I was in this program for 14 months. I will admit, before being sent away I had major behavioral issues, due to the fact that I was struggling with undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder. However, this program did not help assist me in aiding my untreated illness. This program made me develop intense anxiety issues, an eating disorder, and overall set me up for failure. When I first arrived I was stripped naked in front of two staff members and two of the other girls attending the program. I was forced to do a “cough and squat”, which is when you spread your butt cheeks and cough to make sure you aren’t storing any paraphernalia. I did not know these people and was yelled at while nude. It was an extremely humiliating moment I will never forget. I was then asked a series of invasive questions. I was given a new set of clothes and was then released to the rest of my peers. The program was separated by gender, so I was only allowed to talk to the other females. There was no such thing as privacy in this program. Every day a staff member would watch me undress to get ready in the morning, shower, and get ready for bed. The staff would only let us use the restrooms for short periods of time, 5 mins max, and if you had to make a bowel movement and you took too much time you would be scolded while you were still sitting on the toilet seat and you would receive a “markdown” on your weekly evaluation. This also applied to showering, eating, and overall behavior in every setting. The students would receive an evaluation each week. The staff would be grading you based on how you performed in school, your behavior, and your progress in therapy. They encouraged us to compete with each other, regarding our scores. The therapies were not effective. You had your personal therapist, who would work on what your parents wanted to fix. The therapists would tear down the student’s sense of identity and rebuild the child’s sense of self to conform to what the parents wanted. During my stay, there were 2 kids sent there for conversion therapy. One student was a trans boy (female to male) and was forced to use his dead name and identify with the wrong gender. If he was caught speaking about his transition, or the reason he got sent away, both him and the person he was talking to would get sent to “intervention”. Intervention is what the program calls its version of solitary confinement. I was sent to intervention on my first full day. I had an intense panic attack due to the fact that I was withdrawing from drugs and did not fully understand the situation I was just placed in. I was told, “if you keep crying so damn loud we are gonna have to get physical. you don’t want that do you?” This staff member’s name was Jose and he also ran one of the group therapies. As a student, I was so manipulated by the program that when I looked back on that interaction with Jose, I was thankful that he told me to stop. In the program’s eyes, his warning was a privilege. Jose’s group therapy sessions were fueled with fear tactics and shame. In one session I remember politely questioning hateful religious group therapy topic. I asked him, “What if you don’t believe in god.” It was my second week and I had not yet learned that you need to learn how to say yes and agree to everything. I was threatened to be sent to intervention and that week, my therapy score on my evaluation was extremely low. If you did not participate in therapy the “proper” way, you would get marked down. This was one of the ways they started to get students to accept their control-based “coping” skills. Jose was also not a trained therapist. He was hired as an everyday staff member, with no qualifications. Another therapist named Diana also had group therapies. I remember one group meeting she made all of the girls rate each other’s bodies based on attractiveness. She consistently used “attack therapy” skills on us. The everyday staff members were extremely emotionally explosive and would say things like “I wish I could hit her” in Spanish (thinking we wouldn’t understand). In some cases, I would hear stories about how the boys were getting physically abused by the male staff. All of our communication with the outside world was controlled. All of our letters were read. Our family facetime calls were with our designated therapists. Our parent visits were supervised by the staff. If you got caught telling your parents about the abuse you would be thrown into intervention and your parents would be told that you have a manipulation problem to invalidate anything you said. We were threatened with intervention consistently. Intervention was scary because it added at least a month to your stay, you lost all privileges for two weeks, and there is no time limit for how long you stay in “the box”. Intervention is a white room where kids go if they are “extra bad”. You aren’t allowed to do anything but stare at the wall and think about “your failures”. If you talk or fall asleep it will add an extra day to your stay in the box. They forced us all on this one large grey pill. It was a mood stabilizer and it made you gain a bunch of weight. I was on this pill my whole stay. When I got home and went to my old psych he told me that the medication I had been taking wasn’t legal in the US.They also lied to me about the weight gain side effect. I told them I wouldn’t consent to any medication with a weight gain symptom so they told me it would make me lose weight. After being on the pill for three months I gained almost 50 pounds. I was so sad because I already had issues with my body image. When I complained and asked to be taken off the pills they instead put me on a diet for the rest of my stay. Due to my diet, they underfed me so I was consistently lightheaded and lethargic. They were so strict with this diet. I wasn’t allowed to have cake on my birthday and I had to watch everyone eat it around me. I got marked down for my behavior that day. We weren’t allowed to be sad. If you got caught crying you would get marked down. If you reacted to anything you got marked down. You never knew when you got to go home or see your parents. This program gave me PTSD. I struggle to maintain close relationships due to the fact that this program taught me that vulnerability should be shamed. I am unable to function in large social settings. I have regular trauma dreams about being sent back. I was not even diagnosed properly while I was there. I got diagnosed with Bipolar after my stay. This program needs to be shut down immediately.
