Surviving Adult Reports Childhood MSbP Torture: Part 16 – S.A.F.E. Confrontation Rap

In this series of posts, I describe my time at S.A.F.E., a facility that is part of the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI). In my last post, I explained the methods they used to brainwash us. In this post, I describe a “confrontation rap”, which happened in a group if we were found to be guilty of a transgression.

Me as the Victim of the Confrontation Rap

First, we have to set the setting. Please read my post about “motivating” so you can imagine the room. Clients are motivating heavily, sweat and spit is flying. In that setting, the confrontation rap could look something like this:

The rap leader, who stands in front of the group with a high stool is looking at us peons for whoever is motivating the most intently, and then they will call on the client.

Rap Leader: “C’mon, motivate harder!  Show me you want this!  Ok, I’ll call on Jill”

Jill: “I would like to stand Mariel up in group!

Here is where I stand up, anxiously waiting for the shit to fly.

Jill: “Mariel, you are full of fucking shit!  I saw you looking inappropriately at one of the male clients yesterday!  Why can’t you be fucking honest with yourself???? Is it because you were a slut in your druggie past?? If you can’t get over your slut ways how are you ever going to recover??? You are just going to die in here!!!!”

Now, I would be left standing up in group with everyone else motivating around me waiting to get called on to tack onto this.  They would yell and scream at me and spit would fly.

The best way to deal with this situation was to admit to doing whatever they were accusing you of, regardless of whether it was true or not.  I would “get honest” by saying I was inappropriately looking at a male client and sexualizing them and then confess about how big of a slut I was in my past, and for good measure, cry and say how guilty I felt to the group and that I was destined for failure without S.A.F.E.

After was all said and done, the group would conclude with a big ol’ “LOOOOOVE YA MARIEL!”

Timing of “Confrontation Group”

Confrontation group would continue like that for a good hour or two, depending on how “dishonest” the group was at any given time.  All raps were started and ended with a song; usually a childish song, but it was supposed to match the tone of the rap.  Often confrontation rap would start with “somebody stole my little red wagon” because the verses just kept getting louder and louder until we were screaming the song.

Confrontation Group was obviously a program of brainwashing. S.A.F.E. had other raps for brainwashing which I will describe in my next post.

Interested in Brainwashing?

Read about Robert Jay Lifton’s brainwashing process. Funny how it matches exactly what S.A.F.E. is doing!

Photographs by Janeb13, CozyThisOne, and Australian Paralympic Committee/Australian Sports Commission.