In Their Own Words Part 1 - Former Castlewood Treatment Center Patients Speak Out
Updated: Feb 5, 2022
Monday, December 16, 2013
"My name is *******. I just found out about the lawsuits several weeks ago. I was a victim. I was taken from my family for 2 years. Told I was involved along with my family in a satanic cult. Told I had a child, named her ************ and she was burned over a fire in my grandmothers' back yard. Was told I was victim of satanic sexual rituals lead by my father. A man who is amazing, his reputation as an educator, father and grandfather put at risk. I was drugged through psych meds and told I had over 20 personalities. I lost custody of my twin children because of this. I've been fighting to be a part of their lives for almost 10 years. It has financially and emotionally depleted me and my current husband. I was at The Castlewood Treatment Center in 2004. Please tell me I can still do something or am I too late??"
December 18, 2013 at 7:51pm EST
"I wanted to respond when I had a quiet moment, as you and your husbands experience deserves much time and thought. Unfortunately, my family and I know your pain all too well. I have suffered, my dear father has suffered, my mother, sister, brother, aunt, grandmothers, and worse of all my own children have suffered as a result of the Castlewood Treatment Center. I entered their facility in May of 2004. My oldest set of twins were 1 year old at the time. I walked into their doors with an eating disorder, I walked out with a real life hollywood horror story, a divorce and without my precious babies. I was so drugged up on psych meds, that I could not function. I had no idea who I was, who my family were, what I was. I was a lost soul. They drugged me, shoved feeding tubes down me, and left me believing that the family, the father I loved more than life itself were evil, cruel people. Their "therapeutic methods", were scary, hurtful and painful to endure. I wanted to die. I wanted it all to end. I wanted peace. Sexual satanic rituals at the hands of my father and male family members, murders of infants, satanic rituals that no human being could fathom were now in my head. I was made to write them, draw them, live them as if I had really lived them. When they say they do not use psych meds and hypnosis. That is a lie. That is a lie...please listen when I say that they did do this stuff. My main therapist was a man name Thomas Lipsitz. Of course, he was under the direction of Mark Swartz himself. Tom Lipsitz had lost his license to practice several years before I saw him, as a result of signing insurance bills for another therapist in his practice. She had lost her license for being accused of planting false memories. He still allowed her to see clients even though she had lost her license and then signed her insurance bills making it look like he saw those patients. During my therapy treatments, he would dim the lights, count backwards, and ask me to become another personality. Funny how all of my therapy times would coincide with my medication times. By the end of my time at the Castlewood Treatment Center, they said I had over 20 different personalities. They had diagnosed me with Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. My husband divorced me and took my children. I was on 375mgs of Effexor 3 times a day, ambien, xanax. All of the dosages higher than the FDA recommended maximum dose. I was a zombie. After leaving The Castlewood Treatment Center njjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj,m, I took myself off of them medications. I went through a detox period, on my own for over 2 weeks. Please take this literally, I did not sleep for those two weeks, did not function, shook constantly, vomitted multiple times a day (not from eating disorder). After leaving The Castlewood Treatment Center, I lost 20 pounds. They did not fix me....they made me sick. It took me 4 years of attorney fees, fighting, psych evals, crying, to get supervised visits with my children. It has taken me almost 10 years to have unsupervised visits with my children. Attorney fees, court fees, 204.00 a week in child support since 2005. Financially I am depleted, emotionally I am spent. I was lucky to have a family who welcomed me back with open arms. My mom told me once, that my father cried literally everyday for the two years I was missing. They talked to attorneys, they talked to their pastor, they talked to therapists, they considered filing a missing persons report, as they had no idea if I was dead or alive. My children were 1 the last time my family saw them. They will be 11 in January. Because of The Castlewood Treatment Center. Through the years, I have had a psych eval that of course cleared me of every diagnosis The Castlewood Treatment Center gave me, I returned to the social work field, I married a man who retired from the Police Force in 2011 after 20 years. I gave birth to twin daughters in 2011. My ultimate goal is for all four of my children to know the amazing and wonderful family they have. My daughters are lucky to have them and it is my dream and goal that ******* and ********* will too. I want to fight the fight. I have fought this long thinking I was alone...I want to finish this fight. I want to make it right for all the people, not just the young women, but the families who have suffered as well. I want the world to know...the hurt that just one human being has caused. Not as a vengeance, but to make right what has been wronged. I want my children to know, that fighting for what is right, not through anger, but through an open honest heart, that good does prevail. I want peace for all involved. I want to fight for good. I am truly sorry for what you and your husband and family have been through all of these years. It makes me cry for all who have lost through these horrible people. Please, if I can ever do anything or be of help in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me."
Saturday, November 30, 2013 at 9:19pm EST
"I'm so sorry that you and your family have had to go through all of this. Thank you so much for all that you are already doing. While I was there memories of abuse were created, and my parents were painted as sadistic monsters. I was supposed to be comforted by the words from the "professionals" there who told me that if I embraced my "Castlewood family" that I would have endless support by people who understood what I was going through, and as long as I had their support I could live up to my fullest potential. On the outside, the whole facility and the methods are bizarre and frightening. Everything they talk about in the news articles is true. The women screaming whilst having "flashbacks" apparently reliving rape, torture, abuse, is a daily occurrence. But then there are also grown women giggling and rolling on the floor screaming for cookies (embracing their "child parts") a behavior which they learn in IFS therapy. But, for the emotionally hurting, often lost feeling, vulnerable individuals looking for anything to improve the hell of their eating disorder, they paint a pretty picture. Those behaviors are embraced, encouraged, and sympathized. They make the Castlewood Treatment Center way the only way. I saw it happen over and over again while I was there. I feel like I have my eating disorder to thank for getting me out of there. They painted that picture for me, gave me as much xanax as I wanted (i had pre existing sub abuse issues) to dull the pain of no longer having my family, who I was close to, as part of the picture. I helped make family week one of the worst experiences of my mothers life by popping pills and saying every angry thing they wanted me to until I hated myself so much for saying those things I no longer wanted their help. I wanted to go home so I could die, because that;s what I felt like I deserved. Finally they gave up on me. They made me break up with my abusive boyfriend (the only abuse I have ever endured) so they wouldn't be discharging me into an unsafe environment, and transferred me to a local psychiatric hospital under a falsified affidavit that said I was suicidal. They had me taken 30 or so miles out of the way so I was admitted to a hospital where Dr. Holemon also worked, so regardless of what I said I would be admitted. I think they did it like that so they wouldn't have a failed case, just one who transferred elsewhere. Of course, as soon as I got home, I went back to that boyfriend and am lucky to have made it out of that situation alive. It took me nearly a year to speak to my parents again. Partly out of shame, but partly out of the remaining belief that my parents were horrible people. I now live with my parents and can say with certainty, everything they were telling me was a lie. I have wonderful parents who have done nothing but try to help me. I guess all that being said, I feel like I understand what they do from both sides. I've suffered by them, and by them I caused suffering. I want nothing more than to see that horrible place shut down, the guilty parties charged with their crimes, and to see the victims reunited with their families. If there is anything I can do for either of you, I am here for you as well."
October 3, 2016
Hi there. I was at CW2 between October and December 2011. I did have false memories that I believe were the result of inappropriate treatment and leading questions while vulnerable by Jane a therapist and Dick Schwartz. While there I was sexually assaulted by a male resident. Mike Rechtein was his therapist and Mike did nothing. Ultimately another girl was assaulted by the same person. The male who assaulted us was allowed to stay. I was kicked out after writing a suicide letter and having extreme delusions and dissociation
*Names of patients and their families have been left out to protect their privacy rights.
