Sure, I'll try to keep this short.
I was in AARC for slightly over one year and like most I never wanted to be there. I'd been told that I could not leave because I was underage and if I tried I would be restrained and set back. Later on social services informed me that there was not supposed to be any age limit and AARC had no right to restrain anyone or keep us from leaving.
A few months in I started to abide by the rules or as the term goes "fake it till you make it", which is easier said than done. It meant I had to change my personality completely. I wasn't good at faking tears on demand so I had to put myself in an altered state and try to beleive that I felt the things that they wanted to feel. I had to make myself believe that I was happy when they wanted me to be happy, or angry, or "hurt" or whatever the acceptable emotion for the step was. Though I thought I was only hiding myself not loosing myself I lost very much of myself. Being in raps for anywhere from six to thirteen hours a day autamatically changes you. The way you talk, the way you act, the way you feel, the way you think. Do you ever question the excess?
Though a bit niave I was a very brave young girl. I didn't care about what other people thought of me, I didn't question myself in a negative way, I was self evaluating, I didn't need to fit in, I didn't keep deep secrets or get embarrassed easily. All that changed by the end of AARC. Having been critisized and yelled at all year taught me to fear everyone and taught me to critisize myself terribly. I deffinately lost innocence in AARC. I had never been exposed to such dishonesty and brutality as I was in AARC. Verbal venom is the only way to describe what I experienced.
As a part of step one I had to admit (and not just say it but cry and all to prove that I really meant it) that I was the result of my families destruction. If you knew my family you would be utterly repulsed, or at least should be. What a terrible thing to have a child say. And Talks only feeds all of that. If the child doesn't feel singled out or targeted in the family already, Talks will do the trick. No regualr communication at all, just targetting the one member of the family as having the problem.
I hardly had a sexuality at that age, but was accused of all sorts of "sick" sexual issues. The things that I witnessed in Girls Rap were worse than pornography. I clearly recall a girl describing being gang raped at a party and the "counselor" and the group telling her that if she hadn't been such a drunk she wouldn't have gone to the party and none of it would have happened, therefore it was her fault for the rape. I believe the girls was 14 or 15 at the time of the rape. I'm still scarred from having to hear such hatred, I can only imagine how the girl feels.
I kept contact with a lot of graduates (considered healthy ones) for a fair amount of time after AARC. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM said to me at one time or another "I know AARC is a cult" or "I feel like I've been brainwashed" but yet all of them returned to the AARC circle, to staff, or never left it at all. They were so afraid of the outside world, or some of them had tried their hardest at school or jobs but could no longer fit in and so gave in an adapted. The same staff I've seen publically promoting AARC have told me how much they hated it. I eventually abandoned all of my graduate friends so that I would never end up that way, even though I loved some of them (and still do).
The longer I'm away and the more I grow up and can see things in a better perspective, the more I am shocked about what I experienced there. At the time all that I could think about was getting out. It was a huge part of my developement, and so thinking of messed up teens as "defected" and "sick" seemed so normal to me for a long time. I am very glad to say that today I don't speak to anyone in the manner I had to speak to newcomers in AARC every single day. I'm doing very well considering the things that I have been through not only with AARC but with my family, though I've put a lot of work into dealing with it and it is still a struggle.
I think in order for you to understand what it is like for your son in AARC, you'd have to put yourself in his shoes. What if you were sent into AARC or lets say a prison of sorts and you were never given a proper trial for it? What if you didn't get any chance to appeal it? What if you were denied your civil rights and given no approximate time as to when you'd get out? What if instead of being able to go to your cell and absorb all of this you were stood in front of a room of strangers who don't know one thing about you but still look delighted as they raise their hands to call you dirty names and accuse you of things you'd never done? If I said "You are a child molester" and you are not, would you bo okay with agreeing with me for a year or two just to get away? You have no idea what your son might confess to that he never did, or what he may be accused of doing.
The most disgusting article I ever read on AARC quoted a mother who said she'd severed contact with one of her sons in order to stick to the program and save her son in AARC. She said "But it's a small sacrifice". I hope that you don't ever consider loosing one of your kids as a "small sacrifice" because I doubt anyones kids would find it "small" for their parents to abandon them. So perhaps that is what Kilgore has been fearing. Please read up on programming and brainwashing, I'm sure things will look familiar. Perhaps I'll post some on here.
Take care,
Velvet.
