Day 608. Survivors found: 9
We’ve been having some good laughs here at anti-torture HQ over the unintentionally hilarious vitriol thrown by a handful of fundie AT/RAD cultists.
It’s hard enough to take the old “What Would Jesus Do” chestnut seriously after its hijacking by hipster outlet stores, but when it’s thrown around to justify anyone who believes that “God wanted them to adopt,” then tries to abandon their adopted child online, the absurdity becomes too great not to laugh out loud at.
Nothing against devoutly religious people of any stripe, of course. Some of them are our strongest supporters, and some of them are us; there is one survivor’s account yet to be made public, in which spirituality and memorization of prayers actually helped comfort and anchor the child during the worst phases of torture.
It’s just the fundamentalists and the cultists that we don’t tend to mesh with very well.
Of course, condemnation comes too often and easy, while understanding is vital and difficult to come by. So, in an effort to provide some necessary insight into the actions that many parents (both adoptive and biological) consider to be unthinkable, here are some excerpts by various academics and child advocates:
Via Psychology Today:
For some years now, I’ve been studying situations where parents choose unresearched mental health treatments that can harm or even kill their children. There are obviously many similar situations that have to do with physical health. In addition, parents sometimes choose to use child-rearing techniques that are seriously abusive. In all these cases, people working on this topic will periodically turn to each other and moan, “What makes them do it? Are they crazy? Are they desperate? Are they just plain bad people?”
…In their attempts to feel less threatened, these parents may be drawn to belief systems that consider all or some human beings (for example, adopted children) to be inherently evil, and may express these beliefs by irrationally suspecting children of sexual predation… They may follow compulsive rituals like caging or demanding specific actions or postures from the child, while at the same time neglecting needs like food or medical care. These parents may be committed to beliefs that demand faith-based rituals rather than normal mental health or medical care…
Crittenden notes that parents in this group rely heavily on external authority. This may be in the form of religious groups, of quasi-religious cult systems, or of self-identified child-rearing or child mental health gurus who stress their superiority over conventional child guidance or psychological thought. Crittenden suggests that these parents have unusual difficulty with close relationships, becoming both isolated from normal supportive relationships and highly dependent on strangers and on organized groups. (This dependency is much facilitated by the availability of the Internet, of course.) An important point is that the parents are “particularly vulnerable to authorities that prophesy dire outcomes and require painful sorts of propitiation because these are consonant with their childhood experience” (p. 418).
…The inappropriate and harmful parenting behavior is not caused by indifference or hostility to the child, hard though this is to imagine. However, the very existence of recognizable love makes life even more difficult for the children, who are not able to protect their own thoughts and emotions from the complexity and evident contradictions of the parents’ behavior.
Source: (Crittenden, P. (2006). Why do inadequate parents do what they do? In O. Mayseless [Ed.], Parenting Representations (pp. 388-433). New York: Cambridge University Press).
The aforementioned authoritarian groups that dovetail with religious and quasi-religious systems give rise to “underground” networks of RAD parents who traffick and trade adopted and abused children.
So, as tragic as this case of child abandonment is, it is not terribly uncommon – the Internet has only served to make it more conspicuous.
Via Linda Rosa, Executive Director of ACT (Advocates for Children in Therapy):
I suspect that if AT proponents — therapists, adoptive parents, and therapeutic foster parents — weren’t dependent on public funds (such as adoption subsidies) and insurance reimbursements, the entire practice would be much happier operating underground. But they walk the difficult line of trying to appear legitimate while torturing children.
Attachment Therapists have found acceptance from decades of lecturing to judges and child welfare workers about their multitude of bogus beliefs, with false assurances about the effectiveness of their “therapy,” using a jargon that conceals their true methods, e.g. “Holding Therapy is gentle and nurturing.”
AT/P parents approach police, teachers, and neighbors early on. Using the gnostic arguments Dr. Mercer describes above, they attempt to “inoculate” themselves from charges of child abuse. The parents are instructed to say things like, “You may hear some screaming or yelling coming from my home. You should know that we have adopted a severely disturbed child. This child may tell you that he is being abused, but these children typically make false accusations. They may claim they haven’t eaten in days, but that’s just the crazy lying they do. You can speak with the child’s therapist to confirm all I’ve said.” Thus, children caught up in AT/P may have no where to turn for help. This is one of the practical reason for maintaining isolation of the family in this “therapy cult.”
And lest children think about going for help, they may have it pounded into them that “no one will believe you.”
Other signs of a cult that we see in AT/P:
No tolerance of criticism or questioning their methods or beliefs. Proponents appear to have an unreasonable fear and loathing of those who aren’t supportive of AT/P. They demonize critics, as well as children. A habit, perhaps.
