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I'm just going to leave this here: https://elan.school/ That's how I learned about this.
I read the whole thing, and it's haunting, there's no way this shit could be made up, the gravity is too insane, and there's also you know, evidence.
Thanks for sharing this. I've still got quite a few chapters to go, but I wanted to comment this thought before I forget it: it's so incredibly striking how powerful the small acts of kindness are. I've cried more at the little gestures of kindness than at all the cruelty.
That comic made me sob both the first time I read it, and when I came back to the finished product.
And yeah elan school has been sufficiently investigated to leave little chance that Joe wasn't being as truthful as someone can be about an incredibly traumatizing teenage experience.
I don't like comics usually but I swallowed that. Such a good read and so traumatizing! I think everybody should read that, it feels so real and I cried and was shocked so many times. Hardly anything before made me feel all the pain with them and I wish the best to everyone who has had to go through that.
The problem with these services is they get you in the door with these too-good-to-be-true deals, but then you're locked into a bullshit subscription service every month. So you think you're saving a bundle on the kidnapping, but you end up paying out the ass every month for them to KEEP the kid. Enshittification at work once again.
Fucking Netflix, right? Ughh
Beautiful justice.
Facilities like this need to be burned down and the staff put to the headsmans axe, in fact did you know a shit tonne of them exist in Utah because of course they do.
Fun fact CPS wanted to send me to one as a child, luckily I was both a stubborn and clever little shit and my threat to burn things was taken seriously. My only condition to not burn things was to not go to it.
As satisfying as fantasizing about arson is, I imagine these facilities are usually insured. It’s also easy to spin into a sob story - these places often take advantage of the fact that they work with underprivileged/foster youth to get community donations. “Oh no, we can’t help children anymore! Gib us money!”
I got my facility taken off DonorsChoose - absolutely enraging that they were able to use that site as a for profit institution.
It’s a problem that needs to be attacked at the root ultimately. Children should have their rights protected. Remember how the US refused to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? We also need more parenting classes - I’ve never been given the opportunity to be a parent, but I’ve talked with lots of parents about things like Love and Logic. Or just even accepting the fact that kids can just be weird or different sometimes - I should not have been punished for being uncomfortable with eye contact.
In the short term, educating people about these individual facilities. Making sure that the children who die in these places have their names remembered. I make signs with the name of the child my abusers killed, and just blanket surrounding neighborhoods with it.
Insurance just spreads out risk over time, it doesn't eliminate the cost. So the insurers will raise rates for these places, and other similar places.
While I agree with your points I still think my retributionary methods would still have a good bit of effect. A lot of these facilities are ran by the weakest and most evil mother fuckers. While burning them down by itself would get a sob story, going in with a militia and putting the bastards into the ground would sure as shit send a statement. Also if you set it up right you could get the kids medical and general aid attention while your at it, put a rifle between them and anyone who tries to fuck with them again.
Also yes I know this ain't practical, just boils my blood and makes me embrace the most violent elements of my heritage. I will hold that the fucks running these places need to find a short fuse grenade duck taped to the inside of their homes door.
One of my kid's friends got sent to one of these camps. Luckily the parents chose not to have him kidnapped.
Wow. They promise to be honest about their methodology but don't mention any of it - just "transport".
Troubled teen facilities have parents sign agreements which give them permission to physically restrain their child, and release them from liability if the child gets hurt. These “holds” can often kill.
I was only put in a hold once. I was on the van, I was being kicked by two other children, the staff refused to intervene, so I opened the van door and attempted to escape. I was groped in this hold.
I do not know how to convey how traumatizing physical restraint is. It happened to me again, in December, when I went voluntarily inpatient and was physically forced into the woman’s ward. I am a trans man, have had surgery and I’m legally recognized as male for more than a decade - I had asked if I could just sleep in the common area as a concession/to not be outed - nope! I got shoved around by four grown men and called “fucking retarded.” I’ll never reach out for help again.
I'm sorry you had to go through this. I hope one day we can have a better society.
That's the problem when social services are cut to the bone and they have to hire whatever thugs they can get for the shit money they can pay, and they lose whatever trust they might have from the population they're supposed to serve.
Guess it’s time to share this again.
GET YOUR FEELINGS OUT
The energy tied up in all of that is so familiar. Just the entire vibe of senseless unmitigated cruelty and mindless nonsensical screaming hits so hard and reminds me so much of some of the shittiest people I've encountered in my life. What Joe describes feels like a horrible distillation of something that's a lot more pervasive than any one 'school' or cult or particular group of organized assholes systematically ruining people's lives. It hit hard. Thanks for sharing it.
