to the original poster:
thanks you for sharing that with us, although you shared this long ago. i read this as one of the first threads i read on fornits. i was saddened. i even emailed it to mr. bragg b/c maybe he could remember the incident and you and know you weren't lying and if you were ever brough up in conversation as a liar, he could say something. another senior at bath i met happened to read this too, he had done the same thing that i had done.
i don't like the whole battling out atmosphere on this site. i wish it could just be a place to share your experiences, good and bad. b/c it is a therapeutic thing to do. i hope others are able to post something as difficult and hate-enducing as this memory was without trying to bash hyde.
Part of the original post.......
If I didn't have my father...
I would have ended up in foster care, and the foster care system here--at least from what I've heard of it, from what I understand--is, to put it lightly, hell. My father HAD to get me into SOME kind of school program, quick, or he was going to lose me... Like I'm sure most parents do, he did a lot of searching, consulted some people, blah blah...and decided on Hyde. I do believe that he wanted the best for me, and Hyde looked the best to him...but
he couldn't afford it... SO
he went to court to get the life-insurance money (left in my name from my mother dying),
to pay for Hyde.
That said...
Hyde put me back on grade level as a freshman. For that, I am extremely thankful.
HOWEVER
Did I get the help I needed? No. At that point in my life, (I can admit now that) I was a pretty disturbed individual. I had no desire to do anything. In the morning, I didn't want to wake up; I wanted to sleep forever, and I physically couldn't sleep at night without six or seven Xanax, minimum.
I needed serious psychological HELP. Instead, I recieved MORE psychological DAMAGE.
At Hyde, I picked up the habit of cutting myself, a practice I learned from fellow students. My reality became even more distorted. I was made to feel inferior. I was isolated, and, at the age of 14 (through 15) utterly ALONE, an object... I did not feel human. The Xanax was taken away cold turkey, with no kind of therapy at all. Food became my replacement for this; at mealtime I would eat as much as possible, because it was all I had to comfort myself, and then I was made to feel inferior/disgusting about my body (mostly BY STAFF); I eventually developed a mild eating-disorder which, chances are, would NOT have developed in a HEALTHIER environment.
Post-traumatic stress? Instead of recovering from that, or even reckognizing that I was suffering from it, I got traumatized again...cold bathroom floor and all the words that followed... Instead of healing, I got fresh wounds. Every day I felt trapped, hopeless, abandoned and misunderstood. Most of my peers (majority of which were rich, much older kids, coming from a totally different culture) looked down on me and abused me. Most of the staff (though one or two did genuilely care/make attempts at helping me without really knowing how) stopped ignoring me ONLY to chastise and humiliate. (My already-unhealthily-low self-esteem became almost non-existant.)
I do believe that (though many succesful Hyde students are simply good actors, caught in a sadomasohistic script)...Hyde does work for some people...the keyword there being "some". There ARE certainly a FEW kids who have actually been helped by it. But that isn't enough to justify the damage it has done (and continues to do) to others, to kids like me. It has taken me years of therapy just to understand and begin to get past this, to be able to write about it now.
To the "Guest" who originally posted her trauma at Hyde,
I want to tell you how sad I feel for you and how much I can relate to this. I would like to correspond with you in a "private message" if that is ok. I think that maybe we can help each other. I get the feeling you don't know how to set up a way to do this. You need to sign up for a name. You do not have to use your name. You can call yourself whatever you want. No one will be able to get in touch with you outside of this board. You can check for private messages whenever you want to sign in.
You did NOTHING WRONG at Hyde. You were innocent, naive and a part of you wanted and needed the attention you thought you would get from this guy who took advantage of you. You then were made to feel shame. The shame is with Hyde for accepting you into their program to begin with. For knowing your father had to take your trust money to pay for this so called character school. This is not your father's fault. Hyde told us that they could help our daughters self esteem and instead they destroyed it. It is great that you are writing about your experiences here for the sake of other girls who might be considering Hyde and come to this board. Unfortunately I don't have high hopes that Hyde will try to change. They have never taken responsibility for the wrongs they commit.
PLEASE sign up for a name on this board so I can then private message you.
As far as Billy, thank you for bringing this to the attention of the person at Hyde who had something to do with this. I hope he doesn't come back to you and just slander the poor girl which would be typical of Hyde. Point is that Hyde has emotionally damaged many people. Whether these people already had problems or not is not the point. It is wrong to take in kids who need psychological counseling and put them in Hyde's seminars. It is downright dangerous and detrimental to them.