There are reports of therapists haranguing parents who want to take their child out of therapy, or intimidating concerned grandparents.
Adoptive mothers use parent support groups for validation of harsh AT parenting. Implementing the highly authoritarian parenting methods is necessarily a 24/7 obsession. The role of the adoptive father (and relatives) may be limited to only supporting and believing the mother. (Divorce appears to be not uncommon.)
It appears that a number of parents who have been charged with criminal abuse or homicide tried to protect their AT/P therapist from sharing the blame.
AT/P has been associated with a dubious underground trafficking in children (and their adoption subsidy checks). Some parents have mentioned online, private discussion groups for such private placement dealings.
Some families (”mega families”) seem to make a business out of boarding, for months or years, unwanted children who have already been subjected to AT/P — and the parents want the child to continue to with the harsh parenting.
AT/P families may pass off children to others for a variety of reasons: including wanting to get rid of a child permanently, to “keep the child off balance” (a therapeutic notion), and in one case, as punishment for failure to do 500 push-ups. In another case of an AT/P mega family, authorities had a great deal of difficulty tracking down the origins of one girl who had been handed around.
By the way, I recently read an AT/P mom’s blog, where she acknowledged that some AT/P is abusive, but not the type she was using, of course. Yet she categorically (and it seemed defensively) denounced all survivors writing online as mentally disturbed.
WWJD, indeed.
Some relevant links:
Indoctrination through Adoption
Adoption: When Satan doesn’t want you to
Comments 36
Some really good observations and insights here and the previous post.
I don’t know wJwd, there are probably some good answers in Scripture to support any side in this.
I keep asking myself, “what would I do?”, if I were a little kid caught-up in this cult and yes it is the cult-of “awesome moms”, or whatever they’re calling their collective selves.
I would fight-back with everything I have. And I don’t know if I would be brave enough to tell a trusted adult or cop or caseworker, but the “awesomes” head that off at the pass as you pointed-out.
Something should be done about this.
ANY child should be considered or at least respected if they make accusations.
Yet-they blog-away and keep patting themselves on the back, and circling the wagons if God-forbid someone who isn’t in their cult happens to wander-in and ask, “Just what the hell are you doing?”, they fling accusations at the person doing the asking.
You mention the word “boarding” children, you could easily change one letter and the paragraph would still have meaning, almost the same meaning really-of course that letter would change boarding to hoarding.
The “awesomes” revel in diagnoses-yet there is one diagnoses that you won’t see allowed and that is Munchhausen’s by proxy.
Funny they are willing to consider, (and treat sometimes dangerously), just about any diagnoses for their captives, I mean rads & radishes, but after awhile, when it would certainly be appropriate for any honest person to wonder, “Could I be imagining this?”, or “Am I over-doing it?”, well, not only do they not ask that of themselves, they won’t even consider it.
As a recovered victim of a Munchhausen’s mother, these parents are living exactly the life that I saw for myself if I had continued those inclinations onto my own children, except they’ve almost eliminated the chance of getting caught by causing invisible imaginary mental diseases.
And medicating with drugs that cause further symptoms.
I’ve always flinched a little when I hear someone talking about how someone’s life is “ruined”, because they have been abused in some way as a child.
Why add insult to injury and is the insult an injury in itself I have to ask?
What you’re really saying, repeatedly, is, “You were abused, your life is ruined.”…
(they are saying this to CHILDREN).
(yes, I meant to yell there,loudly).
It is not true. Yet they say it with no expectation that they will be challenged.
Such is the error of conventional wisdom I guess, and the ignorance that accepts it.
One more thing that touched me in this topic is the mention of how this group gives away these “damaged” children, and insists that the child goes to another attachment therapy household. In my opinion, the LAST thing a child who’s been subjected to this treatment needs.
The excuse they use is that they love this child so much that this treatment must continue, because it is what the child needs.
Really?
And they really think that people are supposed to believe this?
I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these blogs are phony and made-up entirely, propaganda from the imagination of attachment therapists or even drug companies who are looking for worn-out and worried parents to join the cult.
Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 20:32 ¶(because the first rule in finding the motive/culprit is to always “follow the money”)
I have a hard time even believing that so much of this is really going on.
But sadly, it is happening and it is real in some cases.
How do we break the spell? What can one say to help deprogram a parent who might be falling for this nonsense?
When it comes to outcomes you don’t have to look much further than Federici’s own children, and thankfully this site is at least being discussed, so maybe some people will draw their own conclusions before they surrender themselves to this dangerous way of thinking.
