. Did I learn anything good form being there? ...YES. It DID screw me up a lot however. It made EVERYTHING I did after that a lot harder than it should have been like getting into a good school. I turned out good but not because of the village.
Peninsula Village is under new ownership and marketed as the Village
Sources:
- The truth about peninsula village- An absolute nitemare.... (The original testimony)
- Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Jzieg at Peninsula Village
This testimony was found on a message board belonging to Fighting Institutional Child Abuse Network. All rights go to the original author known as Jzieg
I had fantastic insurance and thus the honor of living at PV for well over a year @ 1992-1993. My experience was the same as the original post. It was a nightmare. As an adult I had to go to a PHD after waking up with nightmares from my time PV, his professional opinion.... I never should have been there.
Entering the facility I was a depressed teen with a mother who was uncaring and cold so I hated her. I had never done any drugs, I was not a run away, no emotional disorders, no eating disorders, no cutting, I got good grades in school, I had a job, went to church, had friends, I had not faced any major abuse of any kind,. I specify major because there was 1 occasion where I had at 17 year old show me his penis when I was @3... he never touched me. No one had ever beat me. I was just a kid from a broken home, who in a bit of depression OD on aspirin at 15 because my mother had grounded me from Homecoming 2 days before.
I was in STU for over 3 months, because I did not have a story that they could break out of me.... because there really was not one. I never had to be restrained, or medicated but the emotional BS of treating you like crap to break you was the horror I lived day in and day out. Eventually they gave up and decided perhaps they could break me in the cabins, 14 months later the insurance ran out and I final got to go home. I was 17 when I went home, to the same mom I hated before. I made it 6 months then got smart and moved out on my own, got a job, and finished high school.
PV did not cure me of anything, all it did is rob me of years and moments with family and friends. I have a daughter now the same age as I was at the village. She is hormonal and moody... Guess what she is a teen. I am sure we will live through it with her and my family could have lived through it with me had the professionals not convinced them that PV was the only way to protect me from myself.
Peninsula Village is under new ownership and marketed as the Village
Sources:
I had fantastic insurance and thus the honor of living at PV for well over a year @ 1992-1993. My experience was the same as the original post. It was a nightmare. As an adult I had to go to a PHD after waking up with nightmares from my time PV, his professional opinion.... I never should have been there.
Entering the facility I was a depressed teen with a mother who was uncaring and cold so I hated her. I had never done any drugs, I was not a run away, no emotional disorders, no eating disorders, no cutting, I got good grades in school, I had a job, went to church, had friends, I had not faced any major abuse of any kind,. I specify major because there was 1 occasion where I had at 17 year old show me his penis when I was @3... he never touched me. No one had ever beat me. I was just a kid from a broken home, who in a bit of depression OD on aspirin at 15 because my mother had grounded me from Homecoming 2 days before.
I was in STU for over 3 months, because I did not have a story that they could break out of me.... because there really was not one. I never had to be restrained, or medicated but the emotional BS of treating you like crap to break you was the horror I lived day in and day out. Eventually they gave up and decided perhaps they could break me in the cabins, 14 months later the insurance ran out and I final got to go home. I was 17 when I went home, to the same mom I hated before. I made it 6 months then got smart and moved out on my own, got a job, and finished high school.
PV did not cure me of anything, all it did is rob me of years and moments with family and friends. I have a daughter now the same age as I was at the village. She is hormonal and moody... Guess what she is a teen. I am sure we will live through it with her and my family could have lived through it with me had the professionals not convinced them that PV was the only way to protect me from myself.
Peninsula Village is under new ownership and marketed as the Village
Sources:
- The truth about peninsula village- An absolute nitemare.... (The original testimony)
- Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
Sunday, November 16, 2014
suwsywatsit at The Village
This testimony was made by suwsywatsit as the author did choose to name him- or herself. All rights goes to the original author
On Forced Sleep Deprivation & Manual Labor
The bench I am sitting on is cold and part of me feels like it will fall away from under me. There’s a part of me that feels that way even now... That bench under the stairs where we would be lined up sitting and waiting for medicine. Sometimes we would talk but most of the time we weren’t allowed to. The nurse isn’t waiting for us because she has so many things to do. Hospitals are busy places and she has to keep track of the hundred or so of us. Who gets which sedative; who has what rash; what special medicine.
It’s there on that bench that I learned to fall asleep sitting up.The tiredness came all the time then, a heaviness in my limbs and bones. I would hold myself somehow and collapse inward to that peaceful place where one finds dreams that are incapable of occurring. I dreamed of my family, of driving away. I dreamed of college and the quietness that would come when I was free of that place.
I learned to fall asleep like this while doing lots of things: Standing, waiting for my turn at the saw; Sitting in that blue-sheeted bed under the halogen lights that never turned off.
I dreamed of sleep. I dreamed of a real bed and of safety. I dreamed of when the day would be over, when the incessant calls to attention would stop. I dreamed of silence. Silence can sometimes be freedom. I guess it depends on where you’re trapped.
When the dreaming didn’t work; When I got caught or through other means was forced into the light – forced to move in a way requiring attention, I became enraged. An internal rage, adrenaline from the sleep-deprivation.
I would take the saw or the rake, whatever tool they deemed right that day, and I would work that adrenaline into my arms, my fingers, back into my bones.
I lifted and broke the ground. I planted or transported. They called it vocational training, “voc.” It sounded like fun when I first heard of it. But when I first heard of it I was confined for a month to a blue-sheeted bed in a room where the lights never turned off.
I think of tiredness now and again. Not the normal chosen one or the one that comes from working hard. I’m thinking of the numbing kind. The kind that comes from obedience to someone who wants you to never sleep enough. People who sleep enough can run away, they figure stuff out. People who sleep enough are rebellious.
This is how they woke us up:
It’s 5:50am in a cabin in Tennessee. Someone’s alarm goes off and she begins to count loudly, “Wake up! Ten… Nine.. Eight..” We rise hysterically and crawl down the ladders of the bunk beds to the floor; Lean our heads against the wood and dream we are somewhere else for a moment. There is a minute to make the bed. There are three minutes to get dressed.
I’m thinking of the tiredness that those people in camps must have had. The tiredness of obedience. The tiredness of some one else not wanting you to sleep enough.
I’m thinking of how cold and hungry they were. How alone too. How trapped between demands and competition with each other.
I’m thinking of the tiredness of being alone, of helplessness, of being trapped. The tiredness of playing the same game. The tiredness of control.
I have no words to describe adequately what happened there. I only know that I was tired because of the things they made us do. The ways we lived each day – constantly dreaming of being elsewhere.
I don’t have words for the confusion now. The betrayal or the complexity of sixteen months of six-hours of sleep, of lights and noise.
Just this, in my bones, heavy and cold. My legs swaying under me, falling away and coming back again.
Peninsula Village; A GREAT Place For Kids, When Kids Really Need A GREAT Place http://www.villagebh.com/
The Village was formerly known as Peninsula Village
Sources:
On Forced Sleep Deprivation & Manual Labor
The bench I am sitting on is cold and part of me feels like it will fall away from under me. There’s a part of me that feels that way even now... That bench under the stairs where we would be lined up sitting and waiting for medicine. Sometimes we would talk but most of the time we weren’t allowed to. The nurse isn’t waiting for us because she has so many things to do. Hospitals are busy places and she has to keep track of the hundred or so of us. Who gets which sedative; who has what rash; what special medicine.
It’s there on that bench that I learned to fall asleep sitting up.The tiredness came all the time then, a heaviness in my limbs and bones. I would hold myself somehow and collapse inward to that peaceful place where one finds dreams that are incapable of occurring. I dreamed of my family, of driving away. I dreamed of college and the quietness that would come when I was free of that place.
I learned to fall asleep like this while doing lots of things: Standing, waiting for my turn at the saw; Sitting in that blue-sheeted bed under the halogen lights that never turned off.
I dreamed of sleep. I dreamed of a real bed and of safety. I dreamed of when the day would be over, when the incessant calls to attention would stop. I dreamed of silence. Silence can sometimes be freedom. I guess it depends on where you’re trapped.
When the dreaming didn’t work; When I got caught or through other means was forced into the light – forced to move in a way requiring attention, I became enraged. An internal rage, adrenaline from the sleep-deprivation.
I would take the saw or the rake, whatever tool they deemed right that day, and I would work that adrenaline into my arms, my fingers, back into my bones.
I lifted and broke the ground. I planted or transported. They called it vocational training, “voc.” It sounded like fun when I first heard of it. But when I first heard of it I was confined for a month to a blue-sheeted bed in a room where the lights never turned off.
I think of tiredness now and again. Not the normal chosen one or the one that comes from working hard. I’m thinking of the numbing kind. The kind that comes from obedience to someone who wants you to never sleep enough. People who sleep enough can run away, they figure stuff out. People who sleep enough are rebellious.
This is how they woke us up:
It’s 5:50am in a cabin in Tennessee. Someone’s alarm goes off and she begins to count loudly, “Wake up! Ten… Nine.. Eight..” We rise hysterically and crawl down the ladders of the bunk beds to the floor; Lean our heads against the wood and dream we are somewhere else for a moment. There is a minute to make the bed. There are three minutes to get dressed.
I’m thinking of the tiredness that those people in camps must have had. The tiredness of obedience. The tiredness of some one else not wanting you to sleep enough.
I’m thinking of how cold and hungry they were. How alone too. How trapped between demands and competition with each other.
I’m thinking of the tiredness of being alone, of helplessness, of being trapped. The tiredness of playing the same game. The tiredness of control.
I have no words to describe adequately what happened there. I only know that I was tired because of the things they made us do. The ways we lived each day – constantly dreaming of being elsewhere.
I don’t have words for the confusion now. The betrayal or the complexity of sixteen months of six-hours of sleep, of lights and noise.
Just this, in my bones, heavy and cold. My legs swaying under me, falling away and coming back again.
Peninsula Village; A GREAT Place For Kids, When Kids Really Need A GREAT Place http://www.villagebh.com/
The Village was formerly known as Peninsula Village
Sources:
- I don’t have words for the confusion now. The betrayal or the complexity of sixteen months of six-hours of sleep, of lights and noise. (The original testimony on Reddit)
- Datasheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Mckue at The Village
This testimony was given by a person is called "Mckue" on a blog-entry. All rights remains by the original author:
I was in PV in 2002, and I am still having nightmares.
They rank high on the warning lists for abusive program watchout sites. They hated me too. I don't know why. They knew I was turning 18 so at the end they just ignored me, I stayed in the locked unit for 4 months, gained 60 pounds from sitting on a bed and doing nothing.
I found out later I had sustained a concussion when they slammed my head into the floor during a restraint so hard I was left with a cut and abrasions across my forehead. Why? I sat up. Thats it. I had been laying on they fllor, they gragged me there, and I sat up, intending to raise my hand and ask to use the restroom, where they would have to examine my shit and piss before I could flush it, a method of humiliation, and was immediatly tackled. I have never had a violent day in my life, never raised a hand to anyone. I had low self esteem, I let men use me and I hated myself. At PV I just wanted to die. They told me one thing- You are an evil person with no concioncse and you are no good, nor ever will be. That was my "focus" for 3 weeks. The only one I ever got. It has taken my thereapist years to undo that damge. I thought I was really a sociopath because I trusted that these people knew the mind and were able to tell what was wrong. Others went off to the cabins.
