I went to Maple Lake in 2009 to 2010, I am now a successful adult and I am still undoing the trauma from here. I was sent to MLA after I was raped, kicked out of my home and then OD’d, it was all too much for a 17 year old to deal with alone. When I first got there, other students asked why I was there I replied thinking it was a major point of my therapy to discuss what happened and how to heal. Two weeks after getting there I was pulled into a treatment team meeting, they told me I had been breaking the rules for having inappropriate conversations with other students and I should have known discussing the reason I was there was prohibited and wrong. They then put me on “communication block” which meant I was only allowed to talk to staff, staff ignored me and didnt talk to me for weeks I went not being allowed to talk to anyone. Afterwards, whenever I became close to someone I was put on “communication block” with just them then treatment team would ask me why I had social issues and no friends.
They victim blamed me, I found out I had gotten HPV w/pre-cancerous cells. I tried to bring it up in group therapy, I lost composure, the therapist finished my sentence and said “she is sad because she does not know who gave her an STD”. Staff told me it was messed up what I did and that they would not have if they had been raped.
I also discussed other abuse in therapy. I was told then that what I was saying was lies and that I was doing it because the statement should trigger a mandated report. They said I was doing it for revenge so they would not comply with the laws. There I was left left trying to grapple with the fact my mom had done illegal things to me and the place I was in saw me as nothing but a lying whore.