I also think that hearing what survivors have to say could help someone who isn’t in it too deeply.
And finding or exposing just one sock-puppet “awesome-mommy” blogger might help wake someone up who might be on the brink of getting involved, there can’t be that many kooks really doing this to children-can there?
Maybe they could be found by seeking the jargon, like “silent sitting”, “line of sight”, “bottle-therapy”, “awesome mom”…?
Federici has already exposed himself as a sock-puppet by putting up blogs like anjelinajolieadoptions.wordpress.com that are hyper-linked with his name as “Angelina Jolie’s adoption adviser”. If that were really true, why would her name and his only be linked together on sites that he promotes or by his RAD supporters?
If it were really true, wouldn’t the two names be linked together on major news sites or in stories in the mainstream press?
Has she ever been quoted on the topic of RAD?-not that I can see, and I hope that she doesn’t utilize any of those techniques with her own adopted children.
Even if she or any other celebrity mom did make public statements in support of this torture, I personally would not believe it.
Being a bit cynical myself, I’d consider blackmail since close inspection of celebrity adoptions usually turn-up irregularities.
Finally, I also noticed that Corey Waters the woman advertising a spare child that she wants to get rid of, now admits on her blog watchingthewaters, that she recently made a personal medication change, a huge red-flag or should I say black-box warning that her state of mind could quite possibly be affected at this time and even at the moment she made her decision to post her advertisement online.
And in saying this about her, I get accused of “stalking” her and threatened with the state police. How absurd is THAT?? Since when is reading a public blog and posting comments about what has been read considered stalking? In what world? The wacky world of RAD I guess.
Yes.
Lots to think about!
I have been studying Gnosticism as a result of Jean Mercer’s words (I do have a prior interest in/knowledge of it), and I wonder what the Greeks, Romans (both those who lived before and after Jesus), Chinese (who follow Confucianism and Taoism), Indians (Buddhism and Hinduism) would say about this misrepresentation.
Gnosticism is a way of knowing, also. But to what extent it is based on reason and evidence (which varies among cultures) I do not know.
Several parents have made a medication change.
The blogs would probably be in the tens of thousands, if we count individual parents. Also we look at the membership of the forums, and multiply them by their readers (1 contact represents say 10,000 people: on one website I know very well, 1 poster represents roughly 100 lurkers and 5000 unique IPs. The maths: 103,500 users have passed through that place).
Don’t forget that almost every well-known Attachment Therapist (Authoritarian Turnip) has their own vocabulary, so the code-words would be quite long if we made a list.
As for me, I am a devout humanist who doesn’t really distinguish between secular and religious. I believe in people.
And the one letter would be HOARDING children, wouldn’t it?
“Strong sitting”: 24,100
Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 23:12 ¶“Line of sight”: too general. More than 3,000,000 links.
“Bottle therapy”: more often used for ‘hot water bottle therapy’ in event of mensutration. 3,540. Also “spray bottle therapy” has been mentioned, especially in the case of children.
“Awesome mom”: 64,200
Here is a relevant link:
http://radkidsmom.blogspot.com/
(All above figures from Google. Use your own search engine when possible/appropriate).
In Bruce Perry’s book The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, there is a case where a mom practicing AT/P is revealed to be using MBP. The boy in question was hospitalized for supposedly overdosing on medicine by himself, but his mother really gave it to him. He touches on the “treatments” given to kids with “RAD” and how the actual diagnosis is rare. It’s a very good book.
Posted 28 Oct 2009 at 05:17 ¶I have always thought that there is a strong Munchausen connection with AT/P. It seems to just be a specialized form of Munchausen’s. The parents get a lot of attention as they plan for and finally adopt a child (often more than one). International adoptions and fostering seem to get them even more attention due to the fact that the children often don’t look like they “belong” to the parents, and the children can have questionable and/or dramatic personal histories – or unknown histories which allow the parents to surmise and promote all sorts of prior “abuse” theories and such. International adoptions also seem to be better for the “We just wanted to help some poor little orphan” approach also.
Then when the children exhibit normal behaviors that some of these parents didn’t expect or realize would come with childhood (or did they?), they get more attention from telling family, friends, neighbors, and “therapists” how frustrated they are with these supposedly outrageous and bizarre behaviors and how they just want to help and love the child, blah, blah, blah.
When the child then gets diagnosed with RAD and a host of other psychiatric disorders and is given drugs, it opens up a whole new attention getting world for the parents. Activities like taking the children to therapy, telling others how “unique” their situation is, monitoring their medications, trying to talk schools into becoming AT proponents, and “boarding them out” provide these parents with a host of opportunities to break into normal school routines, cancel and reschedule appointments (in the name of “caring” about the child”), show up late, and otherwise disrupt normal family and work routines – activities that gain the parents a lot of attention and at least superficial sympathy (until some begin to catch onto the game).
