Blog: The WWASP diaries

We have received news of a blog named The WWASP diaries. You can use the link below to reach the blog.

Beside testimonies from former WWASP "students", the blog also consist of testimonies from other facilities.

Many of the testimonies are only found of this blog. If you are a parent considering the use of therapeutic boarding schools, this blog will provide you with insight in the lives of teenagers in treatment.

Source:
The WWASP diaries blog

Brendan McMahon at The Family Foundation School (From:Youthrights.org)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author Brendan McMahon, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org


My name is Brendan McMahon I attended The Family Foundation School in Hancock NY from 95 to 97.

I understand those of you investigating this matter will have much testimony from many facilities to read through so i appologize for the length. I wanted to make sure you had as full and accurate a picture as I could provide of a very complicated and very weird experience. Really it would take a novel or feature length film to give you an accurate idea.. regardless [[Link title]] If you wish to jump ahead the second and third paragraphs are probably going to be of the most interest to you.

I spent 14 months in the facility one of the record short stays at the time because there was an 18 month minimum though it was rare that they let anyone go in that short period of time.

Upon arriving at the Family I was welcomed fairly warmly ( I soon realized this was only because my father was there) I smoked my last cigarette on the front step and handed the pack over knowing I would be searched and wrongly assuming I would find a student who would supply me with one later. They took my cloths and replaced them. They also took any reading material I may have selected to bring with me and music. They put me with a buddy (a senior member (a person who had formed into the model)) he seemed bizarrely positive about the place when speaking to my dad. He emphatically emphasized how grateful he was that he came here and that it changed his life for the better. I said goodbye to my dad and he drove off.

They explained to me what I was not to talk about, that I was not to hum any music that was not approved by the ffs, not to read any newspapers, I was not allowed to use the telephone, they would read my mail, “so I better not say anything negative in my letters”. I was not allowed to be alone. I was not allowed to masturbate (they monitored the showers 3 minutes max with someone standing next to the shower and went with you to the bathroom). Basically all information coming into or out of my mind was to be dictated by and monitored by the FFS, and anything I did or said which indicated a lack of 100 percent compliance and belief in the FFS philosophy would be punished harshly. In addition if I so much as suspected let alone overheard or witnessed anyone doing or saying anything "negative" I would be held equally responsible for their actions as if they were my own including witnessing someone else witnessing something and not saying anything about it, you seriously could not get away with anything period.

Aside from the strict rules something seemed awfully strange about this place from the very first person i spoke to. I asked questions and couldn't seem to get any answers. It was like talking to computers that were only programmed with certain responses. It didn't take long to realize everyone was brainwashed or pretending to be. Everyone was a brick wall. I was freaked out by this i started thinking i was on a very creepy episode of the twilight zone. I actually believed that I was going to find a way out of this place.

I thought I could get my parents to come get me or something but that was pretty difficult considering I had no way of contacting them at first and when I finally did get that privilege they explained any attempt at "manipulating” my parents by being negative about the program would immediately result in the call being ended and I would be on blackout where I couldn’t speak to anyone period especially my family. I also found out later they had already informed my parents that I may attempt to “manipulate” them and that it would be in my best interest not to succumb to my dishonest behavior. After all they were the experts. They knew exactly how to handle a troubled youth, and in the end I would be grateful for this experience. I was labeled negative of course because I had not yet been conditioned by their weird mind control tactics. I tried to fight it but as one of the senior members said when I was trying to argue one night "he'll learn" and I did.

I was not to speak my own opinion or indicate that I had one under any circumstances, unless it was in 100 percent agreement with the FFS philosophy. In fact the FFS philosophy was to be my opinion 100 percent of the time if I indicated or was even accused of anything less I was to be publicly confronted and screamed at. Then I would be told to sit in a corner. The Corner... you know like in preschool go sit in time out. The Corner was indefinite, with a minimum of 24 hours. If you did not stay in the corner or if you refused you would be duct taped to the chair or your feet would be duct taped together your arms would be duct taped to your back and you would be rolled in a blanket like a burrito and that would be wrapped in more duct tape then you would be put in isolation in duct tape and a blanket which was actually a big boot closet with some book shelves in it. When they decided it had been long enough they would let you out of the blanket then maybe isolation then from isolation back to the corner then you might be aloud out of the corner 24 hours later if you were able to convince them you believed you had done something wrong and you were sorry ect.. It was pretty simple.

