I've been debating about wether or not to place this information on my personal page, however it is a part of my past and some of the hard times made me who I am today. I would be doing a disservice to the people who look up to me and follow me to not share this dark time of my life and how it lead to where I am today.
I was kidnapped, sexually, physically, mentally, and emotionally tortured.
More than once.
I've recently started acting and meeting more people in Hollywood. I've met directors, actors, and producers. I have decided to make a long term project and goal of sharing my story in the form of a movie.
WWASPS and its associated institutions have been the target of criticism over their treatment methods, including allegations of severe abuse and torture by staff at programs supported by WWASPS.
The programs have been the subject of legal investigations by several U.S. states.
In 2003, a reporter for The New York Times interviewed 60 current and former program participants and parents; some gave positive reports of their experiences, while other participants and parents said that WWASPS programs were abusive.
Numerous former students or their parents have filed lawsuits against WWASPS, its personnel, or individual schools. Most have been settled out of court or dismissed for procedural reasons
Here is SOME of the story as written 11 years ago:
The following is a day in the life of a male WWASP (world wide association of specialty programs) student. Where I was forced to spend most of my childhood from 13-14 and 16-17 This brings back many fucked up memories and I don’t even know why I wrote it. If u give a shit read to the end and understand that this shit has to stop and if you know me put urself in my shoes a minute and think about how your life would be like this. Well here we go. Your day starts at if I remember correctly at 0700 am. You are woken up by a shouting staff member. Sometimes they clang pots and pans other times just yelling. After wake up you only have 1 min to be in the hall way for head count. Head count can take as short as 3 min or as long as an hour. (I swear Mexicans can't count.) After head count you would return to your rooms to clean them. This would include making four beds. (The bed is tiny .... it is 3/4 in plywood and usually a stained mattress maybe a sheet or two if you were lucky.)
After cleaning it varied by family and they roated the familys shedules sometimes. My family went to shower. The shower consists of 6vshowers. They had dividers but no hot water. The water flooded down the 6 stalls to the end stall. Never be the guy in the end stall. Water backs up and if you feel warm water well someone peed in the shower. Total time from wake up to shower 1 hour. That means shower,shave,shit,clean,brush and change. On some days you had to wash cloths and shower. Washing cloths consists of a bucket and soap. Hands wash all cloths and hang dry. Mind you the infamous septic tank is near the cloths line. I say infamous because every day it would overflow. If the wind came up the cloths would fall off the line. (Only about 100 cloths pins for the whole group.) After showering we went up to group. This is where we were given points for out reflections (will discuss later.) this took about an hour.
So now after 2-3 hours we finally get to eat. We all line up in the "green area" and get ready to go into breakfast. This is the best part for the family "father" ours had a thing called a water bottle inspection. (You carried around a 1 pint water bottle all day.) If your water bottle was 1/2 full or less you went to work sheets. Just for the water bottle. If you lost it bascially your screwed because not only did you go to worksheets and loose 25 pnts but you sayed thirtsy all day maybye all week.
After breakfast it was time for "school." school consisted of going to the top floor finding your school book and studying a chapter at a time. At your own speed. Some people could crank out 4-8 chapters a day. Others maybe 1 a week. If you could not get one a day you were sent to worksheets. So if you have a learning disability like me, you are screwed. There is a teacher there. Not sure if they are an actual teacher, most likely not Don't ask for help they will tell you to study harder.
After 2-4 hours of school (sorry for not being exact 4 years is a long time.) we went to lunch. After lunch we went to P.E. which consisted of finding your shoes in the shoe bin. (You wear sandals there so you don't run away.) If you had good shoes more than likely they would be stolen. Our "P.E." area had a nasty volleyball net with sand i wouldnt even let my dog walk in, a basket ball court made of asphalt that was not compacted so sharp rocks stuck up. More than one basket ball was lost due to this. OH and even while playing basketball we were still not allowed to speak to each other ... it looked funny like everyone was deaf and using hand signals. The other option that you had was run, pushups, or if you were level 4+ you could use the weights. ( weights consist of a bar and enough weights to get to 200 lbs. I never got past level 3. Then at the end of PE you had to put your shoes back in the bin.
after P.E. off to the showers again. if you were lucky enough to be there for the dry spells you got water out of the well. the well is a large cistern. algae all the way around. mind you this is water to shower with cook with DRINK ( I remember pulling a nasty bloody towel out and still having to drink the water.) this time only about 15 min for 2 families. families had about 20 members. if you were the last ones in the shower hurry up because you have to be done in 15 min or they shut the water off and youll get a "consequense" AND you have to walk around all day with soap all over your body. After that back to school by walking in the perfect straight lines without glancing off to either side or you got a consequence. After school dinner. After dinner you go back up stairs watch a motivational movie and do reflections. reflections consists of motivational tapes that are played at each meal and the video. You have to write and comment on the video or tape you saw. you than turn them in and go outside for final head count. Finally after head count off to bed. This is a normal life in the day of a student. Mind you there was no time when anyone person was not supervised, no private moments at all someone was ALWAYS watching. Also newspapers or any information related to the "outside world" were banned, and would get you a CAT 5 run plans. I will add later the life of a student in worksheets and op later.