I am aware of parents who were melodramatic and attention seeking long before they decided to adopt – and get into AT. Their lives then seemed to have become lackluster and their usual channels of obtaining routine superficial sympathy and attention seemed to have been drying up and not producing the usual desired effect. They simply had to find a new way to keep all of the drama, sympathy, and attention that they seemed to have always needed directed at them (to avoid other issues in their lives?). AT/P can provide certain personality types with an easily obtainable lifetime of “martyrdom”, sainted parenthood, sympathy, and attention that they would not get otherwise. It also provides a means to throw up a lot of smoke and mirrors to divert the attention away from very serious (and real!) personal issues going on in their own lives.
I know this is a cynical view and that such individuals and parents do deserve some genuine sympathy for their situations, but with regard to the situation I am aware of, I have just had it, and find it difficult to sympathize anymore, as children are being traumatized.
I think if a comparison were made between the personal histories and personalities of Munchausen parents and AT parents, they would produce quite similar profiles.
Posted 28 Oct 2009 at 08:30 ¶Thanks to the person who posted a reference to “The Boy Who Was Raised AS A Dog”, I have a quote that pretty much explains exactly WHY RAD is Child Torture in an extremely damaging way.
Posted 28 Oct 2009 at 13:30 ¶From the Amazon website, Publisher’s weekly review on the book, there is a snip about what “CONTROL”, (caps because its that important), means to someone who has been abused or mistreated;
(quote)
“to facilitate recovery, the loss of control and powerlessness felt by a child during a traumatic experience must be counteracted. Recovery requires that the patient be “in charge of key aspects of the therapeutic interaction.” (endquote)
Now contrast that with what RAD is teaching parents to do to children. To take-away every single bit of control. That these children crave & desire control, and that it must be taken-away from them in every instance including ones that don’t even make sense.
THAT to me is essentially what this treatment boils-down to.
WHY would anyone be so invested in spreading the misinformation, in furthering maltreatment for children who have already been hurt in some way?
I don’t know, its cruel.
On the one hand, it has been proven and it makes sense that when someone has been abused, mistreated, and been powerless to do anything to make it stop, that allowing them to control without consequences, (or redirect control to something else if the controlling behavior is dangerous somehow, like fire-starting), is the OBVIOUS solution!
The RAD checklist and litany of complaints talks about how children diagnosed or suspected of RAD, are, “controlling, manipulative”-(THAT’S A HEALTHY REACTION YOU DUMBELLS!!!!!), (oops sorry there), and they smirk and blog-away about the many ways in which they thwart the little controlling RADish! And how taking control away from these children who need it desperately, is “the thing to do.”
Why don’t they get this?
Why is the treatment recommended the exact OPPOSITE of what these children need?
I know that I said before, “follow the money”, and that’s surely one explanation for the professionals involved, but it has to go a lot deeper than that for a person to actually implement this treatment on a child entrusted to their care.
Maybe the moms are taking out their own resentments about infertility, ingratitude of adoptees, and just the realities of the sacrifices of parenting in general among other things?
Because they certainly are not doing this out of love. (as they all ultimately claim).
The love of a parent for a child is always unconditional & without contingencies-always.
If you love the child but claim to hate the behaviors, I’m sorry but you’re hating the child, because a child wears her heart on her sleeve and “acting-out” or behavior is a child’s way of saying, “this is who I am.”
And thee parents are exasperated by even GOOD behavior!
A common complaint and excuse for “homeschooling/intensive torture”, is that the RAD child is “fooling” teachers & the general public, even dear old dad, because-of GOOD behavior!
No matter what behavior they have, its looked-at through the jaundiced-eye of RAD.
Maybe a parent considering RAD therapy would do well to look at some of the PFLAG literature?
That would be the parents & families of lesbians & gays who have come to understand that sometimes their children don’t do what you want them to do, but they can love them unconditionally.
I guess there is no organization called loving parents of serial killers & homicidal maniacs, which may be too bad, because that’s another common theme and a big selling-point for attachment therapy, although the therapy has no outcome information one way or the other when it comes to that, except for sites such as this and early anecdotal evidence that doesn’t look to favor this treatment.
-I hope that last comment did not come-out to look like i was saying that RAD or attachment therapy causes homicidal behavior and/or serial killers!
Posted 28 Oct 2009 at 13:35 ¶On seeing it, it looks like that to me, (and I wrote it), but that was definitely not my point at all and I hope it will not be misunderstood.
