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I was close to finishing the freshman year of highschool when my aunt and uncle sent me to Discovery Academy. I can understand some of the reasons they had. I was experimenting with marijuana and had tried LSD. I was starting to act out. I was into grunge and punk and rock, ( I had long dyed hair, dressed like a freak - way cooler than I dress now) Typical adolecent behavior. I figured that I was doing pretty good for a kid that had spent his first 12 years of life living in the fostercare system. I was on the varcity soccer and baseball team. I had reasonable good grades. I know that I was starting to withdraw from my peers.
Well, I can understand that my parents overreaction to my normal behavior is a typical one. My folks had hired an educational consultant , Miriam Boudean ( bay area , california ) and she had referred me to the private highschool I was attending and she definalty referred me to Discovery Academy when my folks were "trying to save my life". I was fortunate that I wasnt kidnapped and taken to discovery that way. I have heard the stories. I am fortunate that I didnt have to goto any of the wilderness hiking hippy bullshit programs. I flew there on my own accord thinking that this was a boarding school. I thought that I would be gone 3-4 months. Little did I know that there is a year minimum of enrollment. I was there for 2 1/2.
Immediatly on reaching the place I remember being in the parking lot and all of a sudden a huge mutha sucka comes running up and acting very aggressive with a serious hyped up look in his eyes. He wouldnt stay more that 2 feet from me. Well we went in the place and Terry started shmoozin the folks and crap and they took all my stuff to be "approved". Half my friggin clothes and almost all my music, books were NOT approved. When I went to discovery they hadnt switched to uniforms yet. I was still there when they were in the early stages of picking the uniforms. I swear to god that Carol Thorne was like a crazed old child playing with her dolls in her big dollhouse. Often times the new students are put into Unit 1 ( solitary supervised confinement ) Parents are billed ridiculous amounts for this "service". I guess since I thought I was actually in a boarding school they decided to let me into the general population. My second day there they told me that I could go get my hair cut off or they could hold me down and shave my head. Having already spoken to some of the other students I realized that I was )#(%&ed and went the route of the hair cut. Discovery has a punishment system called demerits. One demerit is 25 minutes of standing inches away from a wall, hands at your sides, no talking - deviate from those rules and you will be restarted. I have stood thousands. I have stood till my ankles and knees were ridiculously swollen. I have been restrained, i have been shot up with thorazine. I have been incorrectly diagnosed. My therapist was Alan Thorne. This worm of a man was the owners son. Dr Gene Thorne started this school. He is a evil, self important, pug of a man. And very, very rich.
I have taken the time to read everyones profiles and I empathise with the horrors that you all have had to endure. I feel especially bad for the individuals that had to deal with the jamacian school, paradise cove. I can only imagine the helplessness that you must have felt in the face of not only being trapped out of the country, but also being abused so severly and being coerced to commits acts of abuse.
I might go into detail at a later point some of my experiences that I have gone through while attending Discovery Academy. I cant beleive that the Discovery Academy Forum is down. What a croc. I think I finnaly convinced my aunt and uncle that Discovery was doing more harm than good, and for my senior year of high school I was sent to John Tylers boys ranch. This was a group home facility set in the suburbs of spokane, washinton.
I can say that this place was a huge improvement. John has a true heart and really cares about youth and young adults. There were a few times that I was ready to kill one of the staff there in particular, but for the most part I endured my increase in freedom. One of the things that really messed with me was that I was back in public school. After the pisspoor education system of Discovery I was hard pressed to catch up the first few months. Discovery takes dated text books and chops them up by chapter. They call these "Concepts". You then take a test on the chapter. You are not allowed to test below a B. This is how they maintain thier bullshit excellent GPA of the school. Not only was there a weirdness of being able to react to kids living so called normal lives and not knowing what you are going through but I felt a little socially retarded. My previous contact with girls for the last 2.5 years had been a little supervised coed. Well... there was that one time that involved some serious mission impossible stuff but thats another story. Now Im a senior in high school that cant see anyone outside of school. LAME I had girls wanting to go to the prom with me. Cant do that now. I wanted to get a job so I could have some experience before I moved "home", knowing I was going to be on my own. no go. I know that someone else had mentioned that they felt like they had been robbed of thier adolescence. I feel like I never was a kid.
I have been independant with almost no help from my aunt and uncle. They did help me when they wanted me to goto school. I didnt think I was ready yet. I dropped out after 2.5 years. I have been through substance abuse issues and severe depression since I have been 18 now and have not sought any sort of professional help because of my negative experiences. I was able to kick my meth habit on my own.
At this point of the game I am a 26 year old young adult professional with a great job and a wonderful group of friends. I work as a Youth Support Coordinator for the System of Care initiatives. I now get to tap on to that life experience and hopefully make a difference in someones life. I work as a advocate for youth and Young Adults that have SED or Mental Health diagnose(s). I ran across this site not long ago and was very encouraged to see that there are being steps taken to regulate these child prisons.