Most of us, knowing what they would do if we did not comply, allowed ourselves to be subjected to whatever other humiliating and strange punishments they would think of. If they told us to trot (which is where you have to trot any time you aren't sitting down) we trotted. If they stood us up at the table (which is where you stand up alone in front of everyone for any infraction of the rules) we stood up. If they asked a girl to recount her promiscuous sexual history (and she better have one to confess if she ever wants to be left alone) …she would. If they screamed at her telling her she was a whore and was destined to be dope shooting hooker…. she listened… and agreed. If they took away out privilege to speak… we didn't speak. If they said sit in the corner ….we sat there. They had a pile of rocks which some kids would have to move back and forth all day from one spot to another which as tiring as it could be in itself could be worse if you were also on a trotting sanction. They also had a large pile of cow manure for the same purpose. This seemed to be a particularly popular sanction for kids that were too fat. Fat kids were always determined to be lazy slobs who needed to exercise and work more. They were very open with degrading language and screaming they would also throw food at you in some cases while they were verbally berating you.

I would like to also s take a moment to illustrate one very important part of all this. They did not restrain kids because they were a threat to anyone else or themselves physically. It was very rare that physical altercations were not initiated by staff either by ordering other students to wrap them up in duct tape or staff doing it themselves more times than not they utilized the other kids who were there to assist in these procedures. In most cases restraints were used because of passive defiance. As stubborn as many of us were very few of those who were restrained were doing any more than saying no. I can recall only once when a kid was threatening to attack another person and was restrained.

There was also another instance when a kid was cutting his wrists so they duct taped his hands in balls so he could not use them to hold anything. Most instances went something like this

There was a kid named who refused to mop a floor saying he just wasn't going to do it. He did not threaten anyone physically he did not get violent at all he simply said no i won't do it. He was supposed to be mopping the floor so they threw him on the ground dumped mop water on him and used him to mop the floor until he agreed to mop the floor with the mop. The point was that he was going to mop the floor one way or another there was no way around it you were going to act say and become exactly what they wanted. Most of the time however they would just duct tape you up and wrap you in a blanket and wrap duct tape around that.

This is the way it was for us ….we smiled when any outsiders were there acting like everything was perfect… assuring parents on tours this was the greatest place in the world …Seeing kids being duct taped up became as normal as kids in a regular school going to detention or getting write offs. I would step over squirming bodies on the floor in the dorm while talking and brushing my teeth like it was perfectly normal ….and it was at the time that’s just what happened if you didn't want to listen. It was their fault for being in the duct tape. I saw kids get punched and lifted 6 feet in the air and dropped on the ground while in these restraints. The one thing though that never seemed right was the newsletter they sent our parents. It never mentioned any of this. It always talked about the great things we were doing grades sports choir. They never told our parents the truth and for years after I left, my parents were resistant to the truth. I told them about what really went on.

After I left I felt like an alien visiting earth… everything I saw people say or do seemed wrong. I felt like I was constantly doing something wrong.. It literally took years before I was able to cope with what the family did to my emotions my mind my spirit and my personality. It has been ten years since i was at the family and the last time i had a nightmare about being there again was 2 months ago. I was socially years behind people my own age. I had no idea how to handle the opposite sex considering for fourteen months I was monitored in the shower and the bathroom to prevent me from masturbating. Anyway I think this is enough to give an accurate picture of what the family school was like during the time I was there.

2013 the school changed its name to Allynwood Academy due to the bad press.

References:
Datasheet about the boarding school at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on cafety.youthrights.com

Sean Hellinger at Spring Creek Academy (From:Youthrights.org)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author Sean Hellinger, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org

My name is Sean Hellinger; I was shipped off to Spring Creek Lodge in Thompson Falls, Montana, on March 12, 2003, and I remained there until September 2004.

Since Spring Creek Lodge is a WWASP facility, I am currently in the Turley lawsuit against them. It's a class-action lawsuit that already has over 100 plaintiffs, and it is estimated that there will be a few hundred more. Doesn't that say a lot right there?

Unfortunately, my involvement with the lawsuit means that I cannot go into detail on what I went through. What I can do is refer you to the next best thing:

George Orwell's "1984" is probably the best description of the way WWASP facilities work that you'll ever read about it a so-called "fictional" book. No, I'm not exaggerating. I wish I could go into more detail and prove it.

