Hi, my name is Brett Harper. I’m currently 38 years old about to turn 39. I’m a disabled independent journalist and author, an activist, a retired dj producer and a survivor of extreme child abuse and exploitation. I have CPTSD, Major Depressive Disorder or (MDD), ADHD, severe sleep apnea, night terrors every night, and live with chronic sciatic spine pain. I’m estranged from my son by a vengeful mom who cheated on me. I’ve been homeless and housed. I’ve been suicidal many times in my life. If there is a word that sums up my life experience its PAIN. I’m very familiar with pain.
Pain changes you. If you aren’t careful it can consume you. However, without it, there is no gain. Its only through pain we find progress. Its only through the fire things are refined.
When I was 6 months old my father Michael Haynes shot and murdered my grandpa and mom in cold blood. I survived. I was adopted by my aunt, Christine Harper and her husband Bill. Bill and Chris were newlywed and so I was in a foster care situation for a short period. How long I’m uncertain. As I discuss in my book and go into great detail my adopted father was very physically and verbally abusive, to the point where him beating on me almost cost him his job as a parole and probation officer. So, instead of keeping his hand off of me, building a relationship with his son, and trust, he sent me to an extremely abusive Boys Home for them to “straighten me out”.
There, at West Coast Academy, I was molested by the program head’s wife, while sleeping. She attempted to undo my pants and I woke up. She screamed that I could never tell anyone or I was dead. So I didn’t, not until I returned home, and when I did, it was quickly ignored and forgotten about. Thats when I learned the world doesn’t care about boys or men and our pain. Thats when I learned male victims don’t matter to society.
I eventually came home from that awful place where I was physically abused and assaulted and occasionally sexually abused and assaulted by other boys and staff and when I did my dad promised he’d never send me away again. Well, it didn’t take him long to break that promise as he sent me to the notoriously abusive Agape Boarding School in Stockton, MO in 99. I would spend years 14-18 locked up, doing hard time, hard labor, getting the crap knocked out of me by ex military personnel with money left from my dead grandpa’s life insurance for me and my now dead mom. My own inheritance used to torture me for 4 straight years.
Pick up a copy of my book Spare the Rod and the sequel Spare the Rod The War Rages on to hear more of my twisted story and how I have fought hard to expose places like Agape, change laws, effect policy and bring to light the grave injustices of the troubled teen industry, youth incarceration, and its aftermath as well as talk about and support estranged dads.
Join me as we discuss the very real and grave threat that Christian fascism and extremism poses to our freedoms, our children, and society at large.
