Antdissent at Excel Academy

This testimony was given by the author known as Antdissent. All rights belongs to the original author

Hello. I don't know whether the above post is still active (or even credible; this site doesn't seem to be geared towards political discussion), but there are a few things I would like to add about Excel Academy. I left there less than a year ago.

1. Staff members never drank the water. Never in the 22 months I spent there do I remember a staff member drinking the tap water. It did not come from the local tap water source. It supposedly drew from a well (I have no idea how this worked; there were just some big machines that were explained to be wells), but this doesn't really make much sense to me because the surrounding houses (the place was located across the street from country residential area). It was not connected to any of the local water management. It's waste water was removed by a septic company (the septic also often overflowed, forcing all students to smell it). The water was always a grey, murky color; this was explained to be from air bubbles, which still does not explain why the staff would never drink it. All students broke out with worse acne when they go there; it was generally explained to them as withdrawal to drugs. One of my friends, who was a former heroine addict, showed up there with horrible acne; and I actually remember it getting slightly worse when he got there. I would not be surprised if there was something in the water.
2. Almost all (it could be all; I can only comment from the lifestyle that was observable to the students) of the staff members had a huge paycheck. JJ (Jamie Risner) bought a new car every year and had a huge mansion. It's worth noting that this was after paying off local authorities; I do not know how widely this was done but I am aware that this was not uncommon on some issues. Although a large part of that was on our parent's pay (tuition was 5,000 a month plus a large sum for their extortionist policies of charging parents highly inflated prices for necessary supplies), I would not be too surprised on the possibility of contracts. I would like to see research and sources for this data. As far as contracts with the US government, I would not see this as any real indicator of that; but it is strange to note a very high number of ex-military staff* working at the place. There was also one who was a cop. He, along with another staff member, was in the Free Masons, although I'm not completely sure how relevant that is.
3. Yes, as I begun to learn more about leftist politics, I had started to draw similarities between Excel's conditioning techniques and CIA tactics. There was no waterboarding; but potential for physical abuse was high, especially in the earlier years*. The school was widely accepted to be a 'behavioral modification program'. Although that phrase is creepy enough, I will point out that 'behavioral modification' is recondition; what happened is there is very creepy, and I still notice some conditioning left in me from it.

Sleep deprivation was used, but was not widespread at the point which I was there. It was more of something used to break students which were open about their feelings toward the place****. In some cases, what was done was irregularly waking the student up at night; this was done under the excuse that the student was at risk for hurting themselves, although it was universally understood that that was the 'on the record' excuse used to make the action legally justifiable.

There was also something called the 'quiet room'; I am not quite sure what went on in there, and the details on it were widely suppressed among the student population. What I do know is that students were kept in there for as long as days at a time. During this time, a staff member would do things such as force them to do push-ups; adopt a 'you sleep when I decide you can sleep' policy; feed them a sandwich with a single piece of meat for meals; and require specified amounts of God prayers***** for food, water, and sleep.

A student’s food choices were strictly managed. One selection of food would be prepared by the students, although the quantities and types would be chosen by staff. Students were given a designated quantity for their serving; this was strictly enforced. Students would be required to eat all of their food; failure to do so would be punishable, often by reducing the student’s meals to a permanent restriction of in proportion half of other students’. Many students could not handle the size of servings; they were forced to eat all of it. Vegetarians were forced to eat their meat
When I first arrived, my appetite was severely limited by depression. I was put on half-portions, and the amount of food served also began to decline to a point at which most students were generally hungry. The food was, in many cases, disgusting; and made me gag. I do not know what I would have preferred to happen there. They starved me, but I was also dangerously overweight (255 pounds) from two psyche meds, both of which are widely known to cause severe weight gain. At this point, I am starting to learn that hunger is not something that is simply uncomfortable; I have started to realize that my current eating habits are unhealthy because I ignore my hunger until it is convenient to eat. I have also begun to realize that because of all my loose skin, I could look healthy when most people would have their ribs showing.