What I'll say is, WWASP has everything, from Big Brother to the Thought Police to the proles/Outer Party/Inner Party to the Ministry of Love to the... get it?

If somebody commits suicide, they're "vaporized." You can't ever mention their name again. If a riot happens in, we'll just call it "Dundee Ranch," you're not allowed to even utter the name of the facility, because the "Ministry of Truth" wants to rewrite history.

Just as Oceania had the "Two Minutes Hate," WWASP has seminars that are designed to stimulate mass hysteria and groupthink. Seminars were applied to both captives and parents alike, albeit with modifications made to the parental seminars.

You're basically required to use Newspeak, I mean WWASP jargon, if you want to get by. The logic behind this is the same as the logic for Oceanians having to use Newspeak.

And if you're serious about wanting to make it out with your original self intact, you'd be wise to take up "doublethink," because the Thought Police can almost always tell when you're lying, and being convicted of "thoughtcrime" would be "doubleplusungood."

So, yeah. If you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, I urge you to read 1984. I consider it the most crucial reading I've ever done in my entire life, and I doubt that it will ever be topped. Not only does it describe a system that is VERY similar to that of WWASP; it describes the HOW and the WHY. Suddenly, you see the crude, idiotic, and pointless system for what it really is- a highly sophisticated, brilliantly designed machine that thoroughly and efficiently destroys the personalities of its prisoners. Oh yeah, and it makes a lot of money off of gullible people as well.

That's all I can say; I may have already said too much. I really don't know. All I know is, it's 2007, and yet America still hasn't gotten over slavery. In a country that calls itself a democracy, we have thousands of people who have NO freedom of speech- whether it's freedom to speak one's mind, or to speak at all!

If you don't start regulating (or better yet, shutting down) these facilities at once, I propose that we redesign our flag to include a hammer/sickle/red star design and rename our country "The Soviet States of America." At least then we'd have the balls to admit how oppressed we actually are, thanks to a government that has so far done nothing at all to protect those who need protection the most.

I'd like to conclude with this quote from 1984, which is perhaps the most succinct description of the system that the novel has to offer:

"The ideal set up by the Party was something very huge, terrible and glittering—a world of steel and concrete of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons—a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts, wearing the same clothes and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting—three hundred million people all with the same face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories. He seemed to see a vision of London, vast and ruinous, city of a million dustbins, and mixed up with it was a picture of Mrs Parsons, a woman with a lined face and wispy hair, fiddling helplessly with a blocked wastepipe."

Sincerely,
Sean Hellinger California

Spring Creek Lodge Academy closed sometime in 2009

References:
Datasheet about the boarding school at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on cafety.youthrights.com

Philipe David Garibay at Academy at Ivy Ridge (From:Youthrights.org)

This story was originally written on a webpage created to provide statements for a GAO hearing in 2007. The address is cafety.youthrights.org and it waits for your statement if you believe that your stay at a boarding school included unfair treatment or even abuse. All rights and credits goes to the author Philipe David Garibay, who posted the original story on cafety.youthrights.org

My name is Philipe David Garibay. I attended the WWASP programs for a period of 16 months. I have seen alot and experienced alot of tramautizing events that I will never forget in those 16 months.

I started out at Casa by the Sea in Ensenada, Mexico. I was only there for two months. The first that happended when I entered those big wooden gates. I was met by 4 Mexican Staff members. I was torn away from my family and put up in the top floor, all I could here was screaming and yelling and thumping. I was led into room and told to strip down naked and do jumping jacks. I felt very uncomfortable in this situation, I asked why and before I knew it I was restrained on the ground by 4 mexican staff calling me a "puta" and other degrading words in spanish. They twisted my arms back so I complied and did jumping jacks naked in front of four mexican staff members laughing and joking to eachother at me. They then sat me down in a chair and shaved my head. I was nothing, I was stripped of all rights and my diginity.

I was led into a food area and sat down with a group of other "program kids". They put a plate of boney fish and told me to eat. They said eat it or you get a "refusal". I wasnt hungry and it didnt look appealing at all to me, it made me sick to the stomach. So 2 mexican staff grab me and take me back to the top floor of the building and was told to sit on the floor and look at the wall. My body got sore from sitting and I laid down, next thing I know im being smashed into the wall being told "sit or be bent! sit or be bent!" I was up here for 3 days.

