Ellen (not her real name) recently sent me a copy of the letter that she sent to the Board of Directors. I’ve left out her remarks addressing the Board specifically, but here is the rest of her story in its entirety:
I left the internship feeling completely chewed up and spit out into a cold and unfeeling world where virtually none of the things I had come to understand to be true about life in the Body of Christ even made sense anymore. The experience was completely alienating and I felt as though my grip on sanity was hanging by a very thin thread. I did come very close to taking my own life, and while I can’t say that was 100% due to my experience at Teen Mania, I can say without hesitation, that my experience there was the major contributing factor to the despondence and worthlessness I felt.
Before I go into the details of what happened after Teen Mania, I suppose I should first talk about what happened while I was there. I think the things that that stand out to me most about those first few weeks there was the systematic sizing up that went on with the huge herd of interns that descended on the campus. At least it felt huge at the time. In actuality, our number was in the mere one-hundreds. Subsequent classes would later blow that number out of the water. We were tested, poked, prodded, sleep deprived, screamed at, quizzed, tested again, and then sorted into neat little categories with those at the top of the herd (high IQ results, gregarious and charismatic personalities, and beautiful faces…i.e. the influencers) plugged into the more prestigious of work assignments while the rest were filtered into the more common positions. I think the thing I find the most disturbing now is the speech the leaders gave as they assigned the jobs. Phrases that would become all too familiar in the coming months made their first appearance on the scene. The most offensive of all of them was the claim that somehow GOD HIMSELF had a hand in the job placement each intern received. One mustn’t complain or question. The leaders had received a revelation from God. Who was I to question God? The other phrases used repeatedly to manipulate us and control complaining were things like “beat your body and make it your slave,“ “you can sleep when you die,” pain is just weakness leaving your body.” Medical concerns were dismissed with a mere “drink more water” instruction and we were all encouraged to keep our complaints to ourselves. Voicing any kind of hesitance or objection earned you labels like negative, divisive, rebellious, unteachable or weak.
To be honest, I wasn’t completely thrilled by my job assignment, BUT I wasn’t devastated either, and from where I was sitting that seemed to be a pretty decent place to be. I remember being really shocked when I learned that God wanted that really cute punkish chick with a quick wit and bookish charm assigned to the kitchen crew. But that didn’t last long. After the Honor Academy received an angry call from her parents complaining that they didn’t pay $8000 for their daughter to sling hash for a year, God changed his mind swiftly.
Looking back it all seems to take on very communist-like themes. Every area of our lives had a system with very clear punishments outlined for any of those pesky rebels who would dare to step outside of the lines. Every question had an answer, albeit far too over simplistic and every misstep came with a set of unfortunate consequences. The thing I remember fearing the most was humiliation. Within my first year all save one of my roommates were dismissed for one thing after another. The first to go had wine with dinner with her family when she was home on vacation. The second held hands with an old flame over Thanksgiving break. The third kissed a boy on a SWAT trip to an ATF. The fourth had sex with another intern in the back forty. That one I didn’t expect. She was the quiet type. Talking with her as she packed her things to go home, it was clear she had snapped. She was alternately sobbing and screaming as she flung all of her belongings into her suitcases. I remember feeling a profound sense of sadness as I held her quaking body before she was whisked out the door by a staff member to an unknown location. That was the last I ever saw or heard from her. She wouldn’t take my calls after she left.
The first few months I felt very alienated from the other interns. I couldn’t run very fast and I wasn’t in the best shape. I had been overweight my entire life and had never once attempted to run the three miles per day required in those first days. I felt so completely ashamed of my inability but I was determined to stick it out and try my hardest to keep up with the others in my group. There was a particular January intern in my running group who was disgusted by my sluggish, out of shape body. Each morning as I dragged my body as fast I could muster around the figure eight driveway of the Teen Mania Campus, she would huff impatiently calling out to the other group members things like, “Ok guys, high knees today so we can actually get a workout in.” I was humiliated. A few weeks in I broke down in tears in the shower and began to sob uncontrollably. I had no idea what I could do to make faster progress. I took to running in the evenings on my own in addition to our morning runs but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t make fast enough progress. Finally, at the end of my rope I went to my intern advisor to ask for advice. I’m not sure what I expected. I had certainly been at the Honor Academy long enough to know that compassion would not be forthcoming, but I was desperate. I can’t remember my advisor’s exact words, but I do remember there was a lot of head nodding and raised eyebrows followed by a speech about discipline. Apparently I was suffering the chastisement of the Lord for the lack of discipline I had applied in my life in the areas of diet and exercise. I went away feeling even more worthless.
The sense of complete worthlessness I began feeling at that moment continued and grew even stronger as the months wore on. There were many evaluations made of our progress as interns in our professional life as well as our personal day-to-day life. I was chastised repeatedly for an opposite sex friendship with a boy I knew from home. He was an intern as well. There was a particular intern in a leadership position who made it his mission to catch us in a compromising position and went as far as stalking us around the campus, leaving anonymous notes for our advisors to find, and generally making it impossible for us to have any kind of real friendship. Eventually we were scolded and told we were not to have conversations that lasted longer than five minutes at a time. The amount of micromanaging and need for control the staff and other interns exercised in our lives was intense.