• The place began to get much less abusive once Aspen Education Group bought it in 2001**. From what I have heard, very little changed at first; but then Aspen began to more aggressively investigate the practices of the school and found it to be a huge liability risk. They did not want to get sued, and therefore began to place some limits on Excel, which the school tried its best to cir***vent and ignore. It was still really bad when I got there, and I was lucky that I didn’t begin to crack (and therefore break rules) until Aspen had started to more aggressively protect students’ lawsuit-worthy rights in early 2006. I believe that this testimony provides a look at what the school may have been like before Aspen began to intervene against the most egregious human rights violations the school committed.
• Keeping in mind that I’m generally paranoid about things, I feel that the buyout is the only thing there that I have not directly observed which I know to be true. The flow of information was highly managed***, and I still cannot figure out what the hell was happening there. The intentions, goals, attitudes, and internal conflicts of staff members are not something that I can figure out. With the way they managed to brainwash parents, I would not be surprised if quite a few of them could put on a convincing act. I often try to figure out who (sometimes questioning even if the entire operation, by removing the students’ identity and therefore allowing them to build a new one free of the brainwashed culture****) was really there to help me and who was playing along to the tune of an inflated paycheck. I generally arrive at the conclusion that the entire place was run by greed.
• Anything not related to the school was not permitted to be discussed. This was enforced, and it was punishable to even say “Family Guy”. Nothing from the outside was permitted to touch upon our consciousness. The privilege to talk about sports, movies, and video games (of the last two, those few that were considered ‘appropriate’) was, however, permitted to be discussed by those who were not in trouble. The ability of students to talk with each other was also highly regulated. Those students who were on ‘blackout’ from each other were not allowed to acknowledge each other’s existence in any way, verbal and nonverbal as well as direct and indirect. This was much more strictly enforced between students of the opposite sex; some males wound up developing a strong fear of girls. All students who were on ‘six months and under’******* as well as all students of the opposite sex were on blackout from each other.
• One teacher there seemed to be a bit of a leftist, although I still cannot trust most staff to provide truth. He once pointed out that one of the practices there was conditioning, then commented that conditioning means brainwashing before joking “You’re minds are so dirty they need to be washed anyway. Wouldn’t you agree?”
• Most students put on an act, but some students - me included - would not yield. In general, students either did things they'd be embarrassed of (constant snitching, enforcement of rules; we moved around campus like chaingangs with invisible shackles) to their peers because they were 'playing the game' or be embarrassed of the way they acted because the place cracked them while they were there. Several of my friends who 'played the game' have since then expressed that they find the non-cooperative stance to be the more commendable of the two; I don't blame any students or parents and find neither stance to have any more merit than the other.
• God prayers were sheets covered with the words "God have mercy on [name of person]". They were a standard punishment. Students who were in 'consequence' were required to write 2,000 of these a week.
• ’Six months and under’ was a deceptive wording. It generally meant that anybody who had been good for six months was eligible to come off ‘six months and under’. People who were not off six months could not read books other than things for class work. I never came off and was frequently in trouble, in many cases thrown to the ground and later put in consequence, for reading books. I also wound up introverting into my classes.
  
  As well as the six months and under, status there were the statuses of ‘on shadow’ and ‘appropriate’********. People on shadow (I was on this pretty much the entire time) were required to stay with their assigned shadow, another student, at all times other than when sleeping, showering, and using the bathroom.
• These were people who were generally trusted to snitch on students in ‘life skills’ for breaking the rules. To give an example of something that might come up, I got put on a ban from swaying back and forth and pacing; this was once brought up. Breaking blackout and talking about ‘inappropriate’ (in general, things outside of the school and program) subjects were common things brought up.
  
  People played the game by a strong system of rewards and punishments; some students even began to internalize the indoctrination of the school as morally good. The largest rewards were visits with parents. Parents could visit the students for ten hours once a month (phone calls were fifteen minutes for once a week and always monitored). In the beginning, these visits were on-shadow and on-campus (during the twenty-two months I was there I saw the outside of campus less than ten times); but if students were good, they could get visits without a shadow********* and go off campus. Sometimes they could have longer visits than five hours each of the two days the parents were there. In some cases, they could even stay with their parents at a hotel. The privileged few (those who were seen to be completely indoctrinated) could even visit home for a weekend. In all cases, visits were only once a month.
  