I will try to add more to this site in time. Sources:
- Discovery Ranch (The original testimony on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora)
- Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
- The new website for the Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY)
Please dont send your kid(s) away. You cant pay someone else to fix what you alone have to work out. DA fucked me up and if i hadnt found religion in time i would still be screwing over my life and contemplating suicide daily. I found satanism and it has restored my body, my mind, and my will to live. DA is a place where your life halts while you keep aging. I barely kept from killing myself several times while in their child prison. I know that if i had been sent back for round 2 i would have gladly shed this mortal coil and this review may have never reached the eyes of anyone who is reading it. I speak as a young adult who knows true despair caused by the knowledge that their very own parents had sent them to a place that they know nothing about other than the smoke coming out of the therapist's asses. After DA chewed through my parents money and threw me back into a world that kept moving forward while i was suspended in time, i immediately picked up drug use(weed, cocaine and psychedelics *pre-DA i had only tried weed sparingly), gained weight, and dropped out of hs less than a year later. Like i said, it was satinism that restored me. I began applying satanic consepts and thus turned my life around by getting into online school, getting into shape, and expanding my mind through the gain of practical knowledge(not just useless nonsense in a school book but actual independent thoughts and ideas). The only beneficial ideas i took with me when i left DA came from the kids that were going through the child mill with me. Shout out to eli, matt, kolten and jimmy for being the amazing, unique individuals they are. If any of you read this i love you guys. therapist nate porter, DA 2013. Sunrise hall with a brief stay in stone hall. FUCK DA! LET THAT SHIT BURN!
ReplyDeletePlease dont send your kid(s) away. You cant pay someone else to fix what you alone have to work out. DA fucked me up and if i hadnt found religion in time i would still be screwing over my life and contemplating suicide daily. I found satanism and it has restored my body, my mind, and my will to live. DA is a place where your life halts while you keep aging. I barely kept from killing myself several times while in their child prison. I know that if i had been sent back for round 2 i would have gladly shed this mortal coil and this review may have never reached the eyes of anyone who is reading it. I speak as a young adult who knows true despair caused by the knowledge that their very own parents had sent them to a place that they know nothing about other than the smoke coming out of the therapist's asses. After DA chewed through my parents money and threw me back into a world that kept moving forward while i was suspended in time, i immediately picked up drug use(weed, cocaine and psychedelics *pre-DA i had only tried weed sparingly), gained weight, and dropped out of hs less than a year later. Like i said, it was satinism that restored me. I began applying satanic consepts and thus turned my life around by getting into online school, getting into shape, and expanding my mind through the gain of practical knowledge(not just useless nonsense in a school book but actual independent thoughts and ideas). The only beneficial ideas i took with me when i left DA came from the kids that were going through the child mill with me. Shout out to eli, matt, kolten and jimmy for being the amazing, unique individuals they are. If any of you read this i love you guys. therapist nate porter, DA 2013. Sunrise hall with a brief stay in stone hall. FUCK DA! LET THAT SHIT BURN!
ReplyDeleteI also attended Discovery Academy from December 1999 to January 2000. I am now 32 and the memories from this place still haunt me. DA had a practice of locking children in an isolated unit for weeks at a time, refusing to turn the lights off. I was deprived of sleep and food when I disagreed with their rules. The staff that runs this place are in their early 20's and they are as mature as the students that are forced to go there.
ReplyDeleteThe staff encouraged bullying, and fights were a daily occurrence. One staff member, Dan even encouraged students to fight in the large classroom after the teachers had left for the evening. I also saw a male student get raped by 2 other students. A few female students claimed that they were raped by the counsellors, and I completely believe these allegations.
I watched a 14 year old girl get injected by a drug that made her pass out, after that 2 male counsellors brought her into the isolation unit. A few days later, she claimed she was raped and they left her in this unit for a few more weeks before she was transferred to another program.
This school controls how long you are forced to stay by limiting the amount of classes you can take, I was actually punished for studying. If you completed too many units in a week, you would be forced to stand in front of a wall for days or weeks at a time. I actually spent my Easter weekend starring at a wall for studying too much, I still have back issues from this today.
There was also a counsellor that provided the students with ecstasy on more than one occassion, he also provided students with alcohol. I left this place with more issues than I came with. The son of Dr. Thorne, Denny Thorne, was accused of raping a student who was 16 at the time. I have no doubt that these allegations are true. This place abused children, and then dismissed the claims as displaced anger.
I was personally jumped by 4 students when I first attended the school, I was beaten and the counsellors just watched and laughed. Another student was beaten so severely that he suffered permanent brain damage and talked with a slur for the remainder of the time that I attended. Of course the staff did their best to dismiss this as "boys will be boys" his parents obviously didn't want anything to do with him, very sad.
I learned very quickly that I would have to literally fight every single day to survive this place. I was sent here because my parents did not want to take responsibility for raising their own child. Sure I skipped class a few times and I smoked weed here and there, when I left I couldn't relate to people, and within 2 years of leaving I was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. Prior to going to this school I had never been in a fight in my life, by the time I left, at least 50. I stopped communicating with words and used my fists instead, sadly as aforementioned, this was encouraged by the staff.
The children here would routine play a game of passing each-other out at night. I saw one kid convulse for almost 5 minutes. I am certain that these activities kill more brain cells than your kid smoking weed with his friends on the weekends.
Don't be a fool, if you send your child here, they will come home with more issues than they were sent there with. I have been in contact with a handful of the students I went here with, and they all have the same issues I have or have had. Many of them ended up in jail or worse.
These years are the most important years of your child's life in terms of mental development. Do you want your children raised by 21 year olds? Wake up people, don't convince yourself that you are doing the right thing, be a parent, that is what your child needs right now.