I’ve only been able to make it to page 10. People often mock the idea of being “triggered” but fuck, it makes me need my trazadone. I want to print this in full color and leave it everywhere I can.
Apologies for contributing to that feeling, definitely wasn’t my intention to upset you!
For those who haven’t read it and are unfamiliar with the horrific teen abuse industry this comic depicts, it’s quite a fucking journey.
Thank you for sharing this. Probably one of the hardest reads of my life, it's incredibly powerful and well written so it conveys the horrors of the experience in an almost visceral way.
It also really helped me understand at a much more personal level how these addiction/reeducation camps and cults break people mentally and emotionally.
Sure, you read about these kinds of things happening in the news, but it never hit home for me what that experience is like until reading this.
Thank you.
I made it to chapter 60 over the last 90 minutes.
I can’t even describe how angry I feel about that. Expletives don’t fit. I’m not big on death penalty, but I think these people deserve it - more than some who are sentenced to death.
I also am feeling incredibly grateful that my parents didn’t get caught up in the scam.
The fact that these places exist and aren't shut down has always really bothered me, horrible stuff
the things they can justify with religion should give anyone pause.
How is the USA a real country
Well considering that North Korea and Russia exist it’s not soooo far fetched. The real surprise is how it has been considered until recently as THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. We were so blind…
Tbf, only Americans considered America the best country in the world. The rest of us have seen it as a third world country in denial when it comes to social issues for decades. The only non-americans who think America is the greatest are people who live in scrap metal shacks in countries run by dictators and egotistical assholes who hate welfare and Healthcare.
I wonder how recently « the rest of us » built that opinion because from my 43 years as a European I certainly saw a lot of adulation of USA for as long as I remember. Even the healthcare pov is rather recent… For a long ass time they were certainly seen as our betters.
Post-WW2 industrial boom + Hollywood + Internet\media presence in US&EU anglosphere due to 300kk+ population.
I think for the persons under 50 this image started to fall apart with 9\11 + Lemon Brothers + the first Trump presidency.
Sounds like you need to report Facebook to the FBI. Oh wait, Zuckerberg paid them off. We'll I guess we're fucked. Still.
Even before Zuckerberg, these groups often have a religious coating. US law enforcement lets religious groups do whatever they want until the problem becomes undeniable. Even then, they drag their feet, and Republican politicians look sad while talking about how religious liberty is being destroyed.
Ever since Waco the feds will let you do anything if you say its for Jesus
I don’t understand why these weren’t outright banned after the first time a kid got murdered at one, let alone the umpteenth time.
Even after countless exposés done on these places there are STILL no serious investigations being done. I’m so sorry that happened to you :(
Allegand Jones was killed after refusing to undress for a staff member. Youth Villages at Bartlett is still operating.
It’s these southern states. “Parental rights” is always a code for “children are property to be disposed as we wish.”
There was a post recently, IIRC one of the kids ran away, the "camp" didn't report it, and the police killed the kid.
There was someone in the comments that defended it, they "worked in the industry". I didn't have the guts to call them out on working in the terrorism industry against children, even though my instance is getting deleted this month.
Fuck this and everyone involved
I just found out that my facility claimed another life, within the months I’ve been trying to get the state to investigate it. Not reported anywhere, just personally have been loud enough to have former employees reach out to me.
Fuck anyone involved who doesn’t become a whistleblower.
Some states absolutely have cracked down on these types of places, as they were notoriously used for conversion therapy, among other terrible purposes. I definitely went to one of these places when I was a rebellious teenager, but I was fortunate in only having to go on the weekends during the day. I was also fortunate that the place had some oversight by my state, as I quickly learned that all their "punishments" could easily be defeated by simply refusing to participate (e.g. refusing to run laps, clean the gym floor with a toothbrush, etc). I lasted maybe 3 weekends there before they kicked me out of their "program."
That was 20+ years ago, and it still kind of blows my mind that those places exist. Therapy and supportive parents will "correct" rebellious behaviors 90+% of the time.
The funniest thing about my story is that it was kind of the reverse of the regular one. My mom was the wild one who did drugs, and was trying to keep me from noticing.
I wasn’t really “troubled.” I didn’t do drugs, I was a shy weird kid with good grades, never acted up in school - I didn’t learn the word “blowjob” until we watched Why Did I Get Married as part of “group therapy.” My mom just was a munchausen psycho. The actual psychiatric hospitals she sent me to would pick up on that quickly, but these fucking places don’t care, they just want the cash.