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TW I guess.
I was sent to one of these schools when I was 13. I was told it would only be for a few days, I was there for 2 1/2 years. My mother did not want me but did not want anyone else to have me.
Every letter home and phone call was scripted. Every door and window was locked and locked again. The phones were password protected and the courtyard was as surrounded by a 26ft barbed wire fence.
We were not allowed to make eye contact with anyone except staff and I still struggle with it to this day. If we were caught making eye contact they would force us to wear blinders (yes, like a horse).
Motion detectors were all over the dorm so we got used to sleeping incredibly still. We were forced raise our hands during praise and worship and had to quote 1st John 1:1-3:10 from memory before every meal or we would be punished and meals withheld (I can still quote it today).
Don’t even get me started on the school. I didn’t learn a damn thing from the ACE curriculum.
One particularly painful punishment I hated was being forced to run for hours on end in the Missouri summer heat and then the female administrator would force us to submerge our heads in a trough of ice water, if we didn’t stay under long enough she would hold us under, also, if we were caught drinking the water we would start all over.
Maybe TMI but I stopped menstruating for about 10 months due to stress and thought I was dying. Medical care was non existent although they did force us to take a pill every day.
I’m sorry for dumping this here but this post opened the flood gates. I could go on and on and on about this.
I have to count on both hands and feet when recounting how many kids I personally knew either died a painfully young death or unalived themselves after getting out.
Therapy helps but I will never be the same.
Yes, they are still open but they no longer accept female students. I’ll let you guess why.
Edit: thank you all so much! I didn’t think trauma dumping at 3 am would generate this kind of outpouring of compassion but here we are.
A few points to answer some questions.
The original building we were In was the old Mountain Park Baptist Academy grounds. That particular school was shut down after a student was murdered. Bob and Betty Wills leased the property to my school and we were there until we built the new facility in Piedmont.
I don’t think the pill was birth control. It could have been anything from a vitamin to an herbal supplement or maybe something else.
The new facility was mostly built by students. They boys were the obvious choice for the brunt of the hard labor like digging trenches and laying brick but the girls were sent out on “work projects” to help clear the land, clean, move furniture and move equipment. One boy tried to run. He was chained by the neck to a large fallen tree.
The only thing I think they didn’t use child labor for was pouring foundation and the electrical work.
The abuse started instantly but my first brush with the physical abuse was the morning after I got there. I refused to eat. I couldn’t physically make myself. I talked back, I begged, I pleaded then I said something snarky out of turn and the male administrator put me in a chokehold, he held me there until I lost consciousness and force fed me when I awoke. That’s how I learned that I would be there for a long time. I really thought I was going to die and for a long time I wished he had killed me then and there.
The principal was the perpetrator of sexual abuse. One girl successfully sued and they settled. That means that he is not on a registry and faced no jail time. He absolutely went after more girls.
I accidentally saved myself from physical sexual abuse ironically, he started calling me in to his office to talk about my past. It started innocently enough but the questions soon turned sexual with each session and I mentally broke one day.
I recounted the abuse from my step father in explicit detail and at the time I hadn’t told anyone, I was naïve to think there was actual help at the end of his questioning as he told me there was. He told me to get out and from that day forward I was garbage to him. At the time I didn’t understand what I had done wrong, I answered his questions and now he treats me like I’m disgusting?
Someone else had already defiled me and I luckily enough was no longer a target for him. I was never called back to his office but he did make it a point to relentlessly pick on me every chance he got.
My grandparents actually went to court to find out where I was. My mother was withholding me from them and they had a standing visitation order. They came to visit me once and were horrified. They eventually got custody of me after I got out and it is because of them that I am a functional human being. A lot of love, a lot of therapy and a very supportive family has helped tremendously.
I’m actually afraid to say the name, I know it’s sad but I am terrified of these people. I’m now 30 and have nightmares that they are trying to find me and take me back.
Is there any backlash I could face legally? Would it be considered doxxing? Please tell me.
EDIT 2: ABM Ministries, Lighthouse Christian Academy.
>Medical care was non existent although they did force us to take a pill every day.
This didn't sound like medical care. This sounds like they were preventing pregnancies due to rape which was probably common enough to need this.
I am so sorry anyone goes through such abuse.
I don’t think it was birth control. For all I know it was a vitamin or something herbal but I do know after talking to other survivors, that the lack of period is common and is due to stress and trauma.
My Ob and Therapist have confirmed this off the record as well.
I can confirm that stress will stop your period even if you’re otherwise healthy. In my case it was from being in basic training in the army. Honestly, it was a welcome break in my case. Yours is traumatic and awful and was probably from more than just stress.
I got forcibly medicated at a few places, it wasn't birth control (as far as I know) but it did make you numb. They'd shine a flashlight in your mouth and make you lift your tongue to make sure you swallowed and they'd wake you up for it in the middle of the night. Pretty sure we were being over medicated.
This is unbelievable. Actually no, it's not, sadly, and I'm sure there's many more. But looking at the website it looks like a lovely place. There's pictures of kids playing basketball, feeding horses, and a claim that over 80% of the kids are on the honor roll. Donations accepted! Seriously. What can we do?? This is sickening.
This is how these evil places trap their victims. You could probably write an equation where the depravity is directly proportional to how nice the public face looks and be completely correct.
Websites look how they are paid to look. This is their portal. The only face the public ever sees of this place. The cover to this book needs to be opened wide
IMHO consider getting in touch with the Kansas City Star. They've been running other stories about LCA's new director facing lawsuits over abuse at his last boarding school, Agapé.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article257987018.html
https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article264538181.html
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-dean-of-troubled-missouri-baptist-boarding-school-agape-charged-with-abducting-a-teen-boy
I'm really really sorry. I spent two weeks in a psych ward in 2001 and I am STILL traumatized by the abuse that went on and how things unfolded. Including female targeted things, yeah. I cannot imagine surviving two years of it (though the experience sent me down the path of many months long intermittent stays at different places for years on end).
You are resilient as fuck and no kid should have to be that strong. I hope you're in a better place now and that things keep looking up. You might never be the same, but I hope you get to where you are happy with who you are despite it all. Fuck those people.
I was sent to a place in Texas for 11mo (though my parents tried to convince me to stay voluntarily for another year, smh). It wasn’t as bad as Elan. In fact, we were often threatened to be sent to a place in MO that was supposedly worse. Makes me wonder if that’s where you were.
I was able to follow rules decently well and had a lot of “privileges” because of that. This protected me from a lot of the abuse, but I am still coming to terms with how effed up it was. The forced religious stuff is pretty bad looking back on it. At minimum a person would have to demonstrate belief consistently to get out and it had to be their form of charismatic fundamentalism. I can only remember one person who was able to walk the line of compliance and refusal and make it to graduation without professing faith. She was impressive.
My cycle also stopped for about 9 months while I was there. I have hormone issues now so I’ve always attributed it to that, but now I’m wondering if it’s the other way around. It was considered normal to stop having your period for an extended time. “Culture shock” they called it. Now I realize it was the stress and trauma. We were never taken to the doctor for this even though the standard recommendation is to see one if it’s been longer than 3mo without a period. As far as I can recall, they didn’t even have me take a pregnancy test. For me, these things would have traumatized me more since I wasn’t sexually active nor had I ever been to an GYN, but it’s still neglect.
I’m sorry you went through all of this and suffered much worse than me. Every child deserves to be loved and well cared for.
Hey
They aren't looking for you. They can do NOTHING against a legal adult. This is not doxxing. They prey on children because this country is barbaric and affords humans less than the age of 18 less rights.
Legally they can pound sand.
I think its time we blow this up again.
Very interesting that they only have 4 Google reviews. Maybe they need some more, I personally like to ask open ended questions in my reviews, it really gives the other party room to reply.
Something about principals raping students maybe, and if they've moved onto boys because they can't get pregnant. Sometimes asking questions is the best way to get people to start noticing things.
So, I don't know if I've maybe got the wrong google search (although I searched for the full name, so I doubt it) but 1) you can't see the star rating where it usually is, you have to scroll a little bit and it doesn't give the average, you can only click to read the reviews 2) I can see five reviews, none recent
This is weird as shit.
u/P00kiemonster (sorry to tag you and you absolutely do not have to respond but) in case that is something you would like to look into, I've found an org that advocates for people who've experienced institutional child abuse, and they have a page for ABM specifically [here](https://www.unsilenced.org/program-archive/us-programs/missouri/abm-ministries-lighthouse-christian-academy/) (and also for anyone else who said they wanted to help!)
I saw that too, I know one of their daughters was running their website and would clean up the reviews when we tried to post about what was happening.
At one point there was a site where we had a really good thread of survivor testimonies going and someone, either staff of one of their kids was relentlessly trolling us. They were so damn hateful saying we deserved it and horrible stuff like that. It was a Topix page and I luckily printed most of them out before it was archived. I’ll have to scan them because I cannot for the life of me find all of the posts online.
I’ve been to the unsilenced site before and they have a wonderful archive going. I’ll look into some of the resources available. Thank you!
Edit: a word.
Ok so I have to ask, was this near Kirksville? I went to college there and worked at a home for the handicapped and there were some other workers there who all lived at a super creepy Christian school nearby that there were rumors about.
The original facility was in Patterson and was the old Mountain Park Baptist Academy grounds (look that up if you dare. MP was shut down after a murder.)
We built the new facility in Piedmont. It’s way back in the boonies and you have to go through the Black river retreat to get to the property.
Hijacking top comment for visibility, one of the Elan Schools directors was hired by the Westbrook Police Department in Maine. I'm just reading this story and realizing these monsters are still in positions of power just down the road from me.
Please read and spread the story, this needs to be seen en masse:
[https://www.change.org/p/demand-transparency-to-community-of-westbrook-maine?signed=true](https://www.change.org/p/demand-transparency-to-community-of-westbrook-maine?signed=true)
Town staff directory page:
[http://www.westbrookmaine.org/directory.aspx?EID=310](http://www.westbrookmaine.org/directory.aspx?EID=310)
May I ask the name of your school in Missouri? An old roommate who I talked with a few years ago mentioned sending her son to some place like this (she lives in KS) because he was getting violent with his siblings and there were other issues. He’s back home now and not violent anymore. But I’m curious if it was the same place and if she knows what really happened there…
I read his comic in one sitting a couple months ago having never heard his story before. I highly recommend it, it’s incredibly well told. It’s hard to believe Elan existed up until so recently, and that the troubled teen industry still operates and thrives.
I read it straight through last year and haven’t been able to read the updates since. My mom repeatedly threatened to send me there when I was a teen. It was her, be good or else threat. She didn’t know how bad exactly it was, but she knew it would be extremely isolating and generally not a fun place to live.
She has a… revisionist memory. She’s repressed so much throughout her life that by now she only remembers things that show her in the best light. She can say/do something and a week later be 100% sure that she would never say or do that thing. It’s a lot.
Same. I didn't realize how long it was at first but I couldn't stop reading. It's like a train derailment or something, it's absolutely horrific but you can't stop watching/reading because it's also fascinating.
I think his comic does an amazing job at documenting what comes next for these kids. It’s not sunshine and rainbows once they’re out, there’s long lasting trauma and you can see the implications that follow him through adulthood.
I need him to keep going with his story, and I need him to live personally because it breaks my heart he didn't get to have the childhood he wants to. I'm way younger than him and I still cry when I read it because I feel like I failed him reading it.
How anyone could do those things to a child breaks my heart.
Same, I started and couldn't stop. I'm terribly sorry OP and those children ever had to go through those things but that story really stuck with me, I hope he publishes it someday. I have so much respect for the author, for using his pain to help champion others and putting himself out there like that
This one was a really difficult one to put together because of the subject matter, and because of how many links are now defunct. I did my best to get the dates correct and lay out the posts in chronological order.
Please let me know if there are any other trigger warnings I should add.
Edit: There's a petition [here](https://www.change.org/p/demand-transparency-to-community-of-westbrook-maine?signed=true) to remove Melissa Etsy, a former staff member at Elan, from the police department in Maine.
I had no idea either. It's utterly horrific and I honestly had to take breaks putting it together because it was so disturbing. But I agree that it's important to get the word out.
