Admin Note: This is reproduced from Facebook with the permission of the author

Shortly after my 15th birthday, I was sent to a WWASP affiliated “troubled teen” program. Unlike many of my peers in the program, I was not kidnapped in the night by strangers, and transported without a word of acknowledgment of the screams for help. I went willingly, because my home situation was so bad that I was convinced anywhere was better than at home.
My friends thought I had committed suicide, because I was sent away without a word to my school, and without a chance to say goodbye to my friends.

There are, unfortunately, many of these programs – some still in existence to this day.

As much as I have never been one to care for or about celebrities, Paris Hilton’s new documentary and movement #breakingcodesilence #breakcodesilence is an important one. These “schools” are purely for profit, and have no intention of helping children or their families. They foster abuse, of unspeakable kinds and on innumerable levels. They prey upon parents who are at their wit’s end. No children, and no families, should have to suffer abuse, as many of my friends have.

We are survivors. We carry the trauma. It doesn’t go away once we leave the property.

I found some pieces I wrote almost a decade ago, though I can’t remember now why I wrote them. They leave out the absolute horror, of hearing fellow students screaming. Of watching girls who entered the program with known eating disorders being force fed until they vomited in the cafeteria. They ignore they breakouts of scabies and impetigo. The feeling when, the one time I ever left property because my mother insisted I see a dentist, I heard music on the radio. The silence, as speaking was absolutely forbidden. The fact that the “schools” are not accredited, and so many of my peers had to get a GED, retake countless high school courses for actual credit, or carry on into adulthood as high school drop outs, because their school credits in the program counted for nothing at all. The girls who I watched get violently physically restrained, or literally sat on. The girls who spent days in solitary confinement, which we called “observational placement”. The pervasive feeling of hopelessness, being forced to “take accountability” for the issues in the lives of your family and yourself by admitting and internalizing the idea that everything negative that had happened to you up to that point…was quite literally your fault. The rampant sexual abuse.

“The Program is incredibly difficult to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced something similar, or been through the program themselves. From the outside, it would probably best described as military school meets boarding school meets reform school beats completely unregulated brainwashing. You have absolutely no outside contact, whatsoever, save a weekly letter that you send to your parents or guardians. Even that is strictly monitored, read word for word, and even edited. Complaining can be considered ‘manipulative behavior’ and result in a suitable consequence.

The first thing that happens when you arrive at the Program (the Program I went to, specifically, was the Academy at Ivy Ridge, in Ogdensburg, NY. It has since been shut down.) is that they take away anything that you’ve come with. Your clothes, your shoes, your life. When you arrive, you are issued a uniform. Until you are issued program shoes, you are permitted to wear your own, but for the first two weeks of your Program life, you are on both run- and suicide-watch. For those not savvy with Program lingo, this means that you wear flip flops for two weeks, as this is supposed to make it more difficult to either attempt escape or find any way to inflict bodily harm on yourself. Your intake is handled by a staff member, an upper level student, and a level three student, with whom you are attached at the hip for exactly two days. Your level three is in charge of explaining the rules, the goings on of the Program, and making sure that you know everything you’ll need in order to be a silent and obedient sheep for the duration of your stay at the Program, once your time together comes to a close.

When you arrive, you are a level one, with zero points. Points are earned on a daily basis – you grade yourself, on a daily evaluation, and can earn up to 21 points per day. To graduate to level two, you must earn and maintain no less than two hundred points. Level three requires 1,000 points, and support of both your family, and your family rep. There are a total of six levels in the program, broken up into lower levels (1-3) and upper levels (3-6). You’re meant to earn privileges, as you move up in the levels. For example, the first privileges you earn as a level two, are the use of proper metal silverware, condiments, and juice at meal times. At level three, rather than wearing your hair in a braid, you’re allowed a bun (still braided), as well as the ability, should your parents choose to send you one, to wear a watch. To graduate to level four, the upper levels, you needed 5,000 points, and full support of both your family, family rep, and at least one current upper level. I couldn’t tell you the requirements for levels five and six, as I never made it past level three.

While it may sound easy to obtain and maintain a cool two hundred points, you don’t realize right away what you’ve gotten yourself into, or how easy it is to lose everything. I’m not generally one to blatantly rebel, I tend to go with the flow, or the path of least resistance. In circumstances like these, the path of least resistance was simply to follow the rules to the best of my ability, and attempt to progress through the program, in order to get out. I learned very quickly that points are lost far, far faster than they can be earned.