I was finally left alone to sleep no school, no nothing just sleep all day everyday. I did everything alone, staff watched me shower too though. I was also molested by the male gynecologist. I knew nothing I said mattered. He told me right in front of the female nurse in the room, that I had a very nice, muscular vagina, as he fingered me innapropriatly. I know what a gyno feels like- I go yearly. This guy was sick! Also, The drugs they sedated me with made my neck twist around, the muscles would tanse up and I could not contol my head movements. Now I know I am not a sociopath, but that is a huge breakthrough for me. I was so much worse after PV, I almost killed myself, I thought I really was a piece of shit, b/c thats what they told me! I was hospitalized after slashing my wrists and getting them stiched up, the doc said why would you do trhis? You are a sweet and beautiful girl. He laughed and said, no my girl. I am treating you long enough now to tell you that! Your just an addictive personality.
Thats all. Now I am clean, through my spriritual ralationship and lots of love and counseling. I am married, and we have 2 sons. I love being a mom- but I still have nightmares about PV. I hope it stops someday. I am trying to forgive them.
The facility formerly known as "Peninsula Village" has changed ownership since this teenager was at the program. The structure of the program has been altered. If for better is difficult to decide.
Sources:
I was in PV in 2002, and I am still having nightmares.
They rank high on the warning lists for abusive program watchout sites. They hated me too. I don't know why. They knew I was turning 18 so at the end they just ignored me, I stayed in the locked unit for 4 months, gained 60 pounds from sitting on a bed and doing nothing.
I found out later I had sustained a concussion when they slammed my head into the floor during a restraint so hard I was left with a cut and abrasions across my forehead. Why? I sat up. Thats it. I had been laying on they fllor, they gragged me there, and I sat up, intending to raise my hand and ask to use the restroom, where they would have to examine my shit and piss before I could flush it, a method of humiliation, and was immediatly tackled. I have never had a violent day in my life, never raised a hand to anyone. I had low self esteem, I let men use me and I hated myself. At PV I just wanted to die. They told me one thing- You are an evil person with no concioncse and you are no good, nor ever will be. That was my "focus" for 3 weeks. The only one I ever got. It has taken my thereapist years to undo that damge. I thought I was really a sociopath because I trusted that these people knew the mind and were able to tell what was wrong. Others went off to the cabins.
I was finally left alone to sleep no school, no nothing just sleep all day everyday. I did everything alone, staff watched me shower too though. I was also molested by the male gynecologist. I knew nothing I said mattered. He told me right in front of the female nurse in the room, that I had a very nice, muscular vagina, as he fingered me innapropriatly. I know what a gyno feels like- I go yearly. This guy was sick! Also, The drugs they sedated me with made my neck twist around, the muscles would tanse up and I could not contol my head movements. Now I know I am not a sociopath, but that is a huge breakthrough for me. I was so much worse after PV, I almost killed myself, I thought I really was a piece of shit, b/c thats what they told me! I was hospitalized after slashing my wrists and getting them stiched up, the doc said why would you do trhis? You are a sweet and beautiful girl. He laughed and said, no my girl. I am treating you long enough now to tell you that! Your just an addictive personality.
Thats all. Now I am clean, through my spriritual ralationship and lots of love and counseling. I am married, and we have 2 sons. I love being a mom- but I still have nightmares about PV. I hope it stops someday. I am trying to forgive them.
The facility formerly known as "Peninsula Village" has changed ownership since this teenager was at the program. The structure of the program has been altered. If for better is difficult to decide.
Sources:
- A Teen Recovery Autobiography by A Vona (I speak of Dreams blog)
- Factsheet about the program (Fornits Wiki)
Sunday, May 11, 2014
mokara9 at The Village
This testimony was given by a person is called "mokara9" on a blog-entry. All rights remains by the original author:
This nineteen year old troubled girl has been indoctrinated nothing more! She is speaking the party line and you are all fascists to be buying that any of this is ok!
I was also in the Village and it helped me about as much as two years as a POW would have. It also cost my parents insurance company over 150,000 dollars a year. What passes for treatment there is a fascist farce and the girls i was in with were hardly hardened criminals. One girl was in for being gay another for being molested by a close relative and that was it, lots of anorexics, and suicide attempts.
Many were in for more serious things but I know from personal experience beating, brainwashing and taking away all the civil rights of a teenager does not make them want to not self destruct. This hell hole is sold as a way to help these girls. Also how, if there is no legal recourse for them and they are completely isolated, can any of this so called treatment be kept above any sort of level? How do we know kids are not getting lost in it! As they certainly are.
What about the girls who accused a close relative of molesting them and their families put them in the Village? What the hell is that! Many of the girls were victims of a sexual predator or a rape or of something that constituted rape due to the age difference. Or they were just acting out or got lost in their complete alienation from the kind of parents that would send them off to be abused and not care that they were.
Many of the state kids did not have fit parents, in fact most of them didn't. You know, of course, that when I say state kids I mean your tax dollars are paying for their stay in Peninsula Village. It's hard to grow up by yourself and out of the frying pan there are plenty of fires!
There were some nasty people in there for sure but most of them were staff members. I am now twenty five and it took me seven ++ years to undo some of the abuse I suffered in that stupid Nazi sh$t hole, and you better believe when I finally finish my masters degree in Sociology and political Science there is going to be holy hell to pay!
Anything I have done in my life has been in spite of that stupid evil farce and I still have nightmares and a fun case of post traumatic stress disorder, I shake uncontrollably about once a day! I think all of these privately run facilities should be shut down and their staff brought up on repeat child abuse charges!
I am currently working with the state of Tennessee child protection agency to try and get this done. These children are simply troubled teenagers and Peninsula Village is a fascist Nazi prison camp and Abigail needs to try and break out of her indoctrination!
Any place that won't let you talk to a lawyer, your parents or the police and does what the Village does to you belongs no where but is more expected in the third world!
I know how that place colors people and it angered me to hear the other girls spoken of in that way! They make everything sound as degrading as possible, especially if you have good insurance. Suicide attempts are suicide attempts, what is so bad that a 13-18 year old girl wants to die already! I know what passes for some of the things that they listed as the other girls doing!
I remember how they repeatedly, every day all day, maligned and shamed girls who were already so traumatized they could barely see straight. How is this supposed to help some 13 to 18 year old that has been through something like that?
It is just so much fun to watch large stupid sadists abuse a 85 pound anorexic or a rape victim or tell the rape victim it was her fault. That it's all her fault. This isn't therapy this is Abu Ghraib!
These poor girls, they treat convicted felons better in this country. It's such a catch twenty-two you try to self destruct because you were abused and then they put you in a place that abuses you more to learn you how to not self destruct.
State sanctioned very expensive child abuse runs on social stigma and prejudice. If you want to see some blaming of the victim go on be a fly on the wall at Peninsula Village!
I bet half of the girls I was in with are dead by now, which is where Peninsula Village really wants them, out of the way so they can't cause a fuss or show up with insurance papers with extortionist amounts on them and demand some of it back.
Please read this. Everyone should know what is happening in America today. My story is not uncommon or even the worst case scenario, look up Mel Sembler and the Straight program as well as troubled teen help and abuse at behavior modification facilities, it is a very scary thing to do!
I was in Peninsula Village two years from 96 to 98, both my parents and I feel that we were extremely misled as to what my treatment there would be like. I was in the lock down unit for six months on arrival to the Village although I was cowed, completely subservient and did everything that they told me to.
I was physically restrained on the first day in a hospital gown by at least 8 large adults for nothing more than pulling away, it was an impulse reaction, when the large orderly woman dug her nails purposefully into my arm.
There was absolutely no need to restrain me other than to prove a point, we can hurt you if we want to. I was already in the isolation room all she had to do was walk out and close the door, I wasn’t at all violent or had even thought to be, pulling away was a knee jerk reaction because she had hurt me. Mostly I was scared, crying and sitting on the floor of the isolation room in a ball.
This was after the body search and being woken up at 5:30 in the morning by three burly adults who escorted me to Tennessee, it was more like being kidnapped.
While being restrained the Peninsula Village staff applied excessive pressure, I couldn't breathe and kept repeating that I was choking, but they let no pressure off, I was bruised and sore the next day, the restraint went on for hours.
I saw one girl with a nasty black eye which they said came from pressing her face into the floor, like that made it better! I saw other cases with bruised arms, wrists or legs. They restrain someone about twice a week.
There is no doubt in my mind that they could have restrained my totally non-resistant sobbing 95 pound borderline anorexic teenage self between all 1400 pounds of the 8 of them without hurting me. I was not fighting at all, even at first, I was far too shocked. Each held a body part so it was not a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, they meant to hurt us. They also keep restraining you long after any fight is gone and even if none was there in the first place.
I remember girls being restrained for what seemed like all night, although it was really only about five hours. There was an isolation room in the lockdown unit, nice cold hard linoleum with cement underneath but they would restrain you anywhere, gravel, garden manure, whatever, and they used a straight jacket called a burrito.
I can remember seeing one tough little state kid stuck in that thing for a day or more, they were leading her around. Other girls were strapped to a cot wrapped up in it, stuck full of thorzine and left to drool. There were about two restraints a week.
I was once restrained because I couldn't stop crying , I really couldn't I would have stopped of course to avoided being restrained, I was about as resistant as a wet noodle and they still held me down choking for hours.
They would restrain girls without reason, for saying in group therapy, I don’t agree with that, or for sitting down on work detail saying that they felt sick and needed to rest. We were not allowed to look at or talk to the other girls and we had to ask for permission to do anything, move even, of course go to the bathroom and we had to tell them what it is we had to do. They stood outside the door and timed us.
Group therapy was more like a denouncement session and began as soon as you were crying, that is later on the first day, after they had restrained you for a few hours and you were a broken puddle ready to confess to anything. I don't believe that many of the staff that actually lives with the girls on a daily basis is especially educated, perhaps some BA's and associate degrees, I would guess a lot of community college certifications. These are the ones who actually deal with the children and run group therapy and restrain them.
The lights were left on all the time, we slept in cubicles and were often woken by the staff patrolling , they were always standing over us.
We were punished constantly, abuse was constant every second for those two years. We had level systems, I never got beyond the first level although I was completely compliant. I don't think I was as willing to rip into my fellow prisoners as much they would have liked.
Group therapy was a communist denouncement experience, it was pure hell, and I am not exaggerating. They would find out your deepest darkest secrets and then browbeat you with them like you were disgusting dirt, we could say nothing to defend ourselves or we would face being PCId/ restrained. They liked sexual revelations and would ask you everything about them, specific details and more details, it was not appropriate, odd and used to induce shame.
The line of questioning was often very led. I heard them convince a girl, at the prompting of her divorced well-off mother, that her father had molested her. The girl could remember no instances of ever having been molested but through constant browbeating and abuse, over the course of months, the staff at the Village had the girl sobbing and believing that she had been sexually abused. You would confess under extreme pressure to things you didn't do.
Many of the girls were there for something that had happened to them. Somewhere, I think the website, says the Village is an expert at helping abused girls. It was terrible to watch them torture some poor kid who was there because she had been raped or molested. Many of the girls had been raped or molested, myself included, and to be held up to shame, ridicule and denouncement in relation to sex at a place that was supposed to help you with your experience was a pure nightmare.
They encourage the girls to pick on each other, to rip into each other during group therapy. Bullying is greatly encouraged, in fact the level system is based strongly on it. There was some desperation mentality in this, we all struggled so hard to avoid being punished and they punished all of us together.
I realize now that the punishments were arbitrary, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them they were still going to rain down on our heads. I would pretend to give feedback, their word for harassment and abuse, but how can you tear someone apart after listening to them scream all night while staff held their face into the floor.
There were also frequent outbreaks of head lice while I was in STU.
It seemed very odd that some of the girls were in a behavior modification facility at all and it was hard to tell how all the abuse was going to help any of them. One of the girls was in for telling her parents that she was gay, the staff told her that she was not.
There were lots of anorexics, and some had never used drugs or drank although staff insisted we were all alcoholic druggy sluts, an idea hateful and prejudice filled, not at all conducive to education and healing!