The best way to describe the location is on a point jutting out. Nothing around AT ALL. A small town maybe a mile or two away. Right on the edge of the big blue ocean. And a mountain on one side. Much more than that i dont know becuse after you get there you never leave the 4 huge walls surroundung the facility there could be a damn circus outside and noone would know. I really can't remember much about the location as I have tried to block it out of my mind for over 5 years. Sorry . Nice sunsets if you can block the sound of screaming kids and crying. (Yes after a while there you can do that and much more to distance yourself.)
As for my overall experience, let's just say PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) is a lot of fun thanks to that place. Yea fuck FINLINSON AND LINCHFIELD Living in fear EVERY day took its toll. When I was there people had, far a lack of words, trench foot aka foot rot. Wonderful smell. The cure? Don't know. All they gave us was backtrobon. Didn't do much but mask the sent. I was so sick once i remember and i was sitting on the edge of my chair in worksheets because you had too and Finlinson walked in and thru me from the chair to the wall and kicked me all the way down the hallway and placed me in op. I threw up and was sweating so bad. When i saw the "nurse" she gave me some tylonol i think and put me in a bed and told me to sweat it all out. Lots of fun. Nightly activity, being put to sleep while hearing the sounds of crying kids. Hours and hours on end. The staff laughed at it and antagonized it even more. It was straight HELL. No other way to describe it.
I was there when the guy never did get his name but may he rest in peace and harmony with the angels that took her to heaven after her stay in hell, committed suicide . Hung hisself from the basketball goal with the net and a jumprope he stole out of the staff room. My question is this, where was the staff? Great environment? That led him to do such a thing. What were we told "oh, someone went crazy but it was not that bad." . I still hear the screams . It sends shivers down my spine. After the suicide attempt, we had a 1/2 group the next day just for that subject. After the half an hour we were told NEVER speak of it again. God rest her soul. And the souls of all the others. That place is nothing like they claim. If it was, why did he commit suicide and SO many others try. Some wanted the attention yes, I will give you that. But when someone cuts their wrists and needs a lot of stitches to stop the bleeding? I tired something once .. My friend stopped me. Thank god for him. There life had NO meaning. It was merely for the staff's amusement, we existed soleley to provide a paycheck for them. God save the kids there. Before more die. If there are parents reading this, be advised there are many suicide attempts and suicides there. And it's not because we are troubled. We just want the pain to end. Not emotional pain but REAL pain. Physical, emotional, and environmental. Death would have been a welcome relief to me there. I would have enjoyed it far too much. An attempt that I tried many times was to put my face in a pillow and stuf it in a corner untill I passed out, also i tried to use my shorts strings to choke myself. If you got caught by staff no one asked you any questions you just lost ALL your points and went to op for a few weeks. Luckily I did recover, back than I was hoping for death even embracing the feeling.We were kids robbed of life and lied to and told we’d never be home or “normal” again.
O.P. (observation placement.) ahhh yea. 6-8 people in an 8X10 room. ( I paced it off and wrote it in a book. not sure how accurate my paces are.) We were in there like cord wood. No open windows no fan. 100 deg days. If only you could smell it. You slept in the hall ways on the floor. This was not a bad thing as it was much cooler in the hall ways than in the rooms.
