Part One: Elan School: The Worst 'Troubled Teen' Facility | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

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Part One: Elan School: The Worst 'Troubled Teen' Facility | BEHIND THE BASTARDS
Robert is joined by Miles Gray to discuss The Elan School.
Original Air Date: July 27, 2021
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There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
New episodes twice a week on iHeartRadio.
#BehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsPodcast #RobertEvansBehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsMerch #BehindtheBastardsJohnLandis #BehindTheBastardsHost #BehindtheBastardsIvermectin #BestBehindtheBastardsEpisodes #BehindtheBastardsBestEpisodes

[@BenjaminGlatt]

People will do literally anything to avoid actually parenting their children.

[@Bustermachine]

While also wanting supreme parental authority.

[@darwinism8181]

Never underestimate how far bad parents will go to avoid confronting the fact that they are bad parents

[@ATTACKofthe6STRINGS]

When this title finally clicked in my mind, I had to sit and watch. I came across the Elan school on Reddit, and read an online comic that one of the victims was in the process of writing.

[@chrisblake4198]

Lifelong Mainer having a laugh at the description of Elan as 'the middle of nowhere' It was

[@akumakorgar]

Well look at all that crazy shit that went on in Derry, Maine without any attention from the outside world

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

@@akumakorgar - slow clap*

[@mainstreetmafia6605]

​@@akumakorgarokay but actually though, this makes me wonder what kind of horrid shit Stephen King might've seen or went through with how many of his stories being small town horror in Maine

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

Elan got shut down, but plenty of others still operate today, September 8, 2023. Still. STILL. Turnabout Ranch. Phoenix House. While only 2, of many, a lot of companies (let's be honest) run facilities across the country. It's so fucked...

[@MrJohndoakes]

The history of "tough love" "troubled teen" therapy schools/camps in the US is littered with defunct places and organizations like CEDU (had Synanon ties, was a chain), The Seed (got money from the National Institute of Mental Health), Straight, Inc. (full of ex-Seed people as staff, it became the Drug Free America Foundation after getting sued into the ground), the "Kids of..." chain* (staff was full of ex-Straight and ex-Seed people, leader was sued for millions, he ran away and became a Greek Orthodox priest), the Buffalo Soldiers (fell apart after kid died in their care), etc. There are far more dead ones than working ones, and it's getting less popular to do this to kids outside of upwardly mobile Fundamentalist Christian circles (and those kinds of people are fading away.) *So you have "Kids of El Paso" and "Kids of Bergen County". Each outlet was name after the town or county they were in. They were in California, Utah, Texas, and New Jersey.

[@Eli-su6ql]

"if it helps, this is much worse than WWE" said Robert, before covering Vince McMahon

[@ZGGuesswho]

joe vs the cult is really good supplemental, wonderful firsthand comic

[@Ziegrif]

Robert is basically the Harry Du Bois of podcasting.

[@durianaleria7919]

And goes by Tequila Sunset

[@yourlocalnerd7788]

He should open an episode with "I dont want to be this kind of animal anymore!"

[@celebacy6262]

We call nighttime abductions getting "goonied" in the biz. Most kids have the most trauma from that in their treatment experience is what they tell me.... -Cook at your local treatment center.

[@buttlord4204]

Synanon and the troubled teen industry both grew out of the "human potential movement" that also spawned Scientology

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

Tell me more

[@angiep2229]

These places and those families make me so angry. I'm a parent, and one of my kids has struggled with suicide attempts, and we were in and out of emergency rooms and psychiatric hospitals. Never once, never ever, did I force my child into anything. I cannot freaking imagine. (And fwiw my child is doing a lot better at this time.) I just... if I treated my child the way these families did, I have doubts my child would still be alive. These poor kids.

[@009013M3]

Normal parent: (absentmindedly thinking of all the different heroic ways he could turn literally anything in the house into a weapon to protect his children from a home invader, because he loves them so much that he would rather die than significantly inconvenience them) Affluent parent: (thinking of hiring a home invader to traumatize his child because loving them would significantly inconvenience him)

[@TheWinterscoming]

Ever since the cynanon episode I was hoping you would do one on the Elan school. Read the webcomic about it a few years ago.

