The Survivor of a Christian Boot Camp Speaks Out
By: Leslie A. Zukor
Michele Ulriksen
Michele Ulriksen was a relatively normal Southern California teen, back in the summer of 1986. She enjoyed the warm sun, secular music, and drank on occasion. She even snuck out to smoke and get drunk a few times. She watched MTV, wore red lipstick like Madonna, and had posters of music bands on her walls. Sounds like the typical teen. Yet, two years into her high school “rebellion”, author, Michele Ulriksen, found herself in a situation that was anything but typical. What was supposed to be a family vacation to the San Diego Wild Animal Park ended up as a one-way ticket to an unlicensed, locked-down, reform school in Ramona, California.
The school, Victory Christian Academy, was an all-female fundamentalist boot camp surrounded by a ten-foot high barbed wire fence. The girls? – Everyone from atheists, to drug addicts, to lesbians in trouble with the Lord. When the girls arrived, many kicking and screaming, they were taken to the “Get Right Room”, a pitch-black room half the size of a walk-in closet, where Jerry Falwell sermons were blasted over the stereo. Mike Palmer, the school’s Dean, locked people in the G.R. Room for as short as hours to as long as seven days. The rules at Victory? No pants, no phone calls to parents for three months, and no outside visitors. In short, the girls at Victory were caged like animals.
Why did Ulriksen’s parents take her to reform school? It all began after she persuaded her mother to allow her to go to a secular high school. “I…began questioning some things I had been taught from the Bible,” Ulriksen explained. “The science I was learning at school was not in accord with the book of Genesis. I pointed out some of the things in the Bible I considered to be fallacy.” As was to be expected, Michele’s mother feared that the Devil had possessed her child. However, the school for troubled teens neither helped Ulriksen nor her peers. Most of them “got Saved” to ingratiate themselves with Victory staff, not out of a commitment to Christ. When they were finally freed from their one-year mandatory sentences, many girls left with more problems than they began with. In Ulriksen’s case, she experimented with drugs, something she had never done before her Victory incarceration.
From age eighteen until twenty-four, Michele’s life “was filled with bad choices, rebellion, anger, regret, pain, drugs, alcohol, low-self image, [and] friends and men who only used [her]“. She suffered from anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and was diagnosed with a host of different conditions by various doctors. In short, Michele explained, “The verbal abuse and bad representation of Christianity that I had received at Victory really took a negative toll on me.” Why did Michele Ulriksen write her book, Reform at Victory? “The message [is] not to put your kids in these facilities,” she emphasized. “After living an abusive religious experience, and seeing how much damage religion does in the world, I decided I wanted to speak out.” And Michele has made more than a small impact with Reform at Victory. After the book was published, Ulriksen collaborated with a newspaper in Victory Dean Mike Palmer’s hometown and discovered that there is a similar locked-down facility for boys in Iowa. Now, the state is forcing the school to become licensed.
And Michele has discovered a life after Victory. She has a daughter, is finishing her degree at Portland State, and has become very active in the freethought and secular communities. Ulriksen is a member of Corvallis Secular Society, The Secular Coalition of America, The American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. She has spoken about her book to various audiences in the Portland-area. And she is working to raise awareness about other such facilities in the United States. “Parents don’t realize what goes on inside [these facilities] until it’s too late, and their teen comes out with PTSD and night terrors. I would love to go on Radio or TV…to warn parents.” And what a noble goal it is. For more on Ulriksen’s work, go to http://www.reformatvictory.com.
For more information about Michele Ulriksen, her time at Victory Christian Academy, and the dangers of unregulated religious reform schools, come to the Reed Secular Alliance’s “The Perils of the Faith Based Initiative” lecture. The Tuesday, March 31st event starts at 7:00 pm with a Meet and Greet, followed by a 7:30 pm lecture. The talk is located in Vollum Lecture Hall.
Back in the 1980s, I was a member of a Church down in San Diego that supported this “Girls Home.” I knew Mike Palmer and many who were on staff there. Michelle raises many good salient points as she relates her experience especially how “Most of them “got Saved” to ingratiate themselves with Victory staff, not out of a commitment to Christ.”
You cannot coerce faith! Such a legalistic environment may foster an outward semblance of reformation but does absolutely nothing for the depravity of the human heart which only God can change!
And I wholeheartedly agree with you that “Religion is the most damaging thing that man has ever created” and you are absolutely right that man created it and not God! I hate this “Religion” just as much as you but there is one who hates it even more: that is the LORD JESUS CHRIST of whom the religious leaders of his day had him crucified!
I am truly sorry that you have experienced this imposter of “Christianity” and will pray for you that one day you will come to a genuine faith in the living, risen Savior!
The story is of course horrible; and unfortunately there are many stories like it.
Still, I’m not sure I can agree that religion is the most damaging thing man has ever created. We’ve created some very destructive things—napalm, chemical weapons, carpet bombing, nuclear warheads; misogyny, racism, lynching, genocide.
Religion is certainly bad—but there are other, far worse things of which humanity is capable.
Also, I must admit that it is difficult for me to separate religion in practice from religion in principle. I do not see how it is fair to say that “Christianity” is not responsible for these abuses. It requires some abstract notion of “Christianity” which is divorced from the actual practice of Christianity by people who call themselves Christian.