The consequence system is structured similar to the level system, based on points. There are five categories of consequences, each category of a higher point value than the last. Cat 1 consequences result in a loss of five points, and all consequences require the filling out of a ‘consequence’ form, asking what you did in order to deserve the consequence, and what you would do next time to avoid receiving said consequence. You are given the choice to fill out your consequence and willingly lose the points (even if this involves bullshitting a reason why you’ve earned said consequence) or you can refuse to fill out and accept the consequence, which is called “staffing it”, as the staff member then has to fill it out. This also results in double point loss. (For those who spent most of their Program time in worksheets with zero or negative points, it wasn’t really an issue.) Cat 2 consequences resulted in a loss of 25 points, Cat 3, 50 points. Both Cat 4 and 5 consequences resulted in a loss of all points, levels, privileges, as well as a lengthy stay in worksheets.

Cat 1 consequences included things like:

Unsatisfactory effort: this consequence could be given for almost anything a dorm mom deemed appropriate. Most often it was given during ‘arm checks’, which would be called randomly as we’d be walking, in line, from one place to another. If you couldn’t reach out and touch the shoulder of the girl in front of you, when an arm check was called, you were immediately handed an Unsat Effort. (An Unsat Effort is also what lost me level three. I had dropped a pair of panties in the bathroom, after shower time one night, and hadn’t realized I’d left them there. When the dorm mom brought them to me, in our dorm that night ((all of our clothes were labeled with our initials)) I began bawling, and handed her my watch, because I knew I didn’t have the five points yet ((points earned during a day, weren’t active until the next day, so though I had earned points that day, and though it was the very end of the day, those points did nothing for me yet))).

Unsat Inspection: If any part of your room was found to be not up to regulations – hospital corners, clothes folded properly, uniform shirts hung properly, dust in corners, etc. Inspections were held daily. I can’t remember any of the other Cat 1 consequences anymore, but I do remember that most of them were absolutely outrageous. I also can’t seem to remember any of the Cat 2s at the moment, either. But I do remember specifically a few of the Cat 3 consequences:

BRV – Blatant Rule Violation: This included anything at all that we were forbidden to do – look in mirrors or out windows, speak almost ever, look at a boy, on the rare occasions that girls’ families had to pass by boys’ families in the facility. One of the two families was forced to face a wall, to allow the other family to pass without allowing any contact between the two.
Trend: Recieving three of any one consequence during a week. This most often happened with Unsat Efforts, as they could cover such a wide variety of…anything.

Cat 4 consequences included things like:

Run Plans: speaking to people with whom your levels didn’t add up to 4 (two level 2s could speak [only when directly monitored by a dorm mom or an upper level, and only when absolutely necessary, like organizing, labeling, and handing out water bottles and bathroom items, which we got once a week], or a level 3 and a level 1 could speak, but a level 1 was never, ever, ever, permitted to speak to anyone under a level 3), writing phone numbers down anywhere, for any reason, or anything that gave even the impression that you were thinking of escape.

And then Cat 5s were things like actually attempting to run (which not only earned you a sever consequence, but shut down the facility for a period of two weeks afterwards – everyone lived on level one privileges after a run attempt. No condiments, plastic cutlery, no juice at meals, fitness and P.E. were held inside instead of outside in the fenced in courtyard, etc, etc).
Many of these terms, inevitably, make no sense and will require explanation. When you arrive, after you’ve been outfitted with your uniform, you are placed in a room full of 25-30 identically dressed girls (or guys, in your case). This is your family.

Each of these families has an inspirational and uplifting name – I believe my family’s name was Valiant. The sister families were named Congeniality, Integrity, and Faith. Each family has one family rep, who is in charge of group therapy – ‘group’ meets every morning, promptly at 9am, in which everyone is required to share at least once a week, and receive three feedback comments from family peers – interactions with parents, reading and editing letters to and from home, etc, etc.

Worksheets is a 10×10 room (the Program was housed in an old nun college, the dorm rooms that weren’t used as sleeping quarters doubled as worksheets, OP – observational placement – and any number of other horrendous things I couldn’t even begin to fathom) where you are sent, for two hour increments, if A: you don’t have enough points to cover the consequence you’ve recieved, B: you receive a ‘trend’ consequence, which happens when you receive three of the same consequence in the period of a week, or C: you’re hovering at zero points, or just generally don’t care, in which case you stay in worksheets indefinitely. If you’ve just been sent for one consequence, or for a trend, you do your two hours and return to your family.

Those who hung out in worksheets essentially become a family of their own, as they spend almost no time whatsoever with their family. The point of worksheets, is that you sit in a schooldesk for two hours, copying rules out of the rule manual. When you’re time in worksheets is finished, you turn over your rules to the dorm mom, she looks them over, and you are escorted back to your family. I remember I would write song lyrics into every fourth or fifth line, as I was copying rules. Somehow, I was never caught, that one on of my last days in the Program, after I had lost my level three and given up completely, I was caught exchanging phone numbers with another girl in worksheets.

