MERCY MINISTRIES

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:46): Today, I would like to continue to read into the record the personal story of a young woman who suffered at the hands of Mercy Ministries. She writes:

Staff often talked about how young women go to Mercy Ministries to be 'reprogrammed' from their old lives, old beliefs, old selves. They would talk about Mercy Ministries taking the world's trash and making treasure from it. It hurt a little. I never considered myself to be trash. I was a person with an illness, and I was proactively seeking treatment. I wasn't trash!

I want to talk a little about the counselling at Mercy Ministries. I would see this unqualified counsellor once a week for about 40 minutes. Some weeks counselling was missed. The sessions normally opened with a prayer and the counsellor asking me a few questions such as who I got on best with out of the staff and who I got on best with out of the other young women.

She would then take the Restoring the Foundations casebook folder and read a couple of pages to me. I often then had to read a prayer out loud. Usually the session ended there for the week. It took me a little while to discover (due to the secrecy of the counselling sessions) that each young woman, no matter their illness or issue, was treated by the very same Restoring the Foundations materials. A young woman had to work her way through the folder during her counselling sessions before she could be termed a Mercy Ministries graduate.

I had severe panic and anxiety, which caused dizzy spells, cold sweats and difficulty in breathing. I tried to manage these panic attacks as best I could at Mercy Ministries. On my second day at Mercy Ministries I could feel an impending panic attack, so I tried sitting with my eyes closed and picturing a calm place, only to be disturbed by a staff member who told me indignantly that no sleeping was allowed during the day. I attempted to let her know that I wasn't sleeping and was trying to cope with the panic. However, she was not interested in 'excuses' as she called them and, according to Mercy Ministries, meditating was evil as well.

I did try substituting meditation for quiet prayer. However, at the time the staff did not permit me to go anywhere in the centre to be alone to pray. Throughout my time at Mercy Ministries girls came and went. In the end, more than half the girls I knew at Mercy Ministries left because of the type of program Mercy was or they were kicked out.

This makes a bit of a mockery out of the Ministry Ministries' claim that they have a 90 per cent success rate. She continues:

While at Mercy Ministries girls are not allowed to exchange contact information, phone numbers, etc., because once a girl leaves or is kicked out contact with that person is prohibited. I shudder to think about what may have happened to some of those girls.

Being at Mercy Ministries was a very confusing time, and it made me wonder how I was going to be able to manage my illness, especially given that I was in a much more stressful environment than I was when I was at home. I was removed from the medical care of my doctors; removed from the care of my qualified counsellor; removed from my family, friends and church; removed from my studies and work opportunities; and prevented from managing my illness the way I had been taught to by my doctors.

Even going to staff during a panic attack was considered taboo. I was accused of 'acting for attention'. It was obvious that the staff had little to no knowledge of how to help me or how to let me help myself.

Occasionally they would spare me the accusation that I was attention seeking and, instead, they would tell me to go and read a book called God's Creative Power, or read the Bible. They did not seem to understand, or take seriously, that I was suffering from a real illness that needed real intervention so that it could be managed. When reading God's Creative Power and the Bible did not prevent further panic attacks, a staff member told me to sit down in her office, and she shut the door. I was told that, seeing as I was not improving, she believed that it was demonic forces that were causing the symptoms I described. I was told that the 'world' may call it an illness, but they are wrong. She said that the 'world' does not have the power of God, and that only Mercy has the power of God and knows the truth—that demons cause what the world calls mental illness, and that only prayer and treatment from Christians can heal somebody of it. I was told that Mercy Ministries was the only place that could help me, and that the 'world' with all their qualifications has already failed me.

A couple of days later, I was forced to have an exorcism. Two staff members, one of them being my Mercy Ministries counsellor had me in a room with them. They shut the door and pulled the curtains so that nobody could see in, then had me stand in the middle of the room while they laid hands on me, and cast the demons out of [my body] one by one, calling them by name. They spoke loudly, then quietly, then loudly again, alternating between speaking in tongues and speaking in English. I wanted to cry. I didn't understand why they were yelling. I was so frightened. At one point, one of the staff members tried to reassure me. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'I am angry at Satan, not at you.'

After the exorcism, I was told that I shouldn't have any more symptoms because the demons that were causing them had been cast out. Although I am embarrassed to admit it, I held on to what they had said. I wanted to believe them. That I had been healed, that I wouldn't have any more symptoms, that they had 'fixed' me. And I was okay, for about two days.

When the next panic attack hit, being unable to manage it the way I had been taught by my doctors, I went to staff for help. I was having a lot of problems with my breathing. They took me to their office, closed the door, and proceeded to tell me about how disappointed they were in me. I was told that they had already cast the demons out of me, therefore if I was having any symptoms now, it was for one of two reasons: 1) I was acting for attention, or 2) I had knowingly and willingly invited the demons.

Time expired.