I arrived at Pacific life teen program (PLP) when I was 15. I struggled with drug addiction and my school said I couldn’t come back until I got at least six months of treatment. My mom went with PLP because of the low cost. The program is located in the ghetto of Tijuana Mexico an area infested with drugs and crime. PLP is owned by the same man who owns sunset bay academy a program with serious abuse allegations. PLP was also formally known as genesis by the sea but was shutdown after a suicide.

The whole program adversities as a scam. They say 3-6 months but I NEVER saw anyone leave sooner then a year. There were even some kids who were there 2 years. On the site the place looks beautiful, like a hotel. They told my mother that the kids ride horses on the beach, the food is made by a professional chef, there are special tutors for things like math. It was all a lie. The facility is across the street from a cow manure farm it stinks, there is a massive bug problem mainly horse flies that bite and cockroaches. The flies also would always land in the food when it was being prepared. We were barely fed in the first place I went to bed hungry every night. There is mold in the showers and on the floors. There is no hot water we took ice cold showers daily. The rooms are packed with bunk beds it felt like a chicken coop. You get the picture the building was unsanitary.

When I arrived I was strip searched against my will, Very harshly (in front of my peers I will add). I cried the whole time as the staff ripped my clothes off. The staff saw that I wasn’t wearing a bra Im a petite girl and I didn’t really need a bra. Everyday for six months I was pulled aside and I had to show the staff I was wearing bra, and underwear. It was humiliating and gross. We also weren’t allowed to shave our vaginas and they regularly checked us. I felt like I had no right to my body.

I was told I would get therapy twice a week by a licensed psychologist. I got therapy maybe once a month and none of the staff were licensed “psychologist” in fact one of the “psychologist” was a 20 year old student intern! The program also claims to help kids with all sorts of issues everything from depression, drug abuse and sex offenders. But the funny thing is they don’t offer any special therapies programs for these issues. Most programs would have drug abuse classes for the kids who have drug abuse problems. Or a group therapy for the kids with mental health issues. There was nothing. Just lots of heavy duty medications and discipline.

A typical day was spent doing online school, doing harsh workouts, and watching extremely inappropriate and triggering movies such as “precious” most of the staff were on drugs and didn’t really want to watch us so it was better to sit us in front of a tv. On the rare occasions that we did art, or the horses came the staff would take a ton of pictures for social media. It was clear this was a promotional thing more then a therapy thing. As far as medications I was put on lithium after a week of being there. Lithium is a drug that is very hard on your kidneys. I found out later I should had been blood tested every couple weeks to make sure my kidneys were ok. I wasn’t. Luckily I was okay but I did vomit a lot. I want to mention I’m not even bipolar

Our schooling was done online. I personally have an IEP which means I need a lot of extra help in regular school I was in special classes. When I brought this up to my “psychologist” I was told I was “manipulating” and that I wasn’t trying hard enough. I was even sent to intervention for not doing well enough in math.
Intervention was solitary confinement. You were forced to sit in the corner of this small box room from the time you woke up to the time you went to bed. During this time you weren’t allowed to speak to anyone as well. Sometimes kids were handcuffed, or Hogg tied. The staff often would come in and scream at us if we were crying in there. Crying was considered manipulative. I’m a very sensitive kid and was often in trouble for this. Sometimes you were in intervention for a few days sometimes a month. I went 7 times. Some of the things reasons include crying, struggling in math, cussing, and having an asthma attack. My mom forget to tell the staff I had asthma and I had an attack my first week I was told I was faking it and was sent. Some of the worst things that happened when I was there was this kid ran away once and when he came back they stripped him naked, sprayed him down with cold hose water and hog tied him in intervention for a month. Another kid had their arm broken by staff during a restraining incident. There was this girl who was 13 and severely mentally ill she needed to be in a long term hospital not a program. They had her doped up on a lot of anti psychotics this is because she would become violent without them. She would shake uncontrollably, and was always falling asleep. The staff said she was manipulating and that she was fine. They constantly restrained her, screamed at her, and had her tied up in intervention. she endured mental and physical abuse daily.

Only a few staff spoke English. There were so many times Others and myself got in trouble for things that were just a language barrier. The staff were extremely sexist. The girls were not allowed to lay down during movie time but the boys were. We were told it would “turn the boys on” if we laid down.

The staff abused us in lots of different ways we were called names, screamed at and of course harshly restrained to the point of cuts and bruises. I was called stupid almost daily.

There was one staff who was a pedophile he groomed multiple girls into thinking they were going to be together, and how he was going to do “bad things to them” When this happened to a girl close to me I wanted to tell someone but I knew I couldn’t tell any of the staff what was going on. They either wouldn’t care, or they would punish me for “gossiping”.

When it came to family all of our letters were read before going out and during family skypes the “psychologist” sat there the whole time. I couldn’t tell my parents what was going on even if I wanted to. I finally got a parent visit after six months. My dad works in youth corrections and when he found out they were putting us in solitary he flipped out. They don’t even do that in youth jails. I was pulled out exactly 30 days later that’s how long their process takes.

Fear based programs never work. After PLP I continued to struggle with drug addiction and PTSD from my time spent there. I got sober two years ago, but I can’t say the same for most of my peers. So many of them still live broken lives. I pray and hope that this place gets shutdown one day.

I give WWASPSurvivors permission to use this statement. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on(date: MM/DD/YY):
1/15/2020

DECLARATION UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY
PURSUANT TO 28 USCA 1746

I, <redacted>, declare and state as follows:

Name of Program:
Pacific Life Teen Program

Location of Program:
Rosarito, Mexico

Period of Internment (MM/YY to MM/YY)
2016

(SPECIAL NOTE: STATUTE DOES NOT REQUIRE NOTARY]

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