Life in the program is repetitive, to put it lightly. Every day, with the exception of Sunday, is exactly the same. Wake up is called, and your family is led to the bathroom and given ten minutes for everyone to use the toilet, brush teeth, wash faces. Ten minutes are then allotted for everyone to get dressed, ready, and lined up by bunk numbers in the dorm hallway. Once everyone is lined up, counted off, and accounted for, it’s off to the cafeteria for breakfast. Group begins after breakfast, promptly at 9am. Everyone sits in a circle, and everyone has to share at least once a week. It is the only time you are allowed to directly interact with your family, and only in as far as you are giving them feedback on what they shared. After group, school. There are no teachers, you are given text books appropriate for the classes you would be taking, were you enrolled in proper school. There is one testing period, each day before lunch, and you are required to pass a certain number of tests every week, in order to meet your ‘track’, which I’m assuming is the number of courses/tests you would have t ocomplete in order to graduate highschool at the appropriate time. (If you are in worksheets, you miss both school and testing periods, which puts you at an incredible disadvantage, in life.) ((Later during my stay in the program, we switched from textbooks and paper tests to computerized schooling, which is how I managed to get ahead in highschool. I learned, very quickly, to excel in self-teaching.) After testing period is lunch, and after lunch you’re on your way to fitness. Fitness is exactly what it sounds like, you do a serious of stretches and exercises. There are no games. If someone has recently tried to run, and the Program is shut down, you walk the perimeter of the gym, in line, for the entire hour. Post gym shower time is ripe with Unsat Hygienes and Unsat Efforts, as you have to bring your shower caddy with you from the dorm rooms. Razors are obviously not permitted, but if you forget any of your necessary shower items, gym uniform, or any item of your regular uniform, you’ll quickly end up in worksheets. You’re allowed five minutes in the shower, with either a dorm mom or an upper level counting down. If you’re on run or suicide watch, you are not permitted to close the shower curtain. After fitness it’s back to the books, followed by dinner and P.E.

P.E. was slightly less structured than fitness, in that we were sometimes permitted to play games, or have a certain amount of freedom in the courtyard. Speaking was still wildly offlimits, but sports related games were allowed. After P.E. was another hour of school, and then Evals. (If you’ll remember, evals are where you evaluate your behaviour throughout the day, and decide how many points you should be awarded. It was never wise to allow yourself the full number of permitted points, as the dorm mom would undoubtedly deny at least a few of them.) Then we’d be escorted back to the dorms, where we were again allowed five minutes to shower, five minutes to brush teeth, use the toilets, etc, etc, and then Shut Down was called Promptly at 10o’clock. A dorm mom sat on either end of the hallway, at the bathrooms and blocking the exits. If you had to use the restroom during the night, you were to wake your bunk buddy (each bunk had a bunk leader and a bunk buddy. The bottom bunk was the leader, usually a level 3 or a responsible level 2, the buddy being of lesser points, was the top bunk. Your bunk buddy accompanied you to all places, at all times), and stand in your bedroom doorway until you were noticed by the dorm parent and allowed into the restroom.

Sundays were slightly more relaxed. We had movie time, and watched one, usually Disney, movie, and were allowed letter writing time, in which we would write home. We were also allowed journaling time.
I’m drawing a blank, at the moment, as to the specifics of the rest of the program, but this is something I wrote one night,and posted on ‘I Went to Ivy Ridge’ Facebook group, about a year ago, when I found myself awake at ungodly hours and unable to sleep:

I can’t sleep, and for some reason I feel the need to talk about my experience at ‘The Ridge’, and what it did for me, or to me, as the case may be. I’m not sure I have a point or any kind of direction, more just ramblings than anything else, but not many people understand what we went through, and even harder to talk about.

I want to say I have no negative feelings towards my mother for sending me there, but I’m not sure I can say those words in good faith. My father had died a year previously, and though they had been divorced for ten years prior, she was in a state of distress. Her current husband sued for divorce, her ex husband (my father) teamed up with him, and sued for custody, and died before the trials could be held. I don’t blame her, she was under a lot of stress. A strong willed teenager was probably the last thing she could handle at the time.

