I graduated in 2005 … I am happily married (to a wonderful Godly man) and I have a beatiful baby girl. I love Jesus. And i will worship him and serve him the rest of my days.

I didn’t once see a psychologist. The only talk of psychologists by the staff was putting them in a negative light (“psychologists don’t know what they’re doing and can’t help you. Be thankful you’re here and we can help you.”)

There were some good things. I like Joyce Meyer and I liked that we watched her videos once or twice a day. I learned some good things from her videos.

The staff in charge of the Mercy house were silly girls and extremely immature. Some of them were younger than the residents. They were not real counsellors or nurses and they often spoke very negatively of people in the medical field. Most of them had issues in their past and believed that psychologists didn’t help them but prayers from the church did, and looking back on it maybe that’s why they did and said a lot of strange things.

The staff made us feel that we were bothersom to them. I can’t really explain this well but it was the tone that they talked in and the words they said and their body language. For an example I’ll tell you about one time I was really struggling with thoughts of wanting to self harm. I knocked on their office door and asked if I could talk to staff about it. I was told to go away and they were busy and would talk to me later. I went away and waited and all I could hear from the office was the two staff members talking and sometimes shreiking with laughter. When they eventually came out 30 minutes? later they went and made coffees for themselves and then one of them had one of their friends come over so they went back in the office to talk. The staff mainly lived in their office and they never wanted to talk to us. If you finally managed to have some time with a staff member they would tell you to go and read your Bible. I think that’s why so much self harming was going on with the girls there. The staff never took requests for help seriously and didn’t know what to do. A lot of staff hadn’t been to uni and some hadn’t finished high school.

Every 3 or 4 weeks there was what they called Major Cleaning Day where the residents had to do about 6 hours of cleaning. The staff were in their office drinking coffee and chatting while this was happening.

They told us that same sex attraction is a sign that demons had entered a person. They were really strange about residents not having any physical contact with each other, we weren’t allowed to hug, or help a girl do her hair or anything like that. There were a few volunteers and if the volunteer hugged one of us and the staff saw, after the volunteer left that girl got into trouble. It was strange when volunteers were around. The house seemed totally different, the staff were a lot nicer, and when they left it went back to normal.

You weren’t allowed to leave when you wanted to. I know a few girls that tried to leave but the staff took them away for a few hours by themselves, then the next thing we knew the girl wasn’t leaving anymore. I can’t tell you for sure what happened when the staff took the girls away for those hours. I know I tried to leave and I was told I wasn’t allowed to, and had to give 2 days notice. Also a lot of girls were dismissed from Mercy when they got more sick instead of better. You didn’t have to break a rule to be dismissed. Staff thought that God talked directly to them and they told us God was telling them which “priveleged” girls to keep in the program because they were especially chosen by God, and which ones to get rid of as a “housecleaning” project. Yes they really said “get rid of.”
After a girl had left (either dismissed or chosen to leave and managed to) the staff sat us all down and told us how that girl had turned away from God. The staff then said we weren’t allowed to have any contact with the girl at all because we were the special girls God chose, and the girl was in rebellion from God, and the staff said they had to protect us. I feel so stupid that I believed them! I went along with it all. Now I feel so ashamed about it and I hope the girls who left are ok.

Staff came with us to any doctors appointments (and it was hard to convince a staff member to let us get an appointment, you had to be really sick or out of medication.) They came with us to make sure we didn’t say anything “Mercy inappropriate” to the doctor, like telling them we were getting worse or about the exorcisms or other things.

I have never felt so hopeless or alone or powerless as I did when I was at Mercy. I have been in the public hospital system and while it’s not perfect, at least you can be seen by doctors and nurses and counsellors or social workers. And they don’t tell you things like you’re sinful and that’s why you’re sick or you have demons in you. I think the worst thing is Mercy tries to trick the public into thinking they are professionals and they love and care for the girls, but it’s just not true.

A lot of the things they did to me were forced.

Sure they say it’s voluntary, but what they advertise about the program is not what it is. They advertise that there are psychologists and social workers but that just wasn’t the truth in my exprience. The staff weren’t qualified. And you say it’s voluntary, but remember that girls can’t just leave when they want to either. They need to give some days notice, and if you ask a girl who went through that, from the time of giving the notice to the time of actually being able to get out of there they are put in confinement, mistreated and it was terrible.

I suggest you are the person who needs to look into her facts and get them straight. When books are brought forward proving the exorcisms and even past members of staff have come forward to support what has been said, your attempts at trying to cover it all up after it’s been exposed are really transparent and even pathetic.