My name is Jessica.
I was imprisoned in Casa by the Sea from 1999 to 2001. I know that my dad had heard about WWASP from a coworker at his place of employment at the time, which was a Christian organization. Apparently, this coworker had a son that had gone through Paradise Cove. I don’t know if they ever saw the exquisite brochures that WWASPS put out to advertise with their tropical jungles and kids romping in waterfalls, but somehow they were convinced and managed to miss any warnings about these programs.
One morning in early November, two trench coat wearing, agent-looking people (a tall guy and a shorter woman) came into my room at about five or six in the morning. I had never seen them before, and, just being woken up, I didn’t know what was going on. They picked up my jeans, removed my cigarette lighter and chain wallet, and then they told me to get dressed and come with them. I didn’t panic. I figured this was just something about some petty offense I might have committed. I went with them, and couldn’t quite figure out why my mom seemed to be a little more emotional than usual as she gave me a last hug goodbye. We drove to the airport and boarded a plane. After a change of planes (I forget whether it was St. George or Las Vegas), we flew to San Diego and jumped in a van. My escorts actually treated me decently. They didn’t handcuff me since I was cooperating, and gave me plenty of cigarettes to keep me occupied. I did ask them at one point where I was going, and they told me it was sort of like a vacation-type school where I could learn things without being distracted by the rest of everyday life. So automatically I pictured a sort of school on the side of the beach, where I was going to be with other students and possibly take a stroll or otherwise hang out down by the beach. AC/DCs “Highway to Hell” came on the radio shortly after that. I should have taken it as an omen.
I slept in the van on the last leg of the journey. I didn’t awake until we were driving through these huge red gates to a complex surrounded by 18-ft high walls. Groggy, I stepped out of the van as my escorts were carrying on a conversation with one of the authorities named Luke. As I looked around trying to take in the scene of what would be my “home” for more than two years after this, I took a few steps and Luke said, “Where are you goin?”
I didn’t have much time to even know what to answer before I was led away by this other girl and a Mexican staff member. There was a row of trailers at the far end of the lot, which were dormitories. I was led to the bathroom in the back of the trailer, where an American nurse strip-searched me and checked me out to make sure I didn’t have anything funny. Then my regular clothes, jewelry, and shoes were taken from me to be stored away in another building next to the basketball court called “confo”. There, possessions sat until they were either sent home or the teen graduated. In return, I was given a white T-shirt that said C.B.S., a pair of navy blue sweats, and a pair of flip flops to wear. That was our uniform. No one was allowed to wear anything else until they earned the privilege on upper levels. Until then, there was no jewelry, watches, calendars, shaving, or makeup, and we weren’t even allowed to look in mirrors. Girls that had mohawks or other wild haircuts had their heads shaved. Lower levels had to keep their hair up at all times as well. And no long nails were permitted. We were to be robots; all looking alike and thinking alike, even though our situations for which we had been placed in this facility were all ranges of the gray scale between black and white. Some were meth heads or junkies, some were depressed or otherwise mentally plagued, and some had done nothing except have a slight disagreement with their parents. One girl I knew who was raised Amish (and honestly was innocent and hadn’t dabbled in drugs or anything like others of us had,) told me that she had been sent because she decided she wanted to be a teenager and wear M.U.D.D. jeans. Nonetheless, we were all automatically judged as bad. We were all prejudged; after all, to end up in a place like this we MUST have done something bad…
After everything that I owned was taken away, I was matched up with a “buddy” named Suzie who was going to show me the ropes. The girls facility was broken up into several different groups, that the jargon called “families”, which were given names there was Alliance, Courage, Esteem, Glory (which used to be upper levels but was later reinstated as Gratitude), Integrity, and Essence (the upper level group). These groups consisted of one Mexican woman for a staff member (some “mamas” knew more English than others, but only just a few seemed to be decently fluent), and often between 20-30 girls. The whole thing was based on a level system, 1-6. Lower levels (1-3) got the fewest privileges. Once we acquired 100 points, we reached level 2 allowed a chocolate bar occasionally. That was the only difference between level one and two. We had to raise our hand and ask permission to do ANYTHING. We had to ask to sit, stand, eat, go to the bathroom, talk, enter a room, and many other simple things you get used to doing on a regular basis as a reflex. We had to go everywhere with everyone in a single file line. There was to be no looking out windows or out of line for fear you were planning to run away). Our facility that we were in was split, with the girls’ facility on one side and the boys’ facility on the other. We had the dumpster on our side. When the boys came over to dump their trash, we all had to look down. We were not even allowed to glance at the opposite sex. No communication of any kind was supposed to take place between level 1 and 2 people. To talk to a level 3 (even to say a few words), we had to ask permission and have a staff member or upper level listen to us at all times no matter what. Plus, it had to be “on task” and referring to whatever the issue was at hand. “war stories” (stories of our lives before the program) and even general conversation was forbidden (Even on the fateful day of September 11, 2001, we were called to a facility meeting by Jade. He told us that a couple planes had flown into and brought down the World Trade Center in a terrorist attack, but we were forbidden to talk about it. Immediately the girls from New York started crying in their worry and anxiety; they were allowed no connection to the outside world or any way of finding out if their family and loved ones were ok, nor were they even allowed to vent their concerns. We were essentially ordered to forget it and move on with program life.) Sure, we were in a group and surrounded by others, but without communication allowed except for necessities, we were completely isolated. It got even worse for the kids that acted out here and there to get attention. These girls were deemed “attention sucks”, and put on the silent challenge. For this, the girl is not to talk or have contact with anyone except for dire necessities. The rest of the group is held to it as well, and anyone who acknowledges the existence of the girl on silent challenge is punished.
