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So I remember when I first walked in the door with my uneaten cinnabon. I walked into a set of doors and there were the seperate doors leading to other parts of the building. I was told to wait in that waiting area and I ate my cinnabon. There was a staff with us. Large, heavy set fellow. I think his name was Ken. Nice man, when you were not underneath him, which is later in my story here. A very kind woman walks in, who is an admission specialist. I wont say her name, because we are like family now. She was very kind and talked with me until they used their key card to take me inside the main facility. We walked up a set of stairs and there are two main hallways here. One that leads to rooms, the other to therapists and classrooms. I am taken to one of the bedrooms where I am told to go into the bathroom and change into a new set of cloths. They first search my pockets for illegal items. The gum was in that super tiny pocket on the right side that no one ever uses. It was the listerine tangerine orange flavor. I had to take my pants off in the bathroom and had it to them through the door. Before I did so, I took the gum and hid it under my socks. I had to take a quick shower with lice shampoo. I got out, changes, and hid all the pieces of gum in my sock. I am wearing khakis and an orange shirt.
They then take me to a group of rooms near the staircase. Three back to back and one across from the farthest. I go into the middle room and am told that it is my group.
Now, I was a bit blinded by Christian obsessions for a time, so I was a mad homophobe... Which ironically, I am bisexual now... Also, while the story progresses, you will see how much bonding there can be. Bonding with all guys... You will see what I mean. If I can't remember a name, I will make a new one, so I am not just saying, "that guy".
So, I was in group three out of 13. A kid, Jared introduces himself and tries to hug me. My homophobe self punched him on the shoulder. We just sat in silence until we got with the rest of our group in another room at the end of the other hall. I was told that I had a HOPE buddy, who would tell me the rules and the way of things. I was fine for a while that day, until we went outside. I asked how long the program was.
He pointed at an india indian looking kid and said, "He came in when he was 13, he is 17 now. This fastest is about 13 months, but the longest can be like him."
I had been under the impression of as long as six months, not four years. So I am sure you can imagine my anger at that moment. This is the start of the example of my earlier statement about holding in your anger. You can lose your sanity slowly or quickly.
Day 2, My blood was boiling. I was supposed to learn the rule quickly so that I could attend the upcoming orientation seminar. I wasn't listening half the day. I go to lunch and my mind was in a daze. I didn't want to eat, but was told I had to. I take my tray and sit with "my" group. After thirty minutes, lunch ended and my group got up to leave, but I stayed. I was pissed and fuming. Cussing under my breath. Crying because I know I am losing control. Clenching my muscles. A fluffy black guy a few tables away asks if I am alright and I nod my head. Then I snapped, I felt my hand raise, then I blacked out. I know this because that man would have had to take 15-30 seconds getting to me, yet when my eyes opened, he was right next to me. I had slammed the tray with my hand and pineapple had flown everywhere and a kid in my group who was wiping the table had be right across from me when I did it and to be honest, his face was pricelessly funny. He was a small skinny kid we came to know as snickers. Anyways, there was that one staff next to me, and a man whose position was called "radio 1" and the only staff I had ever been afraid of at my time there. He wasn't a bad man, but intimidating to have to face off with an ex-prison guard. He used the all famed cliche implication, "We can do this the easy way or the hard way." I was curious what the hard way was again, because that would imply that they carry me out and carrying a fat kid out is never easy. I was 252 at the time. Again, I chose the easy way.
They took me to the end of the main hallway that I mentioned before that leads to the classrooms. There is a small room, kind of hidden away with two small cubicle like rooms with hardwood floor and plywood walls. I was told to sit in one, indian style, until I was told I could leave. This room would soon become a very familiar room and one form of abuse, which you will see later. I was later released after a few hours of boredom. Two staff just sit in there and take note of everything you are doing wrong.
Day 3 was mostly uneventful. I was told how school worked and some more rules. Can't look at the girls for more than three seconds or out the windows for more than three seconds, and it cant be 1.2.3 look. 1.2.3 look... etc... Learned I can't crack my knuckles. My group wasn't allowed to say "pissed" or "piss".
Now I forgot to mention the daily weekday mornings that we would have with Ron, which I am sure you have heard from other Cross Creek stories. A particular group hosts it each week with their therapist and Ron. New kids go, staff buddies: which I will explain later, and people asking questions to Ron. He asked me why I was there, I said, "nothing". Then everyone in the group just laughed, as if it was some joke that I wasn't aware of.
Day 4 my anger was growing again. Just thinking about how long I was going to be there for. By this time, I knew I could leave at 18. Near the end of the day, I was fuming again. I had left the room and was in the hallway, facing a wall. My HOPE buddy was trying to calm me. (by the way, HOPE, stands for Helping Orient Partners for Excellence)
Eventually, the kid, justin, gave up and told the staff and I was taken to that small room with the hardwood floor. The room was called "SN" or "Special Needs". My anger building again, more and more. I snap and I punched the wall once, but remained seated. Ken says over the radio, "We have a wall hitter her, send some help." Him and another staff, Justin, approach me. I had learned of restraint, so I took off my glasses. Ken grabbed me and spun me around so I lay on my stomach and he laid on my back, while Justin "tried" to hold my legs... "tried"... The help came to "try" to hold my legs as well. Meanwhile, I resisted with my upper body, trying to fight off Ken, struggling under his weight. He kept telling me to keep my hands on the floor and when I didn't, he held them, then when he held them, I jerked my head around. He would then force my head down. Once with enough force to pop one of the ear pimples I had at the time, inside the ear. It started bleeding quite a bit. Then my nose was running from all the crying. Essentially, I was there struggling and resisting for two hours while my face was being rubbed in a puddle of my own blood and snot.
Day 5 was when I officially lost my mind. It was the day when you never want someone with anger problems to say, "fuck it". To cease to care about anything or anyone; Not family, not friends. Essentially, I lost most of my conscience. This happens when kids shoot up school. Their anger at a bully makes them snap and rational thinking ceases and they don't care who they hurt. This was like that, just with very limited options. I just said fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. They tried to give me a "category" which is the slip of paper you get when you break a rule.
Under the section where I am supposed to put what I will do to change, I just wrote, "I am not going to fucking change for your fucking bitch ass school. I will keep on fucking cussing all the fuck I want, so you can fucking kiss my fucking ass."
Now, I think this will be the end of part 2 here. The next part will be about the 2 1/2 months of me being a dick and the fun I had. Also, if you would like and I likely will anyways. I will write out a lot more details about the rules and the punishments, so things will make more sense later on. I still have my main notebook from that place and it still has the list of rules, including all or most the papers from the seminars. I can also go over the basic routine and schedule, so you can get an estimate about what time of day things happened.
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Cross Creek Programs is now closed. They tried to re-start the program as a non-profit program but the arrest of an employee who had been working there for a long time for sending photos of his naked body to students stopped any future activity.
The buildings have been rented to a new organization who will operate in the market for adopted kids who were sent to their adoptive parents without the full story about their emotional issues. The horror stories will continue with new independent management and new employees.
Sources:
- The original testimony on Reddit
- Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
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