For the past twenty years I have had this underlying feeling that something horrible was about to happen, have had a very difficult time trusting people and their intentions. I’ve had a hard time expressing myself and communicating. I’m constantly feeling like people aren’t actually understanding what I’m trying to say or that they simply don’t believe me or value my experience or opinion. I fought and won a very difficult battle with addictions and have never until recently understood why I went down the path I did. As of recently I have discovered that the trauma I was frying to escape and the acceptance I was seeking and felt like I was getting from the people I was surrounding myself with was my time spent at a behavior modification program in Thompson Falls Montana; a place my parents dropped me off at when I was fifteen years old without so much as a word.
October 27 2004 my parents dropped me off at S.C.L.A. I remember the drive up there and we stopped on the side of the gravel road just before my nightmare Bagan for a picture together. I vaguely remember my mom taking the pillowcase off my pillow and I thought that was weird but didn’t think anything of it. We get out of the truck and I was walking in front of them to what I now know was the office. I immediately felt weird and seen two people sitting in there. One I know was Cliff. I turned to open the door to see where my parents were and found that the door was locked. I looked out the window and they were gone. I can’t even describe the feeling of panic I felt. I’m from a small town about an hour north of Edmonton Alberta. Left somewhere far from home in a different country at fourteen. The best way I can describe it is I felt like my body instantly turned white and I could literally see everything in the building. They started talking and trying to explain things to me I imagine but all I remember hearing was muffled voices. I turned grabbed a chair and threw it out the window. I jumped through and attempted to run down the road to try to catch up to my mom and dad but they were just gone. There wasn’t even any dust left from them driving away. I still ran but didn’t make it very far. There were three staff that came and tackled me. Like hard. Slammed me into the gravel. The wind was knocked out of me, I had road rash all up my arms, my stomach, and legs, scratches on my face. I was then strip searched which was very traumatizing. I don’t remember a lot of what happened there. I wish I did. I remember sharing my feelings in group for the first time… Putting everything out there and letting myself being extremely vulnerable just to get ripped apart by my “family”. I remember getting hives so bad I couldn’t walk and my shoes wouldn’t fit cuz they were so blistered and swollen I had to wear sandals outside in the dead of winter. I remember a girl frying to jump off the small balcony just outside the door. I remember I always new something horrible was happening when we were put on CAT 5 silence… I tried telling my parents what was happening and about worksheets and the hobbit. They told me that I was trying to manipulate them into pulling me from the program and that they were warned I would say anything to get them to pick me up. That I was emotionally blackmailing them. Which was something to heard from them quite often as I grew up and would randomly try talking about my experience or ask them questions about that time in my life. That I wasn’t in therapy and I was forced too take medication when I wasn’t on medication before I went there. I was one of the lower level girls who had to talk to parents when they came to see the school before dropping their kid off. We were told we could only share positive things about the program or we would drop all our levels and then some. I dropped and that “and then some” was two nights in the Hobbit.
I wax there for nine months. I didn’t get to talk to my parents at all on the phone until I was there for seven and a half months. A very short closely monitored phone call. My dad was away working so I was only able to talk to my mom. I cried the entire time. I don’t think there was much to say. The only was I was able to move up levels was by carrying around two five gallon buckets full of rocks in trade for points being taken away.
I have been silenced since I first arrived at spring creek…. A place I thought I was going for a family vacation just to be abandoned, told no one loved or cared enough about me to pick me up, that I was there until I was eighteen cuz I would never be good enough to graduate the program (all by staff). I have now broken code silence. Than, you for listening to some of my story.