When we did need to ask for something, we had to do it in Spanish. Speaking full English was forbidden; it was considered run plans because the staff might not know enough English to know what we were really saying. There was no privacy; all of us were watched 24 hrs a day with no exceptions. I was on suicide watch, which means I didn’t just have to have someone go with me, but watch me with the door open when I used the restroom. No privacy allowed. The only place that I was allowed to vent or have any privacy was supposed to be my journal, or so they told me. Later on, they confiscated it because I had been very negative (Duh!) with the things that I had written in it, and someone had gone through it and not liked what they saw.
The only times that we WERE allowed to talk were in monthly seminars and once a day for group (in which we were supposed to open up our deepest secrets about ourselves to people we don’t know, and then get “feedback,” which was to learn the art of telling everyone bluntly what all their flaws are in order to break them down. You were also expected to be open enough to take and swallow it). This was also the rare time when you could get a hold of your family representative (the one filtering connection between you and your parents). If you needed something that you thought was necessary and it was deemed ok by the program, (new flip-flops, a hairbrush, blanket, etc.) you had to let your family rep know. Then she would let your parents know on the once-in-awhile phone calls she had with them. Even then, it would often be a long time before you saw what you asked for (even for things like getting permission to have your hair trimmed). Each week we were required to write a letter home and tell our parents our progress. We weren’t to tell anything that was negative about the place or we got in trouble. We weren’t supposed to say anything about how we were being maltreated. If for some reason we did, the family rep covered it up or essentially pawned it off as yet another lie we were telling. I have seen letters with black lines on them, and even though I seldom saw such things in my letters, I have found sticky notes from our rep on some of my letters to my parents as though correcting what I have said. I never heard the phone calls that went on between her and my parents. Even when I was able to talk to them a long while afterwards about some of the things that happened in this place, they either acted as though this was all normal, or like they didn’t believe me. Either way, I strongly suspect that the truth was well-covered up or skewed before it reached my parents’ ears. After all, we were troubled teens and all of us were labeled liars no matter what, which was easily used against us. We weren’t allowed any phone access ourselves until level 3, which consisted of a quick, closely-monitored phone call once a month. I didn’t hear my parents’ voices for more than a year.
On level 3, a few privileges were earned back. Level 3s were finally allowed to wear a watch, and with permission could talk to anyone as long as a staff member was present to listen. However, in order to get there, not only did one have to have 500 points, but also had to be “voted up” by everyone else in the group. If the individual “going up” for level three was seen as undeserving by the rest of the group according to their opinions, the individual was not allowed to progress in their program until everyone in the family group approved.
On level 4, we were considered junior staff members. By then we were deemed “programmized” enough by our seminars and our militant rule-keeping that we were then allowed to enforce the rules on lower levels and other upper levels. Privileges like shoes, mirrors, shaving, some makeup, and some jewelry were finally earned back (as long as it was nothing extravagant or more than two piercings or one necklace), as well as being able to go from place to place around the girls facility by ourselves without being closely watched. We had to be voted up to this level as well, not just by family, but also by a group called “student council” that consisted of levels 5 and 6 in the upper level group.
Levels 5 and 6 were transition, or kids considered good enough eventually to go back into the real world. They were allowed a phone call twice a month and, shortly before going home, were allowed a visit by their parents. By this time, we were allowed limited wear of civilian clothes, and got to go off grounds (once a month for level 5 and twice a month sometimes for level 6), which means we were allowed to go outside the walls under guard of a staff member to have a treat like fast food or some kind of field trip. Even to meet these special privileges, one had to have a perfect record for the week, with no rules broken. I never saw an off grounds activity, nor did I ever reach level 6.
