“In 2012 I went to Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center in St. George, Utah, for drug abuse, at the age of 16. I stayed there for about three months until my mom realized the extent of the abuse. I have been friends with many Utah treatment center survivors and was told that being taken to this center was the worst they had heard.
My two kidnappers were hired by the school. I heard a noise outside my window and looked to see a man coming through my bedroom window, followed by a woman through my bedroom door, tackling me, and pinning me down with force. I was placed in handcuffs, with a shackled waist restraint, for the entire drive from Los Angeles to St. George (over seven hours). I had to stop to go to the bathroom at some points, and instead of taking the cuffs off of me, the female officer had to do everything for me, such as taking off my pants, etc.
Upon arriving, and while coming off of drugs, I was placed in an empty room with a small stool in the middle and was told to sit there and not move for hours. That lasted probably six hours. Following that, I was strip-searched. While standing naked in front of three or four women, I was told to take a shower. I had to do so with them in the room, and a clear shower curtain. I was then placed back onto the stool, where I sat all night until morning.
I was coming off heavy drugs, and I never received medical supervision, or someone to even look after me while going through withdrawals. The only time I received medical care was upon entering the facility. They gave me a pap smear without consent from me, or my mom, who had no idea. I was told to strip and prepare; I had never had one prior to this. All I remember was a really old man coming into the room, and I was crying because I was being touched with no one ever explaining to me what was happening. This happened without a female chaperone in the room. I am not even sure if this was performed up to medical standards, I had blocked this out until recently. It also makes no sense why a teenager would need a pap smear to go to a boarding school. I have been to two other residential treatment centers, and this was the only time I have seen this.
Again, without my mom’s consent, the school decided I did not look up to the standard of going to the school, and dyed my hair. Along with this, my mom was not even aware of what medication they were giving to me. I am a vegetarian, and I told them this as my food preference. The staff told me that they did not believe I was a vegetarian. I was fed meat every day and told to eat it. I then got in trouble for not eating. The punishment was to go back to the small stool and sit in the same place without moving all day, but this time the stool was in a tiny room the size of a closet. Most of that time I was locked in the closet, and there were some times staff would talk to me and make me admit that I did something wrong, and talk down to me making me feel bad about it. The only food I was allowed to eat during this punishment was a piece of bologna between bread. So, I further starved. I was brought this for three meals due to the fact I was kept in a closet all day.
Just like during the intake process, for our showers, we had to be inspected while naked in front of a staff member, for every shower. Then they would sit with us in the shower, watching us the whole time. We were not even allowed to have soap or shampoo, because they thought we would cut ourselves with the cap of the bottle. So, along with all of this, they had to even squirt the shampoo into our hands during our showers.J
That was supposed to be a safe and healing environment for troubled teenagers, and those with substance abuse problems. That facility was more like a prison. We were stripped of all of our belongings and placed in attire that one would wear in jail. While walking to a different room in the building we had to have our hands behind our backs in a “diamond formation.” We did not even have basic rights, such as accessible drinking water, aside from our 3 daily meals.”