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When Allan Votaw entered Cal Farley's boys' ranch in Texas in 1957, the five-year-old hoped that he and his two brothers – aged 3 and a half to 6 – had found a home. Instead of 66, they found a "horror house" in which sadistic staff members whipped children until they were bruised and bleeding and children were assaulted by older children.
"You lived in fear, you totally lived in fear," said Votaw, who said he still had 10 years of nightmares after spending 10 years in the vast ranch of at-risk youth outside d & # 39; Amarillo.
For years, he fought the ranch, feeling alone in his fight, until he read an article published in 2017 in the British newspaper The Guardian that featured a handful of men – including childhood friends – describing the mistreatment suffered in their childhood.
Since then, more and more men have come forward, but the calculation that some had hoped did not happen. Despite the revelations, the ranch continues to glorify its past, from the description on its website of the founder's desire, Cal Farley, to provide a safe haven for children to the ranch's 80th anniversary celebrations this year, which include a gala and a inspiring movie describing life there.
The president and CEO of the ranch, Dan Adams, said that he believed in these men, but that he was focusing on current residents – and on the future. He added that the ranch would pay the former residents' consultation fees, adding that they had responded last month to those who were not comfortable contacting the ranch by ensuring that 39, a third party installs them. But, he said, he does not want the men's stories to be incorporated into the story of his story by the ranch, and noted that this was not part of a book produced by the Christian ranch for the birthday.
"I'm going to recognize these guys, but I'm not a promoter of their agenda," said Adams, who arrived at the ranch in 1996.
Adams also stated that he had not considered using a third party to investigate the allegations and produce a public report, which, according to legal experts, can give validation to individuals who # 39; express.
The passage of time makes it unlikely to have a legal remedy – criminal or civil – because of prescription.
Men who lived there from the 50s to the 80s paint a picture of a place steeped in violence. They say that lashes with belts were frequent and brutal, with adult men sometimes running away and using belts so long that they encircled the boys' bodies, also striking them in the groin. . Lashes came for everything from forgetting a Bible verse to getting a bad grade, they said. In addition, some men report being assaulted or raped by older boys.
"They were laughing at us at the time and they did not care about us now," said Steve Smith, 69, who was 8 when he and his 5-year-old brother arrived at the ranch. 1957.
Smith and Janet Heimlich, founder of a nonprofit project based in Austin, have become leaders of a growing group of men who talk about their experiences. According to Heimlich, about 100 men came forward, some of them sharing stories about a Facebook group. Men say the ranch has left a legacy of men struggling to cope with trauma that in some cases has led to homelessness, drug addiction, suicide and jail time.
"He stayed with me all my life, and I've always had those cries and punishments – I guess you'd call flashbacks," said Smith, who lives in Amarillo. "They have never left me, I have them in me all my life and I know most other guys have them too – it's too much to take when you're young and to see."
Mental health experts say that mistreatment described by men can have effects for life, not only by causing disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety, but also by increasing suicide risk, health problems, including diabetes and cancer, and risk behaviors, including alcohol and drug abuse.
"What we do know is that the more you experience terrible childhood experiences, it changes your body, it changes how our brains work," said Robin Gurwitch, a psychologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, SC North.
Over the decades, children have been at the ranch for a variety of reasons. Some were sent there by the forces of order, others were rebellious teenagers sent by their parents. Some, like the Smith brothers and Votaw, were sent by mothers who were struggling to support themselves after their father's departure.
The Votaw brothers both died – the youngest, Gregg, of a heroin overdose that occurred in 2009 at the age of 55. The eldest, Rusty, committed suicide in 2014 at the age of 63; Votaw says his older brother had pancreatic cancer at the time.
"Our mentality was so disrupted that we made decisions that normal people would not make," said Votaw, who lives in Oklahoma, and said the ranch left him quick to fight.
Robert Cream, 44, learned that he had realized how much his experience at the ranch in the 1980s had "broken" him.
"I always look behind me because I never know who will come next and hit me," he said.
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