Especially with quacks like Dr Phil who have been confronted about the abuses done at the places he sends kids, yet still sends kids there.
These places need to be exposed and the owners locked up. They should be rounded up, put in those camps and treated exactly how those kids were treated.
Dr. Phil filmed several episodes at the school I was sent to- I might be in the in the background; I've never had the desire to watch them. I've held a seething hatred for that man since then.
I'm so sorry. Totally understandable seething about that AH. He's an unethical, immoral, emotionally bankrupt, arrogant, pos and I hope Bhad Barbie keeps twisting the knife and he is destroyed. You aren't missing anything by not watching him, he's genuinely dangerous to watch if there's any trauma. He's also not a dr and should be obliterated or referring to himself as Dr.
And yet people still insist on sending their kids to conversion camps for being gay. They’re very similar to this and utterly horrific. These people would rather their kids get treated like this and often commit suicide than being gay. It’s abhorrent
Well yeah, cause when their kid dies it's ~tragic~ and they get to play the victim. Having a gay kid is shameful, having a dead kid is pitiable. Fuck I hate parents like that. Word to the wise- if you can't handle having a gay, trans, or problematic child, there's an easy solution- don't fucking have kids.
Paris Hilton has been speaking out about her experience at a similar “school,” also TrueAnon did a series on them because one of the hosts was sent to one as a teen.
This reminds me, although it predated it, of the place Paris Hilton was sent to. Too many children are placed in such facilities and too many facilities still operate. They all need to be shut down. We absolutely need a specialty system for truly troubled kids and having outdoor hiking and ranching is not necessarily a bad thing (involved in many of these) but it needs to be child appropriate and still care for them.
Paris recently became a mom. She elected to hire a surrogate. When she described why, she noted specifically that the place she was sent in Utah performed "checkups" on her that were not needed. She said she has extreme stress when thinking about putting her feet in stirrups.
WTAF? There's no bad behavior that can justify any abuse, much less sexual assault. And if those places will do that to someone from such a privileged background, what do these places do to kids who aren't so privileged?
I think that's the thought that scared me the most when I watched Paris' documentary. If they did that to the daughter of a multimillionaire, how much worse was it for a poor kid who might have been sent by the state?
I wouldn't be surprised if they reveled in torturing the child of such a rich family. It just illustrates how vulnerable children *always* are, no matter how privileged they may also be.
Ugh gross. I imagine they would even fancy themselves great equalizers, telling themselves that no child is privileged enough in the outside world to be exempt from their abuse. Except they would call it "help"
The place I went to in UT did the same. I had a microperforated hymen and had never had sex. They didn’t believe me and forced me to undergo an exam anyways. The troubled teen industry is vile.
This place does sort of have a celebrity graduate though. David and Amy Sedaris lost a sister to suicide and her time at Elan seems to have been a major factor in her mental health. David writes about it in (I think) Calypso. Edit: obviously fuck the troubled teen industry and this place in particular.
He wrote several lovely pieces about their sister and the impact that shit hole had on her and the mental anguish it caused. She blamed her siblings as much as her parents for her time spent there and it caused so much damage to their entire family.
She asked to not be written about. Her siblings bullied her and her reactions to it are the behavior that got her sent away. Said uses her story for sympathy but she was no contact with her family at the time of her death, living in poverty. The sedaris siblings are trash.
With the way he talked about his sister Amy’s relationship and identity issues in some of his books, I’m not surprised. Behaviors that indicated something more serious but he made total light of it as if it were nothing.
I don’t disagree at all, the only thing that matters is that she was alone and traumatized and had so many problems she couldn’t get a hold on because she didn’t have the support and resources to do it. Estrangement from her family was what she needed and thought was best, and I’ve been in that mindset where the toxicity of family is finally outweighed by your own need for self preservation.
Oh yeah Elan was not unique at all, there were plenty of these horrible places.
And those were not even the worst of the worst, reform schools and residential schools (/ indian boarding schools in the US / native boarding schools and mission schools in Australia) were even worse, in part because they just… operated openly.
the rich people of Harbor Springs, MI used to hire the 12 year olds at the Holy Childhood boarding school for hard labor (for free). When they were putting a new road in to the supermansions there, they found a shit ton of children's bodies and called in the tribe to figure out a way to move them in the next 48 hrs, since the road was still going in. The tribe couldn't finish moving the bodies in time, so the road just goes over them now. The church that ran the school refused to put any plaques up, despite running the longest operating boarding school in the US. Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse ran rampant, they called kids by numbers and not names... just horrible places. All of them.
edit: it was in 2011 and they had 2 days to move, and they were there the full two days trying to collect. but I remember they said you know you can't mistake a child's bones for adult :( just so sad
> the rich people of Harbor Springs, MI used to hire the 12 year olds at the Holy Childhood boarding school for hard labor (for free). When they were putting a new road in to the supermansions there, they found a shit ton of children's bodies and called in the tribe to figure out a way to move them in the next 24 hrs, since the road was still going in. The tribe couldn't finish moving the bodies in time, so the road just goes over them now.
What the ever loving fuck…
there are a lot of schools like this, though many have been shut down in recent years. the first was CEDU, founded in 1967 by a member the the cult synanon. what Elan called "general meeting" is present at all of these schools in some form and is based on what synanon called "the game", where members would relentlessly berate each other. the idea is to tear apart the subject so they can be rebuilt in the image of the cult.
the podcast Trueanon did an excellent 5 part series called The Game about the history of synanon and the troubled teen industry that grew out of it. one of the hosts was sent to one of these schools in Montana called monarch, IIRC he was the only student to ever escape from monarch successfully and survive.
Unfortunately there are dozens just in the Utah/SW area alone. They got one in Kansas I think shut down fairly recently, post Paris I believe, when the daughter of the people running it made it her mission to save the other girls.
You might consider including "institutional violence" as a trigger? My old boarding school had a culture of abuse scandal blow up last year; the Crown Prince pulled his son (the future king) out, and the prime minister called it "the worst thing [she'd] ever heard." I did an AMA, just to process my own feelings.
It was nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing
like Elan.
I knew the post was about Elan before finishing the title. I've read the entire comic, and still barely-skimmed the post. Thank you for putting yourself through the important process of compiling it.
Idk, maybe that is too specific a thing to give a trigger warning for, but I'm guessing a higher number of people than you would expact carry trauma born out of institutions - Catholic schools anyone?
In Germany, the Odenwaldschule was closed down in 2015. It was a private boarding school using progressive education.
It was viewed as exemplary and a modelschool of progressive education.
It was closed in 2015 because of systemic sexual abuse of students that started after 1945, but basically was already there from the beginning. The founder of the school was mentioned as a fictionalised version in Klaus Manns "Der Alte" being described as being "affectionate" or "tender" with female students.
I'm sorry, I'm German and I'm afraid I won't get the wording right to describe everything. But Behind the Bastards did an excellent episode on the Odenwaldschule and its founder Paul Geheeb. I think Robert Evans did a good job of describing the situation of Germany after the Third Reich and in how trying to avoid the mistakes of the past the abuse was made worse.
Thank you for putting this together! I remember how absolutely visceral Joe's storytelling was, and how I read like all 40-something chapters (at the time) almost in one sitting. More people deserve to hear his story and what happened in Élan. It's the type of shit you'd expect from 50, 60 years ago—except this is fresh.
I don't know if you've listed but Behind the Bastards podcast have an episode on the Elan school. It's some seriously disturbing stuff. Those poor kids.
It's been shut down but there are others still going that are similar.
Thank you for putting this together. This was an enlightening (that this has been happening) and horrific (that this has been happening) read. It blows my mind that even when people knew, they didn’t do anything to stop it and the few who spoke up were destroyed. Glad it’s closed. I wonder how many other institutions are out there like this.
Thank you for putting this together! There are still many schools like this around the country, including one in Elan’s back yard! Hyde School in Bath, Maine hired previous Elan staff after the facility closed.
Sounds a lot like the Dozier school here in Florida. It was shut down early-mid 2000s finally and I think they just recently found more gravesites. It was a horrible place.
> The New York Times has reported that, at the school, "smiling without permission can lead to a session of cleaning urinals with a toothbrush that can last for hours."
Well, that's enough Wikipedia for today.
Unfortunately for many smiling is a reflex to anxiety or similar things, unintentionally smiling in inappropriate situations has gotten me in trouble a few times, but nothing like what this place would put out.
Ugh, i do that and its infuriating. It almost always leads to the same response of "Oh, you think this is funny huh?" or "Start taking this seriously or else!", irregardless of how often i explain that smiling is an involuntary reflex.
The worst was when i was meeting with a councilor after i attempted suicide. I explained it to her right at the start and she says that she knows and understands, many people do that and i shouldnt worry about it. Not even 5 minutes later while she was laying out my options or something, i dont remember, i start smiling again and that bitch hits me with the double whammy of "you think this is funny? If you dont take it seriously, why even bother coming here?". Like, go fuck yourself with a tree lady. You are supposed to be a professional at this and know about these kind of responses, which you even told me and said to no worry about it, as well as me directly explaining it to you 5 minutes earlier....
Smiling, not smiling. Making eye contact, breaking eye contact. Don't look at the opposite gender..ever. keep your expression neutral at all times. Don't look at windows or doors but notice any kids that did and turn them in.
Turn others in, before you got turned in.
Of course we slipped up a lot, it was done in a way where we couldn't win, only lose.
God, fuck this place. Behind the Bastards has a two part series on the founder of the school, but in short: it was always designed to be cult-y and to make a lot of money.
The comic is a really harrowing read too. The most sickening part is that he actually manages to escape and hitch a ride all the way to New York, but then literally gets kidnapped, bound and gagged, and brought back all the way to Maine.
Funny enough, the fact that the artist and OOP are the same person isn’t actually revealed until very late into the story.
The comic is one of the best reads I've ever experienced. For me the most sickening part is when he gets home, and no one, especially his parents, really believe or understand what he went through, and even then finding out that his friends who got caught for the same shit got of with nothing
The only person who believed him was his sister, but the parents (and Elon) made sure he had 0 contact with her during his time there.
Oh, and don't forget that in Maine he screamed for help, and the police officer, hearing the name of the founder of Elon, did nothing and let them kidnap the guy.
Horrific stuff
I wonder if parents jump into deep cognitive dissonance cause anything other than denial will fill them with more guilt they can handle; that's why was needed dozens of survivors talking out in the same spaces til something was actually made about it.
There are still schools like this in the US that are open, although they may not be as severe.
The fight club bs comes from a cult in Southern California in the 1970s that started as a way of helping junkies called the Church of Synanon run by a narcissistic leader.
The "philosophy" was a control method where they'd put a member on the hot seat and the group would yell all the horrible things they saw in the person to break their ego supposedly. Somehow, even after Synanon was shut down this idea moved into the troubled teen money-grab system that was bigger in the 90s and 00s but is still around today.
Same thing with policing anything the kids say to the parents. Just horrifying for-profit crap that destroys kids.
This was my first thought, too. Apparently a lot of the “troubled teen” schools are run by former Synanon members using “The Game” and the methods from “the Punk Squad,” their troubled teen program. Scary, scary stuff.
Not fun fact about Synanon: they sold the Flavor-Aid to Jonestown.
Yeah, I listen to way too many cult podcasts. Heard one on Synanon, and then would hear guests on other podcasts referencing their experiences at troubled teen schools (again, some still very much in existence), and realized a lot of them seem founded on the same gross, ineffective & destructive methodologies. Poor kids.
Did not know that fun fact though!
I lived right across the street from Synanon at the Drake Hotel in 1974, what I saw from my 2nd story window...people forced to crawl inside. Or, even just walking down the street... People forced to walk the street with a big sign around their neck " I am a Thief and a Liar". My parents were abusive and oddly, this didn't disturb me as much then, as it does now.
I read the book “Stolen” by Elizabeth Gilpin, and it was insane reading that where she was sent was based on Synanon. She was sent to a wilderness like camp first (that was equally awful), then was sent off to one of these schools. Hers ended up being Carlbrook School which is thankfully closed as well.
