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
Showing posts with label Testimonies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Testimonies. Show all posts
Sunday, February 3, 2013
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:
Friday, February 10, 2012
Testimonies from Danes
At the blog called Vidnetsbyrd fra det mørke asyl which can be translated as Testimonies from the dark asylum, Danes will tell how they experienced their stay at Danish group homes, boarding schools or treatment centers.
United States is far from the only country in the world where children suffer when they are forced to live outside their family home. It is time to deal with the abuse worldwide.
What is the present situation in Denmark?
For the next 3 years the government will conduct a survey of the situation for the 14,000 children living in foster care.
The area is a costly area for the public sector. In Denmark there are few programs for private customers. Often the continuation schools are used instead. In Danish they are called “efterskole” and are basically normal boarding schools, but they are strict compared to the level of freedom Danish teenagers have compared with teenagers in the United States. The reason for using only light precautions in cases where teenagers act out is that there is more awareness of life of teenagers.
Teenage pregnancies are rare due to the fact that the law allows teenagers to get birth control medication without parental consent at age 15 and the minister for social services has attacked TV-shows like "Teen mom" followed up with action of social services against some of the Danish participants basically without reason in order to scare teenagers from being mothers. Alcohol is legal to purchase if the percentage is below the safe limit of 16.5. Parents do know that their children drink because there is no reason to keep it a secret when it is legal and partly integrated in the educational system (A lot of the high schools have Friday bars which are actively marketed so they can attract students). Drug use is seen but due to the easy access to alcohol not so widespread as in U.S. High Schools and are you caught with drugs in town you will normally get a two year ban from the night life which is equal with no life for a Danish teenager or young adult.
But for the approximately 14.000 Danish children who are placed in the foster care system life is a nightmare. They are bounced around in the system. 25 percent experience that they are shipped either home to possible neglect or sent to a new group home / foster family within a year.
Abuse of the children in foster care are seldom reported and even when this happen, complaints are ignored even the complaints come from teachers, neighbors and therapists observing marks from beatings on the children.
The main concern is that the authorities keep no regular supervision of the children in foster care allowing violence between the children and abuse from the adults in group homes and foster families.
A report from the department of social services revealed that it was impossible to show an improvement of the situation of the child because it was taken in the social services compared to being left in neglect back home.
None seem to know what do work and what doesn't work.
Hopefully the survey will show what the authorities should do to improve the present situation. Today is only possible to pray.
United States is far from the only country in the world where children suffer when they are forced to live outside their family home. It is time to deal with the abuse worldwide.
What is the present situation in Denmark?
For the next 3 years the government will conduct a survey of the situation for the 14,000 children living in foster care.
The area is a costly area for the public sector. In Denmark there are few programs for private customers. Often the continuation schools are used instead. In Danish they are called “efterskole” and are basically normal boarding schools, but they are strict compared to the level of freedom Danish teenagers have compared with teenagers in the United States. The reason for using only light precautions in cases where teenagers act out is that there is more awareness of life of teenagers.
Teenage pregnancies are rare due to the fact that the law allows teenagers to get birth control medication without parental consent at age 15 and the minister for social services has attacked TV-shows like "Teen mom" followed up with action of social services against some of the Danish participants basically without reason in order to scare teenagers from being mothers. Alcohol is legal to purchase if the percentage is below the safe limit of 16.5. Parents do know that their children drink because there is no reason to keep it a secret when it is legal and partly integrated in the educational system (A lot of the high schools have Friday bars which are actively marketed so they can attract students). Drug use is seen but due to the easy access to alcohol not so widespread as in U.S. High Schools and are you caught with drugs in town you will normally get a two year ban from the night life which is equal with no life for a Danish teenager or young adult.
But for the approximately 14.000 Danish children who are placed in the foster care system life is a nightmare. They are bounced around in the system. 25 percent experience that they are shipped either home to possible neglect or sent to a new group home / foster family within a year.
Abuse of the children in foster care are seldom reported and even when this happen, complaints are ignored even the complaints come from teachers, neighbors and therapists observing marks from beatings on the children.
The main concern is that the authorities keep no regular supervision of the children in foster care allowing violence between the children and abuse from the adults in group homes and foster families.
A report from the department of social services revealed that it was impossible to show an improvement of the situation of the child because it was taken in the social services compared to being left in neglect back home.
None seem to know what do work and what doesn't work.
Hopefully the survey will show what the authorities should do to improve the present situation. Today is only possible to pray.
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