  The more everyday rewards were things like additional food, the ‘privilege’ to sit on padded surfaces, the ‘privilege’ to watch movies when they played on the weekends, the ‘privilege’ to play card games and board games on weekends, and the ‘privilege’ to eat sweets (when they were passed out) and drink juice on the weekends.
• Still, parents would often report things the students’ said to them. It is truly unbelievable how brainwashed to parents were. I have no idea how the place managed to keep me there for twenty-two months; that they’d even keep me there more than a month turned out to be a little bit of a shocker for me.

The facility closed 2008. An incident involving an employee who also happened to be a local police officer who took a student to the local jail where the student was forced to be undressed in front of the inmates made local news coverage.

Sources:

• Dear Fellow Anti-Mind Control Activists: (A thread on the message board belonging to Kitty Radio)
• Factsheet of the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Jesse at an unknown therapeutic boarding school

This testimony was made by Jesse, who was forced through a 12 step program at a therapeutic boarding school. All rights goes to the original author.

My name is Jesse. I'm an 18 year old from Nashville, TN. On December 4th, 1998 I was sent to a therapeutic boarding school by my mother for reasons including drugs, violence, family difficulties, and failing in school.

While I was there, I was forcibly subjected to almost all aspects of the 12 steps. The school was based on intense, year-round use of 12-step and Gestalt therapy. People were rewarded for following the 12 steps with privileges, better housing, more freedom, more respect, and, best of all, more power to control their peers. I could go on forever about their policy, but it would take too long to type. Let's just say I truly understand the pain of a condescending, It's OK, you're right were you should be; it's all part of your process.

The day before I was to leave for the 12-step boarding school, I broke my hand. The lady from admissions told me that I would be able to see a doctor later that day for it. My mother offered to take me to the doctor and bring me back if necessary, but they assured her that everything would be all right and I would be taken care of. After she left, they told me that the nurse was out and I would be able to see her after the weekend was over. I was taken into a bathroom and strip searched. All my possessions were searched, my money was taken from me, and I was taken back to the group. I asked another kid if it would be possible if I could go to the doctor that day. If it wasn't possible for the school to take me that day, my mom could come back and take me. My hand was swollen, twisted, and it hurt horribly. He responded with a laugh, as if I had just asked to borrow a thousand dollars. That night I slept in a very small room with six other kids, two in bunk beds, one on a single, and me and three others crammed on the floor. I slept shoved under the single bed with only a single cotton sheet in the mountain chill. The small mattress had a vinyl coating that made it absolutely frigid to sleep on. It was three days and three cold nights before I got my comforters and a change of clothes.

After two weeks of repeated run-around, I was finally allowed to see the nurse. The nurse scheduled me for an appointment at the hospital a week later. So a full three weeks after my arrival at the school with a broken hand, I was finally taken to the doctor. The doctor said I had a fracture in my hand and gave me a cast and a prescription for pain. The prescription was supposed to be for two weeks, but was halved after two days, and the school staff refused me any additional pain pills after the fourth day. No doctor was ever consulted on this change. The lack of medical care of the students was probably the worst thing that went on at that school.

Once I was on a work crew (physical labor punishment) to destroy the inside of a barn with sledge hammers and crowbars. Two other students and I were in a very small room in the barn. We had to knock down walls and beams, and tear out the fiberglass insulation with our only protection being the work suits we wore every day. Fiberglass was everywhere, on the floor in piles, being ripped out, in everyone's suits, and in the air in a thick pink cloud. After we finished and went back to the dorm, all of us complained of itching on our skin. I had once heard from my father, a health and safety inspector, that if you got fiberglass embedded in your skin that you should take a hot shower immediately to get it out or infection might occur. We were not allowed to take showers and had to endure constant itching. A few days later all three of us complained of stabbing pains in our chests and asked if we could see a doctor. We were not even allowed to see the nurse.