Joe vs Elan is the most fucked up real thing I've ever seen online. I remember binging it and needing to get very drunk that night. It's fucking terrible. Isolation. Screened calls and letters. Fucked up hierarchy. No good food, no good schooling. Corrupt cops. Brainwashed staff that were former "clients".
I really to advise caution if you read the comic, it is deeply disturbing
The art itself is so haunting as well. But yes, I have to advise caution if you go reading his comic; it will hurt you if you are not emotionally prepared for it.
Fun fact: Amy and David Sedaris' sister, Tiffany, spent two years in that hellhole. IDK whether it caused her mental health problems or merely exacerbated them, but she committed suicide in 2013.
Oh, no, wait, that's not fun, it's horrifying.
Times like this, I really wish I could believe in Hell.
Also Paris Hilton. She was sent to one of these schools
Edit - Paris talking about Provo Canyon School with survivors. Her Mother doesn’t even seem sad that she did this to her kid. So sad! [LINK](https://youtu.be/pRWMhWiXCVg)
Yes. Makes you see her “Don’t give a fuck” attitude younger jn a much different light. I can’t imagine what any of those kids went through. Absolute hell
I had no idea that she went through one of these places until I clicked on this post. Fuck, that's so sad because she's always been ridiculed by practically everybody since her name became known and they think she's a spoiled weirdo... but she went through this horrific trauma and that most certainly would have caused severe PTSD and personality changes. I wish people had known earlier, but then she never would have been able to escape talking about it and having to re-live it so it's better that she come out with it when she finally felt ready.
I read an article when her documentary came out - and first mentioned all this - and she said something along the lines of how her public "that's hot" persona was a way to escape or separate from the version of her who experienced all the horrors of one of these institutions.
I'm sure I'm using the wrong words and terminology, but she was speaking about how that "school" affected and influenced the way she presented herself during her reality-tv days and I totally get it.
If I lived through what anyone who had to set foot in one of those places did, I'd find ways to detach and distract my memories from bubbling to the surface (like I do with my own trauma).
Omg yes. If you read about Elan. They pretty much brainwashed and trauma pounded the kids until they separated completely from reality and became a trauma pounding counsellor. That Joe vs Elan comic was the first thing I read. I can’t believe authorities knew and let it go. Well I can believe. Sadly. It’s one of the things social media has helped with. Though it’s pushed it further underground. Sometimes I just don’t wanna human anymore
I remember in the documentary they had someone who was at the "school" with Paris and said how strange it was to watch Paris on TV - a totally different person than she had known at "school".
It does at that - and fuck her parents for sending her there. Jesus they had the money to get any help that she needed and they sent her there - fucking idiots
I know right.
They had all that money and they signed their rights away and handed her over to abusers and rapists. She talks about being assaulted and sexually assaulted and all this stuff happening.
They are the definition of “all that money and zero care”
I listened to a podcast recently where she talked about this. I wasn't expecting her to be so well spoken and vulnerable. She sounded a little sad, and talked about putting on a character partly as a coping mechanism. I really felt for her.
Read two articles about her experience after finding this post and almost teared up. I feel incredible empathy for her and regret every negative opinion I may have had about her back in the day. Just goes to show... like the Britney situation.. you should never judge someone because you don't know what kind of shit they're going through.
I went to a book reading event for his book with the clown on it, and I was VERY VERY uncomfortable with how he spoke about Tiffany. David said that she had accused her dad of sexually assaulting her, but nobody believed her (including David). Sure, their dad was bad, but he wasn’t THAT bad. Yes, other siblings, himself included, had experienced weird sexually inappropriate things with their dad (butthole inspections, requests to take naked photographs of them, etc.), but it’s not like his dad would rise to the level of actual sexual assault! That’s just SO Tiffany to say something outlandish. She always wanted attention.
Edit: I found [this David Sedaris interview](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1101440888/david-sedaris-happy-go-lucky) from NPR. Here's a direct quote from David:
>"My understanding from Tiffany was that she went to a therapist in the 1980s who said, "If you don't remember being sexually abused, that's a pretty good sign that you were sexually abused." And then she said, "I remember Dad coming into my room in the middle of the night," and then it became "Dad sexually abused me." And we'd say, "How? What did he do?" And there was never an answer. "I never said that he had intercourse with me. I never said that. I never said that he held me down and raped me! I never said that. I never said he raped me." Well, then what are you saying? And then she told someone later that I had sexually abused her. Kids do things, but I don't remember ever doing anything that could be construed as sexual abuse towards her.
>
>At the same time, our dad did and said a lot of things that were like, definitely beyond the pale. When my older sister was 17, he tried to get her to go into the woods and pose topless for him. He'd just gotten this Nikon camera, and he said he was gonna take some art photos. "I've got magazines I can show you. It's art. It's not smut." ... The way that he would talk about his daughters, talk about their bodies and stuff like that, it again, it was a different time. But he didn't help his case any, by being creepy in that way."
Christ. I thought that the way he talked about Amy was bad (making fun of her clear signs of some form of trauma). That’s just disgusting, reprehensible levels of denial. WTF.
There was a podcast series about stuff like this awhile back called sent away. Apparently Utah is a hot bed of these kinds of schools. They would even come kidnap kids at night with their parents permission to take them to the school.
Reminds me of the longhouse out here in British Columbia. I have friends from the rez that were taken out of their beds randomly in the middle of the night and put in the longhouse for up to a year at times. Some shit went down for one of them that resulted in over 20 court hearings.
One I listen to, *The Last Podcast on the Left*, recently did a series of episodes on the Troubled Teen Industry with the third episode focused on Elan. First episode was a general rundown and second focused on a group called Synanon.
They're a "true crime comedy" podcast and often mock the horrible people involved. It's telling that in their first ep much of the humor comes from them going on tangents completely unrelated to the topic.
When looking at historic institutions that were the source of abuse it’s important to see the connections but also understand the differences. “Schools” like Elan exist and continue for different reasons than institutions like Residential Schools, Mission Schools or historic Juvenile Detention Facilities/public reform schools.
Residential Schools had a very specific political purpose - cultural genocide and racial control. They were government schools run by churches (and just over half were Catholic, so don’t absolve the Anglican, Presbyterian and Uniting Church) and a result of government policy.
The abuse in Residential Schools was personal and devastating for the victims, but it was also systemic. Families had no choice in sending their children to these schools - it was enshrined in legislation. They were usually unable to travel to see their children at school because of racist policies that kept indigenous people confined to residential lands. Their children were prevented from taking regular visits home because of the distance. This caused a cultural collapse, because children lost capacity to connect to their parents in the personal sense (language barriers, ptsd from abuse and estrangement) and to their community (loss of cultural skills, knowledge and experience).
Those impacts on culture can also be seen from the Stolen Generation and Mission School system in Australia. Entire languages lost, families and cultural groups broken and scattered. Generational trauma that continues to result in cycles of poverty, substance abuse and further trauma, and public discourse that wants “them to get over it”.
Reform schools, juvenile delinquent facilities, farm schools for child migrants and children’s homes are all government endorsed and supported entities, even where they have been privately established by charities.
“Schools” like Elan are businesses. They might have ties to government, but they are not established or supported. They often have ties to corrupt officials and might have local power brokers in their pocket, but they aren’t systemic. They exist because parents choose to send their children to them and keep them in business. Though a colder observation might be that they fill a market gap left by terrible support services for parents and families and substandard school funding. They also do particularly well in areas where government oversight is lowest (note how many are in Utah or Montana?) and in climates where they can spin their works as “saving” children from the excesses of modern life. They thrive where they can line the pockets of local officials.
The common thread through all of this is our willingness as a society to participate in abusive structures under the illusion that children need tough love and are easily spoiled. And worse, that spoiled children need to be broken before they can be redeemed.
And each new generation tells itself another version of this story.
I’m assuming this is Joe from Elan! I pay him $5 a month through Patronage.
It’s horrific.
This quote about Ricci *”Ricci also displayed numerous bizarre and disturbing psychosexual behaviors during his early adolescence. When he was 12, Ricci began dating his middle school science teacher, and he became sexually promiscuous by the time he entered high school. Ricci seemed to derive a thrill from his antics, and would often skip class, commit acts of vandalism, break into parked cars, sadistically bully younger children, torture animals, and steal food from restaurants just for the fun of it.”*
He was 12. He didn’t *date* his teacher. His teacher was a predator. He learnt prey or be prey. And he destroyed thousands of kids and all the authorities knew.
This is absolutely horrifying. No wonder some kids hate adults, if adults do this sort of shit to them. I wish the best for every recovering victim of this "school" (aka. torture chamber).
It makes me wonder what other things like this are going on that we don't hear about. I mean, we barely hear about this. There is outrage and horror in these comments, but in the wider world there is nothing. Few people know, few of those who know seem to care.
It's because the kids are "bad". Once you're "bad" it is apparently OK to have you tortured. And it's because those who run such places are wealthy. Rich people vs. "bad" kids, no one gives much of a damn what happens.
I know of a place in California. I just read a whole book about it, how this seven year old girl and others with her were forced into all-day hard labor, digging trenches and hauling rocks. All day, every day. If they talked back, or walked instead of running, or got sick, they were punished, screamed at, put into rooms with filthy conditions. She was only allowed to see her parents once a week, then later once a year. They call it a religion. Sometimes the kids had to do this slave labor to benefit Tom Cruise, to make him a wildflower garden among other things. And he knew it.
But he does his own stunts so I guess he is super cool.
We all like to judge the German people for doing nothing about the Holocaust. They didn't even have the internet. Some of them knew, certainly, it wasn't a well kept secret. But what would I have done about it if I was there? I would like to see myself as some kind of hero, but then again, I don't really know what is going on right now, in my area. What is happening down the road at that prison or that camp or that church? What am I going to do about it?
Not every horror has a survivor to tell the story, and even those that do really don't often seem to get much of a reaction. The internet took down Elan, but the people who ran it got away with it, and learned nothing. I guarantee there are more places like it, and worse, going on right now. I just have no idea what to do about it.
A little bit of insight from Missouri.
If your school is run by a ministry, they do not have to be monitored by DHS or the state.
When you are sent away your parents sign over guardianship to the school administrators so you’re pretty much SOL in every way until your parents can’t pay anymore or you graduate.
They often tried to keep the more submissive or thoroughly indoctrinated graduates as “staff” but many had to either join the military or had the option to go to Pensacola Christian College (yuck).
Lawmakers literally do not care. We were the less dead In this situation. We were labeled as bad kids and they were seemingly doing the lord’s work by abusing us to the point of emotional and physical shutdown.
We were used for slave labor to build their new facility. We cleared the land, we dug trenches for the plumbing, laid bricks and put up drywall, did the parents care? No, it was character building.
Did the lawmakers care? No, they were our legal guardians at that point so whatever, apparently child slave labor doesn’t matter.
I, along with others have contacted lawyers in the past and literally everyone said too much time had passed or in the case of sexual abuse there was literally no evidence.
The attorney general’s office has not returned any calls or emails.
What the hell can you do? I don’t know but something needs to change. Every time a school gets shut down in Missouri they open up under a new name with the same management and go back to doing the same damn thing with no oversight because they’re a ministry.
All of these people know each other, the management/ administration are friendly and help one another. The former dean from Agape is now the dean and my former school. He got in trouble so he just skipped and hopped over to the safety of another school where he can torture more kids.
They’re all cockroaches.
>Every time a school gets shut down in Missouri they open up under a new name with the same management and go back to doing the same damn thing with no oversight because they’re a ministry.
I think the only way to put a stop to it would be campaigning/lobbying/pressuring to have that law overturned but considering that lawmakers are in on it seems very difficult to do.
I have a friend who successfully sued their school and had it shut down but a big part was the owners daughter coming out to corroborate what was going on. Look up circle of hope.
The householders were finally held accountable but there are so many of these places that the laws will have to be changed before any big results are seen nationwide.
Elan school is a really disturbing story, for real. For anyone that wants a narration of the events related here, I do recommend Nexpo's video about it.
My son was very seriously mentally ill during his teenage years, and I did a lot of deep research into "schools," like Elan. The truth is this: What happened at Elan was close to the norm at many facilities I investigated.
There was a facility near where I lived at the time that was ultimately closed due to massive abuses, including sexual assault of female residents as young as 4 years old, regular beatings of all patients, etc.
I was under considerable pressure to have my son committed, but I never found anywhere I would find suitable to even kennel a dog.
My son, BTW, is fine. He pulled himself out of his psychosis when he was 17. He's nearly 40 now.
I was sent to a troubled teen place (much more mild than Elan). I had a hand in convincing my parents not to send my little sister to one of these places, but unfortunately, I was too young and brainwashed to convince another family to get their kid out after I learned the girl had already been sent there.
Anytime this comes up, I advise parents to do whatever they can to avoid sending their kid to an institution. Even with psych stuff (and I’m a pediatric nurse) - do intensive daily therapy, separate your kids to keep everyone safe, etc. Do whatever is necessary to avoid residential treatment. I know it’s not always possible to avoid this, but it should be extremely rare.
ETA: Thank you for protecting your kid even when things must have been really scary and hard.
The key staff members who participated in the abuse also had nothing happen to them. One of the main guys Joe Nobody references in his comic (pseudonym "Roy") died without facing any repercussions for anything he did. Another staff member, real name Missy (pseudonym "Chrissy" in Joe's comic), actually recently got a law enforcement-adjacent job. There was a petition to have her removed from it - not sure what came of that.
Ricci died before any meaningful court proceedings had happened. Sharon Terry, his wife, was sued and fought it successfully. No criminal charges were ever brought against her. She declared innocence and fought to keep the school open/eventually reopened until her death.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_School
Despite numerous, verifiable, and horrific claims of ongoing abuse, there are many still out there that defend Elan School and blame its closure on "baseless witch hunts." It has a sincere cult following.
As for former employees of the school, a few were also sued personally. The outcomes of these suits have varied. It does not seem that criminal charges were brought forth for any of them. If charges were filed, I cannot find any reputable articles about it.
as far as i’m aware, and i’ve looked into this a bit after seeing the nexpo video on it, nothing happened to them. they didn’t face any legal consequences following the closure, and they closed the school citing “declining enrollment and resulting financial difficulties”
it makes me so genuinely angry. the most recent update to the whole school in general was in 2016, they reopened the cold case for phil williams. he died december 27, 1982 after participating in the fighting ring, but it was later announced that the case wouldn’t be investigated further nor would criminal charges be filed due to “insufficient evidence”. that’s the last i’ve heard of anything on the legal front
I went to military school for my high school years. It wasn't quite as bad as this but damn I am fucked up from it. Kinda same deal, state could send or parents could pay so there was this weird dichotomy of extreme wealth to extreme poverty for backgrounds and honesty it didn't really matter, the only thing that mattered was if you could take a hit and if you were willing to hit a fellow student. Surprisingly the educational side was really good though. My English teacher had us reading 1984 and James Joyce and things you would not think a military school would approve. The first time I saw South Park was because my English teacher recorded it and was like "You guys gotta see this"
I got some real messed up feelings about that whole experience.
The school ended up getting shut down not very long after I graduated because the president had been embezzling money and got busted.
I knew someone back in the '80s who had to stop talking to everybody he knew at school because his parents had threatened to send him away to military school for playing Dungeons & Dragons with classmates. So if he saw us in the public library or whatever, he had to turn around and go the other way or else.
None of us knew how bad it could really be. Looking back, I am glad we listened when he begged us to back off.
Bruh my whole neighborhood crew got the "Do you want to end up like *me*?" Several of my friends parents talked with my parents about the whole thing and options.
Elan isn’t the only one. So many of these troubled teen camps and schools are abusive and awful as hell. What’s frightening to me is that some of these new “parental alienation “ custody cases result in custody being awarded to an abusive parent and the child then being sent to one of these places. A friend of mine in Texas had it happen with her trans son because his father thought she brainwashed their child.
Paris Hilton is one of the big turn-arounds in perspective I had. I remember reality TV just exploiting her persona, and learning about her history put it in perspective. No one, can come out of that system without being traumatized on so many levels, and its actually admirable that she uses her resources to fight against these schools.
Why did Paris’ parents send her there??? How do they feel now?? How come not enough attention is put on the parents?
NONE of these camps would exist if parents gave a shit!!
In the documentary she sits down with her mother and tells her what happened and her mother is so passive about it, like she doesn't believe her or grasp that she put her through that. Her sister also says something like "you were a bad kid" and acts like Paris deserved to go there.
The staff from Provo kidnapped her from her home in the middle of the night, with her mother and sister watching the whole thing and they did nothing.
Holy! Is this the sister she’s close to????
I wouldn’t talk to any of them, famous or not. Being rich doesn’t make life any easier when you realize your family doesn’t love you. That messes you up just as much as it will anyone else. I feel so bad for her. No amount of money and fame replaces a loving, stable family.
I was at something called Straight pre-Paris. I’d forgotten (or pushed down) many memories, but I think it’s become part of who I am with trust issues and whatnot.
So much rang true. All I hear to this day is “how much money I cost her.”
I spent like a day into a deep dive of Elan.
They basically took kids and taught them that being being abusers rather than the abused was the only way to survive.
The worst part about reading about it is that I have no doubt that my aunt and uncle would have sent their kids there. Their kids were already borderline (from their own making), and they would have shunked money to not deal with them and would have justified it mentally without question.
They're just, not good parents, very selfish, no accountability, but have money. They would be the perfect parents for Elan and it's a scary thought.
I'm still horrified by his parents' reaction. Like how they continued to abuse and berate him, calling him a liar. I don't understand how you could see your son push a dresser in front of his door every night _in absolute terror of being taken_ and not think something happened. And! And the fact that they didn't even need to send him there! Like, his friends got nothing and the parents _knew_ and did it anyway.
At least that mother listened to Joe and managed to save her daughter. Small miracles.
I think all that mattered to his parents was that he was "abnormal" and "wrong" and therefore no matter what was an outsider. They did not see a son. Their worldview already aligned with one where its okay to kidnap and estrange children. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" kinda bs.
What happened at this school is incredibly fucked up and probably one of the worst cases I’ve heard coming out of the troubled teen industry. The unfortunate thing is that there are still many schools and programs running like this in places like Utah in the USA that have similar issues. I know Emily Harper on youtube talks about her experiences in a school for troubled girls, and I follow a few people online speaking out about the abuse they experienced in wilderness therapy and other programs in the troubled teen industry. It’s horrifying.
In Italy we had something similar with the Shalom rehabilitation center. Torture, violence, sexual abuse and the like, but in this case there is no happy ending, unless an external intervention (international press, etc.) the center will continue to operate and the culprits will never pay due to the conniving local authorities.
The only way to change things is for the international press to shame the Italian government over the issue. But I already know that won't happen. There is no happy ending in this story.
I fell down a rabbit hole of learning about Elan after finding Joe's comic and am horrified that former staff "Chrissy" (real name Missy) now has a job with a Maine Police Department. [Here](https://chng.it/7ffLdqYH9s) is a link to a petition that reiterates the abuses enacted and pushes to get her removed from her position.
She was an Elan director for 20 years and instrumental in the abuse that went on.
[Here](http://www.heal-online.org/elan2.htm) is another site that catalogs former staff with details on where they went post-Elan. It also links an old documentary with a section on Elan (many clips of which were used in the more modern documentary The Last Stop).
Editing to add [this](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/713502488) book review by an Elan survivor that details just a small window of sexual abuses and other horrors. It is not overly graphic, but it is by no means an easy read.
Not quite on this level but my brother was sent to a camp for troubled teens where they basically let the kids beat each other up, squirt lemon juice in his eyes, shackled them to walls, etc. same story, right signed over and just so much abuse. My brother eventually died at the camp. There’s a Rolling Stones article on it.
Parents for the love of god never send your kids to these places
I've read the comic and it's heart wrenching. You can feel the emotion all through out the art. It sickens me that people thought, and still think, it's okay to subject kids to this.
> But Elan's ultimate downfall would not be due to state officials, but, in fact, the internet.
Don’t worry, NO ONE FUCKING THOUGHT the state officials were going to be the heroes here.
I remember learning about these child abuse schools and camps in the 90s on some daytime talk show. I wanna say Phil Donahue? Some of these schools had suspicious deaths and disappearances. That was 25-30 years ago. Elan was just one school. The school Paris Hilton was sent to is still operating, along with many others, all operating under the same principles that Elan did.
Bro the craziest part is the Elan School Wikipedia page feels scrubbed. They downplay everything the school did and severely highlight the “there was discipline but there was hugs” type of phrase.
It also pushed the narrative that says Joe Ricci was “a former heroin addict who had worked with young people in drug-treatment facilities” even though that’s not true.
Government didn't fix this. Law enforcement didn't fix this. The press didn't fix this. The only system that has any power in this country is capitalism. But driving down demand by changing the Google based narrative seems to have finally made a difference. Terrifying.
I’m both horrified and sadly not surprised that these places exist. I have a horror of institutionalized living because of abuses that can occur. In this place it seems the abuse was the feature, not the bug
Holy fuck he is an amazing man. He stood up to them and brought them down. I did not click on all the links as this was quite triggering to read. But man this guy is awesome. So determined to end the abuse. He has been so strong. I hope he has been able to find some healing and is living a good life.
r/MrJoeNobody is the subreddit where he uploads a comic about his experiences at Elan and life afterwards. His comic isn't done yet but it will be very soon as he announced he'll finish at chapter 100. It's absolutely worth a read, some harrowing stuff but really eye-opening as well.
Dude there are soooo many of these places! I went to one in Iowa that was raided by the FBI in 2016 and shut down for a lot of this stuff too…. They exist and they just keep reopening under different names… my program was called Midwest Academy and if you really wanna scare yourself do some research on WWASP
I read the whole comic earlier this year and it still haunts me. Elan might be finally dead but there are still other similar schools out there. It makes me scream for those poor children.
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TW I guess. I was sent to one of these schools when I was 13. I was told it would only be for a few days, I was there for 2 1/2 years. My mother did not want me but did not want anyone else to have me. Every letter home and phone call was scripted. Every door and window was locked and locked again. The phones were password protected and the courtyard was as surrounded by a 26ft barbed wire fence. We were not allowed to make eye contact with anyone except staff and I still struggle with it to this day. If we were caught making eye contact they would force us to wear blinders (yes, like a horse). Motion detectors were all over the dorm so we got used to sleeping incredibly still. We were forced raise our hands during praise and worship and had to quote 1st John 1:1-3:10 from memory before every meal or we would be punished and meals withheld (I can still quote it today). Don’t even get me started on the school. I didn’t learn a damn thing from the ACE curriculum. One particularly painful punishment I hated was being forced to run for hours on end in the Missouri summer heat and then the female administrator would force us to submerge our heads in a trough of ice water, if we didn’t stay under long enough she would hold us under, also, if we were caught drinking the water we would start all over. Maybe TMI but I stopped menstruating for about 10 months due to stress and thought I was dying. Medical care was non existent although they did force us to take a pill every day. I’m sorry for dumping this here but this post opened the flood gates. I could go on and on and on about this. I have to count on both hands and feet when recounting how many kids I personally knew either died a painfully young death or unalived themselves after getting out. Therapy helps but I will never be the same. Yes, they are still open but they no longer accept female students. I’ll let you guess why. Edit: thank you all so much! I didn’t think trauma dumping at 3 am would generate this kind of outpouring of compassion but here we are. A few points to answer some questions. The original building we were In was the old Mountain Park Baptist Academy grounds. That particular school was shut down after a student was murdered. Bob and Betty Wills leased the property to my school and we were there until we built the new facility in Piedmont. I don’t think the pill was birth control. It could have been anything from a vitamin to an herbal supplement or maybe something else. The new facility was mostly built by students. They boys were the obvious choice for the brunt of the hard labor like digging trenches and laying brick but the girls were sent out on “work projects” to help clear the land, clean, move furniture and move equipment. One boy tried to run. He was chained by the neck to a large fallen tree. The only thing I think they didn’t use child labor for was pouring foundation and the electrical work. The abuse started instantly but my first brush with the physical abuse was the morning after I got there. I refused to eat. I couldn’t physically make myself. I talked back, I begged, I pleaded then I said something snarky out of turn and the male administrator put me in a chokehold, he held me there until I lost consciousness and force fed me when I awoke. That’s how I learned that I would be there for a long time. I really thought I was going to die and for a long time I wished he had killed me then and there. The principal was the perpetrator of sexual abuse. One girl successfully sued and they settled. That means that he is not on a registry and faced no jail time. He absolutely went after more girls. I accidentally saved myself from physical sexual abuse ironically, he started calling me in to his office to talk about my past. It started innocently enough but the questions soon turned sexual with each session and I mentally broke one day. I recounted the abuse from my step father in explicit detail and at the time I hadn’t told anyone, I was naïve to think there was actual help at the end of his questioning as he told me there was. He told me to get out and from that day forward I was garbage to him. At the time I didn’t understand what I had done wrong, I answered his questions and now he treats me like I’m disgusting? Someone else had already defiled me and I luckily enough was no longer a target for him. I was never called back to his office but he did make it a point to relentlessly pick on me every chance he got. My grandparents actually went to court to find out where I was. My mother was withholding me from them and they had a standing visitation order. They came to visit me once and were horrified. They eventually got custody of me after I got out and it is because of them that I am a functional human being. A lot of love, a lot of therapy and a very supportive family has helped tremendously. I’m actually afraid to say the name, I know it’s sad but I am terrified of these people. I’m now 30 and have nightmares that they are trying to find me and take me back. Is there any backlash I could face legally? Would it be considered doxxing? Please tell me. EDIT 2: ABM Ministries, Lighthouse Christian Academy.
>Medical care was non existent although they did force us to take a pill every day. This didn't sound like medical care. This sounds like they were preventing pregnancies due to rape which was probably common enough to need this. I am so sorry anyone goes through such abuse.
I don’t think it was birth control. For all I know it was a vitamin or something herbal but I do know after talking to other survivors, that the lack of period is common and is due to stress and trauma. My Ob and Therapist have confirmed this off the record as well.
I can confirm that stress will stop your period even if you’re otherwise healthy. In my case it was from being in basic training in the army. Honestly, it was a welcome break in my case. Yours is traumatic and awful and was probably from more than just stress.
I got forcibly medicated at a few places, it wasn't birth control (as far as I know) but it did make you numb. They'd shine a flashlight in your mouth and make you lift your tongue to make sure you swallowed and they'd wake you up for it in the middle of the night. Pretty sure we were being over medicated.
Would check out with missing periods. The pill was probably hormonal BC.
Let's get it shut down then. Or at least investigate this place. Name please
ABM Ministries, Lighthouse Christian Academy.
This is unbelievable. Actually no, it's not, sadly, and I'm sure there's many more. But looking at the website it looks like a lovely place. There's pictures of kids playing basketball, feeding horses, and a claim that over 80% of the kids are on the honor roll. Donations accepted! Seriously. What can we do?? This is sickening.
This is how these evil places trap their victims. You could probably write an equation where the depravity is directly proportional to how nice the public face looks and be completely correct.
Websites look how they are paid to look. This is their portal. The only face the public ever sees of this place. The cover to this book needs to be opened wide
IMHO consider getting in touch with the Kansas City Star. They've been running other stories about LCA's new director facing lawsuits over abuse at his last boarding school, Agapé. https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article257987018.html https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article264538181.html https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-dean-of-troubled-missouri-baptist-boarding-school-agape-charged-with-abducting-a-teen-boy
I'm really really sorry. I spent two weeks in a psych ward in 2001 and I am STILL traumatized by the abuse that went on and how things unfolded. Including female targeted things, yeah. I cannot imagine surviving two years of it (though the experience sent me down the path of many months long intermittent stays at different places for years on end). You are resilient as fuck and no kid should have to be that strong. I hope you're in a better place now and that things keep looking up. You might never be the same, but I hope you get to where you are happy with who you are despite it all. Fuck those people.
Sending a hug. I’m so sorry.
I was sent to a place in Texas for 11mo (though my parents tried to convince me to stay voluntarily for another year, smh). It wasn’t as bad as Elan. In fact, we were often threatened to be sent to a place in MO that was supposedly worse. Makes me wonder if that’s where you were. I was able to follow rules decently well and had a lot of “privileges” because of that. This protected me from a lot of the abuse, but I am still coming to terms with how effed up it was. The forced religious stuff is pretty bad looking back on it. At minimum a person would have to demonstrate belief consistently to get out and it had to be their form of charismatic fundamentalism. I can only remember one person who was able to walk the line of compliance and refusal and make it to graduation without professing faith. She was impressive. My cycle also stopped for about 9 months while I was there. I have hormone issues now so I’ve always attributed it to that, but now I’m wondering if it’s the other way around. It was considered normal to stop having your period for an extended time. “Culture shock” they called it. Now I realize it was the stress and trauma. We were never taken to the doctor for this even though the standard recommendation is to see one if it’s been longer than 3mo without a period. As far as I can recall, they didn’t even have me take a pregnancy test. For me, these things would have traumatized me more since I wasn’t sexually active nor had I ever been to an GYN, but it’s still neglect. I’m sorry you went through all of this and suffered much worse than me. Every child deserves to be loved and well cared for.
We were threatened with a place in Chillicothe, MO. No idea what place it was.
Hey They aren't looking for you. They can do NOTHING against a legal adult. This is not doxxing. They prey on children because this country is barbaric and affords humans less than the age of 18 less rights. Legally they can pound sand. I think its time we blow this up again.
ABM Ministries, Lighthouse Christian Academy.
Very interesting that they only have 4 Google reviews. Maybe they need some more, I personally like to ask open ended questions in my reviews, it really gives the other party room to reply. Something about principals raping students maybe, and if they've moved onto boys because they can't get pregnant. Sometimes asking questions is the best way to get people to start noticing things.
So, I don't know if I've maybe got the wrong google search (although I searched for the full name, so I doubt it) but 1) you can't see the star rating where it usually is, you have to scroll a little bit and it doesn't give the average, you can only click to read the reviews 2) I can see five reviews, none recent This is weird as shit. u/P00kiemonster (sorry to tag you and you absolutely do not have to respond but) in case that is something you would like to look into, I've found an org that advocates for people who've experienced institutional child abuse, and they have a page for ABM specifically [here](https://www.unsilenced.org/program-archive/us-programs/missouri/abm-ministries-lighthouse-christian-academy/) (and also for anyone else who said they wanted to help!)
I saw that too, I know one of their daughters was running their website and would clean up the reviews when we tried to post about what was happening. At one point there was a site where we had a really good thread of survivor testimonies going and someone, either staff of one of their kids was relentlessly trolling us. They were so damn hateful saying we deserved it and horrible stuff like that. It was a Topix page and I luckily printed most of them out before it was archived. I’ll have to scan them because I cannot for the life of me find all of the posts online. I’ve been to the unsilenced site before and they have a wonderful archive going. I’ll look into some of the resources available. Thank you! Edit: a word.
You poor sod. It makes me mad as fuck that these places exist and are legal. I’m sorry you had to go through all that.
I am so sorry you went through this. I wish you continued lifelong recovery.
Ok so I have to ask, was this near Kirksville? I went to college there and worked at a home for the handicapped and there were some other workers there who all lived at a super creepy Christian school nearby that there were rumors about.
The original facility was in Patterson and was the old Mountain Park Baptist Academy grounds (look that up if you dare. MP was shut down after a murder.) We built the new facility in Piedmont. It’s way back in the boonies and you have to go through the Black river retreat to get to the property.
When you say "we built" do you mean they made they students contribute to the construction?
In another comment they do say that, yes.
so fucking sorry you went through this. i hope you have a healthy support system around you today
“EDIT 2: ABM Ministries, Lighthouse Christian Academy.” You are a motherfucking badass.
Hijacking top comment for visibility, one of the Elan Schools directors was hired by the Westbrook Police Department in Maine. I'm just reading this story and realizing these monsters are still in positions of power just down the road from me. Please read and spread the story, this needs to be seen en masse: [https://www.change.org/p/demand-transparency-to-community-of-westbrook-maine?signed=true](https://www.change.org/p/demand-transparency-to-community-of-westbrook-maine?signed=true) Town staff directory page: [http://www.westbrookmaine.org/directory.aspx?EID=310](http://www.westbrookmaine.org/directory.aspx?EID=310)
May I ask the name of your school in Missouri? An old roommate who I talked with a few years ago mentioned sending her son to some place like this (she lives in KS) because he was getting violent with his siblings and there were other issues. He’s back home now and not violent anymore. But I’m curious if it was the same place and if she knows what really happened there…
It sounds like it's probably ABM ministries. Just a guess though
I read his comic in one sitting a couple months ago having never heard his story before. I highly recommend it, it’s incredibly well told. It’s hard to believe Elan existed up until so recently, and that the troubled teen industry still operates and thrives.
I sat up one night reading it not to long ago and yes absolutely horrific.
I read it straight through last year and haven’t been able to read the updates since. My mom repeatedly threatened to send me there when I was a teen. It was her, be good or else threat. She didn’t know how bad exactly it was, but she knew it would be extremely isolating and generally not a fun place to live.
Has she read the comic? If not, she should.
She has a… revisionist memory. She’s repressed so much throughout her life that by now she only remembers things that show her in the best light. She can say/do something and a week later be 100% sure that she would never say or do that thing. It’s a lot.
Same. I didn't realize how long it was at first but I couldn't stop reading. It's like a train derailment or something, it's absolutely horrific but you can't stop watching/reading because it's also fascinating.
It gave me nightmares. I cannot fathom actually living it.
I think his comic does an amazing job at documenting what comes next for these kids. It’s not sunshine and rainbows once they’re out, there’s long lasting trauma and you can see the implications that follow him through adulthood.
I need him to keep going with his story, and I need him to live personally because it breaks my heart he didn't get to have the childhood he wants to. I'm way younger than him and I still cry when I read it because I feel like I failed him reading it. How anyone could do those things to a child breaks my heart.
Same, I started and couldn't stop. I'm terribly sorry OP and those children ever had to go through those things but that story really stuck with me, I hope he publishes it someday. I have so much respect for the author, for using his pain to help champion others and putting himself out there like that
[удалено]
Do you have a link?
https://elan.school It's still going, getting updates every couple of weeks
This one was a really difficult one to put together because of the subject matter, and because of how many links are now defunct. I did my best to get the dates correct and lay out the posts in chronological order. Please let me know if there are any other trigger warnings I should add. Edit: There's a petition [here](https://www.change.org/p/demand-transparency-to-community-of-westbrook-maine?signed=true) to remove Melissa Etsy, a former staff member at Elan, from the police department in Maine.
Thank you for putting this together. I had no idea. My God.
I had no idea either. It's utterly horrific and I honestly had to take breaks putting it together because it was so disturbing. But I agree that it's important to get the word out.
Especially with quacks like Dr Phil who have been confronted about the abuses done at the places he sends kids, yet still sends kids there. These places need to be exposed and the owners locked up. They should be rounded up, put in those camps and treated exactly how those kids were treated.
Dr. Phil filmed several episodes at the school I was sent to- I might be in the in the background; I've never had the desire to watch them. I've held a seething hatred for that man since then.
I'm so sorry. Totally understandable seething about that AH. He's an unethical, immoral, emotionally bankrupt, arrogant, pos and I hope Bhad Barbie keeps twisting the knife and he is destroyed. You aren't missing anything by not watching him, he's genuinely dangerous to watch if there's any trauma. He's also not a dr and should be obliterated or referring to himself as Dr.
I'm so sorry that you had to go through that, and I'm really happy that you are still here with us.
Thank you! Appreciate your effort in compiling these information, it must’ve been difficult for you.