There was a 13 year old who had dyed her hair black and written in her diary "I wish all the kids who harass me at school would die" and that was pretty much it, I think her grades had dropped too. She saw spots sometimes and had blankness in her vision so they told her she was schizophrenic and medicated her to the gills. There was a lot of pretty odd diagnosis, I thought.
Worst of all some had done nothing other than get molested by a close relative, to the horror of their families. It did not seem reasonable that they were treated as if they were being punished or were in jail for more serious offenses.
I thought too, that a lot of the girls who were in for more serious things were acting out more serious problems in their lives, like having unfit parents and being in foster care. Many of the girls had simply fallen prey to some sexual predator. A very common story was "my parents don't understand me," "I have no parents, they are too busy drinking or using drugs" or "My “blank to protect privacy” has been molesting me since I was six and when I told my “blank” she threw me out." The next step in this story was inevitably "the guy I thought was nice, and 19 or younger, later turned out to be 23. He gave me alcohol or something else, pressured me a lot and we had sex. He said we had to have sex. He said he loved me. Or I used drugs/drank to make myself feel better and then I couldn't remember anything. Or I had sex because I felt bad and I thought I could trust the people I considered friends. I thought he cared about me, I just needed a hug.
God the poor girls who acted out their problems through sex or were just naive and ended up there. The sexual advances of men can be a pretty overwhelming even for a grown woman much less a depressed, my parents don't understand me, or I don't have parents, you'll love and give me affection right, sort of kid.
They made you feel like a slut, a word I hate and not one conducive to healing or education! Even if you were raped or molested. This is the most warped excuse for therapy I could possibly imagine.
I bet half of the girls I just described have committed suicide by now, the suicide rate is pretty high coming out of these places.
It ruins your life, it’s like having sound bites from hell running through your head. Some of the kids were just stupid teenagers who wanted to be cool and who had had enough bad experiences with drugs, sex and rock and roll, how they viewed sex and drugs, in their short experience with them that if they hadn't been in a prison camp and weren't being abused they would have been more than open to some logical, sane reasoning like sex and drugs are really not so great despite what the media and your friends say.
These girls needed to be taught to think for themselves, not to blindly follow what the abusive people around them tell them to do. That is what had landed many of them in Peninsula Village in the first place.
The brainwashing only carries you for about a year, usually I think. Although I think some of the girls started associating with the staff, I guess it’s that old abused turns into the abuser adage. Other wise the constant abuse did nothing but make you want to do everything it told you not to, because it was so obviously wrong and fascist. It gave you justification in your actions and, there for, was far more of a trap than any positive help!
I know all this about the other girls because we rarely to never had individual therapy it was mostly just the weird denouncement session crap.
After the lock down unit with its cramped quarters and barred mesh covered windows for months, we had the cabins and work detail. Work detail was exercise digging up stumps, cross sawing logs, mauling logs, building endless things under the constant abuse of the staff in the hot sun.
I believe I was also suffering from sleep deprivation because we were often woken up at two in the morning to go out to the log shed to be shown how much wood still needed to be chopped or for some other arbitrary reason.
We also always woke up before dawn and went to bed late because of punishments and finishing the endless chores. I used to fall asleep standing up, literally on a daily basis. We marched around in lines, or holding on to a rope, and there was still no talking or looking at the other girls, it was very lonely.
We had to haul around the Gott, a water jug that weighed so much your arms would feel like they were going to fall off and you'd want to vomit but if you dropped it you knew you were in worse trouble, we carried around many heavy things.
The cabins have no running water or bathrooms only porta johns. They exercise you past the breaking point and then over a little, and then much more. It was torture, I can't emphasize that enough torture, we did this all day most days, unless we were in school or on shutdown.
We had no free time, we weren't allowed to read or anything, everything was tightly scheduled and we would always miss our schedule and be punished although we tried in pure desperation to make them happy so they would stop. Even our showers were timed usually ten minutes, five as a punishment with only cold water.
Hygiene wasn’t that great and there was no makeup or jewelry or of course shaving your legs, only ugly work cloths. I mention this because it is very dehumanizing for a young girl.
School was nice when you got to go, but it wasn't very organized and there was a lot of other stuff going on, we also only went half the school week, so we could do more important things like dig stumps out of the ground, I guess.
Most left with a GED, I think they really focused on GED training, which makes it hard to get into colleges, especially if when they ask for high school credits you list a behavior modification facility.
Often if something came up, like we went on shutdown or were sent to STU, the lockdown unit, we would miss school all together. Once they had us sit in a circle with our backs to each other and stare at the wall for five months only to turn around for group therapy and to be escorted to the bathroom.
We had no school for those five months and five months is a long time to sit in a circle starring at a wall only to turn around for a denouncement session.
From all the restraining you are probably thinking that the girls were always acting up. I can not stress how completely not true this is. For the most part they were more like zombies than wild teenagers.
I’ve done some research on prison camps and abuse and I don't believe there is a teenager girl out there that isn’t going to turn into a limp half dead dish rag in the face of no escape, constant abuse; mental, physical, emotional and sexual, although not physically so, denouncement sessions, sleep deprivation, sadistic people four times her size watching her constantly and being drugged.
The only opposition I saw was closer to nervous breakdowns than defiance. The girls rarely crossed the staff at the Village except in really sad to watch ways, like protesting the denouncement sessions, no my rape wasn’t my fault, or saying I can’t work anymore I feel sick or I can’t stop sobbing I’m trying but I can't stop, I’m just going to sit here and not move. I saw bruises and suffered them myself I also heard a lot of you are hurting me I can’t breaths.
I never saw anything that posed as a danger to staff or the other girls but I sure saw them restrain people a lot. I also thought it odd that if the girls were so dangerous they would have them marching around with hammers, saws, mauls, axes and other weapons.
The Village is very expensive costing about 400 to 700 dollars a night this ends up being well over a hundred thousand dollars a year to your insurance company! They charge more when they are "forced" to restrain you or put you in STU, as this requires more work or something. Everyone in there had really good insurance or was a ward of the state.
I forgot to add they, of course, won't let you talk to your parents except after I think it was six months for me, even then just by phone with a family therapist on conference call so if you break out of the party line and say “please get me out it’s a nightmare” large orderlies can appear and march you back for more abusive indoctrination.
They laugh at you when you say you want a lawyer. Your Parents have of course been told you are a lying manipulator and not to believe you and that you just want to come home so you can go out with boys and smoke pot.
Kids wet the bed because they are too scared to ask to go to the bathroom at night, either that or all the abuse is manifesting in weird ways. I wouldn't believe it except I lived it and I swear on my life everything I said is 150% true.
I have lasting scars from this experience, I have nightmares almost every night, not always about the village just in general, that the world is a horrible place and all the scary fascist monsters are going to eat me and everything I care about and I'm going to be completely at there mercy. Besides the nightmares I shake uncontrollably, these fits happen any time I am nervous, about once a day, I am not exaggerating, it’s very embarrassing and not helpful at work or in school.
My family doctor, says that I have a good case of post traumatic stress disorder. I have finally gotten over my overwhelming social anxiety enough that I don't care who sees me shake if it means I get a college degree and have a life of my own.
The Village taught me nothing other than how to be cowed and subservient and to think it was ok when someone abuses me. I recently got out of a four year relationship with an alcoholic fiancé with a college degree and a good job who would get up in my face and scream about once a week, I honestly think it was Stockholm Syndrome and the feeling of helplessness the Village programs into you.
I still am completely incapable of making eye contact with other human beings. I also have painful a painful ulcer my doctor again says, due to stress. I can’t emphasize enough how bad Peninsula Village is.
I was amazed that we had no rights while in there. I asked to speak to a lawyer or someone from the outside, I heard girls ask to have the police called repeatedly, and they laughed at us.
I am not a happy camper! I still feel like a worthless person who deserves abuse even though I know this isn't true. It's just an all too daily mantra there, how everything is your fault, your rape, your parent’s problems, your anorexia, your life in foster care.
I never got to talk to another girl the entire time I was there, other than with asked permission and staff listening, even then it was just about mandatory things, like, put the piece of wood down here.
I can understand how many have been taken in by Peninsula Village and all these other facilities and there sure are a lot of them. From the outside they look just fine. My parents are good intelligent people, who trusted and had no idea that such things even existed in America. They believed as I did that it was a safe and caring program that would help their daughter like most school and health programs are. No-one sees it from the inside except the daily staff and the girls really and us they do so much to discredit and keep down that we do not believe anyone will.
The facility which was known as "Peninsula Village" has changed ownership since this teenager was at the program. The structure of the program has been altered. If for better is difficult to decide.
Sources:
This nineteen year old troubled girl has been indoctrinated nothing more! She is speaking the party line and you are all fascists to be buying that any of this is ok!
I was also in the Village and it helped me about as much as two years as a POW would have. It also cost my parents insurance company over 150,000 dollars a year. What passes for treatment there is a fascist farce and the girls i was in with were hardly hardened criminals. One girl was in for being gay another for being molested by a close relative and that was it, lots of anorexics, and suicide attempts.
Many were in for more serious things but I know from personal experience beating, brainwashing and taking away all the civil rights of a teenager does not make them want to not self destruct. This hell hole is sold as a way to help these girls. Also how, if there is no legal recourse for them and they are completely isolated, can any of this so called treatment be kept above any sort of level? How do we know kids are not getting lost in it! As they certainly are.
What about the girls who accused a close relative of molesting them and their families put them in the Village? What the hell is that! Many of the girls were victims of a sexual predator or a rape or of something that constituted rape due to the age difference. Or they were just acting out or got lost in their complete alienation from the kind of parents that would send them off to be abused and not care that they were.
Many of the state kids did not have fit parents, in fact most of them didn't. You know, of course, that when I say state kids I mean your tax dollars are paying for their stay in Peninsula Village. It's hard to grow up by yourself and out of the frying pan there are plenty of fires!
There were some nasty people in there for sure but most of them were staff members. I am now twenty five and it took me seven ++ years to undo some of the abuse I suffered in that stupid Nazi sh$t hole, and you better believe when I finally finish my masters degree in Sociology and political Science there is going to be holy hell to pay!
Anything I have done in my life has been in spite of that stupid evil farce and I still have nightmares and a fun case of post traumatic stress disorder, I shake uncontrollably about once a day! I think all of these privately run facilities should be shut down and their staff brought up on repeat child abuse charges!
I am currently working with the state of Tennessee child protection agency to try and get this done. These children are simply troubled teenagers and Peninsula Village is a fascist Nazi prison camp and Abigail needs to try and break out of her indoctrination!
Any place that won't let you talk to a lawyer, your parents or the police and does what the Village does to you belongs no where but is more expected in the third world!
I know how that place colors people and it angered me to hear the other girls spoken of in that way! They make everything sound as degrading as possible, especially if you have good insurance. Suicide attempts are suicide attempts, what is so bad that a 13-18 year old girl wants to die already! I know what passes for some of the things that they listed as the other girls doing!
I remember how they repeatedly, every day all day, maligned and shamed girls who were already so traumatized they could barely see straight. How is this supposed to help some 13 to 18 year old that has been through something like that?
It is just so much fun to watch large stupid sadists abuse a 85 pound anorexic or a rape victim or tell the rape victim it was her fault. That it's all her fault. This isn't therapy this is Abu Ghraib!
These poor girls, they treat convicted felons better in this country. It's such a catch twenty-two you try to self destruct because you were abused and then they put you in a place that abuses you more to learn you how to not self destruct.
State sanctioned very expensive child abuse runs on social stigma and prejudice. If you want to see some blaming of the victim go on be a fly on the wall at Peninsula Village!
I bet half of the girls I was in with are dead by now, which is where Peninsula Village really wants them, out of the way so they can't cause a fuss or show up with insurance papers with extortionist amounts on them and demand some of it back.
Please read this. Everyone should know what is happening in America today. My story is not uncommon or even the worst case scenario, look up Mel Sembler and the Straight program as well as troubled teen help and abuse at behavior modification facilities, it is a very scary thing to do!
I was in Peninsula Village two years from 96 to 98, both my parents and I feel that we were extremely misled as to what my treatment there would be like. I was in the lock down unit for six months on arrival to the Village although I was cowed, completely subservient and did everything that they told me to.
I was physically restrained on the first day in a hospital gown by at least 8 large adults for nothing more than pulling away, it was an impulse reaction, when the large orderly woman dug her nails purposefully into my arm.
There was absolutely no need to restrain me other than to prove a point, we can hurt you if we want to. I was already in the isolation room all she had to do was walk out and close the door, I wasn’t at all violent or had even thought to be, pulling away was a knee jerk reaction because she had hurt me. Mostly I was scared, crying and sitting on the floor of the isolation room in a ball.
This was after the body search and being woken up at 5:30 in the morning by three burly adults who escorted me to Tennessee, it was more like being kidnapped.
While being restrained the Peninsula Village staff applied excessive pressure, I couldn't breathe and kept repeating that I was choking, but they let no pressure off, I was bruised and sore the next day, the restraint went on for hours.
I saw one girl with a nasty black eye which they said came from pressing her face into the floor, like that made it better! I saw other cases with bruised arms, wrists or legs. They restrain someone about twice a week.
There is no doubt in my mind that they could have restrained my totally non-resistant sobbing 95 pound borderline anorexic teenage self between all 1400 pounds of the 8 of them without hurting me. I was not fighting at all, even at first, I was far too shocked. Each held a body part so it was not a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, they meant to hurt us. They also keep restraining you long after any fight is gone and even if none was there in the first place.
I remember girls being restrained for what seemed like all night, although it was really only about five hours. There was an isolation room in the lockdown unit, nice cold hard linoleum with cement underneath but they would restrain you anywhere, gravel, garden manure, whatever, and they used a straight jacket called a burrito.
I can remember seeing one tough little state kid stuck in that thing for a day or more, they were leading her around. Other girls were strapped to a cot wrapped up in it, stuck full of thorzine and left to drool. There were about two restraints a week.
I was once restrained because I couldn't stop crying , I really couldn't I would have stopped of course to avoided being restrained, I was about as resistant as a wet noodle and they still held me down choking for hours.
They would restrain girls without reason, for saying in group therapy, I don’t agree with that, or for sitting down on work detail saying that they felt sick and needed to rest. We were not allowed to look at or talk to the other girls and we had to ask for permission to do anything, move even, of course go to the bathroom and we had to tell them what it is we had to do. They stood outside the door and timed us.
Group therapy was more like a denouncement session and began as soon as you were crying, that is later on the first day, after they had restrained you for a few hours and you were a broken puddle ready to confess to anything. I don't believe that many of the staff that actually lives with the girls on a daily basis is especially educated, perhaps some BA's and associate degrees, I would guess a lot of community college certifications. These are the ones who actually deal with the children and run group therapy and restrain them.
The lights were left on all the time, we slept in cubicles and were often woken by the staff patrolling , they were always standing over us.
We were punished constantly, abuse was constant every second for those two years. We had level systems, I never got beyond the first level although I was completely compliant. I don't think I was as willing to rip into my fellow prisoners as much they would have liked.
Group therapy was a communist denouncement experience, it was pure hell, and I am not exaggerating. They would find out your deepest darkest secrets and then browbeat you with them like you were disgusting dirt, we could say nothing to defend ourselves or we would face being PCId/ restrained. They liked sexual revelations and would ask you everything about them, specific details and more details, it was not appropriate, odd and used to induce shame.
The line of questioning was often very led. I heard them convince a girl, at the prompting of her divorced well-off mother, that her father had molested her. The girl could remember no instances of ever having been molested but through constant browbeating and abuse, over the course of months, the staff at the Village had the girl sobbing and believing that she had been sexually abused. You would confess under extreme pressure to things you didn't do.
Many of the girls were there for something that had happened to them. Somewhere, I think the website, says the Village is an expert at helping abused girls. It was terrible to watch them torture some poor kid who was there because she had been raped or molested. Many of the girls had been raped or molested, myself included, and to be held up to shame, ridicule and denouncement in relation to sex at a place that was supposed to help you with your experience was a pure nightmare.
They encourage the girls to pick on each other, to rip into each other during group therapy. Bullying is greatly encouraged, in fact the level system is based strongly on it. There was some desperation mentality in this, we all struggled so hard to avoid being punished and they punished all of us together.
I realize now that the punishments were arbitrary, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them they were still going to rain down on our heads. I would pretend to give feedback, their word for harassment and abuse, but how can you tear someone apart after listening to them scream all night while staff held their face into the floor.
There were also frequent outbreaks of head lice while I was in STU.
It seemed very odd that some of the girls were in a behavior modification facility at all and it was hard to tell how all the abuse was going to help any of them. One of the girls was in for telling her parents that she was gay, the staff told her that she was not.
There were lots of anorexics, and some had never used drugs or drank although staff insisted we were all alcoholic druggy sluts, an idea hateful and prejudice filled, not at all conducive to education and healing!
There was a 13 year old who had dyed her hair black and written in her diary "I wish all the kids who harass me at school would die" and that was pretty much it, I think her grades had dropped too. She saw spots sometimes and had blankness in her vision so they told her she was schizophrenic and medicated her to the gills. There was a lot of pretty odd diagnosis, I thought.
Worst of all some had done nothing other than get molested by a close relative, to the horror of their families. It did not seem reasonable that they were treated as if they were being punished or were in jail for more serious offenses.
I thought too, that a lot of the girls who were in for more serious things were acting out more serious problems in their lives, like having unfit parents and being in foster care. Many of the girls had simply fallen prey to some sexual predator. A very common story was "my parents don't understand me," "I have no parents, they are too busy drinking or using drugs" or "My “blank to protect privacy” has been molesting me since I was six and when I told my “blank” she threw me out." The next step in this story was inevitably "the guy I thought was nice, and 19 or younger, later turned out to be 23. He gave me alcohol or something else, pressured me a lot and we had sex. He said we had to have sex. He said he loved me. Or I used drugs/drank to make myself feel better and then I couldn't remember anything. Or I had sex because I felt bad and I thought I could trust the people I considered friends. I thought he cared about me, I just needed a hug.
God the poor girls who acted out their problems through sex or were just naive and ended up there. The sexual advances of men can be a pretty overwhelming even for a grown woman much less a depressed, my parents don't understand me, or I don't have parents, you'll love and give me affection right, sort of kid.
They made you feel like a slut, a word I hate and not one conducive to healing or education! Even if you were raped or molested. This is the most warped excuse for therapy I could possibly imagine.
I bet half of the girls I just described have committed suicide by now, the suicide rate is pretty high coming out of these places.
It ruins your life, it’s like having sound bites from hell running through your head. Some of the kids were just stupid teenagers who wanted to be cool and who had had enough bad experiences with drugs, sex and rock and roll, how they viewed sex and drugs, in their short experience with them that if they hadn't been in a prison camp and weren't being abused they would have been more than open to some logical, sane reasoning like sex and drugs are really not so great despite what the media and your friends say.
These girls needed to be taught to think for themselves, not to blindly follow what the abusive people around them tell them to do. That is what had landed many of them in Peninsula Village in the first place.
The brainwashing only carries you for about a year, usually I think. Although I think some of the girls started associating with the staff, I guess it’s that old abused turns into the abuser adage. Other wise the constant abuse did nothing but make you want to do everything it told you not to, because it was so obviously wrong and fascist. It gave you justification in your actions and, there for, was far more of a trap than any positive help!
I know all this about the other girls because we rarely to never had individual therapy it was mostly just the weird denouncement session crap.
After the lock down unit with its cramped quarters and barred mesh covered windows for months, we had the cabins and work detail. Work detail was exercise digging up stumps, cross sawing logs, mauling logs, building endless things under the constant abuse of the staff in the hot sun.
I believe I was also suffering from sleep deprivation because we were often woken up at two in the morning to go out to the log shed to be shown how much wood still needed to be chopped or for some other arbitrary reason.
We also always woke up before dawn and went to bed late because of punishments and finishing the endless chores. I used to fall asleep standing up, literally on a daily basis. We marched around in lines, or holding on to a rope, and there was still no talking or looking at the other girls, it was very lonely.
We had to haul around the Gott, a water jug that weighed so much your arms would feel like they were going to fall off and you'd want to vomit but if you dropped it you knew you were in worse trouble, we carried around many heavy things.
The cabins have no running water or bathrooms only porta johns. They exercise you past the breaking point and then over a little, and then much more. It was torture, I can't emphasize that enough torture, we did this all day most days, unless we were in school or on shutdown.
We had no free time, we weren't allowed to read or anything, everything was tightly scheduled and we would always miss our schedule and be punished although we tried in pure desperation to make them happy so they would stop. Even our showers were timed usually ten minutes, five as a punishment with only cold water.
Hygiene wasn’t that great and there was no makeup or jewelry or of course shaving your legs, only ugly work cloths. I mention this because it is very dehumanizing for a young girl.
School was nice when you got to go, but it wasn't very organized and there was a lot of other stuff going on, we also only went half the school week, so we could do more important things like dig stumps out of the ground, I guess.
Most left with a GED, I think they really focused on GED training, which makes it hard to get into colleges, especially if when they ask for high school credits you list a behavior modification facility.
Often if something came up, like we went on shutdown or were sent to STU, the lockdown unit, we would miss school all together. Once they had us sit in a circle with our backs to each other and stare at the wall for five months only to turn around for group therapy and to be escorted to the bathroom.
We had no school for those five months and five months is a long time to sit in a circle starring at a wall only to turn around for a denouncement session.
From all the restraining you are probably thinking that the girls were always acting up. I can not stress how completely not true this is. For the most part they were more like zombies than wild teenagers.
I’ve done some research on prison camps and abuse and I don't believe there is a teenager girl out there that isn’t going to turn into a limp half dead dish rag in the face of no escape, constant abuse; mental, physical, emotional and sexual, although not physically so, denouncement sessions, sleep deprivation, sadistic people four times her size watching her constantly and being drugged.
The only opposition I saw was closer to nervous breakdowns than defiance. The girls rarely crossed the staff at the Village except in really sad to watch ways, like protesting the denouncement sessions, no my rape wasn’t my fault, or saying I can’t work anymore I feel sick or I can’t stop sobbing I’m trying but I can't stop, I’m just going to sit here and not move. I saw bruises and suffered them myself I also heard a lot of you are hurting me I can’t breaths.
I never saw anything that posed as a danger to staff or the other girls but I sure saw them restrain people a lot. I also thought it odd that if the girls were so dangerous they would have them marching around with hammers, saws, mauls, axes and other weapons.
The Village is very expensive costing about 400 to 700 dollars a night this ends up being well over a hundred thousand dollars a year to your insurance company! They charge more when they are "forced" to restrain you or put you in STU, as this requires more work or something. Everyone in there had really good insurance or was a ward of the state.
I forgot to add they, of course, won't let you talk to your parents except after I think it was six months for me, even then just by phone with a family therapist on conference call so if you break out of the party line and say “please get me out it’s a nightmare” large orderlies can appear and march you back for more abusive indoctrination.
They laugh at you when you say you want a lawyer. Your Parents have of course been told you are a lying manipulator and not to believe you and that you just want to come home so you can go out with boys and smoke pot.
Kids wet the bed because they are too scared to ask to go to the bathroom at night, either that or all the abuse is manifesting in weird ways. I wouldn't believe it except I lived it and I swear on my life everything I said is 150% true.
I have lasting scars from this experience, I have nightmares almost every night, not always about the village just in general, that the world is a horrible place and all the scary fascist monsters are going to eat me and everything I care about and I'm going to be completely at there mercy. Besides the nightmares I shake uncontrollably, these fits happen any time I am nervous, about once a day, I am not exaggerating, it’s very embarrassing and not helpful at work or in school.
My family doctor, says that I have a good case of post traumatic stress disorder. I have finally gotten over my overwhelming social anxiety enough that I don't care who sees me shake if it means I get a college degree and have a life of my own.
The Village taught me nothing other than how to be cowed and subservient and to think it was ok when someone abuses me. I recently got out of a four year relationship with an alcoholic fiancé with a college degree and a good job who would get up in my face and scream about once a week, I honestly think it was Stockholm Syndrome and the feeling of helplessness the Village programs into you.
I still am completely incapable of making eye contact with other human beings. I also have painful a painful ulcer my doctor again says, due to stress. I can’t emphasize enough how bad Peninsula Village is.
I was amazed that we had no rights while in there. I asked to speak to a lawyer or someone from the outside, I heard girls ask to have the police called repeatedly, and they laughed at us.
I am not a happy camper! I still feel like a worthless person who deserves abuse even though I know this isn't true. It's just an all too daily mantra there, how everything is your fault, your rape, your parent’s problems, your anorexia, your life in foster care.
I never got to talk to another girl the entire time I was there, other than with asked permission and staff listening, even then it was just about mandatory things, like, put the piece of wood down here.
I can understand how many have been taken in by Peninsula Village and all these other facilities and there sure are a lot of them. From the outside they look just fine. My parents are good intelligent people, who trusted and had no idea that such things even existed in America. They believed as I did that it was a safe and caring program that would help their daughter like most school and health programs are. No-one sees it from the inside except the daily staff and the girls really and us they do so much to discredit and keep down that we do not believe anyone will.
The facility which was known as "Peninsula Village" has changed ownership since this teenager was at the program. The structure of the program has been altered. If for better is difficult to decide.
Sources:
- A Teen Recovery Autobiography by A Vona (I speak of Dreams blog)
- Factsheet about the program (Fornits Wiki)
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The truth about peninsula village- An absolute nitemare.... (II)
This testimony was found on the message board, which belonged to Fighting Institutional Child Abuse Network. All rights goes to the original author "jburns123 "
I was at the village from age 17-19 (just shy of two years) after my parents died and I went to live with my aunt, uncle, their three kids and didn't adjust well. I was depressed and they did not know how to handle depression/refusal to attend school. They tried the best they could but overreacted, as most parents (parental figures) do and sought professional help. My therapist suggested they send me to a residential treatment facility and one of the only ones taking teens who were almost 18 was Peninsula Village. I consented because I knew I needed some type of help and had no idea what Peninsula Village was plus I figured I would be home in three months anyway (once I was a legal adult).
My experience was very similar to Vanilla Gorilla's and it was surreal to such a unique, yet different tale from a stranger. I too was brought onto the locked unit, strip searched immediately, told not to speak to anyone, placed on a pull out bed in the front of a large room with twenty-something other beds/empty bodies, yet not allowed to speak or look at another soul all day. I kept thinking my first day that I would be allowed to watch TV, get on the Internet, even play a game or take a nap but it never happened. I guess it was only normal to expect something to happen when one is never told what to expect. I was never told what was going on once. No one told me the rules really or said we weren't allowed to eat before a certain time and if we messed up we got into trouble. It was like we were expected to know everything immediately and read minds.
We had group therapy twice a day, meals three times, chores multiple times a day, and the occasional group activity that taught a 'life skill' every week. I don't ever remember having fun on that locked unit. The process is that you get to transition out to the cabins for the full experience and I remember transitioning out after only one month but I got scared and pretended to "run" during transition. We were going to our cabin for group therapy and I literally ran around the cabin and fell to the floor. I wasn't trying to go anywhere, just make a scene. It was enough to get the air horn blown, tackled by several adults, put into a restraint jacket, then brought back onto the locked unit where I was forced to use a bedpan while I was menstruating (sorry for graphics but it was disgusting). I ran because I thought maybe they would keep me on the locked unit and not send me to the cabin portion if I acted out in the second part. I had seen other girls stay their duration on the locked unit and never once go to the cabin program because it suited them better. I liked that idea because I saw how intense the cabins were. The consequences became physical (push ups, sit ups, even football work outs were used like three-points and wall sits), responsibilities increased, level system broadened, and everything was much more intense and fast-paced.
Anyway, I saw girls leaving after six months and was sure I wouldn't be there long, especially since I was going out to the cabins so soon. I mention this because I feel Peninsula Village kept me there a ridiculous amount of time, forcing me to make up stories as well then using them against me because I wasn't there on my insurance's dime but the money my dad left for me in his will. I actually ended up having to use all of his money on Peninsula Village because I was there for so long and they just kept telling my aunt and uncle that I needed it and wasn't ready to come home. However, fellow 'inmates' were leaving well before me and had far more things to work on, I felt. I was with another girl whose father was a government official and could afford to send her anywhere. It seemed quite interesting that she was there longer than I was...no insurance helped her either. Another girl had horrible self-harm issues, still being sent to the restraining room every few days but after only three months she was miraculously cured. They literally said she was just a 'special girl' (or did insurance stop?). When I walked through the doors of Peninsula Village at 17, I was depressed, sad, angry, and withdrawn, but I was not a drug addict, alcoholic, self mutilator, nor did I have any type of eating disorder. At 24, I can say I have more issues now than ever and many stemmed from that facility. There was no legitimate reason I was at PV for such a long time, so they asked me to give them one. I couldn't remember my childhood, so they filled my empty memories with things they thought sounded good.
They told me my dad and mom were abusive. They weren't satisfied until I told them what they wanted to hear. What they wanted to hear were some insane stories. I feel like this is child abuse, especially when it is used to get money. It has caused a huge rift between my aunt, uncle, and me because they don't know what to believe. I had to discuss these awful accusations about my uncle's favorite sister to him on the phone and pretty much broke his heart. After coming home, I explained that it was made up because of the facility's need to hear those things. You can only imagine what my family could believe and how it effects us to this day.
Sorry for this droning but occasionally it is healing for me and others. Thank you for listening. Hope it has helped someone, somehow. Best of luck to everyone.
Source:
The original testimony from the Fighting Institutional Child Abuse Network message board
My experience was very similar to Vanilla Gorilla's and it was surreal to such a unique, yet different tale from a stranger. I too was brought onto the locked unit, strip searched immediately, told not to speak to anyone, placed on a pull out bed in the front of a large room with twenty-something other beds/empty bodies, yet not allowed to speak or look at another soul all day. I kept thinking my first day that I would be allowed to watch TV, get on the Internet, even play a game or take a nap but it never happened. I guess it was only normal to expect something to happen when one is never told what to expect. I was never told what was going on once. No one told me the rules really or said we weren't allowed to eat before a certain time and if we messed up we got into trouble. It was like we were expected to know everything immediately and read minds.
We had group therapy twice a day, meals three times, chores multiple times a day, and the occasional group activity that taught a 'life skill' every week. I don't ever remember having fun on that locked unit. The process is that you get to transition out to the cabins for the full experience and I remember transitioning out after only one month but I got scared and pretended to "run" during transition. We were going to our cabin for group therapy and I literally ran around the cabin and fell to the floor. I wasn't trying to go anywhere, just make a scene. It was enough to get the air horn blown, tackled by several adults, put into a restraint jacket, then brought back onto the locked unit where I was forced to use a bedpan while I was menstruating (sorry for graphics but it was disgusting). I ran because I thought maybe they would keep me on the locked unit and not send me to the cabin portion if I acted out in the second part. I had seen other girls stay their duration on the locked unit and never once go to the cabin program because it suited them better. I liked that idea because I saw how intense the cabins were. The consequences became physical (push ups, sit ups, even football work outs were used like three-points and wall sits), responsibilities increased, level system broadened, and everything was much more intense and fast-paced.
Anyway, I saw girls leaving after six months and was sure I wouldn't be there long, especially since I was going out to the cabins so soon. I mention this because I feel Peninsula Village kept me there a ridiculous amount of time, forcing me to make up stories as well then using them against me because I wasn't there on my insurance's dime but the money my dad left for me in his will. I actually ended up having to use all of his money on Peninsula Village because I was there for so long and they just kept telling my aunt and uncle that I needed it and wasn't ready to come home. However, fellow 'inmates' were leaving well before me and had far more things to work on, I felt. I was with another girl whose father was a government official and could afford to send her anywhere. It seemed quite interesting that she was there longer than I was...no insurance helped her either. Another girl had horrible self-harm issues, still being sent to the restraining room every few days but after only three months she was miraculously cured. They literally said she was just a 'special girl' (or did insurance stop?). When I walked through the doors of Peninsula Village at 17, I was depressed, sad, angry, and withdrawn, but I was not a drug addict, alcoholic, self mutilator, nor did I have any type of eating disorder. At 24, I can say I have more issues now than ever and many stemmed from that facility. There was no legitimate reason I was at PV for such a long time, so they asked me to give them one. I couldn't remember my childhood, so they filled my empty memories with things they thought sounded good.
They told me my dad and mom were abusive. They weren't satisfied until I told them what they wanted to hear. What they wanted to hear were some insane stories. I feel like this is child abuse, especially when it is used to get money. It has caused a huge rift between my aunt, uncle, and me because they don't know what to believe. I had to discuss these awful accusations about my uncle's favorite sister to him on the phone and pretty much broke his heart. After coming home, I explained that it was made up because of the facility's need to hear those things. You can only imagine what my family could believe and how it effects us to this day.
Sorry for this droning but occasionally it is healing for me and others. Thank you for listening. Hope it has helped someone, somehow. Best of luck to everyone.
Source:
The original testimony from the Fighting Institutional Child Abuse Network message board
Sunday, November 4, 2012
The truth about peninsula village- An absolute nitemare....
This testimony was found on the message board, which belonged to Fighting Institutional Child Abuse Network. All rights goes to the original author "August"
An absolute nightmare. If you want your child to become a lab rat for psychiatric drugs, and abused on every level, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and I am rarely at a loss for words, it is an absolute nitemare! I have never before or since witnessed and experienced such abuse as the hell that was that year so long ago. I'm going to break it down for you as quickly and simply as I can. I remember my Mother driving me to the office where I was officially admitted. The moment that we exited the car and entered the PV office was the last time for a solid year that I would be able to openly or freely communicate with any of my family. It's almost like cult tactics, well, no almost about it...Everything from that point on is coached and controlled by peninsula village. I was driven from admissions to the STU stabelization unit- sky blue walls, fear, and sadness.
Staff members wearing alarm buzzers around their necks to push for assistance in tackling teenagers, stripping them down and locking them in a freezing cold "time out" room because perhaps after hours of sitting on their bed with their arm raised and no acknowldgement they really had to piss so got up without permission- tackled, stripped and locked away- for their own safety of course. We would sit on those dreaded beds for twenty three hours a day. No going outside, no anything really. You may raise your hand for hours on end and the staff would only ignore you unless you got up, then prepare to be tackled. I was told to write a twenty page biography of my issues, and had this ripped up in my face three times by my counselor who told me that I was full of shit and a manipulative liar minimizing and all that good shit...so what does one do, make up issues when the truth is not working its about survival at that point. Truly. Then they "accepted" my bio, what irony. A couple of years ago I was visiting my family and found a video from a family therapy session from when I was at the village. Damn. I broke down, flooded with the pain of that year. I was on so much lithium and extremely high doses of prozac that on the video my speech was terribly slurred and I almost seemed retarded. Scary.