All around me was kids getting restrained and the joints bent around. A boy got his arm snapped from a staff member right next to me. All I can remember is the screams and yells of the kids up there. It was all day and all night, only quiet when I fell asleep only to be woken up to the boy sleeping next to me getting restrained for not going to the bathroom. I was told that I was going to be broken down and "molded".

I was not able to talk to my family via phone and only allowed t0 write to them once a week. I had nothing here, nothing at all, I didn't enjoy life anymore I felt like a rat in a cage being watched and forced to clean and scrub toilets with toothbrushes. They were trying to break me and it was working. I went to "O.P." "Isolation" for a period of 14 days and nights for a offence that I didnt even commit! I could not write t0 my family or anything.

Eventually the Mexican police came in and told us the place was being shut down. Riots broke out all over the facility, I was beaten down my a mexican staff member with soap in a sock. I passed out for a hour due to this. I woke up in daze on the concrete floor. And saw the chaos all over, windows shattered, water streaming all over the ground, poop and urine all over the walls and ceiling, we were fed twice a day for 3 days of this. the police got control over all of us.

I was left there to be only shipped on a bus thru the border back to my hometown of San Diego,California. I was told we were all going home and our parents were waiting for us at "The Town and County Hotel" in Mission Valley. We were escorted the whole way on big charter buses and then contained by a human wall leading in to the hotel. we were locked in a room and watched by "parents of other program kids".

My name was called. I went into a room only to be handcuffed very tightly cutting off circulation to my wrists. I was led into a room with 10+ people in a hotel room. They took the handcuffs off me finally. I was here for 24 hours. Then I was excorted in handcuffs totally humiliated in front of everyone in the San diego airport. "I WAS IN HANDCUFFS AND I WAS'NT EVEN ARRESTED BEING TREATED LIKE A CONVICT" We were all excorted in a group of kids with hancufffs.

I ended up in Ogensburg, New York at the Academy of Ivy Ridge. I was here for about a year.

I ended up in "isolation" here 5 times for all a period of 3 days with no talking or writing to my parents. there was a riot at the academy on May 16, 2006. On that night kids were beating eachother and staff was coming at us with pieces of wood and bats. I watched my family member " Chris Baslios" get beaten with a Mag Lite Extendo flashlite all metal by "Jason Finlinson and Jason Tulip" All you could here was yelling and screaming. I was scared, I wasnt safe, this wasnt rite. W I ended up being slammed into a closet door by "Lucas Smith" for not putting on my uniform. they were using force to make us comply back to there rules. Later on they were trying tofigure out who started the riot. I was led into the program directors room and interviewed by "Jason Finliinson" I had no idea about this. I told him that , then he slammed a golf club driver right over my head I felt it give me a shave on my head. I was lucky to not get hit. he did this 5 times making a hole in the wall above me. I urinated my pants and was very scared. I got kicked out of The academy and ended up being isolated again from all the friends that I made there in my family.

I was woken up at 3:00 am by a escort handcuffed and flown out to Jamaica. I was now at Tranquility Bay. I was put in "o.P." for 4 days isolated from everyone. I was forced to lay on a thin mat that reeked of urine and body smell's on my stomach with my chin on the mat face up.Forced to eat boney meat and fish everyday. If I didnt I was going to have my bones grinded. I was forced to attend seminars" at all of this programs being told stuff that I didnt want to accept, they were trying to force beliefs into me brainwash me and make me a different person. I was oushed thru all of these programs until I turned 18 on Jan 28, 2006. I wanted to leave that Day. I coudnt, I was held there against my will for 6 days till I left.

I endured alot of physical and mental abuse for 16 months at these WWASP programs. Memeorys always haunt me and now I have Post Tramic Stress Disorder and panic attacks all the time and flashbacks of the program. Im 20 I have tried to forget this all , but I cant. I am not the same.

I believe WWASP needs to be re-evaluated as "boarding schools" This was no boarding school. I am not the same. Can we please put a stop to these abusive school? Can you help me? Can you help the future kids that are going to go through this. Can we stop this?

God Bless, Philipe David Garibay (hidden email to prevent spammers - can be found at the source)

References:
Datasheet about Academy at Ivy Ridge at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
Datasheet about Casa by the Sea at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
Datasheet about Tranquility Bay at Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
The original statement on cafety.youthrights.com

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