Although I can see how it could be!
Sorry for any confusion, it was not my intention.
The funny thing is some AT/P parents recommend Perry’s book! Did they just skim the two chapters where he debunks their claims? (well, tells stories about kids in those situations where he also debunks the claims…)
Posted 28 Oct 2009 at 14:10 ¶Now I see how the AT/AP and Munchhausen’s theory works which you and others have described, innocent bystander.
(I’d had known about something like it for about seven years: 2002-03).
This happened in Julie Gregory’s Sickened when her mother Sandy had foster kids from the time she was about ten and her brother Danny was four.
Danny was the one who seemed to know if things were healthy and okay for the family, at least in his early years. (What a responsibility for the child). Later on, in his teens, when Julie was finding out more about Munchhausen’s, he seemed to shut down.
Some of the kids, like Lloyd and Maria, have got into my heart.
At the end of Sickened, Sandy did it again, this time with a guy named Ed who was in the same decade as Julie, and lived in Montana. The kids were Tina and Paul. When Julie tried to encourage Tina to make some sausages for breakfast (great life skills training), we see the patterns repeat. And Sandy goes ‘nuclear’ in regard to the fear that the house might burn, when she had deliberately organised the house to burn when Julie was a teenager. One of the consequences is that Julie lost her puppy PJ or Stink Pup.
The PFLAG literature is indeed a great recommendation. Probably the one to be least taken, though.
The Publishers’ Weekly review for The boy who was raised as a dog has it right on the button.
From memory, on the Older Child Adoption Forum run by Susan M Ward (can get you some archives if you wish) there was a woman called ‘Liz Pappas’ and she was having particular difficulties with her son Joe. She called herself ‘mom25kids’. And then the adminstrators eventually found out.
On the other hand, Christine Reid is very good at redirecting control when she sees that it is dangerous. She is on the Smiles and Trials blog, and has 14 kids – half biological, half adopted, all part of the Reid family. The youngest are Dennis and Alex (Alex is probably not the youngest, but he has been most recently adopted).
As for organisations: there are organisations for all sides of the drama triangle. Just as there are victims support groups for people who have been victims of crime, so there are for ‘free the perputrator’.
Posted 28 Oct 2009 at 16:54 ¶Adelaide – if you have those archives I’d like to see them myself.
Posted 31 Oct 2009 at 16:09 ¶forums.adoption.com under special needs section has a few of of the same people… been banned from there… but they push RAD a lot on that site… didn’t in the beginning, but do now
but the ironic thing I wanted to share is that the wife of an Attachment therapist Bryan Post… is Kristy Saul, I was looking at her face book and she is friends with Julie Ponder (maybe a different one) and then there is the Willie Ice who got social services in Richmond, Va to pay Bryan Post $100,000 for her to be held on an air mat and fed with a bottle… and then there is some others… I wonder what happened with Post and Heather Forbes though… not really
on maybe a positive note, Post’s school is no longer listed as a private school in Virginia… so maybe no AT going on there….
all interesting though…
Posted 01 Nov 2009 at 11:07 ¶If you want to know what Jesus would do, then shut down that religious school torture chamber here in Indiana. Hephzibah House in Warsaw. Kids being beaten bloody by this psycho Baptist rev who wields a large paddle called “the rod of God.” Forced physical exams, in a dorm room closet of all places. Its well documented. That place is a hell hole, and the state has known about it for years.
Posted 02 Nov 2009 at 14:49 ¶It is my understanding that Hephzibah House is run by Independent Fundamental Baptists. I think that there might be an underground connection of sorts between the IFB and some attachment therapy parent groups. This goes to show that it is not about religion or “therapy” – the common thread between these two groups is child abuse. Both groups seem to believe in harsh discipline methods, total control by the parents, the parents always being right, and the child being “evil”, not to be believed, etc.
Posted 04 Nov 2009 at 07:38 ¶Eastern Sky….yes, thats correct. Its run by Independent Fundamentalist Baptists. I dont know if theres a direct connection between that hell hole and the attachment therapists, but yes, the methods are the same. I do know that alot of fundie type churches support that place. Bob Jones U also does. Some of those former residents, who are now in their 30s, 40s and beyond are still dealing with the residual effects of the abuse that was done to them there.
But all in all, its still about child abuse. That rev Ron Williams who runs that place even believes in beating infants. He’s written about it and actually gave instructions on how to do it.
Posted 05 Nov 2009 at 07:12 ¶Just quickly:
An interesting book about Munchausen’s (1 H).
Practical aspects of Munchausen by proxy and Munchausen syndrome investigation by Kathryn Artingstall.
