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"Provo Canyon School" in Provo, Utah.
The shit that I experienced there still affects me to this day -- so much so that even watching your trailer kicked off a panic attack. And I think I will leave off typing now to go outside for some air. Be back in a couple.
Okay... back.
I don't know anything about this straight place other than what I just saw, but it certainly sounds like a similar type thing or idea. This is really difficult to talk about because there is just no way to really communicate what happened, what it was actually LIKE. Even if I could remember every moment of every day, or had a video camera recording it all, you would never understand the despair and terror unless you were confined there yourself. More, this place (andI am quite sure they ALL do this) did an absolutely amazing job lying about who they really are and what they did. From the outside it appears to be a wonderful nurturing environment for troubling young people. They even have testimonials for christ's sake. So you can believe what I am saying or not.
When we arrived everything was taken from you. You were placed into an intake unit and you spent your first few weeks there for initial indoctrination -- it could take longer of course, but they would break you down eventually. During that time you would never leave this room, never go outside. And they taught you about evil, that you were evil and about all the evil and sin in the world. They had a TV that they turned on in the evening for entertainment, but it was also a test; if a commercial came on for something bad, or an attractive woman was shown, we were expected to turn our heads and not look at the sinful images. The definitions were, of course, arbitrary, which was the point. You could not know, and so you were trained to respond to everything half in fear -- cringing every time the image changed and watching the people aropund you to see how they reacted. Failure meant punishment.
One type of punishment was called "standing." It consided of being forced to stand facing a wall, six inches from the wall. I minor infraction (or whim) might result in as much as a day spent doing that, 55 minutes staring at the wall, five minutes break an hour. A more serious infraction would result in a longer sentence, in which case you would be transfered to their disciplinary unit. This was an internal unit, no windows, no sunlight, just the flourescent tubes burning 24 hours a day. My longest stretch standing was three months, every day, all day, nose to the wall. I was sentenced that time because tey suspected that I was a satanist, though in truth I really don't know -- nor does it matter, no reason was needed. Anyway... Looking away from the wall meant that, at the least, your hour would not count. Falling down or fainting or touching the wall meant your hour did not count. Talking or leaving to go to the bathroom meant your hour did not count. They had a guy who's job it was to sit there watching you. I know that in reading this you might not think that this sounds all that bad. It was though. After a while it really was.
Punishment scaled up from there. They had "padded" isolation rooms. The word padded there is in quotes because they were not padded at all. The rooms were carpeted on the walls and floor with some kind of crazy carpet that would shred your skin. They would strip you naked, handcuff you, and throw you around in there. Or, as an example in my case, one time a bunch of them sat on me and ground my face into the carpet, ripping the skin off my forehead and face and nose and chest and knees and other less discussed places. I am not talking about an injury incurred when they first tossed me in. To be clear, VERY clear, I was naked, handcuffed, while these guys first took turns kicking and punching me before really getting into it -- they spent fifteen or twenty minutes telling me about sin and what not while slowly grinding my bleeding face into the sandpaper carpet (we called it razor carpet by the way) while I screamed and cried. Then they left me cuffed in there for the next day or so. No knowing how long for sure, obviously, but it was a long and very painful time. Not knowing when they are coming back to work you over some more. Your flesh scabbing over and hurting everywhere. There was a lot of fear there.
The worst thing, for me, were not the beatings but the interogations. The worst one I went through, the longest, was the one that resulted in that three-month lockdown I mentioned above. They came for me in the evening (they always do, it's the scariest time), hauled me down the the disciplinary unit, and sat me down in a chair facing a wall. Then they handed me a notebook and pencil and told me to write a confession. Actually, they didn't tell, they yelled, but whatever. Obviously, based on their insane programming I had plenty I could confess, impure thoughts about women (lots of those), jerking off perhaps, thinking bad thoughts, whatever. I had no clue what they wanted me to write. So I write some minor shit. An hour later they returned, screaming, tore up my confession and told me that they already KNEW what I had done and that I damn well better write it down. During the first evening they began to good-cop bad-cop me, one of them hitting me and acting batshit crazy, the other there trying to keep him calm, my friend, urging me to help him by just coming clean -- after all they already knew... my friends had all ratted me out.. and cant you see I am just trying to help you but I don't know if i can control this guy for much longer!
Three days I spent in that chair, awake while they questioned me in shifts, trying to make up something believeable, then giving that up and just inventing crazy shit to amuse myself. Three days in which I would never know if I was about to get clobbered from behind. By the end of three days I was telling them whatever they wanted to hear. After a while with no sleep you get crazy. And maybe from where you are sitting reading this you might say, well, no big deal. But it's different when you are just a kid and you are powerless and scared and you don't know what's going to happen or how long it's going to last. No one comes up before real torture and says, "Oh yeah, this is gonna be a few days, and here's your safe word, and don't worry we wont REALLY kill you." Nope, they are trying their best to make you believe it all, and when you are there, in a place that violent and that twisted, with no HOPE for anything, well it is easy to believe anything. Just as bad, and unless you have been there you wont believe it, but it does not take long for the mental games to work. Days without sleeping just makes the lesson set in DEEP, but you believe that the good cop is your friend even when you KNOW he isn't. He is the guy smiling compassionately down at you, talking in the nice voice, making soothing noises and telling you that he likes you. You WANT to believe him so much.
But I was lucky. You have no idea. But I do. I knew even then how lucky I was because I could see the unlucky ones all around me and it scaredthe shit out of me. Still does. Every kid there was assigned to one of the psychiatrists or whatever they were. I had a new one, who did not believe in drugs. He told me that he was not going to approve any for as long as he could.
Horror is watching someone instantly turned from a yound athletic teen into a zombie. Someone that yesterday was alive and today just stands wherever you put him, drool running down his chin, pissing and shitting himself where he stands. Brain dead. And once they went that route, that was it. They would drug you into a walking coma and there you stayed. Undead. I saw them do it over and over again, with the kids that their conditioning just could not break, they would break them chemically. And again, as always, I cannot even begin to explain to you how terrifying and evil this is.
Anyway, sorry for rambling on so long. Once I started... well, there it is. I suspect that most reading this either wont believe it or will think that it probably wasn't all that bad or whatever. Some will probably research the facility I mentioned and see the smiling happy kids pictured there (boys and girls now) and dismiss all this as a lie. I understand. A few years ago I went to the website of this place myself and saw how awesome it looked, and my first thought was that the OBVIOUSLY must have changed over the many years since I was there. Then I remembered that they pulled the same act back then as well. They had a very convincing public face back then too. So maybe they haven't changed at all.
Whatever. That's some of what happened. Make of it what you will.
P.S. Not gonne edit this or even reread it, so sorry about typos and what not. You are getting it raw.
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