But later on, when I got very sick and started throwing up pink vomit, the nurse was called. She said I would be fine. Two days later, because the vomiting persisted, I was allowed to go to bed. Once a student got a horrible bloody nose. He was filling up garbage pails with blood from his nose over the course of about a week. He grew pale and weak, so much so that he could not even sit up in a chair, which was his punishment at the time. He would frequently have to take breaks to lie down. No doctor was ever called, nor was the nurse ever informed. That school is currently being sued by parents who had a daughter who went there. The daughter was taking lithium, a salt. She developed a bladder infection and had to go to the bathroom quite frequently during the day and in the middle of the night. When one person has to go to the bathroom, they have to take the whole group, so it soon became a problem. The staff came to the conclusion that this behavior must have been some way of getting attention, and her water intake was limited to two glasses a meal. This caused dehydration and the lithium levels rose in her brain. This quickly resulted in several physical symptoms, such as energy loss. She was so tired that she fell asleep in class all the time. It got so bad that she couldn't even feed herself. My girlfriend had to change her tampon for her. This was all attributed to her wanting attention, and no nurse or doctor was informed. This continued on until she started vomiting bile for several days. She was finally taken to a doctor, who quickly identified it as lithium overdose. She was put on kidney dialysis, but by then she had suffered irreparable brain damage.

The story doesn't end there. When the state decided to press charges, the 12-step school got the kids to plead the fifth. They told the students that the state might want to send them to jail and the school was going to do everything necessary to protect them. Most of the students had already been involved with the law and were scared, so they agreed to be quiet. The group therapy sessions were horrible. An actual therapist was present at group therapy only once a week. Our only therapy was a session involving no one but other troubled teenagers, each with their own agendas, problems, and manipulations. People were forced to tell their innermost secrets in front of everybody, or else be chastised by the group for being dishonest. If someone didn't agree with another's opinion, they were confronted for not taking it in. Teenagers with severe emotional problems were given as much authority as licensed therapists. If a student ran away from school, the dorm that they ran from was punished. I saw a student forced by staff to stand with his face in a doorway corner and not turn around for an hour. I have been silenced -- not allowed to talk -- for two days, or else face other punishment. One time the whole dorm was forced to hold hands for two days straight in the same room while an angered student held us hostage by refusing to cooperate.

One of the worst things done at that school is the prevention of legal adults from leaving. This is kidnapping, plain and simple. A 22 year old who enrolled himself, but later wanted to leave, was forced to sit in a room for a week until he "decided" to stay. An 18 year old who went to the main office to withdraw was instead sent to the punishment unit. After I turned 18, I saw what I had never seen before -- the school for what it really was. It was a system of lies to make the headmaster money. So, I decided to leave with my girlfriend. We had to sneak away at two in the morning and leave all of our possessions behind. Later, the school gave our stuff to Goodwill. The first night we had to hitchhike along the interstate, but were not picked up and had to sleep during the day in the woods. We got a ride to a garage in town, where they gave us water and some cookies. They were worried that the sheriff would drive by and see us. They told us that he wouldn't care that we were 18 and would take us back regardless. A man there gave us a ride to a truck stop, and from there we made it to friends in Pennsylvania. From then on, we were safe.

Four months later, the school is still not out of our lives. There is a policy at the school to convince parents that if their child runs away, they are not to talk to their child at all. My mother would not help me at all for weeks, but I moved in with my father, who had nothing to do with the school, and with whom I had not been allowed to have contact while there. My girlfriend was not so lucky. Her parents still do not speak to her, so she must live with a friend's mother. She called her father to let him know she was alright and with friends, and he hung up on her. Just getting her identification was hard. The school has refused to send her transcripts to her, although she's following all legal procedures. My mother, although she will speak to me, still refuses to support me. I fear that she has been brainwashed. Even now, as I am living with my father, the school still haunts me. I am free of the drug problems, emotional problems, and violence problems that used to control my life. But the school refuses to let go. My mother recently paid for another year of enrollment. So, the school refuses, with no reason, to give my transcripts to my new high school. I fear that I will never be allowed to leave the school, and they will prevent me from graduating from high school. All I want to do is live and move on with my life. But I am not allowed to put this period behind me. Every day, certain words or images bring up memories of my school programming. I constantly fight the absurd things taught to me, forcibly shoved into my thought processes by the school's therapy sessions. I am glad, at least, to have the support of my girlfriend, whom I love dearly, and who shares my experiences at the school. She can relate to me. Without her support I know I would not have made it through this ordeal.