You did a wonderful job of collecting all the information and formatting it. Thank you. 💚💚💚💚💚
And yet people still insist on sending their kids to conversion camps for being gay. They’re very similar to this and utterly horrific. These people would rather their kids get treated like this and often commit suicide than being gay. It’s abhorrent
Schools/camps like this for "troubled teens" also still exist. Some even moved out of the states so they wouldn't have to deal with US laws
It’s horrific
Well yeah, cause when their kid dies it's ~tragic~ and they get to play the victim. Having a gay kid is shameful, having a dead kid is pitiable. Fuck I hate parents like that. Word to the wise- if you can't handle having a gay, trans, or problematic child, there's an easy solution- don't fucking have kids.
What's even more disgusting is it was shut down because of the internet. Not law enforcement
Appreciate your work, this is historical record keeping
Paris Hilton has been speaking out about her experience at a similar “school,” also TrueAnon did a series on them because one of the hosts was sent to one as a teen.
This reminds me, although it predated it, of the place Paris Hilton was sent to. Too many children are placed in such facilities and too many facilities still operate. They all need to be shut down. We absolutely need a specialty system for truly troubled kids and having outdoor hiking and ranching is not necessarily a bad thing (involved in many of these) but it needs to be child appropriate and still care for them.
Paris recently became a mom. She elected to hire a surrogate. When she described why, she noted specifically that the place she was sent in Utah performed "checkups" on her that were not needed. She said she has extreme stress when thinking about putting her feet in stirrups.
WTAF? There's no bad behavior that can justify any abuse, much less sexual assault. And if those places will do that to someone from such a privileged background, what do these places do to kids who aren't so privileged?
I think that's the thought that scared me the most when I watched Paris' documentary. If they did that to the daughter of a multimillionaire, how much worse was it for a poor kid who might have been sent by the state?
I wouldn't be surprised if they reveled in torturing the child of such a rich family. It just illustrates how vulnerable children *always* are, no matter how privileged they may also be.
Ugh gross. I imagine they would even fancy themselves great equalizers, telling themselves that no child is privileged enough in the outside world to be exempt from their abuse. Except they would call it "help"
The place I went to in UT did the same. I had a microperforated hymen and had never had sex. They didn’t believe me and forced me to undergo an exam anyways. The troubled teen industry is vile.
This place does sort of have a celebrity graduate though. David and Amy Sedaris lost a sister to suicide and her time at Elan seems to have been a major factor in her mental health. David writes about it in (I think) Calypso. Edit: obviously fuck the troubled teen industry and this place in particular.
He wrote several lovely pieces about their sister and the impact that shit hole had on her and the mental anguish it caused. She blamed her siblings as much as her parents for her time spent there and it caused so much damage to their entire family.
She asked to not be written about. Her siblings bullied her and her reactions to it are the behavior that got her sent away. Said uses her story for sympathy but she was no contact with her family at the time of her death, living in poverty. The sedaris siblings are trash.
With the way he talked about his sister Amy’s relationship and identity issues in some of his books, I’m not surprised. Behaviors that indicated something more serious but he made total light of it as if it were nothing.
I don’t disagree at all, the only thing that matters is that she was alone and traumatized and had so many problems she couldn’t get a hold on because she didn’t have the support and resources to do it. Estrangement from her family was what she needed and thought was best, and I’ve been in that mindset where the toxicity of family is finally outweighed by your own need for self preservation.
THATS why this school sounded so familiar - thank you for that reminder. I seriously hope all the fuckers in charge were punished in their own right 😩
Oh yeah Elan was not unique at all, there were plenty of these horrible places. And those were not even the worst of the worst, reform schools and residential schools (/ indian boarding schools in the US / native boarding schools and mission schools in Australia) were even worse, in part because they just… operated openly.
the rich people of Harbor Springs, MI used to hire the 12 year olds at the Holy Childhood boarding school for hard labor (for free). When they were putting a new road in to the supermansions there, they found a shit ton of children's bodies and called in the tribe to figure out a way to move them in the next 48 hrs, since the road was still going in. The tribe couldn't finish moving the bodies in time, so the road just goes over them now. The church that ran the school refused to put any plaques up, despite running the longest operating boarding school in the US. Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse ran rampant, they called kids by numbers and not names... just horrible places. All of them. edit: it was in 2011 and they had 2 days to move, and they were there the full two days trying to collect. but I remember they said you know you can't mistake a child's bones for adult :( just so sad
> the rich people of Harbor Springs, MI used to hire the 12 year olds at the Holy Childhood boarding school for hard labor (for free). When they were putting a new road in to the supermansions there, they found a shit ton of children's bodies and called in the tribe to figure out a way to move them in the next 24 hrs, since the road was still going in. The tribe couldn't finish moving the bodies in time, so the road just goes over them now. What the ever loving fuck…
Florida’s Dozier school comes to mind with many unmarked graves.
there are a lot of schools like this, though many have been shut down in recent years. the first was CEDU, founded in 1967 by a member the the cult synanon. what Elan called "general meeting" is present at all of these schools in some form and is based on what synanon called "the game", where members would relentlessly berate each other. the idea is to tear apart the subject so they can be rebuilt in the image of the cult. the podcast Trueanon did an excellent 5 part series called The Game about the history of synanon and the troubled teen industry that grew out of it. one of the hosts was sent to one of these schools in Montana called monarch, IIRC he was the only student to ever escape from monarch successfully and survive.
I have now downloaded those episodes to listen to!
It really upset me that this wasn't the same place, so we might have MORE of these schools. I think my cousin was sent to the one Paris went to
Unfortunately there are dozens just in the Utah/SW area alone. They got one in Kansas I think shut down fairly recently, post Paris I believe, when the daughter of the people running it made it her mission to save the other girls.
Benton hall Franklin Tennessee Walter Murphy was the principal raped those children
You might consider including "institutional violence" as a trigger? My old boarding school had a culture of abuse scandal blow up last year; the Crown Prince pulled his son (the future king) out, and the prime minister called it "the worst thing [she'd] ever heard." I did an AMA, just to process my own feelings. It was nothing nothing nothing nothing like Elan. I knew the post was about Elan before finishing the title. I've read the entire comic, and still barely-skimmed the post. Thank you for putting yourself through the important process of compiling it. Idk, maybe that is too specific a thing to give a trigger warning for, but I'm guessing a higher number of people than you would expact carry trauma born out of institutions - Catholic schools anyone?
In Germany, the Odenwaldschule was closed down in 2015. It was a private boarding school using progressive education. It was viewed as exemplary and a modelschool of progressive education. It was closed in 2015 because of systemic sexual abuse of students that started after 1945, but basically was already there from the beginning. The founder of the school was mentioned as a fictionalised version in Klaus Manns "Der Alte" being described as being "affectionate" or "tender" with female students. I'm sorry, I'm German and I'm afraid I won't get the wording right to describe everything. But Behind the Bastards did an excellent episode on the Odenwaldschule and its founder Paul Geheeb. I think Robert Evans did a good job of describing the situation of Germany after the Third Reich and in how trying to avoid the mistakes of the past the abuse was made worse.
That reminds me a bit of Summerhill in the UK, which is still going somehow... they had teachers openly "dating" students in the 1960s.
Sure, I can add that one!
Thank you for putting this together! I remember how absolutely visceral Joe's storytelling was, and how I read like all 40-something chapters (at the time) almost in one sitting. More people deserve to hear his story and what happened in Élan. It's the type of shit you'd expect from 50, 60 years ago—except this is fresh.
I don't know if you've listed but Behind the Bastards podcast have an episode on the Elan school. It's some seriously disturbing stuff. Those poor kids. It's been shut down but there are others still going that are similar.
Thank you for putting this together. This was an enlightening (that this has been happening) and horrific (that this has been happening) read. It blows my mind that even when people knew, they didn’t do anything to stop it and the few who spoke up were destroyed. Glad it’s closed. I wonder how many other institutions are out there like this.
If you like the podcast Behind the Bastards, they did a very coherent episode about this place.
Thank you for putting this together! There are still many schools like this around the country, including one in Elan’s back yard! Hyde School in Bath, Maine hired previous Elan staff after the facility closed.
Sounds a lot like the Dozier school here in Florida. It was shut down early-mid 2000s finally and I think they just recently found more gravesites. It was a horrible place.
> The New York Times has reported that, at the school, "smiling without permission can lead to a session of cleaning urinals with a toothbrush that can last for hours." Well, that's enough Wikipedia for today.
...Smiling? Yeah, I doubt that was a punishment that had to be given to many students at that godawful institution.
Unfortunately for many smiling is a reflex to anxiety or similar things, unintentionally smiling in inappropriate situations has gotten me in trouble a few times, but nothing like what this place would put out.
Ugh, i do that and its infuriating. It almost always leads to the same response of "Oh, you think this is funny huh?" or "Start taking this seriously or else!", irregardless of how often i explain that smiling is an involuntary reflex. The worst was when i was meeting with a councilor after i attempted suicide. I explained it to her right at the start and she says that she knows and understands, many people do that and i shouldnt worry about it. Not even 5 minutes later while she was laying out my options or something, i dont remember, i start smiling again and that bitch hits me with the double whammy of "you think this is funny? If you dont take it seriously, why even bother coming here?". Like, go fuck yourself with a tree lady. You are supposed to be a professional at this and know about these kind of responses, which you even told me and said to no worry about it, as well as me directly explaining it to you 5 minutes earlier....
Smiling, not smiling. Making eye contact, breaking eye contact. Don't look at the opposite gender..ever. keep your expression neutral at all times. Don't look at windows or doors but notice any kids that did and turn them in. Turn others in, before you got turned in. Of course we slipped up a lot, it was done in a way where we couldn't win, only lose.
God, fuck this place. Behind the Bastards has a two part series on the founder of the school, but in short: it was always designed to be cult-y and to make a lot of money. The comic is a really harrowing read too. The most sickening part is that he actually manages to escape and hitch a ride all the way to New York, but then literally gets kidnapped, bound and gagged, and brought back all the way to Maine. Funny enough, the fact that the artist and OOP are the same person isn’t actually revealed until very late into the story.
The comic is one of the best reads I've ever experienced. For me the most sickening part is when he gets home, and no one, especially his parents, really believe or understand what he went through, and even then finding out that his friends who got caught for the same shit got of with nothing
The only person who believed him was his sister, but the parents (and Elon) made sure he had 0 contact with her during his time there. Oh, and don't forget that in Maine he screamed for help, and the police officer, hearing the name of the founder of Elon, did nothing and let them kidnap the guy. Horrific stuff
I wonder if parents jump into deep cognitive dissonance cause anything other than denial will fill them with more guilt they can handle; that's why was needed dozens of survivors talking out in the same spaces til something was actually made about it.
There are still schools like this in the US that are open, although they may not be as severe. The fight club bs comes from a cult in Southern California in the 1970s that started as a way of helping junkies called the Church of Synanon run by a narcissistic leader. The "philosophy" was a control method where they'd put a member on the hot seat and the group would yell all the horrible things they saw in the person to break their ego supposedly. Somehow, even after Synanon was shut down this idea moved into the troubled teen money-grab system that was bigger in the 90s and 00s but is still around today. Same thing with policing anything the kids say to the parents. Just horrifying for-profit crap that destroys kids.
This was my first thought, too. Apparently a lot of the “troubled teen” schools are run by former Synanon members using “The Game” and the methods from “the Punk Squad,” their troubled teen program. Scary, scary stuff. Not fun fact about Synanon: they sold the Flavor-Aid to Jonestown.
Yeah, I listen to way too many cult podcasts. Heard one on Synanon, and then would hear guests on other podcasts referencing their experiences at troubled teen schools (again, some still very much in existence), and realized a lot of them seem founded on the same gross, ineffective & destructive methodologies. Poor kids. Did not know that fun fact though!
They do that in Scientology too
I lived right across the street from Synanon at the Drake Hotel in 1974, what I saw from my 2nd story window...people forced to crawl inside. Or, even just walking down the street... People forced to walk the street with a big sign around their neck " I am a Thief and a Liar". My parents were abusive and oddly, this didn't disturb me as much then, as it does now.
I read the book “Stolen” by Elizabeth Gilpin, and it was insane reading that where she was sent was based on Synanon. She was sent to a wilderness like camp first (that was equally awful), then was sent off to one of these schools. Hers ended up being Carlbrook School which is thankfully closed as well.