I think, what stuck with me most, outside of specific memories and moments, was the simple fact that we couldn’t talk. Now, I never made it past level three, so maybe I missed out on a lot. Maybe upper levels had a completely different experience, and thus a different viewpoint on the program as a whole. But, I remember, I was never the most social kid in class anyway. I was never super popular, though I was never unpopular either. I was mostly a nonentity. In the midst of figuring out who I was, dealing with teenage anxieties, turmoils, and general nonsense, being silent was, in retrospect, the last thing I needed.
I was sent to the program when I had just turned fifteen. I had spent the majority of my earlier education in a small private school. My freshman year, however, after my father passed away, I began to attend the local public highschool. I was thrilled. I very much needed to learn how to interact with more than just the twelve to fifteen kids in my grade at private school, let alone kids both younger and older than myself. Socially, I needed to attend public school. I started to, finally, realize that I didn’t need to make myself a nonentity socially. I began to realize that maybe I was attractive, that maybe my opinion did matter, that I did have the ability to make and maintain friends – and that people actually wanted to be friends with me! After so long in private school, this was a revelation to me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t pick the best crowd to associate myself with. I made close friends with a girl who, when the two of us were together, were nothing but disaster – but we never did anything illegal. We experimented with cutting ourselves, skipping classes on occasion; shared everything, including sex stories, horror stories of our personal lives, everything. We once got caught off the school grounds at lunchtime, and were escorted back to campus by campus police. But, we realized the error of our ways. I realized that I was highly depressed, and needed help. As dumb as it sounds, we went to a school counselor, and told her about what we were doing. We didn’t just silently cry for help, we actively looked for it.
That, coupled with my active rebellion against my mother (we actively hated each other), was too much for her. I remember the morning we left for Ogdensburg, she woke me up and told me to pack my bags, that I was going to boarding school. I more than happily obliged. I had no idea, and honestly at the time, I didn’t care. Anything would have been better than being in the house.

I remember Sherie and Miss Ritchie were in the room when I arrived. Terry Kim was my level three. I remember having absolutely no idea what was going on. They took my shoes, my clothes, my life, and sent me into a room of 25 identically dressed girls, with their noses in school books in absolute silence. I didn’t realized what I had gotten myself into, until I dropped my pen and asked a girl next to me to hand it to me. She did so, and then immediately raised her hand and asked to come to the desk, where she informed the dorm mom that I had spoken to her. I was promptly reprimanded. I don’t think I tried to talk to anyone else again, for years.

The only times I opened my mouth again were in group. Even then, I was always hesitant to talk. To this day, every time I speak, I don’t know what to say, and when I do I have a hard time putting it together. I remember one week, I got the feedback that my share seemed forced, like I was just talking to talk. I was talking because I had to, not because I wanted to. I was a kid, lost and confused, millions of miles from home, with (as far as I knew) no hope of ever getting back – of course my share was forced, what was I supposed to talk about? I didn’t know how to communicate with my peers under normal circumstances, of course I didn’t know how to open myself to them under those.

I feel like everything I did in the program, I faked. The most genuine thing I think I ever did there was give up. When I lost level three, I gave up. The feeling I dealt with most was pure hopelessness. The vast majority of the consequences I got, were purely accidental – unsat efforts, for dropping something in the bathroom and not realizing I had left it there (that five point consequence lost me level three), trends, for any of the variety of rule violations that unsat efforts covered. Whatever the consequence was for inadequate sharing.

I remember struggling with the feeling that I could just never win. Which, if I look back and am extremely honest with myself, is why I started cutting myself around that age to begin with. There was no hope, and I was incredibly frustrated and had not yet learned how to properly vent that frustration. I remember being even more frustrated, that I was in a place that was supposed to help me, and I couldn’t share said frustration. I remember one day, I was especially upset, and wanted to talk to someone about it. And they told me I was making it up for attention.

I also remember, very vividly, feeling that our family rep was very obviously paid to care. I remember having my sweet sixteenth birthday in the program, and wondering what all of my friends had done with their birthdays, in the real world.
And I remember getting out, and being even more socially crippled than when I arrived. I am 25. I have been out of the program for almost ten years. And to this day, I still struggle with communication with my peers. I do feel like I was robbed of those crucial years, that perhaps if I hadn’t been sentenced to silence for a year and a half, I’d have learned to socialize without feeling awkward. Perhaps I’d have learned to not be afraid to make my feelings known.

I am in no way saying that I am a quiet person these days. Quite the contrary, I have a tendency to be very vocal, and incredibly sarcastic in my delivery. But even as I’m portraying myself as this strong, smart, witty woman – on the inside, I second guess every thought, every word; I’m afraid of what people will think, if they’ll understand my humor at all. I overanalyze, I feel that in some way, I am missing a vital key to interaction with other people. I’ve talked to people – friends, coworkers, even my boss – about the fact that I think I’m awkward. Apparently I’m incredibly lucky, and no one else seems to think I am as awkward as I feel I am. But I can’t help but wonder, how much of a difference that time made for me.
I also find it quite humorous that, the things that I was doing before my program experience, were the saem things I continued to do afterwards. There was no noticeable difference in my behaviour or my attitude, no before or after transformation. The learning and growing I have done in my life, has all been on my own, due to time and age. I grew out of the rebellion. I was never interested in smoking weed. I graduated highschool and college, because that’s what I had always planned to do.

I moved out of the house, a year after I came back from the program. I was seventeen. I transferred myself out of the private school my mom had enrolled me in, and back to public school. I took charge of my own life, for once.”

I was one of the lucky ones.