Look at pages 15-17 in particular.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FzvoTOpHWCUC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Posted 08 Nov 2009 at 00:20 ¶Mark – You might be interested in this website run by a woman who says she is a survivor of IFB abuse. She posted here once before – back on the old “Search for Survivors” site. In addition to what happens to adolescents, she also says that there is terrible abuse in IFB group homes that are run for young children. I was in touch with her briefly, but she did not like the idea of anonymous posting and communication at all, so no more contact. I cannot give details here, but again, I do have reason to believe that some AT/P parent support groups refer to these IFB people when AT hasn’t worked for them, etc. I understand that the IFB group homes will keep kids for people as long as they continue to get paid. It seems that they can always find a “religious” reason why a child needs to continue to stay with them and can’t go back home to the parents – again much like AT (I think it is just another form of legal trafficking actually.):
http://www.freedomfromabuse.net/
Adelaide – Thanks for posting the reference to the Munchausen book. I looked at the pages you suggested and it all looks very interesting – and frightening!
Posted 08 Nov 2009 at 10:16 ¶For more material about the Independent Fundamental Baptists, look for Shelton L Smith. He is a prolific writer and possibly preacher. He is more of a pamphlet writer. If you like your religion in short bursts …
Kenneth W Daniels is a former pastor/missionary. His book gives the Baptist view of Hell. And he became a secular humanist.
Read WHY I BELIEVED here. It is good general advice to read the words of those who have left their faith or cult.
Sword of the Lord Publishers is probably THE Baptist publisher.
http://www.swordofthelord.com/
There is also a great amount of material about Munchausen … I mean peditatric induced illness behaviour.
My recommendation would be THE APSAC HANDBOOK ON CHILD MALTREATMENT. (ed Myers: 2008, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children). Read chapter 7, and probably 1, 2 and 3, and the later chapters on the legal/ethical side.
A second recommendation would be Marc Feldman’s PLAYING SICK (2004).
Lasher and Sheridan write well on it too.
Richard Rogers writes about CLINICAL MANAGEMENT OF DECEPTION AND MALINGERING (2008: first edition 1997).
Christopher Bools gives a British/UK view in his Reader.
Also look for general literature on child abuse and neglect, as well as testimonies of survivors.
Posted 08 Nov 2009 at 20:11 ¶Eastern…once again, I cannot speak of the connection between attachment therapy and these abusive fundamentalist homes, since I have no cross knowledge or experience with it. I believe I’m aware of the person you are referring to. I DO believe that the abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) in the fundamentalist types homes and/or treatment centers is systemic; its part of the program. There are numerous websites out there that document this, and the former residents of HH are telling the truth about it. Now, some of the former residents of HH have actually given sworn statements to our Indiana state legislators, but still nothing is being done. Its a political hot potato in this state. Some of these folks, even decades later, are still dealing with all the abuse that was inflicted upon them there at HH and similar places.
Right or wrong, (and you should see my emails these days) I am trying to help them. I have very limited experience as a counselor, but that was many years ago. I simply take things at face value and let it go from there, although, I must admit, sometimes I dont know what to say. The stories are heart breaking.
Posted 11 Nov 2009 at 10:28 ¶Eastern…..btw…I’ve run across that SNAP site before. Heck, you should see their Catholic priest section!
Posted 11 Nov 2009 at 10:31 ¶I went to Hephzibah house 18 years ago and everything Mark is saying is true. I still have nightmares and panic attacks to this day. I cannot even step foot inside a church.
Posted 16 Nov 2009 at 15:52 ¶Survivor…..dont know who you are, but I’ve had email and sometimes phone contact with some of the survivors of that hell hole. The testimony is pretty much the same: physical, emotional and sometimes sexual abuse in the name of “God.” Numerous websites and personal blogs about that place. The former residents are telling the truth, and for the life of me, I dont know why Indiana will do nothing. And also, I dont understand (forgive me here, Wayward) why Wayward doesnt expose this place for what it is.