The discipline was arranged into categories 1-5 depending on the severity of the infraction. When someone was caught breaking a rule, they had to go to the staff member for a “consequence” form to fill out. On the top was the time and code for the infraction. On the lines below we had to write, “I am taking responsibility for….” And then below that we had to write what we would do in the future to avoid breaking the rule again before signing it on the bottom line (plus, even if it was a basic rule that didn’t require the whole five lines for the description or the correction, we still had to figure out some dramatic way of dragging it out. If we didn’t use all five lines, we got another consequence on top of it for “unsatisfactory effort”). There was also a “staff-correction” form for when someone refused to take responsibility for breaking a rule, like if there was nothing they could do to prevent a rule infraction. This took off more points. For Category 2 and above infractions, we had to spend time in worksheets. The larger the infraction, the longer the time spent there. Some of us spent nearly our whole program here; most of us on average I would say spent about our first three months there (not necessarily because of a huge violation, but because of all the simple rules that could be broken just by doing little things you were always used to doing without permission to do so). Worksheets was a place that started out in a cubicle where we had to sit up straight in a hard chair with our feet together flat on the floor. It doesn’t seem too big of an issue normally, except that we had to lock ourselves in this position sometimes for hours on end. This for me was trying and uncomfortable to my back (and note that in their own rule book while I was there they said that they would not use “prolonged uncomfortable positions” as punishment). If we slouched or moved our feet absent-mindedly, it meant more time in worksheets. Originally we were allowed to do schoolwork, but eventually that changed to sitting on the floor in one of the trailers. This position that we had to hold was cross-legged on the floor with our spines rigid and our palms flat on the floor by our hips with our fingers pointing back for hours at a time. We were no longer allowed to do schoolwork. Instead, we had to listen to books on tape from the “100 Greatest Books” series. They were all long novels like Carmen, A Tale of Two Cities, The Canterbury Tales, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Beowulf, Dante’s Inferno, and others. After listening to the whole book on tape, we had to take a short quiz on the book and write our answers in crayon on a piece of paper. If we missed more than maybe just one of the questions, that meant more time in worksheets.
Category 1 infractions included sitting or standing without permission, rude acts or manners (including not “con permiso” when passing someone up to five feet away), disrespect of staff (if it’s considered a minor offense), neglect, unsatisfactory effort, goofing off, minor disrespect of property, talking about general life outside of the program (considered ‘off task”), poor attitude, being late, and other minor infractions. They took away one point if student-corrected, and four if it was staff-corrected.
Category 2 infractions took fifty points; eighty if it was staff corrected. These would be handed out for things like major disrespect, blatant rule violations (code 212, one of the favorites of the staff. They could nail you with this one for almost anything. Even level one infractions were often turned into BRVs when the staff thought we deserved it. Because we all had a rule book and could read the rules, we obviously “had to” know all of them and even an occasional accidental infraction could result in it since we knew the rule and “chose” to break it as though we meant to do it), shutdown violation (being up, talking, or doing anything else at all after bedtime), going outside of the permitted area within the walls, talking about running away, failing in school, trend (10 cat 1 consequences within the week), dishonesty, bad attitude, etc. For this, not only did we have to fill out the paper, but also spend an hour (maybe longer?) in worksheets.
Category 3 consequences were handed out for things like fighting, disrupting worksheets, vandalism, tattooing or piercing, cheating, theft, breaking confidentiality (like exposing seminar processes to those who have not been through them yet) and refusal to eat. This involved the loss of not just points but two whole levels instead. We then would have to work our way all the way back up to where we were before.
Category 4 consequences were given for sexual misconduct (even masturbation), runaway plans, alcohol, drugs, or tobacco use. Being the second most major infraction, students lost all levels and had to start over on level 1.
Category 5 consequences were the most serious. They were given for only three infractions: running away, out of control, or self-inflicted injury. This could mean lots of worksheets time (which would be the most generous thing they would do along with dropping the violator back to level one). This only seemed to happen occasionally, however, for most of the girls that I saw get a cat. 5 consequence disappeared and only sometimes came back. Despite the claim of the owners that WWASP wasn’t involved with it, we had been threatened by the administration at Casa by the Sea that we would be going to a place called “High Impact” if we didn’t straighten up and work the program. Often, especially for those who tried to run away, High Impact was their destination. If some passed the tortuous test at that grueling camp (which was shut down for abuse shortly before Casa was), they were allowed to return to Casa. For others, it was a trip to yet another WWASP facility in Jamaica, Tranquility Bay.
For those that physically hurt themselves, and also the ones deemed “out of control” (which sometimes meant girls got physically violent due to the unbearable pressures there, or they so much as started yelling or screaming in frustration but didn’t actually harm anyone), there was R&R. This was “Room Restriction”, where girls were forced to lay on their front on the ground with their hands at their sides and their chin to the floor. They were not allowed contact with staff or anyone else except to quickly eat or use the bathroom. They were sometimes in these positions for days to months. To get them in the position, they were restrained, often tackled to the floor, and pinned down by Jade, Jason, or Luke (the physically powerful men who made up our administration). I’ve forgotten now who exactly of the administration did what, but I have seen them sit on girls to hold them down. I have also seen them put a knee in their back and pull their arms up behind to gain full control until it caused pain, all the while screaming and yelling at them. Then there were the rug burns that resulted as well. One girl I knew, Natasha, had constant huge, black scabs from having her face ground into the floor. As we went around the facility on task and doing are regular robotic work, we often heard screams coming from the trailer at the end of the girls’ side where R&R was held.
Running away was considered to be the most serious violation. For the girls who go caught, it was a straight ticket to High Impact and then usually Tranquility Bay. When one girl runs away, the whole facility gets punished. The first “code red” (code for runaway) happened about a month after I arrived at the program. In the early morning light (I believe it was right before dawn) the whole girls’ facility was urgently woken by the staff and marched outside to count off in a line on the blacktop. The next thing I knew, Jason was pacing back and forth in front of us, yelling and screaming at us because this girl ran away and escaped the walls. He was yelling about how he had had to drive around Ensenada looking for her and was going to screw the windows shut in the dorm trailers so that they wouldn’t open anymore. He was treating us as though we were all accomplices that were in on it and helped her escape even though we had no idea that it even had happened, and nor could we have done anything to prevent it. For this infraction (which nobody had committed), Jason had our Mexican staff members lead us to the seminar room. There, the upper levels were sat down in lines in the middle of the room in the cross-legged worksheets position. All the lower levels were circled around the perimeter of the room, and made to stand up straight with our feet together and stare straight at the carpet and stucco wall. This lasted for about eight hours (maybe longer; I didn’t have a watch, remember). After this long amount of unstimulating time, tissue in my knee was very sore and tender for a few weeks after standing so long in one rigid position. Girls were given inadequate bathroom breaks. I remember at least one wet herself. For lunch we were served only beans and rice, and forced to eat them with our hands alone. I don’t know if they ever even found the girl. We weren’t allowed to talk about it.
Other than just constantly having to raise my hand for everything, there were other strict rules to be noted. Anywhere we went we walked in a line. We ere arranged shortest to tallest (except for the honorary assistant and family “leaders” that got to walk in the front and the back). We were not allowed to look outside the line or speak in line (except the requirement of saying “con permiso” when we passed anyone). We had to ask to leave the line. If a “family” was feuding and negative with each other, the “rope challenge” was imposed. This consisted of a very rough, sisal chain gang-style rope, with a bunch of loops tied in it every two feet or so. We had to wear it on our ankle all day from when we woke up to when we went to bed. With all the walking around in nothing flip-flops, the rope quickly ate into my heel.
We had a water bottle that we were to keep with us at all times. If we left it behind (or anything else we were supposed to have at the time), we got in trouble for neglect. We were not allowed to pass notes as they were strictly-enforced run plans). We received nightly pat-downs (unwanted physical contact) because we were not allowed to bring pens into our dorm trailers or restrooms (to get caught for this was a cat.2). We could only hug or have physical contact with permission. We were not allowed to sit on the same bed as another girl at the same time (it was considered an inappropriate relationship). If the ball bounced off of the blacktop, we had to have a staff member watch us to go get it. We had to shower everyday, and had to do it on a timer within 10 minutes. Sometimes we had no hot water, and oddly, at times we had no cold water (thankfully they didn’t force me to scald myself). In the beginning when I got there, we showered in the stalls at the ends of our trailers. However, when they built the new classrooms in the second year I was there, they built cinderblock showers down below the classrooms on the first level. With no doors, these were completely exposed. Hardly any rule breaking ever went unpunished, as our way to appear honorable and responsible to get up the levels was to rat each other out. It didn’t matter whether there was an accidental slip or it was done on purpose; all that mattered was that the rule had been broken.
As if memorizing and following all the rules wasn’t hard enough, they also took the advantage of changing the rules. Sometimes, they would play dirty little tricks on us like giving us permission to do something and then turn around after we did it and accuse us of doing it without permission. When a good part of my levels out of there depended on a point system and I lost points for such circumstances that I couldn’t avoid, I was confused and upset just like they wanted. It was yet another way to play with our heads and break us down. Yes, there was a grievance system in place as a prop to try and make us feel as though justice would be served in some way. However, we were expected to be “accountable” for everything that had to do with us, and we were expected to be responsible even for the things that we had no control over. Even if I was accused of something and told my side of the story to prove my innocence, they would start some argument along the lines of, “Well, what did you do to make them think you did this?” Therefore, whatever happened to us (even at the hands of someone else) was our fault.
Our normal day consisted of getting up very early in the morning (I again don’t know the time for sure, but I would say 6:30-7:00 a.m. We had to get up, change into our uniforms, and then clean. We had to scrub the bathrooms and showers, and sweep the carpet with a broom (I heard a rumor that a vacuum cleaner existed, but I never saw one). If there was any dirt or even a hair left, we got in trouble for unsatisfactory effort (which was turned into a cat. 2 BRV if it was deemed bad enough). From there, we would go to do fitness (for either an hour or a half-hour; I forget). This consisted of pushups, running, jumping jacks, or other tasks. Everyone was expected to keep up with everyone else, regardless of physical limitations. It was particularly hard for those who were overweight. There was no adjustment period to get their bodies used to the abnormal exertion. They were expected to jump right in with everyone else. If a girl had physical limitations that prevented her from doing these exercises, she had to get a note from the “doctor”. Often times this took days or longer, and until the note was written, she would still have to participate with the same activity as everyone else. The same went for food allergies. Until a doctor’s note was established, many girls were forced to eat foods that made them sick from dietary intolerance.
After fitness, we would go and eat breakfast in the lunchroom, or “commodor”. There we had to stand in line and wait our turn to take our food. For breakfast we had either frosted flakes or raisin bran with a piece of fruit and a yogurt. We had to ask to sit down and then wait to eat until we had been told it was ok to do so. Meals were always eaten in silence, with the constantly-repetitive voices of Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, and Norman Vincent Peale preaching to us from the “emotional Tapes”. We had to pay attention as well, because later we had to write what we learned from them in our “reflections” before we went to bed at night.
After breakfast, we went to group. To share how we feel give each other “feedback”. From there, it was a few hours of solitary note-taking or testing for school, all done in silence of course. After that we went to lunch, which consisted of anything from spaghetti and Mayonnaise with some ham mixed in, hamburgers that seemed a little old (they never tasted quite right), quesadillas that smelled and tasted like filthy socks, or a chicken or tuna salad that had watered down bleu cheese dressing and soggy American cheese clumps. After lunch it was fitness again for more exercises or a closely monitored game of basketball (sometimes we even got to play volleyball, but this didn’t happen too often as it was considered a “privilege” to walk in the sand).
From there it was back to school. We spent a couple more hours on this before we were led to a different room for an “educational video”, which would be about anything from nature to history. Then we would go to dinner and listen to tapes again. After dinner we would then watch an “emotional video” on topics from “I Language” to drug use to a joke-cracking priest named Father Joseph that was all about AA. From there we sat back in the classroom to write our reflections about all that we learned in the meal tapes and the emotional video and then turned them in to the staff. From there we went back to the dorms, and were patted down to make sure that we didn’t have anything we weren’t supposed to in the dorms. By then it was probably about ten at night (again I don’t know for sure, but that’s what it felt like). This is how our days went with rigid structure day after day, month after month. Different family groups had different schedule orders, but it was always all the same activities. The only exception was Sunday where we were allowed to watch an approved movie while we wrote our parents or did our own devotional studies instead of school. Everything else was the same as any other day. The rigid schedule of meals took its toll too. Since my body had no choice but to eat when it didn’t want to and couldn’t eat when it did, I constantly felt like I was starving. My body therefore held onto every little nutrient it could, and I went from my normal 120 lbs. when I arrived up to 165.
Our physical living conditions were atrocious. Each family of 20+ kids were crowded into single-wide trailers, sleeping in bunk beds set end-to-end from the front to the back. If there weren’t enough beds, then we slept on the floor on a mattress. Athlete’s foot and lice infestation was rampant. The plumbing was so bad that we weren’t allowed to flush toilet paper. Instead, we had to wipe and throw it away in the trashcan that sat beside the toilet. Aside from smelling awful, these eventually had to be cleaned out by hand with mild soap and water. We were not even allowed gloves. The floors were rotting in the trailer bathrooms and the sewer system was continuously clogged or broken. Sometimes toilets sat for weeks with rotting, fermenting excrement while they waited to be fixed.
It was humid in Mexico, and we had mushrooms and mold always growing on the walls under the beds. Many of the other buildings were decrepit as well. Our school building at the time had a waterfall (not just a trickle) that fell from the ceiling when it rained.
Food was often poor quality. Many times we found cockroaches and other insects in our food, as well as chicken feathers in the soup. There were also often somehow small rocks in the beans. I was lucky I didn’t break any teeth. We also encountered apples that were brown, mushy, and rotten on the inside and bananas that were brown and overripe or bruised rotten. The cheese/Mayo/ham sandwiches often smelled funny and the meat was turning yellow. We still had to eat all these though, as losing two levels was the consequence for refusal. One time, after being served a salad one night, a huge portion (I’d say at least half) of the girls’ facility (myself included) ended up in sick bed. I don’t know if it is true, but I was told it was due to the cooks not washing the pesticide out of the lettuce. It was the most pain I have ever felt in my back and shoulders. I was barely able to move.
Sometimes situations even put us in danger. One of the washers in the laundry area malfunctioned, but no one unplugged it or even noted that it was broken. I reached into the water to take out the laundry, and received a big shock that left me numb for the rest of the day.
For medical care, we only had the most basic supplies like you would find in a medicine cabinet. Sure we had our own medications to take, like antidepressants, ADD/HD meds, and birth control (many of the girls, myself included, were under so much stress that we developed ovarian cysts and other factors that either royally messed up our cycles or stopped our periods altogether). But with no real pharmacy staff, the upper levels sorted medication for all the other girls in the facility. We upper levels handled and refilled the medications of the girls’ facility without any trained oversight. I was never trained on what meds did what. I was just there to fill the boxes with the pills. As an unlicensed pharmacist, I should not have been made to touch other peoples’ medications (I was also told later that this “unlicensed pharmacy” was yet another reason that the facility was eventually shut down). Occasionally, girls would come in with painful plantar warts or ingrown toenails. I remember on upper levels helping hold down a lower level while a nurse took office scissors and started crudely snipping out the plantar warts from the bottom of this girl’s feet.
Schooling was self-serve. We did have a “teacher” that was there to answer basic questions and such, but not one that could effectively teach a class since all of us were a mixture of different grades and subjects. I don’t know if our teachers were even licensed. There were many kids that didn’t understand their courses to take up the teacher’s time, and I was lucky to just be able to get through with just my textbook and tests.
Our minds were continually frustrated and tormented by pointless tasks, which were meant to be difficult and easily undone (so we could do them again). They made us sweep the sand off of the parking lot and black top until we had blisters on our hands. Then every afternoon the wind would whip up over the volleyball court and blow it right back to where it was before. They would make us go back and wash a perfectly clean and good-smelling mop at least three times, and then give us a consequence for unsatisfactory effort to torment us more.
Psychologically I died in there (along with countless others, I’m sure). The “training” and bereavements were mind blowing to me; unlike anything I had ever been through or even witnessed in real life. One incident that sticks out early on in my program involved me getting fed up to the point where I was crying (I forget what about, but being that I was new, it could have been pretty much anything), and I was so confused, frustrated, and upset that I started desperately reaching out to my parents about how I felt through a letter. Suzie, my “level 3 buddy” (who was supposed to be finding ways to teach me to cope and understand) pulled over an upper level and they both just started making fun of and laughing at my anguish. Nothing I could say would get them to stop, nor would they leave me alone. The “staff” was oblivious to the whole thing, so when I finally broke and yelled at them to stop, I was the one that got in trouble for it. I had never seen that type of psychological cruelty where someone had pushed me to the breaking point, and then over and beyond, and then gave me another kick (figuratively) while I was down. I have never before or since seen that sort blatant and merciless act of mental bullying, but it did help me open my eyes as to how things really worked at Casa by the Sea. There was no empathy, sympathy, or caring. Everyone was just out to claw their way over each other and up the level system. At one point I thought I had done a decent job “showing Leadership” by example and thought I was finally worthy of level 3. Then, when I went for votes in my group, I got no support. After being there for over a year and doing whatever I could in few little ways that I was allowed to show up, I thought I had given them what they wanted to vote me up. Instead the feedback was that I “wasn’t seen in the group” as though I had done nothing. I felt completely helpless and without control of my own program, and it shattered me completely. I entered the deepest, blackest depression that I have ever felt in my life, knowing that I was imprisoned and had no working control to get out. It was so bad that it even became physical: an extremely itchy rash of hives appeared on my abdomen, and my stomach was so painfully acid that it was excruciating to eat (nonetheless, I was still forced to of course). We were animals; it was survival of the fittest (or should I say, the most “popular”), and no one could afford to care about anyone other than themselves in order to get out (a trait they ground into me that I haven’t really had before, and I still fight with my selfishness to this day). Also, they constantly encouraged us to verbally tear into each other, becoming heartless monsters in order to expose every little flaw that anybody had (of course being human, there were lots of things that we could easily hold against each other and did).
The training that we had in the co-ed seminars (the only time we got to see the opposite sex until upper levels) enforced this. We went through seminars in this order: Discovery, Focus, and Accountability (which all need to be “graduated before reaching upper levels), Keys to Success (Which upper levels went through monthly), Parent/Child Weekend, P/C I, and P/C II (the last three of which are attended by both children and their parents). They were also rough on us physically as well. I don’t remember what time exactly, but the seminars started early in the morning after breakfast and allowed a short, silent break for lunch. For dinner, we would get out so late that we ended up eating just barely before they closed the kitchen, and then ended up staying up to sometimes past midnight to get essays written that were issued as homework by the facilitator. Then we would be up the next day early ready to go through it again the next day.
In Discovery, we were taught that we have a magical child inside all these layers of what they called our “image”. We did many processes (many of which would be repeated in the seminars to come) that were meant to battle analytical decisions and make us question the beliefs we had learned through our life experiences. Instead, we were told to focus on how we felt about the things that had happened to us and led us to the program. We were told that there was no right or wrong, just “working and non-working.” According to them, there was no such thing as trying; either you did, or you didn’t. To illustrate her point, the dominating facilitator called on a girl and told her to go and “try” to turn off the light switch. The girl stood up and went over to the wall, and turned off the light. “No! I didn’t tell you to turn off the light, I told you to TRY and turn off the light.” The girl looked confused. Satisfied that she had made her point, the facilitator said, “See, there is no such thing as trying. You either do or you don’t.” I myself always saw it as the fact that she tried to turn off the light, and succeeded. We played a few more mental games, and as time went on they got more intense. The facilitator commenced to use a rough, angry tone with us that often rose to yelling. I felt intimidated and belittled. Everyone was put on the spot and no matter what answer was given to the facilitator’s questions, there was never a correct answer. We played the “trust game”, in which everyone stood around in a circle and we all took turns going around the inside of the circle and, facing those on the outside of the circle, we were to look into the eyes of each boy and girl and tell them “I trust you, I don’t trust you, or I don’t care to say if I trust you.” directly and bluntly. Now these were people we had never seen before. We had no idea of their reputation, disposition, issues, or anything else about them. After this, the facilitator told us to turn to a person that we said that we trusted and told us to tell them our deepest personal secret. Again, these people are complete strangers. This was meant to expose us and make us vulnerable. Then, on a further process, all our chairs were arranged in little groups around the room and the lights were dimmed. Each child was then to take turns telling their group personal information about where things went wrong in their lives, from bad relationships with parents to rape and molestation. These groups were composed of both genders, and I watched rape victims become highly stressed and shaken as they were forced through coercion to expose these details in front of guys that were complete strangers. Not only that, but after the person standing revealed their personal and painful issues, they were to accept “feedback” from the rest of the group (that knew nothing about them). Going around the circle, everyone was to point out what they experienced from the person just from their story, and then looked straight into their eyes and told them what they thought of them. If they were avoiding, or a coward, or in denial, or especially if they were considered trying to be a victim, the person that shared was bluntly told so. This for my own experience brought me down with a sense of utter loneliness, like I was a screw-up and even the people that didn’t know me didn’t like me. I’m sure that it was the same feeling for many others. Between the testimony of each person, the lights were dimmed and the highly distressed atmosphere was amplified by a popular song to amplify the emotional significance, like Madonna’s “Frozen”. This type of emotional sharing and stripping continued until late into the evening. When we were finally let out long after the rest of the facility had gone to bed, we had to stay up still later doing writing assignments about what we were supposed to be learning. The next day at Discovery we were told to go find a place on the floor. We were handed a towel that we rolled up and duct-taped at both ends. We were to lay back on the floor as the facilitator had the lights dimmed and we were supposed to visualize what it was like before we started rebelling and getting into trouble. Then we were supposed to continue down the timeline of our lives, thinking of the incidents that we lived through that made us depressed, angry, or hating our parents. The facilitator then told us to take our towels and transfer our anger physically into the towel; screaming and crying and beating it on the floor to get the anger out. After we had all thrown our “tantrums” and had worn ourselves out with all the anger and energy, the facilitator turned on some peaceful music and told us to relax and close our eyes. Speaking very gently and lovingly, she told us to visualize ourselves in our favorite place in nature. She told us to walk down a path and over a hill and to visualize a little child headed down the path coming towards us. As the child gets closer we are to imagine it glowing with love and innocence, and right when it gets to us we are supposed to open our arms and embrace this imaginary child, and as we hug it, it melts into us and becomes a part of us. At this point we were all laying on the ground in the fetal position, and the facilitator told us to slowly uncurl and sit up and rise on our own time, to be the new and innocent “magical children” that we had now become. At this point the mood had completely changed from one of pain and anguish to one of celebration and acknowledgements (compliments, the opposite of “feedback”). The facilitator that was formerly beasting us and mentally devouring us and spitting us out was now our best and loving friend. Everything was a blur of happy emotion and the rest of the night until we got out to do our writing assignments. The next day was a ” happy day”, filled with line dances and skits (called “stretches”) to get us out of our “comfort zone”. We had to act out the song “To Dream the Impossible Dream.” We were divided into groups and given a character to play to act out the song. I only remember Vikings and Muppet Babies. I was unfamiliar with the Muppet Babies (which was the stretch I got stuck in), and didn’t know how to play a character. I tried to act like a baby to my own embarrassment, but it didn’t work. The facilitator noticed this, and considered it unsatisfactory effort. So on the last day, just an hour or two before I was supposed to graduate from the seminar, I was told I didn’t make the cut. I had “chosen out”, (even though I would say I WAS “chosen out”), and was held back for a month to repeat it again.
The Focus seminar was like a more intense Discovery for me. We started in a circle again like with the trust game, but this time we had to go around looking each other in the eye and labeling them either a giver or a taker. Then the facilitator went around the circle and yelled “TAKER!” in the faces of all the children. The emotional state once again degraded as the facilitator dominated us and intimidated us until we got to the most intense exercise of the seminar called the “Lifeboat Exercise.” For this, we were told to lie down and relax on the floor as the lights were dimmed. Peaceful music was played on the radio as we were instructed to visualize that we are on this super-relaxing, wonderful cruise with all our family and friends. The facilitator narrated on, “…and now you’re lying down in your soft, comfortable bed when…” WHAM! Suddenly the room was filled with loud banging and yelling as the staff started beating hard on the wooden tables. This sudden mind switch caused an adrenaline rush as everyone sat up in bewilderment to wonder what was going on. We were divided into groups as the facilitator continued, “Your ship has hit an ice burg and there are not enough lifeboats to save everyone. You have to decide in each group who deserves to go on the lifeboat and live.” We were each given a couple minutes to stand up tell the rest of the group why we should be the one allowed to live moreso than somebody else. If there was someone that didn’t use up their whole time, one of the staff or the facilitator would yell at them, “Why do you think so little of yourself that you can’t even use your whole time allotted to say why you should live?” On the other hand, those few that did use their whole time we chastised for thinking overly highly of themselves and they should look at how it’s a reflection in their life of selfishness. After that, none of the groups were able to decide who should live and who should die. So then we were all organized in a circle. The facilitator then told us that we had to vote each person to live or to die, but we only have two “live” votes to give. So each of us picked out two people that we would vote to live, walked around the circle, and, looking each person straight in the eye, told them bluntly to either live or die. Every time someone received a “live” vote they had to shout “(their name) Lives!!” Many girls and guys seemed to feel singled out in this position, so they would say it very quietly. But the facilitator would be paying attention, and if he heard the “live” vote mumbled by anyone, he would jump on them for not caring about themselves and being proud that they got the live vote. At the other end of the circle, after we had voted everybody, we stood face to face with a mirror. Then the facilitator would say, “What’s this? You already gave your two ‘live’ votes and you didn’t save one for yourself? How is this a reflection of your life?” Then the exercise with the beating of the towels was repeated. In another Focus exercise, we were given a stretch of a character or famous singer to act out and become. They did their best to pick each character to be the opposite personality of each person (silent servant for the “attention suck”, KISS for the well-dressed conservative, and mine was Mariah Carey for my low self-esteem). The staff then brought out this huge box of rags and other props to dress up in so that we could become our character and be something the opposite of what we felt safe with.
The Accountability seminar for me was presented as a two-day test. Everyone had to stand up in front of the whole group of boys and girls and list off everything that they had done in the last month since Focus to work the program and progress. The facilitator then would talk with the staff and listen to the feedback that was said after each person testified. Each of us were voted a percentage out of 100. If you weren’t considered by the group to have a 90 or above, you “chose out”. I don’t know what miracle happened that got me to say all the right things, but somehow I made it through. After this test that took up the first day, the second day we were taught to go back into our “non-working” image. Again the costume box was brought out, and we were told to dress up according to the “image” that we had before the program. Once we were all dressed in our “non-working” images and acting them out, we had to go around and insult and make fun of each other in order to try and make each other upset and feel bad. The idea was to associate bad feelings with what we were before so that we wouldn’t want to go back.
Keys to Success seminars only lasted two days and had two forms: Workshop, in which we re-practiced the “magical child” scenario, and one that was more like Accountability to where you had to earn your stay. I don’t know how the latter went; I never made it through one of those.
The last three seminars, the PCs, were reserved for those in the program who were in transition to go home. They were the most benign of all the seminars, for they were just workshops that we went through with our parents to prepare us to go home and supposedly cope with the real world.
I finally graduated on level 5 about three days before my 18^th birthday. What I hadn’t expected was how much the world had changed since I left. Unlike me, it had not been stuck in a stationary bubble like I was. I came home to find that I had lost all except one of all the friends I had. I was programmized, and so the first thing I did was got through my room and clean out and throw away most of the things I had that had to do with my “old image”. As an artist, I ended up throwing away many drawings and such that now I wish I hadn’t.
What I also didn’t expect was how the real world would receive a programmed survivor. By now I was used to giving feedback and stating my opinion bluntly and powerfully, not even realizing about how it was hurting the feelings of others and making it harder for them to swallow in reality. I lost several of the friends that I was finally able to track down because I was now a socially awkward creature that was imposing on them what I had been brainwashed to believe by the program (needless to say, it didn’t fly in the real world). I also lost a good friend of mine when I had just disappeared and lost contact with him. I spent years asking about his whereabouts, but by the time I finally found him, I was attending his funeral. He was someone I was close to that I had considered a mentor, and I never got to see him again. I was so taught to think that the program was good for me that when I would tell people what I went through (as though it was normal), I would always wonder why their mouths dropped following the exclamation, ” Your PARENTS did THAT to you?!”
After getting this reaction from my friends and cousin (as well as just various people I told), I really started to wonder what had happened to me and started to realize that it wasn’t right. I had been brainwashed and imprisoned against my will. Sure my parents went through the seminars (which one facilitator had called a “watered down” version of what we as teen had gone through). They had gotten upset with the lifeboat exercise in the Focus seminar and didn’t attend anymore by themselves after that because what they were teaching was untrue to them. What they never seemed to realize though is that they could choose out and go back to life as normal in their happy home. I, on the other hand, had no choice but to swallow, believe, and become everything they said in the seminar (even things my own parents didn’t believe) or I would never get out. They had a choice, I didn’t. Even twelve years later I still have difficulty functioning in society and struggle to tell the difference between reality and the fiction that I was taught to believe within the program. I lost out on two important developmental years in my teenage life, and I spent many years trying to make connections in my life to bridge the gap that had been made by the program. I also ended right back where I was before with my smoking and drinking and pot use. Going from one strange world to another that I used to know that was no longer the same, I was grasping at straws to start back where I had left off so I could move forward. To this day I still have dreams that I’m imprisoned in the place. My parents believe that everything is much better between us now, and maybe it is on their side. I don’t dare bring up the program anymore because I can’t stand to hear my dad justify them, but ever since the program my confidence in them had been badly shaken. When I was growing up they had always told me that they would die for me and would do their best to protect me from harm. The next thing I know, they were sending me off to a bunch of people they never met to be isolated (to adjust my social awkwardness), and to be brainwashed and neglected beyond their knowing to treat my chronic depression. Although I love them, I may never be fully secure in our relationship again.
I also believe the program had other mental side effects on me as well. I don’t get curious anymore when I’m confused. Like a reflex, I automatically get angry and nasty because I feel like someone is trying to play with my head again. My husband is often a victim of my anger outbursts (even though I don’t intend it) when I still breakdown and question the trustworthiness of him (there should be no question, but after what happened with my parents and trust, it’s hard for me to trust anyone). I also have a tendency just to jump and do what I’m told without thinking first, which also gets me in trouble. In the program, we were never allowed to question or find truth. We had to believe what they told us to believe, whether it was real or not. My life is still confused and gullible. I have been able to get a house and hold down a job, but I still remain very afraid of and intimidated by people in general. My view of society is mainly negative. After being treated like a lowly animal myself to be caged and learning that “rights” are irrelevant, all I can see is that people think more highly of themselves than they should. I relate well with other program survivors as well as with animals as we were (and still are) preyed on by mankind. It’s a twisted thought, I know, but I can’t expect anyone to understand that had never been through this.