Why I Was 'Kidnapped' and Sent To "The Program"

Recently , Netflix Released "The Program Cults, Cons and Kidnappings" and while I wasnt at the school for long, I learned alot by dissecting why I got there.

What’s up, Forum!

This week, one of the top ten TV shows on Netflix is a documentary about a 'reform' school where I was sent during my later teen years. The documentary is called "The Program-Cons, Cults, and Kidnappings" and it features The Academy at Ivy Ridge, which is one of the many schools under the WWASP (World Wide Association of Specialty Programs) umbrella. However, in my opinion, the documentary only touches the surface of the true horrors of the Troubled Teen Industry.

For me, being sent to Ivy Ridge marked the beginning of a tumultuous time in my life. I was already getting into trouble and unfortunately, I was gaining a small bit of power with the wrong crowd. Back then, I was full of anger and I took all of that aggression out on myself. Eventually, everything came to a head. Looking back on those times now, I realize how everything was critical and interconnected. Honestly, I am more grateful for some of those experiences than remorseful or upset with my parents.

I wish I could say the same for some of the other 'alumni' of Ivy Ridge. Growing up, I had all the potential to be a great kid. My mother is from Orangeburg, S.C., a relatively tight-knit college community that houses Claflin College, South Carolina State, and Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. My father is from Jersey City, NJ, but later moved to Orangeburg, just a few miles from my mother's parents."

Why I Was ‘Kidnapped’ and Sent To The Academy at Ivy Ridge

My grandparents, both on my paternal and maternal side, were respected individuals in their community. My grandfather from my father's side was in the Navy and my maternal grandfather owned several businesses. I come from a large family with ten aunts and uncles, and I now have four children of my own. I can only imagine the challenges my grandparents faced while raising their kids in the 'Jim Crow South' during the 1960s and 1970s and the difficulties they encountered while trying to create a meaningful family life. Without going into too much detail, I can say that things got pretty crazy in their households at times.

Now, I understand that we want to talk about how i got involved in the whole ‘troubled teen industry’ , but it is important to understand the context in which my parents or guardians made their decisions in the past.

My grandparents were cool, but like all of us, they had their flaws. They had the typical "what happens in this house, stays in this house" mentality. You know, hiding all of your dark family shit. However, that does not make them terrible people. They were just ordinary people, like me and my wife, or my parents. People trying to make it in this world without people all up in their business.

Both of my parents come from loosely similar backgrounds and are essentially the first generation out of poverty, at least on my mom’s side. So to completely illustrate her mindset during my upbringing would be more of an undertaking than I desire to go through at this stage in life. However what I can truly say is that when you combine exposure to trauma/family secrets, fear, and poverty syndrome you get people who are so laser-focused on their life and career aspirations how they view their kid’s needs can be a bit skewed.

The house my mom grew up in with four other siblings. It sits at the top of a one way street, IYKYK.

okay, So let’s fast forward to 1991, I’m three or four years old, my parents meet, fuck, and marry, mom joined the military, served in combat, and we are now stationed in San Antonio Tx where a frustrated caregiver has pushed me into a mirror lacerating my left arm. You would think that these two relatively intelligent individuals from good families would have the tools to handle the situation and comfort their child, instead what ensued over the next couple of months was a series of severe arguments ending up in my dad getting carted out of the house in handcuffs, my mother and. I left and went for a period without seeing him. All because of me. Or at least that’s how my little brain encoded that at the time.

Either way, over the next few years my mother and I would move around a bit, a few apartments, and eventually to a home in San Jose CA. Now along the way, I was no stellar kid. Somehow I was still angry about my parents splitting up and was expressing that in so many ways. Though my mom was a Captain in the Army, putting me through private school, she still was a single mom (who wasn’t immaculate at finance) and had little to no support from my father. So only naturally, she did what she could to support me, surrounding me with supportive women, putting me through therapy, having mother-son dates at the museum, Mcdonalds every Friday no matter what, and, marrying her current husband.

I think wanting a companion plus a strong male figure or role model for me was a major factor in picking this individual as a mate. My biological father is a pianist, jazz musician, and minister. In contrast, this guy was an officer in the military, an engineer, square and military academy graduate. Honestly, it he was everything that a country gal from O’Burg could want. Especially for her child right? I won’t get into it today but when I became a stepfather myself, I would realize how much this guy was the best partner for her, but the opposite of what I needed as a kid.

Shortly after marrying him, we would move to Jonesboro GA, where all of my mother/son time would stop, no more museum dates, no more McDonalds, and no more loving women around. And before I could make friends, I would experience real racism for the first time.

One day at after-school care, some white kids decided to beat me up and call me “Nigger”. At the time I didn’t have a place to express my feelings about this, my mom was myopic about her new relationship, my northern California accent made me sound “proper” to the other black kids in school, and I had little to no communication with my dad. So what did I do? I took it out on myself. Mostly by acting out in school or daycare, eventually, my behavior in school became so bad that I was getting daily progress reports from school. If I didn’t get an “S” for “Satisfactory” then I would get a whooping, which pretty much resulted in daily ass whoopings.

Having kids I know now that a lot of my childhood whooping or punishments were based on things kids naturally do, lying, not doing what you told them to do, making messes, and forgetting chores. you know, kid stuff, however, back then beating your kids was a form of getting them to obey. Especially to a southern military family. Currently, we know that communication and patience are the way to go, but back then my parents didn’t have the tools.

One of the biggest mistakes they made was having my stepfather discipline me in this way. Juxtaposing the way my mother disciplined me his beatings were out of anger and aggression. This would foster a sense of rage and violence in me that I don’t think either one of them knew how to manage.

Young Thug

Eventually, the beating stopped working, so they started taking my TV privileges and my dinner privileges. My therapist told my parents that I was well aware of the consequences of my actions at nine or ten years old, so you would think that some family intervention or sit-down talks would happen. Some genius in my family decided to feed their kids pork and beans for dinner and my parents picked that up and went overboard with it. There were weeks at a time where everyone else would be eating regular food and I’d be at the table eating pork and beans. Ironically, around this time I stopped seeing my therapist and the wedge between myself and my family unit was starting to grow bigger. My behavior got so bad that eventually, they switched to ‘cabbage soup’ which was just blended up cabbage cooked in water. One time they took my bed, stripped me naked, and put me out of the house. Eventually, they let me back in but to sleep on a cot in the garage.

Instead of shaping up, I started to give less fucks.