Posted 05 Dec 2009 at 09:28 ¶sorry Mark… glad you made it out and doing well enough to care and post
on a side note,
http://thebodiebunch.blogspot.com/
is a blog about a parent who adopted a bunch of children, mostly sibs from Texas….
anyway for example of how this RAD cult stuff works… most of the time she is on the up and up… but today’s blog she mentions a link to Heather Forbes books, newsletters etc… and so more free ads for a lady who isn’t much of anything she claims to be
:( and thus how the RAD cult circle begins again… it is all that is out there for parenting the adopted child… so to speak
Posted 06 Dec 2009 at 11:33 ¶I’ve just been reading that awesome mom blog someone linked to above. Hee’s the first quote that struck me; “we always know when we are doing a great job at being in complete control of Jake when resorts to the only thing he has complete control of: what goes in and what goes out! Yep, Jake got put in his his room for a time-out and hated it as usual, so he tried to get out by saying he had to go to the bathroom. We naturally told him he could wait, (until it was our time for him to go) and so he pooped on the carpet in his room. Thus, “The little crap.” I know, it’s so weird that an 8 year-old would go there, but I have to remember that this is a very obvious sign that he is suffering from a disorder that would not allow him to let go of his control and trust that we know what is best for him. The good news is that what Jake does he has to make right, so he had to clean up his room and make the carpet clean and right. I have had to let go of getting mad over things and just let the consequences teach Jake the lessons he needs to learn. ”
Posted 08 Dec 2009 at 13:29 ¶This is too bizarre for words.
And that kid’s not even adopted – she blames his condition on his premature birth and the fact she was sick during the pregnancy! I know a kid born at 23 weeks, and following this logic, he should be severe “RAD” since he spent his first six months in an NICU. And… he’s a normal five year old, albet with a visual impairment.
Posted 08 Dec 2009 at 14:51 ¶Fainites:
It was I who put up the link on 27th October 2009. The author of the link (RAD Kid’s Mom) is Nicole S.
Control is a BIG issue, perhaps THE issue of the human race. If I thought of one thing which makes us different from other animals, it would be control.
I have looked at this control dynamic in other ways and in other disorders. And the “fears behind the disorders”. Yes, fear brains and trust brains!
Forthelost:
Micropreemies are indeed especially vulnerable. I don’t know when the technical cut-off is (perhaps <20 weeks or less than something in weight). Good to hear about your boy.
In the last week and so I have been reading much more about prematurity. There is a campaign for "preemie syndrome" among the mothers and others. (Look for The Preemie Experiment, among many others, as well as this Justice for Jayden link).
Medical science as miracle is a common trope. Have been reading all these ‘blessing versus burden’ articles/posts from my friends with disabilities and impairments. One of them has Retinopathy of Prematurity and is on the autistic spectrum. And the other is a New Zealander with cerebral palsy.
Posted 08 Dec 2009 at 23:21 ¶The cut off is 500 grams – the kid was 540 I believe. (And he’s not my child, just a child I know.) He has ROP but is otherwise fine. I was just making the point that if “RAD” can be caused by prematurity, it would be seen a lot in preemies, even those raised by their parents. But strangely enough they don’t.
Posted 09 Dec 2009 at 08:42 ¶I wonder how long Jakes mother has been doing that control stuff and how long it is supposed to go on before he’s “cured”. That’s one of the things that strikes me about these RAD cases is how never-ending and unsuccessful the whole process seems to be.
Posted 09 Dec 2009 at 13:51 ¶But I still can’t get over the “we know best” when someone else wants a “poop”.
Posted 09 Dec 2009 at 13:53 ¶This bit may shed some light on how long she expects it to be: “I just have to hold on to the experience of our therapist and many other Awesome Moms of RAD kids to know that all of Jake’s behaviors are progress.
We now have to board up his room to protect him from the exposed electrical wires and things in his wall, but also to help us not be so concerned with our house. He needs to know that his actions are his problem and I need all the help I can get when it comes to his destruction.
I tell you, I’m so exhausted from all of this, and it will probably continue for the next couple of years. Not to mention the enormous cost involved in his therapy.”
She also mentions her relief when she takes him out of normal school (which he apparently loves) and puts him in a special RAD school – as now she no longer has to worry about him making false claims of abuse or inadequate food.
Posted 09 Dec 2009 at 14:33 ¶A lot of Mums try to practice elimination communication, especially when the baby is before 6 months old (and crawling).
This is probably the only time when you can claim that you know best.
Also, if you can’t talk about stools, then what can you talk about? Mothers and parents bond with each other over stools.
Timing, cues, signals and intuition: all signs of a transformative versus communicative practice.
Posted 09 Dec 2009 at 15:26 ¶Actually, I’m starting to have doubts about the whole HH thing and what they are saying. There is a VERY misleading statement, right on their homepage, about how this rev took these residents across state lines and hid them out in various fundamentalist churches. Now that supposedly happened when the state came sniffing around and things got a little too “hot.” Now they are saying its not true. But its still right on the homepage. I made a total fool of myself in talking with the FBI about that, because based on that statement, it would constitute inter-state kidnapping, for which there is no statute of limitations. If that statement is not true, then I wonder how much else is not true. It seems like they want to bitch and moan about it rather than doing anything constructive to get the place shut down or made accountable under state law. Sorry.