[@buttlord4204]

New installments of that are STILL coming out. I was reading it weekly years ago too but, I lost interest, and now I have no idea where to jump back in to get caught up again. But yeah, it's written by "Joe Nobody" I believe, that and the subject should be enough to track it down, for anyone interested. He was in the program in it's later years, when it was tamer than the "cancer room" early years, the years where S.A. was one of the weapons used to keep these CHILDREN in line. Stories of early Elan School residents are truly wild. 12 year old girls tossed into the cancer room to be S.A.ed and starved for literal days on end. Leaving the room with STDs so virulent that they stink up the entire room... and having to deal with that, on top of the trauma of being tortured and starved for days, only getting water to drink by the grace of, their abuser. This happening to girls who were send to the school for TALKING TO BOYS when their parents thought that was inappropriate.

[@buttlord4204]

You couldnt be friends with anyone at Elan (against the rules) and even LOOKING AT someone of the opposite gender, was a rule violation. So people who found a bit of grace in the middle of this insanity in the form of a friendship or a filrtation, theyd have to be terrified of the person... THAT person, reporting them, with the only defense being to pre-empt them, and tattle first. Also, we are close to the end and no mention yet of how throughout all the years of Elan, they'd make individual kids fight EVERY OTHER KID in the house, one by one? Even the biggest, toughest kid eventually loses, and is eventually beaten to a pulp, after all that. You're beaten and exhausted, and here comes another challenger, who MUST vigorously beat you, so he can stay in good standing. They called that, The Ring. And, the scariest aspect of the school, which went on, only early on... so in the 70s, maybe the 80s... The Cancer Room. True behavior problems, nonconformers, people who wouldnt get with the program... They were cancer, and theyd be excised from everyone else, like a cancer. They had a special room where these cancer kids got sent - The Cancer Room. And, the reason why the cancer room was such a punishment, to some at least, was because among those youre locked in with (theres maybe 3-4 kids in there at a time), one of them is gonna be someone sent there by a judge. Some kid whose lived in orphanages, whose never known a good home, never had family worth having. Someone whose known nothing but real, extreme abuse, since infancy. So, theres some great big 6-foot, 17-year-old, 220-pound sociopathic monster in the cancer room, and now you, a 12-year-old blonde girl, sent to Elan because your parents caught you talking to boys and smoking a cigarette one time, are locked in there with him. There's someone else in there too, say, a 125-pound boy, but hes not gonna protect you... He lacks the physical ability to, even if he wanted to. So, you, little girl, you're SAed continuously for 3 days, essentially non-stop. Approximately enough food for three kids to eat a meager meal and similar rations of water are slid into the room, but the biggest, strongest has claim to ALL of that. The 125-pound boy is given meager food and drink just because Big Billy doesnt wish to needlessly create an enemy, but as far as Big Billy's 12-year-old blonde goes, she's just given nothing. After all, this kid is getting off on his power, the abuse he is a font of, and being the source of human pain in another, a distinct turnabout over what he's known most of his life, where he was the victim, and another was enjoying dishing it out. This particular punishment/practice WAS discontinued. You know, after a decade or so. But it is absolutely insane that this was ever a part of the program. Everyone knew that SA was an inherent risk, if not an absolute inevitably of the cancer room, that is exactly why it was added as a punishment. "Participate in the program in good faith, or we got a little bit of a r$&# in store for you!" Truly sickening stuff, especially for a child's program.

[@janecat8753]

I really really hope you weren't that 12-year-old girl, but if you were, or someone close to you was, I'm so, so sorry. Nobody should ever have to go through anything like that, let alone an innocent, defenseless child. I thought I'd read about the worst that Élan had to offer by now, but The Cancer Room truly is the most despicable of them all. The rabbit hole of abuse that this institution brought about, seems never-ending and I'm so incredibly disheartened by it. I'm so sorry to anyone who had to endure Élan's abuse. Nobody should have, ever.

[@somebodyoncetoldme6360]

Haven't listened to the episode yet, but I really recommend the elan school webcomic if they didn't mention it.

[@buttlord4204]

It's written by Joe Nobody if anybody wants the info to find it easier. Joe attended Elan in it's later years, when it was far tamer than how it started. Though it was still a complete nightmare

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

"WTF did you just say???" (to the description of Elan in the beginning) is the appropriate response.

[@Batgirl219]

lol. Being in high school at 21 is literally a nightmare of mine. I still have dreams where I learn I didn't fulfill all my requirements and I have to go back and take a couple of classes. 😂

[@davidmcmanus9022]

Robert that was the best intro ever.

[@andycruz7319]

As someone who got sent to kids prison. This shit wasn’t even close to what I went through. I did go through some shitty problems but this was fucked up.

[@adricklynn8882]

My fetish is to imagine that the people involved with these types of places listen to this podcast and hear a bunch of normal, well adjusted people mocking them relentlessly. I imagine the people involved crying and pearl clutching, trying to convince themselves that it wasn't all a horrible mistake.

