I feel like I blocked out a lot of what happened leading up to being taken to spring Creek and my time there. This is what I remember:
I was fourteen, bullied in school and had reached my limit. I snapped. I told myself I wasn’t going to take any crap from anyone anymore. It was time to stand up for myself. This brought on a lot of issues. I got suspended and eventually expelled from school my parents took me to therapy trying to get me on some sort of medication to help me which just ended up hurting me more. I’m an only child so I was very alone asides from my cousin which when I started acting out we were limited on the amount of time we could spend together.
I just remember it was around Thanksgiving (I’m from Alberta Canada) and my parents were going on a holiday so they took me to one of their friend’s houses and I stayed there for a couple nights. My mom kept pushing me to get my learners license which I would take the test and fail and she finally just gave me the answers. I never thought anything of it. Couple weeks ago by and they tell me we are going to go on a family vacation. I slept most of the way since I found it really boring. I remember my mom taking the pillow case off my pillow and we stopped to get pictures on the side of this gravel road way up on the middle of mo where. I could tell my mom was upset but I didn’t know why. Then we get to this group of cabins. They walk me up to this trailer and there are two adults in there and all of a sudden I’m alone with them. I look out the window and they are gone. I panicked. I didn’t know what was going on. I tried the door and it was locked. I looked around grabbed a chair threw it through the window and I tried running after my parents thinking they had to be in the parking lot still but they were just gone. I didn’t get very far before four big males tackled me. I had scrapes from the gravel up my arms and on my legs scratches on my chest. I remember getting searched vaguely remember having to stand in front of adult strangers with no clothes on. I was put on high risk for run plans. I started my “program” level one zero points due to my actions when first arriving.
Since I was from Canada it took a long time to get any letters or anything from my parents. I was alone in this “family” called integrity. I remember “family moms” I think her name was Linda, Lisa, and sometimes we had Tara. Linda was a mess. Emotional scattered hard to read her moods were all over the place she wouldn’t remember things. She would poke fun at you for not getting any mail give brutal feedback during group blame us for her actions. She would lose it and a staff would have to come sub in for her. Basically our dreams were crushed. Our hopes were crushed. Our identity stolen. Our voices gone. Any way we might have been able to communicate the amount of neglect emotional, sometimes physical abuse were taken away. This place had there butts covered telling authorities and parents that we would do anything to manipulate them into picking us up. I remember being in work sheets, isolation. I remember short showers regardless of the water being cold. I remember a girl locking herself in the bathroom stalls trying to hurt herself with her nails that were non existent since we had to cut them right down to the skin. I think I was there for maybe month or two and I got hives. Like all over my body. I kept waking up and my hands and my feet were super hot and I’d grab onton to rail of the bunk bed to cool them off and try to go back to sleep. I woke up and tried to get off my bunk but my feet were so swollen and blistered that I had a hard time. Any points I had were gone cuz I couldntove fast enough to follow all the time limits. I couldn’t get my feet to go into my shoes so I was walking around in the snow and minus 40C with flip flops on. I had hives like that for days to the point I could barely swallow cuz they were in my throat. They were everywhere. I finally was able to go to the doctor. All I got was a shot of Benadryl. It was quite a while before they actually went away. I didn’t comply with the program. I smiled at people or I’d mumble under my breath I’d look around and look out windows. I didn’t move from level one at all. Finally they put me on the bucket challenge. So this challenge is you get rocks instead of losing points. You get to empty your bucket(s) once a week on Sunday. By Wednesday I’d have two five gallon buckets full of rocks that I’d carry around. Being on that challenge was the only way I was able to move up levels. You have to be a level three or a level three all star in order to talk to your parents on the phone. I was there for seven and a half months before I was able to have a super short very closely monitored call with my parents. I talked to my mom only. My dad was at work so I didn’t get to talk to him. I went to PC 1 shortly after my first phone call (still on my bucket challenge). I can’t remember a lot about the seminars. I do remember having to beat the floor with a pool noodle and pretend that I was taking out all my frustrations on whoever I was upset with or something. It was weird. I didn’t share at all in the seminars. I shared once in group and got attacked by everyone in my “family” after letting myself be vulnerable. No one believed that I didn’t do drugs or drink or that I was not sexually active. They always called me a liar especially the staff. They told me repeatedly that I was never going to go home they would threaten me and tell me that if I didn’t start to work the program that I’d be sent to Jamaica where there are no child protective rights. I feel like someone in the cabin upstairs tried to either run or hurt herself and jumped off the top balcony or something. I’m not sure anymore if my experiences are things I’ve dreamt or if these things actually happened since I was always told that I was just trying to manipulate my parents to get them to pick me up or that I was emotionally blackmailing them after when I was out.
This program definitely scarred me. I have issues with having healthy relationships I left spring Creek to never have done any drugs to later becoming addicted to meth and involved in a high risk lifestyle and in and out of jail.
After 20 years of thinking I made everything up about my experience to finally coming across a website and being able to read and listen to people who have had a very similar experience as me is validating and is a relief. Its been an emotional few days going through all the information about these programs.
I Survived.
