A year in fundamentalist hell

As featured in The Commuter Oct. 27, 2008.

"What is this place? A school, a jail, some weird cult place? I would soon find out that it is all those places, and more..." recounts Michele Ulriksen in her book, "Reform at Victory", an account of her year spent as "girl #56" in an all-girl fundamentalist Baptist lockdown school in Ramona, Calif.

Ulriksen's harrowing story brings to light the mentally and physically abusive treatment used in many fundamentalist reform schools, operating under the guise of Christian values and a rehabilitative environment. It is this type of treatment that Ulriksen hopes to inform others about.

After spending 10 years writing her account with the support of former reform school students, friends, and family, Ulriksen says she hopes her story will make an impact. A single mother of a thirteen-year-old daughter, LBCC student, and owner of West Hills Communication, located in Corvallis, Ulriksen has come a long way since her days in reform school. Now she has the opportunity to share her story and inform parents before they make a misinformed choice.

According to Ulriksen, 38, "Parents are often so desperate to get help for their teen, that they just go ahead and believe what they are told and they don't think critically and question, and look logically about how an experience like this will affect their teenager. They don't think about it that way."

Ulriksen believes it is important to understand that "everyone who says they are a Christian do not behave that way."

Her parents, like many others, trusted the administrators of Victory Christian Academy, and signed over custody of their daughter for one year to the school, unknowningly trapping her in what would become a year in fundamentalist Baptist "hell."

The author describes the day of her arrival at Victory as a deception planned by her family, who tricked her into believing they were visiting the zoo together. Upon her arrival she was dragged away from her parents by unknown people, stripped of her possessions, and forced into solitary confinement for hours. In her account, Ulriksen writes about her arrival, "Whatever this sick place is, I'm going in against my will. I don't know who or what is in there. I turn to look at my family. They won't make eye contact with me. With black mascara colored tears streaming down my cheeks, the faces around me are now only a blur."

So begins the year Ulriksen spent in reform "school." Forced to take unknown medications, given no privacy, and berated daily by the staff, Ulriksen and other girls attending had to endure Biblical indoctrination and constant attacks on their self-worth meant to brain-wash them and break them into submission. Escape was impossible from the facility. A former FBI bunker, surrounded by a 12-foot electric fence a mile off the main road, Victory Christian Academy was completely isolated from the outside world. Ulriksen writes, "By the time we got to talk to our parents we were already brainwashed...into thinking that we would be left there longer if we told our parents."

According to the author, many girls who leave such facilities and report abuse are labeled "troubled teenagers" and "liars," and are often not believed because of their previous history.
"Authorities and social services won't go out there unless they received numerous reports. You have to go out of there with bruises, or evidence of sexual abuse, for them to do anything."

After the death of a young student the year following Ulriksen's departure, Victory Christian Academy was investigated and forced to close by California authorities. The facility was found to have numerous safety violations and deemed an "extreme fire hazard" by a San Diego fire marshal.
However, the program reopened in Jay, Florida under the same name, and is now operating under a different name with new owners.

Although Ulriksen's experience at Victory Christian Academy left her with emotional damage, low self-esteem, anxiety and depression, and caused her to attempt to take her own life twice, she recognizes that all private reform schools are not isolated and fundamentalist.

Ulriksen encourages parents to research the schools they are considering, check with the Better Business Bureau, and look for any complaints or lawsuits that were filed. She encourages parents to look beyond their religion and avoid any programs that do not let them speak to their children or, "that instills such a strong message of fundamentalist values, anti-choice, anti-female, old testament, hard core. These can be very damaging, and hurt a girl's self-esteem when she was already going through problems."
Instead, Ulriksen says to find a school that "teaches the love of Jesus and not the wrath of the Old Testament."

Shelby Earnshaw, Director of the International Survivor's Action Committee, says about the book, "Child abuse masquerading as religion is a very real and serious problem. Reform at Victory sheds light on an issue that is largely ignored by our society."

Although in the beginning writing Reform at Victory brought up bad memories, she says that she now "feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I have closure."