When the end of my first year came to a close I was convinced that I was completely useless in the Body of Christ and the only way to remedy this situation was to delay college for one more year and stay for a second year to gain more leadership training.
10 comments:
I remember becoming a Staff Associate after being a Graduate Intern and being somewhat horrified at the process of how interns were “placed”. It’s funny looking back how I was so nervous about my placement and what God was going to do with me. The prestigious jobs go first. They go to the people who i guess meet every need that they have. These people are scouted, and the big departments got protected picks – meaning that person was immediately taken from the pool so other people couldn’t have them. I never actually witnessed the intern draft – but I guess each department got to make up their dream team, and then they each got to pick in turn. I’m pretty certain that the maintenance, ground crews, K-Crew probably weren’t picked first. Then at the end when all was said and done – it was of course, God’s perfect will where everyone was assigned. I was assigned to be a telemarketer for ATF.
My heart goes out to Ellen. Ugh. A cyber hug to you, Ellen.
-Mr. Potter
March 9, 2010 2:56 AM
Diane said…
You know, I’m really glad I didn’t know how the intern draft actually went – otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have had the confidence or courage to accomplish everything the Lord has had me do since then.
I was placed on the K Crew.*
I then went on to graduate from both an Ivy League school (B.A.) and a Big Ten school (M.F.A.). This is not to boast – it’s all where God has led me, and my gifts have nothing to do with who I am – but it shows that the HA really has no clue when it comes to your potential.
*Being on the K Crew turned out to be a blessing from God, though, since we worked so much more than the rest of the ministry and had different shifts – we were basically protected from a lot of the stuff everyone else went through, and just became a really tight-knit group…
March 9, 2010 9:31 AM
h. said…
my supervisor in GE kind of let me know how the intern draft happened unintentionally. he had totally meant it as a compliment, but i remember being really bothered by everything after the fact.
he described this huge pool–once the interns were slated for their specific departments [you know, post the AA’s being chosen and such], and then the supervisors all chose their TCs first [Team Captains]. Apparently I had been selected by another supervisor at one point, but he had reaaaallllly wanted this other girl [a smaller version of the “dream team” concept, i suppose]…so i got traded. because this guy wanted someone else more than me, not because God told him so.
it was later admitted to me that my call team [which happened to be the most ragtag of them all] was what it was because my supervisor knew nothing about me, and since i was an afterthought, i got whoever had been left over–whereas the other call teams were hand-selected and crafted.
apparently i was the “diamond in the rough” team captain that he was so glad he had, in the end–and yet it had started out that i hadn’t been wanted more than another girl, had been traded because of it, and just kind of “was there” for a time. interesting.
March 9, 2010 9:46 PM
Dan Gross said…
Your story is terribly shocking, Ellen, thank you for sharing.
Diane: I have a couple of completely unrelated questions for you, but this isn’t the forum. I’ll drop you an email offline.
March 10, 2010 1:47 AM
Diane said…
Hey Dan – yeah, you can either get my email address from RA, or from my blog (which you can get to from the Blogger profile that my name links to).
March 10, 2010 11:16 AM
moriah said…
Ellen, your story really hit home with me, particularly your fantastic articulation of the intern sorting process, which happened in my year as well. This was also Dave Hasz’ first year as director. I can only imagine it has evolved into a stranger more intense version as the years have gone by. It makes you feel like sh** right? The favorites are immediately established, and the rest are just kind of placed in a little corner of the room, with a call list copied from the phone book. To top it off, one of my first assignments was to call a list new york jewish synagogues with my ATF shpeel. AHHHH!!! This was horrifyingly embarrassing~ ignorant~even then I felt I was betraying my own people (I am half jewish) thanks for sharing!
March 11, 2010 12:56 AM
Elizabeth said…
@ Moriah,
What year were you? I was an Intern in 96/97 and I too had to call EVERY jewish synagogue in NYC for the Providence ATF. It was a MOST interesting experience. I even had a Rabbi call me back and spend 20 min. speaking with me about my theology, purpose and objective in calling. It was an awesome experience and I have thought of that Rabbi every now and then since that time. However it was a difficult and impersonal approach, as like you said you were calling off a photocopied phonebook.
March 16, 2010 3:13 AM
Anonymous said…
When I worked on the day One Team, my supervisor asked med to cut and paste all of the addresses for “Michigan” and “church” into my call list. It was completely crazy calling Mormon Churches and Jewish Synogogues and trying to talk them into coming.
March 16, 2010 8:48 AM
Shiloh said…
hahahahahaha!!!!!!!
Isn’t that something! I was calling Sanfransisco. hahahahaha. Talking to all the liberal Christian scientists’ and Unity Churches!!!! hahahahahaha. Wow. I forgot how they made me do that. My call team would gather up at the end of the day and talk about all the souls we reached.
hahahahahaha. “OH I talked to this guy for 20 minutes about his doctrine. I think I really reached him…”
One thing at T.M. — there was never a dull moment.
March 16, 2010 9:25 AM
moriah said…
ah hahahahaha! these stories are awesome. Elizabeth, i’m glad you had that conversation with the Rabbi. I love that he wanted to get into an intellectual conversation with you about it, just like my Jewish grandfather would have. Oh my! I think a reunion of ex interns is in order. I have a strong feeling we would all end up in a pile of laughter on the floor!
March 16, 2010 9:57 AM