After about six weeks to three months one "graduates" out of the stabelization with the grand priveledge of moving into a cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water. Of course there is a bath house that is used for showers and everything is timed short. The winter is cold, and often as a punishment for something or another the bath house "priveledge" would be revoked in the mornings and if you wanted to wash your face and brush your teeth then you you had five minutes at an outside spigot for the entire group in thirty degree temps, and it is an absolute nitemare. There is a cosequence for everything. It seems to break ones spirit is a concrete goal of the all powerful treatment team. There is verbal abuse by the counselors, and the limited and always supervised contact with family is always coached. Some other consequences pusing a wheelbarrow full of rocks, walking holding a ten foot piece of rope stepping all over one another for miles on end. Slepp deprivation. They work you like a slave doing physical labor and the school is inadequate at best...I don't know.
People have problems, and time heals a lot of things...I left home after graduating from the village so upset that my parents put me there and did not speak to my Mother for almost four years. Today, I realize that at the time they were only doing what they thought was best at the time, right or wrong, they never intentionally set out to harm me....now the people at the viallge, there was some serious abuse going on...
I mean I am 34 now, and still tramuatized...anyway...I am tired, and given time could deliver more details and examples, but feel free to e mail me with any questions, and I'm interested in hearing from some other "alumni" from years ago with their own thoughts and opinions....I'm allowed to have those now unlike my time at Peninsula Village. Thanks...August
Source:
An absolute nightmare. If you want your child to become a lab rat for psychiatric drugs, and abused on every level, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and I am rarely at a loss for words, it is an absolute nitemare! I have never before or since witnessed and experienced such abuse as the hell that was that year so long ago. I'm going to break it down for you as quickly and simply as I can. I remember my Mother driving me to the office where I was officially admitted. The moment that we exited the car and entered the PV office was the last time for a solid year that I would be able to openly or freely communicate with any of my family. It's almost like cult tactics, well, no almost about it...Everything from that point on is coached and controlled by peninsula village. I was driven from admissions to the STU stabelization unit- sky blue walls, fear, and sadness.
Staff members wearing alarm buzzers around their necks to push for assistance in tackling teenagers, stripping them down and locking them in a freezing cold "time out" room because perhaps after hours of sitting on their bed with their arm raised and no acknowldgement they really had to piss so got up without permission- tackled, stripped and locked away- for their own safety of course. We would sit on those dreaded beds for twenty three hours a day. No going outside, no anything really. You may raise your hand for hours on end and the staff would only ignore you unless you got up, then prepare to be tackled. I was told to write a twenty page biography of my issues, and had this ripped up in my face three times by my counselor who told me that I was full of shit and a manipulative liar minimizing and all that good shit...so what does one do, make up issues when the truth is not working its about survival at that point. Truly. Then they "accepted" my bio, what irony. A couple of years ago I was visiting my family and found a video from a family therapy session from when I was at the village. Damn. I broke down, flooded with the pain of that year. I was on so much lithium and extremely high doses of prozac that on the video my speech was terribly slurred and I almost seemed retarded. Scary.
After about six weeks to three months one "graduates" out of the stabelization with the grand priveledge of moving into a cabin in the woods with no electricity or running water. Of course there is a bath house that is used for showers and everything is timed short. The winter is cold, and often as a punishment for something or another the bath house "priveledge" would be revoked in the mornings and if you wanted to wash your face and brush your teeth then you you had five minutes at an outside spigot for the entire group in thirty degree temps, and it is an absolute nitemare. There is a cosequence for everything. It seems to break ones spirit is a concrete goal of the all powerful treatment team. There is verbal abuse by the counselors, and the limited and always supervised contact with family is always coached. Some other consequences pusing a wheelbarrow full of rocks, walking holding a ten foot piece of rope stepping all over one another for miles on end. Slepp deprivation. They work you like a slave doing physical labor and the school is inadequate at best...I don't know.
People have problems, and time heals a lot of things...I left home after graduating from the village so upset that my parents put me there and did not speak to my Mother for almost four years. Today, I realize that at the time they were only doing what they thought was best at the time, right or wrong, they never intentionally set out to harm me....now the people at the viallge, there was some serious abuse going on...
I mean I am 34 now, and still tramuatized...anyway...I am tired, and given time could deliver more details and examples, but feel free to e mail me with any questions, and I'm interested in hearing from some other "alumni" from years ago with their own thoughts and opinions....I'm allowed to have those now unlike my time at Peninsula Village. Thanks...August
Source:
Monday, January 2, 2012
Monday, December 5, 2011
Acidrain85 at various places
I have spent eleven years of my life institutionalized. From age of twelve to twenty-three I spent only six months in my own bed.
I had a rough childhood. I was adopted at a young age. In addition to this, in the home of my adoptive family, while between the ages of six to eight years old my sister molested me. I started using drugs at a young age to cope and became addicted. At ten years old my sister set me up with males to perform sexual acts on in exchange for money or drugs. My life was headed in a poor direction. I began hanging around gang members and running away. Eventually, the State became involved, and threatened to remove me from my adoptive family if I didn’t receive help.
The first program I went to was an outdoor program called E-NINI-HASSEE. I was so unhappy I began cutting myself. It got to the point to where I did so constantly, so I was sent to the Hospital. My parents were not told about the situation until I was admitted. Because of the lack of communication, my parents withdrew me from their program and took me home, where I remained for six months. That was the only six months I spent in my own bed until the age of twenty-three.
During those six months I continued my previous behavior and continued to get worse. I began spray painting bridges and dating older men. I did so because I felt as though my family didn’t have enough time for me. At the age of fourteen I began dating a twenty-eight year old gang member. He ended up dying violently by being shot and died in my arms. Him dying was a trigger for me, as he had been a source of emotional support for me. I began cutting myself more often. My parents noticed this and put me in the hospital.
From there my father transported me to a different program in Utah called Cross Creek for three months. In those three months, I spent a majority of my time in isolation. I was restrained painfully countless times for outbursts, and sometimes for less severe infractions. Isolation is where I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas.
While there, without prior knowledge on my part, two people came to me at two o’clock in the morning to escort me as a transfer to their sister facility High Impact in Mexico. Their program there was shocking. Everything was fenced in. They had dog cages to keep the residents in whom misbehaved.
The program was based around walking laps on a dirt track, and a wide array of rules and regulations. It was meant to institute a rapid amount of change. The critera to leave their program was simple; or so I thought. We were required to listen to 60 Alcohol Anonymous tapes and correctly answer questions on the corresponding ‘worksheets.’ Then, we had to complete two-thousand laps around the dirt track. Laps were tracked like points. If you misbehaved, you would be punished by having additional laps to do. The children were treated differently based on whether or not they were sent to their program from home, or another facility. The children who had transferred from other facilities were punished more severely.
Transfer children needed just one rule infraction to have an additional eighty laps. The other children could acquire up to five rule infractions before they were imposed additional laps. The reasoning in this was that transfer children were considered more obstinate.
The majority of my time in their Mexico facility was spent in the cages, laying on my stomach with my arms spread as though I were on a cross. I was not allowed to move from that position. I was kept in that manner for hours, and sometimes the whole day. Had I moved, I would of been subjected to physical restraint. The staff would jam their knees into my back, neck or arms, and would grind my chin into the dirt.
The staff there treated the children there brutally. We were forced into exhausting amounts of exercise. One night I asked for my sleeping bag because it was taken away from me on a very cold night. The over night shift called the manager of the facility. He grabbed me, threw me down, put my head in the toilet, flushed, then pushed me in the shower. He said I had to sleep in wet clothes without a sleeping bag.
On my sixteenth birthday he raped me for the first time. When he was done he said ‘Happy Sweet Sixteen’ and had a staff member escort me off. I was then shoved into a shower with my clothes on. I was raped a total of five times by him. Every morning I woke up there I wondered if I would still be alive long enough to go to sleep that night. I feared it would never end. I was in that program four months. The average stay legnth was two months. However, I was forced to do their high impact program twice.
After my stay I was met at the airport by my father and we flew to another program in Oregon called Crater Lake School, run through a different organization. I was nervous about the change. I was unfamilar with the rules, and because of the previous harsh punishment I experienced in the other programs, I was afraid of making a mistake. I didn’t want to be treated brutally. Once I got acclimated to the facility, I learned it treated its children in a way that was more humane. I didn’t fear being abused and tortured there, and because of that I began to rebel. I became defiant, ran away several times, and began cutting myself again.
One of their counselors became concerned, and asked if I would willingly go to the hospital. I agreed. While in the hospital, my behavior was considered hyper. Because of this, I was tied down to a bed with restraints. Once, I was restrained for sixteen hours, without being able to go to the bathroom. After leaving there, I went back to the referring facility. I became so upset about my trauma, that I began cutting myself again within twenty-four hours.
Because I began cutting myself again, I was sent back to the hospital for two weeks. From there, I was transferred to a different program in Texas called Meridel Achievement Center. I half-heartedly faked my way up the ranks until I was on their highest level. However, I eventually was put back down to their lowest level. It triggered me into cutting myself again. Their staff responded by putting me into isolation and tying me down to the bed in effort of keeping me from harming myself.
My father removed me from that program and we flew together to Tennessee, to bring me to a different facility called Peninsula Village. The beginning of my stay there was similar to a hospital setting. That was considered their programs first stage. However, my behavior led them to strap me down to a rolling bed. They put a mesh body suit on me and injected me with thorozine. I was so out of it I was drooling on myself. In this state, they rolled me out into the main room with the other children. It was humiliating.
Eventually I settled down a bit. After successfully making it past the first stage I went into what was considered an outdoor stage. I slept in a cabin. However, the staff was poorly trained. There were several incidents were I was restrained. Once, I was restrained on chicken wire. I was cut badly by the incident and did not receive medical attention. In another incident I hit my head and suffered a concussion. I didn’t receive medical care for that as well. I was simply taken aside to be watched by staff to make sure I didn’t pass out. For my last two months there I was put into isolation. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone, or join groups. I was merely supposed to sit on my bed and mind my own business. While I was there, I overheard the doctor speak with my father over the phone. The doctor said to my father ‘if he didn’t want his daughter back they could figure something out.’ After that conversation I was quickly pulled from that program.
When I left I was transferred to another facility in Utah called Pine Ridge Academy. It was a decent facility. But I was still rebellious. I went back and forth to different parts of their program. I went from house to house and was in and out of the hospital for cutting myself, and being physically aggressive with staff during restraint. I remained there until I was eighteen.
After turning eighteen, I was no longer allowed to stay in the group of programs I had been residing in, because they were for children. My parents sent me to a program in Florida that took adults. I enjoyed my stay there. We were treated well. However, I continued to cut myself during my stay and bulimia became a big issue. These issues were more than their program were able to manage, so I was sent to a different program in New York called SLS Health.
I stayed in the program in New York for four and a quarter years. I was heavily medicated there. During my stay I had my phone calls restricted, as well as my ability to send and receive mail. We also were not allowed to leave. The Office of Mental Health did an inspection of the facility and discovered several of our rights were being violated. They were fined and eventually shut down.
Because of the medication I was on while I was there, I had to go to a detox facility after I left. After the detox facility I was sent to a different program. They did extensive group therapy sessions everyday, and based their program around Alcohol and Chemical Dependency Treatment.
After graduating their program I went to a halfway house called Healing Properties. It was a good program that treated the residents well. Despite this, my cutting and eating disorders continued to be a problem, and I became hospitalized. Despite their program being fair, I found a way to mess up, and I did. I was discharged from their program for failing to take my prescribed medications.