Moreover, even if I could manage this, and separate some refined essence of Christianity, I would still be left with a problem: There is no scientific evidence which supports the existence of divine beings, and substantial evidence which contradicts this hypothesis. This means that in order to believe in Christianity–even this mysterious rarefied Christianity–I must reject science, which is not something I am at all willing to do.
i was in victory christian accademy back when it was still in ramona when ever the state would come to to place they would hide us in back it made me not sure of religen or what was really true or not im head is still messed up i spent more time in the get right room then not mike palmer used to punish me made me feel i was not human or loved i ended up spending most of my adult life in prison numb from all im out today still on parole but im just now starting to search for other girls out there and talk to them to see how they are getting thew it is there help out there and how can i help stop others from having to go thew it and how can we close his schools down please call me 9098068319 lost but searching
Hi Kimberly,
I think I remember you. I was in VCA from Christmas Eve 86 thru 87. I’m sorry you are having such a hard time in life. With a few exceptions, I think everyone in that place came out worse. It says a lot about the place that there are people being haunted 20 + years later. I left a message on the phone number you posted. I hope to here back from you.
714 913 03 23 i was at victory when carrie dunne died
I believe that everygirl had a difrent experance at victory. i relieze some were not good memories and have had stuggles. i do not discredit them. my experance was much diffrent and my memories of victory are fond.i would not be the women i am today and i would change nothing. my life has not been with out problems but when i look back they were of my own making and my poor choise. i spoke to noel sands and we both agree that being sent to victory was the best thing our parents could of done for us. for me it was a sancuary. were i could grow as a person. i remember brother palmer saying on the pulpit. if theres anything i say up hear that u dont agree with by all means go to God and pray ask 4 truth and he will give it to u . i found myself doing just that many years later. and i have been on a journery of undrerstanding. i have had my own hardships many of my own making. but i can see that now.religion is mans interpation if it werent 4 vca i would not
I had quite a difrnt experance at vicory. though i do understand and do not discredit those who had difficulties. each girls expeance i believe was diffrent. the other day i was talking to noelsands and we bothagreed that going to victory was the best thing our parents could of ever done for us. i would not be the women i am now if it wasnt for my experances.if i hadnt gone to the girls school i probably would not be alive today. unbeknownst to my parents i had almost died of a drug over dose 2 days earlyier. in the chaple at victory 3 days later i heard for the first time what christ had done for me on the cross. i got on my knees and invited him into my heart and my life has never been the same since.victory was my santuary as it was 4 alot of girls.i remember bro p saying on the pulpit girls if i ever say anthing that doesnt sit right by all means go to God in prayer cause i am just a man and could be wrong. i did just that and have been on a journey ever since religion is mans interpation of
i do believe that every girl who came thrw the doors of victory had diffrent experances. it is exactly as they say. it is a condition of the heart. eather a stuggle or a willness takes place. and that is what i have found out in lifeever since.. i was talking to noelsandss who agreed that going to victory was the best things our parents could of done 4 us. life has not been easy i have had stuggles a decade of hardships that was of my own making. finnnaly when i had enough and relized it was all my own choises i gave up play god of my destany and became willing again ive turn my life over again. and not one day since has compared in the least little bit to the misery i was living lost from my connection with God. i now regret nothing of my past because it is what makes up the peson i am today and i hope to help other who stuggle out there. i have gained an understandingof truth and wisdomin Gods law. i too believe religion is mans interpataton of the bible
i would like to find other girls from the school and reconnect i believe it is time for healing. i beleve their is streanght in reuniting and telling our story. each of us have have have validitly for what we have gone threw. we can relate cause we have been there. i want to find beth. does anyone know where she is at. or alison susan jones. their are so so many call me 7149130323 or text. i dont do computers very well
I sent away for michelles book. and will be reading it soon. i think it would be good to get a collection of writings from other girls as well to publish our experances.
I too was at Victory, even stayed a few weeks longer in order to graduate. This was at the end, just before the school moved to Florida. I’ve spent many years wrestling with my experiences there. I probably didn’t have as rough a time as some others, never was in the GR room, never in detention, etc. But I definitely got into worse things after I left than before I went! I think that you can’t force someone through the motions of doing the “right” thing, and then say “oh look, they’ve changed”. No they didn’t change, they only did what they had to do to survive.
Many of the tactics the staff used were degrading: separating the “good” sheep from the “bad” goats. What made you a bad goat? Well, maybe you weren’t religious enough, or maybe the staff felt it wasn’t “real”, all very arbitrary. The rewards/punishments were used purposely to create conflict between the good girls and the bad girls, and to be sure that those not in on the reward had their faces really rubbed in it.
But mainly the problems I came away from the school with, were a lack of real solutions to real life problems. Going from this environment where you have no choices at all over any element of your life, to being able to do anything I wanted, any time I wanted was so extreme. I made a lot of bad choices. Do I believe that all of this has made me what I am today? Yes, but I would never put my kids into this sort of place.
Hey victory girls from ramona. i heard about a reunion happening this summer . jodi i went to victory when u were their i think u were the laundry helper. call me give me the info on whats being planned. i am not very swavey on computers so its just easier to leave my # its 714- 913- 0323. if anyone knows any thing . please call. thanks and good night. i just finished reading the book michelle wrote. . i think if other girls wanna do it we can comprise . our difrent experance. for now im going sleep on it i couldnt put the book down .its now 3 in the morning.