[@jamesbronkema9785]

Wow man you really blew my mind with this everything you’re speaking of is it accurate as hell!! I was the longest resident ever to attend Elan ..because of my actions of rebelling. I was there from 1996 to the year of 2000 listening to your podcast actually has made me understand how much I interpret life still like a Elan! honestly, this podcast has helped me a lot the trauma that I have endured there. I never really realized how much this shyt still haunts me !I have always acted like it doesn’t bother me anymore it was absolutely horrible being there the way they belittle you and make you feel like the smallest thing in the world I could tell you stories that would make your stomach hurt

[@David-wc5qb]

Did you know a Jeremy Dean or a matt Webb?

[@sigidaly9950]

33:29 tbh this hypothetical show is just the natural evolution of Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil

[@ZorroinArkham]

Mike David from Redbar was sent this the exact Elan school in Maine because he ditched school.

[@HolyDeviant1]

Absolutely hand-crafted panopticon of total and complete abuse at every level. This should be studied, like, as a case for what not to do.

[@Dimo-lt4tw]

ok, best intro ever

[@TheWinterscoming]

27:46 a school for boys call PINS, Im sure that name helped with those kids

[@Judgewrath1]

I mean, it *sounds* fine, until you just spell the acronym.

[@nimi-nae]

Don't apologize for your intros. Double-down. Own it. We are here because we love your personalities as well as your content, so be yourself.

[@J3nJ3nl0llip0p]

Ugh. GYFO Guy-Foe That recording brought back too much. It was genuine, I've been through it. Not at all staged. The loud inhale is to accentuate it

[@jutley5296]

I mean, killed by a rattlesnake, in the mailbox is a hell of a Clue guess.

[@_NewtonMeter]

Relatable 2:38 people need to really start asking this question to people

[@andrewibhunt]

It’s so interesting hearing this story having worked at a military school in Oregon in the 2010s which used many of the same punishments (minus the fight club and juice) as the Elan school. Robert if you ever want to cover a school in Oregon (beyond Chemawa which I can only assume has the worst history), hit me up and let’s talk, it would make for a fine episode.

[@ZorroinArkham]

Shout outs to Redbar!

[@noop1111]

"sit around in a room and scream abuse at each other" Isn't that what everyone does?

[@SesshyLover777]

So in Oklahoma you age out at 21 to this day. Special needs students can stay longer with exceptions, I knew some who did, but working at my high school taught me that one!

[@VooshSpokesman]

Love from a HunterAvalone and Vaush fan!

[@wargriffin5]

Am I the only one laughing at the recording from "The Game?" It sounds like the person screaming is trying to come off angry or threatening, but they can't even control themselves enough to keep from wheezing every other word. 😂

[@elliott614]

"I'm actually the victim in the robbery " that garbage makes addicts look bad. What about people who can afford it, which would be the case with legalization? Fentanyl is insanely cheap. And even with desperation a lot of people can still have enough empathy to suffer themselves and not put the suffering onto others) addicts refuse to hurt people around them solely bc of their personal issues. It's an excuse though. Lack of access to Healthcare that could help can lead people to have to do things just to eat. This is true without drugs, and regular poverty. I have been homeless and never asked anybody for money and managed to make it tho. But also our safety net is way too austeritized. But screw terrible people using addiction to justify terrible behavior. I mean I somewhat get it bc it can feel like that sometimes... just like having no food can make understaffed Wal marts with self checkouts where the corporation is itself inherently evil on so many levels seem a certain way ... but there is such a difference between hurting people you are close to or even fellow working class people you don't know

[@BeastNationXIV]

I hear Elan is quite a musky place.

[@buttlord4204]

I've listened to KZbin interviews of people who went to Elan in the 70s who spoke about, young (as in, 12 years old) girls tossed in the cancer room to be SAed for days on end, leaving with such virulent STDs that they would stink up the entire building.

[@buttlord4204]

Oh dude, I am finally getting it I was just thinking, "oh yeah, there was some old cologne, Elan "Musk," I remember seeing magazine ads for that as a kid! I was even able to picture the bottle, memories of seeing dirty old discarded empty bottles of Elan Musk, kicking around in the woods, just off the side of the road circa 1991. I pushed the voice activate button on my phones Google search and said "Elon Musk" and then was like, uhhhh.... Ohhhhhh yeah! Don't even ask me how it took so long to register. Also, I think I was thinking of Jovan Musk

[@SubjectNate]

Sounds awfully like the Cultural Revolution in China.

[@FullmetalSP1]

Is this the school that Adam Eget what to?