I was sent away at thirteen years old. I was asleep in my bed as any teenager would be on a school night. Around 3AM I was grabbed by two men, who I did not know. My parents had let them into my room so they could take me away. I was carried through my house all the way to a car. The door shut and that was the last time I’d see my parents for six months. The men took me to the airport and we boarded a flight all the way to Utah, the other side of the country. This type of “transportation” is very common in the wilderness program scene. My experience in the program was like living in hell, a secret hell that nobody knew existed. I was starved, I was given a certain amount of food for the week which was no where near enough. Especially for a teenager being over worked every day. I lost 40 pounds and I was fragile. I passed out frequently due to starvation. We hiked miles and miles around the Utah desert, while carrying a backpack that weighed more than half my weight, every single day. There was no therapeutic aspect to any of this. My parents were lied to constantly. My only form of communication was through letters home. Although this was also limited. If I had attempted to write home about something going on, the letter would not be sent home and id get in trouble for not sending one. The verbal abuse is what has affected me the most. I was brainwashed into thinking that I was a nobody. They wanted to break me down so they could mold me into who they thought I should be. I was told, at thirteen, that I was an empty shell of a person. I felt incredibly lonely but added on top of that, I was convinced that I was a horrible person. I had spent six months in the program. I spent Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my fourteenth birthday there. I thought that I’d never leave. I wasn’t cared for, I was neglected. Me and the other 10 girls would freeze and shiver while covered in the Utah snow. I fell from a tall tree and split my leg open to the muscle, I was given two Band-Aids to treat it. We were forced to sleep under powerlines one night and I puked blood all morning from radiation poisoning. My weak body could barely handle anything else. I constantly felt like I was on the edge of death. I was not the only one and there are many, many children still there. Their parents are being lied to everyday. All they wanted was our money, which wasn’t even used to keep me clean or healthy. This still haunts me to this day but my constant worry is about the teens still there, waiting to be saved.