Wake up was at 0700 if you got to sleep beacuse they constantly would wak you up by "accidently" bumping into us or screamin they were usually drunk and loud i think in op the staff was told to make life even a worse hell for us ... well you wake up and put your mattress back and go up stairs till the others are done with their chores. Than you go to the op room. You lay on your face with ur feet and hands tied behind your back until breakfast arrives. You eat breakfast and lay back on your face. Repeat with lunch and dinner. At 800pm (2000) it's everyone favorite time. P.E. depending on the mood of the staff it would be something along the lines as follows. To start 500 three count jumping jacks all in unison. Any one falls out of count we all start over again. Then 100 unison pushups. Again fall out and start at one on the jumping jacks. After the push ups comes the sit ups. 300-400. same as before fall out of rhythm, well you get the idea.Then there were flutter kicks i remember one time we did them for over an hour everytime somones feet hit the floor we had to start over To finish it up another 250 three count jumping jacks. Mind you some times we did not get to sleep until 3-5 am. Wake up at same time. Now if you act up in op, you get "restrained." The proper method, after looking it up after the program, is a person on every limb and has the individual facing up words. Man I wish that the staff would have done that. Most of the time this is how it wound up. . The staff would pick you up and take you to another room. They would have between 5-6 staff there all earger to get in on the process beacuse it was fun and gave them something to do besides look at you all day. They would lay you down face down cross your ankles than fold your legs back at the knee. After the first fold at the knee they would than try and fold you back at the hips. theism is over your back. And for your arms, I'm sure you all have seen COPS where the officer has peoples arm up behind their back. This is done for two reason number ones for control and number two because they can pull up and put you in pain. The staff apparently did nt care much for any more controll than they already had they thrived off the pain. Me trying to be storng acted like it didnt hurt and tried to man up i learned fast that it didnt work and you might as well cry like a bitch to get it over with.
You also had one, about the mid weight class, sitting on your back or having his knee in your back. This would go on for however long they wanted. No set time limit. 10 20 30 min or even 2-3 hours or more. Some times they would not let you up until you made a false omission of guilt. Such as I was the one who ate your food Mr. so and so. Then of course you would be given a longer stay in op for the statement you made. I have heard of kids with broken bones and dislocated joints. I apparently was one of the lucky ones. I only received strains ,pulled muscles, and few minor cuts and briuse. After a long time there you learn to distance your self from the pain or you learn to love the pain and use it like they do. I am still haunted by the screams even my own i never knew i could scream like that. All hours of the day and night. I would ALWAYS cry myself to sleep knowing that there was nothing I could do about what was being done to us. The screams of the brothers of mine will never be forgotten EVER as much pain as i was in i woulda taken it all if some brothers there could have there pain taken away i felt so bad for the kids who didnt know how to handle it mentally and really and truly started to go crazy. If you do not believe me look at the Tbfight.com link on the home page of Antiwwasp.com and read the comments. God save my brothers and sisters that are there RIGHT NOW
Worksheets. Now I encourage parents of students to try this. If you are coming out of OP you have 5 essays to write. Every cat 2 is one essay. What is an essay? It is this. 5000 words on why you did what you did. No more than 15 word a line no less than 9. And remember that at any time the staff can take your essay and make you start over. Have you ever written 5000 words in a day by hand? You have to write on your lap hunched over. Oh the back pain. Just try it. As for the food, you got what the family ate but in about 1/2 the portion. At times the food could be up to an hour or two late. And as always there was always something missing. Whether it is the main course, or the milk, or the juice. But what ever you do NOT question them if they forgot it. The reason why is because they hand out all the food. If you questioned them than somehow the staff would always stumble and drop your food on the ground. And if they did, well unless you eat at least 1/2 your meal you get a cat 5 for suicide attempt and go to op. yep eat it off the floor. Even soup. No replacement food. Not once did they ever replace food that they spilled. If they spilled your milk or juice. They did not care. At least you didn't have to drink 1/2 of that anymore.
Your journal. According to the staff they can not read your journal. However they will take it from you and read it because you might want to "commit suicide." so they read it and when they find out that you are not happy with one of the staff they make sure you are put with that staff. They will also take your journal away from you and refuse to give it back. They used ANYTHING they can against you to get inside your head hurt you bother you and overall break your moral. they hated me because i tried to act so strong. there were plenty of times when they finally broke me as well and they loved it. and i considered myself one of the stronger people there.
The pool. Yes believe it or not it does have a pool, but i never even saw it .. it served to purposes 1 to make the brochure look more pleasing and so the staff could enjoy it.
FUN DAY . Yes there is a relieving day (at least when I was there.) Then Finlinson had us sign up for contests. Such as , arts and crafts, singing, or bball games where we could talk!!. We were taken a back! We thought our luck had changed. Then when we saw a group of people leaving and FInlinson said lets give the people from the US embassy a thank you for coming and right then we realized what was going on. That is why it is called a reloving day. Whenever high ranking people schedule a visit we clean the place top to bottom new clothes and sheets new books, the works. As soon as they leave no outside cleaning nothing till someone comes again. We made the comment to ourselves "why don't they just show up randonly and than look around." the reason, WWASP wouldn't let them because the embassy has to make an appointment. Can't explain it, but they got all there bases covred. The days when authority ppl came were actually okay no one was in op and the staff was actually nicer.
