I have been thinking of a way I might raise the profile of the girls adversely affected by the Mercy Ministires program. My proposal is to allow the survivors to guest post on my blog, writing as little or as much as they want. Writing as often as they want about their experience. It is hoped that this will provide them an outlet and a voice. It will also serve as a store, a collection of anecdotal evidence that may aid in the pressuring of Mercy Ministries to act, to present proof that their program works and to ensure the program they deliver complies with best practice standards.
So feel free fellow bloggers to copy the picture and host a link on your blog to mine. Feel free to spread the word.
Survivors of Mercy feel free to email me at sbwright at gmail.com, please include X-mercy in the subject line. You name and details will remain anonymous. I will format the posts for you and will send you a copy of the post content before posting it here.
If you would like the html script to post the image and link to this page let me know.
NOTE: This is the first post on X-Mercy stories, to find later stories simply using the google search in the top left hand corner.
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18 Comments:
I couldn't get the code to work, so I made a little semi-post about what you're trying to do. I support you all the way, my friend.
I really appreciate it PM.
Thank you Sean... thank you
@ex-mercy girl,
only to glad to help.
good on you Sean - keep it going :)
as a professional who works with girls and young women who suffer and experience horrendous issues both psychologically and socially I am appalled at the so-called 'treatment' these girls have received and grateful that people are now listening to them- giving a space to tell their story is probably one of the best things you could do- so thank you Sean :)
Hi
I am interested in speaking to any girls who have been to mercy ministries. I am attempting to write a book on a very similar industry in the US which runs lockdown programs for troubled young people. Mercy appears to use many identical tactics. if you wish to tell me your story please contact me on
teenindustry@gmail.com
I am a Mercy graduate from the Nashville home. I am astonished at what I am reading regarding the facitlity in Australia. I'm not certain what is going on, but I am sure that Nancy will handle this correctly.
...To address a few issues about the rules- it is a Christian facility. Many of these young women have been living a very difficult life and their existence if desperate. In order to combat their "issues"(ie: eating disorders, prostitution, sexual abuse struggle, unwanted pregnancy,etc...) they NEED STRUCTURE. The "modest" attire is merely to keep some civility-you can't run around in underwear around the facility as there are guests, etc....that could come in to visit at a given time.
I've never heard of an exorcism-but I think the writer is referring to part of the therapy called "sins of the fathers"(which is a biblical term) and the counselors prayed with me to be purified and begin a new life-without my past sins....
So, please don't take a few unhappy opinions on the program and certainly don't label the entire ministry as a cult!
Mercy Graduate,
Yes I am well aware that it is a Christian facility. The women who have made contact with me were and still are christian.
As to rules i'll accept that the rules are necessary for running a facility. That handbook is both draconian and condescending
So, please don't take a few unhappy opinions on the program and certainly don't label the entire ministry as a cult!
There are more than a few unhappy opinions. The problems are organisational and systemic. There are 12-15 girls who have come forward in Australia and 4 or so in the US where the information is just leaking out.
Oh and I'll do what ever the hell I want. So please be are part of the solution and do some digging yourself ask some questions. Free yourself from the ppersonality cult of Nancy.
Mercy have to get their house in order which means addressing the issue not trying to bury it.
Thankyou for this. I so nearly went there but decided against it, for all the reasons you cite, shortly before I went. I have spent the last few years often wondering how things might be different, glad I didn't go, but feeling alone. So many people rave about mercy. Thanks for being another one who sees it as I do.
Anon,
I would hope that you would be able to get help elsewhere. Our government turns a blind eye to this practice assuming that because the service is christian it has peoples best interest at heart. What we need is a regulated industry if the government is going to wash its hands of health care.
I'm in the UK, would have gone to the US if I had gone. There is now a mercy place in the UK, but there wasn't at this time. I am in a really good place now. I'm a happy, sorted, lesbian, quaker. Thanks for caring, though. I'm going to have a think if there is anything I can do to rasie this issue in the UK. I am so fed up of how well known mercy is getting and how many friends from evangelical circles (which I dont really mix in any more, but I have still old aquaintences and some friends) keep getting involved with mercy. I get particularly angry at how many womens campains they are getting involved in, when I find their anti choice agenda hard to reconcile with that.
Anon UK,
Good to hear you are sorted. While I would have philosophical differences with Mercy if they were just a religious group offering good mental health care, they aren't, they are a prozletyzing arm of the pentecostal movement that ranks the movement above their god and the client.
I'm quite shocked at the negative things I read about Mercy.I graduated from the programme last year and it literally transformed my life. I have gone from being a suicidal, depressed, self harmer who suffered violent panic attacks and had bulimia for most of my childhood and teens, to being a confident young woman, full to the brim with God, still making mistakes but dealing with them and moving on from them. Looking at me today, you would not know what I had been through, you would never guess.
One thing that is true is that the Mercy programme is a hard program to work through. You have to be so committed and you have to hear things that will hurt you. Many cant cope with this, and choose to leave in offense- these are the girls who have spread the allegations about Mercy. I cant judge them, but I can say that I am a living breathing testimony that Mercy Ministries works in rehabilitating. Doctors told me I would be on heavy duty meds and in and out of psych units for the rest of my life. Now I'm free. What more evidence do you need?
Emma,
It is wonderful to here that Mercy has turned your life around, or rather that you have been able to turn your life around.
Mercy may work for some but for others it leaves them in a worse state than when they entered.
I will address you comment in a post of its own.
My own (fairly new) blog has some material up on Mercy Ministries, especially on relation to To Write Love On Her Arms. I have a bank of links directing to other websites dealing with the Mercy Ministries atrocity. I really appreciate what Sean is doing, and I'd encourage you to keep up the good fight. I know I will.
Jimmie Lee,
I was just reading your blog yesterday. I will add you to the X-Mercy blog list.
As a former resident of Mercy, I commend your efforts to reveal the true happenings there.
Anon,
Feel free to email me with your story if you like sbwright at gmail.com
And thankyou
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