Because I was discharged from their program, I was placed in a different halfway house called Harmony House. I did well there for a decent amount of time. Well enough to gain more privileges and a later curfew. However, other residents were also unstable. It became a threatening situation for me due to one particular resident, so my parents placed me in a different halfway house called The Swinton House. I did well there and my family had me return home with them. By the time I returned home I was twenty-three years old. I stayed with them briefly, before being put into a group home by my family. Two months later that particular group home was shut down for financial reasons.
I began looking for a place of my own to rent after that. I went through section 8 to subsidize my housing based off my income. I shared an apartment with a roommate for a year and a half. I eventually moved out because the living situation became too stressful, as my roommate was emotionally unstable. I wound up putting myself in the hospital because the stress triggered traumatic event memories from my stay at the program in Mexico, where I was abused physically and sexually.
I now live in a home with a beautiful garden that I share with a friend of mine. It makes things a little easier being in a calmer setting. Right now, I am still managing issues I have from post-traumatic stress disorder. I have nightmares and flashbacks on a daily basis. It is a struggle. Despite this, I am trying to work through my past and am attempting to discover meaning in life.
Sources
My Eleven Years in Residential Treatment Centers, the original statement on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Miss Stattel at Peninsula Village
Given the death of her mother and illness as result of this tragedy the author was forced to participate in a wilderness program and sent to a boarding school soon after. The boarding school which according to their marketing claims to be able to deal with problems concerning teenagers. However they gave up and referred the author to the Peninsula Village Treatment center. It has not been determined to whom the referral fee normally given to medical staff or education consultant was paid to
A couple of days later, I was told I was being sent to a more “intense therapeutic environment”. Once again, at around three in the morning, two “transporters” picked me up from the program, took me to Buffalo airport in New York, and once again was off on a flight now to Knoxville, Tennessee. I arrived at Peninsula Village on September 3, 2004 which is a level 4 lockdown facility in Louisville, Tennessee. Peninsula Village was the gate keeper to the abuse I would endure for the following six months. My very first day, I was overcome with fear and the highest level of anxiety I have ever felt. I was strip searched, and following the search was instructed to take a shower, however staff would be monitoring me. They would be able to be in plain view of me at all times. Privacy at Peninsula Village did not exist even in the least bit. I refused to shower if they were going to watch, so two staff came over to me, as I was collapsed on the bathroom floor, shaking uncontrollably and absolutely hysterical. They grabbed my upper arms, and dragged me across the bathroom floor, out across the carpet of the unit, and dropped me on the cold blue floor of the “time out room”. I was told to sit there, with my back against the wall, and not to move until permitted to do so. They then left me in there, for a substantial amount of time. Little did I know that the “time out room” would be come ever so familiar? Later on that day, I stood up; I had been sitting there for a long time, in which I was ordered to sit back down. I refused, and said I just needed to stand up for a minute. At that moment, two staff came from behind, grabbed my upper arms once again, and started kicking the back of my knees, in which I inevitably fell to the floor, face down, an alarm went off, in which staff from the entire property came running in. They were pinning me to the floor, and upon others arrival, there would be seven or eight staff members on top of me, holding me facedown to the floor. There was a staff on my arms, on my back, on my legs, and on my ankles, as well as one holding my head to the floor. During this first restraint (out of many more to come in my stay) I vomited, while being pinned to the floor. I tried to lift my face from it, in which a staff would hold my head down, right into my own bile’s. I felt like I was suffocating and honestly did not know if I was going to make it through that restraint alive. I was in ultimate fear for my life. I was only around 120 pounds, which for my height of five foot and nine inches, is underweight. I struggled trying to breathe with all of these people sitting on me, as well as trying to breathe with my face being held to the floor, and in my bile’s. After this 30 minute restraint, I was carried into the “time out room” in which I was stripped of my clothing, and was changed into blood stained hospital gowns.
The first two months I was at Peninsula Village, I was restrained a total of forty two times and twenty two of those restraints, were mechanical and chemical restraints. That was only the first to months, which many more to come. Some days, I would be restrained several times in one day. An example of my longest restraint is from October 14, 2004. Physical restraint was initiated at 7:13 AM; I was transferred to the restraint bed in which a body net was used, at 7:40 AM. At 10:50 AM, I was released from the restraint bed, only to be physically restrained again, at 11:02 AM, moved back to the restraint bed, and was not released until 9:25 PM. During that time, I was given 0.5 MG of Klonopin and 5 MG of Zyprexa.
As a result of restraints, I had bruises all over my body. At one point, they had to order X-Rays of my wrist and jaw, from one of my restraints. I had also filed a grievance against one of my counselors, in which Child Protective Services had to come in and investigate. The results of the investigation; however were supposedly, that the abuse was unsubstantial.
A simple breakdown, of what life was like at Peninsula Village, beyond all of the restraints was sickening as well. We sat on our beds, most of our waking hours, were prohibited from looking and/or speaking to any of our peers. The only time we were allowed to speak at all, was if granted permission by staff, or in therapy groups. I was denied access to a phone at all times, unless I had the privilege of family therapy. Our mail was monitored, both incoming and outgoing. In communication with my father, I was prohibited from speaking about what was going on daily. We were forced to attend a chemical addiction group, even if we had no substance abuse issues. I have never had a substance abuse issue, yet they convinced me I was addicted to downers and being restrained. Confrontational therapy is what they practiced. We were also forced to study the Native American Medicine Wheel spiritual opinion. Bathroom times were on their terms. If we had to go when it was not bathroom break, we had to wait, and if it was a real emergency they would allow it but then you would get consequence for it later on in consequence group. Who ever thought of being consequence for having to use the bathroom? We were not allowed to talk except in group therapy or if we raised our hand and were actually called on. You had to sit on your bed with your back up against the wall. If you got off your bed, or just hung your legs out (from sitting Indian style) to stretch them, you would be restrained. There were level systems which always made me feel bad about myself. When you were restrained they would strip you of your clothing and make you wear hospital gowns until you contracted to move up to wearing scrubs then contracting to wear your clothes. The director of my unit at the time was not licensed he was actually denied by the board of health so he was misrepresenting himself. He told me once, "If you think you are smart enough to get kicked out of here and escape it here you are wrong" I would not see my dad for weeks sometimes over a month. My family therapy sessions would get taken away from me in which I could not talk to my dad much less see him if when I was talking to my dad and I tried to tell him how bad it was there they would end the family therapy session right there. They also told him I was incompetent and did not know what I was talking about when he heard me tell him about my bruises. I was covered in bruises from the head down. My mail was monitored by staff both outgoing and incoming. When we went to the bathroom, we were timed. We had to tell them how long we needed in the bathroom. One minute to pee, two minutes for a bowel movement, and an extra 30 seconds if we had our period. A level 2 would check our stall before we could flush, and if we were not out of the bathroom on time, we were consequence. Our showers were monitored, in which a level 2 would run shower time. We had 7 minute shower time, in which you had to shower, brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on your deodorant, and get dressed. If there was hair left in your brush or toothpaste in your sink, or a hair in your shower stall, you would be consequence. The level 2 would watch us undress, and would keep a close eye on us, which made me feel highly uncomfortable, as some of them would stare at me as I was undressing to shower.
In order to talk to staff, you had to raise your hand, and if 3 hands went up in the air, we had to do a 5 minute halt, in which we all had to stand (completely still) and stare at the clock on the wall, and staff would walk around and check to make sure our eyes were focused on the clock; if we were not, or if one of us fidgeted, or moved, we had to start the time all over.
We ate our meals on our beds, we did our schoolwork on our beds, and we would have quiet time for about 4 or 5 hours a day. We were not allowed to look at our peers, make any form of contact with them. Peers would confront others for any little thing you did wrong, everything from leaving a hair in your shower, to being "entitled".
We never went outside, except to walk out the door (escorted) and down the stairs to nursing. We were not allowed to look out the windows, not allowed to look at male staff if they came on the unit. The staff would pick on me, because when I got nervous, I would have an "incongruent smirk" on my face. A nurse that I speak to now from Peninsula Village claims that they knew from the very beginning that I did not belong there, yet they kept me there. I was a private pay patient.
Our counselors had no formal training, nothing more than a GED or high school diploma. Some of them were only a few years older than me. They were the ones there with us all the time, running our groups, and everything that was done on the unit.
It was constantly beaten into my head what a worthless excuse of life I am and that I am just an entitled little bitch.
They performed psychological testing on me, and determined that I was "malingering", yet they kept raising my dosage of Antipsychotic Medication, to a dose that most have never heard of.
The testimony continues on the homepage listed as source below. The author was transferred to another facility, where they discharged her to freedom after succesful treatment.
Sources:
- The original story on the home page of Troubled Teens Survivor Network
- Datasheet about "The Village", which the facility was renamed to after it was sold to new owners.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
John O at Peninsula Village
After the first time I attempted suicide, in 1998, I ended up in a long-term “treatment” facility called Peninsula Village, which is located outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. Yes, I was a troubled teenager -- like most, I suppose -- but the only difference between some others and me was that I had untreated depression and anxiety disorders. These factors made it very hard for my family to deal with me at times, and my parents eventually fell under the spell of Peninsula Village’s staff and their lies. However, my parents did not inform me about the extent to which I would be staying at the Village -- at least 11 months until I turned 18 and could sign myself out. My parents also did not inform me about the extent to which the staff will go in order to “discipline” the children, but in fairness, the Village staff lied to my parents and omitted key facts. The issues this caused me during my stay eventually led to my escape -- the second, fully successful one in 13 years at the time -- but the memories of that place haunt me to this day.
The staff at Peninsula Village view discipline as treatment, but not “time-out” discipline, I’m talking about “slamming.” Slamming is a word we used to describe what was done to us (the children) if we “acted-up.” It involved the staff pressing a siren button that hung around their necks. Then, at least 6 burly staff members would come flying into the room through every entrance, and basically, they would tackle the child, slam his (I only witnessed the males) face into the ground, and dig their elbows and knees into his back and limbs, making it hard for him to breathe. This would last a relatively long time, and would always lead to the removal of the child’s clothing in exchange for bloodstained hospital gowns. The child would also get a one-way ticket to the “quiet room” -- a slightly padded, tiny, cold room with a cement floor covered by linoleum -- for an indefinite amount of time. On occasion, the child would also receive a hefty IM (intra-muscular) dose of a sedative, like Thorazine, that would leave him drooling for hours. Even more disturbing, there were many occurrences of bloodshed during these slammings. The emotional and physical pain I heard in the cries, screams, groans, and sobs during the slammings, coupled with the sight of blood pooling around a child’s head, and 8 adults kneeling on him, is truly haunting. Most of the slammings occur in the STU (Special Treatment Unit), but the staff will not hesitate to slam someone outside in the gravel, mud, manure, or whatever else one might be standing in.
