Just after writing, but before publishing Dead, Insane, or in Jail: A CEDU Memoir, the first book in my series, I did not know the next steps.
My greatest hope was that the messages embedded in my narrative would help improve awareness that a Troubled Teen Industry existed — which it does.
With this in mind, I made a series of trips to meet other people who are thinking, writing, and working for positive change and awareness of this industry.
First I went to Los Angeles to meet Jodi Hobbs of Survivors of Institutional Abuse (SIA).
She’d lined up writer and attorney Paul Morantz to speak at a SIA conference about the time he tried taking down Synanon, the cult formed by Charles E. Dederich. Morantz spoke eloquently to a crowded room about his experience. If you’re interested in Synanon, you’ll be familiar with his life’s work: http://www.Paulmorantz.com
I was interested because Synanon was responsible for the creation of CEDU — the place I write about — and those roots have influenced literally hundreds more private residential facilities for teens established over the decades.
Let me repeat that with emphasis. The setting is my teenage life, therefore the memoir is based on my perceptions of being unwittingly inducted into a cult — which I seemed to have known at 14, and then dismissed after 2 years.
CEDU didn’t just “feel” cult-like, it behaved in ways based on its own DNA as the child-cult of Synanon.
Neither I nor my parents knowingly joined a place named for Charles E. Dederich, Yet it happened.
LOS ANGELES conference for SIA in Spring 2015:
One of the first people I met in L.A. was an actor and optometrist named David Wernsman, who introduced me to filmmaker, Kate Logan. David was the subject of Kate’s documentary Kidnapped for Christ, about religious programming/reprogramming at an offshore program called Escuela Caribe. http://amzn.to/2zawG0
Nick Gaglia joined us and introduced himself as the director of Over the GW, a documentary about a cult-like rehabilitation center that abuses, brainwashes and imprisons vulnerable teens. http://amzn.to/2xvgSI
These are must-watch films — highly recommended.
Also in the SIA conference in Los Angeles, I had the good fortune to not be the only writer with their principal book. Misty Griffin, author of Tears of the Silenced and I jawed for a few minutes. Her enormously successful book is about severe child abuse she endured in the Amish community where she lived, and her eventual escape — a very brave writer. http://amzn.to/2ydH89
Next, I met the documentary filmmaker and new friend Adam Forgash. You’ll hear more about his much anticipated project soon. The trailer for In a Basement in Queens is here: https://vimeo.com/236511005
Together we scheduled an interview with Paul Morantz at his home after his speaking engagement at SIA.
Interviewing the renowned Synanon attorney at his house turned out to me more than that. Through a confluence of events I wound up watching the worldwide broadcast debut of the HBO hit called “Going Clear” about the Cult of Scientology with him! I learned even more about accusations of illegal and coercive behaviors against celebrity and bohemian followers, I learned about the gobs of money the church has. This was years before Leah Remini won an Emmy for her TV series, “Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.”
In my travels, something incredible began to happen: I embraced, for the first time, that my books had a role to play in making a broader audience aware of the deprivations and abuses that occur in all varieties of teen residential settings in the U.S.
I ominously glimpsed how many programs there were out there — and still are.
It would take several more months before I realized the deeper significance which is at play in these programs for teens — like Straight, Inc., the KIDS programs, or any of the others I was starting to learn about.
Thought reform is about as common as the measles.