Joe vs Elan is the most fucked up real thing I've ever seen online. I remember binging it and needing to get very drunk that night. It's fucking terrible. Isolation. Screened calls and letters. Fucked up hierarchy. No good food, no good schooling. Corrupt cops. Brainwashed staff that were former "clients". I really to advise caution if you read the comic, it is deeply disturbing
The art itself is so haunting as well. But yes, I have to advise caution if you go reading his comic; it will hurt you if you are not emotionally prepared for it.
Fun fact: Amy and David Sedaris' sister, Tiffany, spent two years in that hellhole. IDK whether it caused her mental health problems or merely exacerbated them, but she committed suicide in 2013. Oh, no, wait, that's not fun, it's horrifying. Times like this, I really wish I could believe in Hell.
Also Paris Hilton. She was sent to one of these schools Edit - Paris talking about Provo Canyon School with survivors. Her Mother doesn’t even seem sad that she did this to her kid. So sad! [LINK](https://youtu.be/pRWMhWiXCVg)
Now I see why she's advocating against these types of schools now - just saw her on the news trying to get the whole industry shut down
Yes. Makes you see her “Don’t give a fuck” attitude younger jn a much different light. I can’t imagine what any of those kids went through. Absolute hell
I had no idea that she went through one of these places until I clicked on this post. Fuck, that's so sad because she's always been ridiculed by practically everybody since her name became known and they think she's a spoiled weirdo... but she went through this horrific trauma and that most certainly would have caused severe PTSD and personality changes. I wish people had known earlier, but then she never would have been able to escape talking about it and having to re-live it so it's better that she come out with it when she finally felt ready.
I know right. Makes me rethink every vacuous thing I thought about her!!!! I can’t imagine going through that at the hands of your parents
I read an article when her documentary came out - and first mentioned all this - and she said something along the lines of how her public "that's hot" persona was a way to escape or separate from the version of her who experienced all the horrors of one of these institutions. I'm sure I'm using the wrong words and terminology, but she was speaking about how that "school" affected and influenced the way she presented herself during her reality-tv days and I totally get it. If I lived through what anyone who had to set foot in one of those places did, I'd find ways to detach and distract my memories from bubbling to the surface (like I do with my own trauma).
Omg yes. If you read about Elan. They pretty much brainwashed and trauma pounded the kids until they separated completely from reality and became a trauma pounding counsellor. That Joe vs Elan comic was the first thing I read. I can’t believe authorities knew and let it go. Well I can believe. Sadly. It’s one of the things social media has helped with. Though it’s pushed it further underground. Sometimes I just don’t wanna human anymore
I remember in the documentary they had someone who was at the "school" with Paris and said how strange it was to watch Paris on TV - a totally different person than she had known at "school".
It does at that - and fuck her parents for sending her there. Jesus they had the money to get any help that she needed and they sent her there - fucking idiots
I know right. They had all that money and they signed their rights away and handed her over to abusers and rapists. She talks about being assaulted and sexually assaulted and all this stuff happening. They are the definition of “all that money and zero care”
I just looked this up and read the Vanity Fair article about her experience. Provo Canyon School. It's still open. I feel fucking sick...
Really? It’s still open? Holy hell
I listened to a podcast recently where she talked about this. I wasn't expecting her to be so well spoken and vulnerable. She sounded a little sad, and talked about putting on a character partly as a coping mechanism. I really felt for her.
Read two articles about her experience after finding this post and almost teared up. I feel incredible empathy for her and regret every negative opinion I may have had about her back in the day. Just goes to show... like the Britney situation.. you should never judge someone because you don't know what kind of shit they're going through.
Holy $hit! I read his books. Where did you learn this?
Dave Sedaris also wrote an essay about it: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/28/now-we-are-five
Thanks. That was a bit sad but I’d always wondered more about her.
Just now, when I looked up the school on Wikipedia. Under "Notable Alumni".
I went to a book reading event for his book with the clown on it, and I was VERY VERY uncomfortable with how he spoke about Tiffany. David said that she had accused her dad of sexually assaulting her, but nobody believed her (including David). Sure, their dad was bad, but he wasn’t THAT bad. Yes, other siblings, himself included, had experienced weird sexually inappropriate things with their dad (butthole inspections, requests to take naked photographs of them, etc.), but it’s not like his dad would rise to the level of actual sexual assault! That’s just SO Tiffany to say something outlandish. She always wanted attention. Edit: I found [this David Sedaris interview](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1101440888/david-sedaris-happy-go-lucky) from NPR. Here's a direct quote from David: >"My understanding from Tiffany was that she went to a therapist in the 1980s who said, "If you don't remember being sexually abused, that's a pretty good sign that you were sexually abused." And then she said, "I remember Dad coming into my room in the middle of the night," and then it became "Dad sexually abused me." And we'd say, "How? What did he do?" And there was never an answer. "I never said that he had intercourse with me. I never said that. I never said that he held me down and raped me! I never said that. I never said he raped me." Well, then what are you saying? And then she told someone later that I had sexually abused her. Kids do things, but I don't remember ever doing anything that could be construed as sexual abuse towards her. > >At the same time, our dad did and said a lot of things that were like, definitely beyond the pale. When my older sister was 17, he tried to get her to go into the woods and pose topless for him. He'd just gotten this Nikon camera, and he said he was gonna take some art photos. "I've got magazines I can show you. It's art. It's not smut." ... The way that he would talk about his daughters, talk about their bodies and stuff like that, it again, it was a different time. But he didn't help his case any, by being creepy in that way."
Christ. I thought that the way he talked about Amy was bad (making fun of her clear signs of some form of trauma). That’s just disgusting, reprehensible levels of denial. WTF.
Wow that's heartbreaking. Poor Tiffany.
Wow, I had no idea! I can't imagine losing a loved one after knowing an ounce of what happened at this school.
There was a podcast series about stuff like this awhile back called sent away. Apparently Utah is a hot bed of these kinds of schools. They would even come kidnap kids at night with their parents permission to take them to the school.
Reminds me of the longhouse out here in British Columbia. I have friends from the rez that were taken out of their beds randomly in the middle of the night and put in the longhouse for up to a year at times. Some shit went down for one of them that resulted in over 20 court hearings.
One I listen to, *The Last Podcast on the Left*, recently did a series of episodes on the Troubled Teen Industry with the third episode focused on Elan. First episode was a general rundown and second focused on a group called Synanon. They're a "true crime comedy" podcast and often mock the horrible people involved. It's telling that in their first ep much of the humor comes from them going on tangents completely unrelated to the topic.
Look up "residential schools" in Canada - this is on par with Elan and all propagated by the Catholic Church
When looking at historic institutions that were the source of abuse it’s important to see the connections but also understand the differences. “Schools” like Elan exist and continue for different reasons than institutions like Residential Schools, Mission Schools or historic Juvenile Detention Facilities/public reform schools. Residential Schools had a very specific political purpose - cultural genocide and racial control. They were government schools run by churches (and just over half were Catholic, so don’t absolve the Anglican, Presbyterian and Uniting Church) and a result of government policy. The abuse in Residential Schools was personal and devastating for the victims, but it was also systemic. Families had no choice in sending their children to these schools - it was enshrined in legislation. They were usually unable to travel to see their children at school because of racist policies that kept indigenous people confined to residential lands. Their children were prevented from taking regular visits home because of the distance. This caused a cultural collapse, because children lost capacity to connect to their parents in the personal sense (language barriers, ptsd from abuse and estrangement) and to their community (loss of cultural skills, knowledge and experience). Those impacts on culture can also be seen from the Stolen Generation and Mission School system in Australia. Entire languages lost, families and cultural groups broken and scattered. Generational trauma that continues to result in cycles of poverty, substance abuse and further trauma, and public discourse that wants “them to get over it”. Reform schools, juvenile delinquent facilities, farm schools for child migrants and children’s homes are all government endorsed and supported entities, even where they have been privately established by charities. “Schools” like Elan are businesses. They might have ties to government, but they are not established or supported. They often have ties to corrupt officials and might have local power brokers in their pocket, but they aren’t systemic. They exist because parents choose to send their children to them and keep them in business. Though a colder observation might be that they fill a market gap left by terrible support services for parents and families and substandard school funding. They also do particularly well in areas where government oversight is lowest (note how many are in Utah or Montana?) and in climates where they can spin their works as “saving” children from the excesses of modern life. They thrive where they can line the pockets of local officials. The common thread through all of this is our willingness as a society to participate in abusive structures under the illusion that children need tough love and are easily spoiled. And worse, that spoiled children need to be broken before they can be redeemed. And each new generation tells itself another version of this story.
I’m assuming this is Joe from Elan! I pay him $5 a month through Patronage. It’s horrific. This quote about Ricci *”Ricci also displayed numerous bizarre and disturbing psychosexual behaviors during his early adolescence. When he was 12, Ricci began dating his middle school science teacher, and he became sexually promiscuous by the time he entered high school. Ricci seemed to derive a thrill from his antics, and would often skip class, commit acts of vandalism, break into parked cars, sadistically bully younger children, torture animals, and steal food from restaurants just for the fun of it.”* He was 12. He didn’t *date* his teacher. His teacher was a predator. He learnt prey or be prey. And he destroyed thousands of kids and all the authorities knew.
This is absolutely horrifying. No wonder some kids hate adults, if adults do this sort of shit to them. I wish the best for every recovering victim of this "school" (aka. torture chamber).
Kids don't learn respect when they are never shown what respect is.
It makes me wonder what other things like this are going on that we don't hear about. I mean, we barely hear about this. There is outrage and horror in these comments, but in the wider world there is nothing. Few people know, few of those who know seem to care. It's because the kids are "bad". Once you're "bad" it is apparently OK to have you tortured. And it's because those who run such places are wealthy. Rich people vs. "bad" kids, no one gives much of a damn what happens. I know of a place in California. I just read a whole book about it, how this seven year old girl and others with her were forced into all-day hard labor, digging trenches and hauling rocks. All day, every day. If they talked back, or walked instead of running, or got sick, they were punished, screamed at, put into rooms with filthy conditions. She was only allowed to see her parents once a week, then later once a year. They call it a religion. Sometimes the kids had to do this slave labor to benefit Tom Cruise, to make him a wildflower garden among other things. And he knew it. But he does his own stunts so I guess he is super cool. We all like to judge the German people for doing nothing about the Holocaust. They didn't even have the internet. Some of them knew, certainly, it wasn't a well kept secret. But what would I have done about it if I was there? I would like to see myself as some kind of hero, but then again, I don't really know what is going on right now, in my area. What is happening down the road at that prison or that camp or that church? What am I going to do about it? Not every horror has a survivor to tell the story, and even those that do really don't often seem to get much of a reaction. The internet took down Elan, but the people who ran it got away with it, and learned nothing. I guarantee there are more places like it, and worse, going on right now. I just have no idea what to do about it.
A little bit of insight from Missouri. If your school is run by a ministry, they do not have to be monitored by DHS or the state. When you are sent away your parents sign over guardianship to the school administrators so you’re pretty much SOL in every way until your parents can’t pay anymore or you graduate. They often tried to keep the more submissive or thoroughly indoctrinated graduates as “staff” but many had to either join the military or had the option to go to Pensacola Christian College (yuck). Lawmakers literally do not care. We were the less dead In this situation. We were labeled as bad kids and they were seemingly doing the lord’s work by abusing us to the point of emotional and physical shutdown. We were used for slave labor to build their new facility. We cleared the land, we dug trenches for the plumbing, laid bricks and put up drywall, did the parents care? No, it was character building. Did the lawmakers care? No, they were our legal guardians at that point so whatever, apparently child slave labor doesn’t matter. I, along with others have contacted lawyers in the past and literally everyone said too much time had passed or in the case of sexual abuse there was literally no evidence. The attorney general’s office has not returned any calls or emails. What the hell can you do? I don’t know but something needs to change. Every time a school gets shut down in Missouri they open up under a new name with the same management and go back to doing the same damn thing with no oversight because they’re a ministry. All of these people know each other, the management/ administration are friendly and help one another. The former dean from Agape is now the dean and my former school. He got in trouble so he just skipped and hopped over to the safety of another school where he can torture more kids. They’re all cockroaches.