Letters to the embassy. Letters to the embassy goes something like this. You can write a letter to the embassy and the staff has to give it to the embassy. Whether they do or not I don't know. That's up to them. I know for a fact that many of my letter got thrown away because when i got home my parents didnt have them.
Time. Time does not exist in that place. You measure time by weeks, months, years. Not minutes or hours. Time is your enemy. A person can go insane there. Many people "louse themselves" there.
Other than "normal religions." this can consist of many religions or beliefs. There was a member of my family that believed that God was a female. Oh man, our group mother was pissed. She tried to convince him that he was wrong but he stuck to his beliefs. She ripped him a new a hole. We also had a brother who was a Wiccan. She called him a devil worshiper and again tore him a new a hole. When asked why she disagreed with them she replied "just like in the program there can only be one religion and set of rules. That is the way of things are and that is t the way it should be." thoose kids actually got punished for blvng diffrent than her .. i kept my bieliefs to myself i already had enough to deal with.
as for the religious practice of worship. "Do it by your self." why well you have to talk only to a level 4 or higher so if you want to talk about religion, get on level4. Never made it there though. That's kind of why I don't go to church today those things made me stop beliving ther was a God. If kids still there can't express religious freedom there I will not either until they all come home. I always ask myself how can God still be letting all this go on ??
After coming home and looking back at my stay I realized something that I thought I would never say. I did learn a lot of helpful things in the program. Do they outweigh the PTSD that I also got from there? I do not believe so. I also learned that every one who was there will some day have the feelings that I have. You learn self preservation there. You do what you must to survive or you give up hope. As you can tell for me it was to give up hope of life. In the book all quiet on the western front there is a quote on the last paragraph of the book. I read that book during and after the program and I would like to read it to you now. This is what I felt every day in the program and after each reoccurring night mare that I have.
"He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long. His face had an expression of calm as though almost glad the end had come."
I am haunted to this day by the memories that I lived through. I will never forget the horrors that I went through. After surviving that place you feel older than others much older than my age group, which is a common complaint with survivors of these programs. You also have trouble with making friends and trusting people for a long time after words some people can never fully trust again when you get brainwashed that horrifically it takes an especially caring and understanding person to gain your trust. I made a promise to my friends that I left behind. I promised that I would let the world know the horrors that go on there though it may be 5 years late here it is.
While in the program I decided to do somthing , in my opinion, to what they turned their back on. And that thing is cherishing human life. We call each other brothers and sisters because we have gone through more than any of you other than military veterans could even begin to know. I may die tomorrow. I want the world to know what I went through so NO ONE ELSE has to go through it. I will never be the same person I was before. No matter how hard I try. and for me having to be at the progam once at 13 and then a t 17 i was bascially raised by institutions it made me who i am today. which honeslty i do have many great qualites but inside of my mind can never be the same. i feel tainted almost. i hide these things everyday . ive told very few people about it and never went into detal like this. There is a country song that says you don't know me any more. I believe the name is "I just got back from a war." this describes what I feel every day. I feel as though I am an out cast in society. The only place I feel a sense of belonging is with the other survivors . Only those who have been there and know the feelings can judge me. No parent can know the pain in my heart and mind. Please do not try and tell me that I am just trying to hurt the program. For you see the program took a piece of me. Not only that but it took my youth. WWASP makes you something that no one can describe. You MUST feel it to understand it. If you have not been there and lived there for some time do not tell me ... well it's a good program. I will tell you it has good intentions but not good quailtys. How can a place where even the newspapers say they hear screaming and those children under 18 commit suicide stay open?????????? Be aware, some pictures can look nice but when you see the place in real life you realize "hay, I've been misled and lied to!!!
On Tbfight.com the first pictures are what are in the brochure. The last ones where you see our brothers in khakis are true. Why won't they show you the real pictures in the brochure? If they hide that what else are they hiding???? Make an informed decision before you judge me and my brothers and sisters. For you see you will never know us, nor will you ever understand what we have gone through. But i beg of you all TRY never stop tryin to help the rest of these kids out all these words still cant fully express the life in those places .. we need understang and empathy not sympthy MOST of all we need JUSTICE I don’t care if its KILLING THEM ALL BY LETHAL INJECTION as long as its something . if u got some dumb shit to say after havin read this far come say it to my face.
This is just SOME insight of my life at the program a whole encycylopedia could be wrote on this shit … I hope im not the only “unnamed” doing something about it now that im older I know some of my brothers are out there doing the same .. I don’t care who thinks what about this That’s just what it is .. life .. tough shit and rough times pass .. but what comes around also goes around …..
Part of my journal from AIR