Source:
I Learned Dysfunction in 12-Step School (12 step horror stories)

GODFATHER at Carlbrook School

This story was originally written on the message board called the Fornits Home for Wayward Webfora. All rights goes to the original author known as GODFATHER

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This is not to say that the students enrolled are not intelligent-- in fact, for the most part they are, and this helps the school in that students soon realize the path of least resistance and flock to it.

I was at Carlbrook from 10/03-05/05 and I found this site just looking up things about cbrook one day and I saw this quote from may 2009 and it is one of the best statements about carlbrook I have seen....

I also constantly have dreams/nightmares about being back at carlbrook or being sent away again by my parents...

When I was there I constantly disliked the school and its program and what it was trying to do to all the kids there. Towards the end of my stay I even got in trouble with my advisors for saying that I did not want to be like the Carlbrook sellouts who were brainwashed by this place and I got put on bans with everyone in the school except for the people I said were those sellouts. I was constantly told in group and the workshops that I hated myself and thought all sorts of crazy shit when I didnt....

I can also say that I always thought it was creepy and weird how they tried to get all the students to hug each other and "smush" and stuff like that, I dont think parents knew their kids were going to be smushing with 50 year old men when they enrolled them.

And Grant Price is the biggest hypocrit there, and has no room to be running a school for "troubled youth" when he is just a former student and still hasnt figured his own shit out. WHile I was there Grant would blast me and many other in group and claim a whole bunch of stuff and come to find out after I graduated that while I was there he got a dui and had to be restrained by the police and was having an affair with someone who worked there.

I was always on bans with my good friends there for a number of false and stupid reasons and just did what I could to make it through the place. I unfortunately did not turn 18 when I was there and had to endure the whole stay of 18 months. I found the whole program to be rediculous.

And having read many things about how this is an offspring of CEDU and the other schools, I can see the similarities and the mind control or behvior modifications that they try to instill and force upon the kids there. Issues were forced upon me in group and workshops and I was put on programs and giving absurd writing assignments that I just had to figure out what the advisor wanted me to write.

I have not really kept much in contact with how the school is now or what they do now, i graduated over 4 years ago. I have many long talks/arguments with my mom still about me being sent there and she keeps in contact with moms who had kids in my peer class there and many of them agree that carlbrook did not really help their kids or prepare them. Carlbrook is way too much of a controlled environment and could never prepare the kids there for experiences they will face in the real life. I just found it very hypocritical and contradicting and I hated the way the older kids who had sold out to the system called out other kids and exerted this fake authority that the school gave them to further gain their trust. It was a system of manipulation through obidience of their rules.

It seems to me parents are given half-truths about the school during their visits and in talks beforing enrolling.. I do not think any parents realized what their kids would go through. I have seen many of the posts from people who have been to Carlbrook, some when I was there, and are happy and grateful to have been there and can only find good things to say about it. The different reactions and experiences of kids there are polar opposites- either they loved it and are grateful for it or they hated it and felt like they were trying to be brainwashed or controlled. I think that if you got a lot out of it and are happy with yourt experience, then thats great but I think many people were dissatisfied, to put it lightly, with their time there.

To parents who are thinking of sending their kids away: Think about being woken up by two huge, strange dudes at 4 in the morning and being taken to the airport with no idea of where you are going. Then all of a sudden you are in the woods being stripped searched and then sent out into the woods for an X amount of weeks before you are shipped off to this boarding school for 15-20 more months. Limited contact with parents and I couldnt ever talk to my friends or send them letters because my advisor would not let me. They train the parents with what to say, telling them that their kid will just try to manipulate their way out of the school and that everyone deserves to be there. They always made us feel like we had to be there or else we would end up dead or even more fucked up than we already were.

The lessons they teach about love and how that is what is most important in the world and how much power love has, those lessons are very powerful and true. Love really is the missing thing that this world needs to come together. I also found "there is only now" and "friends are the family you get to choose" to be great tools for life and something i did find relevant. But the thing about Carlbrook is those great messages are lost among the bullshit that they spit to you in groups and other settings and the stupid control they try to hold over all the kids there and the unnecessary humiliation and extremes that they go to.

Sources:

• Factsheet about Carlbrook School on Fornits Wiki
• The original testimony on the Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora