Hyde School Survivors

It’s finally here! A highly recommended read (and Audible listen!) I See You, Survivor: Life Inside (and Outside) the Totally F*cked-Up Troubled Teen Industry https://a.co/d/2YEZtAt

❤️🫶❤️Christine

Always use your voices 🙌🏼

💗🔥

HydeSpeak: A Glossary (From Hyde School Concepts Booklet)

This is disturbing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/143gx3m/recordings_of_hyde_school_president_laura_gauld/?

r/troubledteens on Reddit: Recordings of Hyde School president Laura Gauld and employee Tom Bragg re: s*xual assault at Hyde School Posted by u/Agitated_Court3456 - 28 votes and 6 comments

Nothing like an old talk show episode where Joe Gauld addresses a girl about her weight on national television.

Asked of our followers. Many survivors report being in abusive relationships as adults, and believe that their programs primed them to accept abuse, have poor boundaries, and always blame themselves.z

You are not alone and it’s not your fault.

“And I need to let the people responsible know that we remember. You may not hold yourself accountable, but we do. And we’re not a bunch of teenagers anymore. And it’s not like I’m threatening anybody. I’m just going to tell the world the truth. I’m going to let them know the things, the horrible things, you taught children to do each other. I’m going to tell the world about how you destroyed families, and how people killed themselves to get away from you.”

-Rich Moroski, Fix My Kid, about Straight, Inc.

BVSD settles in lawsuit filed by survivors of s*xual assault by 2019 Hyde School graduate Benjamin Matthews. Mr. Matthews was sent to Hyde in lieu of the Boulder school protecting the survivors or holding Benjamin adequately accountable. This past summer he was sentenced to jail for s*xually assaulting three teenage girls.

Whether he succeeded in s*xually assaulting Hyde School girls is unknown. At least one aggressive attempt has been reported. Luckily the survivor escaped.



https://www.cpr.org/2022/11/01/boulder-valley-school-district-agrees-to-pay-735000-to-settle-lawsuit-over-s*xual-assault-allegations/

Let's learn about the stress cycle! 😎 (This is an updated version of a poster I shared in March 2020)



📎 Sources include Stephen Porges, Deb Dana, Pete Walker, Bessel van der Kolk, Stanley Rosenberg, Dr. Arielle Schwartz, and The Polyvagal Podcast

🤓 Learn more about the stress cycle at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyppUSV1FN0

🤩 More infographics - linktr.ee/TraumaGeek

🧠 Printable versions of these graphics are available for professionals - TraumaGeek.com

💻 For research consultations or 1:1 education - Calendly.com/TraumaGeek

💚 This work is made possible by patron supporters - Patreon.com/TraumaGeek

Here is some general information about human/labor trafficking in the state of Maine.

https://legislature.maine.gov/doc/4162

Asked of our Instagram followers.

"Meanwhile, at Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx, the investigators acknowledged that, “While the school demonstrated a strong focus on excellence in character development, a focus on academic excellence and achievement was less evident.” This elementary school’s charter was renewed, and Hyde has been allowed to expand into high school grades. Perhaps poor people lacking intellectual skills, but brimming with character are just the sort of workers the Bloomberg-era business elite desires. Is that what education “reform” is really all about?"

https://brooklynrail.org/2011/02/local/report-card-dubious-standards-for-charter-schools

REPORT CARD: Dubious Standards for Charter Schools The city’s Office of Charter Schools knows what good education looks like, but just doesn’t think poor, black kids need to have it.

Hyde School has a Hyde-branded charter school in Brooklyn, Hyde Leadership Charter School-Brooklyn. This taxpayer-funded charter school pays the Hyde Foundation heavy fees each year to "provide educational materials and various consulting and management services including training and accreditation review."

HLCS [Hyde Leadership Charter School Brooklyn] has retained Hyde Foundation to provide educational materials and various consulting and management services including training and accreditation review. A fee of $100,000 in 2021 and a fee equal to approximately 2% in 2020 of HLCS’s annual aggregate pupil funding allocated by the New York City Department of Education is due and payable in two annual installments. Total fees paid to Hyde Foundation amounted to approximately $100,000 and $172,000 for the years ended June 30, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
https://4.files.edl.io/5f19/08/03/22/182329-93f053d8-a3ef-4569-b85e-92ef0368bf88.pdf

I was sent to The Hyde Summer Leadership challenge with the intention for me to attend Hyde Woodstock for the full school year come the fall. During my time there I experienced the following:

I was put on 2-4 (24 hours of punishment consisting of brutal intense workouts starting at 5:30AM, losing my right to eat hot meals and limited contact and conversation with my peers) because I didn’t tell on my roommate for breaking a rule. (“Brothers Keeper” is a concept at Hyde that states that anyone who has knowledge of a peer doing something wrong or breaking a rule is equally as responsible as the person violating the rules and ethics and therefore can and should be punished) During these workouts myself and others were often crying and throwing up while being told we’re weak and forced to keep running.

We took an off campus trip to hike on a trail up a mountain. I was feeling really sick, weak and had just gotten my period that morning. Shortly into the hike I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. I told a staff member, who refused to let me take a break - and as a result, I threw up all of myself. Staff was very annoyed with me, but I was allowed to hike back down and wait for the rest of the group to finish. Once I was escorted back down, I asked to use the porta-potty. The staff member refused and said that if I’m actually sick, that I can prove it and throw up in front of them. I explained that I have my period and really need to use the bathroom. They refused to let me go. I had to sit on the ground for 2.5 hours covered in my own vomit and eventually in my own period blood (which had soaked through my pants and left visible stains) until the group came back.

During phone calls with my parents, staff members would stand next to me to listen to what I was telling them. Often after my calls I would be told by staff that my parents will never believe any of the negative things I’m telling them about Hyde because I’m manipulative and a liar and they could never and will never trust me.

After weeks of excessive workouts, punishments and having hot meals taken away, I lost 10lbs and got laryngitis. (I was always very underweight naturally and couldn’t afford to lose any weight, so I looked sickly and malnourished) THANKFULLY, my parents finally believed the things I was telling them on the phone and agreed to come take me home.

When my parents called Hyde to tell them they were coming to get me, staff members locked me in a room and interrogated me for 3 hours (the time it took for my parents to get there). During those 3 hours I was threatened, told that they wouldn’t let my parents take me home and that I was a liar. They demanded I tell them everything I told my mom and dad about Hyde. They kept telling me that they were going to convince my parents not to take me home. When my parents finally got to Hyde they were appalled at how much weight I had lost and that I could barely speak because I was so sick. They were completely misled by the staff at Hyde and felt awful when they realized what I had endured.

They were under the impression that I was going to be receiving professional therapy. I was a really sick, depressed and lost kid battling mental illness in my teenage years and desperately needed effective treatment and counseling from mental health professionals who are compassionate, empathetic and caring. Hyde is the exact opposite of that. Thankfully, after I left Hyde I was able to get the help I needed elsewhere.

-anonymous Hyde School survivor

Female Hyde School student was r***d in early 2020 by 2 male students in a boys’ dorm. This police report supports the authenticity of her story: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1APf1gBj53l79g7XM6AQjT_UrjmGjeK-_/view

Reposted from survivor .posterchild, credit to , sam + tanner.

--------------

Hyde takes $1.6 million in PPP loans, all are forgiven.

Hyde School Leadership Charter School Bronx not only recently changed their name to "LION Charter School", they appear to be terminating their ties to Hyde by ending their contract agreement and fees that they pay to the Hyde Institute.

From their financial statements for the years that ended June 30, 2021, and 2020.

NOTE 9 – LICENSING AND SERVICES AGREEMENT
The Hyde Institute, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping start and support certain aspects of the charter school, provides management, fundraising, and other administrative support services to the School. Pursuant to the terms of a five-year licensing and services agreement with an effective date of October 17, 2016, the School pays the Hyde Institute an annual fee of $60,000 for use of licensed educational models, program materials, training of new faculty and accreditation services. Upon expiration, there are automatic successive one-year renewal terms, unless terminated by the School and/or the Hyde Foundation by a written 90-day notice. Effective July 1, 2019, a new five-year licensing and services agreement was entered into with the annual fee of $35,000 for use of licensed educational models, program materials, training of new faculty and accreditation services. As of October 2021, the School gave notice to Hyde Institute that it’s in the process of terminating the agreement.
https://lioncharterschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Hyde-Leadership-Charter-School-Audited-Financial-Statements-FY2021.pdf

MEDICAL NEGLECT - Rachel Sarah speaks about the gross medical neglect she experienced at Hyde School, both Bath and Woodstock campuses, which still affects her 16 years later. We see you, survivor.

HYDE’S RESPONSE? According to former Hyde student Matt Boyle whose cousin was recently offered a job at the Bath campus, this is how Hyde responded regarding allegations of abuse, and about the many deceased former students. Their response was either nothing or to gaslight decades of survivors by calling us all liars.

Hyde also insisted the applicant’s entire family move from their house into Hyde’s dorm-connected apartment. Why? So that an employee could be available to work 24/7? To remove all boundaries? So that Hyde could claim tax benefits or additional compensation for providing faculty housing to make up for low wages? We wonder. 🧐

MEDICAL NEGLECT - Testimony from a parent of a former Hyde School Woodstock student, who happened to be at the school for a “Family Learning Center” (FLC) weekend. The Woodstock Hyde campus closed in 2017.

If you experienced or witnessed strange or violating behavior from Hyde School graduate Ben Matthews (summer 2017 - spring 2019), please reach out to us.

Content warning: s*xual assault

Read the recent lawsuit complaint towards the Boulder Valley School District made by Benjamin Matthews’ s*xual assault victims. These occurrences happened before Benjamin went to Hyde School in summer, 2017- to end of spring, 2019. Seems he went to Hyde because of all the problems he caused by s*xually assaulting students during his sophomore year (and maybe prior) while attending his former school, Fairview High School in Boulder.

In this complaint, Benjamin Matthews is referred to as “Mr. Smith” because he was a minor at the time of these allegations. He is now 21 and recently pleaded guilty to ra**ng 3 teenage victims, was sentenced to 90 days jail time, and possibly only served roughly half of that.

One has to ask how safe female students at Hyde School were living at a boarding school with a student who already had such a strong history of s*xual assault allegations.



https://www.facebook.com/101130845078715/posts/361928412332289/?d=n

[001] COMPLAINT and Jury Demand against Boulder Valley School District, Donald Stensrud.pdf

Hyde Leadership Charter School - Bronx has “rebranded” as LION Charter School. 🧐
Good call. 👍

2019 Hyde graduate Benjamin Matthews recently pleaded guilty to ra**ng 3 students at his former school, Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, acts he committed before the school decided to sweep it under the rug by letting him attend Hyde School in Bath, Maine, for several years without any disciplinary notes on his chart. Ben Matthews is currently booked into Boulder County Jail.

BVSD Survivors

Former Fairview High School student sentenced to jail for ra**ng 3 fellow students in case at center of lawsuit Judge Kenneth Plotz sentenced the defendant, who was a minor at the time he committed the crimes, to 90 days in the county jail, two years of probation, s*x offender treatment and 90 hours of commu…

This is Biderman's Chart of Coercion. Originally developed to illustrate methods in Chinese and Korean POW camps, it has since become a standard for measuring coercion in general.

Hyde School and wilderness program survivor and attorney Jessica Jackson met with Congressman Steve Scalise, Paris Hilton, and Unsilenced’s Caroline Cole several weeks ago on Capitol Hill to discuss the many problems within the abusive and the legislation to begin the long journey of reform, starting with .

Jim finally overstepped the boundaries on the bus ride home for the Thanksgiving break in 1977. He brazenly lit up a ma*****na cigarette in full view of a bus full of students in the middle of the day. Totally foolish, of course, but also unnecessary in that within only a few hours he would have been out of the school jurisdiction and in the safety of his own home. Leniency wasn't going to work in to this instance- especially since he had already had several warning related to circumstantial situations. This time he had gone too far and was terminated from Berkshire.

...Whatever, young James now required even more serious attention since Berkshire had become ancient history. I was ashamed of him as well as myself.. I needed to get Jim relocated as quickly as possible without, hopefully, making wrong move. Eventually, I heeded the advice of some experienced educational people and we later settled on the Hyde School located in remote part of the state of Maine. This turned out to be a bad mistake although it made sense at the time as it had a good scholarly reputation combined with a stern discipline program. It was actually more like boot camp and in my later judgment it was more discipline than anything. Certainly, Jim needed strong hand but Hyde School went too far... The Hyde school at the time had a reputation for straightening out the miscreants and with drugs becoming more and more widespread, any school with a strong disciplinary program was attracting genuine interest.

Unfortunately, my oldest son lasted less than month at Hyde. I realized much too late that the school discipline was too extreme as it bordered more on hazing and physical punishment. Seniors and the student governing board of the school were the groups in charge while the faculty largely turned a blind eye to any mistreatment. Jim protested to me early on but I largely ignored his pleas hoping to avoid any further problems. I largely put the onus on him, emphasizing that he needed to redeem himself in my mind. There were also logistic considerations as the Hyde location was much further away than Berkshire. I was certainly at least partially guilty of using the school as a dumping ground and not very receptive to hearing bad news. Not a very constructive plan of action and eventually James gave up and actually ran away from school. Not only highly irregular but also it gave rise to it case of a 24-hour period of near panic. A call from the school one spring morning informed me that Jim was nowhere to be found. He had gone missing from the breakfast roll call and nobody could remember seeing him after the evening bed check. Police had been alerted but so far he had not turned up. In the end, a whole day and night went by before he called... As he explained it, he had just fallen asleep near the side of the road after hitchhiking as far as the Main/New Hampshire border. He had left school only as a last resort because he could no longer tolerate the excessive physical treatment.

- UNREQUITED TIME, James McCurrach

From the newly launched UnSilenced:

The Troubled Teen Industry is a network of congregate care facilities for young people that claim to provide therapeutic services, schooling, and behavior modification. Swipe to learn more.

From Thought Reform Thursdays:

Today, we are looking at THOUGHT TERMINATING CLICHES.

"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis."
-- Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, by Robert Jay Lifton

Abbreviated as TTC for the remainder of this article, the term comes from Robert Jay Lifton, the foremost expert in thought reform.

What is a thought terminating cliche?

It is a short or pithy phrase or platitude, which is meant to end any critical thought on the part of a subject. While it comes from Lifton, it also can be applied to Steven Hassan's third criteria for mind control (thought control). I often say the main way that cults suck people in is by offering a really simple solution to life's most complex problems. They will also say that no one has ever said this before, that this group/leader/facility/philosophy is the ONLY place to find this very simple answer.

Let's look at some examples.

IN COERCIVE CULTS:

In Scientology:

"He's an SP."

An "SP" is a suppressive person, or someone the cult has "declared" as ex-communicated. If someone who has left the church is speaking out against it, describing the horrific abuse they endured, a current member may see this and begin questioning. By simply dismissing the person altogether, authorities stop any doubt or disbelief from current members with just three words.

"That's entheta."

This basically means it's something dangerous, something you shouldn't read, listen to, discuss, etc. because it is bad for you. Any information which might lead a person to leave is considered "dangerous," and therefore, once the thought process begins, authorities immediately shut it down.

In NXIVM:

Based on survivor memoirs, the NXIVM cult sucked people in with its three-day seminars, in which participants were taught, essentially, how to stop unpleasant feelings or emotions with a few simple phrases of internal dialogue. While this may sound unlikely to outsiders, any survivor of a cult can tell you that these methods usually DO work initially, which is what makes it so attractive. Survivors describe an intense feeling of euphoria from "when it was good." However, of course, these feelings were temporary, and eventually, the doubts and bad feelings creep in again.

When this happened with NXIVM, members were told to just keep doing their exercises, keep repeating the phrases, because they worked so well before, the member must be doing something wrong for these doubts and anxieties to be returning.

IN THE TROUBLED TEEN INDUSTRY:

"You're being entitled."

"And whose fault is that?"

"You need to take accountability."

"The answer is, you don't need to know."

This is really difficult for me to talk about, and I could go on for ages and ages, so I'm going to try and keep it brief.

At La Europa Academy, we were told things similar to NXIVM: that we could stop being depressed, stop having anxiety, stop any addiction, stop any mental illness, by just deciding to. For example, I was told to keep a gratitude journal to cure my major depression, which at that point had led to multiple su***de attempts (and was caused by over a decade of in**st). When I started, it was actually fairly effective. I did start feeling good for the first time ever. And I credited La Europa for this change. However, a few months later, my depression returned and I became actively suicidal again. I told myself, and believed, that I must not be "trying" hard enough to feel this way.

When we criticized the program, I would usually say something like, "We aren't even allowed to think for ourselves," and the response would be, "Well, how far did thinking for yourself get you in life?"

Or even more thought stopping, sometimes when rules were criticized or questioned, we were told that it was wrong or bad to question anything, and we had to "just accept" the rules without understanding why they were there.

———————

At Hyde School, just a handful of thought-stopping cliches include:

“That’s bullsh!t.”

“That’s just an excuse/cop-out.”

“The truth always comes out.”

“You have a bad attitude.”

“You’re off track.”

“Are you dirty? Do you have something on your conscience?”

“I question your commitment to your best/unique potential.”

“Fake it ‘til you make it.”

“Don’t respond. If the shoe fits, wear it; if not, throw it away.”

“You need to take accountability.”

“You’re just intellectualizing.”

“Suck it up!”

"Off track to going through the motions to effort to excellence"

"Ditto."

It's Thought Reform Thursday!

Today, we are looking at THOUGHT TERMINATING CLICHES.

"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis."
-- Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, by Robert Jay Lifton

Abbreviated as TTC for the remainder of this article, the term comes from Robert Jay Lifton, the foremost expert in thought reform.

What is a thought terminating cliche?

It is a short or pithy phrase or platitude, which is meant to end any critical thought on the part of a subject. While it comes from Lifton, it also can be applied to Steven Hassan's third criteria for mind control (thought control). I often say the main way that cults suck people in is by offering a really simple solution to life's most complex problems. They will also say that no one has ever said this before, that this group/leader/facility/philosophy is the ONLY place to find this very simple answer.

Let's look at some examples.

IN COERCIVE CULTS:

In Scientology:

"He's an SP."

An "SP" is a suppressive person, or someone the cult has "declared" as ex-communicated. If someone who has left the church is speaking out against it, describing the horrific abuse they endured, a current member may see this and begin questioning. By simply dismissing the person altogether, authorities stop any doubt or disbelief from current members with just three words.

"That's entheta."

This basically means it's something dangerous, something you shouldn't read, listen to, discuss, etc. because it is bad for you. Any information which might lead a person to leave is considered "dangerous," and therefore, once the thought process begins, authorities immediately shut it down.

In NXIVM:

Based on survivor memoirs, the NXIVM cult sucked people in with its three-day seminars, in which participants were taught, essentially, how to stop unpleasant feelings or emotions with a few simple phrases of internal dialogue. While this may sound unlikely to outsiders, any survivor of a cult can tell you that these methods usually DO work initially, which is what makes it so attractive. Survivors describe an intense feeling of euphoria from "when it was good." However, of course, these feelings were temporary, and eventually, the doubts and bad feelings creep in again.

When this happened with NXIVM, members were told to just keep doing their exercises, keep repeating the phrases, because they worked so well before, the member must be doing something wrong for these doubts and anxieties to be returning.

IN THE TROUBLED TEEN INDUSTRY:

"You're being entitled."

"And whose fault is that?"

"You need to take accountability."

"The answer is, you don't need to know."

This is really difficult for me to talk about, and I could go on for ages and ages, so I'm going to try and keep it brief.

A La Europa Academy, we were told things similar to NXIVM: that we could stop being depressed, stop having anxiety, stop any addiction, stop any mental illness, by just deciding to. For example, I was told to keep a gratitude journal to cure my major depression, which at that point had led to multiple su***de attempts (and was caused by over a decade of in**st). When I started, it was actually fairly effective. I did start feeling good for the first time ever. And I credited La Europa for this change. However, a few months later, my depression returned and I became actively suicidal again. I told myself, and believed, that I must not be "trying" hard enough to feel this way.

When we criticized the program, I would usually say something like, "We aren't even allowed to think for ourselves," and the response would be, "Well, how far did thinking for yourself get you in life?"

Or even more thought stopping, sometimes when rules were criticized or questioned, we were told that it was wrong or bad to question anything, and we had to "just accept" the rules without understanding why they were there.