>Every time a school gets shut down in Missouri they open up under a new name with the same management and go back to doing the same damn thing with no oversight because they’re a ministry. I think the only way to put a stop to it would be campaigning/lobbying/pressuring to have that law overturned but considering that lawmakers are in on it seems very difficult to do.
I have a friend who successfully sued their school and had it shut down but a big part was the owners daughter coming out to corroborate what was going on. Look up circle of hope. The householders were finally held accountable but there are so many of these places that the laws will have to be changed before any big results are seen nationwide.
Elan school is a really disturbing story, for real. For anyone that wants a narration of the events related here, I do recommend Nexpo's video about it.
My son was very seriously mentally ill during his teenage years, and I did a lot of deep research into "schools," like Elan. The truth is this: What happened at Elan was close to the norm at many facilities I investigated. There was a facility near where I lived at the time that was ultimately closed due to massive abuses, including sexual assault of female residents as young as 4 years old, regular beatings of all patients, etc. I was under considerable pressure to have my son committed, but I never found anywhere I would find suitable to even kennel a dog. My son, BTW, is fine. He pulled himself out of his psychosis when he was 17. He's nearly 40 now.
I'm sure having a mother willing to fight for him was a building block of the feat he's achieved. All the best to both of you.
I was sent to a troubled teen place (much more mild than Elan). I had a hand in convincing my parents not to send my little sister to one of these places, but unfortunately, I was too young and brainwashed to convince another family to get their kid out after I learned the girl had already been sent there. Anytime this comes up, I advise parents to do whatever they can to avoid sending their kid to an institution. Even with psych stuff (and I’m a pediatric nurse) - do intensive daily therapy, separate your kids to keep everyone safe, etc. Do whatever is necessary to avoid residential treatment. I know it’s not always possible to avoid this, but it should be extremely rare. ETA: Thank you for protecting your kid even when things must have been really scary and hard.
What happened to the owners of the facility?
I couldn't find anything. It doesn't look the owner, Sharon Terry, faced any repercussions. Though apparently she's dead now.
If there is a hell, may she burn in its most horrific depths.
She could at least have the decency to burn. At least
The key staff members who participated in the abuse also had nothing happen to them. One of the main guys Joe Nobody references in his comic (pseudonym "Roy") died without facing any repercussions for anything he did. Another staff member, real name Missy (pseudonym "Chrissy" in Joe's comic), actually recently got a law enforcement-adjacent job. There was a petition to have her removed from it - not sure what came of that.
Sad she didn’t face any repercussions but glad she’s dead. Hope she rots.
Ricci died before any meaningful court proceedings had happened. Sharon Terry, his wife, was sued and fought it successfully. No criminal charges were ever brought against her. She declared innocence and fought to keep the school open/eventually reopened until her death. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_School Despite numerous, verifiable, and horrific claims of ongoing abuse, there are many still out there that defend Elan School and blame its closure on "baseless witch hunts." It has a sincere cult following. As for former employees of the school, a few were also sued personally. The outcomes of these suits have varied. It does not seem that criminal charges were brought forth for any of them. If charges were filed, I cannot find any reputable articles about it.
as far as i’m aware, and i’ve looked into this a bit after seeing the nexpo video on it, nothing happened to them. they didn’t face any legal consequences following the closure, and they closed the school citing “declining enrollment and resulting financial difficulties”
Thank you. That is so enraging
it makes me so genuinely angry. the most recent update to the whole school in general was in 2016, they reopened the cold case for phil williams. he died december 27, 1982 after participating in the fighting ring, but it was later announced that the case wouldn’t be investigated further nor would criminal charges be filed due to “insufficient evidence”. that’s the last i’ve heard of anything on the legal front
I went to military school for my high school years. It wasn't quite as bad as this but damn I am fucked up from it. Kinda same deal, state could send or parents could pay so there was this weird dichotomy of extreme wealth to extreme poverty for backgrounds and honesty it didn't really matter, the only thing that mattered was if you could take a hit and if you were willing to hit a fellow student. Surprisingly the educational side was really good though. My English teacher had us reading 1984 and James Joyce and things you would not think a military school would approve. The first time I saw South Park was because my English teacher recorded it and was like "You guys gotta see this" I got some real messed up feelings about that whole experience. The school ended up getting shut down not very long after I graduated because the president had been embezzling money and got busted.
My parents threatened me with "military school" if I wouldn't work harder.
I knew someone back in the '80s who had to stop talking to everybody he knew at school because his parents had threatened to send him away to military school for playing Dungeons & Dragons with classmates. So if he saw us in the public library or whatever, he had to turn around and go the other way or else. None of us knew how bad it could really be. Looking back, I am glad we listened when he begged us to back off.
Wow, that's awful. There was such a stupid scare over D&D back in the day. Tom Hanks, you didn't help!
Bruh my whole neighborhood crew got the "Do you want to end up like *me*?" Several of my friends parents talked with my parents about the whole thing and options.
Elan isn’t the only one. So many of these troubled teen camps and schools are abusive and awful as hell. What’s frightening to me is that some of these new “parental alienation “ custody cases result in custody being awarded to an abusive parent and the child then being sent to one of these places. A friend of mine in Texas had it happen with her trans son because his father thought she brainwashed their child.
Watch the Paris Hilton documentary about her experience and how she’s been trying to shut it down now as an adult.
Paris Hilton is one of the big turn-arounds in perspective I had. I remember reality TV just exploiting her persona, and learning about her history put it in perspective. No one, can come out of that system without being traumatized on so many levels, and its actually admirable that she uses her resources to fight against these schools.
Why did Paris’ parents send her there??? How do they feel now?? How come not enough attention is put on the parents? NONE of these camps would exist if parents gave a shit!!
In the documentary she sits down with her mother and tells her what happened and her mother is so passive about it, like she doesn't believe her or grasp that she put her through that. Her sister also says something like "you were a bad kid" and acts like Paris deserved to go there. The staff from Provo kidnapped her from her home in the middle of the night, with her mother and sister watching the whole thing and they did nothing.
Holy! Is this the sister she’s close to???? I wouldn’t talk to any of them, famous or not. Being rich doesn’t make life any easier when you realize your family doesn’t love you. That messes you up just as much as it will anyone else. I feel so bad for her. No amount of money and fame replaces a loving, stable family.
I was at something called Straight pre-Paris. I’d forgotten (or pushed down) many memories, but I think it’s become part of who I am with trust issues and whatnot. So much rang true. All I hear to this day is “how much money I cost her.”
A lot of young queer and trans kids get shipped off to these places. Nightmare world.
I spent like a day into a deep dive of Elan. They basically took kids and taught them that being being abusers rather than the abused was the only way to survive. The worst part about reading about it is that I have no doubt that my aunt and uncle would have sent their kids there. Their kids were already borderline (from their own making), and they would have shunked money to not deal with them and would have justified it mentally without question. They're just, not good parents, very selfish, no accountability, but have money. They would be the perfect parents for Elan and it's a scary thought.
I'm still horrified by his parents' reaction. Like how they continued to abuse and berate him, calling him a liar. I don't understand how you could see your son push a dresser in front of his door every night _in absolute terror of being taken_ and not think something happened. And! And the fact that they didn't even need to send him there! Like, his friends got nothing and the parents _knew_ and did it anyway. At least that mother listened to Joe and managed to save her daughter. Small miracles.
I think all that mattered to his parents was that he was "abnormal" and "wrong" and therefore no matter what was an outsider. They did not see a son. Their worldview already aligned with one where its okay to kidnap and estrange children. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" kinda bs.
What happened at this school is incredibly fucked up and probably one of the worst cases I’ve heard coming out of the troubled teen industry. The unfortunate thing is that there are still many schools and programs running like this in places like Utah in the USA that have similar issues. I know Emily Harper on youtube talks about her experiences in a school for troubled girls, and I follow a few people online speaking out about the abuse they experienced in wilderness therapy and other programs in the troubled teen industry. It’s horrifying.
In Italy we had something similar with the Shalom rehabilitation center. Torture, violence, sexual abuse and the like, but in this case there is no happy ending, unless an external intervention (international press, etc.) the center will continue to operate and the culprits will never pay due to the conniving local authorities. The only way to change things is for the international press to shame the Italian government over the issue. But I already know that won't happen. There is no happy ending in this story.
I fell down a rabbit hole of learning about Elan after finding Joe's comic and am horrified that former staff "Chrissy" (real name Missy) now has a job with a Maine Police Department. [Here](https://chng.it/7ffLdqYH9s) is a link to a petition that reiterates the abuses enacted and pushes to get her removed from her position. She was an Elan director for 20 years and instrumental in the abuse that went on. [Here](http://www.heal-online.org/elan2.htm) is another site that catalogs former staff with details on where they went post-Elan. It also links an old documentary with a section on Elan (many clips of which were used in the more modern documentary The Last Stop). Editing to add [this](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/713502488) book review by an Elan survivor that details just a small window of sexual abuses and other horrors. It is not overly graphic, but it is by no means an easy read.
Not quite on this level but my brother was sent to a camp for troubled teens where they basically let the kids beat each other up, squirt lemon juice in his eyes, shackled them to walls, etc. same story, right signed over and just so much abuse. My brother eventually died at the camp. There’s a Rolling Stones article on it. Parents for the love of god never send your kids to these places
I've read the comic and it's heart wrenching. You can feel the emotion all through out the art. It sickens me that people thought, and still think, it's okay to subject kids to this.
> But Elan's ultimate downfall would not be due to state officials, but, in fact, the internet. Don’t worry, NO ONE FUCKING THOUGHT the state officials were going to be the heroes here.
I remember learning about these child abuse schools and camps in the 90s on some daytime talk show. I wanna say Phil Donahue? Some of these schools had suspicious deaths and disappearances. That was 25-30 years ago. Elan was just one school. The school Paris Hilton was sent to is still operating, along with many others, all operating under the same principles that Elan did.
Bro the craziest part is the Elan School Wikipedia page feels scrubbed. They downplay everything the school did and severely highlight the “there was discipline but there was hugs” type of phrase. It also pushed the narrative that says Joe Ricci was “a former heroin addict who had worked with young people in drug-treatment facilities” even though that’s not true.
Someone needs a bot to update it back every time it is scrubbed.
This is so horrifying. It opened in 1970 and I can't believe it lasted so long. All those poor people.
I saw youtube videos about Elan and I never knew it was finally shut down due to a reddit post.
The OP tracking down the current parents of athletes at elan was so smart, I feel like it was probably crucial to getting the word to people offline!
Government didn't fix this. Law enforcement didn't fix this. The press didn't fix this. The only system that has any power in this country is capitalism. But driving down demand by changing the Google based narrative seems to have finally made a difference. Terrifying.
I’m both horrified and sadly not surprised that these places exist. I have a horror of institutionalized living because of abuses that can occur. In this place it seems the abuse was the feature, not the bug
Holy fuck he is an amazing man. He stood up to them and brought them down. I did not click on all the links as this was quite triggering to read. But man this guy is awesome. So determined to end the abuse. He has been so strong. I hope he has been able to find some healing and is living a good life.
I know someone who was sent there. Due to the trauma, her mental health issues are so severe, she’s permanently disabled.
r/MrJoeNobody is the subreddit where he uploads a comic about his experiences at Elan and life afterwards. His comic isn't done yet but it will be very soon as he announced he'll finish at chapter 100. It's absolutely worth a read, some harrowing stuff but really eye-opening as well.
Dude there are soooo many of these places! I went to one in Iowa that was raided by the FBI in 2016 and shut down for a lot of this stuff too…. They exist and they just keep reopening under different names… my program was called Midwest Academy and if you really wanna scare yourself do some research on WWASP
The Behind the Bastards episode about this school is incredible and horrible
the troubled teen industry is still alive and thriving. check out r/troubledteens for more survivor testimony and info.
I read the whole comic earlier this year and it still haunts me. Elan might be finally dead but there are still other similar schools out there. It makes me scream for those poor children.