STU is where they put all the new admits, and a stay there can last anywhere from 2 months to more than a year. While in STU, the staff forced me to strip naked, bend over and expose my anus, and expose and lift my scrotum. They also put me on an anti-depressant medication called Paxil, but immediately at a very high dose that left me buzzing and tingling. I had them decrease the dose soon after. In addition, they forced me to sit, Indian-style, on a small, cubicle-like bed all day under fluorescent lights -- lights that they never fully turned off. One day, a staff member caught me slouching very slightly, and made me stand and watch the clock for ten minutes, then forced me to sit back down on the hard, wooden bed box, but without the mattress for the remainder of the day. That’s not the half of it because the entire time one is in STU, one has to remain silent and non-communicative with other peers; however, the staff will sit and chat all night long while we try to sleep under the dimmed lights, then, they wake us up at 6 A.M. by yelling, and slapping the cubicle tops. I didn’t dare speak though, aside from the occasional group “therapy” session where the staff tells everyone how much he sucks, and that he’s a worthless piece of crap. The Village’s lead psych. doctor was very good at this. They also force everyone to “admit” he has a drug and alcohol problem, join AA/NA, and become spiritual, even if he doesn’t have a problem or have spiritual beliefs. Aside from groups, bathroom breaks were the only other time we could get up from our beds. We only got 3 minutes to defecate, 1 minute to urinate, and 4 minutes to shower. If we went over our allotted time by even 1 second, we would loose minutes from our next shower time. I never lost shower time, but I frequently had to let soap dry in my hair or on my body, and it would sometimes become itchy. The other bad thing about STU was we were allowed no time with our parents, on the phone or in person. I spent 2 ½ months in STU, living as a monk, and the only communication I had with my parents was my outgoing letters that were read, and censored, by staff. I could not write anything slanderous about the goings-on there, or my letter would not be mailed. The staff does not show STU to parents on their tour of the facilities because I doubt any parent would allow their child to stay at the Village if they witnessed what went on in there.
All of the slammings I witnessed were during my stay in STU. The first time I developed a fear of the alarm buttons was after I saw one guy’s scabbed face early in my stay. The entire right side of his face was covered in scabs, and he was wearing the hospital gowns. I managed to ask him about it before the start of a group session one day, and he said it was from the staff slamming him, and then dragging his face across the carpet. The next time I saw a slamming, the boy ended up getting a large dose of Thorazine in the butt because, if I remember correctly, he was in the quiet room afterward, and couldn’t stop sobbing. I remember during his slamming he was in a lot of distress from all the force being applied to his small body. He was having difficulty breathing, and he was in a lot of pain, and he was voicing these complaints to the best of his ability, but the staff wouldn’t let up. I think they enjoy restraining children just to feel powerful or something. They could have easily restrained him with half as many staff members, and quickly put him in the quiet room, but no, they decided to prolong the enjoyment. Eventually, once he was good and high, they let him come out to join us in group therapy. I don’t see any reason, other than to scare the rest of us, for them letting him join us because he was droopy-faced and drooling on himself. Another slamming I witnessed was even worse. The boy was smaller, and the slamming was more forceful, so much in fact, that he might have had his nose broken. All he did to be slammed was shrug his shoulder when a staff member grabbed his arm to lead him back to his bed box after he wouldn’t go by command. I saw him lying in a large pool of his own blood, where they held his face for quite some time, and then they swapped his clothes for the gowns, and stuck him in the quiet room as well. I heard a number of other slammings happen on the other boys’ side of STU, although I didn’t witness them. I did see the aftermath of at least one of those though. One boy was crying, and sitting in a padded room with a straight jacket on. This boy couldn’t have been older than 12 or 13.
Once I “graduated” to the outdoor cabin program, I was able to speak again, but there were a completely new set of rules, and I was forced to do even worse things. I was also constantly condescended, laughed at by staff, and made to feel stupid and worthless. The staff all acted as if they were gods or something. As far as strange rules go, one was that I was never allowed to look at another female. One guy in my group did, and we were forced, as a group, to do a “pyramid 15.” That’s where we had to do 15 pushups, 14 pushups, 13 pushups, etc. After that same guy was caught looking at girls three times, our group had to eat our meals in our cabin for a week. That meant hiking a half-mile to pick up the food, hiking a half-mile back to eat it on a wooden cabin floor, hiking a half-mile to bring the food tub back, and then hiking a half-mile back to our side of the grounds to continue with our daily activities. Two miles of hiking for each meal, and every meal ended up being cold for a week. Then, one time, a staff member (notice I don’t call them counselors -- I don’t think they were qualified) forced us to clear a path that was overgrown with poison ivy, but he forced us to do it with our bare hands! We complained, but he said not to be babies and that if we washed our hands, we’d be fine. It took us over an hour to clear the path, and we all ended up with poison ivy. That wasn’t even the worse day I can remember though. I think the worse day I had, physically, was on a day the temperature reached the upper 90’s, and the humidity was probably in the same range. We were working in the garden, breaking up dirt clumps, and had very little water available to us, relative to the conditions. There were at least eight of us, only 5 gallons of water on site, and we were working there all day. I got so hot and red, and had so much sweat dripping from my face, that I started to have blurred vision and lose my balance. I was very near heat stroke. We worked in that garden 3 or 4 times per week during the summer. If we weren’t working in the garden, we were building a brick barbeque pit -- hardly things that were conducive to the therapy for which we were there. We only had school two days per week, and even that was a half-ass, teach-yourself kind of thing. After working, we would run around the cabin trails. They would force us to train for occasional 5k races. This training was mandatory. After working outside most of the day, I had to run in the Tennessee heat and humidity for over an hour, 3 times per week. In the beginning, it was too much for me, and I was so tired that I wouldn’t swallow to conserve energy. I was barely jogging to avoid being reprimanded, I was dizzy and had blurred sight, and I was drooling, but I could not stop. We were reprimanded for any number of things, even leaving hairs in the shower. For every hair left in the showers, we would have to do a pyramid 15 as a group. We usually had to do pushups after shower time, so I’d get clean, do some pushups, and then go to bed sweaty. We never cleaned our sleeping bags either. Once per month we would find a spot of sun peaking through the trees in the woods, and try to drape the bags over foliage to catch the sun in an attempt to “sterilize” the bags. Sometimes kids would wet their beds -- probably due to stress -- but they didn’t dare say anything to staff for fear of the consequences. They would just sleep in it. This is how much psychological stress and fear the staff impose on the children during their stay. The worst consequence I ever had while at the Village was when I had to carry a 40lb. Limestone rock in a milk crate, wherever we went as a group, for a week, while still carrying all of my other responsibilities (water gott, backpack, notebook, etc…it changed daily). During that same week, on July 4, 1998, I had to do 2,600 pushups, and 12 one-minute-leg-lifts. This punishment was a plea bargain I made, for the original punishment would have required 3 months of the rock and crate, and about 15,000 pushups. How ridiculous is that? It makes no sense. The staff also has no sense of safety, for one time we were made to dig out a large stump with shovels and an axe. The stump could easily have weighed as much as a small car, it was just as big, and we were forced to climb around it in a 4-foot deep trench to cut at the roots. If the stump had shifted on anyone, he would have been crushed to death. Not only do they have no sense of safety, they have no sense, period. They forced all of us to attend outside AA/NA meetings, and they tried hard to make us spiritual. I never believed I had a problem with drugs or alcohol, but they said I did. I have also never been spiritual, but they forced some Indian Spiritual Wheel belief system upon all of us. That was the whole basis of our level system. Just for the record, I still have no problem with drugs or alcohol 10 years later, and I stopped going to AA/NA after I left the Village.
It would have been nice to voice all my concerns to my parents, but the staff “preps” all the parents by warning them that their children are excellent manipulators, and that they will say anything to leave the Village. During therapy sessions with my parents, the therapist would try to avoid letting me say anything about the Village. If I was able to say something about the conditions, she would quickly respond by making it seem like I was just a whiner and manipulator, and that that is part of my problem, and she would change the subject. Then, for the next week, during group sessions at the cabin, I’d have to talk about how much of a whiner I am. It’s like they brainwash everyone. They brainwash the children into thinking they have issues they do not really have, they brainwash themselves into thinking they are real therapists, and they brainwash the parents into thinking they are doing the right thing by sending their child there. I think this allows them to keep kids there indefinitely in order to gain more and more money. At $500 or more per night, I think they are motivated.
I played their spiritual-level-system game for about 5 months in the outdoor program until I eventually had my high level stripped from me due to someone else’s mistake. Our group was put on shut down, which is essentially the same as STU life, complete with silence, but in a non-air-conditioned cabin, and we cannot sit on our beds, so we sit back-to-back on the hardwood floor all day. We also have to do the two miles of hiking for every meal while holding onto a small length of rope, and trying not to trip over each other’s feet. A shut down can last for months, and I had already worked so hard to gain my privileges. I was not going to be able to sit on a hardwood floor in silence for another 4 months until I turned 18. This event woke me up, and broke me of my brainwashing. I decided to escape the hell of Peninsula Village.
I decided to make my break for it during morning twilight, right after the group used the tubes (PVC tubes buried in the ground near the cabin that are used as urinals). I let my group get ahead of me a few paces, then I ran into the woods behind me, and never looked back. I had to run through the girl’s side of camp, so I was cautious, and fearful that a female staff member would come outside looking for me any moment. Eventually, I made it to the edge of the property, and with the sound of SUV’s roaring in the background, I jumped across the property line, and into more brush, just as a vehicle went by. The staff didn’t see me, but I lost my glasses in the brush, and I couldn’t find them after a few minutes of searching. Therefore, I continued my hike with limited sight, and tried to keep the only road into the peninsula within view as I kept myself hidden in the woods. I followed the winding road for hours, became dehydrated from the exertion, and soaking wet from the morning dew. Eventually, I found a shed near a house where I was able to hide, re-hydrated from a nearby spigot, rest, and change my clothes. Another few hours later, I made it to the end of the road just as one of the nurses drove by, but a couple minutes after that, someone stopped to pick me up since I had my thumb up. The staff missed me by minutes. I hitched many rides over the next 3 days to get to a friend’s house a few states away. One man gave me $20 for food, and drove me 20 miles out of his way. Another man tried to get a room with me so I could take a bubble bath, drink a beer, have a warm bed to sleep in, and sit back so he could “play with it a while.” Needless to say, I stayed in the woods on the side of an off ramp that night. I barely got any sleep, and I nearly got hypothermia, but it was better than the alternative. Remember, during this entire trip, I’m hiking and hitching without my glasses, so it was very hard to tell if a cop was coming down the road or not -- I just had to chance it. The morning after my cold night, I managed to “thumb” a Virginia State Trooper as he drove by, but he never came back, and I got a ride with an eighteen-wheeler about ten minutes later. I spent about 66 hours on the road to get away from Peninsula Village. Once I got to my friend’s house I managed to get a job in food service, but soon quit in order to move out of state again to live with a different friend -- away from bad influences -- and finish high school.
Even though I attained a relatively high-level while at the Village, I don’t think I actually achieved any kind of gains in my emotional recovery, nor was I put on the right medication or dosage. My parents were conned into spending the $50,000 college trust fund, set up by my grandfather, to have me verbally abused, indirectly physically abused, brainwashed, emotionally tortured, and to have me witness, beyond reasonable cause, the direct physical abuse of other children. In the end, my “treatment” was all a farce. I was stripped of all my privileges for something I had no control over and no part in, and I was able to put everything I “learned” behind me and see the truth. I think the events surrounding my escape prove that I was merely brainwashed the entire time, and once I was shocked awake, nothing, or very little, had changed in me. To this day, I am haunted by my memories of the sights and sounds in the STU, and I remain forever begrudged by the tasks, rules, and punishments for which I was forced to comply. I even find myself quickly looking at the ground when my eyes meet a female’s from time to time, because of how taboo the Village made it. Just to affirm how much Peninsula Village affected me, it took me 10 years before I so much as googled it, and once I did, I found numerous “survivor” stories that truly struck a nerve in me, and I began to sob. The stories of others took me right back to the time I was in the Village, and I realized it wasn’t just a dream I had -- it all really happened, it’s happened to others, and it’s happening to others right now. I hope someone else can identify with my story as well, and know that they are not alone in this sort of thing. I am amazed that these “treatment” places exist, and that people allow them to continue to exist for so long without consequence. I hope, through the shared stories of other survivors, and the diligence and courage of advocates like Ms. Stattel, that places like Peninsula Village will soon face their due consequences.
Sources:
- The original story on the home page of Troubled Teens Survivor Network
- Datasheet about "The Village", which the facility was renamed to after it was sold to new owners.
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