Note: In responses to some of the responses to my post, I feel compelled to make a clarification: Benchmark was the WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.
Everything that I have achieved, everything that I have succeeded at since then has been IN SPITE of Benchmark (with the exception of one or two staffers who regularly broke the rules to help me).
I saw people try to commit suicide there. I saw staff having inappropriate relationships with students. I learned to hate myself and never trust anyone ever.
PLEASE PLEASE UNDERSTAND that my original post (below) IN NO WAY is a post in support of Benchmark.
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I don't think that the people at Benchmark were evil--in fact, I think they were able to do as much damage to as many people as they did precisely because they were people utterly convinced that they knew what they were doing. Most atrocities are committed by people who think that they are actually doing something good.
I have recovered relatively well from Benchmark, I think. I completed an undergraduate degree, with honors, as well as a two-year MA and I am currently a fully-funded PhD candidate at a top university. I have come to terms with most of the things that I have done and survived in my life, but I will say this--of the horrible things I have done, and that have happened to me, the one that I CANNOT accept, the one that I CANNOT forgive, and the one that I still CANNOT understand as benefiting me is my experience at Benchmark. From a teenage girl with little experience with sex, I became a promiscuous teenage girl who desperately wanted anyone to care for me. From a teenage girl who was terrified by the world around me, I became a hard teenager who accepted infidelity in my partners, deceit from my friends and family, and manipulation from the world around me, as perfectly normal.
I do not say that the staff as Benchmark wanted to do this, but it does not really matter what they wanted to do: this is the result of their actions. To this day I am terrified in my gut of ever being in a position where anyone has any power over me--I cannot trust that any good can emerge from such a situation, a reaction that is a direct result of what I experienced at Benchmark. I am still in therapy, and hopefully someday I will be able to resolve my trust issues.
For parents: Benchmark did not accommodate religious or educational needs of students, and in cases where students expressed such needs parents were rarely contacted to ascertain whether or not the student was in earnest. Your child will emerge from Benchmark more damaged than when you sent them in.
For Benchmark staff: Please, PLEASE consider whether you really believe that what you are doing is right, and whether you really are so absolutely sure of yourself and your purity of purpose that you are willing to impose your own opinions on people placed in your care. Please, PLEASE remember that certitude precedes arrogance, and arrogance abuse, by only the slimmest of margins. Sometimes, please, question yourself, and perhaps you will do less damage to those in your care than the staffers that I lived under did to me.
I think of the students still trying to survive Benchmark every day, and my hopes, prayers and thoughts are with them.