Posted 24 Jan 2010 at 10:43 ¶Thank you, Mark.
This is indeed disturbing.
It is true that one untruth often hides another.
I hope something constructive is done. At the very least, an independent investigation must be conducted with strong recommendations which are actionable.
Posted 25 Jan 2010 at 17:53 ¶Adelaide,
I have gone out of my way to try to help them. I’ve talked and emailed our Indiana State reps and Senators so many times that they are getting sick of hearing from me. I’ve had email and even phone contact with a few of the former residents of that place, and they are still hurting. Repressed emotions, you know.
Obviously, things happened there that were just atrocious. But they cant seem to get their facts straight. I questioned the board leader herself about that mis-leading statement, and she didnt take too kindly to it. I can post it on here, if you want, and you can read it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions.
Memory can be a fleeting thing, I know, but they have get their facts straight if they expect people to try to help them. And I pointed that out to the board leader, too: like, what do I care? Obviously I’ve never been there, nor do I personally know anyone who has. So why should I waste so much effort and make a total ass out of myself over this? Sorry, but it really did tick me off.
Posted 29 Jan 2010 at 17:23 ¶Adelaide….just a side note here: There is this one person on the board who is basically be shunned and totally cut off because she has fond memories of HH. And I admit, that for awhile there, I was on her case too, until she started to open up and explained that she was so abused as child that the docs said she might never be able to have any kids. So I can see where HH was more of a “Haven House” for her than the “Hell Hole” that it was for so many others. It was a safe environment for her. She needed the structure and the stability. Yet they still continue to shun her. There are a couple of people who she established some email contact with, but thats about it. Now why cant the others understand the horrors of what she went thru and cut her a little slack, and just accept for for the way she is? She is dying for some friendship and acceptance, but she’s not getting any. Her hubby is kind of a conservative guy, so he doesnt want her emailing me. And thats ok; no problem there. But they are cutting her out of all their private little social groups, and personally, I think thats really terrible.
Posted 29 Jan 2010 at 18:46 ¶Yes.
That is dreadful. And soul-destroying.
When you’ve been through trauma, you need your friends.
“She was so abused as a child, she was told she’d never have kids”.
Far from being repressed, those memories must be sharp and deep. I shouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t come back in some other form. Re-press, remember, they press onto you again and again, over time.
And the story and the truth is repeated again and again in so many groups.
Posted 29 Jan 2010 at 21:47 ¶Adelaide…..she is having a lot of problems currently, both physical and emotional, and she needs to talk big time, but they have cut her out of their little social circle. She and I had some conversations going on that board, and she was starting to open up abit, but the board leader deleted them.
No doubt in my mind that some atrocious things took place there. But some of it is just stretching the boundaries. Like being forced to eat dog food. Really. I’ve read that on more than one site that they were actually forced to eat dog food, like Alpo.
I dont know what else to do to help them. I’m not exactly inexeperienced with this kind of stuff. Just ask Wayward. She knows me. And she has been a great help to me, too. Along with Dr. Jean Mercer.
It is apparent that our Indiana legislators intend to nothing about that place, because they dont want to tick off the far Christian Right in this state. Right now, down in Indy, they are talking about such things as puppy abuse and allowing people to carry guns in their cars to work. I am being serious here. They are playing political games.
But at the same time, those former residents need to get their duckies all in a row and get the facts straight. And investigate EVERY possible angle. Again, I do have quite abit of experience with this kind of stuff. As Dr. Bernard Rimland once told me: “have you ever considered becoming an investigative reporter? You sure dont let many stones lie unturned.”
Posted 30 Jan 2010 at 08:47 ¶Adelaide…here is that statement that is right on the homepage:
“Over the years there have been public allegations of abuse against Hephzibah House. There have been several instances when Ron Williams and staff have had to take the girls and flee. They have literally loaded up the girls and taken them to neighboring states to hide in churches until things have calmed down. At times the number of students at HH dipped very low as a result of investigations or allegations.”
Now, in my mind, and from prior experience, that could constitute inter-state kidnapping, and therefore the FBI could get involved, and there are no statututes of limitations on that. And I talked with an FBI agent at the local field office about it, too. But when I questioned the board leader and others trying to get some more details, they basically said that it really didnt happen that way. That the residents were taken across state lines to “promote HH” and Ron Williams had guardianship or custody anyway. But did he have LEGAL custody? Probably not. It was simply and “agreement” between the parents and Williams that would probably not hold up in court. They really, really need to push this kind of stuff, but they dont.
After reading that statement, what would you conclude?
Posted 30 Jan 2010 at 08:56 ¶Post a Comment